Batman: Soul Of The Dragon Review

 

DC Comics fans the company is known for it's straight to DVD animated films and well a new one has just been released. Since I have a tradition of reviewing each and every one of these straight to DVD animated films when they are released you just know that I was keeping my eyes on this film and well as for last night the film was released digitally and so join me as I review the latest straight to DVD animated DC Comics film "Batman: Soul Of The Dragon" enjoy.

The plot of the film as far as I can tell is a cult wants to unleash there god upon the world but it's up to Batman , Richard Dragon , Lady Shiva and Ben Turner / Bronze Tiger to stop them before it's far to late. I'm going to be freaking blunt here there's not much here in terms of story at all which is a huge negative since DC Comics straight to DVD animated films always have good plots to them and so it's sad to see one of these films that doesn't even have a decent story in my opinion since the story is so thin that it might as well not even be there.

Starring in the film is David Giuntoli as Bruce Wayne / Batman , Mark Dacascos as Richard Dragon and Kelly Hu as Lady Shiva. Also starring in the film is Michael Jai White as Ben Turner / Bronze Tiger , James Hong as O-Sensei , Jamie Chung as Jade Nguyen , Josh Keaton as Jeffrey Burr , Eric Bauza as Axe Gang Leader , Grey Griffin as Lady Eve , Robin Atkin Downes as Schlangenfaust and Erica Luttrell as Silver ST. Cloud.

As for what I thought about the acting in the film it honestly wasn't that bad but given who is in the film that's to be expected. I would like to say tho that David Giuntoli who plays Bruce Wayne / Batman in the film is miscast since when I hear his voice i don't hear Batman I hear somebody trying and failing to do a Batman impression which is never a good sign however the rest of the voice cast as to be expected sound really spot on.

Doing the animation for this film is the greats over at Studio Mir who did the animation for The Legend of Korra and Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge among many others. The animation for me at least is one of the few high points in the film since the animation is honestly pretty good bit there are a few design choices that had me baffled like for example all of the characters have regular eyes and yet in one scene at the start of the movie we see a character with dot eyes which I personally found to be pretty distracting since none of the over characters have dot eyes.

There's also the fact that the jacket that they gave Richard Dragon as alot of shading on it which I again fond to be very distracting because none of the other clothes that the characters wear have that amount of shading done on it. I honestly liked the overall design for each of the characters since all of the main character designs look like they fit in well with the film 1970's setting which for me at least was a pretty huge plus.

For some reason this film chose to have a lot of flashbacks and when I say alot I mean alot since there's a flashback roughly every five to ten minuets for a large of the films very short running time. Usually I would understand why there's a lot of flashbacks in a film but here since you don't have that long to tell what little story you have those flashbacks feel like padding since barring two flashbacks none of the flashbacks in this film add anything to the films story nor it's characters and so the film would have been better of if they cut down on the amount of flashbacks in my opinion.

I'm not giving away anything by saying this but how this film ends is a good example of how not to end a film. Especially when you take into account that there hasn't been a sequel or follow up film announced and so instead of ending in a more naturel way the film just stops which is honestly pretty jarring in my opinion pretty laughable since the makers of the film couldn't be bothered to come up with an ending and so they just chose not to end it and so I have to assume the film makers assumed that we wouldn't have noticed the bad ending or lack of an ending which as you can no doubt work out has failed miserably.

The film has a running time of one hour and twenty two minuets and thirty eight seconds which for a film that has very little actual is a little bit on the long side. I feel that this film could have told it's story in well under that time and all you would have to do is remove all of the pointless and useless flashbacks and that's it since nothing changes with those flashbacks included and so by taking them out once again nothing changes plot wise oh but if you did remove all of the flashback that are pointless then the film would only be about twenty or even thirty minuets or so in length.

Now then boys and girls since this is an action film that does mean that I have to talk about the action that's in the actual film itself. In my opinion the action in this film is honestly really good with al of the main characters each getting a moment to shine in the films many action sequences , however my issues with the action sequences in this film is the fact that there's far to many action scenes in this film and the fact that all of the films many action scenes start every five to ten minuets or so as such there's no time for you the audience to catch your breathe the second that you the audience do catch your breathe the next sequence beings and it's like that for the entire film , just like with alot of the films flashbacks these action feel like padding but that's just what I think anyways.

Overall this is honestly a fairly average film in my opinion since even tho the film does have a so many issues. Those same issues can also be in any other film and aren't exclusive to this film and when the film does have something good in it you really do know it due to how bad the rest of the film is and yes i've covered both the good and the bad things in this film in this very review as such this film gets a 5 out of 10 from me , and as for where I got the images that I used in this review from well I got the images that I used in this review from either the official DC movies fandom wiki page , the official Batman fandom wiki page or Google Images and for once I cannot say which website is the best one to use if you want images from this film since both the official DC movies fandom wiki page and the official Batman fandom wiki page only have one image each and the ones on Google Images range in quality and so I say use whichever website that you guys want to use.

My SPOILER FREE First Impressions Of The Star Wars: The High Republic Comic Book

 

Star Wars fans it's been a long time since I last spoke about a Star Wars comic book in fact the last time I spoke about a Star Wars comic book was on August 25th 2018. So to say that it's been a while would be a huge understatement however as luck would have it a new comic book has just been released and it's the first book in the new High Republic line of books that Lucasfilm is producing and so here are my first impressions of the comic book which is called "Star Wars: The High Republic" and so enjoy the post everyone.

As far as I can tell just based of this first issue this new comic book series isn't going to have a plot whatsoever. Which is already a huge red flag for me personally since if your not going to bother telling or setting up a story then I have to wonder what the hell is the point in this book existing since even bad comic books at least have a story to tell but who knows I could be wrong and there could be story developing but you only get once chance to make a good first impression and well so far "Star Wars: The High Republic" isn't making a good first impression in my opinon.

Now unlike alot of the Star Wars comic books where they don't really give you a timeline of when these events are meant to take place the High Republic series is meant to take place at least 100 to 200 or maybe even 300 years before Star Wars: Episode 1The Phantom Menace. Honestly I kind of like that Disney Star Wars is willing to explore a previously unknown time in the Star Wars universe since it means that the characters that we meet in either the novels , children's books , adventure books or comic books won't be overshadowed by the more well known Star Wars characters.

With this new era in Star Wars history it also means that we get to see new planets as well as new types of creatures. Sadly tho the first and only planet that we see in this issue is a jungle planet which is something that we've already seen in both Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace and in Star Wars: Episode VI Return Of The Jedi and so there really much new that you can do with a jungle planet because we've already seen what you can do with a jungle planet twice but who knows maybe in future issues we'll get to see more diverse planets and not just the same tired types of planet that we've seen a hundred times already.

As for new creatures we get introduced to creatures called the Ximpi who from what I can tell seem to be either talking bees or talking wasps. I will make it known right now that i'm not that familiar with alot of the Star Wars canon and so there's a good chance that other Ximpi have appeared in other books , comic book , children's books , TV shows or video games but this is my first time seeing them and all I could think is they don't shut up because the two Ximpi that they introduce in the story Lenaki and Kanri just don't shut up at all and that makes them really annoying characters in my eyes.

Writing this book is Cavan Scott who from what I can gather by reading his Wikipedia page has written alot of Star Wars stuff before but mostly for the Star Wars Adventures line of books as well as the Star Wars: Choose Your Destiny line of books. As such this his first time writing more mature Star Wars book and well if i'm being honest the writing isn't that good with alot of the dialog being spent telling us how good or protagonist Keeve Trennis is instead of giving reasons to actually care about her but that's also an issue with the Disney Star Wars sequel trilogy so you can easily tell that Kathleen Kennedy is being very hands on with this High Republic line of both books and comic books.

The artwork for this book is being done by Ario Anindito who as far as I can tell has mostly drawn Marvel comics but he did draw a what could be seen an offensive take on the origin of Jesus Christ with a book called Jesus Jumpkick which he drew for Notion Splosion Press. The art in my opinion isn't that bad but the issue is it's not that good either since there are alot of drawings that do look good but there are alot more drawings that look like they could have done with one or even two more passes just to get them better.

Now then let's talk about our main character for this issue shall to me Keeve Trannis who yes is our main character for this issue. Is rather bland rather understandably we don't get to find out much about her but at the same time we don't get to find out what her personality is either and so she comes across as a generic jedi someone who the audience can picture themselves being but that doesn't make Keeve Trannis an interesting or even good character it makes her a dull and boring character or at least that's what I think anyways.

I will say that a famous Star Wars character does appear in this opening issue but it's just one short scene. To me tho having that character appear in this issue is pointless since all it is is a cheap way to try and get the older fans on board with this High Republic line of books and comic books since the role that this character played in the book is so small that it could have been cut out and nothing important would have been lost but that's what I think anyways.

Now then this is an action comic book and that means that I have to talk about the action that's in this first issue. In my opinion the action wasn't that bad it was the kind of action that you expect to see in a Star Wars comic book which is both this issues biggest strength and one of it's weaknesses because yeah the action is really cool but at the same time it's full of stuff that we've seen already and that kind of makes the action feel a bit boring in my opinion.

Overall to say that I have very mixed feeling about this first issue would be a huge understatement since there is the potential there to be a good book. However due to the fact that Kathleen Kennedy seems to be heavily involved with this High Republic line of books and comic books I can't see either this book or the line of book and comic books being that good and since this is only my first impressions of the "Star Wars: The High Republic" comic book then I won't give this book a rating since like i said it could turn out to be great and it wouldn't be right to judge an entire series based on the first issue of the comic book. 

All of the images that I used in this post I got from either the official Star Wars fandom wiki page or a "other methods" website. Now usually I wouldn't do this but i'm going to here i'm not going to recommend the best website to use for images from this issue just because the website I would honestly recommend is the "other methods" website ad I don't condone using those kinds of websites hell I only used it just because i'm in the UK and well you know how the world is and what's happening in the UK right now so I had no choice but to use the "other methods" website but trust me when I tell you the images from that "other methods" website are very high quality and very high definition but again the "other methods" website is not one that I condone using tho.

 

  

  

Raw January 4th 2021 "Raw Legends Night" SPOILERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Review

 

WWE fans it's no secret that the WWE has seen a huge decline in ratings in recent years and instead of making an active effort to try and permanently fix whatever issues that they have they do the same freaking thing. Which is they bring out the legends for a quick ratings boost and while having WWE legends is indeed a solid idea for a one off special episode of either Raw or Smackdown the WWE seems to be doing every six months or so and join me as I review the January 4th 2021 edition of Raw which is called "Raw Legends Night" enjoy.

Now just like I did with the first episode of AEW: Dynamite i'm doing this review based of the UK version of Raw. However unlike the debut episode of AEW Dynamite which had at least half of it's show cut for some unknown reason this version of Raw has all of it's segments and matches full intact which for me at least is a very good thing since it means that us fans here is the UK get to fully enjoy the show the way that it was meant to be enjoyed.

For some reason they chose not to follow up on the awesome Alex Bliss angel however they do bring up and resolve that cliffhanger from the end of last weeks Raw. I honestly feel that they should have continued the Alexa Bliss / Fiend / Randy Orton storyline just because the cliffhanger from last week was so good that it was all people were talking about and so they had all of this momentum going into this show but for some reason they chose not continue the great Alexa Bliss / Fiend / Randy Orton storyline.

Instead what they chose to do was have Randy prove how evil he is by talking trash to some of the legends backstage. That to me is not only a waste of Randy Orton but it's also a waste of the legends simply because Randy's focus shouldn't be the legends it should be The Fiend and it's a waste of the legends because all of the legends would have been taking part in much better or even funnier segments and not be in segments that aren't that good.

This was my first time watching a full episode of either Raw or Smackdown in a long time I have kept up with the WWE product but that was through watching the clips posted to the official WWE Youtube channel. As such I really hadn't seen the Thunderdome in action and I have to say that it looks really impressive and I love the fact that the WWE found a way to bring the pyro back simply by having some of the pyro stored inbetween where the fans which I thought was really cool as well as the fact that they have a bunch of pyro ready to go at the stage area which again I thought was really cool.

Now when this show was first announced one of the "legends" that was announced was that of Carlito and well Carlito isn't featured on the show at all. Hell he's not even part of the legends line up during the main event so I gave to wonder why did the WWE bother to advertise Carlito if they knew that they had nothin for him to do on the show to me that seems like your lying since your promising one thing but your giving us another thing entirely.

I will fully admit that I wasn't expecting to laugh as much as I did during the opening Miz Tv segment The New Day (Kofi and Xavier Woods) and The Miz And John Morrison have great chemistry together. Honestly all four of those guys had me laughing during that segment but even tho I liked the Miz Tv segment I do wish that it was a bit shorter since it did go on a little bit to long in my humble opinion.

This is something that's been bugging the living hell out of me since this Raw Legends Night was announced and that's the fact that for some reason Alicia Fox is considered a WWE legend. Alicia Fox is not only still fairly young but she's also not done anything to earn the title of legend and lastly to my knowledge at least she's still a member of the active roster so why in the hell does the WWE think that she's legend when she's so clearly not a legend at all.

I honestly did like the fact that they had all of the legends that we saw on the show come out for the main event hell we even saw a few legends that didn't take part in any backstage segments. That being said however it would have been nice to see some of the legends that can still wrestle like Booker T , Jeff Jarret , Melina and Kurt Angle have some quick matches against some of the younger talent since that way you could have the legends build up the younger talent and it would have been a fun way to have some of the legends remind us as to why there legends in the first place plus it would have made great use some of the legends in my opinion.

THE ONE SPOILER FOR THE ENTIRE SHOW STARTS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In terms of wrestling matches this show had some decent matches with perhaps my personal favourite being the main event featuring Keith Lee vs Drew McIntyre for the WWE Championship. I'm telling you now those are in at least five to ten or even fifteen years are going to main eventing either PPV's or Wrestlemania together because my god was there match freaking fantastic it was very fast paced and very hard hitting altho i have to wonder how the Raw announce table broke since Keith Lee was driven through it if anything he just clipped the edge of the table.

I have to talk about the ending of the show and the appearance of Goldberg because my god was that a cool surprise. However what wasn't a good surprise is the fact that it looks like were getting Goldberg vs Drew McIntyre for the WWE Championship at WWE Royal Rumble 2021 which I can guarantee is something that nobody asked for and Drew win or loose comes out looking bad because if he looses he lost to an old man but if he wins then he just beat up an old man anyone currently active on the male roster could easily challenge Drew for the belt but some reason Vince McMahon wants to see Goldberg vs Drew McIntyre for the WWE Championship.

THE ONE SPOILER IN THE ENTIRE REVIEW ENFS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Overall this show was a waste of potential since we had the potential to see some really cool ideas and matches. While we did get some good matches that was all we got which for a legends show isn't that good we want to see the legends talking up the current roster because that's how you help make the current rosters stars and this is something that Vince McMahon and the writers of Raw don't understand so in about six months there will be another legends night because the ratings wouldn't have improved because Vince McMahon doesn't understand that you have to create stars as such this episode of Raw gets a 5.5 out of 10 from me.

As for where I got the images that I used in this review well I got them from either the official Pro Wrestling fandom wiki page or Google Images. I honestly have no idea where would be the best images if for some reason wanted images from this legends night since the images are about the same quality on both the official Pro Wrestling fandom wiki page and Google Images altho i will admit that the images that I got from the official Pro Wrestling fandom wiki page are that of the current Raw logo , Alexa Bliss and Alicia Fox and the Mix TV picture with the Alexa Bliss and Alicia Fox images being the most high definition out of the three images that I mentioned so I say use which ever website you want to use.

 

My Top 5 Worst And Best Films Of 2020

 

Ladies and gentlemen this is something that I usually do on December 31st however i'm writing this review a day early simply because I cannot think of a single thing to review. I think it's safe to say that 2020 has been a terrible year for reasons that you all know and it's because of those reasons that alot of films either got delayed until next year or were dumped onto one of the thousands (or possibly millions) of streaming services and so instead of producing a top ten films of the year i've been forced to spilt this post in half with the first five films being my worst films of 2020 and the second half being my best films of 2020 and the rules will be the same those being I have to have seen the film in the question then film in question has to have had a UK release date of 2020 and so let's get this post started shall we.

WORST

5 THE GRUDGE (2020 FILM)

 

Perhaps the worst sin that this film commits is the fact it's boring and is very easily forgotten i'm honestly sat here right now i'm trying to think of anything that happened in that film and I can't think of anything. This film really wasn't needed we didn't need another film adaptation of Ju-On: The Grudge and it doesn't help that as far as I ca remember the film does nothing original so it's a pointless remake / sequel to the American the grudge films.

4) BLOODSHOT

Now you'd be forgiven for thinking that there wasn't any comic book movies released this year however there was a very small amount of comic book films that did get released both on Christmas Day and in February of 2020. Sadly this film does start of a small trend for the next few entries in this list since this film is pretty I can't say that's as bad as another comic book film on this list but yeah this film is bad because it takes a cool idea of having a human be enhanced by something to give them superpowers and it somehow makes that idea dull and bland.

3) THE NEW MUTANTS

This is a film that i've been looking forward to for literally years since the film was meant to be released back in 2018. This film just like Bloodshot and even the next film on this list had the potential to be good but it just didn't live up to it mostly because of the fact that the film had been delayed so many times that it became ridiculous but also because the film has bad writing , slightly bad acting and just does a bad job at being a horror themed superhero movie or just being a movie in general since none of the characters are likeable the film isn't scary in the slightest in my humble opinion.

2) BIRDS OF PREY

Now I know that this is going to upset alot of you but i'm one of the many , many , many people that didn't like this film. To say that I hated this film would be like The Mandalorian is a good TV show and the best thing in Star Wars right now (no duh) every little thing that this film could do wrong it does do wrong hell it doesn't make the titular Birds Of Prey team the main characters it instead makes Harley Quinn the main character which trust me is just the very tip of the ice berg when it comes to the amount of things that I didn't like about this film.

1) American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules

I'm just going to be blunt as hell here this film is really freaking bad all this film is is gender swapped version of the original American Pie and nothing more. This film is more bothered with shoving an agenda down your throats then it is about being a good film hell this film is more interested about reminding you of the original American Pie then it is about being aa good film there's nothing redeeming about this film whatsoever and it's one that should be avoided at all costs in my humble opinion.

BEST

5) Scoob!

You know it really is something when the first film in my best of 2020 films list is at best OK but like I said at the start of the post due to alot of films either getting delayed or dumped on a streaming service the fact that there was enough films to even make a top 5 worst list is astounding. This film is honestly really freaking entertaining and it does a good job of bringing the Mystery Inc gang into the twenty first centaury but I do wish that the film makers had gone with the current official voice cast instead of using celebrities but at least they brought back Frank Welker to voice Scooby-Doo so there's that at the very least.

4) SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (FILM)

Now for all of you who are getting ready to bite my head of that this isn't higher on the list let me explain. It's at number four not because it's bad film because it isn't it's honestly a really good film but it's because the following three films are films that I happen to like more then this film but like I said this is still a good film since it tells a good story and is in my opinion one of the most fun films to come out this year and i say bring on Sonic The Hedgehog 2 because they are working on a sequel and yes I will be covering it when the sequel which currently has no title with the sequels current release date being April 8th 2022.

3) WONDER WOMAN 1984

Now it was very hard for me to choose which film went in this spot since in my opinion both films are really good. I will fully admit that Wonder Woman 1984 isn't as good as the first solo live action Wonder Woman film from 2017 which was also called Wonder Woman (duh) but in my opinion this film is still a really fun film to watch and it's full of good acting and really good action but that's just my humble opinion tho.

2) SOUL

I went with this one over Wonder Woman 1984 because this film was very visually stunning in my opinion. I cannot put into words how much I was looking forward to seeing this film because the words simply haven't been invented yet and while this film didn't live up to my own person expectations this film is easily one of the best films of the year and I say one of the best films of the year because there's another film which is slightly better in my own humble opinion.

1) WOLFWALKERS

Wolfwalkers for me is easily better then Soul since it does every little thing that Soul gets right but it does those things better in my opinion. Everything about this film is just simply stunning from the animation , to the music and the acting it all just works really well in this film and like with The New Mutants this is a film that i've been looking forward to watching for years but whereas The New Mutants didn't live up to my expectations this film exceeded them.

To cut a very long part of the post short I used various fandom wiki pages for alot of the images that I used in this post with the exception on the American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules poster which I got from Google Images and I used Google Images for the 2020 logo / whatever you want to call it at the start of the post. In this case it would be pointless for me to say which website would be best to use since im not talking about one particular thing here but I will say that the fandom wiki page's do nine times out of ten have high definition images.

Viz: The Wizard's Sleeve Annual 2021 Review

 

Viz fans it's been along time since I last talked about anything to do with Viz comics and well as luck would have it one of my presents for Christmas this year was the latest Viz annual. As such since there's a bit of a tradition going on here where I review each Viz annual when it comes out or when I get my hands on the annual it only makes sense that I review the latest annual and so here is my review of "Viz: The Wizard's Sleeve" enjoy.

CHARACTERS FEATURED INCLUDE

BIFFA BACON

For some reason this annual features alot of Biffa Bacon which for those that don't know Biffa Bacon is meant to be an average lad but he lives in a world dominated by violence. As such Biffa often finds himself in brutal but comical fights often with his own parents and for some reason in this annual the character is featured quite alot which wouldn't be an issue if the character was good or his stories really funny but sadly there not and Biffa and both of his parents aren't that good characters and so his stories just come of as dull and if i'm being honest kind of boring in my very humble opinion.

MR. LOGIC

The character of Mr. Logic does appear in few strips which is good because I find his stories to be pretty funny and the same is true here. I just love that even tho this character is very good natured he more often then not ends up in more danger or trouble then what he was in originally due to his insistence of using logic and giving people these very longwinded talks about how to reached whatever conclusion he was trying to reach.

THE FAT SL*GS

Lastly in the characters that i'm listing we have my personal favourite characters from Viz The Fat Sl*gs. I just adore these characters because not only do you get a good sense of who each of the characters are in each strip that they appear in but you could literally put these characters in any location and in case of this annual time and give them any kind of set up and it would be funny and i'll fully admit that there strips in this annual got alot of laughs out of me just due to how funny there comic strips were in my opinion.

There are alot of characters who appear quite alot in this annual and so I chose not to include them all since I would be here all day listing them all. However as you can no doubt tell by the character's that i've listed alot of the old favourite Viz characters are featured in this annual and alot of them do have some really funny storylines but at the same time characters like 8Ace only have one storyline and our featured several times and in the case of 8Ace it's that he's trying to find money to buy some beer and that's that's the story which would be fine if 8Ace appeared once but he makes a few appearences in this annual and it's all just variations of the exact same story.

As to be expected by now they don't list who's doing the artwork for each comic strip anywhere in the annual as such I cannot tell you who's doing the art work for what strip. However in terms of what I thought about the artwork that was featured in this annual it wasn't that bad with alot of comic strips having some really good art work of course the artwork isn't perfect which is to be expected but the artwork is in the minority in this case with there being alot more better drawn comic strips then there are comic strips in this annual that aren't drawn as well as the other comic strips in this annual.

There are some characters that don't make an appearance in this years annual for some reason like for example Buster Gonad is nowhere to be found. Which I found to be rather odd since from what I could gather Buster Gonad was a fairly popular character as well as a character who appeared in alot of issues of Viz Comics and so it would make sense for him to show up even once in this annual but nope him and a few other characters (who I cannot remember the names of right now) don't appear at all in this annual.

Now then since Viz Comics / Viz Magazine is a comedy comic / magazine that does mean that I have to talk about the jokes that are in this years annual. Which for me personally the jokes in this years annual weren't that funny don't get me wrong there are some really good jokes like for example alot of the newspaper stuff is really funny as are alot of the letters that are featured in the annual but alot of comic strips just either didn't make me laugh or had a very weak punchline which for Viz is never a good thing since the guys and girls over at Viz can make anything funny but they just didn't with alot f the comic strips that are featured in this years annual.

Overall while this years annual is indeed very good and can be very funny at times as i've mentioned in this review. They put alot of focus onto unfunny and uninteresting characters and tell the exact same story with the same character in multiple comic strips in the same annual but I do recommend this to any Viz Comics / magazine fan just because it's filled with the same Viz goodness that many of us know and love as such this years annual which as the title of this review says is called "Viz: The Wizard's Sleeve" gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me.

All of the images that I used in this review were gathered from either Amazon UK , Google Images , the official Viz fandom wiki page or the official Albion British Comics Database Wiki fandom wiki page. I honestly have no idea which would be the best website to use for images mostly because there aren't that many images out there when it comes to this annual and so you have to know what characters you want to feature and look up the images individually which means that the image quality really does vary as such i say use whichever website you want to use but I will say that Google Images is a very good place to start since you can get alot of images from Google Images but that's just me being helpful tho you guys feel free to use whichever website you want to images from either this annual or anything to do with Viz Comics / magazine.

 

AEW Dynamite Episode One Review

 

Guys and girls even tho as pretty much all of you will know i'm a huge wrestling fan and yet i've never actually reviewed a wrestling show before. Well i'm hopefully going to be changing that because if this post does well i'll look into reviewing more wrestling episodes and since this is basically a pilot how this review might not be how the other reviews go should this review do well that is and so join my as I review the first ever episode of "AEW: Dynamite" enjoy.

Firstly i'm doing this review based of the ITV version of the episode which I didn't realise cut the episode in half and so half of the matches are missing. This right here is a huge issue for me personally because when i'm doing a review I like to watch the whole product start to finish and as it turns out the ITV cut of the episode is the only one that's online which means I can't view all of the matches which is a shame because alot of the talent on this opening card is really good and so I wish that ITV had aired the full two hour show instead of cutting it down to forty six minuets.

The set for AEW: Dynamite while it is indeed a very nice looking set to me it looks like the set that TNA / Impact Wrestling used in the mid 2000's. However tho TNA / Impact Wrestling used that set better in my opinion because they had it where if you were a face you'd come out of one of the set's two tunnels and if you where a heel then you'd come out of the other AEW tho doesn't do that instead having both faces and heels come out of the same tunnel which to me makes the other tunnel pointless because it's just sitting there doing nothing.

There's also a chandelier type object above entrance way which as far as I can tell is there simply to cover up the gap between the two main video screens. Like I said the set isn't that bad and it does look very nice but at the same time they could have done alot better with the set so that there using as much space as they can and not just having large amounts of empty set to waiting to be filled in but for the brands first set it's not that bad.

Our opening match is "The American Nightmare" Cody Rhoades who is being accompanied by his wife and future mother of his kid Brandi Rhoades as Cody takes on "The Best Ever" Sammy Guevara. Out of the two full matches (damn you ITV) that I was able to see this was the better match in my opinion just due to how technical the match was plus the feeling that I got from this match is that it could possibly lead to something down the ling which I can't recall if it did or not but based on this match I want to see Cody and Sammy Guevara wrestle each other again just because the two have great chemistry together in the ring.

One thing that really sort of stood out for me personally is the fact that for the first match at least Tony Schiavone cannot stop talking about the last time WCW was on TNT. We get it Tony Schiavone you worked for WCW back in the day you don't need to bring it up every chance you got speaking of the commentary Jim "It's Ross Time" Ross , Tony Schiavone and Excalibur do a solid job altho it's mostly just Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone talking while Excalibur just stands there saying nothing for large portions of both matches.

The matches that I sadly didn't get to see at least on the copy of the episode that I have are MJF vs Brandon Cutler. As well as PAC vs Hangman Page and Riho vs Nyla Rose altho I did get to see the final few minuets of the Riho vs Nyla Rose match due to those few minuets being up on Youtube but in really bad quality , it's a shame that I got to miss these matches because most of the wrestlers involved are really good wrestlers and I would have liked to have seen those matches.

I really cannot find any faults in this first show because in terms of debut shows this is honestly one of the more better ones. I know that this will make alot of die hard WWE fans angry but to me this episode of AEW Dynamite is alot better then alot of the stuff that WWE  was putting out when this show debuted in 2019 so much so in fact that I believe AEW Dynamite bear WWE NXT several weeks in a row in terms of ratings but I could be wrong there so don't quote me on that.

One of the other travesties is the fact that ITV cut the Kevin Smith appearance I say it was just Kevin Smith's appearance because just after they do the intro to the show and we go live to the arena for the first time I could have swore that we saw Jason Mewes in the crowd. So ITV cut Silent Bob's appearance on the show but they kept Jay's which to me makes no sense since Kevin Smith is the bigger name and so it would have made alot more sense to keep his appearance on the show in the UK / ITV cut of the episode.

Like I said at the start of the review this episode at least in the UK runs for forty six minuets and thirty two seconds. Which in my opinion is a decent amount of time for a debuting brand / company / wrestling show just because it gives you enough time for your wrestlers who are wrestling on that particular show to show what they can do and the audience at home isn't left bored the issue that I have with the episode is the fact that ITV cut down a two hour show to forty six minuets and thirty seconds and so alot of stuff ends being cut and there's a few awkward cuts because of it.

The final match on the show is a six man tag team match with The Elite ( The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega) taking on Chris Jericho , Santana & Ortiz. In my opinion this match suffered due to the fact that it was on last and the fact that ITV only but this show on for barely fifty minuets which sadly means there are a few awkward cuts here and there but the match it self is honestly really good with both teams getting in alot of good high impact moves and it's here where the commentary team do a good job of selling the Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley since when Moxley does interfere the commentary go insane as well as make it point to point out how destructive and violent Kenny Omega and Jon Moxley are when they are wrestling each other plus we get to see a cool spot where Kenny Omega suplex's Jon Moxley through a glass table which was awesome in my opinion.

Overall this is a solid first episode you can tell that AEW (All Elite Wrestling) is going to be some competition either for WWE or for TNA / Impact Wrestling which in the end can only be a good thing since competition is healthy since it forces you to keep your product fresh and exciting. I'm not going to lie and say that this episode was perfect but alot of the faults that I found with the episode tended to be more from ITV's side of things rather for AEW's (All Elite Wrestling) side of things as such this episode gets a solid 8.5 out of 10 from me.

All of the images that I used in this review were gathered from the official Pro Wrestling fandom wiki page (which is just called Pro Wrestling) or Google Images. Honestly I cannot say where it's best to get images from this particular episode of AEW Dynamite from since even tho the official Pro Wrestling fandom wiki page has more of a verity of images the one image that I got of Google Images which was of the AEW Dynamite set was over five megabytes so I say use whichever website you want to use since image quality wise chances are there going to be the exact same on either website.

So there we have it guys and girls my first ever wrestling show review is done and in the can I admit I wasn't quite sure how I was going to tackle this review since i'm more use to reviewing movies and other TV episodes but once I started writing this review it just came to me so please let me know how you think I did on this review and if there are things that I need to improve upon and please note that if I do do more of these wrestling show reviews they will only be episodes of the weekly shows just because they are alot easier to watch where as with a PPV i'd be sat there for three and half hours if not more.

 

  

Friends "The Pilot" Review

 

Ladies and gentlemen there are alot of TV shows that I want to base reviews n and alot of them I simply haven't gotten around to covering. One of those can now be ticked of since as you can see by the title i'm doing a review based of the first episode of a show that I loved growing up and I have to say going back to this first episode felt weird since i'm used to seeing these characters looking older and not younger and so here is my review of the pilot episode of Friends which is known by many names but i'm just calling it "The Pilot" enjoy.

Now here I would normally disclose what the plot of the episode is and give you my thoughts on the plot but the episode did me a favour and didn't include a plot. Instead all the pilot episode is is just a bunch of scenes whose sole purpose is to tell jokes which since this is a comedy show it makes alot of sense that the scenes are there jus to lead up to a joke but at the same time it would have been nice if there was a story being told since it would then give your show a reason to exist even if the story is just about Rachel who meets the gang in this episode is just trying to get to know the gang even a story as simple as that would still work because it's still a good and simple story and doing simple stores is what this show is good at doing in my opinion.

Starring in the episode is future A list actresses Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Greene , future Scream franchise star  Courteney Cox as Monica Geller and Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay. Also starring in the episode is Matt Le Blanc as Joey Tribbiani , Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing , David Schwimmer as Ross Geller , John Allen Nelson as Paul the Wine Guy , Clea Lewis as Franny and Cynthia Mann as Jasmine.

For their first episode the cast really do knock it out of the park in my opinion with all of the main six actors giving some really funny performances. Honestly I can't really find that much wrong with the episode when it comes to the acting since the acting is exactly what you expect from a pilot episode in that it's good but there's clearly room to grow which for me at least is a good thing because it would be hard for anyone to keep on delivering great acting on a weekly basis but here the six main actors have room to grow and improve and they do improve over the shows ten years.

One of the things that i'd say this show is famous for it's the dance that the main six actors do in the show's opening. However what I didn't know is that this pilot episode is the only episode in the show's entire run to feature the full dance and while I do like the opening to this show alot I can see why it was trimmed down a bit since it does take a while for the intro to end which given this show isn't that long you need all the running time that you can get.

Now I could be mistaken but I do believe that this episode uses a laugh track but like I said I could be very well be wrong. If it does use a laugh track I have to wonder why they used a laugh track because alot of the jokes are genuinely funny on there own and if they didn't use a laugh track then I have to give them credit because they had a lot of funny jokes in this episode and yes I will be talking about the jokes later on in this review.

This episode has a running time of twenty two minuets and forty nine seconds so let's round that up to twenty two minuets and fifty seconds. Which oddly feels about right for this episode since there's not story going on at all but at the same time it feels alot longer then that because of the fact that there's no story going on and so that does make the episode feel a bit boring at times which is never a good thing since if your a film , TV show / episode / book / video game / comic book or whatever you always want your auidence to be entertained and the only way that you can do that is by having a story which as i've mentioned is something that this episode lacks.

Now i'm not kidding when I say this but this is a show that I grew up with and I mean that in the literal sense since I was four when this show started airing. This is one show that I can never escape since even now sixteen years after the show ended I still cannot escape the show since it's repeated a lot on a lot of various different channels / networks and honestly I love that fact since this show is lighthearted fun and given that it's 2020 we need a bit of light hearted fun right now due to everything that's going on in the world.

Now then boys and girls this is a comedy and so that means that I have to talk about the jokes that are in the episode itself. If i'm being honest the jokes in this episode are were the episode shines best in my opinion simply because the jokes in this episode are freaking funny while yes there are some jokes that didn't get a laugh they were few and far between and they very quickly followed up those unfunny jokes with jokes that were really funny or at least least I thought that the jokes in this episode were funny and like I say all comedy is subjective and so what I found funny you guys might not find funny and what I didn't find funny you guys might find to be really freaking funny.

Overall this was honestly a really solid episode in my opinion and like I said at the start of the review it was weird seeing the cast so young since i'm so used to seeing the cast a bit older. I'm not going to say that this episode is perfect because it's honestly not and all the issues that i've had with the episode i've covered in this review but at the same time there are alot of good things in the episode and just like all the things that I didn't like about the episode all the things that I did like about the episode i've also talked about in this review as such this episode gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me.

All of the images that I used in this review were gathered from either the official Friends fandom wiki page or Google Images. Since I got the vast majority of the images that I used in this review from the official Friends fandom wiki page I have no choice but to recommend that you guys use the official Friends fandom wiki page since even tho there aren't that many images either from this episode or from the either the show or it's spin off show called "Joey" the images that they do have are fairly high quality which for me at least is an important thing when i'm creating a review with the other being if i'm reviewing a TV episode (like with this review) then is there an episode by episode cast list but that's only important if i'm reviewing a TV episode and it isn't important if i'm reviewing a movie.