Reviews

I don't need to go into any expressive detail here, others have already done that. The problems with the story, with the idea, with the meaning of things. They'll be argued forever.

The one thing I can hope is that those who ask simple questions like "Ling Lun is flute player from Ancient China and she's a myth." then search for Flautists and find Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson like I have today. (holy heII, amazing!)

Or the whole prehistoric Grom, do the same and find John Bonham or Neal Peart

And ask yourself why make two of the figures to save the universe fictional women.

Because ....look at the title of this review

Supernatural has been one of the staples of my viewing pleasure for well over a decade now and I am very big fan of the series.

And I wish I could give it a full 10/10.

But I can't

There's a simple reason for this, one that all fans of the show will agree is a thing and will be a point of contention for whether they agree with me or not.

For almost the entire series, there have been the exact same plot contrivances that happen and it gets boring after a while with the amount of times you see it.

I'm not talking about the fun goofy episodes or the experimental episodes, those are part and parcel of a sci-fi/fantasy action drama and I love the detours we see from a main plot to monster of the week to slapstick.

What bothers me is this. Every season we start with a massive issue. That gets solved within the first 3 episodes.

Then we have a rising tension between Sam and Dean (or others) and they go off on their own. That lasts 1 or maybe 2 episodes before everything is back to normal.

And every season.(except the first one) we see a main cast member inexplicably die. Be it Sam, Dean, Cas, Bobby, Charlie, or any of the cast. They die And are always eventually brought back.

I can take the series doing this occasionally, hell even referencing it in-universe with Sam and Dean at some point is fine to me, its self-referential humour.

But eventually, when you see a character disappear its going to be one of three things 1. oh they're on a solo mission in an upcoming episode 2. oh the actor/actress is taking a break for personal reasons 3. they will be back in a season or 2.

The stakes get to be so milktoast eventually that you roll your eyes at the deaths or sacrifices.

Supernatural has been and still is a decent show, with excellent acting and writing on the vast majority of points. It just is weighed down by the same-y plots and lukewarm risks.

The reason why this last season seems to be doing things a little better in my eyes is the definite ticking clock and knowing that this'll be the end. And that while they did the same freaking plot with the closing the gates to hell and the sacrifice.

I do feel like they're building to something very different in the end.

But who knows, they might just have a Jack and Chuck fight where Jack erases everything and remakes it with Sam and Dean being at peace finally. You know, really pull the rug of the meaning of the series out from under us, invalidating everything we've seen up to now.

The level of insult, disrespect, hubris and arrogance the writers of the worst of the CW DCverse have shown in this episode of what is supposed to be a coming together of hereos in a massive multiverse baffles me beyond belief.

Not only are spitting in the eyes of fans of a series that lasted a decade and was more faithful to the source material than anything the CW DC multiverse ever has even tried to be, but to try and make the strong and powerful woman who is seen as a horrible person in-universe and as an actress...

You turn what has been seen as the universally recognised symbol of the best portrayal of Batman in any version ever

Into a cynical, megalomaniacal despot who wants all life everywhere to end.

There is no way this was greenlit not knowing what the reaction would be and what the plans to try and spin the reaction would be.

No

Anything that sings the praises of this abortion of a storyline is never to be trusted at all.

Again Check their reviews, if there aren't any others or if they're all suspiciously positive

BOT

Do Not Trust Them.

Like with my previous review, this film does things beautifully, it improves animation and look to jaw-droppingly amazing points and the voice acting is on point in both the Japanese and English versions. There's little to complain about and it should be enjoyed for what it is.

But like with my points about the previous movie, we have to see this from the point of view of a neutral or stranger to Anime and plonking a person who has no knowledge of Madoka or the series would find it hard to understand why Homura is fighting so hard for Madoka, as there's limitations to the character development with this being a 109 minute adaption of the last part of the series.

What also doesn't help is that this is a part 2 of the same story as we saw in part 1. If a stranger were seeing this and things pick up immediately after the death of Sayaka, they would be very confused by whats going on and its understandable why. I personally think parts 1 and 2 should have been given a 160 run time to get a full story being told for the parts of the story, but I get why Shaft did what they did, Madoka was - and still is - a very popular series and people would go to the cinema to see each part, so it would make more financial sense to break this into 2 movies and have it get more money.

But because of that, the film suffers a little bit, its still entirely decent and a classic Anime feature that anyone who loves love stories and the fate of the world should watch. it just doesn't get a full 10/10 on this one, even from a weeb perspective.

As a feature length version of the anime series seen a year previously, the movie hits all the points that it needs, it has a vastly improved animation and art budget, but with it taking a third of the series and compressing that all into a shorter run time, there's going to be a serious amount of character development that is missing or lost.

I understand that this is not suited for the regular viewer or the casual viewer, that the vast majority of the audience watching this are going to be the type who have already seen this series and want to see it in a feature. But I do have to judge this based off of the idea of a non-anime fan watching this for the first time.

And while every beat is hit, the character interaction and understanding of why Kyoko and Sakura and Sakura's breakdown into a Witch is somewhat rushed and might have an outsider taken out of the movie for that and other scenes.

For an anime fan who loves the Shaft style artistry and gorgeous colours, its a definite 10/10 on everything, for those outside it, they will lower the vote depending on what they value more in a story. That's the only reason I put it as a 9/10.

There's a lot I could say about the latest installment of the Cyberman run in who, a lot I wish I could say without coming off as insulting. This isn't a great episode, not by a long shot, and what is good is mired inside a lot of rubbish, take the underdeveloped plot of the Emperor, who was Porridge and other than the tiny little bit of him not wanting the responsibility of ruling? I don't mind the secondary and background characters that much, they were mostly there as Red Shirts to die, but some of them were problematic to say the least, killing of the Captain so early on was a mistake in my book, I would have preferred something like Ha-Ha taking centre stage at being the serious leader when the dogmatic and regimental Captain can't, but that's just me. I don't know how this happened really, other than internal meddling or too much responsibility handed to Gaiman, everyone can have a stinker every now and again. I love the new design of the Cybermen, they finally look more than the Cybers industry replicas we've seen since the revival. The short amount of internal dialogue between "Mr.Clever" and The Doctor were wonderful, seeing Matt Smith play off himself as he does two different characters was great.

Yet what I can' stand about Who is the terrible use of children in episodes. I know that certain episodes like to show things from a child's point of view. But why? Why oh why do we always have to get young actors who can't act? Merry Gejelh was a beautiful ray of sunshine for me in Rings of Akhaten, for the black cloud that hangs over this season is Angie and Artie are possibly the most annoying characters who has had since Adric, and that includes the whole Tyler family.

And the argument that probably has to come up eventually is the Cyberman-Borg comparison as they've taken a lot of the Borg characteristics on in this, I don't mind that much as the Cybermen were around a long time before the Borg, but some will complain.

I've argued against the consensus that Hideaki Anno hate's his fans before, I've tried to say that just because he feels the need to change some things and dislikes rabid Evatards, it's not reason to think him wrong. This movie has changed my opinion of him.

I'll say this first off, you want to change continuity in a story, fine. It's your work, you can do whatever the hell you want with it, whether it's a good thing or not, we've seen that with some of the best sci-fi epics in the last 40 years.

But don't expect to write utter rubbish and not be called out for it.

A lot has been said on the depression that Anno went through in the writing process of the Eva TV series and how it's effected his story structure, you can see it around the mid-point of the series changing gears at a horrible rate, if I'm honest, this movie shows that he needs someone to rein him in, there have been changes to story structure(I mean 14 years of character destruction just because he wanted it) additions and retcons.

This movie is a mess, from start to finish there seems to be no reason for it, nothing really happens in this other than build-up for the final movie. We've had major reset buttons being hit for major characters, we've had horrible, disgusting plot conveniences of no-aging for the Eva pilots without anything substantial being shown for them and the burden of spending 14 years in an adolescent's body (you know, the whole tortured Claudia style character). A major character was introduced just to be killed off, without any major development! AGAIN! I could let Anno off in the series, he'd come up with a brilliant idea, but the money was running out and he had to cut and paste together a quick resolution to probably the most important character interaction for Shinji. But doing this. After Two Films of build up, with a full movie to show just the blossoming friendship and possible love between a young man and an alien in the guise of a young man. This is unforgivable, I can't forgive a horrid mess of this mistake, Anno had the chance to give us what he'd complained so much about before. And he gives us the same basic thing, no character development, a choice to kill or not to kill and a breakdown of a Human mind.

Like I said before, if you want to change continuity then that's perfectly fine, I don't mind that. Lucas and Roddenberry both did the same with their stories(with a sliding scale of success). Now I know he'd already changed a lot of stuff in continuity by the second movie, but doing this is idiotic, he's changed continuity within his own movie series, while it's still running. You don't DO that. Breaking continuity while you are still telling the story doesn't work, saying something like: "billy went to the supermarket and picked up dry cleaning from the laundromat for his new book, then on his way home, Jenny found a £1000 and was evicted from her home because she was flat broke" yes there's a story there, but it doesn't make a lick of sense.

In essence, that is what he has done here, taking a story structure of "there was the First Impact 65million years ago, Humans came, then Second Impact came with Adam and brought the Angels, a union between Adam and Lilth will bring Third Impact, causing the end of the world." And stating now "Whoa, what are you saying, Third Impact is just a step along to the Apocalypse of Fourth Impact, didn't I mention that before?" If you'd stated that Third Impact was the end of the world, then stick to that and show a world in Purgatory for the third movie, you know because Kaworu stopped it at the end of the second movie. That could work, 14 years of a living purgatory would harden anyone, even people like Misato. So you can create a sacrificial Saviour of Shinji for the Fourth movie, you know like you're planning to do anyway.

The visuals are the only major tent pole holding this film up, because that're amazing as usual, but as for the rest, it's terrible.

The story is crap. It's a reason to turn away from the Rebuild series, I'll still see the final movie, mainly because I'm in too deep now and just have to hold my nose and swim through, if I'd fallen in on this just now, I'd have been easily able to give it up.

The only bright point is that I've got the full series limited addition boxset on my shelf and all the movies, that's enough for me and even though it's ending is as convoluted as this one is currently, I'm more willing to forgive that than this. Hideaki Anno hasn't impressed me with this sharp right turn, can his final movie change my opinion. I seriously doubt it.