WarpZone's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[EvilClockHouse:Revisited]

Too short, even for a clock movie.

Graphics: Great backgrounds. Typical crappy clockness, except without the emotive FBF faces flipping around all over the place. BurritoClock? More like, Dismembered Hairy Leg Clock.

Style: You can't deny that this film has great ambiance. Too bad it's only 3 seconds long and there's only one fourth of a joke. (Note to the author: Please do not reply to this telling me exactly how long it was, and that there was one whole joke. I know how long it is. I am exaggerating for comedic effect. You should try it in your cartoons.)

Sound: Great music, Really establishes the ambiance. Whatever movie you stole it from should be proud.

Violence: none. Burrito Clock obviously escorts TomatoClock out of the house and then goes to the store to buy some ketchup.

Interactivity: movie

Humor: none. Well, one fourth of a joke. All right, one joke. It's just you better look quick or you might miss it.

Overall: I hate movies with pretentiously long title screens and credits that are twice as long as the rest of the movie. This is established fact. You can look at any of my reviews to see this quite plainly. If a murder occured, and the police had no leads, but the motive was that the vic submitted a movie to Newgrounds that had a long black background with white text and almost no animation, I would fully expect the police to at least stop by and ask me a few questions, tell me not to leave town. At the very least. That said, the author's stated intention was to improve the quality of his movie that got blammed. I hope he succeeeds, because all 5 seconds of it looked nice.

HINT: IF IT STILL GETS BALMMED, DON'T REDRAW IT, MAKE IT LONGER YOU JACKASS!

TomatoClock responds:

but that wouldnt be staying true to the original :(

[Poverty Epidemic]

A serious montage about a serious social issue.

Graphics: Devestating photographs of some of the poorest of the poor. Some of the most dignified white text on a black background I have ever seen at Newgrounds. I disagree about video footage being neccessary here. There was something more peaceful and somber about still images. Besides, they only show the happy, fed children on TV. Finding video of the poor wretches with shrivelled bodies and flies landing on them would be difficult and expensive.

Style: Simple, somber, tragic, and dignified. However, I do question the relevance between this Flash and the site it links to. The Flash seems to be about "World hunger," specifically the world's poorest and most destitute individuals, living in third world countries. The website, however, seems to be about affecting social change within America. I was expecting the link to lead to some food back or something. At the very least, the Flash could have done a better job exploring the link between American attitudes and the actions of America's wealthy, and the consequences in third world countries. Since the website linked to doesn't seem to offer any direct way for people with disposable income who surf onto the site to help the needy people pictured in the Flash, I must call the link between the site and the Flash tenuous, at best. Thus, I don't feel this video effectively conveyed whatever its authors wanted to convey. Unless the purpose of the video was just to attract visitors to the site. In which case, congradulations, assholes. You've hijacked the potential philanthropy of america's wealthy and squandered it on the promotion of a vague political ideology. I hope you're happy.

Sound: Tragic, moving, slightly hopeful, and ethnic. I'm not sure what ethnicity, but it was in a language I don't understand, so it must be ethnic, right?

Violence: No, that's a different PSA Flash.

Interactivity: The link works, but it's not a RELEVANT link.

Humor: None.

Overall: This is clearly a well made PSA Flash, moving and thought provoking. However, I question its relevance, and the motivations of the people who created it. It doesn't sound like you want to help poor people. It sounds like you want to fund a political campaign. While the two are not necessarily unrelated, I don't feel that this Flash is an honest representation of your site, your organization, or its goals. And yes, I say that having barely looked at your site. If your Flash were an EFFECTIVE ad for your site, I would already overtly understand the connection, instead of distrusting you. For all the tragic truth contained in this Flash, all you've done by showing it to me is set off my Bullshit Detector.

[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!

[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.