Home Alone (1990)

What a brilliant movie! They must have made gobs of money. It's so fun, and positive, and it's even got some cartoony violence, which is much better than the real stuff when considering a family-friendly film.

My favorite time Kevin wins against the bad guys is when Daniel Stern has the spider on his face. You can just tell by his expression that this is the most horrifying event of his recent life, and then he gives the most outrageous scream! You have to hear the sound he makes and see the images leading up to it! It's fantastic -- hilarious.

The Shovel Slayer is awesome. The bells (which add so much throughout the film) play every time you see him at first, and they just convey that the old man really is a murderer. He's gonna get you! But then he talks with Kevin at church, Kevin gives him some advice, and the old man reconciles with his estranged son at the end. Awesome! Waytago Kevin!

I like the machine in the basement that heats up, glows, and ultimately says, "Helll-llloo, Keee-viiiin!" That was a really great moment. And there are so many! Kevin sledding down the stairs -- discovering Buzz's secret stash in his trunk, then getting his life savings later, and planning how to booby trap the whole house! It's all outstanding.

This movie seems nearly timeless. Society has changed a little bit, what with cell phones and new airline regulations, but on the whole most of the ideas in the film are lasting. What a great movie. Might be worth a watch if you're...home alone!

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Abusing The Indiana Jones Name

I don't have many specifics to go on, but I think the general idea is correct.

The other day I was watching TV, channel surfing, when I came across a young Indiana Jones movie/show/miniseries. The actor playing the pre-doctor Jones was even younger than River Phoenix in "Last Crusade." So young, in fact, that I wondered if it even meant anything to watch him.

It's neat to see how greatness arises. And it was neat to see young Indy with an old writer, who I can only compare to an elderly reclusive modern celebrity/genius. But the elements of the show didn't measure up to Spielberg.

The Indiana Jones movies create an amazing character who lives in an amazing world and goes on amazing adventures. That all comes from an amazing director and actor. Take the skill away, but leave the name, and it's like you're diluting the greatness of a legend.

I'm not saying the show/miniseries/whatever wasn't good. In fact I only saw about 5 minutes. But from what I could tell, it didn't have the magic of the movies. And I guess that's what appeals to me the most about Indiana Jones.

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The Christmas Shoes (2002) (TV)

I watched this movie the other day. It's full of emotion and positive values, but there's also a great deal of tragedy. It's based on the song by the same name.

A woman is dying of a heart disease. She almost got a transplant, but that other heart turned out to have a disease of its own. There was a blurb on the bottom of the screen saying how this film was timeless. I wondered if she might still die today. Perhaps she could instead get a Jarvik artificial heart? Actually, no, Wikipedia says they're only temporary. But maybe in the future...

The woman's son crosses paths with a lawyer played by Rob Lowe, and the kid really wants to buy his mother some Christmas shoes to wear in Heaven. That was the main plot for me, although Lowe had a portion of the film dedicated to his marriage falling apart and slowly coming back together.

The part of the film that remains clearest in memory is how the mother was dying and there was no hope for a cure. That caused people to go in various directions. Her husband was distraught. Her son was single-minded about the shoes. The neighbors sang carols.

Honestly, I usually hate movies that preach failure. I like to watching inspiring, positive stories. But "The Christmas Shoes" was an exception, because it showed positive people coping with a negative event.

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Santa Claus (1985)

What an amazing film! It's got everything. The origins of Santa, centuries of gift-giving, a corporate tycoon, magic, candy that makes you float, a homeless kid makes friends with a wealthy girl, and the kids get to stay at Santa's workshop!

The cast is brilliant. Dudley Moore plays an elf, John Lithgow is the Scrooge of toys, and David Huddleston plays Santa! I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this year, and at the end there was the most phenomenal Santa Claus I've ever seen. He looked exactly like the real thing. It was like a mall Santa is a blurry, out-of-focus TV Santa from the 70's, and this guy in the parade was Santa in HD, 2007. Brilliant. He even had the gestures down and everything. And the sheer joy radiating from his face was incredible. "Santa Claus" the movie reminded me of him. The movie Santa was believable as well.

Dudley Moore faces of against another elf to be Santa's assistant. So many modern children necessitate a more efficient toy-making process. Moore's opponent uses Old World values of care, attention to detail, and fine craftsmanship. Moore puts his helpers to work on a colorful machine that when complete, operates as an automated toy assembly line. It cranks out heaps of toys, and Moore wins the assistant's job. However, on Christmas day, many children discover their toys are faulty, and Santa's reputation takes a turn for the worse. Disgraced, Moore takes off for earth, where he meets up with Lithgow, and strikes a deal to bring one special gift to all the children of the world the next Christmas. Hoping to prove to Santa that he really can do a good job, Moore uses magic to create a lollipop that makes eaters float. Moore even created his own rocket sled of sorts for speedy deliveries. The gifts are all free, but Lithgow has plans to charge gobs of money for the next one, a more powerful (and deadly) candy cane, available everywhere on March 25, or as he likes to call it, "Christmas Two!!!"

Meanwhile, Santa befriends a homeless kid and helps turn his life around. It's a really great movie, packed with action. It's like a Bond film. It keeps you interested, even as you feel years going by. They're years of joy!

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The Simpsons Movie

Long, awesome, extraordinary. They must have made tons of money from it, especially with all the guest appearances by Homer and the 7 Eleven Kwiki Mart transformations.

Homer endangers all of Springfield, and havoc ensues on a massive scale.

My favorite part was how the animation gave a more realistic feel to the film. When you watch early episodes of the show, you have to imagine what it would be like to go somewhere the field of view isn't looking. As the seasons progressed, the animation panned around more, and larger sections of Springfield were revealed. Now, the movie is like Futurama, in that it uses computer graphics to create expansive settings that you can wander around while watching. It's pretty great.

And one thing many people enjoyed was the appearance of Spider Pig, natures newest hero.

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Gotcha! (1985)

Awesome movie! Starring Anthony Edwards (Goose in "Top Gun") and Linda Fiorentino (Dr. Laurel Weaver and Agent L (Elle) in the first "Men In Black").

Linda looks so different in "Gotcha!" that I didn't recognize her. Anthony Edwards looks so young too.

Edwards is a college student. He's a pro at the '80's version of "Assassins," a college spy game where students try to "kill" their fellow student targets using a specified (fake) weapon. Some people nowadays use marshmallows. In the movie they used black paintball pistols, with red paint for authentic "deaths." The first few minutes of the film depict Edwards' prowess at the game. He racks up a decent score.

Then the movie strays from action and sets up future events. It's nice, but if you're impatient for some adrenaline-pumping, you might get bored. What happens is Edwards and a buddy go to Paris. The friend gives him advice on picking up women. Then the guy ditches Edwards so he can hook up with a lady who thinks he's a terrorist. Yes, that's right. His gimmick in a foreign land is to pretend he's a terrorist. He says Swedish chicks dig that sort of thing. This, combined with the use of realistic weaponry at school proves that this movie was made when the world was different.

Anyway, Edwards is on his own, and tries to use some of his friend's advice to pick up an attractive woman at a restaurant. Crash and burn. But then she comes over to him and introduces herself. Their relationship snowballs until they become a couple. Then she drags him into her spy game. Finally, some action!

They go to Berlin, then to East Berlin, complete with machine guns and barbed wire. Things get really interesting from there. The action picks up, and follows Edwards all the way back to America! He tries to tell his parents, but they think he's on drugs! KGB's are everywhere trying to kill him! CIA is against him!! Who did his girlfriend work for?! Wait, didn't he just see her? Here??!! In AMERICA???!!!

Yes, it's a really awesome film. It build up to a pretty great pace in the end, and it's still got points with some light '80's humor. "We love it!"

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Flood (2007) (UK)

This movie is 4 hours with commercials. I enjoyed it a little, as it satisfied my expectations of a typical disaster movie. London is engulfed by a major flood, and havoc ensues. Great special effects, lame plot devices.

They kept showing failure and death. "I'll save you! Oops, never mind. Let's help! Oops, we killed them instead." The end was like a rip-off of the Poseidon Adventure remake and Armageddon. The smartest guy of them all, the one who predicted everything (like Dennis Quaid in "The Day After Tomorrow") sacrificed himself so his son could hook up with his ex. And they didn't even give the guy a good reason for dying. He took a scuba tank into a room that was filled with water. The room sealed, as expected. And then he just ran out of air. But he was working for the highest levels of London government. You'd think he could have gotten an extra tank! They even opened the room probably less than an hour after he died, and pulled him out. Lame for being cliché, and lame for being lame.

But if you're in the mood for failure, death, and clichés, you might give "Flood" a go. It's floodtastic.

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The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

I loved this film. I didn't get to see all of it today, but the parts I caught were great. There was a car chase where Bond was driving what looked to be a then-futuristic sports car. It seemed tame by today's standards, but still amazing, what with the gadgets and all.

Bond got two submarines to nuke each other, and fought a metal-mouthed giant. I actually was rooting for the giant during a few scenes. He's likable, because he just seems to embody how anyone would behave in his situation. Plus he's virtually unstoppable. He's in a car, and he flies of a cliff, and his car crashes headlong into a house. The other occupants of the vehicle are very likely dead, but he just gets out and dusts himself off. Later, while fighting Bond, he finds himself in a shark tank. You look at his face and catch a glimmer of joy as he begins battle with the predator. And wins!

At the end, Bond won the affections of a beautiful KGB agent. A pleasant resolution for all.

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For Your Eyes Only (1981)

This film is amazing, just like all Bond films. The plot keeps you interested, even as it twists and turns and takes you far from where you just were. For example, Bond is dealing with a young ice skater who is infatuated with him. Then she points out a skier she's got a crush on. Then Bond fights the skier. Then the action takes Bond elsewhere, and pretty soon you've almost completely forgotten about the ice skater.

It's funny, because the skater was wrapped up in her own little world. Bond goes far out, near-death, and comes back a little later. "Where have you been?"

We get to vicariously experience an adventuresome life through the eyes of Bond. A life that isn't tied to anything, and that is sure to be interesting day in and day out. "For Your Eyes Only" plays by the incredible rules of Bond, and is highly entertaining.

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Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

I saw a latter portion of this today, and I wish I could have seen it all. It looks like a great Bond film. So great, in fact, that I could see parts that had been used in "Austin Powers." There was a Dr. Evil, a Mr. Bigglesworth, and a deadly hotel meal at the end. It was fun.

I enjoyed it (what I saw of it, anyway) because it doesn't seem to be as often aired as other Bond films. I don't know why that is, because it seems great. For some reason though, I don't usually see it on. Oh well.

The bad guy was going to use a satellite to destroy Washington D.C., but Bond and his lovely costar were able to prevent the disaster. It was action packed, and yet enjoyable in a light sort of way because of Bond's casual attitude about it all. Sean Connery did a great job, as always.

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Working Girl (1988)

Today I watched the "Working Girl: Backstory," and about 40 minutes of the film. I've seen parts before, but never the whole thing. However, I saw enough in the Backstory to know how it turns out.

There is a pretty powerful cast here: Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Melanie Griffith, Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack, and Kevin Spacey (in a small role). It was neat seeing how they all looked in 1988. Joan Cusack looked especially different.

I wondered if Melanie's character would have succeeded had things not happened just so. I sometimes find myself rooting for a character in a show or movie to such an extent that if it seems they succeed through pure chance, I'll try to justify how they might have won some other way, just in case.

In "Working Girl," Melanie wants to get ahead. You can tell because she went to night school for five years, and the theme of the movie keeps coming back to highlight her desire to shine.

One day her boss sets her up with sleazy Spacey. She thinks she's applying for a new job, but Spacey only sees her as a one night stand (it would seem). Melanie gets back at her boss, but then needs reassignment, and is placed as the secretary to Weaver. So right there, if her old boss hadn't set her up, she'd never have gotten put in the position to get ahead.

Under Weaver, Melanie comes up with a brilliant idea. Weaver tells her it's a no-go, but secretly plans to use it. Weaver breaks her leg skiing. Again, chance intervenes and Melanie finds out about Weaver's plans while she's still in the hospital.

I hope that she would have found some way to get ahead had those opportunities not been placed in her path. I agree, the film does teach us to seize opportunities as best we can, but sometimes we've also got to make our own when they don't spontaneously occur.

In spite of the chance factor, I think the film is great. And the ending is positive, which I love. It's great to see someone defy the odds and prove her detractors wrong.

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Cinderella Man

I watched some of this today. I enjoyed it. I've seen most of it before.

Part of it seems like Rocky. They show a boxer "past his prime," then give him a chance to fight a top tier competitor, and he gives the fight of his life. Then things turn around, and he's got to face an even wilder opponent.

Russell Crowe, Renée Zellweger, and Paul Giamatti are great. Craig Bierko is great too. He's really good at playing a crazed character. I liked him as the bad guy in "The Long Kiss Goodnight" and as Tom Ryan (spoof of Tom Cruise) in "Scary Movie 4."

When you first see him in "Cinderella Man," he just looks absolutely furious. Furious in the ring, at his opponent. He's not out to win. He's out to hurt the other guy. And since Crowe has already been endearing, you hope he can win against Bierko. That makes the movie that much better, because it builds the stakes.

I also enjoyed getting a glimpse of the past and seeing how things could get Depression Era bad. Hopefully we'll never hit that point again!

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Superman Lives, Starring Nicolas Cage

This is a movie that never got made. But can you imagine if it did? It would have been incredible. And different!

Cage doesn't really fit my idea of Superman. Some people (or many) felt he didn't fit the general idea of Ghost Rider, either. But that movie turned out O.K. However, Superman (I believe) is a much bigger star than GR.

I can imagine they would have changed his hair and outfit, and taught him how to move like Superman. So he probably would have done a good job.

I wonder if they had ever made the film, what plot they would have used. I wonder if the special effects would have been good? I'll bet by the day's standards, the film would have been amazing.

Or would it simply have been a 1996 equivalent of "Superman Returns?"

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Breaking In (1989)

Starring Burt Reynolds and Casey Siemaszko as a veteran safecracker and his new student. It looks like the movie is going to be an '80s money-centric adventure film, where Reynolds and CS pull off some amazing heist, find a couple of nice ladies, and retire to a beach somewhere.

Instead, CS gets caught, takes the blame for all the jobs Burt's ever done, becomes a celebrity in jail, and has Burt use his stolen money to pay fellow prisoners to protect him.

It was only after watching the film and being disappointed by the ending (where CS is still in jail) that I guessed they were going for a dual meaning with the title. "Breaking In" probably not only refers to stealing, but also to CS becoming friends with Reynolds, who at one point said he didn't need anyone.

If the movie was going for a "I have no friends / I'll be your friend" dynamic, it could've fooled me. I just thought the vet was going to teach the new guy enough so they'd both get rich and could retire. But there was no resolution in that regard, so I felt the film was a disappointment.

However, if you can tolerate limbo endings, you might enjoy the movie. I liked the prospect of instant riches. Sure, they were going about it in an immoral way, but there's an adventure element with safecracking that seemed somewhat appealing. And what I really wanted to see was them be able to enjoy the money with no one getting hurt. So my expecting that made the film exciting for me. I kept thinking, "Soon they'll hit the jackpot!"

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The Explorers

This is a pretty neat film. A young Ethan Hawke teams with a young River Phoenix and another kid and they all build a spaceship. Using alien technology communicated through dreams, they engineer an energy orb that can protect the ship and take it anywhere. It's so efficient it can run on an old battery from the 1980's.

They travel around the earth, then go into space, and meet aliens! It's wild. And young Hawke meets a girl.

It's family friendly, and great if you love sci-fi. Nine thumbs up!

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The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

This was on AMC today, and I got sucked in. It's so good! I think Gene Hackman did a fantastic job portraying a guy using his intelligence, common sense, and reason to solve puzzle after puzzle and guide as many people as he can to safety.

It was very interesting to watch him try to convince the main group to go with him. I thought of him as Lex Luthor in "Superman," when he was the greatest criminal genius on earth. He seemed as intelligent in "Poseidon." And yet not a lot of people would listen to him. He wasn't a professional ship man, so most people took the word of the loud guy that did have a job on the ship. Hackman would yell his smart points, and the guy would yell back that he was wrong. Then Hackman moved up toward the bottom of the inverted ship, and all of a sudden the masses and the ship guy had to deal with a flood and chaos. They didn't make it.

That's always an intense dynamic, when someone smart wants to lead the way to safety and salvation, and the rest of the people don't want to believe. It happened in "The Day After Tomorrow," when Jake Gyllenhaal told the people in his building not to try to survive outside and travel. He'd just gotten advice from the most knowledgeable person on earth regarding the disaster everyone was experiencing, and few people would listen. Too bad.

I don't think the seventies version of "The Poseidon Adventure" is bad at all. In fact, I think it's fantastic! It seems almost timeless. I enjoyed it.

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The Three Amigos

What a great film. It's so terrific, there are two ways to interpret it!

First, it could be viewed as a parody film, goofing with the idea of a Western. But because it was so successful, it could also be viewed as a film to be parodied!

I really enjoy this movie, and I think it has timeless appeal. For all we know, there's a village out there with the same problems as in the film, and similar shenanigans might be ready to occur!

I like the actors in the film, especially the main 3: Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Martin Short. I like the song they sing where they hold that one note way longer than normal! And that funny move they do where they turn their heads and appear to cough.

I used to think it would be funny if the names were Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Short Steve. But I guess to be fair to Chevy, that could not be.

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Back To The Future

I've always loved this film, and there are so many interesting things to think about.

One thing I was shocked to learn was that Eric Stoltz was cast as Marty, and a bunch of scenes were shot with him. He thought the movie was a tragedy, because Marty at the end remembers an alternate life that no one else can sympathize with. Stoltz's views didn't agree with Spielberg's. Enter Michael J. Fox.

Originally, the script called for a nuclear detonation as the Time Machine's power source. That would have been so cool! Can you imagine Marty driving through a test range into a nuclear blast?

There's a theory dealing with the part at the end of the movie where Marty sees Doc get shot, then goes back in time, then returns and sees it happen again. Some people think that the Marty that returns watches the other Marty leave, taking the full case of Plutonium with him. When this other Marty gets to 1955, he fuels up and returns to 1985, without doing any of the stuff we saw in the movie. The 1985 he returns to is the original, where his mother's a drunk, his father's still lame, and Doc is dead.

But at least our Marty set things right!

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Last Action Hero

So of course, I've got to mention "Last Action Hero," as this blog is named after a prop that seemed to become a character in the film.

Recently on an episode of "Married With Children," which I don't seek out to watch but occasionally pay attention when I notice it's on, there was a random character who mentioned LAH. He said something to the effect of, "So please, don't give up on 'Last Action Hero' yet. It still hasn't been released in Albania, or Zimbabwe!"

I remember hearing that same idea when it came out, that it wasn't doing so well. I myself didn't really like it, because I thought it diminished the weight and reputation of Arnold Schwarzenegger and all his action roles. But since then, I believe the film's become a cult classic.

Another reason I didn't like it was how some of the humor was dark. I just took it at face value, saw the dark, but not the humor. I thought New York was just like it was depicted in the film, a place where you could get killed by shoe-hungry teens, and nobody would care. Thankfully that's not the case. And nowadays, I can tolerate (and sometimes enjoy) snippets of black humor. So the film has grown on me, just as I imagine it has on many others.

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A Heroes Movie

Is unnecessary. Heroes is already better than a movie. Even the lesser episodes have still seemed as good as made-for-TV films. And the best episodes are like million-dollar blockbusters. Simply amazing.

If you string all the episodes together from seasons 1 and 2, you've got a huge feature film. Or two. Or 10. I think "Heroes" is made in such a way that you can't make a movie out of it. It's almost like a film version is a step down.

I think this is because the show is so good, and has its timing down to a science. It needs more hours than a movie can contain to show you all the interweaving plots. It needs to allow the story to unfold at a certain rate, urgent, but at the same time relaxed.

I think a film would strike that relaxed part in order to prevent a 3 hour film that would drive audiences away. The urgency would then be heightened, and there'd be more action than plot.

Part of what makes "Heroes" so great is the ideas behind the actions. The mystery, the intrigue, and the situational and character backgrounds are all major factors in the show's excellence. I don't see how a film version could compete with that. And thankfully, at this point, there's no need for one to.

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Batman Begins

This is an awesome film. It's well-made, the music is great, and it revived the "Batman" franchise. Not that I care in a business sense. But for a while the movies were kind of lame.

It's like each new "Batman" film got softer and softer, until someone came along and made a new one exceedingly sharp.

It's got good lessons, great ideas, and realistic technology. Even the storyline is believable to a decent extent. And the actors are all superb.

Hopefully the new one will be more of the same.

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Epic Movie

I must say I was disappointed by this film. It's not that it was bad, it's just I expected a lot more. I thought it would adhere to the high quality of movies like Scary Movie 3 and 4. Sure, those two had some lowbrow humor, but there was a lot of stuff that was pretty witty.

Most of "Epic Movie" was lowbrow. Though there were a lot of parodies, some just didn't fit. It's like they thought cramming as many movie references into a film was a guarantee for success.

I also didn't like how the girl with the memory from "Heroes," the waitress Hiro loved, played a nitwit. I'm sure she must have been referencing something I hadn't picked up in "The Da Vinci Code," like maybe how the female lead repeated things (I never noticed that she did), but it just made her (and the film, by proxy) seem lame.

There were also some parts that seemed designed to be funny in a gross way, but just came off as purely disgusting.

However, if you liked "Date Movie," you might enjoy "Epic Movie."

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Timecop

This is a pretty neat film. It's packed with action, suspense, and the implications of altering history really make you think.

One thing that stuck with me was the ending. Our hero started out alone as a timecop, no wife, no son. Then he goes back in time, saves his wife, and returns to the present. The present is now altered, and for the first time he meets the son he never new. But here's the tricky part -- the son recognizes him.

Apparently, according to "Timecop," if you go back in time and change things, you return to the changed present. So the wife and son are used to one version of him, but now they're stuck with a completely different version.

If one incident in the past that is fixed causes a new version of Van Damme (the fixer) to take over, who's to say another disaster won't happen? Van Damme saved his wife and son one night, but what if the next night new bad guys got her? Then a new wifeless Van Damme would have to come back and fix that, after which point he'd take over for the original Van Damme that made it to the end of the movie.

This could go on and on. What if suddenly an eye patch-wearing Van Damme shows up?

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AMC "Future of Classic"

There's a post on Random Waves of Insight about the mystery behind AMC's slogan. In AMC: What Does "Future Of Classic" Mean?, all the possible avenues of "Future of Classic" and its true meaning are explored.

I for one do find it mildly confusing. If something is already classic, why bother bringing the future into it? It's not like a finely aged wine needs more aging!

Maybe AMC is trying to say, "We are the Future of Classic, and in the Future, all things Classic will have been judged so on our terms alone. For we are redefining Classic with our lineup. Therefore, whatever we broadcast is good, and should be watched." So in the future, someone will ask, "What's a good classic movie?" And someone will respond, "Let's check the 2007 lineup from AMC. They redefined the word classic that year, as it pertains to films."

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The Hulk

This was on the other day, and I felt that enough time had passed since society dismissed it as unworthy. Watching it again, I noticed how the font for some captions looked similar to the font used in the show "Heroes." That was neat. It's like the film was a precursor of sorts.

I enjoyed seeing things in a fresh, uncontaminated way. The last time I had watched "Hulk," there was a lot of talk that it wasn't that great. This time around it wasn't bad at all. I enjoyed the Hulk character more than the human version, though.

The guy playing him didn't seem super tough when angry. He seemed more tough when passive aggressive, when cool and laid back. But then he'd snarl, and his youthful look would combine with that to present the appearance of an angry child. It was weird.

I enjoyed the military's quest to hunt him down, and his incredible abilities when transformed. I didn't like the pain of it all, and how he felt his condition was ripping his life apart. I know it was, but it seemed like he was a little over-the-top with the lamentations, despite the fact that they didn't seem to be given much screen time.

Overall, I'd say the film could be better, but in the end it isn't that bad.

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Stargate (with Kurt Russell)

I used to watch the "Stargate" show, and I had just recently been thinking about a behind-the-scenes moment I had watched where Kurt Russell stopped by the set of the show and exchanged remarks with Richard Dean Anderson. Both played the same character (Col. Jonathan 'Jack' O'Neil) via two different mediums.

To my surprise, the film was on today, and I was able to watch a good portion. Man, it really brings to you the awe and wonder of making contact with another planet, another people, and powerful, ancient technology.

I was amused by how easily Dr. Daniel Jackson powered through the tasks to decode and decipher all the information the government had gathered so far. They kept having to ramp up his clearance. It's like he was playing through a video game he had just beaten for the eleventh time, and the game had forgotten how good he was. "What? Ok, you graduate to Level 2. What? You're that good? Ok, you get new armor. What??! Ok, secret mission!"

I also enjoyed how the film has a slightly different take on things, and how it tells the same story the show does, but in a more cinematic way (of course!).

It's almost like the show came out, and then the movie, which was done very well on one highly focused area. The show has covered so much, so it was neat to see how things all began.

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