Paradise PD Review

Animation fans Netflix are kinda hit and miss when it comes to there animated shows for every good one they release they bring out two or three terrible ones and now they are at it again hot of the heels of the release of Disenchantment comes Paradise PD so lets get it on.

The basic set up for the show is a bunch of cops solve crimes but believe it or not there kinda is a story being told I say kinda because it's more of a mystery then a story but I like the fact that the show not only has stand alone episodes but also has episodes that add to this ongoing mystery and it helps that the set up does make the show stand out from other Netflix animated shows.

Starring in the show are Sarah Chalke as Gina Jabowski , David Herman as Kevin Crawford , Tom Kenny as Chief Randall Crawford , Kyle Kinane as Bullet , Cedric Yarbrough as Gerald Fitzgerald , Dana Snyder as Stanley Hopson and Dusty Marlow , Grey Griffin as Mayor Karen Crawford , co-creator Waco O'Guin as Robbie and co-creator Roger Black as Dilbert. 

I'll be the first to admit the acting in the show was alot better then what I was expecting it to be I was expecting the acting to be terrible at best but no the acting was for me one of the best things about the show and for me alot of that comes from who's been cast and I have to admit that for awhile I thought they actually cast Earnie Hudson.

Doing the animation for this series is Bento Box Entertainment and honestly the animation for me is just OK it's nothing really special but at the same time there's nothing really bad about it but tho I will say that for intro they kinda change the animation style to something that I would say is anime inspired and I loved that since it was so well done heck I even thought that that should have been how the police officers see themselves when in reality there not that good but using it for the intro is good to.

I'd like to admit something right now I straight up forgot about this show I was so focused on Disenchantment and the upcoming The Dragon Prince that this show just slipped my mind so when I checked some online streaming sites and I saw this up I was shocked so bottom line kids don't just think about the good shows think about the shows that are just OK as well.

As you might have guessed this show is made by the same team behind Brickleberry heck they even share some of the same cast and since I havn't seen that show I can't say which is better but I know that some people liked that show so I thought it was worth mentioning and I guess you could make the argument that the shows have a similar animation style but in terms of character designs the shows are very different so your not going to mix the two shows up.

Just going back to what I brought up before this show does have a season long mystery and while I did find that refreshing the mystery in my eyes was very poorly told they give you no clues at all in this mystery and the episodes that are connecting to the mystery are split up for a long time so the filler episodes just seem like there trying to prolong something that doesn't need prolonging.

I don't know how many of you animation fans have seen the show but for me at least the best character on the show is Gina and it's not just because she's played by Elliot from Scrubs it's because she is just so insane and funny that I honestly found myself just waiting for her scenes because I knew that if she did something insane (which would happen most of the time) then I would laugh but there's more to her then just laughs she also has a troubled family life since all of her family members are robbers.

I don't really think that this needs saying but each episode is only around half an hour long so if you wanted something that's just some harmless fun to binge for a weekend then this is the show for you but I will say do not let any kids watch this show it's not made for them this is an adult animated comedy.

When I say that this show is an adult show I don't just mean that it's adult in what it's themes are I mean that it has alot of body humor and I mean alot I can't even think of ways to word the amount of body humor jokes there are in this show but you also see people's insides in pretty much every episode and that to me is the shows biggest downfall it's an adult show for the sole purpose of having characters swear and do drugs and that's really it.

The jokes in the show overall are a mixed bag like I said there's alot of body humor in this show and if you like that kind of humor then this show has got you covered but for me the best jokes were honestly the meta jokes since they were so well done there's a few more solid jokes in there as well but you have to get threw alot of terrible ones to get to them.

Overall this show is just OK for every good thing about it there's a thing about it that's bad and int his case that to me is a good thing since not every show needs to be deep as Steven Universe or as action packed and full of wonder like Adventure Time so as if you can't guess already this show scores a 5 out of 10 from me.

   

Scooby-Doo! and the Gourmet Ghost Review

Scooby fans a new movie is here with us and that means yours truly is here to bring you my thoughts on the movie and I have to say that unlike the last movie I really wasn't looking forward to this one that much since it looks like the Scooby-Doo franchise is going the same way as the Tom And Jerry franchise and so here is my review of Scooby-Doo! and the Gourmet Ghost.

The plot of the movie is Scooby and the gang investigate the haunting's of a historic colonial inn that's been turned into a state of the art culinary resort. I have to say that even tho the plot is only there to serve the guest stars it does work well for a Scooby-Doo movie and even tho the film is around and hour and twenty minuets long you really don't feel any of it the story goes on for as long as it needs to.

Of course we have the Scooby regulars who are played by Frank Welker , Grey Griffin , Matthew Lillard and Kate Micucci. In terms of the Scooby regulars the best performer for me was who i'm now dubbing the best Webby Kate Micucci she gets all of the best lines in this movie and in my opinion she gives the best performance.

In terms of guest cast we have Bobby Flay as Himself , Giada De Laurentiis as Herself , Marcus Samuelsson as Himself , Maya Haile as Herself , THE voice for Pooh and Tigger as Jeremiah Noseworthy and the Red Ghost and David Kaye as Henry Metcalf and Chef Edward DuFlay. Unlike in the first WWE crossover movie the acting from the celebrities is terrible granted some are worse then others but the overall majority are bad in fact the only guest actor who I really liked was Jim Cummings.

The animation for the film was done by Warner Bros Animation and I have to say that it was really good there's a lot of fluid movement which I always like to see and alot of the backgrounds were really good to look at I did spot the odd off looking drawing every know and then and oddly enough it was always with Scooby himself but they were few and far between.

I would just like to clear up what I said in the opening what I meant was the last dozen or so Tom And Jerry films have had them interacting with other famous stories and as you can tell with all of the celebrities in this movie I didn't really like it because I don't want this franchise to go the same way and be tied to other famous people Scooby-Doo can and has made alot of movies without having insert famous person here popping up.

Now since this is Scooby-Doo that means there's a mystery and I have to say the mystery was for me the weakest part of the movie since when a certain character came on I pretty much shouted "they did it" and sure enough I kinda got it right I shouldn't know stuff that the characters don't when the characters work out who did it that's when I the viewer should realise who did it and since that wasn't the case in this movie I was just sat there wondering when this person was going to be revealed so I could be proven right.

If your going to do a crossover movie you have to find the right balance of making sure certain sets of characters come out on top and for me that's what this movie does right everytime Giada does something amazing we see Velma actually show us how smart she is and for everytime we see Bobby be impressive we see how Shaggy and Scooby are impressive in there own way.

I just touched on this but this was the first time in a long time that we actually see Velma be smart there's a scene where everyone is being chased by the monster and instead of following them Velma heads in a different direction because she knows something and that for me was a great thing to see because Velma is meant to be the smart one of the group and there are very little times where we see her be the smart one.

Overall this wasn't a bad movie but it's not Scooby-Doo! at it's best it felt like a film meant to promote it's guest stars rather then be a Scooby-Doo! movie and so the movie gets a 5 out of 10 from me and this movie is out right now on Digital and is currently slated for a DVD release on September 11th.

Achmed Saves America Review

Hello there animation fans it's not unusual for characters to be given there own animated movie or series and the same is also said for the character Achmed The Dead Terrorist who is one of the most popular characters that ventriloquist Jeff Dunham created and so in 2014 he was given his own animated movie and so here is my review of Achmed Saves America.

The plot of the movie is Achmed finds himself transported from his homeland and landing in Americaville and he tries to change his ways. Yeah that's the best way to describe the plot since there's not really much story at all it's just basically stuff happens but I will say that this movie is only an hour long and it's pacing is really good.

Starring in the film is the films executive producer and Achmed creator Jeff Dunham , Susan Egan as Ginny , Spongebob as Wayne , André Sogliuzzov as Hassan , Amanda Troop as Cassidy and Chiara Zanni as Kevin. In terms of acting the film does fair a little better but that's only due to the talent involved but the script and sadly the script isn't that good and since the only actors can take a performance so far they do the best with what there given.

The characters in this movie are so dumb the main family don't even notice that there guest has no skin despite the fact you can quite clearly see he has no skin heck he even sings a song about having no skin and they don't even no that Achmed is a terrorist despite all of the evidence proving he's a terrorist.

I have no idea who did the animation for this film and i;m glad because the animation in this film isn't that good in fact it's at best decent but for every decent animated scene there's one that looks bad and I think that's because the film would have had a really small budget thus effectively making it an independent film and with very little budget the crew wouldn't have had the pleasure to go back and redraw something that looks bad.

It's really hard to describe this film since not alot really happens and that's a shame because if your a fan of the Achmed character then I could easily recommend this film to you but at the same time get ready to see pretty much a watered down version of the character.

The closet film I would say this is like is Space Jam because even tho that is a good film the Looney Tunes were just there to say catchphrases and nothing else well in my eyes the same thing can be said for Achmed in this film he's there just to say catchphrases and nothing else and while Space Jam had the advantage of being based of something that alot of people love the same cannot be said for this film so I feel a little more effort should have been put into it.

I will say that if you like Jeff's other characters then you might be happy because some of them do cameo in this film Bubba j appears in the opening which for some reason is done in live action and my personal favorite character Walter appears around the start of the third act and honestly I would want to see a movie just based on him.

Honestly the jokes in this film are extremely hit and miss when they land they can be pretty funny but when they miss may god do you feel it in fact the jokes in this film feel like something you'd see on a bad nineties sitcom that's how dated the jokes can be which for me is a very bad thing because this film was released in 2014 and they couldn't think of any new jokes.

Overall like I said if your a fan of the character then I can recommend this film to you but it is still a very bad film and yes I know this review is pretty short but in my defense i've written two reviews today so i'm pretty tired and so this film scores a 4 out of 10 from me.

Star Wars: Darth Vader Volume 3 The Shu-Torun War Review

Star Wars fans since yesterday's comic book review went down so well i'm going to treat you all to another and at the same time pretend that I didn't have this one planned at all nope not at all so here is my totally unplanned review of Star Wars: Darth Vader Volume 3 The Shu-Torun War.

The plot of this book is there is a rebellion growing on the planet Shu-Torun and so the emperor sends in Darth Vader to help crush this rebellion before it gets going. Honestly it's hard for me to give my thoughts on the story as a whole because for me it's a very mixed bag alot of the story does make sense but why would the empire be concerned with what's going on on a small planet? to me that doesn't make sense.

Now unlike the last Star Wars comic there was no blonde moments going on so maybe I can now start regain some of that Star Wars street cred back. If the last book was a spy movie then this one for me at least is an action movie since there's a lot of huge set pieces going on here and they don't take away from what's going on in the main story at all.

I would now like to take the time to address some things that I mentioned in my last Star Wars comics review I got comments from people saying that Aphra was an archaeologist and not a thief well in that book she was called a thief and since that was my only reference point at that time I had no choice but to refer to her as a thief and since they didn't mention that in the book I therefor had to assume that she was a smuggler.

Now then before I get onto gushing about the artwork again because trust me that's what i'll be doing I first have to mention so really bad artwork from artist Leinil Yu because yeah it's pretty freaking bad heck the artwork in the annual is so bad that in one panel they don't even draw on faces and yes the panel in question is in the above picture it's a mistake that I wouldn't mind so much if the characters weren't meant to have faces but in the panel you can see them with faces.

If you've seen my last review then you'll know who does the artwork for this Darth Vader series and you'll also know that I was worried that the quality would drop in this book well i'm glad to say that the quality of the artwork outside of the annual was actually really good if Salvador Larroca wanted to draw for the mainstream Marvel universe then i'd be on board with that because the guy has alot of talent and it deserves to be seen by a much wider audience.

Staying onto write the book was writer Kieron Gillen and as like the previous book his writing for Vader is the best i've seen since the original trilogy I will admit that in this book we don't get an idea as to what Vader is thinking and that did kind of disappoint me a little since I loved that aspect of the previous book but in this one we get to see him more as a tactician and since this is a basically a war story that makes sense but at the same time it made me want to see the more maniacal Vader that was presented to us in the last volume.

One thing that I forgot to mention in my last review was the fact that I when I read every line of Vader's all I could hear was the great James Earl Jones's voice and I think that goes to show you how awesome both JEJ and Vader are because now they are pretty much one in the same.

I made it quite clear that my favorite character in the last book was Aphra well in this book it's Triple Zero who is basically C3PO if he had the mind of a serial killer and I honestly loved that about him he's not afraid to get his hands dirty and his interactions with BeeTee also make for some great dark comedy moments in the story.

Overall this is a great book but I prefer volume 2 since that book helped make Vader a more rounded character this one is still a fun read tho and so it scores a 7.5 out of 10 from me.

Star Wars: Darth Vader Volume 2 Shadows And Secrets Review

Star Wars fans i've reviewed alot of the movies over the years heck i've even taken a crack at reviewing some episodes of Rebels (might do a full review of that soon BTW) but i've never reviewed anything from the Star Wars comics or read any of them for that matter well now that changes with my review of Star Wars: Darth Vader Volume 2 Shadows And Secrets.

As far as I can work out the plot of this arc is Darth is secretly trying to find out who blew up the Death Star while at the same time trying to prevent the Empire from finding out who stole some weapons. I'll full on admit I havn't read the first six issues of this series and to me that's a damn shame because the plot presented in this book is generally really interesting altho they don't really go into detail as to why Darth can't go looking for Luke.

While reading the book for the life of me I couldn't work out where in the timeline this book takes place because the opening statement makes it sound like it takes place after A New Hope but then a character says something about Jabba not being with them so that made me wonder if it took place after Return Of the Jedi and yes I know Vader dies in that movie it was just me having a blonde moment and forgetting about Vaders death but yes story wise this does take place after A New Hope.

I will admit even the idea of Vader knowing who Jabba is is honestly kinda exciting since there pretty much the two biggest bad guys in the whole series at least for the general audience but for me what would have been even cooler is seeing them interact in this story since it would be a battle of wits Vader can't kill Jabba because there would be a bounty on his head before Jabba's body hit the floor and Jabba can't kill Vader because he would have alot of the empire after him.

Working on this book was writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca and I have to say that the art in the book is truly freaking gorgeous heck just look at the above picture if you want prove of how great the artwork is and the same thing can also be said for the writing in fact the quote on the back of the book was saying how good the writing is and that was from a website called Newsarama and I have to agree with them this book is so well written to me this felt like it could have been a movie all itself.

Speaking of the writing Darth himself is written so well in this book and i'm not sure if many will agree with this statement or not but the way he's written here is better then how he was written in the prequel films this book presents us with a more morally complex character you see him play the empire in order to get what he wants which also brings out his more cunning side and to me that helps make him a more rounded character since now he's more then just the emperor's muscle he's a human being.

I'm not really sure if anyone agrees with me on this or what people think of this character in general but I really did enjoy the character of Aphra she's a fun spunky character and her interactions with Darth are some of the best scenes in the whole book altho there is something about her that I just don't like and it's the fact that she's another smuggler to me that trope in Star Wars is getting really stale and of course she comes with a tragic backstory and i'm sat here thinking "not every thief needs a tragic backstory" it doesn't take anything away from the character but it doesn't add anything either.

Honestly the Aphra character must have been popular because she now has her own ongoing series Doctor Aphra which is re-teaming writer Kieron Gillen and artist Salvador Larroca and I hope that she continues to get more popular because I can really see her showing up in either a TV series or in a future movie that's how much I believe in her.

I admit I wasn't expecting this book to be as gruesome and as gory as it was you straight up see get things put through there throats and you see them get holes in there body it doesn't distract from the main focus of the story in fact it might add to it since it shows you how violent the empire can be instead of just telling you about how violent they can be and that to me is really refreshing to see in any Star Wars media.

Now I picked volumes two and three of this series and any rational person would expect volume three to cover the Vader Down storyline since that was the next story told in the series but no volume three instead covers The Shu-torun War which is issues 16-19 plus the Darth Vader Annual and for some reason they chose to release Vader Down as a limited series which to me is quite strange because now if I want to see that storyline and continue this pretty sweet Star Wars comics collection instead of going to the next number in the collection I have to search out a separate book.

Overall I really did enjoy this book and it made me look forward to reading Volume 3 but at the same time this book was so good that Volume 3 now has a lot to live up to so this book gets a modest 8 out of 10 from me.

Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue Review

Well then cartoon this is a review that i've been putting of for a while now and well I thought it's finally time to get around to it and yeah it's as bad and as strange as others make it out to be so here is my review of the infamous Cartoon All-Stars To the Rescue.

The plot of this special basically is a kid is on drugs and a bunch of cartoon characters try to convince him not to do them anymore. The first of many mistakes that this special makes is that it demonizes all drugs all drugs aren't bad in fact some of them can and have been used to save lives the second mistake it makes is how the cartoons appear isn't consistent Bugs , Daffy , Tigger , Miss Piggy , Gonzo , Michaelangelo , Slimer and Huey, Dewey, and Louie all appear for no reason when all of the other characters are at least shown as either products or in pictures.

Starring in this weird thing is Ross Bagdasarian as Alvin and Simon , Townsend Coleman as Michaelangelo , Jim Cummings as Pooh and Tigger , Paul Fusco as Alf , Danny Goldman as Brainy Smurf , Janice Karman as Theodore and Lorenzo Music as Garfield. 

Now the sad thing is this was the first time that both Bugs and daffy were played by someone other then Mel Blanc since he died before production could begin so in this special both were played by Jeff Bergman who is honestly good as the characters but the stuff both he and the rest of the cast are given to work with just isn't good and sadly that hinders all of the performances.

Before I get onto the animation I would like to point out that this is technically a Disney product since the executive producer of the special is Roy Disney and the company distributing the special on VHS was Buena Vista a company which was ran by the Walt Disney Company so even tho it doesn't have the Disney name on it they had some hand in the special.

The animation for the special was done by Wang Film Productions who's only claim to fame is this special and boy I can see why that is the case because the animation in this special is terrible even for 1990's standards it's bad and from what i can gather the production schedule for this was a pretty fast one which might explain why the animation is bad but if your making a drug PSA you'd think that alot more effort would go into the animation.

I have to bring this up again because it doesn't make any kind of sense but if your making an anti drug PSA then why the heck are bringing in Michelangelo who is perhaps the turtle who is most on drugs wouldn't make more sense if they had either Leo , Donny or Raph take his spot I know the makers of this special are choosing characters who the kids like but from a storyline perspective it makes no sense at all.

You want to know how much faith Disney had in this when the actual makers came to them to ask if they could use there characters the only characters Disney let them use was essentially there "B" characters so instead of Mickey , Donald , Minnie and Goofy we get Winnie The Pooh , Tigger and Huey, Dewey, and Louie and i'm not counting the muppets characters since they were still owned by Jim Henson at the time but even so that just goes to show you much faith they had in this special.

Now i'm British and I was born a few months (which for those who don't know was April 21st 1990 in America and June 22nd 1990 in the UK)before this special came out but from what I can recall stateside this thing was not promoted as an anti drug PSA in fact there was no scenes of the kids shown in any of the previews it was just the scenes showing the cartoon characters working together and that was it now I complain about hollywood lying to us in there trailers and it turns out that TV companies have been doing it since the freaking nineties guys people would have watched the special anyway because of the characters there was no need to lie to them.

Speaking of lieing to us there's two lies right in the poster for one Michelangelo who is in the special isn't featured anywhere on the poster and Smurfette isn't in the special but for some reason IS on the poster the only reason I can think of that they put her in the poster is because they thought it might make them seem sexist if they didn't include at least one female character but it makes them seem more sexist because she's not in the actual special.

Now for you disney nerds out there you'll be shocked to learn that this special features a song written by the late Howard Ashman and it's honestly the best thing in the entire piece which is saying something since it's a special featuring alot of great and funny characters and the music was done by the great Alan Menken among many others but the music isn't that good and the song "Wonderful Ways To Say No" is great or at least great by this specials standards.

Overall this special is as bad , as weird and as strange as they make it out to be and i'm glad that I didn't have to watch this when it first aired and no I don't agree with the IMDB score of 6 out of 10 and if you want to watch this special the only way you can see it is on Youtube because there's been no DVD release only a VHS release and so this special scores a 2 out of 10 from me.

Disenchantment Review

Well then cartoon fans it's so rare that I get to bring you a review of a Netflix series that I was actually looking forward to seeing and that's actually really good but here we are so here is my review of Disenchantment.

The premise of the show is Bean a rebellious princess , Elfo an Elf and Luci her personal demon get into all sorts of adventures. Now I know that this series sounds episodic and for a while that's how I would have described but you have to see a good chunk of the episodes because there are small story details thrown into each episode and I honestly thought that the pacing for each episode was really freaking good.

Starring in the show are Abbi Jacobson as Bean , Eric Andre as Luci , Nat Faxon as Elfo , John DiMaggio as King Zøg , Tress MacNeille as Queen Oona and a bunch of other characters , Matt Berry as Prince Merkimer and Sharon Horgan as Queen Dagmar. 

Casting wise the show did a great job because after the first or second episode I couldn't imagine anyone else playing these characters and it helps that the actors are really good in the show there are performers who you expect great performances from those being John DiMaggio and Tress MacNeille but as someone who hasn't heard of Abbi Jacobson I was surprised at how good she was in this show.

The animation was done by Rough Draft Studios who also animated shows like Futurama , Drawn Together and who's sister studio Rough Draft Korea animated a little known show called The Simpsons and I have to say that the animation in this show is honestly pretty good I couldn't think of a single time where there was an odd looking drawing or thinking that something would have been better if they took another crack at it.

In terms of character design to me that's where the show fails a little because they look like the typical characters that Matt Groening would draw so they don't really standout honestly you could just recolor Beans skin yellow and she would look like a Simpsons character and speaking of which Elfo totally looks like Bart except colored green with more hair and he wears a hat.

When this show was announced it was announced with a two season order and after watching how episode 10 ends I want the second season right now because I have to know what happens next that's how good this show is and when I normally do a series review I would usually watch a handful of episodes but because I fell so much in love with this show and it's characters I ended up watching all ten episodes and I don't regret a single moment of it.

After doing some research i've come to the conclusion that this is also a Futurama reunion for some of the producers and cast since both Tress MacNeille and of course John DiMaggio starred in the show but in terms of the producers Matt Groening , Josh Weinstein , Bill Oakley and the mad genius that is David X. Cohen reunite for this show but there not the only team to get back together as several writers and directors from The Simpsons also work on this show.

In all honesty I wasn't expecting this show to be as graphic as it was I knew that since it was going to be on Netflix it would be a little more mature but even so I was still shocked we see limbs get chopped off alot there's sex jokes and alot of blood I have no idea what the official rating is for the show but in my eyes it should be at least either TV 14 or MA but that's just me.

Alot of animated shows don't really have good continuity they won't reference past events or anything of the sort but this show does it alot there are times when a character would do a call back to a previous episode and instead of it being used as a joke it would be used to show us how far the characters have grown and it would also be used to advance some things story related as well.

For me at least the jokes in this show were really freaking funny for the most part I was laughing at least three or four times an episode there was even a Goldfinger joke in there which I loved because that is my all time favorite James Bond film but tho the jokes don't come as much in episodes 9 and 10 and I think that's good because those shows have a lot going on in them so stopping to tell a joke wouldn't work and just to give you all some friendly advice when watching this show read the signs trust me you will no regret it at all.

Overall this is such a good show I cannot wait for the next episodes to come out which is hopefully soon because this show is so damn good and so funny but it does have it's fair share of problems so it gets an 7.5 out of 10 from me.