Zaps' Review Thread

[Ben Rice]

Can you review Deputy or Deputy DVD Edition?
And a preview review on Nightmare From Space? (with screenhots, I'll lend you some if you like.)

[Lord Blazer]

I expect a review of AAV and AAV2 when I finish them.

[Jordi Visser]

Thanks dude.

[Zaps]

Originally posted by Ben Rice
Can you review Deputy or Deputy DVD Edition?
And a preview review on Nightmare From Space? (with screenhots, I'll lend you some if you like.)

Sure, after I finish updating the Vlarion reviews. If I need some screenshots, I'll ask nearer the time I do the preview .

Kyle, what happened to Abduction?

[Lord Blazer]

It's still in the works. My main problem is the characters.. I was hoping to just do balloons (ala Ice Cream Man) but I don't think that would continue the style. So that's why actual production is non-existant. Ads well as XV227 needed a revamp.

Plus, the AAV (thinking about changing it to TV for Third Vlarion) is just...I've never had so much enthusiasm working on a project before. So...yeah. I'm full blow on AAV and AAV2.

[Zaps]

Vlarion 3: Carrier of the Light (updated review)
Directed by Aaron Haynes

This review contains minor spoilers (including some from Vlarion 2).

If you have read my updated Vlarion 2 review, you can probably guess what I am going to say at some point in this review: If you weren't too keen on the earlier Vlarion movies, this won't persuade you. I now don't have to repeat this rather obvious sentence. This review is more aimed at those who actually have an interest in watching Vlarion 3, who get a kick out of Aaron's wonderful, complex and in-depth story, who don't mind the lack of voices and can happily read the text. Oh, and those who have seen Vlarion 1 and 2. Be warned, if you haven't done so, watch Vlarion 2 first.

Vlarion 3 draws you in more, and as it builds up, you can't help but feel more and more excited. It's certainly more gripping than Vlarion 2, which did boast THAT nail-biting ending. The third installment rejoins the story straight after Brian's betrayal, and already we are given a huge new dose of information from one of the new characters, hybrid Lance. At first sight, he seems to be a bright, knowledgeable, young guy, but once you get to know him, you will know why he is vital to the story and will realise why Aaron added him to this long and eventful adventure. If you can bear the masses of white text against the traditional dark blue, rectangular backgrounds, you will be rewarded with yet more story. It's the charm of the Vlarion movies. Stick with the text, and you get a well-developed, marvellous story out of it. Character development comes second.

I suppose you could compare Brian to Lance. After all, they were both properly introduced towards the beginning of Vlarion 2 and 3 respectively, and they are key characters in the story. And this is where I briefly talk about the second new addition to the mighty tale of Vlarion: Tiera. She's a bit like Trevor, seemingly not as important as Brian or Lance, but someone you can happily welcome into the team. She makes her first appearance a good halfway into Vlarion 3, in dramatic fashion, which includes a tense battle. Although it does not feature any Vlarions, this is one battle I really enjoyed watching, and I'm no doubt looking forward to see this one updated when the remakes start coming out. Ironically, Tiera and Trevor don't get along well, which adds a little light-hearted humour. She is certainly an interesting character, and, unsurprisingly, she opens up even more story, as what proceeds this battle is yet again another thorough, mind-boggling story development dose. Watch in content.

Now to cover different aspects of Vlarion 3. The music is again strong and lives up to the standards set by its predecessors. If you want big Vlarions, Polkros and Sharromm should keep you happy, and if you want foes, Kramer and Rosal appear to attempt to stop the group. It also contains many features the previous Vlarion titles had, such as the map and the entertaining turn-based battles. And for you Brian-fans out there, he returns to wreak more havoc. But the main reason why you are going to watch Vlarion 3 is because of the story, right? And it is consistently good throughout its long runtime, from start to finish, which includes a pretty damn good showdown between Dask and...*cackle*... Yeah, like I'm going to tell you. After so much wonderful story, Vlarion 3 ends with Dask making one of those dramatic leader speeches to the rest of the group, as they prepare for the final battle. And at that point, a warm feeling grows inside you and a smile appears on your face until the credits roll. Then, frantically, you quickly close Vlarion 3 and open the finale of this branch. Your brain is on auto-pilot, as you load up scene organiser and close it again. Then, your hand moves your mouse over to the "Play" button. It clicks, and...

Score: 81/100

[Ben Rice]

Ok. Now do one of my movies! * starts jumping around *
unless you have to do Vlarion 4 and the AV2 and 3 updated reviews. * howls like a lonely dog *

[Zaps]

Just for you Ben, I'll tell you what's coming next. In order:

Vlarion 4
Vlarion 1
Deputy/Deputy DVD
Nightmare From Space (preview)

I think my AV2 and AV3 reviews are good enough to be left alone.

[Aaron Haynes]

Awesome.

Tiera is much, much more important to the story than she seems at first glance. The way she's introduced seems like a chance meeting that wouldn't have affected the story much, but from the beginning I had a bigger role in mind for her. AV4 will make all this clear, as usual.

[Lord Blazer]

:singI already know:sing

[Aaron Haynes]

Prepare for an IM from Tom Bown in the next few hours.

[Lord Blazer]

* nails down furniture *

[Zaps]

Missing

Directed by Mike Storch
Written by Andres De La Hoz

This review contains minor spoilers.

I'll start off by saying how much I have enjoyed Mike Storch's work. I gave Gnomes 93/100 in its review last year, and it was third in my top ten list of 2004 movies. I also liked his three shorts, Maybe Next Year, Mistake, and especially The Memory, which have all attained respectable scores. So when Missing was announced for a Spring release with Storch himself directing it, there was no doubt that I was pleasantly looking forward to it. With such stupidly high expectations for a relatively short movie (we're talking about ten minutes, give or take) this pleased me. It may not have done enough to reach the 90/100 threshold and it may not have quite reached my expectations, but I still really enjoyed watching it. Just a word of warning before I continue though: even though I've stated that this review only contains "minor" spoilers, you are better off watching Missing before reading the rest of my review to avoid being given a little hint. If you are unsure whether you actually want to see it or not, check out the score - it should be self-explanatory.

So, onto the meat of the review. Finally the long wait for the next big movie is over with Missing, a chilling drama written none other than Andres De La Hoz, and directed by Mike Storch, whom I was praising earlier. And this is a good follow-up for Storch. While they are both similar in a number of ways, Missing still has its differences when compared to Gnomes (not including the obvious, that there are no gnomes here), as Missing seemed to concentrate more on what we see to help us sympathise with the victim. I felt that the most effective scenes which did this were the panning shots of blood-stained tools, showing the pain and gruesome torture he has coming. Gnomes did this with less graphic or dark images - instead it achieved this using effective dialogue.

But that's not to say the dialogue in Missing is insignificant or weak. All the voice actors, especially Justin Wawrzonek as the kidnapper, deliver their lines wonderfully, and the dialogue was just as good for the majority of the runtime. The only thing in the writing that annoyed me was that I had a couple of lingering, unanswered questions. They may not be that important to the overall movie, but I couldn't help feeling a little let down. There was a part of me which wanted to get the full picture after I saw the ending. Having being surprised by the neat twist, and it's a good one especially if you are unaware that one is coming (it's a bit late now if you ignored by warning at the start of the review), there were still a few things lurking in my mind which did not leave me as satisfied as I wanted to have been.

Storch shows some of his strengths, which shone in Gnomes, in here too. Aided by the dramatic and nerving music (with some help from Andrew James Thomas, who also helped Storch in Gnomes), he seems to create tension almost perfectly. The locations also help set the right atmosphere with black being a key colour. Contrast the dark, dull, black room where the victim is being held to the yellow, pleasant outdoors of Pinelake Resort. Even the dark, grey walls of the police station look bright compared to that room. Storch certainly has a knack for this, mirroring his success seen in Gnomes where he used the tense music and the noticeably limiting colour range really well.

While I am praising all its strong points, I still can't say I prefer this over Gnomes. While both did not give hugely satisfying endings, at least Gnomes wrapped up its loose ends, whereas Missing gave me too many thoughts to think about. Maybe Andres deliberately left it open-ended, I don't know, but even if it was, I still wanted more. Don't get me wrong, I liked the twist, but it was just too open for my liking. The rest of the movie however more than makes up for the slightly disappointing ending, and judging by the number of positive reviews of this movie, I am not the only one applauding it. Storch again proves to everyone that he can do drama and this is a title he should be proud of. Of course, there is one person I haven't given enough credit to, and that's Andres for writing the script. He too should be pleased with the end result and I hope to see more coming from him in the future. Hopefully, Missing will start a trend. With the lack of big movies released, this should help motivate those lazy directors out there and help them finish their movies.

Score: 85/100

[Ben Rice]

Originally posted by Zaps
Just for you Ben, I'll tell you what's coming next. In order:

Vlarion 4
Vlarion 1
Deputy/Deputy DVD
Nightmare From Space (preview)

I think my AV2 and AV3 reviews are good enough to be left alone.

nice review though. Looking foreward to your reviews for my 3 movies!

[Aaron Haynes]

When a new movie comes out, it takes precedence. I don't know what you're annoyed about.

[Ben Rice]

Ohhhh god I can't do that kind of accent......I HAVE WASTED MY LIFE! * runs away crying *

[Scarecrow]

[Bown]

BEN RICE, I HATE YOU.

[Ben Rice]

I dunno why I did it and I regret it. I'm sorry. * hangs head in shame *

[Ben Rice]

Originally posted by Tom Bown
BEN RICE, I HATE YOU.

I don't hate you though.

[Scarecrow]

aww

[Ben Rice]

Zaps, The Handmade Character is out. You can review that instead of Deputy!

[Zaps]

Two reviews coming shortly. Maybe a third if you're lucky.

[Zaps]

The Totalitarian Blueberry

Directed by Warren Wagner

This review contains some big spoilers

Let's take a brief trip to the bookshelf and fish out a dictionary to look up a word that is probably unfamiliar to a lot of people: "totalitarian adj. of or relating to a centralized dictatorial form of government requiring complete subservience to the State" (source: The Concise Oxford Dictionary). So we're dealing with a movie centred on a domineering blueberry, a blueberry which is controlling someone or something. Unless you are thinking of genetically-modified blueberries which start to take over the world, this doesn't sound very interesting just by looking at the title, does it? But actually, The Totalitarian Blueberry is good. Simple, but effective.

Enough of looking at the title, I'll cut to the chase...the setting of all this is easy to follow: A woman has dropped a blueberry. Fair enough. But it's still there, lying on the floor, and it's driving the man behind her crazy. This whole short only revolves around a blueberry, and it is obvious Warren wants us to focus on it, as he puts v3dmm to great use, making everything black and white apart from the blueberry, which stands out with its blue colour. OK, I lied. In fact, the woman's lips and the man's eyes are also blue. Genius. Why? Linked with the obsessed man's thoughts on this blueberry, his blue eyes and the woman's blue lips emphasize his obsession. But what makes the movie fine to watch and amusing is what is going on inside the man's mind. Charles DeVillier does an excellent job voicing the monologue of the guy's thoughts, showing anger, frustration and desperation, and the actual monologue itself, written by no other than Warren himself, is great too with some funny lines. Yes, there are one or two slightly familiar-sounding phrases, but they can easily be ignored. And that's pretty much the whole movie - hearing a monologue in a diner about an irrelevant blueberry. Apart from the blueberry gets squashed. Silly woman. His reaction to this is predictably, well, not the happiest.

Technically everything is kept simple, which can be good and bad. Keeping the setting of the diner simple, for example, is good, which lets you concentrate more on the monologue, I've found. The animation, almost non-existent, is also really simplicistic. As simple as it is, it does not badly affect this short much mostly due to the lack of things happening on-screen, so we are safe there. However, a small flaw which did affect The Totalitarian Blueberry was the camera angles. They did not seem varied enough to create a potentially more passionate atmosphere surrounding the obsessed man as he stares at the blueberry, and that was not the only thing that was bugging me slightly. As much as I liked the concept of it, I felt there was space to expand slightly. I felt that there could have been more and it was not completely satisfying by the time the movie finished. It just felt a little lacking.

However, the Totalitarian Blueberry is both humourous and likeable, and although it does not quite reach the standards of Liquid Sunshine or Bruised, you would be hard-pressed not to like it to some extent, whether if it is the dialogue, the general concept, or seeing v3dmm's potential. Yes, v3dmm. Without it, The Totalitarian Blueberry would not work as well, without the black and white visuals, and it is safe to say that v3dmm opens up so much potential, waiting to be explored. I am sure I am not the only one when I say that I welcome any new and innovational movie aided by v3dmm. This movie was a small, but tasty treat, and this has made me look forward to future Wisdom Tooth episodes even more, as Warren has already clearly shown that he can find great ways of utilising v3dmm.

Score: 68/100

[Warren Wagner]

Thanks man, I always love your reviews.