Esn's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ferrets]

Oh look, it's funny because bad things are said

I'm giving you a 6 because the art is good enough (though it's not really that good) and you put some nice effort into the song. But to tell the truth, I'm tired of stuff like this. How many hundreds of mainstream films and TV shows have recycled the same old premise of adding "shocking" material to what seems sugary-sweet on the outside? The laughter in these things comes from someone saying a swear word when they weren't supposed to, not from any actual smartly-written situation comedy, not from any observation on the world. The only observation made here is that old cartoons are too sugary sweet. Yeah, I get that. I've gotten that message loud and clear from hundreds of Adult Swim TV series already, most of which have been playing on the same concept for years and years. And from tons of stuff on websites like Newgrounds. And from arthouse animators like Don Hertzfeldt. This is pretty low-hanging fruit as far as comedy is concerned. Enough already! Stop being so lazy and say something new, you would-be humourists. Tell me something I haven't heard already, don't just keep telling the same joke in the same manner that everyone's heard a thousand times already in the past few years.

[Custodial Catastrophe]

Loved it!

The animation was great, as was the voice acting. The artwork was good. I especially liked the concept and the execution, though; it was very funny, and I loved how the gags just kept building. "Oh, that was my bad" was an awesome line.

It felt like the film could have continued, though. Any chance of continuing this guy's adventures? :)

VillainousTurtleSLC responds:

I thought about continuing it myself. That would have been real cool and interesting, y'know, the Military could roll up, drive him away. I'd get to do some fun character designs on the Military guys and their vehicles. More fun voice effects. Then he could go to a hospital and they could fix him up but also charge him for the destruction of the factory....

I always set my sites so low when I start animating that I never really take things as far as they could go or explore my own ideas deeply enough. The dirty little secret is that the only reason I even started making this was because I was reading about the Tsar Bomba detonated in Novaya Zemlya and wanted to animate a nuclear explosion!

I think continued adventures could be fun. I've yet to go the series route and I love to start fresh on each short because I get to be more creative and bring new ideas to the table. But, there does seem to be some demand. I need to think about moving in that direction.

[Bowser's Kingdom: Eps 10]

I haven't seen any of the previous ones,

...but I still found this enjoyable to watch and pretty funny. I can't give it a "10" or even a "9" because it's not really a full film, just a kind of behind-the-scenes thing. But it was well-made. It relies almost entirely upon the script and the voice acting, and luckily both of those things are done well.

[Dollar]

Just didn't like it, sorry.

It did start off promisingly and the mouth animation fit the words pretty well. The voice acting starts out good, but gets pretty bad at the end.

The crude joke at the end (even with the subtext) just didn't appeal to me, and since this was such a short film which relies almost entirely on that one joke, this means that the film didn't appeal to me either. That's all there is to it.

I can see by the scores of "10" reviews below that I'm in the extreme minority. (though I wish that some people wouldn't give "10" to everything that they like... that's what every score above "5" is for...)

[Everybody Jam!]

The song was...

...simply amazing, and great fun to listen to. Unfortunately, I didn't like the animation or art style at all. This is just personal taste, but I found the character designs and the way they moved to be really unappealing. I think maybe it was the constant smug face expressions and cheesy dance moves that really got to me. Though I did like how freely you animated in some places. The direction was... OK for short stretches of time, but there was too much repetition and you kept following the song literally (to the point of just showing words on the screen much of the time) instead of riffing off of it and doing something unique.

So my overall impression is decidedly mixed.

[Charizard & Blastoise]

Much too short

It was very well-animated, but it was so short that it just wasn't effective for me. You know, it goes back to that concept that Chaplin discovered that made his comedies so effective: hitting somebody isn't funny by itself, but hitting somebody who deserves it IS. You need some set-up for good comedy, and there was barely any here.

[Star Work Episode 7]

Pretty good

Well, it was a bit better than I expected. Although most of the jokes didn't really make me laugh (the bouncer's reaction to being called a "jerk" being the exception), watching this film wasn't a bad way to pass the time. I like how you resisted the temptation to make the boss a flat evil villain and gave him some likable human traits instead. The voice-acting was pretty good, especially for the waitress. The animation and art wasn't spectacular, but it was pleasant enough and did the job.

Overall, good work. I like it better than some of the stuff on the Top50...

Uptown-SlimJim responds:

Thanks. I'm not out to do anything monumental, I just like making quick little flash movies that I could watch during my break, ya know? Easy to make, quick to load and pleasant enough to get some chuckles.

Waitress voice props go to Rina Chan and her pro skills and superior mic. Thanks for watching.

[Chuck's New Tux!]

Well-done, but...

...my God, that was nasty and disturbing. I agree with those who say that "Mild Violence" is a big understatement.

Yeah, it was well-directed, the animation was great, art design was a great ripoff of that typical cartoony style (perfect for premise), and the music and voice acting were also superb. It was a bit short, so I probably would have given it an "8" under normal circumstances. However, that ending creeped me out so much that I'm taking off another point and giving it "7". Nothing personal, you know, it's just that I personally would've enjoyed the film more if it had taken a less gruesome direction. The premise was already funny enough without the shock value, which was too horrifying for my comfort.

[Cant Handle the Knowledge]

Fine animation, but hard to understand

Sorry for the somewhat low score, Nathan, but I just plain didn't get this one. Or rather, I got the basic gist of the story (since it was explained in the "evil villain speech" near the end of the film), but I didn't get the internal logic of the film. There were many characters and situations in there that simply felt tacked on and served no purpose that I could see except to make the film last longer (they weren't developed and seemed to serve no purpose for the main story). Most of the characters didn't get a proper introduction, also... maybe this was done in the previous films in the series (this is the first one of yours that I've watched), but a short introduction of the main characters would've been nice to avoid confusing new viewers.

Overall, that's my main problem with the film; it's too meandering and seems to be full of inside jokes/situations that nobody else would understand.

The actual art and animation of the film was fine; nothing spectacular, but I could tell that you spent some effort on it because it was consistent and watchable throughout. The lip-synching seemed nice. The songs were hit-and-miss... the one at the very end was good, but I didn't particularly like the musical number (then again, I generally don't like those in Family Guy either).

The humour didn't really work for me, maybe because I didn't understand what was going on most of the time. Although I did like some of the quick, random jokes that you had there; my favourite was the teddy bear suddenly coming to life and telling the dog that he couldn't sing.

munchmed responds:

thanks esn, its difficult to respond because your comment was hard to understand..
haha kidding :D
i know what you're saying, some bits were dragged out where in the same place could have been meaningful things for character development.
Thats probably down to my bad writing. But also that the deadline was zooming forward and i was getting rather worried about that as well. (forcollege)
Next time i do a big project like this i want to maybe get someone to look into the script and pick out and add bits that are required.
you're right, i really need to stop with the inside jokes haha
thanks esn :)

- Crumb

[Wrath of the Anicopters]

Hahah

I don't really have much to say, but I found this funny. Thanks for the laugh. :)

I loved the "song" especially.