Van-pl's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Across the Universe Ep.2]

Damn

I'm sad beacuse of the enormous wasted potential in this movie.

I became fan of it since your first installment, "Delusions of Grandetur". But since then, you propably got lost in the snow with the concept. The plot of your film was painfully standard, shallow and turned to some random shit happening. You didn't really managed to recreate all that atmoshpere of melancholy and soliture from the first episode. All that was left was supposedly "thickening" plot and action.

I didn't liked that this guy and him being extremely naiive. The girl was smug and arrogant, but i pretty much disliked all that boasting about how the gravity suppresing gun is fucking awesome,OMG OMG I JUST CAME. Meh. Let the watchers develop their own opinion, don't force it into them.

So, summarizing, plot was pretty pointless, it lacked the cause-effect link. The acting was horrible, the voices were good, but totally unfitting to what we saw. All that running into window and other quick action scenes lacked the speed, and "kick", i didn't really felt those scenes.

Going to animation/gfx, i found this massive amount of 3D really fucking repulsive. I mean, srsly. Movements were choppy, the people sometimes looked more like a dolls, you really need to work on recreating emotions, lip synch and all that crap.
What hurt my eyes mostly was inconsistency of character drawings and overall lack of detail in scenes. One time they looked nice and stylishly posed, while in others they lacked anatomy very bad.
Backrounds really could use some polishing, buildings didn't have almost any details, and looked more like a bunch of boxes, it was especially painful on the close-ups.

But you had some virtues in your movie. The voice acting was pretty decent, the music was really awesome. Also, i bet your story is really good and could kick some balls, but so far you didn't really let us have a taste of it. You barely and vaguely introduced the watchers into the Outerverse and its creatures, but still it don't make any sense, more than "I don't know what the fuck is going on, but hell, as long as we're running it doesn't matter".

I'm pretty disappointed at this third installment of your series, but it doesn't mean i'm not curious and won't watch next ones. I really belive in you, that you can make it a great series, but you need to really work on it. I'm still looking forward into next one :)

good luck!

3/5

crystalpencil responds:

Thanks for the review! Based on what alot of people have said here, the story needs some revamping. I'll definitely take that into consideration for the next installment. As far as the 3d goes, this would not have been made if I had not gone in that direction. In all of my previous submissions the comments were about the lack of animation etc, so with the introduction of this method the majority agree it has improved a little bit. For now its back to the drawing board.

[Meet Larry]

Niice

wow, I must say im impressed.

Story is great. It seems like a random everyday shit at first, but when you unwind the story it's greatly directed. The sence, hidden in between phrases is greatly and subtly presented. It's great that its actually a short serious story hitting hard, not some wussy emo bitching about world.

One more thing really worth noticing was your voice acting. It suited the movie suprisingly great. I could say you have another talent worth developing further.

The only flaw was the graphic side, character design and backgrounds could use serious polishing, the detailed car model on a vectorised bitmap of background looks awful. I bet that even the simple siholuettes of buildings could do the job better. Noir graphic should be a play of light and shadow, in your work however you use mainly diffrent shades of gray.

Well, i'm looking foward to see more of your works. Cheers!

MonkFlash responds:

Thanks alot,

Yeah I know there is much to improve.
I'm taking the feedback here,
and we will see what kind of interesting creations will arise in the future.

Glad you liked it

[Skull in Connemara]

Well

For an introduction to the theatre play it's great! While watching it I thought of some medieval wood carved illustrations, there the characters and siholuettes of pepole are also "massive" and "carved in wood". Of course its atmosphere has something to deaf movies from early 20's, since only music was heard.

I loved the thick, mysterious, book-like atmosphere you've created. I bet the play itself was awesome with such nicely done prologue.

It's fairly good and entertaining ;)
4/5 8/10
Ah, cintiq! You lucky bastard!

TheBoogley responds:

The cintiq was a gift from Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, he gave us all $900 for easter.
Something about the economy going down or something...

[cupcake?]

Nice!

It's very nice, animation is very cool, and I like psychadelic flashes like this one.

The "pixelation" effect you've made is totally awesome, also dualism of what you present is very nice and gives your mind a thought of parallel realities of what is real and what we want to see (that's my interpretation thou).

Music was also awesome, but you could work even more on the audio mixing beacuse the interruption of the rythm is quite annoying and don't allows to fully enjoy the show. I don't now if it's unintentional or some "scratch mixing" did on purpouse but I disliked that.

Nice animation, keep it up! 4/5 7/10

TheBoogley responds:

The audio mixing was clumsy because I don't know anything about music, next time I'll get someone to help me. This was just a quick animation I made in a few days, I didn't think it'd catch on like this :)

[H.E.L.L]

Leaving a decent impression

I'm really impressed by your submission. Maybie not too graphically awesome, but complete, conclusive and had the purpose.

1-st person narration was awesome. All that hell, not being too hellish isn't really new idea and quite repetetive, but demons serving newcomers, those retrieving their memories, all that caste system, it was very fresh, and I'm amazed, how great actually you made it and how the story is unfold.

All that 49-day rules, eternity option choices, all that system, and mosty, the main protagonist, who managed to trick it. Every that stuff make you feel so satisfied and pleased. It isn't one single idea forged into flash (something like Bad Hair for example), it's like you've created a small universe for your needs and presented the full story, not demos, not slideshows. And that's why I found it very awesome, even epic.

Voices were very decent, overally good for flash animation needs. Visuals wasn't top class, but maintained to keep some quality, and overally were catchy.

Good luck in future, im keen on your further projects! 8/10 5/5

Xennethy responds:

Hey thanks!
Glad you enjoyed it. :D

[Castle Repercussions - A]

Niiice

The movie, I must admit gave me nice kickup! Almost flawless.

The first think i'd want to concentrate on is the sound. Great score up there! Having a professional and climatic music in your movie surely did very much. Also voices are very well done, especially the strange creature had it very creepy. Sounds are also very good, overally I was very pleased hearing your submission.

What goes to the visuals. Backgrounds were awesome, minimal, yet creative, athmospheric and nicely arranged. There was a mass of motion tweening to simulate 'camera' in your movie, overally great and creative, but somewhere all that animating didn't went as well as elsewhere. The Animation could be better, stickman moves are sometimes unamusing and distracting viewer. Also i didn't liked your specefic animation for the turning heads (by putting them under the round mask layer), which make faces/helmets/whatever looking very 2d and flat. Unless you wanted it that way.

You're nicely gaining viever attention and succesfully building atmosphere, which is very amusing, but overally I was kinda unsatisfied with the story. All that intro and building atmosphere made me stunned for what will happen next. And guess what: nothing really big happened. You don't really know what happened to Ray, what's with the Lloyd and whatever. You 'spin the wheel' and spin and suddenly you cut the movie, leaving the watcher ultimately unsatisfied.

I still enjoyed it very well ;) 9/10 5/5

Get-lost responds:

I understand you can get frustrated with how many questions are just left unanswered, but I'll let you know that most of them will be answered in the next parts. Thanks for the great review anyway :)

[jesus party]

%u0CA0_%u0CA0

Sorry dude, that was like wow. How dumb.

Seriously, as much as I like all the jokes about Jesus and the catholic religion (I'm catholic- still), cuz they are always laughing about those unclarified aspects of christianity, or totally abusing the Holy Icons. Take the Marc M. for example. (kinda contoversial example, but still)
He blended all that "black-motherfucking-gangsta-rap" with jesus, and made him the ultimate PIMP. That was totally nuts, fresh and funny, just unlike yours.

I get the feeling that you wanted to make the animation politically right, and still funny too, but saying sadly, your efforts went to shit. Spitting with wet paper balls at sinners at hell is rather dumb than funny. Overally, even though this animation is labeled "mature", it was just childish.

Animation went decent, still it was a little bit static and didn't really catch my eye. Overally it could use more shading and highliting, but your character design is flawless. Demonic chicks were sexy, just as the stereotype says :)
In general, your design is very good, but colouring could use some polishing.

Music was pissing and I really appreciated the elevator scene, it was relieving for my ears. Seriously dude, try "hearing" your animation in headphones.

Overally it was not bad, but I don't think the score should be this high, just beacuse you made it in "Christmas Mode".
Next time make something more worthwhile. Anyway, you're an rather artist who pepole remembers, so make those memories a good ones. :)

peixeaquatico responds:

thanks for honesty

I will try to do better next :P

[Custodial Catastrophe]

Enjoyable

The whole animation from the beginning was quite interesting and pretty random

There wasn't much of a plot here, but it's still enjoyable, and you've shown that you don't need hell of a story to make the watcher interested and amused. You've developed quite good and funny ideas such as cleaning stuff with beard.

Sound was pretty enjoyable too, not something awesome, but still at decent level. And unlike many flash submissions it had good quality, so I fully enjoyed it in a full headphones. Only flaw here is some noticeable echoes in voice tracks.

Animation surely went awesome, the nuke explosion was totally nuts! Also I liked thy fire and the colouring, they were definetly adding points to atmoshphere. Only thing i found weird was that the enviorment and stuff- it all cast a shadows, except for the character. It make him look really 2D and flat. Of course every frame-by-frame animation was truly professional.

Very good, I've enjoyed it a lot, especially totally random ending :)
9/10 5/5
The cigarette was quite an cliche.

VillainousTurtleSLC responds:

Thanks for taking the time to write a review, Van-pl! Have a good day!