WarpZone's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[VG Clocks VS Mr_Artist]

Better than some of the other clocks VS Mr. Artist

Graphics: The clocks look as cloky as they ever do. SMB screenshot, meh. I can live with it. The cosplayer Mr. Artist was much funnier than this one. You can't expect much from Clock art, but in the animation department, they do a lot with a little.

Style: Now that's how you flame a forumite. Attack Pattern 27 Alpha was something that I found delightfully original. Better than maybe 75% of clock animations I've seen, but there was none of the awesome 60fps stuff you sometimes see. A clock spinning and rotating sure beats a stick figure spinning and rotating. Music was deployed with sass. The ending was kinda underwhelming.

Sound: Various mario musics. It starts with the one you're expecting, or rather a big band remix of it, and things follow the action nicely from there on.

Violence: Some light killing of Mr. Artist. You can hardly call that violence, though.

Interactivity: Movie.

Humor: Kinda funny. It was more interesting than funny. I was expecting a punchline at the end, and RupeeClock's quip just didn't do it for me, though it was kinda cute. Like almost half a smirk, but I was waiting for a real punchline to follow it, and instead the movie just died there.

Overall: Ehh. Slightly above average. Now I'll have youn know, that's the upper ten percentile, for a clock movie!

[NG Parodies 3 Teaser]

Um, isn't THIS a coming sooNEVER preview?

Graphics: Author perfectly parodies every crappy flash style known to mankind. In other words, the graphics suck. Pretentious gothic splash screen is the funniest part. Oh my god I can't stop laughing every time I see that axe or cloak or whatever it is. LOL! Classic.

Style: Same as graphics, the author tries and succeeds at copying the look and feel of every horrible submission that drags its carcass through the portal. No, I don't think it's even slightly suspicious that this user hasn't released anything at all other than Newgrounds Parodies. What? No! No... I'm sure that doesn't mean this is the best he can do. No, no... it's gotta a brilliant, scathing parody. And man, that bunny part was just a hillarious parody. All those ovals and lines barely touching each other... LOL!

Sound: See Graphics and Style. It sucks, but that's okay, because it's supposed to suck.

Violence: RED LINES EVERYWHERE! OMFG!

Interactivity: movie.

Humor: Hee hee hee... and then there's slashing noises and red lines appear on a black background... HILLARIOUS!

Overall: I usually don't bother with previews, but this one is actually pretty funny, and you can tell it had a decent ammount of work put into it for... three days... um. Okay, hold it. You got bored with your project after three days and felt the need to submit something? Isn't that what you're making fun of other authors doing just before the screen goes black? That's just wrong, dude. If 3 days was an exhausing marathon of work, how long did the other NG Parodies take you? 2 days? OH MY GOD, THESE AREN'T PARODIES! THIS IS SERIOUSLY THE BEST FLASH THIS GUY CAN MAKE! HE'S JUST TRICKING US INTO GIVING HIM A GOOD SCORE BY MAKING FUN OF HIS PEERS! Okay, maybe not. But seriously, how can we tell?

Why don't you show us how it's done, ShadowMaster.

XxShadowMasterxX responds:

i dunno if this is bad or not.. but no its really gonna be a full flash... and It time consuming drawing EVERYTHING with a mouse...its not like I plan on spending the on on a drawing board..i got other things to pay for right now...

[Pool Rules: Part 1]

Nice work! Could stand to be more stylized.

Graphics: HOLY CRAP! They detailed the crap out of everything! Look at the city streets! Look at the stairs on that waterslide! This is just... excessive! Now id only the author had a better developed sense of perspective and the characters didn't look so wavery and stringy, this would have been a 10 in art. Animation and gestures are present and accounted for.

Style: Ugh. I guess the furres are making Flash cartoons now. Oh well. The drawings look like just that: individual drawings of people done with a ball-point pen. Instead of drawing a person standing still, facing perfectly straight forward, and then bending individual parts to make animations, try to develop a feel for drawing people diagonally. Check out some good "How to draw" books from the local library, and practice copying other people's cartoon animals. I'm not saying your individual style isn't GOOD. I'm just saying that you can learn a heck of a lot by imitating other people's styles, ESPECIALLY if their work is a far cry from your own. It makes you stronger as an artist and gives you a wider range of tools to use when expressing your own ideas.

Sound: I liked the voice of the gay otter, and the two characters really felt like they were talking to each other, kind of playing off of each other's words like on a sitcom. I didn't realize how rare this was in Flash until I noticed it here. Good work. The music is perky, fun and upbeat, without being too annoying or overshadowing the other sound. You seem to have a very good good sense of how long an intro or a montage should be.

Violence: none

interactivity: movie

Humor: Not bad. You expressed the premise fairly swiftly, followed by some fairly amusing one-liners. Yay, implied mythical creatures. The conversation was more interesting than hillarious, and a lot of that was not the words said but all in the delivery. There is something about your vocals that implies a sense of real interaction between the characters. I'm guessing you either hired professional actors or the guy and the girl who voiced this know each other personally and are very close in some way. You don't get that kind of emotional subtext in, say, Bonus Stage, and it's refreshing to find it in a Flash. I just wish I could watch a sophisticatedly written cartoon about a talking otter without involuntarily thinking, "Ewww, people who cut extra holes in their halloween costumes." *shudder* Couldn't he have been a mermaid dude or something?

Oh, and the otter fantasizing about the waterslide was the funniest thing EVAR! XD

Overall: I really, really enjoyed this, and I was blown away by the backgrounds and the voice acting. Your drawings could use a little more polish and style, and your sense of perspective definitely needs help, but you've worked hard to animate everything here to the best of your ability. Keep practicing, and I can't wait to see what else you've got in store for us. Whether it's more Pool Rules, or something else enitely, I can't wait.

elliscm responds:

Thank you so much for such a detailed, thorough review. I really appreciate you taking the time to give me so much feedback.

As for the constructive criticism regarding style, I definitely appreciate that as well. This is my first cartoon, and I'm not much of an artist anyway. I've pretty much been trying to make up for my lack of any innate talent or experience by just using hard work. I'll take your advice though and work on the drawings for the next part.

As for the furry stuff, I share your distaste for some of the things people do with those suits, but I refuse to abandon the fun idea of anthropomorphic animals just because some people do creepy things with them.

I was a little surprised by your assumption that Manny was gay though, as that hadn't really been my intention. What gave you that impression I wonder?

I'll definitely continue the series though, and hopefully, I'll continue to approve. Thanks again for the review.

[Emily Vs. The Zombie]

Awesome first submission.

Graphics: Ambitious attempt at animating the crap out of everything. Original but slightly awkward drawing style. Individual frames are not consistant with one another, nor is there any sense of 3D space or realistic anatomy. For everything poor or pediocre about this drawing style, though, this MURDERS THE EVERLOVING CRAP out of typical stick figure noobness! Good job! Read some more advanced drawing books and keep practicing!

Style: From the pacing and timing with the music to the various close-ups and implied cinematography, everything about this short oozes style. It could have been better if it had been in color. Maybe cool, soft pastels for the girl and her house, with stark black night outside and creepy grey zombieflesh. The two would contrast together pretty well, I think, as the drawing styles aready do.

Sound: I liked this music, it was perfect for a zombie attack in the middle of nowhere, and events were synched to it in a catchy, anxious way. Sound effects would have been nice.

Violence: Lots of blood, but no actual violence. It's more like... um, "mood blood."

Interactivity: Movie. (Note: change the color of the loading bar next time so we can actually see it on a white background. Duh.)

Humor: Hee. The look on her face is priceless. The pee was perhaps a bit excessive, but the pitiful look in her eyes kept it funny. The ending made absolutely no sense, but it was better than watching her getting her brains eaten. The sense of relief makes one feel like laughing anyway.

Overall: This is an artist to watch! Ambitious animation techniques. A bizare sense of humor. A perchant for actual storytelling as opposed to just showing us a bunch of stuff that happened. Over-the-top toon antics coupled with a demonstrated ability for realistic drawing. Oh, yes. This IS a Flash author to keep an eye on.

Gossio-el-Diablos responds:

I've read this review about five times, and I'll read it five more. Then I'll print it off and preserve it so one day I can show the grandkids and say...
"Look, this is the nicest thing anyone ever said to me on the internet!"
Then i'll probably cry a little and pretend I've got something in my eye. Then the grandkids will probably laugh at me. Little bastards!
WarpZone, you're a legend, thanks to you I've decided to make my nextflash 10 x more ambitious than it was going to be... oh it's gonna be good!

[Reprimand II Trailer]

Woah... a demo that's not an excuse to be lazy?

Graphics: Simple stick figures plus volume. Normally I'd frown upon this, but the author manages to make them feel like fleshy, volumized characters and not just collections of lines and circles that look about ready to fall apart at the seems any second now. Passe gore. Awesome sky explosion. Some cool swishy feathers and tails.

Style: Awesome. Except for the demonic imagery, which always feels kinda lame to me. You know? Like we're 13 and trying to piss off our overcatholiced parents by owning a Grateful Dead lunchbox. Still, a demonic hero who fights personifications of society's sins could be a really cool concept. Certianly, the fight scenes will be handled with pizzaz!

Sound: Kind of a goth alternative rock bass and grunge ensemble. If you abreviate that genre, which I just made up to describe this soundtrack, you get G.A.R.B.A.G.E.! Still, I consider this application of this song much less pretentious than most Flash videos, which pump hardcore tunage like this over crappy stick figures fighting with M/16s on a 2D background. Unlike such videos, this one is actually somewhat impressive, visually, which prevents the angry, intense music from being the embaressment it usually is.

Violence: Demons hit each other and stuff. Lame overdone gore when freshly rended demon-chunks fall on a 666 logo...

Interactivity: movie.

Humor: ...not an ACTUAL mark of the beast, mind you. Not a sign of the devil. Not some magick symbol etched in ancient hebrew, but a big stylized [666] that could not possibly be the work of something ancient and malevolent, unless it has a modern PR studio designing its runes. That scene was probabaly the most embaressing bit of the whole music video. "HEY! LOOK! THE DEVIL'S IN THIS! OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH! SCARY AND SUBVERSIVE!" Please. At least they didn't use a Pentalame.

Overall: THANK GOD he didn't do what most demos do and put a long, text-only sequence to kill as much time as possible, like 90% of the clip's running time. I hate when people do that. Fortunately, this author didn't DO that. Instead, this author crammed as much awesome, quality content into 30 seconds as he could, peppering it with sparse text that actually provides information, unlike all those other demos that spend ten seconds fading the word "PRESENTS..." in and out of a black background. Maybe I'm not inherently opposed to demos, after all. I guess I'm just opposed to demos that like to waste my time and don't throw everything they've got at me.

[Robots in Ancient Greece]

Demos are inherently evil. But you knew that!

Graphics: Nice shiny stylized robots. Seems like the potential for complicated backgrounds exist, when we're not doing gay heavy metal montages on a meaningless black background. You could have made the music video part half as long and just shows us some actual footagte of RIAG, but I guess you really, really wanted to get a two minute long movie out of the same four frames of animation, and the black background segment accomplishes this purpose nicely. At least it's better than the stone age robot which is technically a golem from the future who wants to get back to the present even though he was built in the past.

Style: Seems kinda exciting, actually. I don't know. It depends on what kind of humor they're going for and how far they take it. I could easily see this being hillarious or lame. Since they refused to include any actual CONTENT, I guess we'll have to GUESS as to hwo good the series is. I'm certianly not going to their site just because they pollouted the portal with a time-waster. Save the music videos for the talk show segments and post a few scenes from the goddamn show. Dermos suck and everyone who makes them needs to die. So, um, stop making demos.

Sound: Annoying, obnoxious, and boring. In other words, perfect Heavy Metal music. The guys' voices are kinda washed-out, but I could live with dialogue recorded at that level of quality.

Violence: None. Unless you count the fact that I am going to murder you. For releaseing a demo.

Interactivity: demo

Humor: They look kinda goofy. Their vacant, nickelodian expressions haunt me. This could be awesome, or it could suck. I wish I knew. Any humor other than lookin' silly will have to wait until these demo-releasing demo-releasers release something that isn't a god-damned DEMO!!!

Overall: Demos don't deserve scores! Either put up a show or leave us alone!

[Halo 2: Chibified Trailer]

NOT SO SHORT DAMMIT!

I thought this was an intro, and you were going to start the show soon. Then it says THE END. What the hell is wrong with you people? Stop teasing me like this. Either make a movie, or don't bother submitting anything. But this "one second of animation, 2 minutes of fading text to fill up the music sample" is crap. What's werong with you? STOP SUBMITTING MOVIES THAT YOU KNOW DAMN WELL ARE TOO SHORT!

It's not like it woudl take longer than another 24 hours to make a decent 2 minute combat movie out of this. You've already got the arms and legs and heads. You've already got all the sound effects. Just tint them different colors and keyframe it. It's not that damn hard. Maybe, ooh, you spend a week on it. Dammit. The one second of footage shows a lot of promise, now if only you would make a movie instead of a photograph I'd be happy.

[Goldencatilium]

Wow. It was actually good.

Graphics: Lillium parody. Compared to other Lillium Parodies, this one made good use of scrolling backgrounds, but the art not inspired by Lillium (basically the author's portrait) looks pretty bad. You can see all the usual mistakes beginners make when drawing, like thebuldgy, horizontal almond eyes, the skewed head, the exaggerated lips, the nose made out of straight lines. Get a "how to draw (your favorite cartoon character) book from the library, practice from it, and start building your own style off of what you learn from that. You need to learn how to get a feel for the facial features should look in proportion to each other, and which lines are better left implied or hinted at instead of actually drawing them. And don't even think about hiding behind the "I can draw better than this, I was making fun of the anime style" card. In anime, eyes are too big, nose is to small, mouth flips between the two, but basic principles of anatomy are still kept track of by the artist. Your head looks like your skull has been crushed and the skin is just limply hanging there, like a sack of potatoes. No offense. I'm sure you'll get better at it if you start trying to learn from what other artists know. HOW TO DRAW books are one way you can do that, cheaply and easily at your age. If you were older, I'd say take some drawing and anatomy classes in college or recommend some more advanced books. Most people who draw like this do so in kindergarten, with crayon, and then most of the kids quit, while one or two keep drawing and eventually get good. I hope you don't quit. That you're still trying at age 13 says something about you. Keep it up. Just don't get lazy and think you have nothing left to learn.

Style: He takes the Lillium thing, and makes that Shadow play by his rules. The shadow does so, too, with a certian ammount of flair. You really have to respect that this Lillium Parody isn't just copying Lillium, it's also improvising two other styles, one of which (The shadow's rap,) is well-executed even though GoldenCat doesn't like or respect the style. If only he'd had the balls to make fun of hip-hop as well as emo, this could have been a hillarious rip where the player gets to choose the ending. As it is, the "rap wins everything" ending just leaves the average viewer shaking his head and chuckling "Sure, kid. You're reeeeeeal badass. Whatever."

Sound: Three music tracks, of varoius genres, all used to good effect. The two non-Lillium tracks are well-chosen, IMHO. They perfectly capture the mood of the two rap combatants without being TOTALLY annoying to somebody who doesn't like either genre. Record scartch wasn't bad, either.

Violence: The shadow cuts himself. REAL FAKE BLOOD! OMG!

Interactivity: Movie.

Humor: I think the umbrella suddenly appearing in his hand was the funniest part. The "Emo sucks" jokes were okay, but kinda predictable. The letters EMO scrawled into the shadow were amusing. I almost didn't notice them at first, thinking it to be his mouth until the screen scrolled up.

Overall: INFINITELY better than London Sucks, which didn't have a point and just kinda sat there being not funny, and not especially cruel either. Could good old-fashioned parody be Goldencatilium's niche? We'll see.

[CU- A Moment With Karl]

Wow. The Simpsons really has gone downhill.

Graphics: So, apparently College University is some simpsons ripoff that's been availible on the web for some time now. I think I've heard of it before... anyways, this is a well drawn and animated cartoon. The artist has a stylized yet consistant sense of anatomy and proportion, and every pose, gesture and lip synch is sublimely keyframed and tweened. I'll bet the creators have professional animtion experience. (Working for Matt Groening.)

Style: Bold cartoon colors with good lightind. Crisp, bold fonts. Tiny dots in the centers of perfectly round eyeballs, which tend to almond out at the chaarcter ages. Curved tube-like arms and legs that are hardly anatomically correct, but when used consistantly, imply a three dimmensional figure. Four fingers on each hand. I may have forgotten to mention this, but the art style looks kinda like the Simpsons.

Sound: Crisply recorded, generally amusing gravelly voices. I think I remember this Kung-Fu guy. Wasn't he the fat Texan in the episode where Santa's Little Helper banged a racing hound?

Violence: Nope.

Interactivity: There's a button you can click on to buy stuff. I award no points for interface.

Humor: Great comedic timing, a little sarcasm, a little "so sad it's funny" pathetic character laughin'-at, and a nice brisk pace. The little boy going "I'll cut yew!" Didn't get funnier every time it happened, unfortunately, it just kinda sat there and died. I found the repetition much funnier in, say, that episode of College University where Sideshow Bob kept stepping on the rakes. Still, for a short this shows promise, and even makes me slightly curious about the DVD. Maybe someone with one of those "disposable incomes" I keep hearing about would even be tempted to click on that. Me, I'll stick to my trusty stack of VHS tapes.

Overall: "SAXAMAPHONE! SAX-A-MA-PHOOOOOOOOONE!"

parks2 responds:

Hey thanks for the well thought out review, so I'll respond with a well thought out response. I know were a "Simpson's Rip off", but no more than The Family Guy is. I must say that beyond the physical similiarities- your comparisons are way off.

Using four fingers in cartoon characters is common practice, it fits nicely on the hand shape. Unless you are going for realistic- stick with 4 fingers, 5 looks creepy.

Kung Fu Karl's voice isn't based on the Fat Texan Investor from the Simpsons- That's a straight up Texan accent- KFK is a grizzled, washed up action star, who smokes weed all day- His voice is raspy, with a hint of a southern accent.

The repetive humor of Sideshow Bob stepping on the rakes over and over in the one scene, playing off of the absurdity of having a parking lot full of rakes, added to Bob making the same noise everytime- It's not even the same concept of having a strange 10 year old kid with an overly large knife, threatening a weirdo who is giving them advice. The point was that the kid wasn't listening, and the advice wasn't getting through- thus nothing happened.

Other than that- thanks again for putting so much thought into the review- I do appreciate it, but I just had to correct you on those particular Simpsons comparisons.

And yes....Saxamaphone.

[Kirby PO'ed]

"...dressed in rags and humiliated."

Graphics: Great use of sprites. The scribbled-in additional graphics such as the note and the blood look bad and clash with the pixelated elements. For some baffling reason, the artist decided to make all the objects fade out instead of fading a black box over everything, resulting in semitransparent characters whenever the screen fades to black.

Style: I thought it was stupid. You do not do this with Kirby. You do not associate Kirby with slacker grunge music and paraphenalia. Maybe this was supposed to be an attempt at challenging contrast of elements, (which if it was, I guess I have to admit, it certianly clashed with my preconceptions and challenged by ideas about Kirby,) but I seriously doubt any sprite artists at NewGrounds are that artistic or clever. More likely, it was a cheap joke. Either way, the Flash as a whole didn't amuse me. Your mileage may vary.

Sound: I wanted to give this a 1. Style, too. But then I realized that however much I may not have liked the movie, it is competently rendered. Dammit. The lame, washed-out, boring annoying grunge tunes are perfectly suited to a Mountain Dew ad, and the sound effects are all kirby, and timed very well with the animation. It's just... this whole Flash is just wrong, darn you! :P Things in Kirby don't bleed!

Violence: above average. There's shooting and crushing and bright red pools of blood. It's not realistic enough to be TOO horrible, though.

Interactivity: Movie. Painful, painful movie.

Humor: Other people might tell you this is funny. For all I know, they might be right. I didn't laugh.

Overall: I think I've made my feelings pretty clear. No, I'm not a Nintendo Fanboy, I'm a Kirby Fanboy. I reacted the same way when it was Amy Rose up there on the Flash screen using a vibrator. It's just plain bad and annoying and stupid and wrong. That's my opinion, anyway. I'm sure other people will love it, though, so my two can't have hurt it that badly.

Balik responds:

Hey, man. Wouldn't it be boring if kirby would just go up to Metaknight and go "Please give me my Mountain Dew back kthxbi". Thanks for the review though :).