MassivePenguin's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Supermarket Luchadore]

Good but flawed

The Good: Nice art style, brilliant idea, above-par animation.

The Bad: No sense of timing, movie over-long

First off - excellent idea, and it has great scope. The NG logo blowing away at the start was really well done. The art style suits the subject matter well, and is nice to look at to boot.

But - and this is a real shame - your sense of timing is off. It took about 4 times as long as it should to get to the actual movie, and the setup for the final gag (the woman getting schooled) was about twice as long as it should have been. By the end it felt as though you were trying to stretch what should have been a one-minute movie into three or four minutes, and it suffers because of it.

It's a fine balance to strike to be sure, but it really does make all the difference; this movie could have felt really polished if not for all the filler.

Still, I wish you luck with this series and hope that the next one will be a little tighter - it has great potential.

The-Grogan responds:

Cheers for the constructive criticism. By way of explanation, I was kinda trying to build a sense of 'atmosphere', and the punchline was kinda meant to be the fact that it took so long to get to the punchline...Guess I screwed that one up! lol. Anyhoo, I'm new to Flash so it's always good to get non-abusive feedback ;-)

[Battle of Britain-Preview]

What the bloody hell?

AMERICAN pilots? Read your Goddamn history books, boy.

Get it right, or don't do it at all.

Foxbat responds:

Yes if you read your history books you would see that 7 American pliots fought in the battle of britain.

[Omaha.]

*Sigh*

I applaud you for trying, really I do, but the film was predictable and boring.

The fact is that there were more beach landings than just Omaha. And D-Day wasn't just about what the Americans did on the beaches - there were British and Commonwealth troops fighting (and dying) too. Why does no-one feel that their story should be heard? Is it because Spielberg hasn't bothered making a film about them?

Hollywood and the entertainment industry have bastardised history and skewed public perception towards the efforts of the Yanks alone - "Every Hero an American".

Do I really have to tell you people that the Brits and Europeans were at war FOR 5 YEARS before the Americans committed troops? That our cities were destroyed, our people evacuated, our children killed and orphaned?

Please, every time that something like this is made, the true memory of what happens fades a little bit more. I implore you all, don't believe solely what you see on the screen, be it in the living room, cinema, or at your computer. Read a book (you remember those...?), discover what really happened. The true horror, the courage, and the sacrifice of the millions of dead during WWII goes far beyond what Hollywood shows you.

We must learn from the past, lest we be doomed to repeat its mistakes, and in this case television and cinema is a poor teacher. With every passing day, another veteran dies - these are the people who were there, who looked into the face of death, and survived to tell the tale. These are the people who can tell the story with pride, and regret, and above all authority. Listen to them.

.......

Sooooo...... technically-speaking, the movie was OK. Nothing special, and it looks like you chose the art style because it was the easiest to render in Swift or 3DS-Max, or whatever it was you used for 3D, rather than because it looked good. I'm not trying to knock the sincerity of emotion you seemed to have put into this, I'm just saying that it doesn't do justice - nothing ever will.

[The10000 Frames of Art p1]

What was the point of that, exactly?

Whoop-de-doo, look at me, I can draw in perspective!

Seriously though, what was the point of that? If you'd submitted this as a tutorial it might have been OK, but passing off technical drawing as a movie just doesn't cut it for me. Who can get honest entertainment from watching a bunch of lines appear on the screen to some bad music (OK, not my taste).

Your submissions seem to be doing rather well though, so it could just be me missing the point.

Ohls responds:

well, I dont see this as a display of animation skills, the entertainment value in this is sepposed to be the art. A showcase of my art simply put, only you have the ability to see how i made the pictures.

[Halo: Pramape 343GS]

OK then....

Until I saw the Canadian Guilty Spark, this was heading for a low score.

Now you get a 4/5.

DO YOU SEE?!?

[I Just Want To Get A Nap]

Ha!

Great stuff. Great animation, great song, great everything in my book. Keep up the great work.

Great!

[Captain Awesome]

OK movie I guess...

... but I wish that EVERY OTHER SUBMISSION would stop using the 'Team America' music. I've seen 4 of 'em in the last 24 hours, and it's time to stop now, thank you very much.

[Evoltion of my Animation]

Hmmm.....

My understanding of the word 'evolution' is that there should be some difference in quality... it all looks pretty basic to me. The sound effects were a big mistake as well - they interfered with the music.

Mybe you should ask yourself 'Is there a point to me submitting this to Newgrounds?' next time. I'm honestly surpised this didn't immediately get blammed.

ZerapaNimao responds:

i meant (almost) everything i put in it
the title was for the movie is evoltion. not evolution. i think the sound if good overall as well as other people.

there is always a point to submit something. to get honest reviews. im not surpised it did how it did do. it did have skill. i have seen alot worse. and i have definatley seen alot better.

[(2005) Mystery Kar]

This almost never happens.

A Flash that actually made me laugh out loud. Four times.

And I wasn't even drunk!

Kudos, Knox. Kudos.

[Reprimand]

Very promising indeed.

This was very good. Big pluses include the use of music from Cowboy Bebop (although the full version of 'Rain', with the female singer, is a hell of a lot better than the demo cut you're using) and the very stylish direction.

The negative mark for me is the use of stick characters. In a story like this I'm sure that properly realised characters drawn frame-by-frame would work a lot better.

Nevertheless, you get high marks. Let's see how the next one pans out!