MRat's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ill Fate: Ep. 1]

Pretty Slick

This was, for the most part, a work that was interesting both visually and through the script. It's nice to see such a fully round work with attention spent to a number of varied details. We don't get many like this on here.

The animation ranged from mediocre, to good, to nearly great at points depending on how heavily your through your weight on the crutch of tweens versus how much frame-by-frame you did. Your best animation was clearly in the middle ground, as is evidenced by the scene with Fat walks towards the portal and the lines wobbled without conveying any true sense of movement, and some of the Kaiser's tweened arm movements that were stiff. The bit with the robot and its laser eyes was mesmerizing. Simply magical. Well timed, well spaced, and very well rendered.

Still the visual dwarfed the animation. The colour choices were impeccable and your subtle gradients gave alot of value to simple things that otherwould would have been flat as a result of the lines. My only gripe is with some of the design work, specifically the technology in the lab. I've seen that same basic teleporter and specimen tube 100 times over in nearly every sci-fi story. It'd be nice to see a fresh design.

Better yet than everything else was the script and the very solid voice acting delivering it. While I think that influenza virus thing was plain stupid and makes no sense the way it was written, everything else so far is a highly immersive mythopoiea that is clearly well though out and rounded to a full development. I'm sitting here saying, "WOW. What happens next? Who are these people, and how are the so real with so little information given me?"

Very nice work, sir, very nice.

professor-fate responds:

Thanks a lot. I really appreciate the detailed review.
You have a keen eye and appreciation for animation that very, VERY few reviewers on this site have. I giggled as I read which bits you thought I had cheaped out on vs. what stood out as the best, because it was pretty much spot on with how much time I had spent on those scenes. I was doing a lot of university work when I made this so some parts were genuinely rushed (i.e. tweened), and as for the robot part... well, would it surprise you to know that one scene took me eight hours?

As far as the mythology of the Vector is concerned, the Vector wasn't actually my idea. We had to include our characters interacting with the Vector, and in everyone else's entry it was just a case of "what's that thing? Let's go chase it!", and being sucked into the Vector's portal. I did my best with what I was given to do something different, but what can you do. XD

[Shamoozal: GFGames #4]

So many people missed the point.

So many! Which makes this even better, I think.

Anyway, I laughed, I cried, I pooped my pants. I didn't think the message was subtle, but it went WAY over so many heads, so I guess it was.

I don't really like these GF games things; I prefer the old Shamoozal that were, well, mostly not about games and had lots more animation. Still, a solid effort.

Shamoozal responds:

Interesting to see you enjoyed the old stuff! Who knows, maybe in time we'll revisit some of the original ideas.

[MADNESS: the root of it]

A masterwork of the mildly f.

It is withing f, and as a root of f, that we find what, precisely, contributes to the being of f, and it is there that f stands at it's most f possible.

ZekeySpaceyLizard responds:

He's MRAT
MRAAAT
he's been in movies and goes to a cool school
ba da dum
boom

[Math Debate]

Magnificent!

Absolutely lovely.

Very amusing designs, and the colours were something quite special. I love the way you animate people laughing. It's the most disturbing thing.

Blordow responds:

I appreciate your words, Mrat! thanks!

[Tales of the Oak Sage ep1]

A very solid beginning.

I'll admit it right now, I'm being more generous than I normally would with the stars considering the mediocre production values because frankly, I see a hell of a lot of dedication and heart in this. I'm excited to see where you will take this.

Many people will bring up The Story of Khale and Brackenwood. Sure these are woodland fantasy tales, but honestly ignore these people drawing comparisons. They're idiots. This is clearly your own entirely unique universe with it's own mythos and such.

So now on to the technical critique; things I'd love to see you work on for the second installment.
First off, those backgrounds. It's nice to see them fully rendered as they are. Lots of detail, lighting and so forth. The problem is, they're overshadowing the characters. Never let the outlines in your background be thicker than the outlines of your characters. Rule number one right there. Also, if your outlines are going to be coloured make the contrast more subtle in the background and more apparent on the character. It will help the focus pop more and keep the viewers attention.
Second, the character animation itself. It was very static. The walking sage firstly didn't match, perspective wise, the way he crossed the environment. Try to make sure a profile view has a profile walk. Right now he was 3/4 walking completely sideways. Very odd. Secondly, try to get some more dynamic and exaggerated poses in that walk. It's nice to see those frame-by-frame legs, but why not step it up? Really get the whole body turning and moving, bouncing up and down a little even. It will add a whole new dimension of activity.
Finally, clean up that linework. The outlines on the backgrounds and that airship felt quite hasty and scribbled. Try and take the time to really sit down and clean that stuff up. A big example is the highlights on the trees. Try to make those really curve to fit the form of the tree. Right now they seem almost tacked on, and sort of distract the eye. Just make sure things don't look like they were coloured with crayon on paper I guess. You have the chance to easily clean up your work and have these professional backgrounds with software like Flash. Take advantage of that.

All in all though, a stupendous effort. I've very impressed with this and the imagery really does provoke a certain interest and investment in the future of the plot. Not alot happened, but what did really hooked me. I see alot of untapped storytelling potential waiting to erupt out of you man. I eagerly await episode 2.

oaksage responds:

you hit it on the head man... its a real pain this flash cartooning and im not the best at it.. its my first real attempt at making a full on cartoon.. at first i went into it with the attitude of... i want to make a unforgottenrealms look but with a nicer art style...so i could pump out content faster... but then i thought hey i want at least a little bit of animation..so i ended up doing a few things clean and a few things crappy and well.. thanks for taking the time to give an indepth review ill take your advice to heart

[Slick Nick - Private Dick]

I think my sides split.

Ok, I'll say the negative first. It was very, very sloppy and the sound editing, quality, and mixing was subpar.

Still the script, the fact that the animation was simply fantastic (very weighted and loads of frame-by-frame goodness), and the overall premise made this endlessly enjoyable. All the voice acting was perfect, despite the recording quality being fairly shit. Those backgrounds were something else. Childish and unclean though they may be, the contrast between them and the cast made the characters stand out and the focus never left them.

This is probably one of the most enjoyable things I've seen here in a long time.

cpaaron responds:

Thanks for the honest feedback! I think the audio issues are mostly just in this Newgrounds version. The .avi video versions on Youtube and Dailymotion are really a lot better to watch. The lowered audio quality was the only way I could make the video fit under 10mb.

[Fate and a Full Moon]

Well I love Porcupine Tree.

I'm glad I found another fan. The song really suited this piece, and Lazarus has always ranked amongst some of the most beautiful music I've heard.

I really appreciated the unique and somber approach here. It was a very well directed short, for the most part, and a lot of the design concepts appealed to me.

Still, there were some major flaws that really stood out and detracted from me being totally immersed. For one, some of that animation was very obviously rotoscoped, and it was extremely wobbly and thus conflicted a great deal with the very solid weighty backgrounds. Another thing was the meeting of the two at the train station. While I loved the concept of the effects, the whole scene fell very flat. The music began to swell and nearly cried out of action and movement, but all that happened was a very static hug. I would have loved to see something more there, because I just didn't get that emotional resonance I felt you were going for. Finally, those human drawings all seemed to really push for realism. The proportions were wide set and rounded, without a huge stylistic influence in the anatomy, but the faces were exceedingly bland, which was another factor I found highly distracting.

Those flaws still though simply couldn't outweigh how well paced this was. I think above all else, minus the aforementioned hug scene, this movie moved with a near perfect rhythm. Also some of those shots, particularly the bird's eye of the train moving across the country-side, were breathtaking.

I would very easily recommend this to anyone looking for something more than a cheap thrill and instant gratification.

Jimp responds:

Yeah they are an amazing band, this song is especially beautiful :)

I definitely agree with you about the rotoscoping. The only rotoscoped bit was the "yawn" part, which i did about august last year. I would have liked to have smoothed it up before finishing it but I didnt have time.

I also get what you said about the characters. This realistic style is kinda new to me, im used to drawing things more cartoony, but this piece definately made me focus on anatomy and realism.

Cheers for the awesome review man!

[Welcome To Jokergrounds]

The voices.

Those voices were spot on. I loved them. Sadly they were the only thing I liked.

The lipsync didn't match the dialogue at all, the drawings were really strangely formed and very stiff, the animation was a sequences of tweens mving the characters in ways that hardly had no context.

Here are some exercises to improve that sort of animation blunder. Have someone tape you having a conversation, then study your body language. Your movements should emphasize the things you say. You characters im this just looked like they were moving for the sake of moving, which is an annoyance to watch.

The entire script didn't interest me either. I'm one of the biggest Batman fans you're going to find, and I especially love Harley and the Joker, but their presence is no excuse for poor writing. While I found the dialogue itself authentic to the characters and comics, as more the animated show from the 90s, it did nothing to help the story in a unique way. It felt very pedestrian.

All in all, I ended up pretty bored. If I was judging this based solely on how you presented the Joker you'd have a 15 out of 10, but as an entire cartoon, it was sorely lacking.

Dekathos responds:

Ok. One thing you should know about me is I'm really very negative. So please don't take anything I say personally or make it bum you out as well.

I am aware of a lot of what you said already. As I said I'm negative. I know about the animation problems. I mentioned that several times but I wanted to get this out cause it was old and the concept is old and no way do I even care to mention Newgrounds in a flash again, even.

Finishing it was difficult. I sorta had to keep doing things a certain way I used to that I know don't work anymore to fill in the gaps of what was already there.

If I scrapped the whole thing and started over I would of never of finished it or even gave it a second glance.

I don't know if I'll ever submit anything that shows off more animation then story in the future I find that can be boring and even a little pretentious at times as an artist will sometimes sacrifice story for animation, or they show they are incapable of plot at all. I don't eve know why I'm saying this as I can't even imagine working on something like that for a while, but yes I'll try.

I'm a bit burnt out now. See if more people on Newgrounds thought like you'd probably be more inclined to take making flash more seriously. As it is, what I ultimately would like to make flash of, would be too daunting a task if I was more serious or professional or whatever.

I'm sorry you didn't like the story. I'm a little confused that you like the way the Joker was portrayed but not the plot since he was part of it but that's ok although a little disconcerting. I sorta think that it wouldn't make a difference with better animation if the plot isn't liked.

This kind of thing with tremendous amount of dialog is a huge pain to put together and I gather at times even more difficult for the viewer to swallow as it's not done that often on Newgrounds.

But in short, in the future I'll work on my animation. I don't expect much will come from it though when I'm messing around for fun and my confidence level is not always very hot, either. I doubt anything else I animate will come out like this. I don't tend to do things the same way twice anymore and I know the way I constructed this was poorly thought out.

Also if you ever look at the front page, you ever wonder, why the fuck even bother? I do. It's an awful wrong way to look at it, I know. Which is why I need a break.

[Mona]

Nothing short of spectacular.

This short speaks volumes about the appeal of simple elegance. With a a runtime seemingly short of a minute, we are given such gracious insight into the mind of an artist forced to face a strong moral dilemma head on. The metaphor is thin, and we peer through the veil to realize that Ansel and Nickolson have presented to future of an internet artist to us. After all, there are demons within all our creations and they will certain manifest to us as we battle to come to grips with out actions.

I also THOUGHT THE DICK WAS PRETTY FUCKING FUNNY!

Ansel responds:

the dick is the important part

[Whats That Sound?]

10 10 10

Spike nipple.

Gerkinman responds:

Nipple Spike