silverketchup

As one of the first anime films to be released in the U.S., I only wish this film had been better. It's perfectly average in almost every way.

The story centers around a monkey named Alakazam. He's your annoyingly arrogant protagonist that learns humility. It plays like a typical East Asian legend. But events just sort of happen one after the other. He becomes a king for some reason, a quick and vague one minute montage and he knows magic, oh hey Buddha when did you get here? The animation is passable for the 1960s, though nothing special. I felt like the movie couldn't stay still. Something always has to be happening, and god forbid there be no noise for 2 seconds. This is supposedly a musical, but I won't call it that. There's about 5 or so "songs" that only last half a minute each. The dub is alright considering there isn't too much to work off here.

I wouldn't necessary call this a bad movie though. There's definitely some creative parts every now and then. Particularly some of the magic they use. I could see some children being fairly entertained by this. But it's not a film worth repeated viewings. It's easy to see how it didn't do very well in the U.S. A comparable film from this time would be The Sword in the Stone. It's a coming of age story with magic just like Alakazam and came out in 1963, but was executed much better. If you want a small snapshot of anime in the 1960s, then this isn't a terrible place to look.

The pastor in this movie is terrible. Perhaps non-Christians wouldn't mind, but he just obnoxious in how he doesn't represent basic Christian ideas. For example, he cites this apocalypse as being just like God's flood in Genesis, completely ignoring that God promised to never do it again. In the same scene he also asks what he did to deserve all this, even though basic Christian belief cites that all humans deserve eternal punishment, but Jesus saves us from that. And just as a character in general, he has one of the weakest human spirits ever.

Aside from that it's just B-Movie quality. The special effects actually remind me of Sharknado, yeah. It also has some of the worst scene transitions ever, it's as though a few shots were cut out. The ending was also more rushed than I thought was even possible. Overall, it was far from the worst movie ever, but still, a 4 is what I rate it.

I hate to be one of those this-film-is-overrated people, but that is really the case for this film. Seeing this film for the first time (2014) I expected a lot more from it. I've heard so much about how amazing this film is and I just don't see it. It is a good film, but not great.

This is a fairly generic underdog story. The film is kinda boring until the last third and the chemistry between Rocky and Adrian doesn't really work. The way Rocky goes after her seems more like harassment than love. She doesn't show any interest in him. She feels really uncomfortable in Rocky's apartment and tries to escape but Rocky blocks her in. There's no way that two minutes later they're kissing. A big disappointment was Mickey, I thought he was going to be some awesome trainer like Mr. Miyagi but he's hardly in this film, and kind of a jerk. I'd heard of that one famous line of his "You're gonna eat lightning and crap thunder," but I didn't realize that's basically the extent of the training he gives. The most iconic part of the film is probably the training montage (in which Mickey just watches him do push-ups and pull- ups) which is the best part of the film. I felt the words "Trying hard now" was actually referring to the filmmakers trying harder compared to the rest of the movie. Although without that song you have to admit all Rocky's really doing is running around and punching things. The final fight is alright, but fairly underwhelming. It doesn't feel like many of the punches are connecting, heck they don't even punch each other for a couple minutes. Fighting scenes can be a lot more intense than this, just look at the fighting in Warrior as an example.

It's not a bad film though. I think it was even quite good for its time, but it hasn't aged well. Maybe the film looks better in context with the other sequels, but standing alone this film just doesn't go the distance.