Terry Goodwin's Reviews

A note on my 3D Movie Maker .3mm movie reviews
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Well, as you can undoubtedly see, I have moved my humble reviews page from Mx Online to McZee Ate My Trousers as I could not resist the offer of free biscuits and pants. During my (hopefully long) stay at MAMT, I will try and review all the movies I currently have on my hard drive, which is currently 90 and will almost certainly grow as I become more involved in the 3dmm scene once again. I will systematically review the movies in alphabetical order, from No (numbers) right through to Z. I will try to be as in-depth and accurate as I can in my reviews, and this means that it will take time so only expect a couple of clips of criticism a week. If there is a particular movie you would like me to review, be it to help you decide whether to download it or to have your movie reviewed by the, arguably, best 3dmm critic around. So on with the reviews...

Oh, by the way, a bit of trivia: As I write my reviews I actually sit in a genuine 3D Movie Maker director's chair, which my brother won (with my help) in a Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker contest. He came second with his Real Monsters short which entailed the young monsters scaring various Nickelodeon characters, and won a goody bag and the directors chair. Not bad, eh? Incidentally, if anyone out there has made any Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker Movies (.nmm) send em to me and I will be more than happy to review them for you. Why, exactly, hasn't Nick 3dmm got as much recognition as 3dmm as it is a far superior program, with better scenes and characters to choose from (sure they are only Nickelodeon cartoon characters such as Ren and Stimpy, but that is better than 'Patrick' and 'Wanda'...) and you can even give them facial expressions!!! You can actually lip synch them, which is a much needed tool for 3dmm. Anyway, enough sidetracking, here are the reviews:

3dmovie.ms, 3D Bomberman Parts 1 to 7, 007 The Living Daylights (no blood version), Action Joe 2, Antonio the Bumb, HARASSED


3dmovie.ms
 
Directed by: Unknown
Genre: Cast List (?) 
Age Rating: U

This movie can be found on the 3d Movie Maker CD-ROM in the folder '3dmovie'. Copy the file 3dmovie.ms to your 3d Movies folder and rename to 3dmovie.3mm and watch in awe at the secret movie. Well, I say movie but it really is just a Microsoft Cast listing.
It is quite long and only a fool would sit through the whole thing (well I have to, cause I gotta give the lowdown). This is pretty useless actually, and I did not feel it deserves to be rated as it is not a movie as such. There is one remotely funny line at the end though, but it was probably unintentionally funny:

"Any similarity between names seen here and actual people is purely intentional."

That isn't much but it is a start....is everything okay?
 

Rating   N/A


3D Bomberman Parts 1 to 7
 
Directed by: John Lercari
Genre: Action 
Age Rating: PG

The 3d Bomberman series was released on the internet during my leave of absence from the 3dmm community, and so I did not download it right away. I first came across 3d Bomberman (as a 3dmm character) in Bomberman Wars by John Lercari, also. I was
pretty impressed with it's excellent combination of hand-made characters and scenes (well, scene I suppose) and searched for any previous works of the director, and I found 3d Bomberman Parts 1 to 7. I downloaded them all (they are not small ya know, 8.68mb unzipped) and quickly loaded up part 1in the Theatre. Here is the basic story displayed at the start of each part:

"One day, somewhere amid the infinite reaches of the universe, there must surely be other planets capable of supporting intelligent, inquistive, humanoid life. At least that's what many Bombarisians believed, but the majority of the population were far too invovled in the upcomming election to think of such trivialities. Bombaris is the most important planet within Solaris, a fertil solar system with
12 earth like worlds. This time, the choice was a particularly different one. The candidates were Phineus Neutron and Lord Blastor, both respected, honorable citizens. It was a close result, but the Bombarisians elected Neutron. Big mistake! Blastor escaped to Dudland formaly known as the continent of Crime! Meenwhile, in the bustling city of Diamond City, one of the planets most noteworthy citizen was about to make a scientific breakthrough. After so many experiments, a gifted inventor named Professor JP Dynamite was putting his finishing touches to his artificial lifeform that was intelligent and independent. And could create bombs at will. He named his new robot 3d BOMBERMAN."

Judging by Bomberman Wars I thought I was in for a well presented, action packed, bomb throwing fest. Sadly, however, this was not entirely the case. Yes, it is (reasonably) well-presented, and the animation of bomberman is superb (although not as good as B.W.) and a few parts are indeed action packed. But that is just the point; a few of them are action packed. The rest of the series is, to put it plainly, boring. Far to much time is spent on plot progression, and most people would say "But that is what action films need now, a good plot". This is all well and good but think about it, out of the seven parts, only two and a bit have any noteworthy
action, and the rest is just talking, with great big gaps in between each line of dialogue.

The talking is another section where the series falls short. Oddly, all of the characters in the series have the same voice. I do not mean they all have the same voice actor, which they certainly do though, I just mean that each part is spoken the same. No booming voice for the villain, no goofy henchmen. Just John Lercari. Also, when John recorded the dialogue, he must have been in a rush, as there are never any pauses between statements from a character, so one sentence slurrs into the next. This gets extremely frustrating after even the first part, and becomes torture during the closing episodes, which is a shame as it is clear and easy to
understand.

Other than the voice acting, the film (or should I say series) is very well made, with mostly hand-made scenes and spot on action sequences, and fitting midi files to accompany the proceedings. The effects are very good, such as the red bomb explosion, which expands in a wave of bright blue flame. The huge battle robot is also worthy of a mention as it looks pretty impressive and serves its purpose well. On the whole, a good series of short episodes let down only by voice acting and lack of action that easily deserves 3 stars out of 5. However, if you are just looking for bomberman action, get Bomberman Wars instead.
 

Rating     

007 The Living Daylights (no blood version)
 
Directed by: Peter Noakes
Genre: Action 
Age Rating: PG

After watching the average Goldenear, I was a bit reluctant to download this as I was under the impression it would just be more of the same. How wrong I was. Goldenear is a semi-good movie with some acceptable effects, a plot and okay voice acting. 007 The Living Daylights, however, is a poorly made, text ridden atrocity of a film with little or no point whatsoever.

The movie opens with James Bond atop a dodgily made truck, with what can only be described as green blobs passing by every now and then. James then proceeds to crawl at a snail's pace along the top of the moving vehicle, fall over, then stand up again and jump on the cab, which actually makes you laugh at how poorly made this really is. The next sequence puts across that 007 was in fact a magician before he joined Her Majesty's Secret Service, because a guy appears out of nowhere at the front of the truck, shoots and James, and if by magic, falls under the wheels and lets out that awful scream sound you get with 3d movie maker, you know, the
one which makes you wonder whether it is actually male or female or both. He stops for a second, then starts to get up then, magically again, starts moving to the left and of the screen. We next see M congratulating James on the successful mission, and tells him to go and catch none other than Slam the Raving Nutta, (okay, not really, it is just the Slam character). We then learn that M must have worked with 007 in previous years as the piece of paper he holds up has a dancing image on it. Magic.

Frankly I cannot be bothered to tell you the rest of the story as it is nonexistant. It just involves the mission ending successfully, again, (strangely, when James is about to shoot Slam he says 'No more foreplay' then shoots him in the head. For starters, does Mr. Noakes know what foreplay means, and secondly, that is NOT James Bonds style. He doesn't go around shooting men in the head when he has them captured. Just because he holds a licence to kill that does not mean he has to use it every mission.) and M giving James the reward.

The famous 00 agent is then sat on a plane and it is high-jacked and he magically escapes from the mansion he is taken to by using the powers he was taught by Paul Daniels, and making a red mine magically appear beneath the bad guys car as he is driving away. Oh dear, I appear to have gone against myself and told you the story. Oh well, I just had to tell you how bad the film is so you do not waste your precious time and money downloading his rubbish. Well I will give it one star purely because it made me laugh due to its appaling direction. Also during the credits, old Peter prompts you to get the full version, containing blood, and that is it really, but I wouldn't touch it with a 60 foot pole. And you shouldn't either.
 

Rating   

Action Joe 2
 
Directed by: Jason Ruiz 
Genre: Action 

Jason Ruiz has done it again. Already king of the action movie scene from the original Action Joe, he releases another high quality movie to wow the audience once more and beat the opposition into a red exploding mess. When I loaded this up for the first time, I had already heard stories of how long it was, but I was not quite expecting such a long loading time, but when the opening scene unfolded I was immediately taken in by it's charm. It has originality for one thing, which is a part of movies nowadays which does not feature heavily, but when this was first released it was inevitable that people would copy, and so many people have had a stab at blatantly copying in the feint hope that no-one will realise and they can knock the king from his throne. But not one movie has yet de-throned the rightful sovereign, as it is such a display of visual greatness, the thrills, the spills, the excitement has yet to be matched (However, AJ3 looks good enough to beat it) by any action movie, or any movie for that matter.

The sound effects are also worth a mention, with perfectly sounded gun shots, screams, and assorted miscellaneous sounds. The music featured in this hit movie are of excellent compilation. Song 2 excellently suits the opening credits and the midis appearing throughout or a brilliant selection, but sadly the voice over is abit grainy at times (and features many excellent edmm directors of old) and the FBI guy shouts a lot, and is speaker bursting at times.

One other area where this film falls short, however, is the plot. Or lack of, to be precise. This is the only failing factor of the film, and has been picked up by every critic in the community, but as far as 3d movies go, it is not all bad, it is a challenge to name more than five 3d movies with outstanding stories. Anyway, here is a brief synopsis:

Joe is called to stop a truck, but he is not told why. He finds out a bomb is present, and takes it to the station, then the criminals steal it, natch, so he has to stop em again. In the process the chief is killed and some incriminating evidence makes it seem Joe is the perp. His fellow police officers turn against him so he has to flee, he finds out Santa is behind it all and has a scuffle with one of his cronies who reveals that the bomb is at the bank. So, naturally, he goes to stop it being detonated, an FBI agent turns up and tricks Santa, and the bomb blows up, the bank is destroyed, while everyone is still on it and then....

I wouldn't wanna ruin the ending. During the proceedings some excellent fight scenes take place, the car chases are particularly worthy of attention, and one brilliant scene sees killer dogs maul some guys to death. The movie also has a bit of comedy; Santa is a compulsive swearer, for example, but don't worry, most of it is bleeped out which creates an hilarious scene of *ck*boop*ing*boop*hub*boop*a*boop*o*boop*. I think this movie will impress directors more than the casual viewer, as it is a veritable bible of 'How to's and was one of the first movies to heavily feature hand-made scenes. If you do not have this movie, I seriously recommend you download it NOW! (And if you do have it, GO WATCH IT!) and give it the prestigious 5 stars out of 5.
 

Rating     

Antonio the Bumb
 
Directed by: Jason Ruiz 
Genre: Action 

It took me a while before I actually downloaded this, partly because the name sounded stupid, and I didn't know it was by Jason Ruiz. He continues to woo the crowds with another excellent action movie, that continues his tradition of marvellous direction and special effects with another highly original, action packed masterpiece. The opening scene is an excellent showcase of the special effects that follow; Two guys are stood outside a house, they go in, sneak past a sleeping guard and go for a safe. Antonio then proceeds to leap through the window, roll along the floor in a hail of bullets, kick the safe open which smashes into the guy near the
safe, then open a box for protection. The next thing you see is Antonio pulling out two pistold and pumping the bad guys full of lead. "Looks like I got to it first, asshole", says our hero, holding up two gold bars. Pure genius. After he disposes of a guard (watch the movie to see what he does ;)) and drives a car away, the opening credits follow. These credits roll to a rocking piece of music, with Jays trademark 'Made by: Jason Ruiz' in the bottom right corner of the screen. The sound effects of A.t.B are mostly the same as AJ2, so refer to my review of that for the sfx lowdown. The speech again is a bit grainy and features the voice of his brother this time, and they both make excellent jobs of it despite the bad sound quality. There are some very original ideas in Antonio, like the brilliant improvisation made by Antonio to finish off the bad guy. Also, the plot also follows Jays tradition of being thin, but not so thin it is unwatchable, but thin nonetheless. The one major flaw of the movie however, is the times when nothing is happening. I noticed this in AJ2 aswell, that the actors would just be stood there for quite some time after the dialog has finished, and the movie is a tad short, otherwise I would have given this five out of five, but it will have to settle with 4 1/2. As with AJ2, if you do not have this, get it now. It is a joy to watch time and time again and has that Ruiz magic about it. What are you waiting for? Get it now!
 

Rating     

HARASSED
 
Directed by: Yusuf + Melisa Ozkizil 
Genre:  Parody 

3d comedies have been a bit of a mixed bunch, bog-standard sitcoms have come and gone, such as The Life of Bongo, that have been pretty poor affairs, initially funny but straying off into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, and occassionally finding the exit for half an episode then getting lost again. Don't people realise that sitcoms are hard to make? Writers are paid thousands to be funny, thousands to be good at their job. Making people laugh is a hard art to master, but finally comedy in 3d has taken a turn for the better, with Harassed, a new slant on the comedy genre. Actually, it is more of a parody, taking a lot of it's cues from Harassment and Action Joe 2. This movie is brimming with originality and brilliant humour, as it's initial take on Harassment left me in stitches. If you have seen Harassment, you will find it hilarious, if not, the magic will be lost somewhere between the speakers and your brain. Here is the basic jist of the story; Slam the Nutta returns and calls up schoolmates to arrange doing homework together. That is all I am going to tell you about the story itself as I really do not want to spoil any of it for you. Well, I will just tell you one conversation:
 

Slam: What do I have for breakfast? Is it Frosties and milk, my Mum's face and some blood, or a human sooooul?

Kid: I've got it, a soul, a human soul.

Slam: Actually it's Frosties and milk, but I do occassionally eat my Mum's soooooul.
 

If you have seen Harassment, that particular part is hilarious! Here is another part to whet your appetite; Slam thinks Action Joe arranged the death of his friend, so he calls him on the phone in the restaurant, you may remember this from Action Joe 2 (Joe sat at table with white phone on table etc.)
 

Slam: Action Joe, you kill little kids don't you

Joe: Errr, no I don't (remember that bit from AJ2?)
 

Isn't it priceless? Here is another bit from shortly after; Slam is chasing Action Joe down the infamous white corridor from Action Joe 2,

Slam: Oi, come back, I'm not finished with you.

Joe jumps out of the window into the car (remember, AJ2?), and drives off. Then Slam jumps out almost immediatley after Joe and just misses the car.

Slam: Hmm, I was sure I timed that jump perfectly.
 

Pure gold. And the bit with Andrew Neilson and the vase shop is sheer brilliance. I emplore you, download this if you do not have this already, it is the best comedy ever to hit 3dmm, and it is even funnier than some real comedies, that is why I award it the coveted 5 out of 5.
 

Rating