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I saw this film on Tubi and I had a laugh out of it. It is a Korean clone of "King Kong" to cash-in with the American 1976 remake. The dubbing is laughable as the acting. The music great, but the effects are cheesy! It looks like an underground version of "King Kong" with a budget. A huge budget. The suit looks like as if they bought it from a store. The prop hand looks had dry paint flaking off and the big prop legs look laughable. While the plot of "The Mighty Gorga" (1969) is the first act of "King Kong" (read my comment on that movie), the plot to "A. P. E." is basically the second act of "King Kong", but with a twist. It is set in Korea, he breaks out of a ship, fights a shark, finds a girl, and along the way, gets into all sorts of monkey-shines like meeting a hang-glider, walking past an oblivious cow and fights a snake for a few seconds. That is shorter than the snake fight in "King Kong Escapes". People are running and screaming and the ape goes around breaking buildings that happen to be made of Styrofoam or cardboard. There are such laughable lines there like, "Please evacuate in an orderly manner. Do not carry valuables with you, they will only slow you down." "He was too big for a world like ours." "General Pak has given orders... to kill that hairy son of a b***." "What are you looking at?" "Is my fly unzipped?" "Let's see him dance for his organ grinder now!" OK, those last three lines are from the American General and let me tell you, I think they wanted to put in camp value. Speaking of campy, there is one scene where after hitting a helicopter, causing it to crash, the title beast gives the finger. Why? Is the movie hating you for loosing your money? Is it something anti-war because of the horrors of the Vietnam War? It ended in 1975. Paul Ledder, the film's director, appears in this movie as a director named Dino, perhaps as a slap-in-the-face to the 1976 remake. Prior to the film's release, the title kept changing from "King Kong" to "The New King Kong" to "King Kong vs. Jaws" to "Super Kong" before finally calling it "A. P. E." Good on them because Paramount was having their own remake coming out in 1976 too.

Bottom line: Watch this movie at your own risk. You could get a laugh out of this.

Rated PG for violence, language, and some blood and gore. Cheesy blood and gore if you ask me. I mean, the the shark didn't bleed, but when the title simian did, it looked like Kool-Aid being splashed around.

Time for another, "Matthew Rambles." I first heard about this movie being announced in 2017. I was hyped. I heard that it was going to be shown in cinemas. Then COVID-19 came along and ruined the movie business and had an effect on the animation business. I heard that it going to play on TV, but due to the performance of "Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie", it was decided to put it on Netflix instead since the Nickelodeon signed a deal with them. I saw the movie and it was as fun as the TV show, but there is something I would like to bring for discussion: the plot.

While the animation is good, along with the voice-acting. The music and songs are cool, but the only detail here is the story. It feel like fan-fiction or fan-fic. In other words, it looks like a fan of the show wrote it and submitted it online. The movie is about Lincoln Loud, middle child in a family of 10 sisters, feeling insignificant and left out. After talking to Clyde, a black friend of his, and getting inspired, the family goes to Scotland where they are decedents of a family. The whole town of Loch Loud is happy, except for the servant Morag, whom she thought were eradicated 400 years ago. There are dragons, ghosts, and magic stones? Those are not present in the TV show. The show was like a comic strip you would see on the Sunday papers, or a sitcom on prime-time television. It is like having Beelte Bailey and his troop get stuck on a monster-infested island. Cathy in a haunted house. Blondie and Dagwood getting abducted by aliens. Hagar the Horrible meeting a time traveler. Or Dilbert and his friends fighting off robots. (OK, so there was a few Peanuts cartoons where the characters left their familiar grounds like the time where they went camping in "Race Fro Your Life Charlie Brown" (1977) (Read my comment on that one.) or they went to France in "Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back!) (1980) (Read my comment on that one too.), but still you get the point.) You see, that sounds wrong. I heard stories about that early versions of the film was going to have the house get destroyed and another one where a new baby comes to the family like in "The Rugrats Movie" (1998) and the TV movie, "Fairly Odd Baby" (2008). Talk about picking your choice, or dare may I say it, picking your poison. Going out of their familiar grounds is one thing, but dragons? Ghosts? Magic stones? This is something suited for a fantasy movie like "Harry Potter", but not "The Loud House". These fantasy elements are added there for the sake of being a movie. It just doesn't seem right in some form. Lincoln has put up with a lot of things. His sisters, bullies, mean teachers, animals, Murphy's Law, and other dangers just to name a few. Maybe these things were a warm-up compared to what happened in the movie and his second adventure "No Time To Spy" (2024) (Read my comment on that one.). If worked in this show, can a movie with fantasy elements work in "The Casagrandes". Yes there was one and you can see that on Netflix too, "The Casagrandes Movie" is on Netflix. Watch it at your own risk because that movie feels like fan-fic too.

So, if you are looking for a good family movie that is decent, feel-good and doesn't annoy you, then this is for you, because I highly recommend it. That is my bottom line. Rated TV-Y7 for some crude humor, fantasy violence, your typical cartoon peril, and some wacky going-ons. This has been another "Matthew Rambles."

Anime. What comes to mind when you hear that word? A lot of things: "Dragonball Z", "Sailor Moon", "Pokémon", "Naruto", "Digimon", "Yu-Gi-Oh", "IGPX", "Inuyasha", "Astroboy", "Urusei Yatsura", "Gigantor", "Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo", "FLCL", "Neon Genesis Evangelion", just to name a few. Most of them are violent, dark, dramatic, and carry little to no humor. Why, I bet they are humorless. This is stereotypical anime. However, there is anime that defies all these characteristics. Because they are created by folks like Mitsutoshi Furuya, Fujio Akatsuka, and Fujio-Fujiko, who created "Doraemon", which I am here to review.

I familarized myself with the works of Fujio-Fujiko since 2006, so I know the lore. Doraemon is like the Mickey Mouse of Japan. He is popular, but in other countries too. I saw the movie, "Stand By Me Doraemon" on Netflix and let me tell you, tissues and/or handkerchiefs are needed. The animation while it is superb, it is somewhat in the same level as the American ones, like the ones from Pixar and Illumination. And speaking of Pixar, if you watch the credits, it copies Pixar's bloopers during the credits. The animation also apes the anime where the character freaks out in mid-air for a few seconds. The voice-acting is great, and the characters are relatable. Nobita is the long-suffering tortured soul who gets tormented by the bullies, Gaian and Suneo. Nobita loves Shizuka, but like any other male protagonist, he does his best to avoid, Jaiko, Gaian's little sister, who has a crush on him. Just when you think Nobita's life is enough to get him miserable, enter Doraemon, a robotic cat from the future. There, he solves Nobita's problems with his gadgets from his own time zone. They work, and some of them backfire, probably Nobita abuses them.

In this movie, the talking robot cat from the future is called upon to set things straight with Nobita's life to make sure that his future is bright. Nobita is a combination between Charlie Brown and Timmy Turner and Doraemon is like a mixture between Snoopy and Cosmo and Wanda. I don't know what is everybody's beef with this movie because the protagonist is a total cry-baby, I beg to differ. He is a tortured soul who is imperfect and flawed. He just wants some guidance happiness and support. Most family movies are hyperactive, loud, obnoxious, gross, and chaotic for the sake of those adjectives. It talks down on their target audience: children. All this fast-paced key-jangling wackiness from "Spongebob" to "Cocomelon" just shows that these kind of pictures don't have an off switch until the film over. In other words, they don't take a break to relax for tranquil moments until the movie is over. It lowers patience and attention spans. This stuff is coated with sugar! "Stand By Me Doraemon" tells the viewer that it is not coated with sugar and it is a tough place! You got have courage and play with the cards you've got. You can't always go running for help unless it gets out of hand. Nobita has to go through cruel harsh snow to rescue Shizuka as an adult and Nobita as an adult. Nobita has to fight Gaian and put up with Suneo's and Gaian's pranks, but they get their just desserts at the end.

All in all, this movie is worth getting out your tissues and handkerchiefs and you will need them. I have not seen anything like that since "Charlotte's Web" (1973), "Snoopy Come Home" (1972), or "Watership Down" (1978). What surprises me that this movie was made by the same man who directed, "Always Sunny on Third Street" (2005), "Always Sunny on Third Street 2" (2007) (which has a cameo appearance by Godzilla), and "Godzilla Minus One" (2023). This movie is fun for the whole family. Bottom line: This is not just any movie, a smart one where kids can enjoy and parents can enjoy, without getting annoyed. Not rated, but I found out that it was rated TV-PG on Netflix and I know why: Peril, some racy humor, minor crude moments, but there is some bullying courtesy of Gaian.