Coming down the pipeline from Anime News Network is some crazy news you likely weren’t expecting.  Tyndale House Publishers will be releasing a manga series aptly titled “Manga Bible” which will have popular Japanese manga artists retelling famous Bible stories.  Hidenoi Kumai has been announced as the author of the first volume, with Kazumi Shinozawa and Atsuko Ogawa tapped for the artwork.  Whether this turns out to be a hardcore blood-n-guts take on the Bible or, more likely, something similar to those Bible anime shows they used to run on Christian public access television in the early 90’s is anybody’s guess.

Also, is it just me, or does Jesus look a Hell of a lot like Vincent from Cowboy Bebop: the Movie?

Another video from the San Diego Comicon.  This time its of the upcoming big-budget Iron Man film.  The quality isn’t great since its from a camcorder, but it’s more than enough to get me excited.  I’m really starting to dig Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and man, the proto armor looks pretty tight.  I’ve always had a soft spot for that giant clunky tin can outfit.

And all you Sabbath fans can chill, they used the song.

The San Diego Comicon has been pretty good, so far.  Entertainment News International has promotional clips for both Transformers Animated and The Spectacular Spider-Man.  Both look exceptionally good, to me.

Transformers Animated has me hyped the most.  The animation for the show is being done by Mook Studios, better known for their work on Swat Kats and Eureka Seven.  As you can see in the clip, the animation is extremely fluid and pleasing.  The promotional image posted above has a few new faces on it, namely the Decepticons.  From left to right you can see: Starscream, Blackarachnia, Blitzwing (with an awesome Colonal Klink motif going), Lugnutz and Megatron.  For those not in the know, the Autobots featured from left to right are: Ratchet, Prowl, Optimus Prime, Bulkhead and Bumblebee.

Spectacular Spider-Man looks mighty fine, too.  The show’s head writer is Greg Weisman, better known as the creator of Disney’s Gargoyles, one of the most outstanding animated programs ever conceived, so I have high hopes for this series.  And as you can tell by the clip, there will be villains-a-plenty in this show.

I’d say that right now is a very good time to be a Transformers and Spider-Man fan.

So we’ve all seen the promo artwork for the upcoming “Transformers: Animated” television series. And I suppose the initial reaction was to be expected. People reacted this way when the designs for Transformers 2007 were released, people reacted this way when the designs and premise for Beast Wars were released in 1998, and I’m sure people reacted this way back when ideas like the Headmasters and the Pretenders were released back in 1989. But before you condemn the art design to the bowels of the Pit, try and consider other Cartoon Network shows such as Clone Wars, Samurai Jack and Teen Titans. All had simplistic character designs which looked silly in static promotional artwork, yet worked wonderfully in motion. And with a studio like Mook DLE providing the animation (you might recognize them as the studio behind X-Men Evolution, Eureka Seven and the good episodes of Swat Kats), the animation is at least guaranteed to be beautiful from a technical standpoint.

Now on to the news…

Several bits of info were released last weekend at the official Transformers convention known as BotCon. David Kaye even announced several members of the show’s cast.

*Optimus Prime, Grimlock, Lugnut: David Kaye

*Bumblebee: Bumper Robinson

*Bulkhead: Bill Fagerbakke

*Prowl, Ultra Magnus: Jeff Glen Bennett

*Arcee: Susan Blu (also the voice director)

*Blackarachnia: Cree Summer

*Jazz: Phil Lamarr

*Megatron, Shockwave, Ratchet: Corey Burton

*Starscream, a Constructicon: Tom Kenny

*A garbage truck (possibly a Junkion): Weird Al Yankovich

*Sari (human friend): Tara Strong

*Blurr: John Moschitta Jr.

As far as American cartoon voice actors go, this is an all-star cast. Some of you more hardcore Generation 1 Transformers fans might recognize a few role reprisals in there. Corey Burton played Shockwave (as well as Spike and Sunstreaker) in the original series and is now back not only for Shockwave, but Megatron as well. Susan Blu voiced Arcee back in the day and also voice directed for Beast Wars and Beast Machines and is one of the BEST voice directors in the industry. John Moschitta Jr., considered the fastest-talker in the world, voiced Blurr back in the 80’s. And there’s David Kaye, who voiced Megatron during Beast Wars and the Unicron Trilogy (Armada, Energon and Cybertron) and, bizarrely, is now taking on the role of Optimus Prime. And then you’ve also got Weird Al as a guest character, a garbage truck Transformer who might be a Junkion. In the world of Transformers, Weird Al is best remembered for providing the Junkion’s theme song from Transformers the Movie, “Dare to be Stupid”.

And the news does not end there. Lots of little tidbits were dropped throughout the convention.

*The show will be set in Detroit in the future. Yes, the Autobots will at times be fighting human villains, but more often than not the human villains will be associated with the Decepticons in some capacity and the Decepticons-themselves WILL play a large role in the series.

*The Autobots will each have their own special “super power”. Think back to the Generation 1 cartoon and how Hound could create holograms or Mirage could turn invisible. It will be handled like that.

*There will be a smaller core cast of Autobots and Decepticons, but special characters will return every now and then. Sari, their human friend, will be portrayed less like the bossy human kid that tells super advanced alien robots what to do, and more like their planetary guide.

*The structure of the show will be pretty much the anti-thesis of how the Japanese handle Transformers animation. The Japanese typically handle Transformers cartoons in a “Dragonball Z” or “Naruto” sort of way. By that, I mean, they take 20 episodes-worth of plot and stretch it out to fit 52, with each episode leading directly into the next with lots of filler and at least five minutes of stock footage transformations per episode. Transformers: Animated will be the opposite of that. Each episode will be a self contained adventure (aside from the three-part opening miniseries and any other multi-part story arcs), but each episode will gradually forward the overall story arc of the season. Think of how Justice League Unlimited was handled. Each episode had a beginning, a middle and an end and could be watched islolated from the rest of the series, but each episode had elements which developed the story toward its eventual climax.

There were lots of other scraps of news released during BotCon (most of which are in those links), but I felt that the ones I highlighted might best put some of your minds at ease. Transformers has always been a franchise about change, both figuratively and literally. While asthetic designs may alter from time to time (Generation 1, Generation 2, Beast Wars, Transformers 2007), one thing has always stayed the same: two races of Robots beating the mortal crap out of each other. Transformers: Animated is just the next installment in that tradition.

The trailers and television spots for this film gave me the impression that it was going to be another “Harry Potter” or, more appropriately, another “Chronicles of Narnia”. You know, a movie where a group of adorable kids travel to a beautiful fantasy world and engage in a slew of amazing adventures, jam-packed with gorgeous special effects and CGI from start to finish.

Well, that’s not what this movie is like at all, but I’m sure that everyone who read the book (ie: not me) already knew this. So, even though this movie is only somewhat similar to what the marketing campaign promised, is it any good? Yeah, actually, it’s pretty good.

To read the full review, Click Here!

I first encountered Ghost Rider back in the early 90’s at, oh, age 8 or 9. What drew me to the character was pretty much what draws everyone to the character, at least at first. Ghost Rider looks really, really cool. Flaming motorcycles, blazing skulls, black leather, chains
visually, Ghost Rider is like an awesomeness overload. So, of course, Ghost Rider on the big screen, in live action, is a sight to behold. Visually-speaking, that is. As we all know, a movie can’t survive on visuals alone, and while I still enjoyed the heck out of this flick, I won’t deny it had some troubles.

At a young age, stunt cyclist Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage) sold his soul to Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) to save the life of his ailing father. Mephistopheles betrayed him and vowed to one day return to take what is his. Years later, Johnny Blaze has become America’s top stunt cyclist, yet he feels something is missing. His old flame, Roxanne Simpson (Eva Mendez), walks back into his life and Johnny suddenly believes he has gotten his second chance. Not quite. Someone else has come back into his life, Mephistopheles, who forces Johnny to fulfill his end of the bargain. Johnny is suddenly and painfully transformed into the skull-faced Spirit of Vengeance: Ghost Rider. Ghost Rider is charged with the task of hunting down and destroying Mephistopheles’ rebel son, Blackheart, and his trio of elemental demons. At stake are the souls of a thousand evil men, enough to tip the balance of power. Johnny is joined by the Caretaker (Sam Elliot), a mysterious guide who knows more than he lets on.

Read the full review, Right Here!

To me, I find that Hannibal Lecter is a character best used sparingly. Of the three films within the original “Hannibal Trilogy” (though I’m loathed to call it that), “Red Dragon” and “Silence of the Lambs” are my two favorite installments, both of which only feature Hannibal as a supporting player with limited screen time. I found the third installment, aptly named “Hannibal”, to be the least appealing. Well, “Hannibal Rising” is a prequel to that series, focusing completely on the title character. While that didn’t exactly appeal to my pallet, those of you who want Hannibal, Hannibal and more Hannibal will most likely enjoy this offering.

The story begins in Germany, 1941, at Castle Lecter. Young Hannibal (Aaron Thomas) and his family are forced to flee to a secluded shack in the wilderness to hide from bombarding Nazi forces. Hannibal’s parents are killed by enemy fire and he and his infant sister, Mischa (Helena Lia Tachovska) are left alone in a horrible blizzard. They are soon taken prisoner by a group of Nazi war profiteers, who go mad with hunger and eat Mischa. Fast forward 8 years, and Hannibal (Gaspard Ulliel) is now a disturbed young orphan who goes to live with his Aunt, Lady Murasaki (Li Gong). She trains him in the ways of the Samurai and Hannibal uses these skills to hunt down the men who killed his sister, gradually losing his grip on reality in the process.

Read the entire review, Right Here!

I think I’m gonna be sick.

It’s hard to put into words how diabolically atrocious this Eddie Murphy “comedy” really is, but I get the feeling most of you reading this came to the same conclusions about its quality after watching the 30 second television spot. Let me tell you, if it wasn’t my job to review movies, I wouldn’t have poked this thing with a stick just to see if it were still alive.

Read the full review Right Here!

A troubled family from Chicago moves to an abandoned old farmhouse, where an entire family up and vanished many years ago, so they can start-over. Nothing could possibly go wrong. Well, it would seem that the house is (*gasp*) haunted! However, the only ones capable of seeing the violent specters lurking in the shadows are Ben (played by twins Evan and Theodore Turner), a toddler, and Jess (Kristen Stewart), a bratty teenager. After being rescued from a murder of crows, the father of the family (Dylan McDermott) makes the second smartest decision of the film and hires a greasy, unshaven vagrant (John Corbett) to work on the farm. Surprisingly, horrible things begin to happen.

Read the entire review Right Here!

Teen Titans is one of those shows that progressed in quality with each season, hardly fluctuating at all. The show started out rather kid-oriented but became darker and more complex with each passing season (though season 5 was mostly one big fangasm). Season 2 is one of the better seasons and also one of the most memorable, as it adapts possibly the most famous storyline from the New Teen Titans comic book series by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.

Season 2 roughly adapts “the Judas Contract”, but as you can guess, only imports a few of the basic plot elements and does its own thing with the concept. The first episode of the season, “How Long is Forever”, features Starfire being transported 20 years into a desolate future by the villainous Warp. The episode works as a foreshadowing of the events to come, as Starfire fears what might happen if the Titans drift apart (the eventual arrival of Terra causing a potential rift between the team). The show’s version of Warp is a bit different from his comic book counterpart; he’s British instead of French and is now a time traveler, where before he could just teleport from location to location. The episode also features Robin growing up to become Nightwing, but thankfully without that stupid mullet from the New Batman Adventures.

Read the entire review, Right Here!

I remember the days before video arcades began to totally suck in America. The one down here at Springfield Mall used to be packed with a wide selection of awesome brawlers, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men and the Simpsons. The Simpsons was delevoped by Konami and had a lot of similarities with their TMNT brawler, mostly since all of Konami’s brawlers had a very similar formula to them. Still, it was a formula that really worked, so you couldn’t complain. The Simpsons was one of their best and became a game that sucked far too many allowances out of my pocket.

I recently replayed the game for the first time in over a decade. Sadly, I can’t say that it lived up to my nostalgia. It was still very technically sound, graphically impressive and fun, yet at the same time, there were several missed opportunities where it could have been better, and there is a lot about the game that’s just
weird.

Well, firstly, the story goes like so: Mr. Burns sends his yes-man, Smithers, to rob a jewelry store and steal a giant diamond. As Smithers is completing the heist he bumps into the Simpsons. The diamond falls into Maggie’s mouth, who begins sucking on it like it was her usual pacifier. Smithers, in a hurry, grabs Maggie and makes a break for it. The Simpsons then set off to rescue their missing family member, battling Mr. Burns’ horde of henchmen along the way.

You have the choice of four playable characters in this game. My favorite was always Homer, whose special move was to just punch the crap out of the bad guys, nothing cute. There was Bart, who road his skateboard non-stop and would smack bad guys upside the head with it. There was Marge, who would whack enemies with a vacuum cleaner. And, finally, there was Lisa, who would whip enemies with a jump-rope. Why they didn’t use a saxophone is beyond me. One of the neat things about the game, which put it ahead of other licensed Konami arcade games like TMNT and G.I. Joe, is that they used the actual voice actors from the TV series. Granted, the voice overs hardly extended past the characters saying their names, spouting catchphrases and grunting, but it was a nice gesture. A Hell of a lot more effort than Konami’s G.I. Joe arcade game, where the mute Snake-Eyes would scream “YO JOE!” at the end of every level.

The characters proceed through various stages taken from episodes or locations in the television series. You start out on Main Street, then you work your way to Krusty Land, then the woods, then a dreamland, then the Springfield Discount Cemetary, then Moe’s Tavern, then the Channel 4 building and finally the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. You can kind of tell that the Japanese people at Konami weren’t too familiar with the television series. They manage to work an entire level out of Moe’s Tavern, which is located underground and has its own cabaret, yet the Nuclear Power Plant is just a boss battle and not a real stage.

One of the coolest things about this game was how the players could interact with the environments. Several supporting cast members would show up in the stages. Sometimes they were just background graphics, sometimes they would offer you food to fix your health and sometimes they were just there for you to punch in the face for the Hell of it. I always got a kick out of that. The graphics were great and, most of the time, did a really good job of recreating the appearance of the television series. Springfield is very colorful and lively and the extra gags and in-jokes tossed it (including Bongo, Matt Groening’s one-eared bunny character from the Life is Hell comics) make it a memorable experience.

Now, on to the bad. Probably the worst thing about Simpsons Arcade is the selection of characters used for the bad guys. There’s a whopping variety of two main henchmen you battle ceaselessly through-out the course of the game; a skinny guy with curly hair and a fat guy with grey hair. And you fight them over and over and over and over. Occasionally, depending on the stage, you’ll be blessed with some fresh cannon fodder enemies, like zombies (cemetery), walking donuts (dreamland) or ninjas (Channel 4). However, for the most part, you just fight the same two guys.

Now, I have to say, probably the biggest missed opportunity and easily the most disappointing aspect of the game are the bosses. Save for the final two bosses (Smithers and Mr. Burns), they’re all original characters. And they suck. You fight a pro wrestler, a giant Krusty the Clown ball, a bear, an evil bowling ball, a drunken skinhead, a robot and a kabuki shogun guy. What. The. F***!?!? They’re the most random, boring, disappointing boss battles ever. Hundreds of supporting characters they could have chosen to make bosses, like Nelson or Jimbo or Snake or Sideshow Bob
and they come up with these lame-o original characters?

The two best boss battles in the game, surprise-surprise, are the final two. Smithers is really annoying but in a fun and challenging sort of way. He runs around hurling bombs at you from inside his cape (yes, he wears a cape). He’s throwing tons of them at you non-stop and he’s running *really* fast. If you keep your distance, you’ll get blown up, but if you get too close, he’ll smack you with his cape. You’re supposed to pick up the blue bombs he leaves laying on the ground and hurl them back at him. However, he’s running so fast, getting a bead on him can be tough. At the end, when you do beat him, he laughs like a maniac then goes all kamikaze and blows himself up. The animation is hilarious.

The final battle against Mr. Burns is also pretty difficult, but mostly due to how lengthy it is. Mr. Burns comes at you in a giant robot exo-suit. Hit him enough and his legs explode, turning into tank treads. Keep hitting him and his tank treads will explode, turning into a hovercraft. Keep hitting him and his hovercraft with explode, turning into the skeletal inner-frame of the exo-suit. Finally, once you’ve beaten him, he’ll collapse and appears to (thanks to the Xs in his eyes) die. It takes a while, but Burns’ attacks stay the same in each form (he has pincher arms and stomach nukes).

The Simpsons Arcade isn’t as perfect as I remember it, sadly. Still, it remains a very fun game, especially if you’re playing with a group of friends. It’s also easily one of the best Simpsons video games ever made, thanks mostly to the shear volume of CRAP games that the franchise has been slapped with (Bart vs. the Space Mutants! Bart vs. the World! Escape from Camp Deadly! Bart vs. the Gladiators! Ugh.). The game has never been released on any console, so unless you can find a working arcade cabinet some place, you’re going to have to play the game using other resources. The Simpson fan in you will enjoy it, especially if you’ve been around since the early days of the television series and you actually remember when Bartman merchandise was all the rage.

So, what can be said about this disaster that hasn’t been said already? I’m honestly not sure, but I’ll see if I can’t cobble something together. My brain’s still seeping out through my nose, though. I hear that’s a common symptom which follows exposure to this very “special” Holiday Special. Sorta like opening the Ark of the Covenant only worse because you have to stare at the unfathomable horror for 96 minutes.

What’s the plot? Chewie’s Original Trilogy Extended Universe family wants him to come home for Kashyyk’s most important holiday of the year, Life Day. It’s sorta like a vague amalgamation of Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza and every other winter holiday minorities celebrate. However, Chewie is having a hard time getting to Kashyyk because the Empire is chasing him and Han all over the galaxy. The bulk of the feature-length Special revolves around Chewie’s treehouse-dwelling family; his wife, Malla, his son, Lumpy, and his geriatric father, Itchy. Sound like rejects from a Hanna Barbara cartoon, don’t they?

To read the full review, Click Here!

Way out here in the distant future of 2006, I would have sooner expected a remake of the classic 1976 film ‘Rocky’ than a sixth installment. Yet, much to the surprise of many, Sylvester Stallone shocked everyone when he announced he’d be writing, directing and starring in a new chapter in the boxing epic. I mean, for heaven’s sake, the guy is sixty years old! This couldn’t possibly end well.


Or could it?

Check out the full review, Right Here!

Bored? Need to pass the time before March’s brand new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie? Check out my reviews for the original three live action films from the 90’s and dust off a little nostalgia!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: the Movie

In all honesty, I rank this film among some of the best comic book-to-movie adaptations ever made. While it does import a few too many concepts from the 80’s cartoon for comfort, and it does have a few other set-backs, the end-result is still a very dark and accurate portrayal of the original Mirage Comics TMNT.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: the Secret of the Ooze

Much like Phantasm III, TMNT II: Secret of the Ooze is a perfect example of what happens when the studio executives have more power over a film than the actual creators. While the original TMNT film was a near-perfect adaptation of the Mirage comic book series with only a hint of the cartoon, TMNT II draws nearly all its inspiration and atmosphere from the animated series, resulting in a very kid-oriented film that doesn’t withstand the test of time as admirably as the original.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

Ask anybody who has seen all three live action Ninja Turtles movies, and I can almost guarantee that most of them (if not *all* of them) will say they hated the third one. Now, I’m not gonna go and say that it isn’t the worst installment in the series, or that it’s an overlooked gem, or anything like that. I will say, though, that it does have a few redeeming factors and that it’s really only slightly worse than TMNT II.

The full trailer for the upcoming live action big budget Transformers movie directed by Michael Bay went online this morning.

I was rather impressed by it, though you only get brief glimpses of the Transformers-themselves (the pause button can fix that, though). The special effects from ILM look superb. A shame they didn’t include any dialogue from Peter Cullen (reprising the role of Optimus Prime for the film) but I guess they wanted to make the Transformers seem as alien as possible, and having them speak would ruin that effect.

Watch the trailer, Right Here!

The American produced Street Fighter: the Series tends to get quite a bit of flack from fans, some going so far as to call it “the worst video game cartoon ever made”. Hey, it wasn’t perfect, but in no universe was it ever as bad as the mid-90’s Mega Man cartoon. But that’s another story.

Street Fighter: the Series was a loose continuation of the live action Street Fighter film starring Jean Claude Van Damme. That sentence alone is enough to frighten most people away from ever watching the show, but bear with me. When I say it is a “loose” continuation, I mean it. There are several differences between the film and the TV series, mostly due to the writers “fixing” a lot of the damage done by the film and making the characters and storyline more closely resemble that of the video games. While by and large the Series took more cues from the video games, a few concepts from the film worked their way into the show. Of all the ones to make it in, easily the most interesting was Blanka’s origin. In the movie, he was a character named Carlos “Charlie” Blanka, who was mutated by the scientist Dhalsim (who was under M. Bison’s conrol). In the series, Blanka deals with his new freakish appearance and learns to cope with what he has become. Meanwhile, the experience of being forced to commit crimes against humanity by Bison drove Dhalsim to the mystic arts, turning him into the guru character from the games. A character exclusive to the movie (and the movie-based fighting game), Colonal Sawada, also appears in the series and is actually a pretty good new-comer with some sweet special moves (he channels his chi through his sword for projectile attacks).

To read the full review, Click Here!