L8ton-Rocks Reviews

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)

Aardman's first bad movie and so far their worst one

[3/10 · 3 March 2024]

After rewatching this movie, it was so much worse than I thought. Just a genuine question: Why would anyone watch this movie when it's nearly the same plot as the first one except this time they're breaking in? Now I'm not gonna explain every negative but I will explain the ones that bugged me the most.

The plot is pretty much the equivalent to The Little Mermaid 2. Molly wants to go to the other side but Ginger refuses cause of what happened in the last movie and doesn't bother to explain why. Not to mention that Rocky is also responsible for telling Molly about his "Loan Free Ranger" days which motivates her to go out and explore. So then Molly meets another chicken named Frizzle and gets transported to Fun Land Farms. Speaking of which, the original Chicken Run was supposed to take place around the early 1940's and this movie is supposed to take place at least 8+ years after the original. So do you honestly expect me to believe that they would have such advanced technology in the 50's?

Most of the characters are just bad compared to the original. Ginger has been reduced to an overprotective mother and has been mercilessly character assassinated. There was one moment in the movie that completely goes against her motives from the original. Rocky has been reduced to a punching bag throughout the entire movie. I'm just sick of sequels treating their old characters like trash in order for the new ones to shine. Molly is just not that interesting of a character. Frizzle is completely wasted due to her being mind controlled for a good chunk of the movie. Fowler has now been one noted to talking to a snail for a big chunk of the movie and adds nothing to the plot. But then there's Mrs. Tweedy... For starters they never explain how she survived almost being boiled alive by gravy and crushed by a door in the last movie. Second of all her motives are pin point identical to the last movie aka "Running an evil food business for her own needs". And finally she's just not as cool as she was in the original. They even repeat the "Bye Bye" scene except it's just lame and not as satisfying.

The only good or at least decent characters in this movie were Babs, Nick, Fletcher and Dr Fry. Babs pretty much stayed the same and is actually more funny in this movie with her having more jokes. Nick and Fletcher were alright and Dr Fry is a decent equivalent to Mr. Tweedy.

Just like with most bad sequels there are way too many conveniences and contrivances that get characters out of trouble. Like the sun light being exactly where it needed to be to light the firework and the missing string so Molly could escape the room.

The climax is just lame compared to the pie machine scene and the plane climax from the original.

The only redeeming factors of this movie is the brilliant stop motion animation, a few funny jokes, the "My Sweet Baby" song, whenever Babs is on screen and a couple decent scenes.

But like I said, this movie is still awful. It's just a shame since Aardman has made a lot of amazing movies so I guess you could call Dawn of the Nugget their first bad movie. Just go watch the original instead.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle (2017 Video Game)

The crossover we didn't ask for, but needed.

[9/10 · 12 February 2024]

After almost 7 years since its release it still holds up to this day. Although it isn't perfect, it's still a great game and I highly recommend it. The puzzles are really well crafted, Most of characters are fun to use during battle, each boss (Except for the last 2) are difficult but great, The comedy works really well for a Rabbids game, The music is amazing just like any other Mario game and the story is super endearing.

The DK adventure mode is also just as good as the base game with new enemies, new characters and new level objectives so that it wouldn't be too identical to the base game and makes you feel like you're playing an in between sequel.

Not to mention that there's just a bunch of content either just by base game or DLC in general.

I highly recommend you play this game if you haven't already. It always goes on sale on the E-shop so if you're interested on getting the game that's when I recommend doing it.

The Cuphead Show! (2022)

A show that was brilliant at first but got worse and worse.

[5/10 · 15 January 2024]

So I'm gonna basically review the seasons as a whole here:

Season 1 was absolutely phenomenal, it had a well good introduction to the characters, The animation was where it was at its best, Each episode felt great with only 2 weak ones and the music was so well orchestrated. Easily the best season. 9/10

Season 2 was okay, The first 6 episodes were good but the rest were just awful, Cuphead was more unlikable then ever just for his rushed character development later on. It's also the home to the best episode (High Seas Adventure) and one of the worst episodes. (Lost In The Woods) the season was still fine but not the best. 6/10

Season 3 was easily the worst one, it just had too much of The Devil in there and mercilessly character assassinated him, turning him from a threatening villain to an absolute joke. The episodes were boring and some of the worst in the whole series with only one being a 5/10, Holiday Tree-dition) There were no new boss characters and especially no boss from the Cuphead DLC, The Devil Christmas special did not need to be over 30 minutes long, Special Delivery is by far the worst episode in the show, Joyride had no plot to it at all and is the definition of filler, relies on reused music, reused scenes and reused lines for I think is supposed to be nostalgia pandering or whatever and the final episode and the (Rock, Paper, Scissors) climax was not satisfying in the slightest. Oh and during the last minute it reckons the game and completely nukes the series and the overall timeline and we never even got any confirmation on whether this was supposed to be a prequel to the games or an entirely different thing. But whether it's the same or not, it was still awful. 3/10

After watching season 3, I don't even know if I even want a season 4. Because either they could make season 4 and try and fix the damage that season 3 had on the Cuphead show or there's nowhere else to go here it's all just ruined and just no reason to make a season 4.

So I'm gonna give the overall show a score of 5.5/10.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)

A game adaptation that's on par with the original

[8/10 · 31 December 2023]

This Movie is on par with the original. The character's are just as good, the visuals got a slight upgrade and there are a few rememberable moments. Although there were somethings that made me give it the same rating as the first one. I'm not going to name them all BTW. The wedding drama scenes could've been cut from the entire movie and nothing would've changed, like the 3 minutes after sonic arrives at the wedding and the 3 minutes of Rachael confronting Randy is just 6 minutes of filler and should've been cut. I also wished that Tom/Donut Lord and Maddie/Pretzel Lady would have more of a prominent role. But aside from those things this was a solid sequel that's on par with the original

Verdict: 8/10.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

A great video game adaptation

[8/10 · 31 December 2023]

After over 3 years of its release, it still holds up to this day. This movie definitely has that 2000's live action adaptation to it that still has a lot of stuff to do with the game. It has a lot of rememberable moments, great casting and great visuals. I also like how the humans actually do stuff unlike other live action adaptations where they're just there to be an NPC for 80% of the movie. And yes, Tom/Donut Lord and Dr Robotnik were some of the best characters in the movie. It has no unnecessary filler which makes this even more enjoyable. I highly recommend this if you're a sonic fan

Verdict: 8/10.

The Amazing Digital Circus (2023– )

The Amazing Digital Circus really is *Amazing*

[10/10 · 8 December 2023]

The perfect thing to watch if you're an animation fan and want something new. The show has heavy lore within' the pilot

. The characters are an easy 10/10 for me. They all have some of the most personality I've seen in an indie animation series with my favourites being Caine, Jax, Gangle and Pomni, the rest of the characters are brilliant too, the voice actors killed it with their roles. And I'm hoping that they can still introduce Kaufmo in some way despite being abstracted.

I love the comedic moments, most of them got a pretty good laugh out of me. Most of the comedic moments mainly came from Caine. Hence why he's my favourite character.

Anyway I am hyped for what they're gonna do with the series in the future.

Verdict: (So far) 10/10.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Christmas: Cabin Fever (2023)

The best animated wimpy kid movie yet

[8/10 · 8 December 2023]

I'm just gonna say that this was the best wimpy kid animated movie yet. I usually look forward to these wimpy kid animated movie's each year, and this did not disappoint at all. I loved Greg's character development, the thrilling moments and pretty much nearly everything. And I didn't mind the recasting on the characters. And the animation is slowly getting better and better within' each movie. Now obviously it's not perfect but it's good enough. I highly recommend this if you're getting trying to get into the Christmas spirit and I'm hoping that each Wimpy kid movie will get better and better year after year.

Verdict: 8/10.

Adventure Mode (2023– )

An attempt to replace Fazbear & Friends, but could potentially be a good series

[5/10 · 1 December 2023]

The following review is based on my personal opinions, you can disagree if you must.

So a few months after Fazbear & Friends ended, we eventually got the Purple Girl music video, one month later ZAMination announced a new indie animated Minecraft series called "Adventure mode!" Now there's not much to say on this series due to there only being one episode that's 12 minutes long. But I've still got quite a few things to say about this.

The Comedy/Humour is almost identical to Fazbear & Friends, if not executed worse. I guess there can be a few jokes that can be funny. But most of the jokes are way too similar to Fazbear & Friends that it kinda makes you wonder "If they wanted to make/continue a Minecraft series then why not just continue FB&F?" But I'm guessing they wanted to move on from the series due to past controversies, which is kind of understandable. And I know that this series is made by the same people, but I feel like there should be different humour to make this series stand out.

The characters are too similar to the main 4 of Fazbear & Friends. Bubbles and Dr Bonehead are basically just discount Bonnie & Foxy. And as much as I like Stiffany, she's no Chica or Circus Baby. Norman is the typical "New member of the gang" character that's been done to death before. Circus Baby in episode 4 pulled off the "new member of the gang" trope way better in my opinion. And Meep doesn't really fit in with the rest of the gang. It only says one thing which is "Oouuuaaa, aaauuuuuu" and it's a 3D cel shaded model instead of a Minecraft model like the rest of the characters. I feel like meep should've been a Minecraft model instead of a 3D cel shaded model. Honestly my critique with Meep was more of a nit pick.

Now you may notice that in the animation, the characters are seen with lines and circles with certain shots and movements. It kind of looks like they're taking a Spider-Verse approach, which in my opinion doesn't really look appealing.

And this is just me, but I feel like some things are just happening way too quickly on screen, some of the humour is usually fast paced and some scenes with movements are way to quick. Like the scene where Norman tries to get meep, too many things are happening on screen with the pistons and Norman flying all over the place.

But by far my biggest critique with this is how it made "The End of FB&F" kinda pointless, cause the whole purpose of that finale was that they were gonna go back to making music videos and for them to make adventure mode kind of feels like a borderline replacement for Fazbear & Friends. But to be fair, this series has only just started and there are more episodes to come and to be fair, the pilot wasn't all bad. So hopefully the series will still be good despite it being a replacement for Fazbear & Friends.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

A video game adaptation that could've been a lot better

[7/10 · 29 November 2023]

After almost a whole year since this movie came out, does it hold up well? Kinda. This is a fine video game adaptation, but I just think it could've been a lot better.

So the plot is pretty much your standard origin story. The movie begins with Bowser stealing the Power Star to which is later revealed to be used to force Peach into marrying him. Eventually Mario and Luigi discover a pipe while trying to stop a flood in Brooklyn. Then the two of them get separated. Mario goes to The Mushroom Kingdom and meets Toad while Luigi ends up in the Dark lands. One scene with Peach later she trains Mario for when they have to seek out the kong army. So yeah the plot is pretty simple. It's filled with a ton of great scenes whether it's action packed or to take a breather. Although, with everything going at a lightning fast pace due to the short runtime, it makes it hard to simply enjoy it or take a breather. A longer runtime for a movie based on Mario is something that should desperately be needed.

Now I'm gonna talk about the characters in which some of them are my biggest problems with in this movie.

Mario is a fine protagonist. Although what I don't like about him is how he's a punching bag throughout most of the movie. But by far the worst thing about him is that he doesn't really feel like the main character even though he's the title character.

You'd think that Peach not being much in the games mean that she would be much better in this movie, right? Nope, sadly not. Princess Peach is just another one of those characters who's made out to be perfect in every way, has absolutely no flaws and exist just to make the main character look worse. Peach was also condescending and a jerk to Mario in this movie (not by much) like overhead slamming him, size shaming him, forcing a mushroom down his throat and announcing that he's not important. Peach is pretty much treated as if she's the main character when she clearly isn't supposed to be and she takes up around 50% of the movie. I completely understand why people would like her, but personally I can't stand her.

Despite Luigi being a great character he's just completely sidelined in this movie. So there's not much to talk about him other than he should've gotten way more screen time. This is another reason on why the runtime should've been longer.

Bowser was the best character in this movie despite the motives being copied from Mario Odyssey.

Toad was a great character and unlike most comic relief characters he actually contributes in the story. Although he was kind of a plot device in the 3rd act with the whole ice flower thing.

Donkey Kong was just insufferable in this movie. He's just salty ever since he lost the fight and never changes once over the story. It would've been really nice if the "swallowed by the Eel" scene if we actually see Mario and DK bond or at least have a truce when they talk about how their fathers think they're a joke. It would've been a nice act of character development from both of them. But nope, we just had to have DK be salty to the point where he's just not enjoyable.

The side characters (except for Spike) and Charles Martinet's cameos were also really good.

But then there's Lumalee. The most pointless character in this entire movie. He has one gag of him constantly saying death and depressing jokes and it's never funny. I guess he was supposed to fill in the role as "the comic relief" character. But here's the thing, we already have Toad for that. Like Luigi, Lumalee is barely shown on screen so there's not much to talk about him. Well, except for all the stuff I just said.

Now I'm gonna talk about some other positives and negatives.

The animation looks absolutely stunning and a nice change from the overused Despicable Me art style. The music score is perfect. (Except for all the licensed music) There's a lot of neat references to catch onto. I consider scenes like the Dry Bones chase and the Mario Kart scene to be the best in this movie. The chemistry between Mario and Luigi was endearing. The Mushroom Kingdom in this movie is by far the best iteration of it. The locations are beautiful to look at even though we barely spend any time with them. The Peaches song is just annoying in my opinion. All the scenes with Lumalee were filler. The climax is way too similar to the one in Sonic 2020. There was little to no character arcs or development. The movie in general felt kind of rushed and the last post credit scene wasn't all that revealing or shocking.

And here are a couple of nitpicks I personally had. Peach and DK using the fire and ice flower when Mario and Luigi didn't and the fact that they can just blow out a fire flower when that was never something in the games. So does this mean you can blow out an ice flower? Would it defrost it?

This movie had a lot of potential to be outstanding. It's still good, but I wished it could've been better. Let's hope the sequel will be a huge step up.

Nimona (2023)

This movie really is "Metal!"

[9/10 · 28 November 2023]

This movie is a masterpiece! Most of the twists and turns actually shocked me the first time I watched this, the comedy is golden, the 3D animation is some of the best I've seen, the character's are so well written, the story is fantastic and the ending where Ballister almost swears after nimona's revival is a fantastic way to end the movie. It reminded me of Spider-Man homecoming cause of the cut-off swear before the credits.

This and Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio are some of Netflix's best animated movies and I hope we get more quality animated Netflix movie's like this in the future

Verdict: 9.6/10.