Change Your Image
nruss78
Reviews
Fainaru fantajî II (1988)
Final Fantasy: A New Hope
Yes, this plot line is a blatant Star Wars spin off (I'd say rip off... but it only captures the essence of the world and doesn't use copies of the characters seen in the movie) but the game is solid. It was fun to play and it was interesting to watch somewhat... (I loved having one of my main characters as a villain at one part) but great this game is not. Unless you have an extreme amount of patience or a lot of free time you will spend a long, long, gruelingly long time just leveling up your characters to adequacy. The idea of a more realistic battle system for use in turn based combat was an excellently cool and fun idea in appearance... but actual application left me board after the first few battles. Look, if I wanted to train my hands to be able to hit something harder I'll do it in a gym and not in a video game I play for fun and relaxation. Yes, this game rocked... but it wasn't infallibly rocking.
Fainaru fantajî (1987)
Excellence
This game was brilliant back then and has only gotten more brilliant with Origins and (hopefully) the new GBA game with it's extra dungeons and new enemies. It's the perfect role-playing game where you actually play out a role and chose your own path. You can go one place or you can go another. You can use these weapons or those, it's just amazing... Although I have to admit there were a few things wrong with the original (and the sequel for the GBA) and with the PS1 port (I know there were other ones but those are the only versions I've played thus far). With the original, the targeting system was atrocious as was the shop system (granted you couldn't have them actually walking around in the shops but it's still annoying none the less). In the PS1 version it was great, fixed all the problems.... but the game came with only 1 FMV. Why not incorporate a new ending movie? That would've been so cool... and make it so that I could actually use the Bestiary! Like it's going to do me any good in a non-battle menu command, and why not make it so you could unlock a special command that restored the original game's sound track. I would've been so much happier with it if I could hear the midi music used on the NES for this. And the GBA one's just going to be too easy. I mean it's not even allowing you to choose which difficulty to play the game under. I hope that I'm wrong on this last point... I really do since I loved the original game play. Regardless though, I loved this game in all it's incarnations and am looking forward to defeating Ultros on my GBA.
The Godfather (1972)
A great movie with 2 problems
The plot line of this movie is great. I just watched this movie again and the scenes of Micheal whacking the crooked cop and the other mobster family head and the scene where the director wakes up to find his favorite horse's head and blood all over and beneath his feet still shocks and stuns me... this movie portrayed the drama of it all elegantly and I love every minute of it. Although 2 things are odd... In the beginning when the first Godfather is being begged for help I was surprised that the beggar wasn't killed off then for being so disrespectful to Don Corneioli (I hope that's how it's spelled). I mean this guy is an infamous, murderous mobster who's career started out practically with a murder (As seen in the future Godfather movie) but he'd let someone who left him disrespected alive seems so uncharacteristic of the man. And also the length of the first wedding in the movie, the very first few scenes of this film, well... was horrible, I'll not lie. At the risk of being stoned by those in love with this movie I have to say that they had achieved the desired effect after the first or second deal the Godfather made, not entirely sure which it was since the movie lasted so long but I'm pretty sure not past 2. The rest of it was very nice and all and showed how he did business (bloody and death-ridden beneath a velvety, beautiful cover) but was it really necessary to do so much of it? Would've been just as effective if it had been otherwise than it turned out to be.
Christmas Rush (2002)
It's Christmas Eve and it's painted with blood!
Yes! Another pathetic waste of my time! This movie was great for it's horrible over-use of clichéd ideas, a buddy system between the criminals that's ridiculous(all of them are either friends or family to one another), mediocre plot line that would make Ed Wood look like Orson Wells. This movie was so unbelievably bad that it mesmerized and hypnotized me... no matter if the protagonist has shot down someone to death and the victim mysteriously is able to keep living later on in the film. Yes, I loved hearing about how this criminal celebrated Kwanzaa... jees, how can such a horrible movie suck me in like that? I feel raped... Hmm... more space to fill in... let's see... ah... what do you want me to say? ah... oh look! My line's are met! Yay! Well there it is then.
King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963)
The idea that never stopped (trying to think of a cleaner word to use)
And I can come up with no better way to describe this "thing" that these Godzilla movies were in the past. Here, may I make a suggestion for the future of the series? It's really going to knock your socks off... Take Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, King Ghiddorah, Mechagodzilla, and maybe Gadzuki, and make them all wear Japanese flag colored jump suits! Give them even bigger gigantic counterpart robots they can get in and have that robot form into a super bigger counterpart of Godzilla! You can give the creatures names like "Billy" and "Kage". Anyways, after all this have the "Power Monsters" fight for truth and justice while going to high school! Try to find out why Godzilla has a crush on little Suzie in Home Room. And after all this is done add in aliens from the X Galaxy sending metallic-organic counterparts of all of the monsters that look nothing and act nothing like the beasts and have them attack Earth in an attempt to conquer it! Oh, don't forget the girl with the wire... she's so direly needed
Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)
This is the monster movie
This was the way Godzilla should always be, and the way a Godzilla film should have always been. I don't know why everyone wants to relate to this huge monster (even though this idea has spawned innumerable sequels), Godzilla should just be a monster who's out to survive and wreak havoc in it's wake. Personally here's my idea why they made all of those terrible films (and c'mon, as far as drama and horror goes every one of those movies was flat out lame.) When the original movie (from 1954) got to the part of dubbing the film and off of the monster being "Impossible to kill" the series lost it's flair. I thought personally that if they had just ended the first movie right when the reporter is finishing his story on Godzilla while recovering from the monster's wrath and ravage of Tokyo, at the moments right after Godzilla had destroyed and left Tokyo in ruins, the movie would have been a thousand times better. I mean really, why even bother having the guy with an eye patch at all? Anyways though, that's my theory on why it's terrible and why I think they should make a remake of this film in particular where there is no Oxygen Destroyer Bomb, no professor with an eye patch, more footwork on the reporter and the conflicts he faces trying to get stories out of people who's language he doesn't speak, and the movie ending with the hero reporter laying in recovery after Godzilla's rampage and Tokyo's destruction. If you use the CGI from the '98 movie and forgot all of the other Godzilla-ite monsters that the sequels have spun out on the mindset that Godzilla is the first and only monster in existence then who can't be destroyed you'd have yourself a really good movie and the reason why I think this original film from way back when is the only good Godzilla flick.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
Just a bad movie
Although I would disagree with the earlier response that the FF games were the best eve (I myself having bought a PS1 just to play FFVII mind you) I have to give the best role playing game credit to Baldur's Gate. I mean, yes sure you got to watch the movie and you get emotionally enthralled in the many scenes of the games (like when Aeris dies in FFVII) but Baldur's Gate captured the elements of role playing perfectly, allowing you to actually play a role you set up yourself and interact with other characters who have their own agendas. But onto the movie now that I've said my peace on that. FF: The Spirits Within had extraordinary eye candy but was immensely bad in every other aspect. The characters had no development that I could see, preferring to just stick to the main plot line and maybe a clichéd romance between the two main protagonists, but that's all there is. The movie's storyline is lacking much too, choosing to adopt every cliché' available for that kind of film (think Armageddon as a video game). And yah, for an FF fan, you found yourself wanting more, like all the stuff I mentioned above and also more FF references. I was surprised that it didn't include monsters that looked like Chocobos and moogles or had references to other FF games like an Auction House. And at the end of the credits it would have been a world better to be able to hear the prelude themes from the game, either one would do. Honestly speaking as a man who has collected every FF game there is for the PS1 and 2 this movie I'm never ever going to buy.