The Powderpuff Girls (2016) - "Power of Four"

Ugh, the Powerpuff Girls reboot, before I get into the review proper, let me tell you everything wrong with this reboot.

1. The girls voices being recast
2. The character design of the characters look more like characters like Clarence
3. The lack of crime fighting and humor
4. The lack of Narrator
5. The Professor turning stupid
   and worst of all
6. The memes.

I don't even think this is the Powerpuff Girls, this is the Powderpuff Girls, but, I'm not hear to rant, I'm here to review this sort of hour long episode, "Power of Four," like I promised in my "Happy New Year" review.

The story is that the girls "supposedly" fourth sister had been missing for ten years, and surprise of all surprises, Bubbles plays with her while she's invisible, but yet, Blossom and Buttercup are oblivious about her existence. It wasn't until Earth Plow comes out of nowhere and destroys the people at the movie theater, and that is when the fourth sister reveals herself, her name was Blisstina Francesca Francia Mariam Alicia Utonium, but let's call her Bliss for short.

As the episode goes on, we learn about Bliss' backstory and how much it contradicts the original Powerpuff Girls origins, stating that the Professor had created her to get even with another professor who created the perfect little boy. The kicker, The Professor used Chemical W. But anyways, while the girls show Bliss around and try to get her into the superhero spirit, Mih (pronounced "Me") comes along and seduces with Bliss, until after a bit of shape-shifting, it was revealed that it was Him the whole time! Kind of an interesting plot twist. If you watched Shadow Streak's reviews of "Secret Swapper of Doom" and "Electric Buttercup" which will be linked at the very end, he said that he wanted Him to do something truly evil instead of these bland unfortunate schemes that never went anywhere, not this time. They made Him do something evil for once, he fuses with her, transforms into this gigantic monster, and fights with the girls in a battle of good against evil.

The special was okay, it didn't blow my mind or anything, but it wasn't that bad. But, let me bring out my complaints. Tom Kenny is never heard in this episode, I mean, I understand you got rid of the narrator in the second season here, but that's no excuse to under use Tom here, and when Tom Kenny isn't in any of these episodes, it's just the girls monologue-ing to themselves, it loses a lot of the charm. And if you don't believe me, the best parts of the reboot are the parts that Tom Kenny is in. I guess it would've been too much work to have Tom Kenny in session for the Power of Four. Also, I never like these news reporters that you see in that screencap, they're so captain obvious, and they just seem to happy to even be in any danger. Whatever happened to Stanley Whitfield? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Bliss was voiced by Olivia Olson, yep, the singer of "Happy New Year."

Okay, all nitpicking aside, as we predicted, Bliss leaves Townsville to fix Saturn and put it back in its place, and it's certainly likely that she won't be coming back, unless of course, there is a season three, but there's still no word about it during the writing of this review. Let's just hope that season three doesn't happen, my only hope is that the Powderpuff Girls reboot can end relatively soon and at least stop making reboots in general. Because the original Powerpuff Girls show was awesome, but now, this reboot is just so bad that they even made twerking a thing on this show, not even joking. Oh, and one more thing.

"Let the fight begin" says random girl. Anime William Shatner method acting, council gives......100%.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=091KbzLmr7Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2swEb2qXXeQ&t=900s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvXVeG9pIKg&t=727s

My Little Pony: The Movie Review

Since it's New Year's Eve, I thought why not ring in the new year with a theatrical review. You see, while the Beauty and the Beast live action remake was a hit, it didn't quite bring in the numbers that the original Beauty and the Beast did. And even the critical reaction to it seemed to be kind of mixed, not even Jeremy of Cinema Sins liked it, nor the Electric Dragon. So, the movie industry went back to the drawing board with My Little Pony: The Movie. I don't think people really knew what to expect with this. I mean, it's a movie based off of the popular animated television series, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, And seeing this was from Canada with the American company of Hasbro Could these people do films based of TV shows like Rugrats and SpongeBob did. Because sometimes, films that are based off of TV shows are usually not that good. so people were kind of nervous, but at the same time, they were excited to see their favorite characters on the silver screen. And from my standpoint, My Little Pony: The Movie was as good as The Lion King, Okay, what's the story?

As Canterlot, Equestria is preparing for the annual Friendship Festival featuring a guest appearance by Songbird Serenade, voiced by Sia, an evil force enters the scene with Tempest Shadow and Grubber, voiced by Emily Blunt and Michael Pena respectively, who work for the Storm King as they take over Equestra and freeze up three of the four princesses. And luckily, Twilight Sparkle exits the scene with her friends and Spike, and they go on a mission to save Equestria and find the hippogriffs. Along with meeting some new people along the way, like Capper, voiced by Taye Diggs, Captain Celano, voiced by Zoe Saldana, and Princess Skystar, voiced by role model, Kristin Chenoweth. All this happens while overcoming dangerous parallels along the way. About two-thirds into the movie, Twilight gets captured by Tempest Shadow, and taken to the Storm King. Will the other main five and Spike save her? Well, watch to find out.

And it's great writing by Mulan and Toy Story 2 screenwriter, Rita Hsiao like this that makes this very epic. Yes, Tempest Shadow is kind of a villain, but she does have a backstory, that made Twilight feel bad for her. And yes, The Storm King is technically the villain, but not as much as Tempest Shadow was. But the dilemma that Twilight has to go through is actually a good dilemma. In fact, you're kind of siding with her when she ruined her chances to save Equestria. I even like the character of Princess Skystar, She's a very fun, active character kind of like Pinkie Pie. In fact, all of the characters are. Including Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Spike, and Fluttershy. As I said, I've never heard of Emily Blunt before this movie, but her song "Open Up Your Eyes" is a good song, perhaps one of MLP's best. The animation on the characters also looks pretty good. It's almost like the animation used in Friendship, but at the same time, it looks like animation from The Lion King. The dramatic moments are very strong. They're never out of place, they're very emotionally satisfying, and you relate with every single aspect of it. You relate with dealing with the inevitable, what will ultimately happen in the end. What should you do? What's the better thing for yourself and for others? What's the selfish thing? What's the unselfish thing? All this stuff plays in, and it's very, very smart and very, very well done. Also, I like how they also mention "everyone," and "everybody," those phrases are rarely used in the show, mostly because they think "everypony" is a substitute for "everybody" or "everyone." I also like the Jack Nicholson "Here's Johnny!" reference as well.

Just when you thought Friendship is Magic couldn't get any better they surprise us with this very well-told, well-written, well-developed, interesting story by Meghan McCarthy, Michael Vogel, and Rita Hsiao, not a rehash, not a ripoff, It's clever, it's funny, it's dramatic, it's visually interesting, it's musically interesting, the characters are wonderful. I've gone on about it long enough. See it if you haven't already.

By the way, I hope you enjoyed all my reviews I've done this December. Have a Happy New Year and I'll see you in January.


This review is dedicated in loving memory to my idol,

Mary Tyler Moore 1936-2017. The star of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Change of Habit, The Dick Van Dyke Show, a guest star on That '70s Show, as well as the founder of MTM Enterprises.

Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie Review

I didn't cry at the end of Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie, just saying that right now. I know it's awkward to bring up, but with that in mind, not everybody;'s going to like this movie like I did. I just thought it be important that I bring that up before I say the rest. With that said, Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie was the final chapter in the Hey Arnold series,. Everybody had waited so long for this movie to happen to see if whether or not Arnold can go find his parents. They said it was emotional, they said it was funny, they said it was dark, they said it was creative, some people didn't like it, the list goes on, yadda, yadda, yadda. They went crazy for it. I think it’s good. Yeah, you know. It’s good, uh...Okay, okay, let’s just go into the story.

Arnold Shortman, now in 5th grade and is in the last day of school has to do an important assignment from Mr. Simmons, voiced by Dan Butler, about doing a montage of all the great things they've done over the years, and the winner, will get a trip to San Lorenzo, and sure enough, Helga steps in and helps the football head win the contest by editing the montage together into one giant thing, and oddly enough, they won the contest, that's right, Arnold and his friends achieved a first-class one way ticket to San Lorenzo!

When they arrive in San Lorenzo, they meet up with the bad guy, Lasombra, voiced by Alfred Molina, disguising himself as Eduardo, Miles and Stella's Indiana Jones like friend, to lure them into his trap to find the precious corazon from the Green-Eyed People. Alfred Molina has been in numerous films, including the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, starring Harrison Ford. So, Arnold, Gerald, and Helga have to avoid Lasombra to find the Green-Eyed People and break them out of the sleeping sickness curse.

The funny thing about Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie is that really, this should be my favorite. It goes everywhere that I wanted Arnold to go to get to San Lorenzo, after the TV movie episode, "The Journal," aired on Nickelodeon, I said to myself, "The next part should be about what happens when Arnold finally comes to San Lorenzo to find his long lost parents and what happens when Helga reveals her true love for Arnold." And that’s exactly what happens. Moving on. And once again, we have a legitimate threat that does have a backstory that makes him sort of credible. So why don’t I like this one as much as The Lion King or MLP: The Movie, especially when everyone else in the world seems to regard it as a masterpiece? I don’t know. Maybe there’s too much focus on them trying to get out, maybe it's focused more on Arnold, Gerald, and Helga trying to find the green-eyed people, maybe we didn't get to see what happened to the other kids after the grown-ups stepped in to save them, but I digress. I'll address the Elephant in the Room, Lasombra! I never enjoyed the villain all that much, he just looked like Eduardo's doppelganger, and Alfred Molina? Why?! Why couldn't they cast someone legitimate like Mr. Lawrence or Jeremy Irons. I mean, look at Lasombra, he looks like a character Jeremy Irons would play. I get that Alfred Molina was Craig Bartlett's only choice for the voice of the villain, and I don't blame Alfred for this, it's just, it wasn't the right casting. So, if you had someone who was looking for corazon, you’d probably keep him away from your kids, too.

So, there, I've stated my complaint about the villain which I'm sure will get me a lot of hate for that, so, of course, you must think I don’t like this film. Well, no. I still think it’s a very, very good film. In fact, I actually do think it’s a great way to end the Hey Arnold franchise. It has my favorite characters, including Olga as seen in this picture here, as well as Rhonda, who spends most of the film having quite a bad hair day it still has a lot of good laughs, it has, surprisingly, a lot of suspense, and, hey, it's still Hey Arnold! And for a lot of people, this represents something that they grew up with as children, and maybe that’s why so many people do react the way they do at the very end.

A lot of kids who didn't know who their parents are were Arnold's age when the show first aired on Nickelodeon, so to watch themselves grow up and to watch the show actually grow up with them as well probably mirrors a lot of developments that a lot of people in the audience have gone through. Maybe in the end, this was the film's secret. It knew just when to come out and it knew just when to stop. It reached just the right age bracket and decided to grow up with us. And for those who didn’t grow up around the same age, maybe this film brought it back to them,..Maybe they hit something that not only do we all remember, but we all hold so precious and close to us. Whatever this film did, it did it right, the hopes of seeing Arnold finally finding his parents in San Lorenzo had finally come to pass. I'm afraid I have no other choice but to here by decree that Arnold is henceforth no longer parentless, which I suppose is what henceforth means, but no matter, Arnold, go on! Give all your parents the lost time to make up!

Let the world know, near and far, including but not limited to, my mom and dad, that this is not the end of Arnold's hopes and dreams! No! Quite the contrary, Arnold's life with his family has just begun!

But please don't reboot the series, please?

This review is dedicated with respect and admiration to the memory of Jack Riley.

The star of Rugrats and The Bob Newhart Show. we will miss you all.

Rest in peace: 1935-2016