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 The Terror of Toony Town (continued) Back to Part One Adam Jahnke - Main Page |
| Sammi,
the robotics-expert-next-door who secretly loves Tony, uses the
nanotechnology to help him walk again and creates a high-tech
skateboard that inevitably makes him become a superhero. By anybody's definition, this is pretty lame stuff. The material tries desperately to be hip but it's clearly the work of older guys who have no idea what kids today actually sound and act like. Tony is a genuinely unlikable hero and his redemption as a superhero isn't nearly enough to overcome his snotty behavior of the last hour. If you've ever read a comic book before, you'll see every beat of the story telegraphed eons before they arrive. The animation is stiff and lifeless and Valderrama voices his character as if the filmmakers simply recorded the very first table read of the script and called it good. The disc looks and sounds OK but the extras are as lame as the movie itself. Stan Lee is all over them, offering up an introduction and featuring prominently in the 12-minute featurette modestly titled Meeting of the Giants. He turns up again to offer his two cents on the characters in a lengthy gallery section and yet again to cheer you on should you choose to play Outskating, a goofy interactive game. I've never had a good time playing any non-trivia-based DVD game and this one is no exception. I'm impressed that at his age, Stan Lee is still very much out there, seemingly as active as ever, trying new things. I grew up on his creations and nobody would be happier than me if he could come up with another Spider-Man or Hulk at this stage of the game. But if The Condor is the best he can come up with, it's time to move on. Write your memoirs, keep making cameos in Marvel movies, hell, bring back Stan's Soapbox! But please, don't "present" any more Condors. Excelsior! Program Rating: D Disc Ratings (Video/Audio/Extras): B+/B/D+ |
| Ranmaru
is plagued by cryptic dreams that begin to make sense when he
encounters a secret branch of the police department known as Tokko.
The Tokko taskforce always seems to be on the scene of mysterious,
ultra-bloody murders, armed with swords that take care of possessed
humans that bullets can't hurt. It appears that Ranmaru is destined
to join Tokko as well, although this volume doesn't take us far
enough into the series to say for sure. The good news is that the animation here is bloody good fun, with plenty of creepy demons and swordplay to provide eye candy. And if you like your bloodletting with a healthy dose of Japanese power pop and weird sexual tension between Ranmaru and his younger sister, then Tokko is gonna send you over the moon. It was all a bit much for my tastes. Neither the story nor the style was compelling enough to make me all that excited for Tokko 2 but hey, at least it's better than The Condor. The disc looks terrific and sounds pretty good with both Japanese and English dubs available. The extras are limited to an image gallery, the opening and closing songs presented without the credits over the animation, and most amusingly, an excerpt from a Japanese Q&A with three of the female voice talents. It's not very informative but it's very Japanese, with odd music and multi-colored Japanese subtitles plastered all over the screen. Tokko isn't a bad series and each episode has at least one sequence that's genuinely impressive. Anime fans may have a better time with this than I did or at least an easier one, since it does seem that you need to adopt a different mindset before plunging into the world of serialized anime. If you don't have it yet, you're probably better off starting with one that's a bit more accessible. Program Rating: C+ Disc Ratings (Video/Audio/Extras): B+/B+/C- |
| The
concept was brought back to ride the coattails of the unrelated 1984
movie, only to run smack dab into a competing cartoon that was based
on the film. It's a mixture of comedy and adventure with
episode-ending positive reinforcement messages for the kids. It's no
better or worse than most other animated shows of the mid-80s, which
is part of its problem. Regardless of what property laid claim to
the title first, kids tuning in to a Ghostbusters
cartoon did not want to see a gorilla and a couple of
low-personality bumblers in safari gear. To distinguish itself from
the competing The Real Ghostbusters,
Filmation's Ghostbusters
needed to stand apart and emerge as the clearly superior program. It
never really did. If however you have fond memories of this show growing up, BCI Eclipse and disc producer Andy Mangels have done their usual superlative job bringing it to DVD. Picture quality is cleaned up as much as humanly possible and while some dirt and scratches remain, it's hardly noticeable. Special features are on disc six, perhaps not as comprehensive as some releases from the company but still a lot more than you might be expecting from a release like this. Producer Lou Scheimer, writer Robby London and directors Tom Sito and Tom Tataranowicz provide on-camera interviews, none of which are particularly lengthy but are fairly interesting. Unfortunately, Scheimer's piece is shortest and his comments are the least illuminating. Animation fans will find a complete slideshow of the storyboards for episode 22 and galleries of model sheets and sketches. There's also the promo pilot sent to networks selling the show, an anti-drug PSA, a gallery of promotional art and a PDF file on DVD-ROM of the script to the ambitious five-part origin story arc. Best of all is the complete first episode of the original live-action series starring Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch with a guest appearance by Billy Barty. If you still harbor doubts as to which Ghostbusters came first, this should lay those to rest. If nothing else, it's interesting to compare the cartoon to its predecessor and as far as I'm concerned, any excuse to see Billy Barty is a good one. BCI Eclipse does a great job with these sets and I'm sure that fans of this show will be thrilled to get it in their hot monkey paws. And having seen what they're capable of on shows I'm not particularly interested in, I'm eagerly awaiting that Jason of Star Command set, fully aware of the fact that I run the risk of wondering what I ever saw in the show in the first place. Program Rating: C- Disc Ratings (Video/Audio/Extras): B+/B/B+ Adam Jahnke ajahnke@thedigitalbits.com |
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