TVs-Slayer's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Kitten Apocalypse]

What the hell did I just watch?!

Most inside jokes just aren't funny when taken out of their original context. Most inside jokes aren't funny to begin with. Most inside jokes are nothing more than a desperate handshake between friends. This movie transends the idea of the inside joke to something that might actually be funny.

I think you may be on to something. Ever since my cat had kittens last week something hasn't seemed right.

The bloodlust in their not yet opened eyes...

Their piercing cries...

Or maybe its just me.

Great graphics mostly, though I didn't care too much for the art style of the cat eating portion. And speaking of that, the scene drug on way too long for what could have been a 15 second skit. The kitten test brought the funny however. A 'fan' of critters are we? Soundtrack fit well, surprizingly. And you didn't hold back on the violence. So by default you get a 10 on that scale.

Overall, if this is what your inside jokes sound like, then I commend you for your wit and commitment to quality. And if I come from this movie with nothing else, at least now I'll be more careful about the mewing that lies under my desk.

[Masters of Doom!]

Good, but could use a bit of polish.

Graphics were competent, but weren't animated, and could stand to be a little cleaner. But, this being Newgrounds I should give you a totally heterosexual hug for NOT using stick figures as your primary character models.

Style was good however, and the rendering of John Romero was spot on, with his rock start hair and whatnot. The addition of actual Doom sprites for random background details worked better than it should have any right to.

Sound could use some work. The voice acting was somewhere between good and not so good. For as compressed as the audio was, I'm confused as to why the file size was so big. With the same quality sound and animation this could have been a 3mb movie.

In the violence department, being that its doom, you'd expect to see some dead demons every now and then. And yes, I did see some dead demons in this movie. Well, some dead everything was to be had. Like multiple dead John Carmacks. At least now I know the dangers of ingesting Diet Pepsi.

Though the pacing was slow for my tastes, there were some good jokes in this movie. Specifically the kill cam replay of Romero shooting the professor. Though some of the humor was canned, I did laugh a few times, which for someone as bitter and angry as me is very rare.

Overall, it ran slow, got boring in the middle, but had some good ideas that should be exploited in the next episode.

von-Brunk responds:

First off, thank you for the intelligent review. Your criticism is greatly appreciated. As for sprites, we wanted to keep them at a minimum and only use them where necessary (and only use them where we felt it would enhance the jokes for fans).

As for the high file size, that was mostly in part of a few character models and background gags which were detailed and laggy (i.e., the outside shot of the pizza shop, the Ferrari, the guys in the background of the pizza shop and the mountains of hell). Plus the songs in the background were very large files, even when we compressed and chopped them.

For the graphics, we didn't want to animate them too much to avoid them appearing chaotic (people tend to focus better when the objects talking are plain and simple), especially given that the majority of the cartoon was dialogue. And that brings up the topic of pacing, which is something we'll try to fix with our future cartoons. We tried to keep things interesting, given the amount of dialogue spoken.

[Miss Dynamite XIX]

There goes my stock in Girl's Gone Wild... again

I am somewhat miffed as to Eva causing mass destruction by accident. When does that ever happen?

The inclusion of Toby Keith, for whatever reason, gets a point docked from the score. The last time I was exposed to Toby Keith music I was rushed to the hospital with a brain aneurysm and was on life support for a week. I still haven't recovered. So nothing personal.

As for the movie proper, Cliff was a lousy villian. I know Cliff personally, and he doesn't have the motor skills to follow a moving object. He drools mostly.

The animation was a nice blend of fbf and tween, just like I'm used to seeing from your movies. Though I noticed you cut back on animation frames just a bit. I suppose I'll just have to live with it.

The humor was lacking in places. Pretty much any scene with Cliff just played out as 'stupid southern yokel ha ha'.

The voice acting was overall nice, Kagome and Mizura did their characters voices extremely well. Big Dog's voice samples were extremely compressed compared to the others, but the acting quality was just as good.

Considering you've started to tackle topical issues in your movies now, I would have expected to see this about 4 months ago. Better late than never I suppose. I do miss the old movies with their go anywhere do anything type storylines. But this series still remains my favorite.

[A Wendy Flash]

Your discription is really underselling you.

First off, I have to disagree with your choice of 'Got The Life' as the soundtrack. It really doesn't fit the artistic style of this flash. Plus after 7 years I'm really tired of hearing that song. I mean homicidal tired.

On the positive, the Sonic-esque art style is very nice. Neat lines and bright colors. And surprizingly well animated for an admitted first effort. While whatever happens between Girl Fox A and Girl Fox B is all but a mystery at the end, it really didn't matter to me. If you can make a full length flash movie as well animated as this, then I totally would want to see it. Good work!

SallyTheRabbit responds:

thank you for your critique! ^_^ I only chose that song because sadly I found it was the only song that suited the fast beat animation ;P hopefully my next flash will be far better without the depressing music ^^

[The Box (Claymation)]

Yeah... (Follows Meatwad_Baby to church)

I see someone is a Tool fan. When the discriction said claymation, I braced myself for some mediocre blobs rolling around on someone's kitchen floor. This was vastly different. Good use of cuts and ambient music. As for the subject matter, well, its pretty graphic, even if its mostly implied. Good style all around, not something I see very often on the portal.

And hey, Tool's making a new album, maybe you could direct a video for them. Think about it.

thalidomide-pirate responds:

i actually don't listen to tool, but i'll check em out. thanks.

[A Role Playing Game Chp1]

Not too shabby, I must say

While the overall movie could use a bit of polish, its a very nice idea. The graphics are a bit plain, bit clean. Still, this is the only part of the movie that drags it down for me. A few extra frames of animation would help give the characters more (redundant) character. As far as the usage of the music goes, its done tastefully, but also clashes. The music styles transitioning from midi Final Fantasy-like covers to original techno and trance was jarring. Hell, I find hearing my lame techno jarring. But only a minor complaint mind you. The story is interesting, and has a few jokes that I found to be actually funny. Not something I see often on Newgrounds. Overall, this could be a great series if you concentrate on the eye candy in the next episode, without killing the humor in the process. I would have reviewed this sooner, but I haven't been on in a few months. Overall, good, but with some extra effort could be great.

[Gen-X : Chapter 1]

As I've said before...

Very nicely done. Newgrounds has actually accepted this, thankfully. Part two should be very interesting indeed. And I promise to do better the next time around with Rion, if he doesn't eat it right fromt the start of course. Animation is great, although, ya know, the stick figures are a bit naff. Still, nice hair! Backgrounds are the real highlight as far as the graphics go. Music is fitting for the most part, and the sound effects are used well, without being overused. Some of the voice samples are scratchy though. Fight scenes kick some ass, even if they are akin to Dragon Ball Z. And, I'd have more to say, but nah, just kick out that sequel! I demand it!

[Emily Vs. The Zombie]

Passable quality, with some good animation ideas.

First off, what was animated looked great! The Emily character just needs a bit of color and she'd look great. The zombie was drawn fairly well too. The animation wne tfrom terrble to good with every scene, but I saw some good ideas. You just need more practice with flash, and you'll do great. And you really need to compress your audio. The song loop took up at least 3mb of memory. But like you said, its a first flash, so its forgivable. Once you get some bugs out though, you'll be making great flash. Keep it up.

Gossio-el-Diablos responds:

Thanks for the review! I definitely have a lot to learn, I didn't realise there was so much to putting together a flash! Your right, i seriously need to get to grips ith compression... even i was disgusted with how long it took to load! Thanks for the encouragement!

[The Big Menace]

Quite lengthy but still sharp

Very nice submission here. Graphics are a bit dirty, but they fit very nicely. Animation is clean though. I have to applaud you on keeping the filesize under 4mb with this. Tough the aduio might be a bit too compressed for my tastes. And the movie had some genuinely funny moments in it. If only it didn't drag on a bit in the middle. And I got a bit annoyed with the overuse of the cartoony incidental music. Not that its a huge problem. Overall, very nice, well thought out, and all that.

And would it be possible for you to replace my real face name with my username? Yes, I was Paco, but for Newgrounds purposes I'm TV's Slayer. I suppose i should have mentioned that before but I was in a bit of a rush. Thats all I got.