hancamreviews

The Story: Now, since this is my first introduction to the entire Street Fighter franchise, there is a question that is very necessary to answer; did this film make a good impression on me and get me interested in Street Fighter? Well, at least in my opinion, the answer is not really. Okay, I should just get straight to the point, this film is not that well-written. In fact, I'd say that the writing is quite awful. When it comes to the plot, it is simply that Ryu must rescue his supposed younger brother Shun with the help of his friend Ken and Interpol agent Chun-Li from the clutches of the mad scientist Dr. Sadler, who wants to use Ryu's Dark Hadou to become powerful, whilst at the same time, Ryu starts struggling with his powers and Ryu's fangirl Sakura follows after him, wishing to have his babies. First off, the plot is so barebones and simplistic that it becomes not only easily predictable but also practically a shining example of a generically basic movie plot.

Then we have the pacing, which feels odd as, despite the film only being about 93 minutes long, it feels like it moves as if it was twice the runtime, with there being continuous moments where the characters deliver long bouts of clunky exposition or just sit around doing absolutely nothing for what feels like ages. What's even worse is how this affects the action scenes, as they all feel like they take forever to finish, especially near the end, which is even worse considering that this is a movie from a franchise about people fighting, which means it has less of an excuse to muck them up, even if it isn't solely the writing that ruins the fights, which I'll get further into later. Also, another big issue I have is that the feature will sometimes just throw in certain elements that either make no sense or feel poorly explained, which is weird considering its affinity for using exposition. Trust me, by the end, they threw in so much nonsensical crap that I frankly just gave up trying to even care about how stupid this all was.

Look, maybe I might be a little harsh on the story, especially because this is only some small anime film most likely made just for Street Fighter fans, but since this is my introduction to the franchise, it's not really helping itself if the only impression of Street Fighter it leaves is a slow, predictable and confusing mess that was so generic and boring that I almost fell asleep after watching it. (1/10)

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The Animation: So the story pretty much sucks, but maybe the animation can help make this a little bit more tolerable, right? Well, kinda? Okay, here's the thing, the problem with the animation is not that it's bad, because it's actually sorta okay, but it's more that it doesn't do anything all that impressive or innovative. Now, I'll start off with the character designs, which are actually pretty good, successfully translating the game into animation and making them look appealing. Then, there's the character animation, which can vary, as there are some times where the movements are smooth but there are other times when they can feel awkward. There are also the backgrounds, which look nice in execution but are generic in concept. However, whilst there are elements that are done decently, there's one little catch with the animation as a whole, and that comes down to the concepts and cinematography.

As I said with the backgrounds, the conceptual idea for the film is just so generic and simplistic, ranging from a city, a forest, a dojo, a hospital and an evil lair, typically being no more complex than as I described, leaving everything to just look boring due to how bland the overall concept is. But if that wasn't bad enough, the cinematography is somehow even worse, with the shots and angles always looking cluttered and clumsily handled, especially when it comes to the action sequences, where it's close to impossible to figure out what the focus is supposed to be on. Hell, a good amount of the time, the camera will be facing a random wall or the floor rather than the characters in the scene. Yeah, it really is that clumsy. Sure, I wouldn't say that the animation is great, since it is conceptually weak and suffers from awful cinematography, but it still is the most passable thing about this movie. (5/10)

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Well, I think it's fair to say that, when the story is written this badly, then you shouldn't expect much from the characters, as they are only one-dimensional and forgettable. Now, let's start off with the main character, Ryu, who is just the bland hero dealing with the darkness of his powers who, along with his wisecracking best friend Ken Masters, go off to save his newly-discovered brother Shun. Then, there's Chun-Li, who, if her tough, serious personality doesn't entice you, then maybe her curves will, especially since they certainly caught the cinematographer's attention, as there are more shots of her chest, thighs and butt than there are of her actual freaking face. There's also Sakura, who, as I mentioned earlier, is Ryu's fangirl that, for about the first half of the film, resorts to just stalking him and following him wherever he goes, because that's certainly not weird or creepy in the slightest.

And then there's the main villain, Dr. Sadler, a stereotypical mad scientist who wants to become powerful. Now, considering the movie's serious tone, I'm actually surprised that Sadler is even in here, since he acts so stereotypical and ridiculously evil that he almost feels out of place, to the point where I was questioning why he is even in this film and not in some filler episode of Dragon Ball. One thing I have yet to mention, however, is that I watched the English dub of this movie, consisting of actors like Skip Stellrecht, Steve Blum, Mona Marshall and many more, so there is some good talent involved here. With that being said, wow, what the hell happened with this dub? When it comes to the dubbing, not only does the lip syncing rarely, if ever, match the dialogue, but for some reason, the voice acting is surprisingly subpar, where the actors either sound bored out of their mind or so ridiculously over-the-top that it's embarrassing. And I know that the actors can do a good job, since they did well in works like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun and even South Park, so the actors were either given bad direction or were really as bored and uninterested about working on this as I was about watching it.

Look, maybe in the games, they're more interesting and more complex, but since I'm only a newcomer to Street Fighter with no real knowledge of the games or the other films, all I'm left with are characters that, aside from having weak acting coming from talented actors, just feel so one-dimensional and uninteresting that I don't have any reason to care about any of them. (1/10)

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Look, I was not going in expecting anything all that great, but I wasn't actually expecting anything quite like this. Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation is an animated feature that will not introduce the Street Fighter franchise in an interesting and engaging way, but will instead leave the audience completely bored out of their mind, with a generic mess of a story, poorly executed action scenes, a tiresome abundance of exposition, animation that, whilst being halfway decent, suffers from bland concepts, a tediously slow pace, forgettably one-dimensional characters, mediocre voice acting from talented actors and absolutely atrocious cinematography that makes the entire experience completely insufferable. Now, the best recommendation I can give is that maybe Street Fighter fans can enjoy this, but even then, it's hard to say, since while I was doing research on the film and the franchise, I saw that fans were split on whether this was good enough to watch, meaning that even the target audience don't know what to think of it. (2/10)

The Story: When it comes to a British icon, there's probably one question to ask. How do you make them into a feature-length movie, whilst still respecting the original source material and not offending the nation that adores the icon? However, the film makes it clear that the filmmakers asked this question instead. How can we ruin this British icon within the span of 80 to 90 minutes and still get paid for it? Yes, as you can probably tell by that comment, this story is clearly just an absolute middle finger to both fans of Postman Pat and casual moviegoers in almost every way.

Now, let's start with the plot, where it's about Pat entering a singing competition to win a holiday for him and his family, whilst behind the scenes, a corporate official running Pat's job plans to use his popularity as a front to take over the world with his army of robots. But wait, there's more, because apparently, there's a subplot where, due to the fame and robot sabotage, Pat starts falling out of favour with Greendale, which doesn't really start until the halfway point. But wait, there's more, as there's also a subplot about Pat's family feeling like he's drifting away from them, which only comes up from time to time. But wait, there's still more, as there's a whole other subplot about the manager of Pat's rival trying to sabotage Pat and even trying to kill him, which gets resolved surprisingly quickly. Yeah, as you can see, the story is just an absolute mess, filled with tons of subplots that make the entire film convoluted, just to give the writing the appearance of complexity.

And yet, absolutely none of these plots are engaging, due to them either being heavily predictable where it becomes easy to guess the outcome or poorly-developed by not giving them much time or dedication and making them feel almost non-existent and just making all these subplots feel like filler to help extend the movie's running time. And what makes it worse is how some of the elements presented deviate heavily from the somewhat grounded world of the original franchise. I mean, seriously, when in the actual show does Pat commonly fight off evil robot copies of himself controlled by an over-the-top businessman who wants to rule the world? And if that wasn't bad enough, the pacing also provides another major issue, where it makes the film act so aggressively fast-paced that it quickly becomes obnoxious to watch, and thus making the feature just feel tiresome.

And that isn't even counting the comedy that, whilst it can have its good moments, mostly falls pretty flat, due to it often relying on bad slapstick and awful pop-culture references. However, the worst part of the story and what deviates from the show the most is its tone, as whilst the series has a calming and timeless feel to charm its audience, this movie desires to be as chaotic and trendy as possible to influence the audience to buy more merchandise to give more money to the filmmakers. And through this abysmal tone, the story feels like it was written to fit a checklist criteria that was made to gain money, and thus rendering the entire feature to feel practically soulless and just downright cringe-worthy.

Sure, maybe nobody expected the story to a Postman Pat film to be amazing, but that doesn't excuse how the story is both a horrible representation of its original series and a soulless time-wasting mess. (2/10)

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The Animation: So the story is an absolute trash-fire, but maybe the animation can help to make things better, right? There's a phrase for that, and it's called wishful thinking. Okay, I'll just get straight to the point here, this film looks very bad. Now, one thing I do have to give the animators credit for is how the character designs do stay somewhat faithful to the original series whilst also doing their best to transition them into the 3rd dimension. Well, for the most part, since some characters like Jess do look pretty awkward. However, whilst the character designs remain faithful to how they typically look in the franchise, the backgrounds, on the other hand, do not, as they all look very much bland and generic, lacking any unique style of their own to make them stand out from any other backgrounds of the same dull nature, unlike in the show, where they gave off a pleasant atmosphere and felt like heading into a wholesome little village.

Not to mention how, due to the feature's most likely very low budget, the rendering is absolutely terrible, where everything looks cheap and mechanically-produced, especially the textures that look so artificial and fake, as the skin of the characters looks like plastic. And if that wasn't enough, the character animation makes things worse by making their movements feel clunky and robotic, especially factoring in the slow framerate that doesn't match the pacing, to the point where it makes the entire movie feel less like an actual movie and more like an old video game for the PlayStation 2, although that might be a bit harsh towards the PS2.

Maybe the animators can present some talent, and maybe they did good work in other places, but for this film, it's clear they really didn't want to work on this, and in the end, the animation just flat-out sucks, especially when compared to the original series it came from. (3/10)

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The Characters: Now, with an absolutely atrocious mess of a story and awful animation, it should be evident by now that the characters are gonna suck, as not only are they bad, but some can make the feature somehow even more tough to watch. Now, let's start off with the postman himself, Postman Pat, a kind-hearted and friendly postman who tries his best to help out the townspeople and especially his family. Now, in the show, due to its charming nature, Pat is actually an enjoyable character, because of how his kind nature feels wholesome. Here, however, since the film feels quite disingenuous and lacks any respect for the original franchise, Pat is just the bland trope of the kind protagonist, accompanied by his pet cat Jess, who serves no purpose to the film, other than for plot convenience and some bad slapstick.

Next, we have the townsfolk and Pat's family, who also serve the awful story by being complete and utter morons, where they just fall for every trick the villain has planned and don't have enough brain-cells to even comprehend the concept that someone they know and trust very well has been replaced by a robot that couldn't be more obviously a robot if it was holding a sign saying "I'm a evil robot." As for the other characters, there's Josh, Pat's rival in the competition who loves playing video games and barely has any screen-time, his manager Wilf, who serves as the comic relief due to how much slapstick he endures, Mr. Brown, the bumbling but friendly CEO of the SDS and Simon Cowbell, who is just a blatant parody of Simon Cowell.

Then we have the villain, Edwin Carbunkle, the new boss at the SDS who uses Pat's evergrowing fame to his advantage and with his Patbot army, plans to take over the world. Now, I know this may be an animated movie made for kids, but he really is pushing that notion down into the ground, with just how ridiculously hammy and over-the-top he can get, to the point where it feels shocking that absolutely nobody in Greendale had figured out that he was a bad guy from the moment he appeared, and I was just waiting for someone to put two and two together and go "wait a minute, this dude might be evil." I mean, seriously, he couldn't be less subtle of a villain if he tried.

Another thing I want to talk about with the characters is the voice acting, and I'm just gonna be honest here, it's actually one of the better elements of the feature. Sure, I won't say everyone here was decent, as there were some that felt a little bit off, like Susan Duerden as Pat's wife Sara, but I will admit that most did a solid job, where even with the horrible script they had to work with, it sounded like many of the actors, like Jim Broadbent, David Tennent, Rupert Grint, Peter Woodward, Robin Atkin Downes and many more were having fun whilst doing their lines, and the best jokes are when the actors would get a chance to stop making lame pop-culture references and actually deliver some funny lines. Does it redeem the film in any way? No way, this is hopeless, but I will acknowledge that some people did their job very well, and had fun doing so. I'll even add that the singing voices were nicely done too, like from Ronan Keating, even if the transition is laughably noticeable, and most surprisingly Rupert Grint. Huh, I guess Ron Weasley can sing, go figure.

Even if the acting and singing can offer some entertainment, it still doesn't excuse how the characters are so poorly-written that they are either forgettably bland at best or embarrassingly braindead at worst. (4/10)

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Well, I can comfortably say that I wholeheartedly hate this goddamn movie. Postman Pat: The Movie is an animated feature that serves as both a soulless cash-grab and an insult to one of the most popular British franchises, where even simply watching it feels like a waste of time. Sure, maybe it has some okay character designs and solid voice acting that also results in some good singing, but that doesn't save it from having an unoriginal mess of a story, lame subplots that are underdeveloped, an abundance of pointless filler, weak humour that falls flat, bad animation that looks cheap, a cast of characters that range from dull to idiotic, an obnoxiously fast pace and an atrocious tone that makes the movie feel both soulless and disrespectful to the series it was based on.

Honestly, my recommendation is that you should skip this film and instead watch the original show, because that way, you'll have some substance to gain, rather than spend 80 to 90 minutes of your time and effort to experience this soulless cash-grab. (3/10)

The Story: When it comes to the story, considering its reputation, you may be expecting that the plot is just a complete and utter copycat of Madagascar's. However, you're not completely correct, as it would be one thing to rip-off a single film from a rival studio. What I mean by that is the story doesn't just stick to stealing from Madagascar, but additionally stealing from both The Lion King and Finding Nemo which are owned by the same goddamn company. I mean, this almost feels beyond a joke with how far they were willing to go to take their plots and use them to craft its own one. The story essentially consists of the plot-line from Finding Nemo with elements of Madagascar and Lion King sprinkled in. Not only is it predictable, where it follows the same steps that those films have, but because we know what's gonna happen, the plot becomes completely unengaging and ends up feeling boring.

But that's not all, as there are also many big flaws, like the pace that constantly flip-flops from one speed to another, a barrage of subplots that range from unnecessary to clumsily-handled and just come across as pointless filler to pad out the runtime, not to mention the gaping amount of massive plot holes where it feels like it just doesn't care about explaining what needs to be explained. However, there are two big problems that are even worse to the point of making the experience unbearable, and those are the humour and tone. Now, starting off with the comedy, I gotta say that this is possibly some of the worst jokes I've ever heard either from an animated film or a film in general, where every second, it just blurts out nothing but awkward slapstick, juvenile toilet humour and dull pop culture references, but little-to-none of them actually get a laugh or even a slight smirk and rather get more annoying with each atrocious joke it delivers.

Moving onto the tone, somehow it's even worse, as because of the horrible plot and complete lack of care, the tone ends up so unpleasant that it's almost disgusting to watch how it tries to recreate the emotional core of better features just to disguise the complete lack of originality and effort presented. With such an abysmal attempt to steal from better animated features, telling awful jokes and having a tone too unpleasant to bear, it's honestly debatable whether or not this can actually count as "writing." (1/10)

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The Animation: Sure, the story is just a massively unpleasant mess, but maybe the animation can help bring some enjoyment to the feature and make up for what the writing failed so hard at, right? Yeah, that's just wishful thinking to the point where I'm just lying to myself. When it comes to the animation, there's little to give credit to, as what is presented visually ranges from forgettably dull to hauntingly disturbing. Now, let's start off with the character designs, and these are the types of designs that make up your trauma. Seriously, on paper, they just look cluttered due to mixing two different styles into one, but take them into computer animation and you get complete nightmare fuel, as they look so uncomfortably grotesque because of the contrasting styles of cartoony and realistic nature.

And as if the character designs weren't ugly enough, the character animation adds salt onto the open wound, by carrying the contrasting elements of the designs and their styles into their movements, in which results these movements to look clumsy and off-putting where, along with the unnatural textures and awkward special effects, it makes the entire film look almost unwatchable, where it's unsettling to watch these characters do their failed slapstick and just ends up unbearable. Hell, even with the backgrounds, I do see some talent presented there, but it's just so conceptually boring and unremarkable that they barely matter. If this is the best animation Disney can provide for this film, then how horrible must their worst look? (2/10)

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The Characters: Now, I have a question for you. With a messy story that shamelessly ripped-off better animated features and uncomfortably atrocious animation, do you think the characters will actually do anything to help this goddamn film? I'm serious when I say that these characters are just despicable. Hell, even some of the actors have no care for these characters, and whilst some did try, others clearly couldn't fake trying to enjoy playing these characters. Now, let's start off with Samson and his son, Ryan, who are just lowly imitations of Marlin and Nemo from Finding Nemo and nothing more.

Next, we have Samson's friends, consisting of Nigel, a arrogant koala with a hatred for some doll of him, Bridget, an insecure giraffe, Benny, a squirrel who has a crush on Bridget and finally Larry, an idiotic snake, all of whom serve little purpose to the plot and are just presenting pointless subplots that are meant to be funny. Now, we have the villains of the film, a group of cultist wildebeest, with intentions to reverse the food chain by becoming carnivores. Yeah, this is how bad the writing can get. And the worst part is that a good few of the flaws, such as the unpleasant tone, can be somewhat linked to the characters, especially with how the connection between Samson and Ryan feels botched to mean-spirited degrees.

When it comes to the characters, not only are they so horribly despicable, but they can also present some extra issues that can help to make the feature just that ever so much more unbearable to watch. (2/10)

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Wow, I was expecting something bad upon revisiting this, but this just feels like a massive 80-minute middle finger to anyone that ever even contemplated watching this unbearable sack of crap! The Wild is not only an abysmal animated feature but it may even be one of the worst animated films I've ever seen, with its inconsistent pacing, pointless and cluttered subplots, glaring plot holes, animation that's forgettably bland at its best and uncomfortably off-putting at its worst, a despicable cast of characters that present an unpleasant tone that looms over the entire feature, an atrocious story that steals elements from better animated movies and obnoxious humour that's never funny.

If it isn't obvious enough, my recommendation is to stay away from this, and if you watch it, you'll regret ever hoping that this has any quality to offer, because it'll instead leave you purely infuriated from suffering through such a lazy and disgusting piece of crap that's supposed to be considered entertainment! Now, if you excuse me, I want to just end this already, that way, I can do something better with my time, like watching paint dry! (2/10)