Midgarmerc Reviews

Cloverfield (2008)

The First Great Monster Film of the Century

[9/10 · 18 January 2008]

If you haven't heard by now Cloverfield is a film about a giant monster attacking Manhattan all seen through the perspective of a 20-something's hand-held camera. The film has been hyped for months via viral marketing, JJ Abrams fan boys, and media coverage/ monster speculation. Did it live up to the hype? The answer is OH GOD YES Cloverfield is by far the most intense monster film I have ever seen in my lifetime, after the initial 15 minutes of character introduction and whatnot the film does not go 5 minutes without a HOLY CRAP moment. Constantly driving you to the edge of your seat at every turn and it really pulls no punches, I was surprised to learn it was rated PG13. Now the film is entirely filmed in shaky cam since you cant really survive a monster attack pushing a trolley around and it just works, you may get motion sickness though so be warned. The camera itself becomes a character of the film as it IS the viewer making everything happening on-screen more and more realistic. Now the acting is amateur but thats for the best considering that the film would have made no sense if they had used big name actors/actresses, the characters are not that deep either and mostly serve as fodder, comic relief, moral guidance, panic, commentary, puzzlement, a little bit of annoyance, in other words they're people surviving a monster attack. The presentation is brilliant, the only music heard is in the party and at the ending credits and the special effects are some of the most seamless stuff you'll ever see in a film. The monster itself is actually not seen in its entirety only being viewed from different angles for the audience to piece it together as the survivors themselves are, you pretty much know as much as they do about everything going on making you actually feel like you're there. Critics compare the film to Blair Witch meets Godzilla but it is so much more than that, Cloverfield is the definitive American Monster Film, best if seen on the opening weekend just to hear the audience's reactions not to mention the presentation is far greater on the big screen, watch it again to see the things you missed or just to enjoy the ride again, admittedly the shock value will wane with multiple viewings but for what it's worth Cloverfield is an excellent piece of film and special effect engineering and is the first great monster film of the millennium. Its also downright scary at parts. 8/10

Ratatouille (2007)

Pixar's done it again

[10/10 · 6 July 2007]

You know Pixar has never disappointed me. I've loved everything they've made and I've always thought them to be the current gods of animation. Last year they brought us Cars which was great but did not really give me the same Pixar feel. By that I mean that out of all Pixar films Cars was my least favorite with The Incredibles being my top favorite. Pixar movies are always a treat and this year's slice of cake is Ratatouille (thats rat-a-too-ee). Ratatouille is the story of a rat who teams up with a garbage boy to become the greatest chef in Paris. But I don't want to dwell in the story so lets just say its got the Pixar seal of approval.

The voice acting was all done very well considering that Linguini's voice actor is actually an animator for Pixar. You have your standard John Ratzenberger and I especially liked Peter O'Toole's role as ultra food critic Anton Ego (who was actually designed to resemble a vulture) and Patton Oswalt's portrayal of the titular character Remy the rat. In this day and age of film making there are no longer many advances in sound effects other than stuff sounding closer, further, muffled or echoy so I'll just say they were well done as well. The music captured the mood and thankfully avoided the CGI animation cliché of resorting to pop culture references and music to get a cheap laugh from the crowd (I'm looking at you Shrek).

All that stuff is great but what really had me loving this movie was the same thing that had me loving every other Pixar film which is the looks. Simply put this movie is gorgeous... no its not gorgeous is beautiful... no its gorgeously beautiful. The lighting, the reflections, the water effects, the clothes effects the textures the character expressions and looks, every tiny little thing to make this world which just so happens to be our world come alive. Another noteworthy thing to point out is the way the film exemplifies Paris to bring out it's life. There were many a time during the film when the city was seen from a vantage point to show just how beautiful it is. Therefore beautiful Pixar animation added onto the most beautiful city in the world equals nothing short of true art.

So yeah I loved the movie, but was there anything wrong with the movie? Well I can only say the movie was TOO good considering that I viewed it one week after its release and the theater was filled with people during an afternoon showing and there were kids behind me who wouldn't stop talking until their dad moved them to the front of the theater thankfully allowing me to enjoy the rest of the film.

So there was nothing wrong with the movie itself and even the Pixar short "Lifted" had me glued to the screen. 10/10 Pixar's done it again

Ikki tousen (2003– )

all "flash" no substance *mild spoilers*

[1/10 · 25 April 2007]

So many people recommended this show to me saying that it was good and full of fan service. Well me being one to enjoy the occasional fan service gave Ikki Tosen a whirl... big mistake there. Ikki Tosen is a 13 episode action anime loosely based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Chinese novel. Pretty much there's a city where all the high school students wear megatamas (earrings resembling a half of the yin yang symbol) that possess the spirit of an ancient Chinese warrior (from the novel no less). Their fates are tied with the spirit in their jewels so if the soldier died in the past its gonna happen to this kid. You see this town has a serious problem with its educational systems. first of all there are no teachers at the schools, second all the schools are constantly trying to conquer the other, and lastly every single kid is an expert fighter, oh and on that note this show is so unoriginal that they actually decided to call the kid's "destined" to fight "Fighters". So these kids end up fighting each other left and right with their apparent parental consent as seen with one of the only adults seen in the entire season. Hakufu's mother which brings us to the main character Hakufu Sonsaku who is blessed to be destined with the spirit of Sun Ce a super powerful Chinese warrior who apparently killed the current big baddie's spirit warrior long ago. God I'm done with plot summary because frankly thats about as deep as it goes, afterwards people fight panties are shown and nonsense is spoken. Ikki Tousen is a show that revolves around 2 things: Fighting and soft core porn. Heres how a fight scene will pretty much always carry out if it has a girl in it: fight for 5 seconds, invisible attack, girl loses 95% of clothes, keeps fighting, someone wins. fan service is acceptable and sometimes encouraged for comic relief but in this case it is literally used to boost the ratings up. The producers knew that this show would suck monkey nuts so they decided long before that no fight would be devoid of its excessive panty shots and covered breasts. The fights themselves are also underwhelming mostly involving random kicks, punches, and throws, anything to flip the girl upside down or get her leg up to show her rump. Then there's the other half of the episode, which involves a lot of taaaaalking and trust me this is some boring talking, why? because they talk about the story plot which doesn't make any sense and is just stuck up its own poop shoot to realize it. Then there's that one green haired girl who is a bad guy sort of. OK she is the epitome of an anime slut and thats an understatement. she has sex with just about everyone making her not very likable already but the director decided to give her emotions all of a sudden. This is the girl that paralyzed the side-kick girl and then proceeded to fondling her underparts then had sex with the guy she was keeping captive, beat him up had sex with the main bad guy went back to the prisoner guy and then had sex with her lackey then her lackey gets offed and then she sacrifices herself... so we're supposed to feel what exactly for this character? Then there's the utterly useless cousin of Hakufu he says his job is to protect her and some characters say hes stronger than he looks but in actuality he loses just about every match he fights in. O speaking of matches this show's second half degrades itself into a tournament anime show (you know? fight after fight leading up to big boss man) and lo and behold something happens to distract the main character from the tournament (just like DBZ or G Gundam or Naruto chunnin exam arc). The point I'm trying to make here is that this show is bad, like Kappa Mikey bad like Bobobo bad except it isn't trying to be funny. The characters are cardboard cutouts (i.e. the main character is a ditsy hot anime girl who has spontaneous brain farts of wisdom) the story is terrible (we've already see the Romance of the 3 Kingdoms plot in all 868 Dynasty Warrior games), not even the intro or closing music/credits are good. The dub is also bad, although Hakufu's dub made me giggle a bit. There is a 2nd season currently but don't hold your breath, the first season ended with only a few incoherent questions about the future. God I hated this show, the worst part is that I actually waited 13 episodes for something even remotely interesting to happen but I never saw it. This show is bad bad bad BAD! 1/10 I sleep now

Kappa Mikey (2006–2008)

Mikey's come to town, from the USA straight to rubbage

[1/10 · 4 March 2007]

the show is great!

if you're 8 years old and an idiot First off Kappa Mikey is NOT the first show to parody anime publicly watch Excel Saga or Pani Poni Dash (they're anime too but at least they're ENJOYABLE) secondly, even though its a parody its still a BAD parody, the cultural references are borderline racist and just plain unfunny. The animation has no excuse for its amount of suck, "ITS A FLASH CARTOON!!" yeah that would be fine if the show were on Newgrounds but no its a Nicktoon and therefore has the resources to deliver solid animation. Avatar The Last Airbender did it so Kappa Mikey can too. Anime is known for a certain number of criteria which are: outstanding animation, interesting characters, good sound-effects, etc. etc. all the things that go into a good show. Now there are also a lot of sub-categories in anime like: parody, romance, romance-comedy, comedy, action, sci-fi, mecha, etc. now go ahead and tell me which category Kappa Mikey parodies? ... ... thats correct, Kappa Mikey fails to successfully parody ANYTHING

with this taken into consideration one can come to a couple of solutions either A) Kappa Mikey is a terrible excuse for a fake-anime and deserves to be destroyed or B) Kappa Mikey is NOT a parody of anime and is in fact just a border-line racist look on Japanese culture and people with terrible writing, acting, animation, music, or any other form of creativity

I guarantee that one of you will ask "why come to IMDb and comment about a show you hate just to express how much you hate it?" simple, its because I cant stand idiots who think shows like Kappa Mikey and Bo-Bo-Bo Bobobo are 8 stars out of 10 quality

although I give Bobobo credit for actually being a BETTER parody although being better than unholy crap isn't saying much

12 oz. Mouse (2005–2020)

now if you excuse me I'll be over here watching something good

[1/10 · 14 August 2006]

right off the bat I figured this show wouldn't be good but I was too lazy to change the channel so I stuck around and gave it the benefit f the doubt... boy was I mistaken. what that led to was the worst 12 minutes of my life, I tried to find any glimmer of humor in this show, I really did but this is a dry dead wasteland of comedy. I'm glad this show only lasted one season and if it comes back I'll grab my torch to send this foul beast back into the abyss. but I digress the pros to this show are... well they're... the characters are... the mouse is green, sure lets go with that. the cons? everything else! this is by far the worst show ever put on television, the animation looks like somebody made a stick figure on MS paint and crapped it out then burnt it alive and pee'd out the fires. the acting is uninspired as the actors just sluggishly say the most incoherent rubbish imaginable heres a line shark thing- "are you drunk?" mouse guy-"..............not drunk enough" then there's complete silence. seriously I'd rather watch Minoriteam than this. the music? well there's some generic metal or something in the opening then its just dead silence for the rest of the episodes. I don't give a damn if the squirrel has a machine gun, rocket car, stripper, it doesn't matter if the show isn't funny. Adult Swim seriously needs to stick to the 3rd party stuff because more than half of their own programming blows... except Home Movies, Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law, Venture Bros, and... thats about it. stay away from this show

Superman Returns (2006)

jaw dropping and earth shattering (spoiler-free)

[10/10 · 2 July 2006]

I knew I was in for a treat when the original Superman theme (composed by John Williams) started playing after some text explaining Superman's being on Earth. I went in to the theater with some high expectations and left the theater gitty as a Japanese 16 year old school-girl at a kawaii convention. The film far surpassed all expectations I had for it and converted me into a Superman fan. There are those who dislike Superman because of his so-called "overpowered traits." While it is true that he is invincible to anything but kryptonite, can fly, is faster than a speeding bullet, has freeze breath, heat vision, super strength, super hearing, x-ray vision, so on so-forth it is good to point out that Superman is Super-man, hence he's an all around powerful superhero. However that is not to say he doesn't have faults i.e. becomes useless when in contact with kryptonite, has the stupidest secret identity ever, and is a little overpowered. The fact is that Superman isn't a combat hero, he's a savior of the people, if he spent all his time fighting villains there wouldn't be time to save other people. Though he does have his share of villains, take Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) Superman's nemesis, the Joker to his Batman. Luthor wants to take over the world by producing SOMETHING that people would want and Superman has to stop that. The Story begins with Clark (Brandon Routh) coming back from searching for Krypton which scientist believed had been found. Superman comes back and makes a humongous splash back into fame. Afterwards he is back to juggling between saving people, Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) (who also changed in the time Superman was gone (5 years)) Something weird is going on in Metropolis and even on the entire East Coast and Superman has to stop it, there's the story in a nutshell, a spoiler-free nutshell) The Cast, I thought, was excellent. As far as acting talent the cast pulls off the proper tones with no emotional screw-ups, slurs, awkwardness etc. my only problem being that Kal Penn from "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle" is one of Lex's henchmen and simply doesn't seem the type what-so-ever, however that look of confusion followed by his having no lines gives some comic relief allowing smart puns to be delivered by Lex and his female assistant/henchwoman Kitty. Lois feels pretty good as Lois, Superman is great as Superman simply because of the drastic change between clumsy dorky Clark Kent and heroic Superman, Kevin Spacey does a fantastic Luthor and leads you to actually feel that Lex is sadistic as a psychotic power hungry businessman can be. The musical score is composed by two composers, John Williams and John Ottman, Williams provides the absolutely stunning Superman theme that plays several times during the movie and Ottman provides the rest of the score which is also very well composed and all orchestral. Sound effects are spot on as rocks crumble in the distance and grow fainter or louder depending on distance. Summary is that if you're in the mood for something thats action but not all fighting and still has a solid story then go watch Superman. If you're waiting for the one Summer blockbuster to watch go see Superman. If you think all Superhero movies stink and this one is no exception go see Superman. It will keep you at the edge of your chair until the closing credits roll

Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (2003–2005)

its not Excel Saga

[1/10 · 17 June 2006]

...really if I could summarize Bobobo-Bo-bo-bobo in a few words I would say... biggest pile of random rubbish ever manifested. Since the beginning of my existence I have had a passion for Japanese animation, I've seen much of what can be seen in anime and usually enjoyed it. A very common thing in anime is the bizarre inhuman scenario and many times the bizarre part turns into insanity. By insanity I mean the show doesn't make any freaking sense but instead tries to be funny. The series goes from possible story to spontaneous explosions of randomness. Such is the case in Bobobo in which the show tries to be funny by having random things happening ALL of the time... and I mean ALL of the time, so much so that the show becomes incomprehensible, unfunny, unrelentingly abysmal that the fact that its random anime doesn't help it from becoming a piece of nonsense. Let me elaborate, Bobobo attempts to appeal to kid audiences by having multiple fart jokes and cheap puns over and over again. For example, they're fighting someone and then the main character will do something idiotic/homosexual the attack (if it is an attack) will then be blocked by the even more random enemy and then the female character will pop out of the side with the same EXACT face she had the last time she was shocked and say something like "THATS YOUR MASTER PLAN!?!?" in the exact same tone of voice that she had the lst thousand times she did it in the same episode. Sometimes the story will just completely stop and it will go to some random side story about something random that has no humor in it and no merit to the story. This is by far the worst form of storytelling ever conceived, there's nothing worse than when anime attempts to cash in by having spontaneous randomness, fan service, mindless action, or cute characters. Mind you that is not to say that there haven't been great anime that fall into those territories. FLCL and Excel Saga are incredibly random but they have humor because they have a plot, stick with a blend of surreal down-to-earth behaviors and actions, and are funny still. DBZ was mindless action but it was still decent and had a decent story (up until Cell). And I cannot even begin to name all the anime that were good but have fan-service. As for the cute characters, Azumanga Daioh has the cutest characters ever drawn and its one of the best anime ever. Though you might hear it a lot this time its true, the English dub is horrendous in Bobobo, loud, untalented, and annoying. The sound consists mostly of explosions, and other assorted amounts of random sounds. The animation is the cliché Japanese animation adding nothing new to the roster other than a talking sun thing and a blue gumbi. I just cant recommend anything about this anime to ANYBODY, Adults will hate it for its childish demeanor, Teens will hate it for its pointless jokes, Kids will hate it for its not being funny. In fact, I guarantee that if you let a child watch this show you will damage his/her brain for life. If this ever comes out on DVD I suggest you go to your local Best Buy and kick anybody who buys it... no wait then you'd actually be acknowledging it's existence. stay away from this piece of rubbish 1/10 Abysmal