[EXPRESSO] Avatar: Fire And Ash (2025) | Cigarette Butts

Here we are again.

Somehow “disappointed”.

Sound silly, i know, the second one was admittedly a bit better than i expected and had some surprises in there… this one having a new Nav’i tribe of brutal savages (just short of being cannibals) isn’t enough to stave off boredom, but then again plot comes third or fourth more than usual this time around, taking a backset for just repeating almost verbatim the same plot beats of Way Of The Water, with some extra piles of new stuff that conveniently happens just because the script needs to -once again – free from capture these dumbass characters.

It’s pointless to be angry about an Avatar movie being another pile of shallow, utter nonsense, but this time around is even more boring dull nonsense that goes for a 3 hours equivalent of jiggling keys to infants, and it has framerate issues, which i don’t remember being a thing when i watched Way Of The Water in theathers just 3 years ago.

Maybe i got lucky back then, but regardless of how it looks that way, it’s distracting since it often fluctuates from looking like a big budget cutscene of a videogame, looking like we’re a HD camera feed from the set, looking actually cinematic, and so on.

It’s just insanely distracting and the added motion smoothing almost gave me a headache, and mind you, this was for a 2D screening.

I was reminded of something actually borderline unwatchable, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, but the sentiment is there, as i wonder why Cameron keeps making tech demo movies for proven tech (or telling a worthwhile plot with this astounding technological prowess), or he just doesn’t go make videogames instead.

Not that anything of this matters, as people will go see this on droves anyway.

Platformation Time Again #6: New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja PS4

HISTORY

Fiction has more or less cemented the general vision of the prehistoric past as “caveman and dinosaurs” for entertaiment media as a whole, despite the fact our unshaven ancestors did not live at the same times as the dinosaurs, there’s no hunting down brachiosauruses when the things had gone extinct 65 millions years ago, or writing middling yet kinda charming newspaper comic strips (the fabled “western 4-koma”) that can change that.

But it was not reality; it was the 90s.

Indiana Jones discovered ancient shit every so often, and Jurassic Park ignited the dino craze… no, the dino mania, got the fever for these ancient creatures sky high, and Data East, a company mostly dealing in pinball machines but also occasionally videogames, was more than happy to oblige and carpe the dino diem quick and hot, by releasing Joe & Mac: Tatakae Genshijin (the original japanese subtitle translating roughly “Caveman Fight”), better known worldwive as Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja or simply Caveman Ninja.

The “Ninja” in the title is there because the 80s craze with the japanese born assassins still made for attractive videogame marketing, as fun and crazy as it would have been to have a game subtitled “Caveman Ninja” to actually have caveman ninjas…it’s just marketing.

But boy it worked, as Joe & Mac proved to be a smash hit for Data East, a very big hit (so big you couldn’t avoid it going into arcades even in my country as well), so much that many ports followed for basically every system of the era, including the NES (which was quite old back then) and many home computers, not the usual for a Data East game, so much it cameoed in Tumblepop, had a spin-off in the vein of Tumblepop itself, Joe & Mac Returns and eventually spawned sequels.

For reasons i will explain later, this also – if indirectly – counts as a review of the original Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja game that released in arcades and today can be found as a Switch download, part of the Johnny Turbo branded series of releases…. Well, could.

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[EXPRESSO] Zootopia 2 (2025) | We Will Survive

I’ve been skipping most of Disney output of lately, Wish did reinforce this habit, but since i did like the first Zootopia and thought it was one of the best modern Disney films, i was planning on watching the sequel. So i did.

After a brief recap of the final twist and ending of the first movie (which is roughly “one child old” by now), Zootopia 2 follows up Nick and Judy’s unit, which is jeopardized due to them fumbling an operation and causing destruction in the wake of the city centennial, for which a book pivotal for the very foundation of Zootopia itself will be shown to the public.

But despite this, Judy finds proof of a reptile entire the city, which hasn’t happened in a centhury, and she investigates, her and Nick find themselves involved in another conspiracy, get framed and have to escape and get to the bottom of this mistery.

While it’s yet another conspiracy plot, we do get some solid worldbuilding, new characters and a solid villain, and we get to see more of this animal world and how it works beyond the big metropolis, as the sequel builds on the themes of racism, prejudice and discrimination with gentrification and (more) classism now, here done with the “reptile problem” and a political scheme about expanding biomes made for specific types of animals at the expense of others.

It does some of the typical Disney quirks plotwise, but it’s more the benign ones, these are not as bad as they could be, the new characters are fun, there is some sensibile development of the unusual cop buddy duo of Judy and Nick, there are some fun, quick references/nods for the older crowds, and overall it’s honestly a great sequel and a pretty good animated children film,

The Spooktacular Eight #25: Vampire Circus (1972)

Is it?

Tis time to feature something from the ol’ Hammer Films catalogue, indeed.

Something vampire related but also not from their beloved Dracula series.

And i believe this is it, a fairly forgotten entry in their catalogue, Vampire Circus from 1972, directed by Robert Young, whom also worked on Hammer House Of Horrors but wasn’t a mainstay director for Hammer like Terence Fisher or John Gilling, mostly focused on working for TV, and is now mostly remembered for directing most of the highly regarded episodes of Robin Of Sherwood.

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[EXPRESSO] The Legend Of Ochi (2025) | Monkey Goblins Go Home

You know what, i’m not that surprised that the best A24 distributed film i’ve seen this year is an adventure family film (yeah, from A24), and not another half baked ramshackled “eat the rich” horror film for the pile, it’s something different, and honestly i was intrigued since the trailer.

Set in a little secluded rural island in Carpathia, Legend Of Ochi tells the story of Yuri, a farm girl that has been taught since little to not go out after curfew, as the woods not only hide bears and wolves, but a weird type of monkey-ish looking creatures dubbed “Ochi”, that the children are taught to fear, with her father even training the local children to hunt the Ochi.

But when one days Yuri find an injured child Ochi, she brings it along with her and goes on an adventure to bring it back home to its kin and – mostly – its family..

It’s a family film that harkens back to the 80s strand, especially Spielberg’s, but also The Dark Crystal, The Goonies, has definitely some recognizable “80s DNA” all around, BUT it also manages to make it all feel fresh, as it’s not a vision enslaved to blindly recreate those movies, the template it’s familiar and predictable, but the lore and the style is unique enough to set it apart from another cynical attempt at milking the 80s nostalgia cow it sounds like.

It’s beautifully shot and presented very well, it’s not padded at all, and honestly i was beyond impressed by the effects for the Ochi creatures, as there’s allegedly not an ounce of CGI, it’s just puppetry, god-tier puppetry that it actually makes one genuinely wonder “how they do that?”, capturing the often fabled feeling “movie magic”.

That alone is already a miracle in itself.

Introducing “Platformation Time Again”

If you happen to be a long time reader or followed any of my previous italian blogs (not ruling that out), this announcement will feel like a deja-vu, but yes, i’m starting over this column about platforming games with a brand new format and a “when i can” irregular posting.

If you have no idea what i’m talking about and somehow skipped the “column about platforming videogames” part just above, yes, this will be a column about platformers, with in depth, structured reviews with no regular cadence, a new entry/review will basically happen when i can actually set time aside to play and dissect a game, so irregular cadence it is.

And yes, it will be all written a new from scratch, so don’t worry about that.

Not much in the way of rules, just i don’t plan to review hacks or bootlegs, at least for now, but i doubt this rule will change over time. Just making this clear.

As to why, i’m a big platformer buff, so i missed doing these, hence are we again. 🙂

Also, i might be commissioning a request for the column’s logo later down the line.

MIGHT.

The first entry/review for Platformation Time Again will hit later today, bye!

One Piece Odissey PS4 [REVIEW] | Cube Memory

One Piece might not be a franchise that you would immediatly associate with RPGs, but like Dragon Ball its surprising how the genre is represented in their many videogame iterations, especially if we’re talking about older systems, and even more so if we’re talking about Japan-only releases, as the first One Piece videogame was a RPG on the old black-n-white WonderSwan, and more came out for both the Wonderswan family of consoles as wells as for Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and even on the original Playstation.

But sadly most western fans are not familiar with some of these quirky GBC One Piece RPGs where (among other things) the Straw Hats are turned into animals, no, most likely you’ve yearned for years for a localized One Piece RPG, only to find out that it exists, One Piece: Romance Dawn, and that it’s sadly a very shit game, even worse as it’s a port from PSP to 3DS, and a cheap one too, because knowing this it makes all sense for the game to look that much like old ass.

I reviewed that one as well, but today we’re here holding hope to finally retire this status and have a big budget mainstream RPG that can make the series some justice instead of wishing they wouldn’t have bothered to begin with, with the long anticipated One Piece Odissey, developed by ILCA and published by Namco Bandai (who else?) in January 2023 to celebrate the series’ 25^th anniversary.

Available pretty much on all the platforms, old gen and new…. but not the Nintendo Switch.

For the record, this review is based on the PS4 version played on a PS4 Pro.

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[One Piece Film Retrospective] #3: Chopper Kingdom on the Land Of Strange Animals (2002)

When i set out to rewatch all One Piece movies for the newly written retrospective, there were some i wasn’t exactly…. looking forward to revisit. The third theathrical film, Chopper Kingdom on the Land Of Strange Animals, kinda falls in the “yeah whatever” category, as i don’t hate it or anything, but in hindsight it’s plenty less interesting to discuss or see than it was the first time around.

Like the two previous movies, it was a mid lenght film shown in a double bill with another mid lenght Digimon film, this time Digimon Tamers: Runaway Locomon, and came with a featurette as well, the “european football” themed “Dream Soccer King” (already reviewed last year).

The more i think about this movie, the more i feel the main motif for making it was the Toei staff wanting to draw and animate lots of weird animal hybrids, and that they came up with the actual story later, as the premise feels like a mash up of ideas from other animated movies with talking animals or something, a bit Lion King a bit Jungle Book mostly, with this island kingdom inhabited by animals that has been waiting for a new king to fall from the heavens, according to a prophecy.

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[EXPRESSO] Zookeeper World iOS | Match From The Past

Look what the Apple Arcade (yeah, eventually i decided to pay for it, 5 bucks a month it’s not a bad deal overall, in my opinion) resurrected, Zoo Keeper of all franchises.

I distinctly remember when this little match-3 puzzle game came out and managed to make the transiction from cute fun free flash game to full retail release..s, not just on the Game Boy Advance and DS, but even on the PS2. Those were different times indeed.

Of course it had been released on smarthphones after that, as Zoo Keeper DX Touch Edition and it even got a free-to-play VS version, Zoo Keeper Battle.

This new game retains the distinct aesthetic that admittely makes the series stand out more than the gameplay itself, one that translates well in voxel-style 3D graphics, but thankfully developer Kiteretsu also added more aside puzzles, in this case being the ever-popular “simulation-lite” management elements of adding more stuff to increase the appeal of the zoo, fulfilling requests, or doing menial jobs like cleaning up, alongside some minigames.

The simulation elements are lite as expected and needed, but the core gameplay it’s surprisingly addictive and manages to keep things interesting enough along the way via new obstacles and gimmicks, despite being a simple match-3 affair.

Though i do wonder if it was originally built as a free-to-play game, it’s clearly structured like one in terms of unlocks and progression, there are more currencies and cosmetic stuff like a punk costume for the monkeys, but since it’s an Apple Arcade release there are no microtransactions and shit, so you can actually enjoy playing a puzzle game on mobile without being continuosly pressured into paying money to skip deliberately excessive grind.

Not exactly a “subscription seller” or whatnote, but it’s honestly just good mobile puzzle game fun.

[EXPRESSO] The House (2022) | Trifecta Triumphant

New stopmotion animation film on Netflix with (also) animal people, you know i’m already in.

Even more since it’s a small anthology of 3 stories, one about a poor family meeting a miraculous proposal, one about an anxious ratman constructor trying to score estate success, and the last about an exhausted landlord, all tied together by revolving about the same house, while taking place in different epochs and with different kind of characters, going from humans to ratman and catmen.

The character models aren’t clay or the odd-papermaciè style seen in Mary Shelley’s Frankhole, but go for a very textured felt-wool look, with a very fuzzy feel juxtaposed to the horror atmosphere and visuals, even though just the first story has actual supernatural horror elements, there’s always a sinister or weird tone to most of the events, with some very stilish visuals to match.

Animation it’s top notch, the character models have very good designs and craft, and it’s a quite good trifecta of stories, with a balanced mix of horror, satire, drama and comedy, quite grabbing as you always wanna see where they’re going in exactly. I think the second one it’s arguably the best, as you never quite sure what direction it’s gonna go, gets weirder and has an even weirder ending.

And stuff like a trip-out insects & maggots musical sequence.

And free-roaming hippie catmen.

Honestly, i don’t really have much to complain about or add in general, if your ears peaked up like a fox at “animated stopmotion anthology film with lots of style and fun substance”, the chances are good you’re gonna like this one, easily. And it comes in a pretty good 90 minutes package, with everything in it feeling as long as it needs to be.

What a really great surprise, too. Excellent.