Swan Princess - An animated movie review

Not all decent animated films were made by Disney or big studios. The Swan Princess is one of those black sheep. Directed by Richard Rich, the movie is based off of the beloved ballet, Swan Lake. The film is a mix review with different critics saying different things. Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a 44% rating, but Roger Ebert gave the movie three stars, so there must be something right about it.

The movie is really short, lasting for only and hour and twenty minutes, but it didn't have big budget a Disney film had, so we should at least be grateful the movie was able to astound with what it gave us. The animation not only flows very well, the soundtrack fits as well. Like with Quest for Camelot, I'll start with the music, though there won't be any spoilers since the movie was made in 1994 (HEY! the year i was born!), but i'll make sure not to ruin the experience too much.

Despite the movie being based off of a Ballet, there's hardly any "ballet" music in it, at least that I can tell. I never went to see any Ballets growing up, but I always assumed they were more subtle and less musical-like. Which is what this movie is, a musical. And like every musical, the music must serve one of two purposes, to express the emotions or the plot of the movie.

The first song is quite a long one, but it does keep the lyrics different for the most part. The song lasts for a good six minutes, but i thinks its good. My favorite bits are from the citizens who make all these nice quips about the economy and holidays. The next two songs are a little pointless, but they do serve a point. Far Longer than Forever is a song about the two lead's love and it does sound very convincing that the two will eventually find each other again, and it serves the purpose of expressing the inner emotions of the singer. The other is a problem. Practice, Practice, Practice is a very repetitive and boring song, but it does serve as a good training montage to show how good an archer the hero is.

The rest of the music is a lot less important, more comical and fast paced. But they are all pretty nice and serve to keep the ears busy without pointless conversations. As one who prefers music to talking its easier to appreciate the action when i don't need to hear the characters talk.

Now the plot. Like I said before, I never saw Swan Lake, so I don't know how much the movie kept canon, but it goes as such. Princess Odette and Prince Derek are the respective heirs to their parents' kingdoms, so Odette's father and Derek's mother decide to join their kingdoms by engaging their children. They spend the next eighteen years trying to coerce the two into falling in love. I really like this, since most Disney movies have the characters falling in love after three days. These two have eighteen years. Well, things appear to be finally working in the right direction on their last summer together, but Derek goofs makes it seem like all he cared about was how beautiful Odette is. Offended, Odette and her father leave and say their goodbyes.

A rogue wizard, named Rothbart, Odette's father had banished for attempted mutiny returned and attacked, killing Odette's father and kidnapping Odette, turning her into a swam for good measure. Derek tries to find her with his best friend Romney and Odette gets the help of three animals: Speed the Tortoise, Juan-bob the frog, and Lieutenant Puffin. The plot is Swan Lake still with the wizards tricking the Prince at a ball into declaring his love for another instead of Odette and it ends with an epic battle that was pretty much ripped off of Sleeping Beauty.

Now, I didn't want to ruin the experience since the movie is pretty good and those that know the plot to Swan Lake will know the plot to this movie. It's pretty decent though. Sadly, like all these C-list animated movies, the movie was overshadowed in the box office by so many other big names like Interview with a Vampire and Star Trek: Generations. Strangely enough, the movie warranted three sequels including a christmas special, so Richard Rich must have really liked the movie to make another.

All in all I rate the movie a 7.5 out of 10. good night everyone

Monster university (Review)

This movie did something that doesn't happen very often, and to quote the movie, "it surprised me". Don't worry, since this movie JUST came out, I won't give a spoiler here (If I accidentally give one please do not murder me in the dark with a rusty paper clip. A clean paper clip will do just fine thank you)

Now, this movie really requires you to watch the original movie, not that you won't enjoy or understand the movie at all if you don't. Monster U really adds to the enjoyment of Monster Inc by taking the original concept of the movie and expanding on it. 

But while the original was kind of straight forward with the plot and didn't really leave much to shock besides the twist in the end, Monster U really kept me guessing. Not only about how the movie was going to end, but how the movie was going to progress. Normally for these school-themed movies or sports-themed movies, you get the rivalry and the teamwork and everything like that, but you don't handle it the same way at all. Problems are shown throughout the movie and I don't even know when the actual plot of the movie kicks in. The movie's pacing feels really fluctuent, moving from traditional to a tad lingering (For too long in my opinion) to very brisk, and aside from the lingering moment, the movie never leaves you waiting. In fact, it always leaves you guessing. 

You at first think that the movie is going to be heading in one direction with the tones it is taking, and as soon as you feel that the movie is going to cut to the next scene, it keeps it going, moving onward to pull the joke in a little more or to add more to the heart of the film. The movie doesn't work in the traditional cinematic approach and really shows Disney's true colors as an animation industry. There are many moments where you genuinely think that the movie is going to fall for one of their many classic blunders of story writing, especially in the classic underdog story, but now. First it looks like he's going to loose, then he wins and the movie almost feels anti-climatic with the movie feeling like it still had momentum moving it along, then the movie throws a few shake ups and just when you almost feel like it is going to follow the formula again, it throws it back in your face and pulls a very amazing climax, which even then, almost ended cliche.

Now, again, before I go into the spoiler bits, I need to talk about some really great moments of timing. Not in the movie, but in another movie: Man of Steel. The theatre I go to is a small theatre with only two movies playing at a time, one on top of the other with a flimsy wooden ceiling that blocks sound as well as the walls in my house block the cold. Not very well. So as the third act was coming through, Man of Steel began triumphantly playing its loud booming music that was used to portray awe and fright in the move. but when it played over Monster University, the sound worked even better. The Sad symphony being played sounded more melancholy, but when the war tunes were added, the music changed from sad to scary. I felt a tad scared for what these characters were going to do. I watched a guy on the internet do a comparison between the ending music of The Incredible Hulk TV show and the MacGyver TV shows and talked about how the ending emotional attachment really works depending on which track you use. 

When I heard the music to the Man of Steel playing over Monster University, I couldn't help but feel in awe and terrified since I no longer could assess the direction the film was going in. The movie scared and surprised me.

Now, before I start spoiling the movie, I should give my grade. I give Monster University 10/10 and is a must see for all ages, even adults by their lonesome. And more than anything, I highly recommend those going to college to check out this film, there's so much in here that's relatable for use college students.

Quest for Camelot - An Animated Movie Review

The Quest For Camelot: An Animated Musical, made by Warner Bros. Feature Animation, it is often overlooked and overshadowed by the big named animated film companies like Disney, which is also sad, seeing as this was also their first animated film. But that doesn't mean that this movie has its own majestic beauty to it. As my first Official review of an animated film, I have decided to start off with Quest for Camelot, as I feel it is a very underrated film. 

First, let's talk about the music, which seems to fill the movie more than any other Animated movie that I know. It often feels like a musical, rather than a movie. The songs barry from corny to majestic, from darn right godly to down right unnecessary. But let's digress, the movie really was known for its songs. In fact, one of its songs, "The Prayer", received a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Even though the song was born from the movie though, it sadly was not enough to make the movie a great success. Probably due to the comedic song, "If I Didn't Have You", a duet sung by a two-headed dragon. The song became completely forgotten, most likely due to its forced reference material. The song was so full of references, it had the pair make an elvis impersonation, just to end it. 

Now, a big thing about the music is that all the songs are sung directly by the characters, which sometimes may make it feel out of character. But the feel of everyone breaking into song whenever they have song feelings towards something actually brings forth the grandiose feeling we, the audience, get towards the kingdom. One of my favorite songs from the movie, "Ruber's Song", is all an exposition, but the way the lyrics are written, sung, and presented in animation, make it feel both awe inspiring, and comedically forced. Ruber feels like he is trying to find words that rhyme, like when he says, "Now watch me create my mechanical army…With Pride!" His pause, his over the top gestures, they all greatly solidify the feel that Ruber wants us to respect him as a villain while trying to sing a song about creating robots to take down knights. Not to mention that he has a few screws loose for even doing it.

And that brings us to the exposition. Some might say that the details behind the witches that Ruber gets the magical portion that creates his robots is too short and left with too many questions, but I don't think so. To me, it is like the witches in MacBeth. They come in, present conflict to the story, and then leave, never once being shown again. This is a story set in King Arthur's time. Just by hearing that, we know that there are Wizards and Knights, Dragons and Enchanted Forests. There doesn't need to be anything else told. In fact, this might make it better. Most stories of Fantasy focus a lot of time on backstory and the lore of the world, which was solidified by Token's Lord of the Rings trilogy, but by using the tale of King arthur as the backstory, it is all taken care of. All we get to the lore of the world is a brief exposition told by a knight to his daughter about why he became a knight. It is short, tells us everything, and we are ready to watch the movie. 

The story is quite simple. There is an evil knight, Ruber, who wants to be king, but Arthur is already King, so the Ruber tries to kill him in front of everyone. Not the smartest move, but the twitch in his eye and mouth is a clear sign that this guy isn't quite sane, right from the get-go. Kayley's father, a knight, and the same one from before who gave us the backstory, get's killed trying to protect Arthur, which drives Kayley to want to dress as a bat and bring all evil knights to justice. Nope, sorry, she takes the smarter route to dealing with loss, by dreaming of becoming a knight like her father. Sadly, the Feminist movement won't come around for another five hundred years, so Kayley is not very much permitted by her mother. Then one day, Ruber returns, his giant Griffin having stolen Excalibur and he has a potion that can merge weapons with living beings to turn them into robots. He tests this out with a Chicken, merging it with an ax, and calls it Bladebeak, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, Merlin's Falcon, called Ayden, or Silver Wings sometimes, causes the Griffin to drop the sword into the Forbidden Forest, giving Kayley a chance to prove herself as a knight by going in to find it.

To be fair, she actually was forced into the Forest when she tries to escape from Ruber, and doesn't even think about looking for the sword until she meets a blind man named Garrett who also has a falcon with silver wings. Realizing that falcons with silver wings are rare, she assumes that the bird is the same one that fought the Griffin. The two then follow the bird and Kayley is brought to see the beauty of the world. This is also where most of the movie happens for a while, with a huge musical number called "I Stand Alone", showing us just how beautiful the forest is, but also how dangerous it is. This song is also my favorite by showing us just how magical this world is, which nature being the heaviest of themes.

Now, right after the songs closes, we return straight to Ruber and his robots, which I feel solidifies the theme of the movie: Nature vs. Science. The world the heroes are hiding in is an enchanted forest. Our Heroes are a Blind man attuned to nature, a Falcon, a Dragon, and a young woman. A symbolic factor of a woman, especially a young woman, probably in her early twenties is life. Because a woman is at her peak as a child giver, the connection between new life and a young woman is often a key symbolic trait. But please don't take this as a sexist opinion. The enemies on the other hand, are robots, even if they are made from magic, their forms are very much metallic. All the heroes of the film are average, even weak, beings that must learn to rely on others to make them stronger, while the enemies are all individuals that show no teamwork and are often clumsily defeated. 

Now, the ending of the story is a tad deus ex machina, with all being set right in the end, but this is a fairy tale, and you have to give it props for the story as a hole. There are problems, such as the two-heads of the dragon constantly bickering with each other and providing comedic relief. Some argue that the development of Bladebeak is forced. The Dragon I can agree with, as they are all up in the audience's attention with their goofiness, even during romantic and beautiful moments. But the Bladebeak scenes where great. At the beginning he is shown as a wimpy rooster who flirts with all the young hens, while his large wife constantly scares him for it. Comedic, and it feels right in some weird way. Then his transformation into Bladebeak gives him some power, some strength, and he is rafted into an army where he shows cowardliness, but all around genuine heart. At the end, he shows that he feels sorry for the humans and helps out Kayley, even taking down a robot with his ax beak, which is responded with the Wife Hen proudly pointing to him like she is saying, "That's MY husband." What could have been done batter would be if they made him silent, as all he ever does when he talks is spill references, though thankfully he never got a song. 

Before the conclusion, let me finish with a word on the one character I didn't talk enough about: Garrett. Garrett is a blind hermit living in the Forbidden Forrest. He lost his eyesight and was trained by Kayley's father. When he died, he moved to the forest. His insecurities towards his blindness are shown in the movie, and by the end of the film, we see him leave the forrest, not out of glory, which he feels he doesn't deserve, but out of desire to save Kayley. This might be a little cliche, the tragic, brooding warrior, left alone in exile, but his reasoning, his backstory, his skill, they are all justified in a realistic perspective. They do employ my hated plot technique (Hero leaves the story for a reason and is able to save the day because he chose to leave. If the hero hadn't have left, he wouldn't have been able to return to save the day.), but they also employ my favorite one (Romantic male chooses to give up the woman he loves because he feels that she deserves someone better than himself.) at the same time, so I can forgive them for using that.

The music is magical and often times breathtaking, and sometimes they even use CGI that is used in live action, like during the big fight scene and when they show the ogre. They use great moments of animation, though sometimes that mouths don't sync very well with the voices. But you can hardly blame them. This was Warner Bros's first animation, and they were ill prepared. Let us be grateful that the bad sales didn't make them cancel all together. The company lost $40,000 and the film was greatly overshadowed by the hyped release, godzilla. All around, this movie is amazing and shows it as well.

Rurouni Kenshin (2012) movie review

http://streamme.cc/stream/7ed4cb365112b8ac/

Movie adaptations are the latest big thing in today's cinematic world. Hollywood makes more film adaptations, remakes, and other forms of re-using unoriginal ideas than they make any sort of truly original film. Most of these "original" films are also just genre films, using stereotypical writing tropes to pander to the general audience in hope of making a big buck.

Now, don't take my introduction the wrong way, I LOVE movie adaptations. I simply felt that some context needed to be made before I could get to the point I was going to make. Rurouni Kenshin (2012) is the best manga-to-live-action film I have ever watched (disclaimer: I am an American and am not aware of many film-adaptations of manga and anime. I only just saw this movie a year after it was released, online through the link I provided at the beginning. Why is this review so late? Because I live in America and this movie was made in Japan.

Despite America apparently becoming so experienced at making movie adaptations of pre-existing works, they still seem terrible at making them. Avatar: The Last Airbender, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, was one of the worst movies ever. Dragonball: Evolution was hated by the very fans whom it was made for.

I bring this up because despite my previous comment about about Rurouni Kenshin (2012) being the best manga-to-live-action film I've seen, the movie itself has a LOT of problems.

Since I don't want to spoil the plot of the movie until later (though to be honest, it isn't exactly a spoiler since there's no plot twist or new development from the manga), I'll discuss the choreography first. Now, the titular character, Himura Kenshin, is renown in the world of his story for his Hitsen Mitsurugi Style swordplay. The style is a fantasy swordstyle based on Battojutsu, a real way of using the Japanese Katana, but it is regarded in the manga as one of the fastest swordstyles. Now, Kenhsin himself is choreographed as being VERY agile, but his swordstyle doesn't resemble the ultra-fast swordplay he uses. The problem with this is not only the choreography, but also the editing. A style like Hitsen Mitsurugi is supposed to move faster than a normal human can blink. This requires film editing to show this, much like how someone would portray Neo from the Matrix fighting at super-speed against Smith.

But Kenshin's speed and swordstyle isn't the only choreographed issue. By the end of the story, Sanosuke gets into a fist fight with one of the minions. This fight, which could have been VERY well choreographed, instead was very clumsy and boring. It felt like the director just said "ok, you two, I want you to start beating each other up, and we'll film it". The fighters were very clumsy and the break in the middle of the fight seemed pointless.

The problem here is that fighting scenes in movies aren't just filler or meant to be two guys fighting. If you watch any of Bruce Lee's or Jet Li's movies, you'll know that fighting scenes are meant to be theatrical, dramatic or comedic. But Sanosuke's fight wasn't any of those, it was just clumsy.

But since we got to Sanosuke's fight, let's also talk about the fight Kenshin has at that same time. This fight actually WAS well choreographed and showed both the fighter's skills. the problem with that fight though, is that before we even get to the fighting, we have to sit through Kenshin's opponent shooting a million bullets at Kenshin from his handguns. This movie is set in the Meiji Era. And even though the fighting styles were sometimes magical, there was a lot more reality grounded into Kenshin than most manga had. The way the bullets were flying out at Kenshin, you'd think he had Magazines in his guns. The Meiji Era was pre-WW2. That means that at best we'd have Automatic rifles, but those guns were not automatic rifles, they were handguns, like pistols. Now, I'm not a gun-fantatic, so please don't quote anything I've said, but if you have two handguns in Meiji-era times, you aren't going to shoot more than two bullets before you need to manually reload.

But whatever, onto the characters. While most of the characters were clearly defined and in-character, there were three characters I had a problem with. Yahiko and Kanryu's two henchmen. In the manga, Kanryu hires the Oniwabanshu to protect himself and to torture Megumi. In the movie, Kanryu has these two guys with no real connection to the story except that they were combinations of characters. The henchmen that fights Kenshin is clearly a combination of Aoshi and Han'nya, but there in lies the problem. Part of what made Han'nya such a cool character was how devoted he was to Aoshi. He even destroyed every identifying part of his face to make himself better at wearing disguises to better serve Aoshi. But in the movie, the guy apparently has a huge burn scar on his face. Why? What purpose does that scar give besides make him look cooler?

And another factor is that the Aoshi-Han'nya hybrid character never even tried to pull off Aoshi's "Dance of the Wheeled sword", which was Aoshi's signature technique. I understand that Jin-e was the major villain this time and Kenshin had to save his trump card against him, and the movie was pretty much wrapping to a close, but WHY did we need both the Kanryu-Megumi plot AND the Jin-e plot? the reason behind the Jin-e lot was most likely a narrative decision because Jin-e represents the mass murderer that Kenshin used to be but abandoned. And the Kanryu-Megumi plot was most likely because they needed to bring in all of the main characters for the movie, since Sanosuke and Megumi didn't become major characters until that plot.

But the problem still remains with Yahiko. In the manga, Yahiko became a student of the Kamiya dojo because he wanted to study under Kenshin. but in the movie, he's just a kid who lives at the Dojo studying under Kaoru. And this is before Kenshin even meets her. So Yahiko has literally no dynamic on the group at all besides playing younger brother to Kaoru. His story is completely ignored and he's pretty much a pointless character.

But that isn't the worst bit. Even though they combined Aoshi with Han'nya to balance time, Jin-e's role in the story is so confusing. He replaces Hiruma Gohei as the man impersonating the Battosai (Kenshin's alias during the war) and claiming to be using the Kamiya swordstyle which is used by Kaoru.

The problem with this ISN"T that they were combining plots and characters. I wouldn't have minded it. In fact, throughout the movie I was excited to try and learn his reason for impersonating the sword style. But his reason is NEVER explained. He doesn't say why, he doesn't even get asked later on. This was the biggest problem with the story. By trying to find a way to narratively include Jin-e in the movie, they made their plot even more confusing.

Now, Rurouni Kenshin is still a good movie. The burn scar on the Aoshi-Han'nya guy was probably made as a lead in to Shishio since I read that the producers were intending to create a sequel, and since the movie did do well in the box-office, let's hope we can at least get that. but please studio, DON"T combine the Shishio plot with the Enishi plot. The Shishio plot had more than enough to make a single movie.

All in all, I rank this movie a 5/10. The plot and choreography are not up to par with most movies and the decisions they made in the writing department were not the best. Hopefully the sequel will be a lot better.

Welcome

Welcome to Ani-Country, because a nation just isn't big enough to hold my ideas. Now, here at Ani-Country I'll be reviewing and discussing animations, comics, and other medias that are related such as Movie adaptations and others.

Now, to make this blog special, we won't just be reviewing stuff and giving critical remarks about it all. Along with that, I'll also be giving out segments where I just start rambling on about the Inner workings of my mind regarding the stuff.

The focus of the reviews here will be on the Writing and directing of films mostly, with some focus on art, music, and other such medias when credit is due, such as in a musical or an animated film

So feel free to have a lot of stuff be taken to the Nth degree and showered with a lot of self-depreciating humor.

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