Step's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Uzbekistan]

Good, but can be funnier...

Overall this is a decent submission. I got a laugh or two from it, so I suppose it has some OK jokes. It's fun to watch, has its moments and kept me interested all the way through, so yeah, good job ^^.

The graphics were alright, although at times they did seem very sketchy/messy, for example the background in Scene 2 wasn't drawn too well. Some of the characters were drawn pretty well though, and graphics overall were above average. Some small details and fine-tuning can also make this submission look neater, like for example in the menu, instead of making randomly positioned writing around the screen, add menu buttons under each other with neater text. Small details like this could really do wonders to this submission.

Animation needs a bit more work though. Lip sync could do with some touching up, there needs to be more facial expressions and hand gestures, and, well, what I'm trying to say is, we need moar animation. Some parts seem a little weird, like when that US army soldier ran around like a madman. When he ran away from the camera, instead of shrinking into the distance, when he went a little far away from the camera, all he did was disappear, if you get what I mean.

As for the concept, a little weird at times, but in all it was pretty original. The story progressed quite quickly with some random aspects, such as the news on TV coming out of nowhere, and the easter egg which has little to do with the story, so the story wasn't really too special. The humour section is where I have quite a bit to talk about. When the flash started, the jokes were bland and there weren't many. As I kept watching, I laughed a little, such as in the evil laughter part, and on TV with the chicken and the Uzbek, and the Olympics. The 'Obviously not made in Uzbekistan' written on the TV was quite funny too.

My biggest issue with the jokes would be that you could've done more with the jokes and added more. For example, in the beginning, you could have added more jokes for sure, and another example would be the Easter Egg. It really wasn't too funny, and for an Easter Egg, was disappointing. The evil laughter part was alright, but was pretty stupid, and I think you could've taken that opportunity to make a good joke. Instead of keeping them laughing all on their own without anything happening, you could have made something happen while they were laughing,. The different camera angles was a nice touch, though.

There were a few spelling and grammar mistakes which, although didn't really do anything to ruin the submission, won't hurt to be fixed. Some examples of grammar mistakes would be in the beginning:
"How many gold do you want?"
It should be how MUCH gold, since gold is uncountable.
"me to"
It should be me TOO, since to is a preposition.

There were also parts where the subtitles weren't equal to what they were actually saying, especially in the interview with the U.S. soldier. Sure these are small defects and nitpicks, but if you don't fix them, it's like making the flash look like you did it in a hurry and couldn't bother fixing these small mistakes, which gives a bad impression, IMO. Wow, I'm an assy critic xD.

The audio was fine. There wasn't really any background music in the submission, but Fro singing at the beginning made me laugh xD. Fro is a natural singer *Cough*...... aaaanyway... the voice acting on the whole was fine, although what's weird about the voice acting is that some of the voices are quiet while some are loud, maybe because of Nick and Fro both using different mikes or something. There was a good range of different voices, and the voice of the U.S. soldier and the person selling the gold/cotton at the beginning were well done. Some of the other voices were a little dull and need more life to them though, but overall, voice acting was fine.

In general, this is an above-average submission which I enjoyed watching. Some parts could use some work, but this is fun to watch, and I liked it overall. Keep up the good work!
8/10
4/5

-Review Request Club-

...........Yay character limit.

MonoFlauta responds:

1° Paragraph:
Yeah thanks, glad you like the jokes :P
2° Paragraph:
I rushed a little in someparts, because i though they were so important but yes, not all has an awesome quality :P
3° Paragraph:
Yes the idea of the guy from army was that he jumped and fall from a cliff :P it wasnt really well animated you are right :P
4° Paragraph:
Haha thanks, yeah not everyone like the jokes but i am happy that most of people like them :D I think the story is really nice to :P
5° Paragraph:
Yes but the funny thing of the laughing part it was that they keep laughing for a long time :P, well i think that is the funny part of that...
6° Paragraph:
Haha i told fro to CORRECT THE MISTAKES! he knows that is not my native language english :P Tell him he made that mistake lol :P
7° Paragraph:
Yes the problem with the subtitles is that Fro made them Haha no, the problem is that when he recorded he changed some words but then he didnt correct them when he send me again the script with the grammar correction (because i suck in english as you can see).
8° Paragraph:
Yes, i think that the soldier and the first uzbek that appear are the best ones :P i am agree with you.
9° Great thanks a lot for the HUGE review :P All in this review will be usefull for my next video :P
THANKS A LOT :P

[Super Quality Time]

Decent.

Not a bad job. The jokes at times were a bit bland, but overall it's well done.

There wasn't much animation, maybe you could add a few hand-gestures and stuff, instead of limiting yourself to animating the face, eyes and only rarely the rest of the body. Still, on the other hand, lip-syncing was very well done. I also really liked your graphics, and it's good that you didn't make another Mario sprite movie. At first I was confused why Mario was taller than Luigi, but I suppose I found out later in the flash...

The concept is great, and I won't complain about it. As for the jokes, they were pretty good, but a little too many cock jokes, IMO. Those were practically the only jokes in the whole flash. The only joke which made me lol a little was the 'Turtle on a Stick' one. Still, jokes were alright. Unfortunately, they weren't good enough to last so long. Perhaps adding some sub-story or something to keep the viewer interested, since it did get slightly boring.

The audio was great, and the subtitles were really useful. Music fit well, and as for the voice acting, on the whole it was decent. Coop83 mentioned something about the Italian accent fading away towards the end of the flash, but I think you did that on purpose since when Mario was being more of a pervert, it sort of seemed necessary to have a different accent rather than the usual Italian accent. Voice acting was good, except for the fact that at times it was too loud and clipped a little, but that's a small nitpick.

Overall it's a decent flash, with great graphics, good lip-syncing, good concept and great audio, but the fact that it gets a little boring to watch later into the flash, the animation was lacking and the fact that jokes at times were pretty bland does ruin the flash a bit. Whatever, keep up the good work nevertheless.
8/10
4/5

-Review Request Club-

[Snow Wars]

Awesome!

I really liked this, and if I had to judge only the jokes or only the acting in it, I would've given it a 10/10.

The effects were well done, and I also liked the fact you added that AT-AT in the backkground so well :P. Maybe you could try add something other than just guns firing short lasers, like maybe rapid fire guns, or some other types of guns. You guys had enough imagination to make such a good film, so I'm sure you have enough imagination to make some more guns. Just some nitpick though, not something to complain about much. Still, because of the low quality, it was hard to understand what was going on, and since there were a few times when the sun got in the way, it was a little hard to grasp the surroundings and stuff. Still, as you said, there's an HQ version on your website, and you had to take away the quality to get it to fit in under 20 MB, so I won't reduce any points for that.

The jokes were very good, especially the ones related to Kurt or the blind guy. Still, at times the jokes were a bit generic, such as the one at the beginning when they were arguing about what day it was. Also, towards the end, I think the blind guy's joke at the end was dragged on a slight bit too long. Still, jokes on the whole had me lol, so good job. Acting was brilliant. Still, as for the story, because of the fact that it was hard to grasp what was going on, I didn't understand everything, such as the star wars part at the end. Was the AT-AT and those droids teamed up with Kurt, and if so, why didn't you make a small scene where you see Kurt trying to win their alliance?

I really liked the fact that you had a scene selection and Character Bios too. The Character Bios were funny, and the Scene Selection gave this some replay value too. Maybe you could add a play/stop/pause/rewind/fast-foward? It might be too much to ask for, but while I was watching it, I was constantly nagged by friends of mine on MSN and I missed parts of the movie just to switch window and tell them to shut up. If it wasn't for the Scene Selection, I wold've had to start from the beginning quite a lot, and even then, the Scene Selection wasn't too large.

The audio was awesome. Voice was heard well, and the fact that you added subtitles really helped (although the narrating voice at the end could've used some subtitles). The music was fantastic and fit very well with the submission. Nice job!

Overall, I really like this submission, and I hope you guys keep up the good work. You're born actors ^^.
Oh, and congrats on the Daily 5th.
9/10
5/5

-Review Request Club-

Fro responds:

Hm, go read the response that I gave to the low 2 review. That should answer your story about weird plot.

[Silent Hill Menu]

More than I expected ^^.

It's a pretty good flash, and even though it's unfinished it's cool to watch. Too bad you can't continue it, because it's a great start :\.

When it comes to the animation, it's all smooth and looks nice. The preloader was really cool too. Graphics were also great, such as the background and the signpost. Not really anything wrong over here :\.

The menu in general looks great. Maybe you could add more variety of animations in the menu (possibly make the animations come up randomly, instead of a fixed loop), and also the menu choices could be scarier and a bit more attractive than red text in a creepy font. You could do something creative with the menu choices, like make them hang from broken signposts or you can make them slide down from the top leaving a blood trail behind them xD.

The song in the menu was great, and so were the sound effects you used, which were timed well with the animations. The only thing I can complain about over here is that there was no sound when you clicked on the word 'Proceed', although I expected some subtle monster cry, or maybe an orchestral drum hit or something xD.

Overall, it's an excellent menu, and I can't really find much wrong with it. Just work on more variety of animations in the menu, and maybe some more sound. Other than that, keep it up!
7/10
4/5

-I Know More About Music Then The Rest Of The People In The Review Request Club And I'm Going To Show Off By Using Up All Of The Characters In My Review-

Oops, sorry :P. I mean...

-Review Request Club-

Fro responds:

I love your ideas. Thank you very much.

[JPB '09 Animation History]

Nice animations ;).

Maybe it is a little random, but I suppose it's experimental, so I can't complain about that. You have some good animations, even though some seem a little off.

The graphics aren't too good. In the section 'Getting Better', stuff like the running guy, and the um... ferret, were both badly drawn. Yeah, I suppose this focuses more on animation than graphics, but good graphics will boost your score a little. Speaking of animation, it was so-so. Obviously at the beginning it wasn't too good, but there was a significant improvement throughout the flash. The tiger's tail was well animated, and the running looked pretty cool. Sadly, the tiger getting up from the tree was a rather rough transition, so if there was any animation you could work on, it'd be that.

Concept isn't too original, but it's pretty cool to watch. Not much of a storyline; maybe with these little bits and pieces of animations you could make something totally new. Ferret at the end was cool though XD.

The audio is pretty weird. The song was way too quiet, didn't fit perfectly with the theme of the submission, and there weren't many sound effects, plus the only sound effect you put in the flash was nothing too special. Be a little more creative with your audio; add stuff like footsteps sound effects for the running part, nature ambience for the tiger part (and a loud thud and screeching when he falls to the ground), a bus sound effect for the bus part, etc. The ferret singing was kinda awesome though :D.

Well, it shows you have talent when it comes to animating, even if you just started. Now just try and implement these skills into a full flash ;).
7/10
4/5

-Review Request Club-

[The Creep]

Not bad...

I don't think it was good enough to deserve that front page, but only because of a few problems that can easily be fixed. This is a good start, I'd love to see you work on this a little more.

The graphics weren't that perfect, but still better than loads of graphics you see here on NG. Background wasn't good though, and the graves weren't that well drawn either, but the character close-ups overall were well done. Animation was smooth, but this did have a few wierd things, namely the fact that ever since the creep switched the man's arm with himself, his jaw was sometimes there and sometimes not.

The concept was actually quite good. A walking hand isn't that original, but ripping off people's faces (loved that part XD) and sticking the arm into the socket of the dead person is :D. What I didn't like was the ending. It was kind of a bummer. I let out a giggle or two throughout the movie, especially when the man's face was ripped off, but at the end, the fun was all gone :(.

Audio was great. I loved the song that was playing in the background (at first I thought it was going to be some horrible 8-bit "song", but man, did it get better XD). The flash needs more sound effects though, namely when the creep was starting the chainsaw up. Also, I would've loved hearing a few zombie groans or something. Although it's like a music video, I think it'd work out better with some sound effects too.

It's a cool film, but needs some work in general. Add some sound effects, fix up some strange things like that jaw, working a little more on the artwork, and please, think up a better ending. D: Still, great job in all, I enjoyed it :).
8/10
4/5

-Review Request Club-

[APA TU?! (what is that?!)]

Nice! :)

Good job on this, it's quite an interesting short. Wish it was longer though...

Graphics were not too great. Video quality was nothing too special (cellphones aren't too good for filming :P) and the... umm... thing, whatever it was, was quite simply drawn, but they did the job anyway. Animation was smooth overall, but the camera steadiness needs a little more work. Also, in some parts it did lagg and got stuck sometimes, but that probably was my awful computer acting up again...

Concept isn't too original, but it kept me watching till the end without knowing what's going to happen next. Could have a little more of a story, since a guy popping up behind a laptop, jumping out of a window and spreading out wings leaves you with quite a few questions: What was that guy? Why'd he jump out of the window? Why was the voice actor so worried he'd die? You should try and give the flash more of an introduction if you want to make this longer. By the way, preloader was cool, lol :).

Audio was decent quality, and thank goodness for the subtitles at the bottom O_o. You could've done some sound effects of the thing climbing up the window, spreading its wings, the wind soaring by while he's falling, etc. By the way, I spotted you (or whoever was voice acting) laughing a little right after you said 'aaaggghhh!' :P.

A nice little short that I enjoyed watching. Just work on implementing a longer storyline, maybe add some sound effects and try not to laugh after you go 'aaaggghhh!' XP.
8/10
4/5

-Review Request Club-

akoRn responds:

Thank you for the fantastic review. I will try to improve based on this!