WarpZone's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Nutsy & Klutsy: Ep. 2]

Eh, kinda funny, I guess. Nice and long.

Graphics: The cameos of certian popular cartoon characters (Also the funniest part of the movie, BTW,) looked better than Nutsy and Klutsy. Good, solid tweening job.

Style: I thought the backgrounds were kinda flat and the characters seemed uninspired. Except for the Judge, he was just creepy. I know that's what the author was going for though so good job on that. Something about the style just made me go "oh, yuck" all the way through it. Maybe it's the choice of colors. Maybe it's the voices, I dunno. But for some reason, something about the overall package grated on me.

Sound: Sharp, clear, well-recorded voices. Lame voice acting. Not half as bad as the voices on that show with the scientist and the spit-dog, though. Music is some cheesey bullwinkle throwback. Sound effects were plentiful and there weren't any awkward silences. Much like the graphics and style, technically well-executed, but no fun at all.

Violence: Cartoon... things... get punched, blown up, and electrocuted. Considerably less gore than irreverent Newsgrounds cartoons typically generate. I really wanted Fred to pull a gun so I could see wkat kind of crazy animal they used to make it work, but they left the actual murder implied. I guess it's just as well. It probabaly would have just bothered me.

Interactivity: Movie.

Humor: Sparse collection of jokes that might be funny if they weren't reheated jokes from the 60's through 80's. Delivery so joyless, stuff, and forced, it sucks all the humor out of the jokes without being funny in and of itself. Actually, this crap sounds right at home on Adult Swim. Good luck with that.

Overall: I'm not trying to come across as some dick with no sense of humor, okay? It's not like I don't get edgy, irreverent humor. I just don't find it funny. The Clerks cartoon was funnier than this. Foamy the Squirrel is funnier than this. The Maxwell Edison Story is funnier than this. Bonus Stage is funnier than this. Space Tree is funnier than this. I can't put into words why I liked all those other cartoons and I didn't like this one, but I think maybe you're trying too hard to be edgy, abrasive, and sarcastic, without being at all spontaneous, self-effacing, or witty.

It's like you intentionally made it suck as much as network TV sucks, but without any of the feelgood bullshit or political leanings that the networks pay big money for. But what boggles the mind is, the show seems to take itself seriously.

Good luck with your future works. It's clear you have talent and skill. You can actually make a long cartoon and see it through to completion, while maintaining a certian level of technical quality all the way through. Now if only the end result actually entertained me in some way, I'd say you had a real winner here.

If this cartoon had any writers other than you, you should make a flash cartoon where they die horribly. The cause of death should be directly proportional to how much they were paid. For instance, if you were doing this in your spare time and you bought them a pizza for helping out with it, shoot them in the head. On the other hand, if Spike TV paid them $200,000 and covered their hotel room and expenses at some expo, then their skin should be peeled off and fed to them, and then they should be thrown into a prison made entirely out of salt where they are gang-raped to death by a feral pack of rusty, flaming chainsaws.

chubbybunny responds:

Squirrels is funny.

[THEND (better ending)]

Don't do it, kid.

Graphics: Not bad. You could use some lessons in anatomy and perspective, but at least you drew something original. Animation is minimal, but you managed to pull it off. Minor glitch: Two of the windows were off after the first flash of lightning for some reason.

Style: This is why the lack of animation didn't hinder your graphics score as much as it could have. You did it in a monstage style that makes it work. If you'd tried to make them walking or something, it would have looked pathetic, but you just slid the images across the screen like an anime. If I didn't think emo kids were whiny losers, and antidepressants were overperscribed, I probabaly would have connected with the characters. As it was, most of this Flash's message pinged off my apathetic, chitinous shell of cynicism. I can tell you tried really hard to convey that message, though, and I think you did the best you could. The establishing shots of the house took a while, but he made them as interesting as he could, which is a good thing. Oh, and fading to black after the initial lightning flash was an AWESOME touch. :) Very cinematic.

Sound: Some song you never heard of by some artist you don't care about. Or maybe that's just me. Yeah... it's probabaly just me. Anyway, timing was good and sound effects were sparse but used to good effect.

Violence: Kids get shot. Not gratuitiously, but with purpose. IMHO: Bad premise, but good storytelling.

Interactivity: Movie

Humor: Self-pity movie.

Overall: Slightly below average. Then again, emo isn't my bag. I would like to see this author try to tell a longer, more complicated story. He seems to have a good directorial style, and a feel for how to influence mood and atmosphere.

Even though I gave it a 4, this Flash does not suck. It's just "challenging" to watch. It's not fun. It is well-executed, though, despite the artist's apparent skill level.

jamesthebumtickler responds:

kk thansk alot for the really imformative review. im having trouble thinking of something to do for my nexxt movie [e-mail] if youve got any ideas thanks alot

[Tails Trailer]

Now THIS is how to do a trailer! XD

Graphics: Sketchy and rough, but not bad. The chaos emerald was awesome. Could be improved with some better color choice. I loved tails shooting off the ramp towards the Death Egg. Somebody's been studying the Sonic CD intro. :)

Style: Full points. Like I said, this is a trailer done RIGHT! I normally don't approve of trailers, but you may have justified the genre by releasing this one. But don't take my word for it, ask the New York Times. :P

Sound: 7. Perky remix of a sonic tune. (I think...) Could have been better, but it was decent, and the author synchronized events with it, which I love.

Violence: None. Boy, you just know it's coming though, don't you? Tails has that determined look in his eye...

Interactivity: Movie.

Humor: There's no humor like self-effacing humor. :D Jolly good.

Overall: Trailers just don't get any better than this. That said, trailers suck. Release the damn movie.

7KAD responds:

Oooh cool another review! :D

Thank you! I'm glad you like the trailer! lol I look back on it now and see so many mistakes and things I could have done to make it a lot better. But I guess it's kinda too late for that. :P

I just got some awesome voice actors though and I'm redoing everything. It had been animated a but, but I know it's not good enough. It needs to be better.

That said, now I have no idea when the movie will be released. lol! Things are picking up though, so hopefully it can be done soon. Maybe in two or three months, but I'll try working on it whenever I can.

Again, thanks for the review!! :D

(btw i had been watching the sonic cd intro! XD I even downloaded a short pencil version of it!! lol )

[SSB0: Mario vs. Ness]

This sprite fight's a might trite.

Graphics: Sprites. Lines appeared between some of the blocks during scrolling. Protip: make the bricks a pixel wider then they need to be, and overlap them so this doesn't happen. At least Ness moved in a side-view manner. Objects didn't seem to react to physics and gravity in a uniform manner, which is a common issue with sprite movies. Animation usually made sense, but many of the attacks were done without flair. Mario's mushroom trip was okay. Hope you're ready for a huge pretentious logo screen and a five minute long closing credits scene! :D Because, oh look, here comes one of each before you can play the damn thing again and click on the other guy!

Style: Painfully bad attempt at being bad-ass. No, wait, that's the artist's hurricane logo. "Heer cums a huwwicane!" The style of the actual Sprite movie is fairly low-key and kinda booring. Next time, try mixing it up a little with camera movement and such. Also, it would make more sense if Mario matched his background in terms of color depth. You don't have to match the color palletes of the sprites from different games, or anything, but at least picks sprites that are as consistant as possible. In this case, Mario world graphics would have been better. Check out some of FrOzEn_FoX 's shit. Now there's a guy who knows how to make a classy sprite movie!

Sound: As with graphics, sounds were a mishmash from various games in both series.

Violence: Every punch was dull and lifeless, until suddenly Ness's totally unecessary gory final attack. The author should have done what Smash Bros does, and made every hit SEEM brutal without the need for pointless blood. Things like camera zoom, flashes of light, and realistic buncing and impacts go a HUGE way towards implying violent, agressive impacts.

Interactivity: movie.

Humor: I understood that there were jokes. I didn't laugh, but I understood that they were there.

Overall: Slightly below average, for a mortal combat sprite movie. It didn't impress me, it didn't thrill me, and it didn't make me smile inside. It's just a bunch of stuff that happened. Try again, Elaborate Hurricane Intro Industries Incorporated Limited Studio, or whatever you call yourself. Seriously, take a look at what FrOzEn_FoX has done with sprites. You could learn a lot from him about style and storytelling.

[Crimpson Battle Field]

INSERT PLOT ^

Not bad for a stick figure movie. The voices were impossible to make out. Here's a hint, Flash includes controls for fading the volume of sounds in and out. So you can make the gunfire sounds get quieter while they're talking, like they do on TV. Either that, or have the guys yelling at each other and pause when there's a loud explosion.

If you decide to go with legible dialogue next time, make it interesting dialogue, too. I just realized there's no Newgrounds meter for "story." WTF is up with that? No wonder 90% of what gets submitted is music videos and stick figure skateboarding demos.

I'm gonna go on the forums and suggest that they add a "Story" category. As for you, soldier, I expect to see something more complex than "Once upon a time, some guys with guns said they were gonna do some stuff. And then they did it."

I want to see conflict, recruit. Not just a bunch of people blowing the shit out of each other, but internal conflict. He wants something, for some reason. Something he can't get just by killin' people.

[Noobscape]

Double you tea eff mate?

I guess this is a parody of some sort of online game. And everybody in the game calls everybody else a noob, even the noobs. Comedy gold... If by gold you mean carbon. I would list why I gave everything the score I did, but I'd immagine the author wasn't really trying. It probabaly would have been funnier to me if I'd ever played or heard of Rubescrape or whatever the game is. Wait, let me try using my immagination... I'll just replace Runescape with Diablo II or something and see if the jokes get any funnier... Hmmmmmmm... NOPE! Oh well, I tried. Nice menu, dull concept, medium execution.

[We Hate It When...]

Muahahahaha!

Wow, this turned out great. :D I would have loved to be a part of thgis compo. They definitely saved the best for last... hehehe. Poor Luigi.

Graphics: Everything was nicely done, FBF goodness. A few sections didn't look as much like the characters as they could have, but since this is a compo, you've got to expect a certian ammount of fluctuation between drawing styles. I especially liked the logo at the end, it winked out nicely.

Style: Almost perfect. :) Almost.

Sound: Good song, and good job tying a theme to that song.

Violence: It's all good clean Nintendfun. Actually it's been a while since I've seen a Newgrounds cartoion that didn't have bloody eyeballs popping out of somebody's head. Pretty damn refreshing, actually. I mean, what's up with all the violence, anyway? I mean it's not like we've never seen Itchy and Scratchy. You're not impressing anybody with your originality when a cartoon animal gets caught in a wood chipper... erm, anyway, this was a nice Flash mucis video.

Interactivity: I usually say 0 for movies. But this one had a very nice, stylish, functional menu. I would have given it a 10 if I could have jumped to someone's part and only seen their part.

Humor: Oh, man. :D poor Luigi. :) Poor Daisy. Poor both of them. :)

Overall: 9'd! Damn good fun! XD

[Strongium]

LOL! Great Parody!

What else can I say? About the only way this could be improved would be to have made some of the dialogue funnier, and maybe to get Strongbad shaped a little bit more precisely in some of the images. Full points for teh Style! It started to drag on towards the end, though, which is why it needed some fresh jokes in there. Overall, nice work, hillarious parodying, and I hope the Brothers Chaps don't make you take this down. I heard they don't take kindly to tributes to or parodies of Strongbad. :(

RupeeClock responds:

They don't? Well I haven't seen any proof of that anyhow...

Still, thanks for the advice!

[Last Robot Standing]

I hate previews. But I'll try to be objective.

Graphics: 5 some nice drawings and good animation on the spinning, flaming ship. They don't work together to paint a vivid, convincing scene, though. I'd CG the sketches if I were you, or if you don't have photoshop, replace them wirh graphics. Hey, you want to know a good way to make the sketches look convincing without much work? Invert them (so it's white lines on black paper,) duplicate it to a new layer, then blur that layer and set it to additive (or "screen, depending on what program you use." That will produce a nice glow around the lines. Then just tint the whoel thing so it's green-on-black, and poof, you've got the world through the eyes of a computer.

Style: Easily the best part of the presentation. I wouldn't change a thing if I were directing this movie.

Sound: Okay. Could be better. Robot voices are easy to do, but hard to do in a way that sounds interesting. The music was interesting and not too booring. In would suggest closed captioning for the whole thing, not just some scenes, because the voice is a little tough to understand.

Violence: Low. The complete annihilation of an entire alien civilization is much less violent and horrific than most music videos at Newgrounds. Even though this is a low number, I consider this a positive thing. Blood everywhere when you're playing a robot would just be kinda lame, you know? Stick with the explosions.

Interactivity: Movie.

Humor: None.

Overall: Not bad. Visuals could use some work. It looks like a bunch of different parts and drawing styles stuck together. Try to make it all vector, or all hand drawn, or all CG, but don't mix and match unless the various styles compliment each other. Also, DON'T POST DEMOS. Don't post half-finished projects. Don't post part of a cartoon or a game and go "If people vote 5 I will release the whole thing!" Just release the whole thing. I know you want encouragement, but this is not the way to get it. Try asking for beta viewers or testers in the forums. Don't just throw it to the general public.

Kholint responds:

Thanks for your advice about the non-vector and vector art. I'll take it into mind next time!

This is an intro movie to an actual game wrote using DM, and can be run using the BYOND software suite. It's a very fun game, and should be finished pretty soon. I just thought you guys might like to see the movie. It seems pretty nice to me. :p
Anyway, thanks for your (relatively) lengthy review! Many thanks.

[Covetous Dragon]

Meh. Didn't really grip me.

Graphics: Nice, colorful D&D throwbacks. The only problem is, they weren't animated at all. Attempts at 3D effects such as the dragon swooping towards the camera look cheap and fake and amaturish. Try drawing simpler characters but animating them better. This drawing style would be okay for still images, but it looks like crap when you move them around a little bit and try to pass it off as a cartoon. I like what you did with color. Would have been nice to see the wizard cast a couple of spells. For that matter, maybe shown some sort of emotions on the humans' faces? Just a thought.

Style: My graphics and style scores always run together. As mentioned, this artistic style, while good by itself, doesn't lend tiself to the type of animation that you've attempted. Seriously, this is Monty-Python era shit, man. Get with the program. Curve your lines, draw your characters at an angle, and actually animate them. The pace was kinda tedious. Once the first guy died it was obvious what was gonna happen but you made us wait for it. It wasn't "suspenseful," it was "boring." Suspense is when you're WONDERING what's gonna happen. Thankfully you avoided the typical noob mitsake of a pretentious 10 minute title screen for a 2 minute movie. Also, real D&D adventurers work as a group. Or they stop slowly walking and start running when their party emembers disappear. If this all happened in a surprise round then it should have happened quicker. As it is, it's like "What are these retarded adventurers waiting around to get eaten for?"

Sound: Good sound effects, except the wizard screaming sounded like a really young man. You could have recorded your own old man screming and it would have sounded more convincing than that. Intro music was lame. I've heard it before. Everyone has. Yawn. At least you cut the intro short THANK GOD.

Violence: Blood spattered upon the wall. CLANG! CLANG! No big deal.

Interactivity: none, unless you count closing the window at the first sign of credits.

Humor: None.

Overall: Don't get me wrong, I know the author spent a lot of time on this and he was TRYING really hard to be stylish. It's just that I feel he focused his efforts in the wrong places. This isn't Reading fucking Rainbow. Remember the eighties? When people with budgets animated everyone's arms and legs moving? Yeah. They followed that up with the 90's, when cartoons became stylized and dynamic, and then the 2000's, where cheesey retro style clashed with Flash technology to give you the neo-nickelodian bizareness that we have on TV today. At no point did animators go "Hey, you know what's wrong with contemporary aniamtion? All these frames and detailed movements! We should stop doing that and just drag a decal across a flat background." If I believed this were an intentional design decision, like something minimalist or something, maybe I could respect it, but the characters are way too detailed for that. If you want to impress me without real animation, draw your characters by hand and load them into Flash as PNGs. These stain glass window warriors are just lame.

Also, from a writing point of view, it just NEEDS something. I dunno... talking? Actual combat? Effort? A plot? Hope? A reason to care about these characters? Arrogant Draconic poetry? Anything. Just give it a goddamn POINT!

lazy48th responds:

Thank you for the constructive criticism. I shall try to learn from my mistakes for next time. I'm going to also post my final project soon (maybe today), and would appreciate more honest feedback...