Category: Live Action

Ongoing Investigations: Case #193

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There are a few movies I was really looking forward to this year. With a limited budget I have to be a bit more conservative to what I am willing to see in theaters but Wreck-It-Ralph was a movie I definitely need to see on the big screen. I enjoyed the movie a great deal. I think I liked it more than Narutaki. But everyone we went with agreed one thing majorly brought the movie down as a whole. The major question was how much did it hurt the movie.

Wreck-It-Ralph is a villain who after years of being the bad guy wants a little recognition so he decides to try being a hero. But in the process of trying to prove that he has what it takes to be more than an engine of destruction causes him to unwittingly unleash a terror that could destroy the arcade. Oh. And he has to help a bratty little girl win a Go Cart race.

There were quite a few good things to love about the movie. It has an amazing sense of style and place. The feel of the world inside the arcade machines is just so wonderfully realized. It is sort of the Toy Story for video games. Retro games feel retro and modern games feel slick with a wonderfully congruent style that still lets everything feel very unique. Fix-it Felix Jr. and Sergeant Calhoun are extremely different in their design but still have a sense of consistency to them. The humor can be quite good when it is working well. There was one line about Sergeant Calhoun that cannot be beat. I won’t spoil it but you will know it when you hear it. The cameos of real game characters are amazing. You have everyone from Zangief and Sonic to Tapper, Q*bert, and Beard Papa. Certain scenes beg to be watched on home video just so you can pause and take them all in. The licensed characters give the sense of authenticity while making sure never to steal the spotlight from the main cast. And most importantly the story is just fun homage to the arcade. And that is always just a warm feeling.

The major problems are two-fold. The first is in Japan the movie is entitled Sugar Rush. And for all intents and purposes that might be a bit more accurate title. Because while the story centers on Wreck-It-Ralph the majority of the movie is spent inside the Sugar Rush game. So you better like that candy coated Mario Cart world because it is the primary place you will see. The trailers make it seem like their will be much more world hopping than there actually is in the end. The other is just the fact that Sarah Silverman is an annoying human being who is about as funny as a root canal. She did not ruin the movie for me but she does drag it down especially considering she is deuteragonist in the film and does not really ever leave the spotlight after she is introduced. In a way she makes the Sugar Rush part of the film feel ever longer.

Still despite that I had a great time. I even enjoyed the AKB48 Sugar Rush theme song. As I understand they are already planning a sequel that deals with console games and/or MMORPGs. I look forward to seeing that. But until that I will enjoy this movie again on Blu-Ray when it comes out.

I had been looking forward to Wreck-It-Ralph for a long time, ever since the concept was announced. It was a movie that I wasn’t sure was really Disney but I hoped they could pull it off and breath new life into the repertoire. In fact, I felt like who else could afford to have all of these cameos besides Disney?

Ralph is a hapless lug stuck in a situation not of his choosing and who just wants to prove he can be a different guy, Ralph is endearing from the get-go. I really enjoyed him learning what it means to be a hero, it is great to want to be a hero but it can’t be about you. And the movie becomes less about Ralph the more he becomes a hero, kind of interesting.

Or at least it was somewhat interesting, but diminishing the character we’ve come to care for in the middle of the movie to instead focus on Vanellope? I know I’m just a bit biased because of her voice and humor that comes along with it. I did think their friendship was genuinely sweet at points and my heart broke when Ralph had to be the “bad guy” once again.

The tons of cameos were fun, though I almost shed tears at poor Q*bert without a home, living in Game Central Station. The animation and integration of the videogames in the film were brilliant, there were lots of quirks depending on the characters and what games they came from. This was most evident with the older games like Fix-It-Felix for example where characters would hop and make a jump noise when surprised.

I was pleased at the setup for the story, weaving in little details from the beginning that later were significant, it was plotted well. The ending was really well concocted.

I thought the music was mostly terrible, my only real complaint. So I walked away from the movie feeling pleased, but I felt like I should have loved it to bits instead of just liking it.

Maybe it was just overshadowed by the perfect, poignant Paperman short that played first.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #189

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It was time to return to the Code Geass universe with the first Akito the Exiled OVA. It is a side story set during the original series that takes place on the mostly neglected European front. While the European Union was mentioned several times in the series there were no significant scenes that ever really take place there. So it is a good setting as a good deal can go on in that area and not have it contradict the original series.

The only real consequence is that the cast is limited in what it can accomplish. The overall defeat of the EU is an inevitability. So the cast cannot become super heroes who single handily turn the tide of the war or kill the Emperor. But at the same time the can accomplish smaller goals so it is not like there is nothing they do in this time period.

The first thing most people will notice is that no matter where Japanese people go in the Code Geass universe it is a hard knock life. The Japanese hoping to escape a terrible life in Area 11 find that being refugees in other countries is little better. The crazy European commander of a Japanese unit starts sending his subordinates suits their self destruct codes as he sees them as subhuman mongrels whose only value is to die completing their missions. So the not so subtle themes of prejudice are echoed here as well.

The single survivor of the unit, named Akito, is helped by another commander named Leila Malkal. It seems Akito has some sort of Geass power but other than using in ambiguously in combat a few times it seems the writers are keeping what exactly his ability is under their hats. I also get the feeling they imply Leila has a Geass power but they only tease its existence more than show it.

Other than that most of the episode is just showing the setting as the European Union that was barely fleshed out in the original series. We mostly learn that they are a different sort of corrupt government as opposed to a noble force that fights against the wicked Britannian empire. The leadership of the AU is mainly made up of haughty nobles who live in luxury while a good deal of the citizenry lives in poverty. Leila seems to be a rare expectation although she seems less concerned about reforming the system and more about just being a decent human being to the people she meets.

I was a little surprised that for a Code Geass series there was almost no fan service. The original series all but left you voice mails every episode reminding you about how stacked Kallen and C.C. were. So other than a pair of bunny girl waitresses (who barely appear on-screen) there is almost nothing else close to fan service in the series. I wonder if that makes this an easier sell to certain people.

The next episode preview seems to indicate that some major players from the original series are going to stop by next episode. It seems that C.C. has some tie to Leila which backs up my theory that she has a Geass power.

This is an easy recommendation to anyone who enjoyed the original series. It is fairly short but fills in the universe without trying to carve out too ambitious of a niche in the greater story. Hopefully they will keep the scope ambitious but not to the level in which they forget how small their canvas is.

I was looking forward to the Code Geass: Akito the Exiled OVA and the first episode didn’t disappoint me. Though admittedly a lot of the surprises were in the next episode preview, I thought this episode set up things well and got me invested in the characters.

I really warmed to our lead Leila right away. She seems like a soldier and able to take care of herself. She has her head on right without being conventional, her unit is ending up being a unique team. The hints at her past got more interesting as the episode went on.

Akito is not a cold fish which was a pleasant surprise. I liked that they didn’t reveal what exactly his Geass does yet. He uses it in battle at the start but he doesn’t use it in a later battle so it remains a mystery. The movement of his robot at the beginning is crazy! Very animal like in its agility, it was actually a little unnerving.

I enjoyed everyone meeting in this installment and happily there was no romantic agenda being pushed. They do introduce a lot of characters and a lot of characters with Geass powers but hopefully they’ll be able to balance all of them.

It doesn’t seem like a story that is going to end in happiness though I’m guessing it won’t be all bad. Still I expect Akito to die by the end.

The only real problem for me was the characters’ hair and clothing designs, bleh. Also some of the characters had tiny heads! Oh wait, and there was also super creeper fiance brother. So some minor missteps.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

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Time Traveler: It’s Cruel but It’s History

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I loved the Girl Who Leapt Through Time, who didn’t? That was a sequel to the original novel story The Girl Who Ran Through Time. This movie doesn’t really have any trigger like leaping or running so I’d call it the Girl Who Fell Through Time, maybe. It also only has one big movement through time as opposed to a bunch of little ones.

Well “The Girl who Drank a Magic Science Potion That Made Her Then Run Through a Weird Blue Screen Sequence to Go Back in Time” does not really roll off the tongue. It is possibly better than what I was going to name this article, “Time Travelers Never Do Nothing For No One” or just have a link to a certain anime song that I use whenever time travel comes up. But I guess that is why we trade-off writing the article names.

But in all seriousness Time Traveler: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is based on one of those stories like A Christmas Carol or Romeo and Juliet that is constantly remade and re-imagined. The original story The Girl Who Runs Through Time is a Japanese science fiction classic. It has been remade in several movies, TV series, and specials. This and the film by Mamoru Hosoda are both sequels that deal with younger relatives of the orignal protagonist. Thankfully you don’t need to have experience the orignal story to get into this movie. While familiarity with the original does add a bit of depth you might have otherwise missed it is not vital. The wink and the nod to the smell of lavender can be caught by fans of the original but are not necessary to anyone watching this as a stand alone experience.  This story stands well on its own as its own time traveling love story.

Akari Yoshiyama seems to have luck on her side. She just got into the school of choice and her life seems on track for a brilliant future. But when her mother is hit by a car it seems that her problems actually lie in the past. Before falling into a coma her mother asks Akari to go back in time and give a message to a young man. As ridiculous a request as that seems it appears her mother has a formula that can make it happen. But when Akari is two years off in her trip back in time she must team up with a young science fiction director to deliver her message. Can Akari find this mysterious man without permanently damaging the time space continuum?

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