TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews

This is currently free on Steam if you can get it to play on there which I cannot or on Youtube and it is on the official channel so it is definitely completely legal.

When Detective Dale wakes up He finds himself in a room that is Seemingly impossible to get out of except through one particular locked door. He does not have any recollection of going in there and is not sure where he is.

So if you've played the games, what I've just described sounds very familiar. You can think of this as cube escape Paradox Chapter 1.5. It serves as a companion piece to the 10th entry in the cube escape Series and was released around the same time.

With that said you can absolutely get a lot out of watching this even if every word in the paragraph above this was new to you. In fact I'm sure it drew a lot of new people into it. It has over 7 million views on YT and I figure not all of them had already played these.

I don't need to write a novel about all the reasons video game adaptation movies usually suck. And maybe the most recent ones are a lot better. I've heard good things about Super Mario and the Sonic Trilogy. Maybe I'll watch them at some point but I haven't checked in with those game franchises for decades now.

My point is this one deftly avoids all of the pitfalls. I think it was very smart of them to make it as a short because this is not something that would sustain feature length and that's also one of the problems we see when some of the other adaptations. So far the only good feature length adaptations I've seen are the two Press Start movies and those are part parody.

I don't know who on the development team realized how well this would work in live action but I hope they got a raise. Yes there is some of the puzzle solving we're so familiar with in this and while I will not give away if it's a lot or a little I do think they made the exact right choice about how much.

Honestly if you like the games you should watch this and if you like this I think considering the games makes a lot of sense. Keep in mind some of them are still free. I think right now it's three different ones and the first two the ones I've played are perfectly fine entry points into this franchise. Really everything in this franchise so far is including this short film.

To briefly give you an idea of more of what this is think David Lynch RIP. It's very mysterious there's some dream logic going on. You won't have all the answers by the end of this or indeed any individual one of the games. I wouldn't rule out some people might have been frustrated by that but so goes the video game franchise model by now.

Since this doesn't have game play it has to fire on all cylinders elsewhere. The music is great as it is in the games and so is the sound design. Where this has something to offer that those do not is the filmmaking side. The acting is great. Cinematography and editing are spectacular.

I knew I was going to love this when the way it showed him regaining consciousness was him doing the Hollywood cliche abrupt sitting up in bed and thus entering the frame in a very Sam Raimi shot. Obviously this doesn't go as far as for example The Evil Dead but there are some similarities so it's a good place to take inspiration.

At 17 minutes without end credits it manages to reach the viewer emotionally and never waste any time or rush ahead. It was great to see live action versions of stuff from the games including a spot on recreation of that infamous room. This is as disturbing as the early parts not the later ones of the games and goes as far as they could without it getting excessive since again this is live action and they're not trying to go there. 8/10.

I should start by saying that I have not watched the 1994 version and thus I will only compare this one to the other three attempts. For 31 years they've made at least one every decade or so.

Like many others I was not surprised that it took the MCU to make this work. Don't get me wrong it is not a perfect universe. And I am really glad that they did not try this a mere 12 years ago.

Like other somewhat recent entries into this franchise this has a fairly distinct personality that is carefully chosen to suit the IP. This has a retrofuturistic thing going on in costumes, makeup set design and more.

Certain things are just like the comic and others are changed to fit how much values have changed since the 1960s when the comic was ahead of its time. That was one thing that was a big problem for the other ones. Actually having it take place back then is crucial at least for their initial outing.

And the rampant sexism of back then should not be recreated in one of these Rather it should be avoided. This Sue is confident right away and runs a foundation where she works with people from countries all over the world thus also communicating that we can solve huge problems if we just all work together.

There is a sense of the idealism and optimism of that time somewhat like the recent Superman. Overall that one is superior to this. This also chooses to have all four of them be smart. From what I recall that wasn't always the case in the original books.

Back then we kind of accepted it. By today's standards it seems silly that they would get to be astronauts if they're not geniuses. Yes, even Johnny can contribute. He is energetic but not obnoxious and there is a lot of love in him for his family.

This deals with incredibly relevant issues that we really have to approach from a progressive point of view today. There is a metaphor for climate change, a woman's bodily autonomy and how much she gets a say in what happens to her baby. It also deals with immigration.

The acting is phenomenal. Everyone really brings their character to life. As someone who's watched all of the bear that's out now as well as the Netflix Punisher I will definitely say this was not giving Ebon Moss-Bachrach material that is worthy of him.

The same can be said for Natasha Lyonne. Neither of them are known for slumming it so I figure they were promised that in the future there will be more meat on the bone for them. His ennui over his changed appearance is not gone into though the trailers suggested it would.

I think they're saving it for now. And we did get that in the others whereas this one also has the element that kids really look up to him and he has a playful back and forth with them. The heroes are essentially treated like celebrities or sports stars or the like.

You can watch this without knowing anything about Marvel at all. Make sure you stay for the mid credits scene although the one at the very end is not mandatory. The special effects and action are literally out of this world albeit occasionally there is dodgy CG such as on Baby Franklin when they aren't using an actual toddler which they do when they can. 8/10.

I don't want this review to be nothing but showering it with praise so I'll start with areas where it's a mixed bag.

2 thirds of the time the characters feel real and in general there's a sense of authenticity. The last bit is full of cliches and slang about the generation depicted and I'm not entirely sure if it's Someone poking fun at the way they were when they were that age or if it's that age old Frustrating Generational conflict.

This is definitely primarily for fans of the original. Not just because of all the nostalgia. And considering that these did not have anywhere near the same pop culture impact as Scream and Halloween which have also gotten soft reboots in recent years An argument could be made that it should have done more to invite newcomers in. You can definitely tell that this was a labor of love made by people who adore the 90s entries. Yeah we don't talk about the third one.

To clarify I think that one is over hated if not necessarily underrated and it made some creative decisions that I think were necessary by then. It suffers for various reasons including not having the original cast. This one doesn't really reference it, it seems to have been retconned out of existence.

In some ways this is closer to aforementioned slasher behemoths than the 97 entry. For sure the exploration of trauma returns with a vengeance. And since today movies like this are allowed to be smart and complex, yeah they do that. It doesn't feel as one note as it did in that one.

But there are more suspects and red herrings to the point where it almost feels like any second now Sydney Prescott is going to pop up and argue for copyright infringement. And while this definitely does not have anyone who is as heartbreaking as Laurie Strode was in the 2018 entry it does take steps in that direction.

Beyond that the way you feel about this will depend a lot on how you feel about legacy sequels. Because when it comes to those and the slasher subgenre this delivers about what you'd expect and pretty well.

The cinematography and editing are amazing. It manages to make settings and situations feel either completely safe or loaded with hidden danger. This creates a very effective contrast that makes for a much stronger impact when bad things happen.

The violence is plentiful enough to satisfy not so frequent that it becomes numbing. There's not an awful lot of actual gore making what there is feel bigger. The tension and suspense is gripping.

I watched this with about a dozen and a half others in a theater and there were screams, squeals and people jumping out of their seats. It did enough to make me care about everyone that I was supposed to, including ones that we love to hate.

Cameos and such are done very nicely and they do that thing that we've seen a bunch of these where characters will have changed in between films since it's been so long since we last saw them in ways that can be argued to feel true to how they were depicted before.

And rest assured the returning faces are still very talented. Freddie Prinze Junior is aging like a fine wine. If you haven't already watched Star Wars Rebels he helps make that so much more than it would have been without him.

It does also deliver on the front and back of having conventionally attractive young women in situations where they are sexual and or not wearing a lot of clothes. I could not tell you if this is what people of that age would wear in these contexts. Female gaze though!

I love how sex positive this is. And also that it uses these scenes to communicate things similar to the Marvel Netflix shows perhaps especially Jessica Jones. It's great that there is now a proper ongoing fisherman theme so he'll use Spears and cages. An upgrade from the reasonable level of poetic justice in the very first of these. 8/10.