Matt Zimmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
matt_zimmer) wrote2021-02-02 12:29 pm
matt_zimmer) wrote2021-02-02 12:29 pm
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"Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge" Review (Spoilers)
Also a review for the latest episode of Big Hero 6: The Series.
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge
That was gruesome. The violence was over the top, tough to watch, and everything I hate about violent adult cartoons.
And yet, I still really liked it. This positive review is going to be hard for me considering some of the controversial stances I have taken against previous bloodspattering cartoons. And I will always hate Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay, Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons, and the first episode of Harley Quinn. And I think what that ultimately boils down to is that they had nothing else going for them. They expected the shock value of the horrible deaths to be worth the price of admission and didn't bother coming up with a solid reason for them to exist. In Harley Quinn's defense, the show solidified in its second season once the Joker became largely absent. But I feel like the message of Scorpion actually winning the day by being clever enough to yield to Liu Kang rather than killing him, and taking out the bad guy instead was refreshing. I like that. In the videogames Scorpion's the bad guy, and you sort of root for Sub-Zero. The movie was clever enough to make Sub-Zero being framed for the horrible things he does at the beginning, so it can have its cake and eat it too. But I like that the heroes won because Scorpion is not actually stupid, and recognizes the sources of his grief, and isn't gonna take things out on Liu Kang simply because he's promised b.s. things if he does it. I like that.
I think the thing I really responded to in the movie was the tone. I actually very much expected the movie to be a black comedy going in (and the Daffy Duck / Scorpion intro solidified that belief) so I thought it was cool that the tone was, generally speaking, serious. I did not like the gutsplattering violence because the tone of THAT was the same as torture porn, in that it's designed to titillate the audience a bit. But you know what? At least it wasn't being played for laughs, which is what I expected. I'm glad.
Speaking of which, I found Johnny Cage an utter nuisance throughout most of the movie. He's a very well-known type of cartoon character you don't see anymore. But his rank stupidity and inability to recognize actual dangers puts his intelligence level somewhere between Inspector Gadget and Mr. Magoo. If one of the bad guys HAD torn him limb from limb, part of me thinks he'd have deserved it.
Admit it. If you weren't thinking of Inspector Gadget or Mr. Magoo before you read this review, you will no longer think of him as anything else but now. It's actually pretty freaking uncanny.
I was disturbed by this in places. But I thought it was pretty great overall. I'm not giving it a perfect grade (I've not gone THAT soft) but I'm giving it a solid four stars. ****.
Big Hero 6: The Series "The MiSFIT / Return To Sycorax"
The MiSFIT:
I object to the entire premise of the episode. Strongly. I think the message being sent is "Hiro is finally given a taste of his own medicine by the next generation." I reject that. On every level. The writer who thinks that is either unfamiliar with the franchise, or is hoping the viewer is. That is not a consistent message for this show.
Hiro sorts of reluctantly tells the kid, "I thought I knew everything at your age too," and Grandville rolls her eyes at Hiro asking if he was ever that bad. The episode fails because Hiro was NOT ever that bad. He was never bad period. This kid is rude and destructive. If anything, Hiro did everything in his power to make positive first impressions to both the school and other older scientists he looked up to. Acting like it's finally getting through to Hiro as to what a creep everyone thinks he is is the wrong message because Hiro is not and has never been a creep. Do I actually have to explain this to the writers? Do they not actually know their own show or their own characters?
I feel like this kind of lazy, hackneyed writing should be beneath the show. But the truth is, while I did enjoy the first season, the show was never really strong beyond it. The new 11 minute runtimes don't really factor into the fact that the show often uses plot related stupidity as a crutch, and is often interested in exploring tropes that are wrong to explore using the characters they do. I think the first season finale generated a LOT of goodwill from fans, but as much as I liked that finale, it was just a strong finale. It did not mean the show was unusually great, or that I would let it coast for every bit of lazy writing it's done since then. But I object to the idea that Hiro has to learn some shame and humility from this experience. Because he has nothing to be ashamed of. *.
Return To Sycorax:
That was silly, which isn't necessarily a drawback. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a dream sequence, which actually is. I'm giving it the proper negative grade for that. **.
Episode Overall: *1/2.
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge
That was gruesome. The violence was over the top, tough to watch, and everything I hate about violent adult cartoons.
And yet, I still really liked it. This positive review is going to be hard for me considering some of the controversial stances I have taken against previous bloodspattering cartoons. And I will always hate Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay, Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons, and the first episode of Harley Quinn. And I think what that ultimately boils down to is that they had nothing else going for them. They expected the shock value of the horrible deaths to be worth the price of admission and didn't bother coming up with a solid reason for them to exist. In Harley Quinn's defense, the show solidified in its second season once the Joker became largely absent. But I feel like the message of Scorpion actually winning the day by being clever enough to yield to Liu Kang rather than killing him, and taking out the bad guy instead was refreshing. I like that. In the videogames Scorpion's the bad guy, and you sort of root for Sub-Zero. The movie was clever enough to make Sub-Zero being framed for the horrible things he does at the beginning, so it can have its cake and eat it too. But I like that the heroes won because Scorpion is not actually stupid, and recognizes the sources of his grief, and isn't gonna take things out on Liu Kang simply because he's promised b.s. things if he does it. I like that.
I think the thing I really responded to in the movie was the tone. I actually very much expected the movie to be a black comedy going in (and the Daffy Duck / Scorpion intro solidified that belief) so I thought it was cool that the tone was, generally speaking, serious. I did not like the gutsplattering violence because the tone of THAT was the same as torture porn, in that it's designed to titillate the audience a bit. But you know what? At least it wasn't being played for laughs, which is what I expected. I'm glad.
Speaking of which, I found Johnny Cage an utter nuisance throughout most of the movie. He's a very well-known type of cartoon character you don't see anymore. But his rank stupidity and inability to recognize actual dangers puts his intelligence level somewhere between Inspector Gadget and Mr. Magoo. If one of the bad guys HAD torn him limb from limb, part of me thinks he'd have deserved it.
Admit it. If you weren't thinking of Inspector Gadget or Mr. Magoo before you read this review, you will no longer think of him as anything else but now. It's actually pretty freaking uncanny.
I was disturbed by this in places. But I thought it was pretty great overall. I'm not giving it a perfect grade (I've not gone THAT soft) but I'm giving it a solid four stars. ****.
Big Hero 6: The Series "The MiSFIT / Return To Sycorax"
The MiSFIT:
I object to the entire premise of the episode. Strongly. I think the message being sent is "Hiro is finally given a taste of his own medicine by the next generation." I reject that. On every level. The writer who thinks that is either unfamiliar with the franchise, or is hoping the viewer is. That is not a consistent message for this show.
Hiro sorts of reluctantly tells the kid, "I thought I knew everything at your age too," and Grandville rolls her eyes at Hiro asking if he was ever that bad. The episode fails because Hiro was NOT ever that bad. He was never bad period. This kid is rude and destructive. If anything, Hiro did everything in his power to make positive first impressions to both the school and other older scientists he looked up to. Acting like it's finally getting through to Hiro as to what a creep everyone thinks he is is the wrong message because Hiro is not and has never been a creep. Do I actually have to explain this to the writers? Do they not actually know their own show or their own characters?
I feel like this kind of lazy, hackneyed writing should be beneath the show. But the truth is, while I did enjoy the first season, the show was never really strong beyond it. The new 11 minute runtimes don't really factor into the fact that the show often uses plot related stupidity as a crutch, and is often interested in exploring tropes that are wrong to explore using the characters they do. I think the first season finale generated a LOT of goodwill from fans, but as much as I liked that finale, it was just a strong finale. It did not mean the show was unusually great, or that I would let it coast for every bit of lazy writing it's done since then. But I object to the idea that Hiro has to learn some shame and humility from this experience. Because he has nothing to be ashamed of. *.
Return To Sycorax:
That was silly, which isn't necessarily a drawback. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a dream sequence, which actually is. I'm giving it the proper negative grade for that. **.
Episode Overall: *1/2.