Vert's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Last Hour: Chapter 4]

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... that was no better than the first movie, to be honest, in fact I think it's worse, much worse. Why? Simply because you padded the movie with a ridiculously long intro and recap. That's a cheap tatic to make things look better than they are, a sign of a poor quality movie and a way of insulting your viewers.

The "movie" itself was very, very short, with terrible voice acting, terrible animation / drawing, with no significant plot or characters and, to brutally honest, was simply awful all round. There's so much you need to improve that I don't even know where to start and since, via your intro, you've delibaratly "insulted" me, I'm sorry to say I won't go any further with my review.

Now please stop sending PM's with review requests unless you actually make an effort next time.

Jaiba responds:

sorry i offended you, but i can guarantee to you that the next chapter will please you, you may in fact like it. so don't let this movie ruin it for you.

[The Last Hour: Chapter 1]

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... nothing against a christian based movie (on the contrary, being a christian I welcome them), but that was ridiculously short, pure and simple. And not particulary polished or well made. Give it a bit more effort before you submit a flash like that to the portal.

Jaiba responds:

Next one will be more interesting, the first chapter laid out the plot. Next one will most likely have voices!

[Quick01]

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... honestly, that wasn't badly drawn, but a one second long animation? I'm sorry, but the only thing I can point out as criticism in a second long animation is that it is too short for anything, including detailed criticism.

Van-pl responds:

Next time i'll make full documentation and will make it longer :)

[Collin & The Wishing Tree]

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... that was very funny and very well made! Really good stuff, no doubt. But let me break down what I thought of each of the movies aspects:

- The voice acting was really, really good, it was the best part of the movie, no doubt! Massive kudos to Tomamoto for really nailing it, because he narrates the whole thing in a <quasi> dead pan style that really fit the movie (as did the accents).

- And since he also created the "magical" story, he also deserves acolades, because the story was the second best part of the movie! It's down right silly story, of course, but with a grim sense of humour that works and, importantly, it there isn't the exageration (i.e., making things overly over the top) that's typical of these things. It also had a pretty decent length and a nice flow.

- The animation / drawings were overall pretty good. The character design, in particular, was really good (loved the look of the tree!) and the drawings showed a great attention to detail (like the backgrounds). What I didn't like was the animation style you used, you know, where people's arms keep flailing about. I felt it didn't really fit in and distracted the viewer from the quality of the drawings themselves.

Overall, really funny and well made, a (close to a) epitome of a humourous newgrounds movie. Cheers and kudos to all those involved!

[This is UNMEI]

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... I'm honestly beginning to feel that your work is fast becoming very underapreciated, Skaijo! This is fantastic stuff and deserves way more attention than it currently has and a better score is also very important. But let's get detailed.

- Graphics and animation were very good. Actually, scratch that, they were excelent all round and I must say that your animation of action scenes has improved immensly from Pick Up: Act 2! It really is much better now, very fluid and well done. This aspect alone deserves top marks!

- The music was bizzare, funny and good all at the same time and the coordenation between song and the on screen action was absolutly spot on / perfect. And because the music changes pace alot, it had good breaks from the action.

- The action scenes were clever and interesting, the humour was pretty good (and made me smile =] ), the attention to detail was really high (dancing puppies = fun!) and the overall polish and production values of the movie was great!

So, overall, you made a great movie, both funny and interesting that deserved oodles of praize and kudos! 'Grats! And please keep making such great stuff, you are a consistently awsome flash artist!

Skaijo responds:

There are A LOT of under appreciated artists on Newgrounds; I may not even be qualified to join that group. That said, I'm having fun doing what I like to do, score or no score. I'm already fleshing out a sequel. xD

I appreciate the review. Usually when something is written so detailed, it really inspires me to keep on moving. It'd be nice if you threw in some things you didn't like that way I'll know where I need to improve. If you'd like to PM me with some critiques, I'd love that too.

Either way, I'm very appreciative of the review. Thanks for the love!

[Alex Seryoua: Episode I]

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... I hate to say this, but your animation was a big let down. This is because your drawing skills are top notch, as can be attested by all the characters being very detailed and well drawn. The pacing of the movie was also pretty good, as was the voice acting (although the sound effects were only adequate) and the camerawork was specially good! In fact, together with your drawings, it was the best of the movie. Oh, and the movie was slightly short and the story, although slightly clichéd, was interesting enough that I'm curious as to what's going to happen next.

However, the animation was, as far as I could tell, all tweens and not very well done tweens at that. I hate to concentrate on the negative, but this is where you really need to improve your efforts. For example, the shape tweens you used to animate Alex's face during her conversation was pretty obvious and disjarring, as was the motion tweens you used to animate the action.

So, if you improve this crucial aspect, I can see this series really coming along nicely! Otherwise, it feels a bit of letdown... Still, cheers for a nice start to a new series!

danomano65 responds:

i know. i'm going to work on it. i i know. don't let it let u down. i tried really hard. and i've gone through hell to do this, i've had the idea since last summer and i've been working really hard. i appreciate your constructive criticism but what did u like about it? i'm trying to be original. NG will never be satisfied.

[The Orange Flash Box]

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... well the humour aspect was started poorly (the first two scenes), but more than made then made up for it from the episode 1 onwards, when it's pretty dammed funny!

Technically it's a mixed bag, with pretty good drawings and solid animation, proper use of sound effects, but you really need to get better voice acting! The voice actors you used were pretty poor and it really detracted from the movie (you should go to the NG forums and search for the voice acting club, they have some solid voice actors over there).

So overall, pretty well made and funny, but with a naggling detail (the voices) that took away some of the movie's thunder.

Arkuni responds:

I agree, I have a lot to learn about voice acting (which was why I didn't want anyone to do it for me).
This was mostly a learning process and a tribute to my favorite games.

I wanted to try out new things like: Voice acting, Action Scripted graphic and other minor things.

[ScientLOLojyuuichi!!]

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... that was absolutely fantastic! Congratulations on making a truly funny movie (I was smiling throught the whole movie) and managing to make a tribute (to hyakugojyuuichi) and a excelent attack on scientology that was brilhantly original! Let's get technical:

- Very well drawn and animated, I'm particularly impressed on how you managed to combine photographs with your drawings! The face Tom Cruise makes when he reveals anonymous is a perfect example of this. Top marks!

- The music was simply brilhant. You took the original song and added lyrics that are spot on making this by far the best aspect of the movie. The use of diferent voices was very clever, as it made things helped break up the repetitive nature of the music. The voice acting also deserves top marks.

- The whole timing of the movie (and narrative) was very well construed and overall, the movie's satirical edge was pointed and clever.

So, congratulations on making such an excelent, clever and all-in-all fun movie! Cheer and kudos!

[Still Alive - Portal]

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... nifty little video Scott, you had a simple but interesting ideia that was pretty well implemented and made for an enjoyable flash! But let's get technical:

- The drawings and animation were very simple, but spot on. I think you made a pretty good choice for how to draw and animated GLADos face (although the "red face" was a bit bizzare) with lot's of facial diversity, making this was a very solid aspect of the movie. Oh, and it was perfectly sincronized with the music, so good job there.

- The music, well, it's not really fair to jugde the choice of such an excelent music...

- The humour wasn't the laugh out loud humour was I expecting from you (and that you usually acomplish with Vgcats!), but a more put-a-smile-on-my-face (and smirk) type humour. That's not a problem, however, just diferent from what I'm used to and it did put a smile in my face, which shows that I enjoyed it.

All in all, a very good tribute to a fantastic game, but it fell slightly short of excelent, possibly because I think it could have been a bit more creative... ormaybe it's just that there's been so many diferent tributes to the portal on the web in the past month that "we've seen it all"? In any case, a very enjoyable and well made movie, cheers.