REVIEW: Happily N'ever After

Happily N'ever After
Directed by: Paul J. Bolger
Written by: Robert Moreland
With the voices of: Andy Dick, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Wallace Shawn, Patrick Warburton, and Sigourney Weaver
Movie review format

In Fairytale-land, an all-powerful wizard keeps watch over the scales of good and evil. When the scales are in balance, the fairytales happen as they should. When the scale is tipped to the side of evil, things start to go awry.
When the Wizard goes on vacation (leaving his bumbling assistants to take care of everything), Cinderella’s stepmother discovers the scales and decides to take matters into her own hands. When her beautiful dress disappears, Cinderella decides to take matters into her own hands and find her prince without the help of a fairy-godmother—without realizing her prince might actually be the dishwasher. Will the lowly Rick catch Ella’s attention? Will the bumbling sidekicks set things right?

…Who cares?

That’s the feeling you’ll probably have if you go to see the movie. Fractured fairy-tales are fine when they’re done well. One of my favorite movies, Princess Bride, is one example of this. Shrek is another.
This movie wants to be a Shrek, but utterly fails.

The plot is….well. Barely there. The characters are shuffled from one scene to the next, saying jokes that aren’t funny. I laughed once—and it was mixed with a groan. The story doesn’t even try to be that interesting, it’s just begging you to please, please laugh at the jokes.
The actors playing the characters know it’s not funny, as well. Most don’t even try. The few who do—Sarah Michelle Gellar (who I feel sorry for, she really did try) and Sigourney Weaver (do you really need the money that badly, ma’am?)—are struggling with a dull, lifeless script.

The characters don’t help, either. In my last review, I said that Crystal Door’s characters had “very little unique characteristics” and were “unremarkable.” I feel like I owe Mr. Anderson and Ms. Moesta an apology. Their characters were outstandingly charismatic and interesting compared to these. The Prince is Patrick Warburton’s typical ‘lovable idiot’ without the lovable; the Stepmother is evil, but can’t even give an explanation why when asked in the movie; Ella is unsympathetic and just plain dull; the bumbling sidekicks are forgettable and unneeded; and Rick complains so much you can’t root for him to be with Ella, or to get…anything.

The animation for the movie is like something that was made five years ago. To be fair, characters don’t move quite as stiffly as some CGI films do, but they look like they’re made out of plastic. Ella’s hair looks like it’s painted on. The others look like their hair is made out of clay. Their eyes also have this weird shiny glint to them, like doll’s eyes. Were they trying to make them look like toys?

And as for the music? It sounded like a score for a bad Saturday morning cartoon. It was exaggerated and annoying. There was also one random musical sequence thrown in during the middle of the movie. I thought we had moved on from the days when every animated movie had to have a song tacked on! What’s worse is, the musical sequence was an unmemorable pop song what seemed to be the same scene being played over…and over…and over. It was like watching a bad AMV, only the animation and music is normally better in AMVs.

While sitting in the (empty) theater, I tried to come up with some redeeming qualities for this movie. Here they are: Some of the actors try to make the best of it. And the animation is better than Bratz. That’s about it. If you’re a teen or adult who likes animation, you’ll hate this for being a good example of everything that’s wrong with American animation today: reused plots, jokes that aren’t funny, and celebrity actors for the sake of having celebrity actors.
If you’re a parent looking for a movie to take your kids to…rent out Shrek and let them watch it at home. It’s cheaper, and your kids will probably enjoy it more.

I want my $7.75 back.

Story: 1/10
Art: 2/10
Overall: 1/10

REVIEW: Crystal Doors

Crystal Doors
by Rebecca Moesta and Kevin J. Anderson
Publisher: Little, Brown
Book Review Format

Gwen and Vic are fourteen-year-old “twin cousins”—that is, cousins who happened to be born on the same day—who have been living with Vic’s father since the tragic deaths of Gwen’s parents and the disappearance of Vic’s mother. When Vic’s father, a scientist, starts to fear that they may be in danger, he attempts to open a door to another world using mysterious crystals—but accidentally sends only the cousins, leaving him behind. Now stuck on the beautiful island of Elantya, Gwen and Vic try to figure out how to get in contact with Vic’s father and get back home—but before they can do that, they’ll be swept into a war between the island and an evil aquatic race known as the Merlons.

The first book of a trilogy (what else?), Crystal Doors starts out strongly. The protagonists are charismatic and entertaining. Also, while both have faint hints of archetypes in their personality, they have enough charm and personality to stand on their own. Gwen is an intelligent, strong female character who is the mature voice of reason of the cousins and has a tendency to get a bit too worried about everything being ‘logical'. Vic, on the other hand, is snarky, laidback, and gets by with a mix of luck and ingenuity that tends to kick in at the last minute. Their personalities bounce off each other well, and their unique skills and ways of thinking are proven quite handy in the adventures they encounter.

The pacing in the first half of the book also goes at a fast pace, urging you to keep reading with great word building and a good plot. Although Elantya is reminiscent of other island utopias that crop up in fantasy frequently (I don’t think it’s an accident that its name sounds like Atlantis), the country’s position as a gateway between worlds and a well thought out social structure helps it to stand out among other fantasy worlds. The magic system in the book is also well thought out—the crystals mentioned in the title not only serving to open the doors between worlds, but also being used for other magic in the book. I particularly liked how the crystals were used to make ink for magic scrolls, and how the scrolls were used throughout the books. Magic in fantasy has a can at times be almost all-powerful, so the carefully thought out rules about what can’t and can be done with magic in Elantya help to keep the question “why aren’t they just using magic??” from ever coming up, and keeps the action intense.

Ironically enough, however, that’s exactly what slows down the pacing about half-way through the book: the action. While the first half of the book has a few intense moments, most of it is spent on building the intricate world and magic system, so when the book suddenly ratchets up several levels in intensity, which feels incredibly jarring. Not only is it intense, it’s also nearly nonstop for the rest of the book—you barely have a chance to mentally collect yourself until the heroes are thrust into another battle or dangerous situation. Also, some of the battles serve little purpose in the plot other than to show what a threat the Merlons are, so it almost feels as though the plot has been put a standstill during the constant battling. It’s not that the battles aren’t exciting. They are. One particularly memorable passage is a desperate struggle against voracious flying fish appropriately called ‘flying piranhas’—which are probably one of the most impressively terrifying creatures I’ve read in a book. No, the problem is that there’s so many action scenes all at once that it bogs everything down. It probably would have been better to have the battles spaced out among the world building, or to shorten one of the battles.

Another weak point of the book is the characters. Although Vic and Gwen are strong characters, almost all of the other characters populating the book feel like characters we’ve seen before. The snobby prince? Check. The quiet psychic girl? Check. The Amazonian warrior? Check, and complete with animal skins. The absent-minded professor? There are two!

The use of archetypes would have been fine if the characters had been fleshed out more, and there is some character development throughout the book, but the characters have very little unique characteristics that help them remain very remarkable. It’s quite possible that these characters will be expanded upon in the next book. In fact, Lyssandra (the psychic girl, and one of the first characters introduced) starts to be fleshed out more towards the end of the book, so it’s quite possible. But for this book, the character development for the characters is weak enough that it feels as though Vic and Gwen are two real people trapped on an island with the ghosts of literary characters that have come before.

There also are a few moments where the characters make illogical choices to further the plot, or the foreshadowing in the book is just too obvious. If a vessel that contained an important shipment was sunk mid-voyage by Merlons, would you put a class of beginning students and a few teachers out to sea on an ancient vessel, with very few weapons and a collection of (mostly) weak spells? If your answer is “yes,” I hope you’re not working in education. Also, a big secret behind one of the characters is actually fairly obvious if you’re paying attention while reading.

All in all, Crystal Doors is by no means a bad book. It doesn’t do anything that’s going to change the genre as we know it—nor do I think it tries to. It’s a fun fantasy story with a cleverly thought out world that seeks merely to entertain. If you’re looking for a deep, thought-provoking tale that’s the equivalent of a feast, you’ll probably be disappointed. But it makes for a fine literary appetizer.

Rating: 7.7/10

Anime and Manga Reviews

In this entry, I’ll explain how my standard format for anime and manga reviews looks. Like my other review formats, these are subject to change as I see how things work (although I’ll always make sure to make a note of it if I do change my format). For anime and manga, I’ll be looking at the same basic qualities. My style for these reviews is borrowing heavily from Anime News Network’s rating system—partially because I really like their reviews, and partially because I TRIED to deviate from it, but found that their style works really well for expressing why I do (and do not) enjoy a series. However, unlike ANN, I’ll be using a 1-10 rating style, instead of letter grades.

What I’ll be looking for:

Story: This rating will show how I felt about the plot and characters. Does the plot hold your interest? Does it borrow heavily from clichés, or is it unique? If it does uses clichés, how well does it execute them? Are the characters memorable? Do they grow and change? And how about the pacing? That’s the sort of things I’ll be looking for in this category.
I should note that, for anime that focuses heavily on comedy, the ‘story’ rating will rely more on the characters and humor value, rather than the plot (which sometimes doesn’t really matter in a show along the lines of Azumanga Daioh).

Art: This rating will show how I felt about the overall style of the work, and the quality of it. For anime, this will include how smooth the animation is, the character design (can you tell the characters apart? Can you always recognize the characters?), how well the color used works, and how well the overall look is executed. For manga, this will cover the style, the quality of the art, the character design and how well the layout and drawings work together to tell the story. (Nothing bothers me more than being unable to tell what’s going on during an action scene because of how the panels are laid out, or because the art is angled confusingly.)

Overall: My overall opinion of the anime or manga. This won’t be an average of the scores, but both will be taken into account. Generally, I place more importance on the story than the art style, although the greatest plot in the world can be dragged down by horrible art. I’ll also split up my rating for the dub and the sub: good acting can raise a rating, and bad acting can lower a rating.

Also, please note: My reviews will mostly focus on one volume of the series (for example, Princess Tutu: DVD 1, or Fullmetal Alchemist: Manga 5), rather than the entire series. I will sometimes combine a review of two or more volumes if get them at the same time, though, and I also may review boxsets at times.

Now that you know what my general format is, a bit of a warning. While I will try to be objective as possible, I do have my own tastes in terms of anime and manga, and inevitably, these will probably sneak themselves into my reviews. So you know where I’m coming from, here are my…

Personal biases: I’m a big fantasy nerd (as you can probably tell), so stories that do a good job of telling a fantasy story are probably going to catch my attention. I’m also a huge sucker for good character development—if the characters are interesting and deep, and have a great character arc, I may be more willing to forgive a weak plot or setting. I tend to be more of a shoujo fan than a shounen fan as well, but not always.

My favorite anime: Fullmetal Alchemist, Princess Tutu, Paranoia Agent, Laputa: Castle in the Sky (and most of Miyazaki’s films), Azumanga Daioh

Favorite manga: Fruits Basket, Fullmetal Alchemist, Megatokyo (Megatokyo isn’t actually a manga, but I’m also planning on reviewing “World Manga” as well)

Book Review Format

Well, well, it looks like you just stumbled upon the entry that explains the format for my book reviews!

For this blog, almost all of the books I’m going to be reviewing are books that fit into the fantasy or sci-fi genres. These reviews are going to be a little tricky—unlike video games, anime, or even movies, you can’t really section out certain qualities that make the book good. There’s no animation, cinematography or music to assault your senses, no controls that allow you to effect what happens. It’s just you and the pages printed with the author’s words. In a sense, books are a much intimate form of entertainment.

Rather than muddle up my reviews with nitpicky ratings for stuff like “editing” or “characters” or “use of words”, I decided it’d be better to simply write out my review, and give you one ‘overall’ rating (from 1-10), that expresses my opinion on the book.

As for the sorts of thing I think makes a good book…Obviously the main thing that’s important is the plot. If you don’t care what happens, what motivation is there to keep reading? Pacing and characters also effect this too—I have a higher tolerance for slow pacing than some people (my favorite book is Lord of the Rings, after all), but a book that drags on and on will start to seem more like a chore than entertainment. Likewise, if you don’t find yourself interested by the characters (or if the characters are weak archetypes), you’re probably not going to care about learning more about them, or reading about their adventures. And, of course, writing style is important.

Also, while I try to be as objective as possible, I’m only one reviewer. My tastes in books are going to find their way into my reviews. So you know where I’m coming from, here’s a summery of my…

Personal biases: One of my biggest things is characters. I want to read about interesting, likeable characters and watch them grow. If, for whatever reason, I have a hard time connecting to the characters of a book, I have a more difficult time enjoying the book. For example, I can’t stand Gone with the Wind, no matter how much of a classic book it is. The only character I like in that book dies in the end, and I kept wishing Scarlett would be attacked by enemy soldiers.
Actually, because of my love for characters, I have a tendency to like fantasy books slightly more than sci-fi books—this isn’t an absolute rule, I just feel that at times, sci-fi books focus too much on technology, and not on people. When sci-fi has great characters, though, I LOVE it.

My favorite books: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner, any and every Star Wars book written by Timothy Zahn, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Game Review Format

Being a gamer is an expensive (and often time consuming) hobby. Because of this, wasting your resources on a bad game often tends to feel more painful than the typical bad purchase. Gamers are well aware of this—it’s why there’s so many review magazines and websites, and the reason behind the flood of posts on gaming forums asking “should I get this game??”

Unfortunately, a video game is also more time-consuming than reviewing any other type of media I’m reviewing on my blog. It’s not as easy as going to the theater to see a movie, or picking up a book at a library. Even short video games take a good 10 to 20 hours to complete, and RPGs—my favorite genre—can take 50 hours, or even longer. Since I’m a full-time college student, I don’t have the time to dedicate to gaming reviews as much as I would like to. So, I have a (reluctant) solution: often, I will not have a game 100% completed when I write my review. However, I will always do my best to play as much of a game as I can, and will take good care to play through all the modes. Plus, I will always preface all of my gaming reviews with a note of how far I’ve progressed through the game, so you’ll know exactly where I’m coming from with my review. Of course, if you’ve progressed farther in a game than me, you’re free (and invited!) to offer your own opinions in the comments of my blog!

Now that I’ve waxed philosophical about the hazards of being a gamer, let’s skip the wordy paragraphs and get straight to the explanation of the review format, shall we? This is how you can expect the typical game review in this blog to look. I might be changing my format at times, to make sure I really nail down a good style for my reviews.

Ratings: For video game reviews, I’m going to be doing a numerical rating system, borrowing from Gamespot’s formula. Why Gamespot? Well, I have an account on that site and plan to be posting my reviews there as well—so it’s just easier if my reviews match their rating format. For more indepth details on how Gamespot rates game, click here.

For a brief overview: Ratings are from 1 to 10, 10 being the highest. The games will be rated on individual components, and then given an overall score.

The components:

Graphics: Both the technical quality of the graphics, as well as the artistic quality. How smoothly the game’s graphics run factor into this score, as well.

Sound: Covers sound effects, voice acting, and music.

Gameplay: In essence, how fun the game actually is to play. This covers things like the controls, difficulty level, design of levels, etc. For games that come from genres that rely heavily on their story (particularly RPGs), I may adjust this score slightly to reflect how well the story is executed, as well. (Of course, this isn’t always going to be the case—a music game is NOT going to get a low score in this category just because there’s no story to speak of!) Obviously, this is the most important component.

Value: Covers things like replay value, the length of time it takes to go through the game, the price the game is going for in retail stores, etc. For example, if a game has a solid multiplayer mode, lots of unlockables, and several modes to play through in single player as well, expect to see a high rating here. Also, if the game is solid, and comes out with a lower-than-normal retail price, it will also earn a high score in this category.

Overall: My overall impression of the game. Note that this will NOT be an average! Gamespot uses a weighted average to figure the final score for their reviews—but, to be honest, I’m not sure exactly how the components are weighted. Rather than take a blind guess and mess it up, it’ll be much easier for me to simply take a look at my scores and then give an overall rating based on that. (This means my reviews may sometimes be scored slightly differently on my blog, compared to my review on Gamespot’s website. There shouldn’t be too much of a difference, however.)

Also, since my Overall score will not be an average, I will not be including a ‘tilt’ rating.

Oh, and before I forget: since I’m just one gamer (as opposed to a team of gamers), it’s hard to be entirely objective. I’m probably going to rate RPG games higher than, say, a shooter—that’s just my personal taste. So you know where I’m coming from, here’s my…

Personal Biases: My favorite games tend to be RPGs and quirky Japanese games. This doesn’t mean I’ll always rate games made in America lower, I just enjoy the style these games bring to the table. I also have fond memories of Nintendo games from when I was a kid, so I have a tendency to get nostalgic about games like Mario and Zelda.

Favorite Games: Tales of Symphonia, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Riviera: The Promised Land, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Soul Calibur III, Animal Crossing

Movie Review Format

Here, in this entry, you’re going to get my explanation of my format for movie reviews. In my blog, most of the movies I’m going to be reviewing are movies that have a particular ‘geek’ quality to them—animated films, fantasy/sci-fi films, and the occasional independent film. You’re probably not going to find a review of a political drama or a romantic comedy in here (unless it has some element of magic or time travel or…something along those lines). If a movie has ‘cult hit’ potential, don’t be surprised if I review it here. (Or if it’s just animated—I’m an animation geek.)

In my reviews, I’m going to be reviewing both films that have just been released to theaters, and movies just released to DVD. Why both? Well, while I prefer to see movies in a theater (my home theater system is, uh, nonexistent—just a normal SDTV, or my laptop), sometimes I might not be able to catch a movie in a theater soon enough to make it worth reviewing. Plus, sometimes a movie that I think would be of interest might be released on DVD several years after its release, or given some sort of “special edition” release.

The ratings: Like most of my other reviews, my movie reviews will be scaled based on a 1-10 rating in certain areas, and then given an ‘overall’ rating.

Story: Covers the overall plot of the movie. Among important qualities here is the dialogue, pacing, and characters. How I felt about the acting in the movie is included in this rating, as well.

Art: An all-encompassing rating that means different things to different movies. For animated movies, this is covering the quality of the animation, coloring, and character designs (similar to my anime reviews). For a high-budget film—particularly movies in the fantasy or sci-fi genres, which are often heavily visual—this will look at elements like the effects (computer or otherwise), costumes, and cinematography. For films that are lower-budget or more mellow, this will mostly be about the cinematography, although elements like costuming and any effects the movie might have will be included in here as well. For all movies, this score also includes how I felt about the score.

Overall: My overall feelings about the movie, not an average of the scores. Generally, a high rating in story matters more than a high rating in the ‘art’ category—although there are at times a movie that’s so visually impressive it’ll have the rating go up at least a bit.

In addition, while I try to be as objective as I can, I’m only one reviewer. My own tastes when it comes to movies are naturally going to seep in a little into my ratings. So you can see where I’m coming from with my tastes and opinions, here’s a look at my…

Personal Biases: As I said before, I’m an animation geek. Excellent animation—either used in conjunction with live action, or in a purely animated movie—is something that catches my attention. Also, I have a tendency to tire of clichés—if a movie does a good job of parodying clichés, or does a good job of remaining unique, I’ll rate it higher than I would a movie that is just the same old, same old. I’m a stickler for good characters, too—well written, deep, likeable characters will make a movie worth seeing in my mind.

Favorite movies: The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the original Star Wars trilogy (IV-VI), The Incredibles, Toy Story 2, Beauty and the Beast, A Little Princess, The Princess Bride, It’s A Wonderful Life, Stranger Than Fiction