The Legend of Hei 2 (2025)

 

The Legend of Hei 2 (2025)

7/10

 Starring the voices of

 Shan Xin

Liu Mingyue

Zhu Jing

 

Directed by: MTJJ (Ping Zhang)

 

The Legend of Hei 2, to me, is just as good as the first one, and as I said in the previous review, both movies beat Ne Zha 1 and 2 when it comes to pure fun and excitement.

That said, the first half of this second part can drag a bit, and I felt the motivation behind the growing conflict between the spirits and the humans was not explained clearly enough. It takes its time setting things up, sometimes too much time, and you can feel the pacing slow down as the movie focuses on discussions instead of movement.

But once it picks up, my my, the fights and battles are memorable.

The animation artwork makes every action scene look slick and fluid, and when this movie decides to go all out, it really goes all out. The depiction of Naza, a clear parody of Ne Zha, is far far better here than the version we get in the Ne Zha movies themselves, and his fight with Wuxian was genuinely cool to watch. Also, the moment when Wuxian takes on multiple spirits to stop them from going into full war with humans is a must see.

Still, the best fight in the movie is when Hei and Luye take on the elder, and Hei removes his restrictions. That moment alone made the whole build up worth it. Class.

I watched this in the original Chinese language with subtitles, and I have to say the voice acting carries this movie emotionally and dramatically, especially during the quieter moments between fights.

Story wise, this continues directly after the first movie. Hei has been training under Wuxian when he suddenly gets summoned to the guild. It is there we learn that several spirits have been killed using a special kind of wood that carries spiritual power, and surveillance footage shows the person responsible appears to be Wuxian. Of course, we all know this is a setup, because he is clearly the good guy, so the real mystery becomes who framed him and why.

We are also introduced properly to Luye, the last disciple of Wuxian before Hei. She has a deep hatred for humans, and her distant nature clashes heavily with Hei’s more hopeful, can we all get along outlook.

By the end, I did not feel like I wasted my time at all, and honestly, I walked away feeling like this story needs a part 3.

So this is a fine animation to see.

The Legend of Hei (2019)

The Legend of Hei (2019)

7/10

Starring the voices of

 Emi Lo

Aleks Le

Howard Wang

 

Directed by: MTJJ (Ping Zhang)

One thing I can tell you is this, the first few minutes of this animation are very captivating. This Chinese animated film has a wonderful English voice cast that captures every moment, and the animation art style fits the feel of the story perfectly. It was only after seeing this movie that I realized it is actually a prequel to the Chinese animated series, The Legend of Luo Xiaohei.

The fight animation is very well crafted, and the movie keeps you at arm’s length when it comes to what is really happening, allowing curiosity to slowly get the best of you. The film does not play around when it comes to excitement from the very beginning, and because of that, there is a slight point of letdown later on.

After the introduction, we move into a chase centered around rescuing Hei, a spirit cat who is captured by Infinity, a human with spirit-like powers. During this capture, Hei begins bonding with Infinity, and we reach a point where the movie wants us to question which side is good and which side is bad. This is where the pacing starts to drop, as there is a lot of dialogue about Stormend, his goals, and the goals of the guild.

To put all this into a clearer narrative, here is the plot. Set in a modern world where humans and spirits secretly coexist, this Chinese animated fantasy follows Hei, a young cat spirit whose forest home is destroyed by human expansion, forcing him into the human world. He is lost, alone, and angry over his loss when he encounters Stormend, another spirit who takes him in and introduces him to a group of spirits living together.

Their home is later attacked by Infinity, which leads to Hei being captured and placed at the center of a much larger conflict involving territory, balance, and coexistence. Hei meets other spirits who belong to Infinity’s guild, a group that believes strict rules are necessary to maintain peace between humans and spirits. This belief clashes directly with Stormend’s views, which lean in the opposite direction.

The film blends gentle slice-of-life moments with bursts of fluid action, which works well with its soft visual style. However, during the calmer sections, the pacing can slow to a crawl before the action pulls it back up again. And then, the lack of full knowledge of everyone’s intent, even when you are more than an hour in, can be a disappointment, as the curiosity withers.

Overall, the movie explores themes of displacement, moral complexity, and finding where you belong. It is a good film and worth watching if you have not seen it already, especially with part two released in mid 2025, which makes it easy to continue the story right after.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)

 

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)

8/10

 

Starring          

Daniel Craig

Josh O'Connor

Glenn Close

Josh Brolin

Mila Kunis

 

Directed by: Rian Johnson

 

I like this movie a lot for one main reason, the details.

This movie is packed with details that make it very easy to follow and at the same time very easy to trick you. The level of misdirection here is classy, you really will not guess who the culprit is, and the way information is planted feels intentional rather than loud. Those same details also make it easy to see this movie exactly as it is meant to be, a standalone mystery that you can enjoy without needing to have seen the two films before it.

The cast gave it their all, because the performances alone in the first five minutes are enough to make you sit back and settle in, as the movie slowly pulls you into this world of mystery and invites you to solve the case alongside Benoit Blanc. It is the third film in the Knives Out series on Netflix, written and directed by Rian Johnson, and you can feel that confidence in how controlled everything is.

One thing that really stood out to me is the way the movie handles loyalty and power. I have experienced something similar recently at a job I had, where loyalty to a cruel leader kept everyone in line, and watching that dynamic play out here can either snap you out of the movie or bring back uncomfortable memories if you have been in that kind of situation. The way Jud is slowly boxed in felt very real to me.

That said, some characters felt like they were there just for the sake of it. I could not fully sink my teeth into the lives of characters like Geraldine Scott or Dr. Nathaniel Sharp. I understood their issues and their purpose in the story, but there was a disconnect that kept me from fully caring about them, and that is the only real issue I had with the movie.

I will be honest, unlike the first two films, this one did not have that tiring first hour feeling, even with a runtime of two hours and twenty six minutes. You are not sitting around waiting for the crime to happen so the investigation can start. A lot is happening early on, and it slowly strengthens the one thing you can guess, that the death to be solved will be that of Monsignor Jefferson Wicks. The way the movie builds the tension between him and the young pastor Rev. Jud Duplenticy in the first forty minutes is engaging, and it becomes very clear that Jud is facing an uphill battle from the start.

So what is the plot. Rev. Jud Duplenticy, played by Josh O’Connor, is posted to a small church run by Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, played by Josh Brolin, after Jud punches another pastor. It is framed as a redemption posting, but this church is ruled by Jefferson with an iron fist. He does whatever it takes to keep new people away and maintain control over the old ones, exploiting their money, loyalty, and respect. Jud sees through this quickly and tries to push back, hoping to save the small town from Jefferson’s grip, but the two constantly clash as Jefferson quietly and publicly works to make Jud uncomfortable.

After a day at mass, Jefferson walks off and collapses, stabbed in the back. Everyone introduced to us, including Jud, appears to have been nowhere near him, and that is where the mystery truly begins for Benoit Blanc.

I highly recommend this movie. It is worth every minute, and the ending brings everything full circle, showing how pride, secrets, and greed sit at the root of every evil in this story.

 

Zootopia 2 (2025)

 

Zootopia 2 (2025)

8/10

 

Starring the voices of

Ginnifer Goodwin

Jason Bateman

Ke Huy Quan

Fortune Feimster

 

Directed by: Jared Bush and Byron Howard

 

Zootopia 2 is fun, it has a lot of mushy mushy touchy feelings in the end which kinda dragged for way too long, but it was fun and it was so amazing to see Flash the sloth again. It is not as good as part 1, but it is good enough that I will watch a part 3 if it drops.

So the Hopps energy is back. This Disney animated sequel does not play around, right from the start the jokes start flying in with many references to old films for the adults to laugh at and enough color and action to keep the kids entertained. There are no words to describe how it feels to see these two working together again in this wonderful animated return to the world of Zootopia, and you can see that Disney kept the animation just as fluid as the first while introducing new characters with new voice actors to keep the juice fresh, so it was like I never left.

It was nice to have Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman back as Hopps and Nick, both give fantastic voice acting performances that make you forget you are watching an animation and they pull you into this world of anthropomorphic animals until you feel like you are witnessing everything from the passenger’s seat.

This is Zootopia 2, a sequel to the 2016 classic in my books, and we have the return of the buddy cop duo Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde. As you would expect the two do not start the movie sitting down, no, we have already done that in the first part and their story continues from where the first one stops.

Zootopia 2 sees former con-artist and rabbit-cop duo Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde working together in the ZPD, but their partnership is on rocky ground as they are sent to a partner training program, and of course they do not finish the training before they jump on their next case. The case revolves around the arrival of a mysterious reptile, Gary De'Snake, who is the first snake seen in Zootopia in over a century.

Judy puts together that the arrival of the snake has something to do with a priceless old journal belonging to the founding Lynxley family, so she convinces Nick to join her undercover at the event, and sure enough Gary appears and steals the journal. But the two are not praised or celebrated for uncovering this because during their encounter with Gary the chief gets injured, and they end up as the prime suspects.

Now the two must unravel a dangerous conspiracy involving family secrets, a secret reptile community, and clear their name while learning to trust each other again. The character dynamics and how they play off each other still give off that predictable rookie cop duo and angry chief vibe we all know, and how they get on the reptile case lines up with the same detective duo stories we have seen before, but the fun here is how these characters handle these predictable situations.

So fair warning, some aspects are predictable, and do I recommend you see this, yes because I will be doing a rewatch as well.

 

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (2018)

  

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas (2018)

4/10

Starring the voices of

Mahiro Takasugi

Lynn

Yukiyo Fujii

Yuma Uchida

 

Directed by: Shinichiro Ushijima

 

 

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas is manufactured emotion pretending to be profound and I did not feel any of it.
The animation is decent, clean, bright and soft with no headaches like the movie Mind Game which I saw before it, but I feel the voice casting did an average job and there is this failure on their part to capture my attention and make me want to drop everything I am doing to sit and listen. Like Mind Game and a lot of other anime movies, I saw this in Japanese with subtitles so I can watch and not be tempted to skip ahead, but this still failed to capture me.

The movie plot is too straightforward and it does not give me a reason to have a second take, no wait what moment, just me sitting in manufactured chaos and emotions. It is about a quiet boy who reads a girl’s diary and finds out she has a terminal pancreatic illness and they become friends and she teaches him how to live, the formula we have all seen like a thousand times before now.

And because the film starts by showing her funeral, there is no tension and we already know she will die, this is not a spoiler, so with a lack of mystery or emotional bait you know exactly where it is heading.

The one thing I will give this movie is the twist of Sakura getting murdered instead of dying from the illness and I did not see that coming, but I felt they wasted that twist because it could have been a sharp cut that should have caused everything to change and force a new direction. Instead, the movie does not use it that way, it uses that twist to drag the grieving process even longer.

Now we must meet her family and her friend and discover her special gift, and the whole thing turns into grief tourism, structured sadness like the makers are holding a board saying cry here everyone.

Some films use emotion to make you look inward, an example is A Silent Voice which hits you because Shoko’s suicide attempt forces you to question the signs you missed, and Your Name hits you because the timeline twist makes you re-examine everything you thought you were watching, and Look Back hits you because the murder happens fast and sharp and only ten minutes and the film refuses to drown you in grief because it trusts you to feel without being dragged.

This film does the opposite and every emotion is stretched and every moment is designed to instruct you to react.

This movie is wasted potential wrapped in manipulation and that is the biggest problem with it and why I do not recommend you seeing it.

Mind Game (2004)

 

Mind Game (2004)

4/10

Starring the voices of

Koji Imada

Sayaka Maeda

Takashi Fujii

 

Directed by: Masaaki Yuasa

I saw Mind Game and honestly felt like… hmmm.

One good thing about this movie is, I prefer this to Masaaki Yuasa’s other work Devil Man Cry Baby.

There is a lot happening in this movie, and it is saying everything so loudly, that I kept wondering why it needed over 100 minutes to do it. The message is simple, and you must be blind to miss it. It is saying, you are going to die someday, so act now, live the best life and don’t waste moment.

But here is my question, isn’t every guru saying that?

Almost every blog post or TikTok video has such if you scroll for like 30 minutes, I did not think I needed a whole movie, with a swallowed by a whale thingy to get the same message splashed at me.

Now, the animation, and the psychedelic style I did not like, I know it is intentional, but for me, it was distracting. Same with the voice acting, instead of it pulling me into the story, it pushed me out of it.

The movie follows Nishi, a 20-year-old manga artist who reconnects with his childhood crush Myon. They go to her family’s yakitori shop to hangout when two Yakuza show up, one of them starts to lose it and tries to rape Myon and Nishi freezes in fear and balls up.

This panic action got the attention of the rage maniac, who then shoots Nishi in the backside, and he dies.

It is from here, the movie went on a serious psychedelic visual chaos, when the God character continued to morph and change voices, telling Nishi all is done, head of and be nothing, as you are now dead.

Nishi refuses to be nothing and heads back to earth, escaping God and decided to this time seize the moment. And from here, the movie jumps into absolute chaos, he rescues Myon and together with her sister the three of them get swallowed by a whale and are trapped inside trying to escape. It is Jonah, it is Disney’s Pinocchio, all wrapped in one long stream of madness.

I understand the craft and ambition Masaaki Yuasa is trying to do, but I found myself constantly aware of how strange everything looked and sounded. It felt more like someone tapping my shoulder every five minutes saying, “Hey, look at how artistic I am,” instead of letting me sink into the moment.

This film felt like one message over too much visual noise, or like Bilbo Baggins said, like butter scraped over too much bread.

I think people like to praise Mind Game because it makes them sound niche, made by the same guy who made the nonsense Devil Man Cry Baby.

For me, Mind Game works as a technical showcase and not a film that is supposed to reshape your view of life. I do not recommend it.

 

Predator: Badlands (2025)

 

Predator: Badlands (2025)

7/10

Starring

Elle Fanning

Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi

 

Directed by: Dan Trachtenberg

 

I liked Predator: Badlands, this movie changes the perspective of this franchise. Usually, we have seen it from the prey’s view, as they are being hunted by these alien predators, now we are seeing it from the alien predator view.

This movie has some good fight scenes, and the main character is not a human, but a synthetic being, played by Elle Fanning.

The movie shows us that the Predator clan is very focused on strength, and we see there are some emotional arcs to them, it is not just hunting. Elle Fanning in this movie is amazing in her dual roles as Thia and Tessa, making up for the lack of humans in the movie with her performance.

The way she balances her emotions with the pure focus of this Predator alien is what drives this movie. I will let you know, this movie does drag in places, especially when Thia tries to connect with the Predator whose name is Dek. All that talk about the wolf pack and trying to make him form a family unit made me tired sometimes.

The plot starts on the planet Yautja, where we see Dek, a runt Predator, trying to best his brother Kwei. Since he is smaller than all the other Predators in his clan, he is considered weak. Kwei was sent by their father, the leader of the clan, to kill Dek. But Kwei did not want to, so he told Dek to go hunting to prove himself. Dek then chose to hunt the Kalisk, an unkillable apex predator on the lethal planet Genna.

Before he went on his hunt, their father showed up and killed Kwei for his disobedience, with Dek heading off to the planet hoping to kill the creature and gain respect.

On the planet is where he meets Thia, a synthetic who lost her legs to the Kalisk and is separated from her friend and companion, Tessa, another synthetic.

In the end, this was a good ride for a movie, looking at things from another perspective. You can also see where it crosses paths with the Alien franchise, when we discover the Weyland-Yutani team arriving to capture what they believe is theirs to experiment on.

It was a nice time at the cinemas with this movie, and I recommend you take the time to go see it, it is fun. You can see where this movie is heading, probably a crossover later on in the future, but the short runtime makes it an easy watch in the cinema.

Frankenstein (2025)

 

Frankenstein (2025)

5/10

Starring

Oscar Isaac

Jacob Elordi

Mia Goth

Christoph Waltz

 

Directed by: Guillermo Del Toro

 

I did not like this movie.

The Frankenstein book by Mary Shelley is dark and has a lot of tragic incidents, which made the whole situation of Victor creating the creature itself a form of pride that came back to haunt him. The book placed Elizabeth in a more tragic position, and her death due to Victor’s hubris of creating this creature and then denying it a mate was very painful.

Now, this Guillermo Del Toro Frankenstein is visually stunning, wonderful acting all around, but it painfully missed the point of the book’s portrayal of Elizabeth. Here she is the soon-to-be wife of Victor’s brother, which Victor tried but failed to win her heart. In the book, they are together, and it was her death at the hands of the creature during her wedding night that caused Victor to come full circle with the thing he had created.

This movie made Victor out to be, right from the start, selfish, cruel, and scheming, all in the name of trying to paint him as a complex character, and for me, killing the idea of the book. In the book, Victor was not innocent either, and you can call him all those things, but you can see the pride that drove him.

I do not get why there is a bonding between Elizabeth and the creature in this movie. I get what it was to represent in the movie, I do not get why Del Toro felt it was needed, the book did fine without it.

This is Del Toro, I went to see this hoping to have my mind blown, but in the end, all the changes made me feel he took something that was not broken and tried to fix it.

The movie was also, in my opinion, thirty minutes too long. We did not need two viewpoints of what led to the two (Victor and the creature) to be at the arctic circle. One version would have been enough. I know Frankenstein’s lonely path in the film is a bit similar to that in the book, but I felt the movie could have done better if it summarized that.

Well, if you do not know the story, this is the story of how Victor Frankenstein created the creature we call the Frankenstein Monster. We see how he grew up with a stern dad and how the death of his mother made him want to cheat death. When one day a wealthy benefactor, who is the carer of Elizabeth and who is to be married to Victor’s brother William, came across Victor’s work, he bankrolled him, and Victor created the creature.

This creation did not play out the way Victor wanted, and his jealousy of wanting to have Elizabeth darkened his view of things, and he ended up making the whole thing worse for himself and everyone around him.

I wish I loved this movie, I wished I liked it more than this, but sadly I do not.

Good Fortune (2025)

Good Fortune (2025)

6/10

Starring

Seth Rogen

Aziz Ansari

Keke Palmer

Sandra Oh

Keanu Reeves

 

Directed by: Aziz Ansari

 

Well, I have gotten to the end of the film, and it is not bad, it is not great or superb, but it is not bad, and it took a different path to get the same predictable ending we all know movies like this go. Acting-wise, everyone delivered, I have no complaints, and I think Keanu Reeves did a nice job playing an angel who just wanted to do good and be respected and then messed everything up.

Story-wise, I think Aziz Ansari, who also directed, wrote, and starred in this flick, did a nice job. I would have loved if the character Jeff, played by Seth Rogen, went back to being himself, that would have surprised me, but like I said, movies like this round things up in a perfect predictable circle.

The comedy is a miss for me, this is more like drama and see-what-happens when a body swap goes wrong, the whole idea is. Imagine a body swap meant to show the character Arj (Ansari) that his life would not have been better if he switched roles with Jeff. Well, the swap happened thanks to an angel named Gabriel, who was hoping to save a lost soul, the one in Arj.

Problem, Arj, now living the life of Jeff, liked it. After a week of being Jeff, never having to actually worry about money, he did not want to go back.

Gabriel, who was hoping that this swap would teach Arj, a man who just lost his job and is living in his car, that his future would always be a struggle, wanted him to see that life is not always greener on the other side. But Arj was now living the life of a millionaire, he happy.

Now, another problem for Gabriel, he cannot send Arj back, Arj has to want to go back. So to guilt him, he returned Jeff’s memory of his life, but Jeff telling Arj he wants his life back did nothing to guilt Arj. Even the girl Arj wanted, he got. Money was actually a solution to all his problems.
So Gabriel gets demoted until he can solve this issue.

So that is what this movie is about, we are watching Gabriel trying to solve a problem he has caused. Now, Gabriel the angel was actually an angel of texting and driving. His job was to alert people who are texting and driving so they do not get into an accident, this whole problem he caused, he did on his own and was not sent.

Well, the other issue with this movie is that it is not rewatchable. It is a good watch if you have a lazy Sunday, but not one I will run back to go see after seeing it. So it is watchable, but just the once.

Look Back (2024)

 

Look Back (2024)

8/10

Starring the voices of

Yuumi Kawai

Mizuki Yoshida

 

Directed by: Kiyotaka Oshiyama

 

Look Back is one of those movies that actually cuts deep when you get to the end and see that the way it starts up is not the way you would have hoped it will end.

I hoped the two girls would later be great together, I hoped it would be one of those fine endings where it is all tied up in bows and they run away into the sun happy together.

But sadly, this wonderful, well-written, fantastic artwork animation with wonderful voice casting does not end that way. I give the voice casting a lot of honors for the way it carries Kyomoto’s mannerisms to make it more convincing, and it worked for the immersion into the story.

The story is about two girls, Fujino and Kyomoto, who love to draw manga strips for their high school paper. Fujino was very talented and used to do this drawing by herself, and she was very popular. Then Kyomoto joined. Kyomoto has social anxiety and does not leave the house, so she and Fujino in the beginning never met.

When Fujino saw how good Kyomoto’s work was and how much attention it was getting, she decided to stop drawing and actually focus on finishing high school. After graduation, she was asked to take Kyomoto’s certificate to her, and that was when the two met. That was how they formed a partnership, where they created manga for years and were successful.

Their partnership broke when Kyomoto wanted to go to art school. Fujino’s reaction to this was selfish, and their friendship parted.

How the story carries on from this is something you will need to watch this anime to enjoy. The fun thing about this anime is that it is not long, it is just 60 minutes, and in that short time, it takes you on a journey, one where we see the challenges of drawing manga and the challenges people with social anxiety face.

The anime showed the problem of not forgiving and the issue that comes when you try to hold on to someone who wants to fly. My problem with this anime is, I felt there is a lack of emotional connection to Kyomoto and her social anxiety issue. Yes, it is well voiced and shown, but because the movie is easily from Fujino's view, her own character development seems overlooked.

Kyomoto's character development is, one day she just goes I am going to art school, there is no proper build up to this.

I wonder if the ending would have been different if Fujino was a better friend to Kyomoto, we will not know. Although the movie hinted at that possible alternate ending, it then pivoted back to the path it started on when these two did not run away into the sun, holding hands.

I do recommend you see this movie, it is worth your time.

Chainsaw Man the Movie: Reze Arc (2025)

Chainsaw Man the Movie: Reze Arc (2025)

6/10

Starring the voices of

Kikunosuke Toya

Reina Ueda

Fairouz Ai

 

Directed by: Tatsuya Yoshihara

 

Spoiler Alert

It is not often you get an anime movie that feels like a continuation of something big and not just a filler. Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc is that a full continuation of the series, and it is fun.

The moment Reze showed her true colours, and Denji was saved from being killed, and we see the wonderful animation of Reze morphing into the Bomb Devil, the tone and pace of the movie changed.

Before watching this movie, I stayed far away from the trailers because I wanted to experience it fresh, and I am glad I did. The animation here is slick, but the movie does start slow and feels a bit uninviting at first, because you sit there expecting Chainsaw Man’s dark, gory, action-packed energy, and instead you get forty-five minutes of Denji and Reze connecting emotionally and getting a bit intimate.
That slow start is what you have to bear through before the tone shifts.

This movie picks up after the events of Season 1, with Denji trying to live a normal life despite everything he has been through. Then comes Reze, a girl who seems to understand him, laughs at his jokes, and finds him interesting. That is the first warning sign, the moment you realize something is up. In the world of Chainsaw Man, when things seem too peaceful, you should be suspicious.

If you have read the manga, you know that Reze is the Bomb Devil, trying to cut out Denji’s heart, so all her intimate play is just a setup to get close enough to do it.

Now, I will say this movie is not for anyone who has not seen the anime series or read the manga. You need that background to understand what is happening and why it matters. For those who know the story, though, watching Makima’s manipulative hold over Denji, and how she continues to twist him, is as fascinating as ever. Her control over him is chilling and the movie does a good job showing how trapped Denji still is, even when he thinks he’s free.

The focus here is very much on Denji and Reze. Their chemistry is believable, and the build-up to what eventually happens is handled well. But it also makes Denji feel one-dimensional at times, stuck in that loop of wanting love, attention, and something physical. That focus slows the film’s pace during the middle section, where it becomes mostly about emotional tension, dark themes, and quiet dialogue. The action takes a while to come, but when it does, it delivers hard.

The fight scenes are brilliant, exactly what you would expect from a Chainsaw Man project. They are brutal, fast, and beautifully animated, giving the movie a powerful punch in its second half. The explosion of chaos when Reze’s real identity as the Bomb Devil is revealed is one of the highlights. It turns what looked like a love story into heartbreak and carnage.

As expected, the voice acting is great. Everyone brings their A-game and helps you connect with the emotion and madness of the scenes. It is easy to get lost in the sound of it all, from Denji’s frustration to Reze’s charm, to the dread that lingers in the quiet moments.

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc does what it needs to do. It moves the story forward, develops the characters, and keeps the world of Chainsaw Man alive. It is not perfect, the pacing could be better, and some parts feel stretched, but it never feels pointless and I recommend you see it.

 

Your Name (2016)

 

Your Name (2016)

7/10

Starring the voices of

Ryunosuke Kamiki

Mone Kamishiraishi

 

Directed by: Makoto Shinkai

 

The anime Your Name is a very good film. I’ll be honest, I was not hooked from the start the way I expected myself to be, as the pacing starts slow. The body swapping and what they did in each other’s bodies were not well detailed enough for me to catch interest, but I continued to watch, and I was glad I did. The moment we got to the point where we discover that they are three years apart, the pacing picked up, and so did my interest.

The anime changed gear around halfway in, and now we are trying to see how to make these two be around the same time to meet. There are so many clues dropped along the way about their paths crossing at one point, you just have to watch until it all comes together.

The anime is about two people, Mitsuha, a high school girl from Itomori, and Taki, a high school boy and part-time waiter from Tokyo. Both intermittently switch bodies, and when they wake up back in their normal bodies, we see the difficulty they have in tracking what the other has done.

This body-switching thing is not explained in detail, it seems to happen on Mitsuha’s side of the family, but the ambiguity is one thing I like about the anime. It’s a phenomenon that just happens, so deal with it.

They start to leave notes for one another and set ground rules on how to behave so they can keep track of things, then all of a sudden it stops. So Taki decides to go find Mitsuha and realizes that he doesn’t know where she lives. Using drawings from memory, he tracks her rural area down, only to discover that nobody is there anymore. Then he realizes she was living three years behind him.

Now he’s bent on finding a way for them to meet. How the writers handled the situation to make this happen may not be the best writing I’ve seen, but I guess they wanted to add some mystic feel to the crater scene when both were there at the same time three years apart and also create a happy ending. I think I would have loved it more if the anime had gone with a never meeting flow, where each changed the other’s life and they moved on separately. I guess I’m just sad like that.

Your Name has fantastic animation, wonderful voice work, and handles its character development very well. It was suggested to me on TikTok, and I’m glad I watched it. I recommend that you do too.

A Silent Voice (2016)

 

A Silent Voice (2016)

 

9/10

 

Starring the voices of

Miyu Irino

Saori Hayami

Aoi Yūki

Kenshō Ono

 

Directed by: Naoko Yamada

 

It is not easy to make a movie like this, where you are touching on very delicate issues like suicide, bullying, and redemption. There are many redemption arc movies out there, and A Silent Voice is to me one of the best.

This animation takes you through the motions, from different angles, the bully and the bullied and shows how each thinks the best way out of everything is if they are not around anymore to cause problems. Life can drag you to such a point, and the way Shoko smiles and carries on with her head held up, you would not know that inside, she is broken. She blames herself for everything and just wants to be accepted by everyone.

This 2016 anime is about Shoya Ishida, a boy who used to bully a deaf girl named Shoko Nishimiya. When the bullying got intense and a scapegoat was needed, his classmates turned on him, and he became the outcast. The same way he isolated her, the world now isolates him.

The animation then jumps ahead some years, and Shoya is still living in guilt. He has not been able to get over the pain of isolation and, in a way, understands the pain he caused someone else. He decides to try and make amends. The anime now turns into a redemption story.

But what makes this anime powerful is not just the story but how real it feels. The depiction of bullying, depression, and loneliness is handled with so much care. The movie doesn’t shy away from showing how one cruel action can destroy someone’s spirit and how hard it is to fix what’s been broken.

No amount of “sorry” can whitewash the damage done to a soul from isolation and bullying. We see that even when you are on the path of redemption, you still have to face up to the public for what you have done. And even then, not everyone will be on your side, that is what Shoya learns.

The suicidal themes in this movie are handled with care, and that is what makes it touching, we see how one person’s actions can actually destroy not just their own life, but that of their friends, families, and even the families of the ones who feel responsible.

Shoko and Shoya’s growth in this movie is massive. Watching them try to rebuild their connection, to forgive, and to find peace is powerful. Yuzuru, Shoko’s little sister, is amazing too, protective, strong, and always trying to keep her sister safe even when she doesn’t know how.

The animation is beautiful. The color work and subtle sound design make every emotion hit harder. You will love the voice acting as the cast did their very best to capture all the needed emotions and the difficulty of being deaf. Now, I have to say, the movie is long, it is like two hours and ten minutes, and at some points, it drags.

I liked that not everyone in the story magically becomes good. We still see Shoko face challenges from some of Shoya’s old friends when things were at their darkest.

I will say, A Silent Voice is a hard watch, but it’s worth it. It’s about pain, guilt, and forgiveness, and how even when life gets dark, you can still find your way back to the light.

 

One Battle After Another (2025)

One Battle After Another (2025)

 

6/10

Starring

Leonardo DiCaprio

Sean Penn

Benicio del Toro

Regina Hall

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

 

The moment I saw the runtime, I was scared. My thought was, this will be another passion project that everyone will love, and I’ll be sitting here wondering what’s so great about it.
And I was right.

I have to say, I’m one of those who find this movie just OK. It’s not the great, mind-bending cinema that many critics are raving about. It’s a film I’d say fits streaming better than the big screen, because you can pause, walk away, and come back to it. At almost three hours long, that helps.

Like I said, it’s OK and watchable, but the movie tries to do too much. There are so many subplots and so many characters to keep track of, you might as well take a notepad with you.

Then there are the tonal swings. We start with a political thriller, get pulled into comedy, then family drama, then action thriller. It just jumps around genres.

The movie is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and it tells the story of Pat/Ghetto (Leonardo DiCaprio), an ex-revolutionist trying to rescue his daughter from a corrupt military official.

To be honest, Leonardo DiCaprio hardly did anything here. Everyone else did the running and heavy lifting. He spends half the movie trying to remember a code to reach the rendezvous point, the other half driving around, getting in and out of lockups while trying to find his daughter.

The movie starts with him and his fellow revolutionists breaking detainees out of an immigration center. Here we meet many of the characters, and acting-wise, everyone delivered. The performances are amazing, even from the side characters.

But then we get dragged into a thirty-minute setup. I could see how that could have been halved and still got the message across. It’s there so we can feel the tension and the betrayal of the revolutionist group, the French 75, when one of them sells the others out. Pat goes into hiding with his daughter, and now they’re hunted by a corrupt government official who cut the deal with the traitor.

He wants to join a white supremacist group, but he fears Willa (Pat’s daughter) might be his. The traitor had been in a relationship with both Lockjaw and Pat, so Lockjaw wants Willa dead in case she is his, leaving no evidence of an interracial relationship.

By the halfway point, the stakes are high and the tension is real. But it took over an hour to get there, and then the pace drops again before picking up toward the end. This uneven pacing really hurt the experience.

In the end, I’ll say it’s a watchable movie, but wow, you could easily shave off an hour. The endless wait for the DNA test, Lockjaw’s drawn-out discussions with the group he wants to join, the debates about how to deal with him, even that long thirty-minute start — all of it could have been trimmed down.