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Darkon is Live Action Role-Playing, where the characters in the game assume different personas of their own creation and partake of different warring nations and factions in the Darkon universe. Not entirely unlike traditional Dungeons & Dragons, except the focus is not upon the stat-sheets and one's imagination, but the actual grandiose foam-weapon battles between armies.

The documentary focuses on a drawn-out Darkon campaign fought between two warring faction leaders: Skip Lipman/Bannor (he's Bannor in Darkon), and Kenyon Wells/Keldar. Of the two, Skip is the more likable character, a stay-at-home dad with the utmost exuberance for Darkon's potential as a fulfilling and self-empowering creative channel. Kenyon/Keldar seems to stand for similar things, but then he doesn't take the Darkon fantasy as seriously as the other members of the documentary. Instead he uses it as a medium for him to channel his expansive, greedy determination.What is revealed by all this, is that these Darkon characters are not necessarily escapes or pure projections in another universe, but simply extended, exaggerated branches of their respective personalities inside the world of Darkon.

That isn't to say Darkon is a strange, negative or absurd enterprise by any means. In fact, the documentary is positive for making the viewer re-examine all the real Live Action Role-playing and fantasy elements that take place in our communities (American football and sports, martial arts and "Reality-Based Self-Defense", New Agers and "shamans", yoga, religion, etc.) because they have long since been accepted by mainstream society as normal. But when fantasies become vivid enough to the ones enacting them, those fantasies bleed into real life and how we develop as members of our daily communities.

As an old-school fan of Transformers, I can't say I was too excited about seeing it transition into a big-screen Michael Bay production. The results are actually not as bad as I had anticipated, but some of the characters' dialog is so downright awful, while watching it, I myself wanted to "transform" -- by which I mean extend my limbs and transplant myself out of the room in which the film was playing. (Get it?!?!?)

*tumbleweeds roll by*

The special effects are good for the present moment and there are some pretty sweet action scenes. I do kind of love how they're badass robots but end up fighting with typical grappling martial arts. The music is adequate epic Hollywood action-adventure symphony stuff, but then interspersed with random segments of "nu-metal" riffs during cheesy action sequences. And then for some reason the film ends with a Linkin Park song. Which is funny because the film already ends on such a cliché, sappy note and then gives you permanent low self-esteem with the song that plays during the end credits.

Ah, I guess that's to be expected of a film that flashes Mountain Dew and Pepsi every 10 minutes and is one long commercial for GMC and the (then) new Chevy Camaro. From what I understand, enlightened cybernetic beings will one day be made from superior industrial products, which you should buy now. Oh yeah, and enlightened cybernetic beings also use dated American street slang, like "roll out". Natch.

Pretty entertaining stuff, but so empty and cliché it's almost incredible. Everything in this movie is a macrocosm of Megan Fox's presence and role: really nice to look at, but with absolutely nothing to say at all. I mean, it's basically X-Men, but with Transformers: Blahblahblah, "Transformers/XMen/Gargoyles/Spidermen are bad! Send in the military!" ...rabblerabblerabble... "Stop! Those are the GOOD Transformers/XMen/Gargoyles!!" Blarbyblarblar... "Humans are bad! You are friends with humans so you die!" blahblahblah "No! Some are good so we should let them live!" And that's about it.

'Sukiyaki Western Django' has a pretty literal name, even if it looks goofy to those unfamiliar with the genre being referenced. The name is straightforward: "sukiyaki" being a traditional Japanese dish (standing in for "spaghetti"), "western" referring to the genre, and "Django" referring to the gimmicky B-movie series of westerns from the '70s which the film constantly references. So the name literally is saying it's a Japanese B-movie Spaghetti Western.

Miike takes inspiration from, and references, almost everything here: classic Clint Eastwood westerns, the anime 'Cowboy Bebop', B-movie slashers (and obviously the terrible cult classic series, "Django"), Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo', the old Japanese story of 'The Tale of Heike' and so on. Quentin Tarantino has a small narrative role in the film as well.

And it ends up being pretty entertaining. The film is entirely in English, or I should say "Engrish," done by Japanese actors. The results are goofy and funny and sometimes downright unintelligible. It's pretty original/charming in concept, though, and I wonder if Miike wouldn't also like to make a samurai film entirely with Americans speaking broken Japanese. And regardless of how deeply the characters can inflect based on their accents, some of their visual expressions are really wonderful (my favorite was when the guy in the paddy-wagon grabs the sticks of dynamite!). The film is actually quite nice to look at throughout.

The sets and costumes are pretty nice for an independent film, though a lot of the interior decor often reminded me of the US interstate food chain, 'Cracker Barrel.' Haha! I just mean the saloons and everything were a little...clean. The action is a combination of really awesome and intentionally terrible, though the shootouts are pretty fun to watch and there are some pretty original moments featuring crossbows and computer-rendered effects. Furthermore, Miike likes to toy with audience expectations and anticipation, so prepare for some off-tempo action sequences which border on the bizarre.

And all the typical Miike touches are here: over-the-top manga-style violence, a combination of awful and excellent acting, critical reflections on chivalry, a weird drawn-out dance number that has nothing to do with anything, aforementioned intentionally off-tempo pacing, gorgeous cinematography, and well-constructed sets.

I would have really liked to see some deeper character development. The main characters all looked so similar and told such similar back stories it was hard to tell who was who until the end. And it didn't help that they all spoke in broken English, but then again I wasn't watching it with subtitles. Although it's not gripping for its story, narrative or traditional story-telling, film-making qualities, Sukiyaki Western Django is pretty cool for how unique it is and its goofy Japanese angles on the subject matter. At the very least, fans of classic "B-movie", "arthouse" cinema should find something to like here, as should fans of live-action manga or Miike's more light-hearted moments.