ANIMATED MOVIE REVIEW: SAHARA (2017)

Sahara is an animated movie that follows the adventures of some snakes in a desert. It constantly seems to jump back and forth, picking up and dropping plot points just to keep the story moving forward. I guess the spoiler here is that I found the movie very inconsistent. 

The story of the movie follows two snakes (a boy and girl) from opposite sides of a divide. When they each want to sneak to the other side, they meet each other. When the border patrol birds guarding the divide find them, they escape together. So it has the whole social commentary part going. 

It then promptly drops all these plot points when the girl snake is caught by a snake charmer. It isn't clear whether he can understand the animals, but his mind control dancing makes him the bad guy. I'm not 100% sure why as most the dancers seem quite happy dancing. But that sets up the climax of the movie without bothering about any of the earlier plot points.

This movies storyline is a mess. As indicated originally, it is inconsistent and constantly picks up and drops points along the way. The animation and voice acting are okay, but that isn't enough to save it when the foundations are quite poor. 

1.5 out of 5 venomous waffles.  

MOVIE REVIEW: SPIDERMAN INTO THE SPIDERVERSE (2018)

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse is a Spiderman movie that seems to be set outside the main Marvel cinematic universe. It is an animated movie that follows a new Spiderman, one Miles Morales, as he gets bitten by a special spider.

The movie is very good. The animation is slick and the storyline is great. It has a couple of twists and turns, particularly towards the beginning, that shake up the normal superhero movie formula. It also has allot of quips and banter during fighting.

Despite the quips and twists, it doesn't actually lose sight of what it is setting out to do. Despite how fast paced the action and plot beats feel, it isn't afraid to slow down or have quieter moments. And despite how predictable some things feel, the excellent build up work means that when the big heroic moments happen, it still makes you feel like cheering.

It goes without saying that the sound and visuals are also very slick. The match and reinforce the story that they are trying to tell. The whole package just comes together very smoothly. Overall, this is one of the best superhero movies that has come out, and is heartily recommended.

5 out of 5 universal waffles. 

ANIMATED MOVIE REVIEW: BATMAN NINJA (2018)

Batman: Ninja is an animated movie set in the Batman universe. In the movie, Batman and a host of his allies and enemies are sent back through time to feudal Japan in the era of ninjas and samurai. Here, he has to conquer his villains in order to get back to his own time.

The premise alone is very interesting. Unfortunately, the movie only follows through about halfway. This was a chance to see Batman function without gadgets or against some new enemies with new abilities. Instead, about halfway through the movie, most of this has been undone with it just turning into another animated Batman movie.

The main areas this stumbles is their choice of main villain. That is, of course, The Joker. The movie had a chance to make something new or perhaps elevate a lesser known villain. Instead, it just keeps coming back to Joker being the ultimate evil for Batman. 

There are other faults where it feels like the creators wanted to go further, but then got cold feet. One thing that can't be faulted is the animation and visuals, however. The feudal Japan style applied to everything and the voice acting are top notch, and make the movie visually interesting even if the story falters.

At the end of the day, an interesting premise may be enough for some people to cover the story. However, I felt that the story, while serviceable, really ended up letting the movie down.

3 out of 5 ninja'd waffles.

ANIMATED MOVIE REVIEW: BATMAN AND HARLEY QUINN (2017)

The DC cinematic universe was known for being mostly a failure. However, there animated offerings tend to be quite good. I have watched a few of them and I'm not sure if I just got a bad lot, but the results for me have been mixed. This is definitely in the mixed bag.

This movie is about Batman teaming up with Nightwing and Harley Quinn. Their goal is to beat Poison Ivy and Floronic Man who want to turn all humans into plants. The majority of the voice work and animation is servicable to good. However, the problems all abound in the script.

The first thing is that it doesn't know if it wants to be an adult movie or a kids movie. This leads to weird mixes such as children's action scenes and a plot, but then you have them playing up Harley Quinn's sexuality with some BDSM or a particularly gory kill of a security guard. It can't decide whether to be serious or joking.

The characters don't even know. For example, with the whole world at risk and them being outgunned, they still refuse help from other heroes. That and the ending and how they win is the very definition of anti-climaxes. 

There are other problems as well, but that is the main one. One pet peeve I have is how they keep trying to make Harley not so bad to fill in as an antihero, instead of the mass murderer she is. But that is just a bit of background. At the end of the day, the inconsistent tone prevented any build-up of tension, which made this show feel like it just dragged on too long.

2 out of 5 swampy waffles. 

MOVIE REVIEW: SAUSAGE PARTY

Sausage Party is an animated film that takes a simple premise: have a Pixar-like animated movie but with "adult" themes. The story is that a bunch of food items in a supermarket are sentient and believe humans take them to heaven when they pick them up (not knowing they just get eaten).

The movie is just a vehicle for Seth Rogen and company to make crude, sex-themed jokes throughout in an effort to make it "mature". Sometimes this works. However, in this case, it definitely doesn't work. The overall story is too weak and seems to rely on the crutch of deliberately thinly-veiled religious and racial characters to try to make any of its narrative interesting.

It is an interesting contrast comparing this to Pixar. Pixar often uses child-like things to tell a mature story. Here, the use of more crude jokes is used to try to make an animated movie that is "mature" and touches on current events. This approach worked allot less successfully than many other Pixar (or for that matter, other good animated movies) approach.

This movie is a hard pass for me. They should have spent more time working on a compelling story than trying to take shots at society and religion to make this more appealing. 

0.5 out of 5 stars (simply because the animation looks okay).

MOVIE REVIEW: APPLESEED ALPHA (2017)

Appleseed Alpha is an animated movie set is a post-apocalyptic future. In it, there is a women and a former cyborg soldier who hire themselves out as mercenaries. However, on their last mission, something goes wrong and they end up protecting another girl and her cyborg protector. These new survivors may just hold the fate of the world in their hands.

Appleseed Alpha's story is not interesting. It is highly predictable, leaning very heavily on the tropes of the past and not bothering to change any of them. The innocent girl who bonds with them. The disgruntled soldier. The loveable former thug who repents. The death to raise the stakes after a final speech.

And that would be okay if there were other things the movie offered. Instead, what we have are female characters in plenty of poses and cleavage drawn for the male gaze. Even if this were not the case, the action scenes and environments are quite bland and uninspiring. 

So in the end, I can't really recommend Appleseed Alpha. It is competent but boring. Considering that this is meant to be for entertainment, competent is simply not good enough.

1.5 out of 5 Apple Waffles

MOVIE REVIEW: MOANA (2017)

Moana is a 2017 animated film following the adventures of a young girl, Moana. She is a girl who doesn't feel like she belongs in her tribe and has an urge to go exploring. However, her father wants her to stay in the tribe and take over the role of chieftain from him. Add to this a legend saying that a demigod, Maori, has to restore the Heart of Ishta to stop the land dying, and you have the makings of a grand adventure.

Without going into too many spoilers, Moana meets Maori and they travel on their quest together. That is all I really want to say about it as the twists and turns are best left to be seen and thought through on there own. Suffice to say, the story plays out exactly as expected but still has a few cool twists and turns thrown in.

The animation is beautiful and vibrant in this movie, which is on par with big studio productions these days. However, the story and music really come together, creating several cool songs. The songs in here don't feel like they come out of nowhere and are really good (so much so that I put a couple on my playlist). It all comes together as a really good package.

Overall, this is a really good movie. It has good characters and a good story where the characters grow to the world around them. The animation and music really set the whole thing off and make this an animated movie that shouldn't be missed, by both children and adults alike.

5 out of 5 tattooed waffles.

ANIMATED MOVIE REVIEW: JUSTICE LEAGUE: THRONE OF ATLANTIS (2015)

Justice League: War was an animated reboot of the Justice League that I really enjoyed. It did have its problems but for the most part, I thought it set up an interesting premise for the new Justice League. And then Throne of Atlantis realised the worst of its potential.

Throne of Atlantis is set after War and the formation of the Justice League. It starts with Cyborg acting less human and getting rid of some of his human parts. This amounts to absolutely nothing and has no bearing on the story at all. Also, his doctor is also his love interest. This is another problem as every female character is depicted as a love interest to a Male Character (Wonder Woman and Lois Lane for Superman; Aquaman’s Atlantean protector) who end up getting with the guy as part of the quest rewards.

Anyway, this movie has allot more issues than being completely chauvinistic. Aquaman is a super-powered person getting drunk and talking to fish (one-way) and getting into bar fights. The Atlantean prince wants to wipe out humanity. He kills his mother, steals here trident and frames surface dwellers for it. How he frames her is never explained as an Atlantean knife is used to kill her and there were no surface dwellers around at that time.

Anyway, this magic trident is apparently much more powerful than the whole Justice League combined, except for Batman. Everyone also acts like brainless brutes, except for Batman. Batman has to lecture them through a crime scene. And yeah, the whole movie is a Batman-love letter as he seems to be the only one capable of thinking. And he is the leader of the Justice League.

Spoilers: By the end of the movie Aquaman accepts his heritage (taking his Atlantean guard os his queen) and has a trident apparently more powerful than the whole Justice League put together (which makes them redundant with him on the team). This complete change of character is presented through so much disinterested voice acting and pretty average animation that it all feels phoned in.

Don’t even get me started on how the Justice League slaughters Atlanteans who were tricked into war, the Atlantean army being immune to guns and the army but can be taken down by a normal person hitting them with a club, or how Aquaman develops powers as the plot demands.

This animated movie is horrible. It is Batman V Superman bad. Don’t see it unless you love Batman and can’t bother waiting for Goth-Movie-Aquaman.

0 out of 5 water-soaked waffles.

MOVIE REVIEW: AVENGERS CONFIDENTIAL- BLACK WIDOW AND PUNISHER (2014)

With Guardians of the Galaxy just around the corner and Avengers: Age of Ultron hype starting to ramp up, I decided to delve into one of the Avengers animated offerings. Avengers Confidential follows the story of Punisher and Black Widow as they try to take down a team of villains.

It starts with Punisher and Black Widow butting heads over custody of a criminal. This, of course, establishes that they are pretty evenly matched, before Nick Fury shows up. It is quite an effective introduction for showing the spy-style of Black Widow as opposed to Punisher’s brutal style. From here, it quickly gets into the story of Punisher and Black Widow teaming up to take down Leviathan, a bad-guy group who has stolen Shield weapons. Of course, things don’t quite go as planned.

Avengers Confidential keeps trying to artificially increase the tension in the story by making the characters take actions that make no sense. Whether it is a convenient deus-ex brain washing machine or Nick Fury withholding vital information about the mission, it always feels like it is trying to shoe-horn in tension. I envision that this movie could have worked as a buddy-cop type drama, with the contrast between Black Widow’s spy skills and Punisher’s brutal style as they are trying to be heroes even though they are ordinary people in a world of monsters and super-soldiers. Instead, we get an endless string of fights between them which just ends up feeling tiring.

The animation style for the fighting doesn’t help matters. It definitely feels like they overused the big-sound-and-camera-shake for a hit, leaving it feeling mundane instead of only for the big hits. Most of the moves that they depict also end up feeling very unrealistic, which takes away from any impact that the fights might have. What could have been an interesting movie on the non-superpowered heroes of the marvel universe just ends up feeling like a mash-up of styles.

Overall, I feel like Avengers Confidential was a missed opportunity. It could have been good and starts off promising, but too many times it feels the need to shove extra tension and action into the movie instead of letting a story develop. Oh well, at least the proper cinematic marvel franchise is still awesome.

2 out of 5 punishing waffles.

Superman Unbound- The Animated Movie

Brainiac: To think that two Kryptonians chose to call this planet home, sickens me. What could Earth have possible offered you?

Superman: Something you wouldn't know anything about. It's my home. My heart. It gives me strength.

I really enjoyed the Superman Unbound movie. For me, this movie did allot right that The Man of Steel did so very, very wrong. This movie portrayed Superman as a hero against a worthy foe and had a great cast of supporting characters. As always, this review will contain spoilers.

Superman Unbound is the story of Brainiac finding Earth. Brainiac is robotic-type creature who is obsessed with cataloguing all life forms by getting a miniaturised city of that species. However, he also cannot deal with change and therefore destroys the planet after he takes the city. He did this to Krypton where Supergirl was there to witness it and he then discovers Earth partly through his interactions with Superman.

Superman is represented in this story as a hero. He is shown as strong, but apart from this Superman Unbound shows why he is more than just his strength. It shows his moral character in guiding Supergirl as well as him using his mind to think his way out of situations as often as he just punches his way out of situations. It also shows his struggles with living a normal life through his interactions with the supporting characters, particularly Lois.

The supporting characters are also good. Lois Lane, apart from the opening scene, is shown as a strong and capable woman without being shoehorned into everything. One of my favourite parts of the movie is a certain hand gesture Miss Lane gives to Brainiac while miniaturised. Supergirl is represented as, despite having all the power, being immature and lacking the willpower of Superman. This is particularly evident when she starts avoiding Metropolis out of fear of Brainiac.

Brainiac as a villain was also well handled. They didn’t hold him back as some big reveal but it still felt like an event when he and Superman finally came face-to-face. Brainiac always had that aura of menace about him. The introduction of his first minion-robot and its fight with Superman I felt was done well.

All the major characters throughout this movie undergo growth. The motivations of each of the characters is made clear. They all have a character arc, from Superman’s fear for Lois to Supergirl learning to be a hero. I felt that the decisions that they made towards the end of the movie came from characters who showed growth during the movie. Although this sounds simple, allot of major movies, although fun, don't really do this (The Wolverine and Fast and Furious 6 are the most recent examples for me).

My only criticism is the inconsistency of the Brainiac robot-minions power. At the start they were shown to be able to hang with Superman in a fight and shrug off the Krypton army. By the end, they suffer from the minions curse with them being easily taken down by things such as Lois running a chair into them.

Overall, I recommend Superman Unbound as a very good Superman story. It manages to do Superman as a hero very well as being an intelligent hero with a infallible moral compass and willpower, as well as being able to punch stuff and burn things with heat vision. All the characters show growth and it is a very satisfying movie.