EnygmatycNinja

Yeah, I’m THAT guy. Deal with it.

Anyway, Power Rangers—yet another in a long list of beloved 80-90s kids-TV franchises chomping at the bit for a reboot, and similarly fails to deliver on any sort of worthwhile substance that would’ve made it otherwise bearable. But who cares as long as the hype machine can enable the studios to print money, right?

Ugh…

The plot is roughly the same as the source material—five random teenagers living in the small town of Angel Grove are drafted by an intergalactic wizard to fight against an evil space queen and her legion of monsters out to wreak havoc on dear-ol’ planet earth. Here, there’s a fair amount of character development revolving around detention-mates Jason, a house arrested ex-star quarterback, Kimberly, an exiled cheerleader/it-girl, ‘spectrum’ brainiac Billy, loner nomad Zack and emo-kid Trini. These five are ultimately drawn together after an explosion at a gold mine unearths five colorful gems (not coins) that give them a number of plot-convenience powers such as ripping walls, jumping across chasms, breathing underwater and all-around death-cheating. Further exploration leads the fivesome into a cave with a crashed spaceship, where they come across (you guessed it) Alpha-5 and Zordon, who tells of evil space queen Rita Repulsa, who comes seeking the Zeo Crystal, which is turned out to be buried beneath the local Krispy Kreme (cringe…), and it’s up to the teens to activate their full morphing power to keep Rita from destroying their hometown and everybody in it.

Good things first; The movie tries to plug in most of the plot holes that the series didn’t even bother to answer. Some of those plugs makes welcome sense to the narrative, while some are nonsensical, unnecessary, and sometimes face-palm disastrous (oh—we’ll get to that). Some welcome answered questions range from how Zordon actually ended up caught between dimensions, to actually having Rita have a purpose to rampage all over Angel Grove other than ‘just because’. And it also made sense with Rita being the ex-Green Ranger, which would be a nice setup for whenever Tommy comes into the picture in the impending sequel. Delving into the characters in terms of their pasts and motivations gives a little bit of welcome context into the plot as well.

And now comes the downright horrible…

As someone who grew up with the franchise, I could write an entire essay about the shit that the movie glossed over, altered and screwed up entirely. So I’m going to list some of the major things that really got on my nerves seeing this movie:

• Movie Rita Repulsa was depicted frustratingly similar to Suicide Squad’s Enchantress, which was the whole entire disappointment of that movie. And outside of her being a disenfranchised ex-ranger out for unlimited power, the source of her villainy is hardly explained.
• The whole entire first act was like watching an episode of Degrassi, and each of them had to have some cliched teenage-angst issue; Jason has daddy issues that he masks as all-out defiance, Billy struggles with autism, Kimberly screwed up her popular-girl status through sexting, Zack has a chip on his shoulder by taking care of his dying mom and Trini’s parents are flipping out on her because she just might be *gasp* lesbian (poor Thuy Trang must be rolling in her grave over this). I get that it’s adolescents and all, but… really?
• The film in itself would’ve been far more digestible had they cut the ‘trying to morph’ segment in half. I get that there has to be some struggle and tension there being first-timers and getting used to each other as a team and all, but I nearly came close to yelling ‘GET ON WITH IT’ halfway through.
• Goldar.
• Krispy Kreme over-endorsement.
• Here’s a pro-tip, moviemakers; If you want to tease one or all of the main characters possibly dying on the movie itself, you might want to make sure that none of the trailers you put out show 3/4s of the concluding act with supposed dead character(s) already alive and celebrating. It’s a major waste of time and patience.
• Speaking of, the tone of the movie is all ass-backwards. Normally, the movie starts out with the witty humor, and then transition into the more serious tone of the conflict to give us a chance to care about the characters. Here, they started off so drabby and monotone that by the time they’re cracking jokes at the final battle, the only thing I could muster afterwards was, ‘What the hell is this?’

Overall, I believe Power Rangers probably would’ve been a lot easier to stomach if this were a reboot on the 8pm slot on the CW instead of a full-length motion picture. It’s far too silly to be taken seriously, yet takes itself far too seriously to be any fun. And in the end, no one wins.

SCORE: 2 out of 5

So here’s the good, the bad and the stupid about Suicide Squad.

The good: Despite it’s very glaring shortcomings, which I’ll point out later on, I don’t think it’s a terrible movie overall. It’s a fairly original plot that, if it were executed far better than it did, would’ve been a hit for critics and fans alike. What the movie lacked in engaging storytelling, especially as it went on, it made up for in its characters and the actors that portrayed them. Yes, even Will Smith's Deadshot was relatively decent, even though there was rarely ever a scene without him on it. But that’s also a point I’ll touch on later…

The bad: It starts off relatively delightful, witty and humorous. Everything that’s to be expected from a movie about a rag-tag group of career super-criminals on a reluctant mission to save the world from imminent destruction by vaguely evil forces. However, if you’re going into this movie expecting it to be a near-replicate of, say… Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy in terms of originality, wittiness and overall success, then get ready for a world of disappointment as the delightful and witty action/humor that the teasers and promos promised so much of is almost just as quickly meandered into a heap of the cold, sappy dreariness that left moviegoers with the same bitter taste that Batman v. Superman did.

I also felt that an absurd amount of screen-time and plot emphasis was given to Will Smith’s Deadshot and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn (who’s expectedly the main draw of the show fan-wise) at the expense of most of the other characters of the squad. El Diablo had his brief moments here and there despite being the far more interesting one of the group, in my opinion. Everyone else, though, from Katana to Captain Boomerang to especially Killer Croc was just there because, well... they’re there. So much is the case that I’ll go so far as to say that Margot Robbie’s bootylicious ass was better positioned in the storyline than any of the other characters were. They had their uses, of course, but what’s the point of even including them in the story in the first place if it’s just going to turn out to be The Fresh Prince of Task Force X?

The stupid: Enchantress as the main villain. En-f**king-chantress, of all people, was established as the main villain, and any major interest I had towards that movie took a very serious nosedive from that point on. The movie had the goddamned Joker at their disposal, who they’ve built up as the poster-boy of criminal insanity that we all know and love. Instead, though, he was disappointingly reduced to being nothing more than a mere menace without any substantial contribution to the plot whatsoever—outside of being Harley Quinn’s clit-tease, of course. Hell, I would’ve been equally stoked if cold-hearted bitch Amanda Waller (phenomenally portrayed by Viola Davis, by the way) turned out to be the main villain with Enchantress as her secret weapon to control and use however she sees fit, especially given the fact that Waller had her very heart in her possession. Instead, they turned to making Enchantress the main antagonist, who, when it’s all said and done, turned out to be no more menacing than a Power Rangers villain.

I love you to death, DC Comics, but I have to be brutally honest—there’s no way in hell that you’re going to even blip the radar of the Marvel Universe's success if this is the best you can do. So here’s to the increasingly declining faith that the Justice League Movie will be the grand slam hit that I’m hoping, but no longer expecting that it will be.

SCORE: 3 out of 5

I’m single on ‪#‎ValentinesDay2016‬ for the very first time since 2005, and to that I say…

Thank fucking God!

Anybody who knows me knows that there are very few things on this planet that I absolutely hate with a passion, and Valentine’s Day is one of them. I could go on and on about how it’s a ‘manufactured holiday’ and how it makes the card companies rich, and blah blah blah. But the problem is those women (I’m probably going to offend a lot of the females here with this one—fair warning) that seem to universally think that the guy that goes above and beyond on Valentine’s Day are at best passable while the ones that don’t—or in some cases, can't—aren’t worth shit.

First off, I firmly believe that no certain day should dictate when and how much affection one person should show another in a relationship, and that if a couple REALLY cares about each other, then one godawful day of the year shouldn’t be the only time show it. The fact that this holiday not only does that, but profits hand-over-fist from it makes me want to puke. Roses, cards, chocolate, expensive restaurants and all that other bullshit, they don't make Valentine's Day a special holiday, but rather a grieving obligation.

Which brings up what I believe is the worst thing about this holiday, and also the same exact agenda that media and advertising have been pushing on us for decades—it’s expected generosity. Further glorified by the sheer assertion that for those 24 hours it’s the guy’s sole responsibility to impress (kiss the ass of) the women in their lives—whether it’s their wives, girlfriends, part-time lovers, booty calls or even the friend-zoners—by showering them with presents, fancy dinners, flowers, and all that other crap. And for what? The wavering possibility that MAYBE if you just spoil her rotten enough, she’ll willingly turn into his slut and spread her legs for him that night? And what of the opposite end of it, where multi-year long relationships come to abrupt ends because in her eyes, he just wasn’t ‘man enough’ to shower her with enough of the aforementioned materialism and ass-kissing that Valentine’s Day dictates he does. After all, happy wife = happy life, right?

What a crock of shit.

I finally realize now that this occasion has become nothing more than a gold-digger’s wet dream. The quality of her man and their relationship in general is dependent on how much of his hard-earned cash he drops on her, and it sickens me to death to be kept beaten over the head that this is the crap I have to put myself through for the mere privilege of domesticated misery. Sorry, but no. If this holiday is demanding that I have to be her Prince Charming (bitch) for a day just because ‘love’ (used very loosely here) is in the air, well… Homey don’t play that, son.

TL;DR - Fuck this holiday. There's no such thing as a happy woman, and I’ve got better things to do with my time, money and dignity than to try in vain to prove otherwise by showering her ungrateful ass with gifts, flowers and nauseating amounts of ass-kissing on the most bullshit day of the year.

But whatever.

Have a ninja-rific holiday, everyone...

- E.N.

It’s been a while since I wrote one of these reviews, so bear with me.

SPECTRE, the latest and most anticipated installment of the 007 franchise. I thoroughly enjoyed the fresh reboots of 007 with Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. And now with the much welcome addition of the SPECTRE organization, which is basically the Legion of Doom of the James Bond franchise, I figured how on earth could this possibly be anything short of what could be the best Bond movie ever made?

Well… turns out it came up short. And then some.

A cryptic message from the late M (Judi Dench) puts Bond of an unsanctioned mission across the globe to track down and assassinate an infamous criminal. The widow of that criminal then tells Bond of the existence of an underground terrorist organization known as the Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion—or SPECTRE for short. Bond covertly enlists Moneypenny and Q to help him seek out Madeleine Swann, the daughter of his old nemesis Mr. White, who may hold the clue to untangling the web of SPECTRE, and in doing so uncovers a chilling connection between him and the organization’s twisted leader.

As much as I enjoyed SPECTRE for all that it was worth, it was incredibly underwhelming and sometimes parodic in a lot of areas. It seems like the movie stripped away much of the character depth and minimalism that made Casino Royale so incredible and tried to go back to its relatively gimmicky roots, and even goes full-out Die Another Day in some areas. There are many nitpicks I can go on and on about, from almost completely nixing Bond’s previously established character development to the barely strung-together plot that suddenly and very suspiciously relied way too much on the plot elements from Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. However, my biggest issue is how they handled—or in this case, mishandled—SPECTRE leader Ernst Starvo Blofeld, and how greatly underutilized Christoph-f**king-Waltz was portraying him (watch Inglorious Basterds to see how menacing he can really be), especially when there were plenty of chances to make him a lot more sinister, and therefore infinitely more badass than he was currently portrayed, and the whole entire story suffered as a result. And it made zero sense to me that Blofeld built this massive criminal empire that’s so vast and just as untouchable that it could be described as being ‘everywhere’, and yet he uses all that power and all that global influence for the sole purpose of spending the past three movies trolling Bond on an obsessively personal level (who turns out to be his adoptive brother, which in and of itself is a very unnecessary twist), and therefore turning what could’ve been the most ruthless political manipulator ever conceived, the likes of which would’ve rivaled that of Lex Luthor, into some overly jealous nutjob with daddy issues. Even Batista, with his domineering presence as Mr. Hinx, just kind of came and went with very little impact.

In fact, the whole entire movie, which may or may not be Daniel Craig’s last run as 007 as even he vocalized how he’d rather slit his own wrists than do another Bond movie, felt like it tried to go all Dark Knight Rises on me, which is in the sense that—at least for (possible) conclusion’s sake—the writers wanted to shove in our faces the reminder of how cool the past chapters were because they either ran out of any significant ideas to push the overall story forward, knew the Craig-era could be coming to an end, so they simply didn’t give a crap and did this one last thing just to get it over with, or most likely both. And I probably would’ve been fine with it had the movie not introduce Blofeld the way they did, and then leave him alive in the end for the possibility of a return in a future sequel if Daniel Craig isn’t planning to come back for it.

Overall, SPECTRE turned out to be one big nostalgia-fanservice retcon, and a very botched one at that. Perhaps Craig sticking around for another sequel or two to put a satisfying conclusion to everything SPECTRE started would be very beneficial at this point, because it would be one hell of a disappointment for both his career and the integrity of 007 as a brand if this is where and how he chooses to leave the franchise.

SCORE:       3 out of 5

It’s been awhile. And I apologize to the remaining few that still watch me for not having been active as of late. It’s just been a plethora of artistic, mental and emotional turmoil that I’ve been muscling through these past several months, and still kind of am.

So why haven’t I posted anything new for well over half a year? Well, to be honest, I haven’t had much inspiration nor motivation to do so lately, and that in and of itself bothers me—saddens me, in fact. I remember back to when I first started this thing back in 2005 how hungry, driven and how absolutely motivated I was to get out there, share my art with the world, meet a bunch of like-minded individuals to bounce a bunch of creative ideas to and from and, eventually, share a place among them in the pantheon of artistry, and how much it’s been depressing me nowadays, because now I feel like I’ve lost that same passion that propelled me this far somewhere along the way. And every time I try to get back into that and try to sketch, draw or even speed-paint something on Photoshop, it gets tougher and tougher to see it through because I start to think that it’s not, nor would ever be, good enough. And I know that it’s within an artist’s nature to be very highly critical of one’s own work, but here lately it’s gotten to the point of being, well… self-debilitating.

On top of all that, I’ve been in a slump lately. A bad one. I’ve been questioning the meaning of life lately, and frustratingly wondering why a lot of things in life are the way they are. Perhaps this also ties into the whole lack of inspiration bit I’ve just mentioned, but for years now, I’ve wondered—even hoped at times—that there’s more to this life than burying myself in steaming shovelfuls of governmental debt to get some trivial degree that's hardly worth the paper it's printed on, use it to work some hapless and unfulfilling ‘career’ that I, if it really came down to it, couldn’t care less about, all in hopes of making just enough money to survive, pay bills, raise kids (which I personally don’t yet have), and MAYBE have enough leftover to chase some temporary high of the week/month/season/year, and then do it over and over and over again until I’m 65 and living out the rest of my decrepit-ass life—if I’m lucky to even make it that far—making due with my minuscule social security and retirement fund before God, Buddha, Allah, or some other omnipotent deity of the week decides to flick my big off-switch. And for the longest time, I thought—let me rephrase that—I’ve been indoctrinated into believing that the expensive degree and the ‘high paying’ job (at least by the societal standards of that year) was the magnum opus of life, and in doing so, might have driven away just about every friend/girlfriend/etc. I’ve had all in the name of such a pursuit, but I figured that as long as I could at least do for myself, that would be enough to get me by. However, the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve started to realize that this whole cycle of life bullshit, at least by society’s standards, is just that—bullshit. And the crappiest part of it all is that, unless you were somehow lucky enough to be the sole heir of Apple or become the next Mark Zuckerburg, that’s the crap we’d have to put ourselves through if we want to keep from suffering through a lifetime of tending drive-thru at KFC for minimum wage, or worse yet, selling dope and robbing liquor stores for chump change.

I know that all of this definitely comes across as first-world problems, shortsighted or otherwise ungrateful, because there are far too many people in farther regions of the planet living in far worse conditions than you and I, and I’m certainly not saying that I’m not appreciative of the opportunities I’ve been blessed with. I’ve talked about this with the very few friends and family that I haven’t alienated with this yet, and each of them have responded in some form or another in one of the following three ways:

• “That’s just life. You gotta go along to get along, even if that means kissing a little ass.”
• “Be patient/Have faith/Turn to God, and it’ll all work out in the end.”
• “There’s nothing you or I can do about it, so you might as well just man up and deal with it.”

Am I dwelling too hard on this? Maybe. This has been really wrecking my mind for a long time now. Yes I like to draw and create stuff. That gives me at least some sense of purpose on this increasingly uncertain planet of ours, and that will never change so long as I’m still alive and breathing. And I hope that I could leave this earth knowing that I’ve done everything I could to be the best me I could be for myself and those that I consider friend and/or family, as well as leave a little bit of myself for those to cherish for years to come.

But maybe I’ve lost that overly-naive thirst for life. And if that’s the case, then what the hell am I doing putting all of this effort into something more meaningful if, when it’s all said and done, going to end up being one big ball of societally-imposed mediocrity?

More and more, I feel like I’m just wasting my life away trying to search for something that may not have existed in the first place…

-E.N.