DarkKiranami's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Samson the Foolish]

Nice animation.

Your work shows good skill, the art just looks so settled that I get the feeling you could pump out art and animation quickly if you needed to. I felt like the ending could have been emphasized more dramatically but I guess it's okay since you were doing the storybook narration thing.

I'm not religious anymore but the Samson story was/is my favorite biblical story. There was this old movie "Samson and Delilah" that always got me so emotional because of the build up to that final scene with the pillars - the screenplay really made you feel the story.

You make good stuff, good luck on your future work!

[Discretion]

That was perfectly executed as far as I can judge. The voice acting was excellent, and the art/animation was simple yet effective. The writing was well done (did you come up with all of those?); the way you sequenced the dialogue combined with the increasing severity of the voices really helped to convey the sense that the situation was elevating, right up to the big payoff at the end when Fred just comes out and says it. It was a predictable and classic set-up, but its charm came from how well the characters were expressed. The facial expressions of the characters during the last few bits of dialogue really made the movie for me, with their eyes bugging out and such. My only complaint is that the mouth movements were missing some shapes. I didn't know what it was right away but something seemed odd about Fred's mouth movements when he first started talking, it was like an uncanny valley effect where there was just one thing dissimilar in an otherwise natural reproduction. By the way, your tweens are super smooth.

The natural behavior of the characters made it easy to tell what was happening even before Fred said the climactic line, so the viewer starts expecting the dialogue to lead up to a big payoff, and that's exactly what happened. The overall humor came from the energy expressed at the end, but the ending was only effective because of the well executed build-up to it.

Overall, one of my favorite flashes. Great work and looking forward to more from you!

[Toons These Days: Ep 6]

I think you have a pretty humorous premise here, fulfilling it is just a matter of executing it correctly. I'm not claiming to have all the answers, but I think this formula is missing something that it could really benefit from. Okay, let's back up a little first - you see, based on my viewing experience so far on these episodes, I've come to see that a lot of these jokes would tend to come off as petty to anyone who even remotely likes the cartoon being reviewed. There are just way too many cheap shots when it comes to cracking jokes on these new toons, and the aloof thing only goes so far. I just have this feeling that there is a wealth of untapped funny in this series.

So it's obvious with the title and the apparent age of the dog that you're going for an 'old person complains' brand of humor, and while the animation and sound is great, I think that it would serve the series well to flesh out the appeal of the branch of comedy you're going with. An example of what I mean - take what I said earlier about the petty and aloof jokes, now I think those would be more substantial if Doggy backed up his opinion about what the new toon did wrong with something like a comparison with what an old toon (or toons) did right in the same area. As it is, this series has been offering up watery, opinionated rants. While I like this character, Conroy, and your stuff in general, and while I still enjoy this series for what it is, I think this series has potential it has yet to reach.

Sorry that I wasn't able to put my thoughts about that into clearer words, but you know how it is when you have a gut feeling, it's not easy to describe but you know it's telling you something. Anyway, good work on this and I hope to see more from you soon!

[Adorable Hamsters 2]

It was okay, there was humor there but you didn't make the most of it. The joke itself is important but the way it is executed is equally important. In this case, your delivery was hurt mostly by the blandness of the characters' voices (the characters' voices were also indistinguishable from one another). In other words, because your animated expression is very simple, you have to make up for it with expressive voices (don't hold back on the mic). You got timing down very well in the beginning where the other hamster says "you were watching the documentary, weren't you?", but not so well near the end when the taller hamster decides to go paint the fence instead. The main reason I didn't find the end funny, however, was really because the reason to find it funny was too simple. In the end, the humor was basing itself on contrary common sense, and if incoherent humor is the humor you're going for, then maybe the animated expression and the voice acting should mirror that quirkiness more. Like the voices, this flash had an overall blandness about it, but I admire your effort and can see that you put a lot of work into this. Just keep an open mind and continue to be productive, certain things will become clearer and you'll improve as you go.
Sorry if I didn't explain myself all that well, I haven't reviewed in a while so my analytic thinking is a bit rusty, but by your next submission I'll be sure to get back up to speed and give you as helpful a review as I can! I hope this one was at least a little helpful, though. Nice job and good luck on your next work!

[Dormitory Dudes]

Let me start by saying the jokes were hilarious! It wasn't just that the writing was funny, the facial animations, style, and voice acting came together nicely to make it all work. You genuinely made me physically laugh with this, and while flashes don't do that to me very often, this was original enough to have that uncertainty factor which made me especially pay attention in order to see what would happen next - leaving me open for the impact of the jokes. Basically, the lack of plot establishment as the movie goes on entices the viewer to stick around to see where the movie is going with the opening dialogue, and by the end when the viewer realizes that there was no plot (at least not in a traditional sense) and the whole movie was a singular A and B dialogue, it was all made worthwhile by the jokes and excellent delivery. The way you set it up made it original - the jokes were the star of this flash and it was an excellent vehicle with which to present them. A short, funny, quirky flash - Good work and keep it up, you're getting better!

[Spend It Wisely]

I loved it, even when the dialogue wasn't that funny the expressions and the timing of them made me want to laugh. It was nicely put together, with an easy to follow plot that relied on unfortunate setbacks to add humor and keep the story going. This is the kind of cartoon that is a pleasure to watch because of its quirkiness, nothing philosophical or anything, just good old basic humor. The animation was so polished that I felt like it could have been on cartoon network back in the day (or even today, though cartoon network has sunken very low as of late). Good work on this guys, I'm looking forward to seeing more in the future!

P.S. (That was an Animation Show reference, wasn't it? You seemed to go to some lengths to try to imitate the feel of it, and it worked out fine.)

TommyVF responds:

Thanks so much. Glad you think it looks and works good. The Animation Show? There was no references, but we love that animation and are surely inspired by it in general. Especially in the old Flash "Daydreams". Thanks!

[No Service]

Great!

Entertaining dialogue/ voice acting, believable expressions, and a nice payoff at the end. The ending worked well mainly because of how unbelievable the fat guy's claims were, providing for a nice little twist of humor. The intermittent jokes were funny too, so there was something pulling the viewer along the whole way. Thanks for submitting and good luck on your next flash!

[Contemplate Life]

I liked it

The drawing and animation were good. One thing I had a dispute with at first was the dialogue, it started sounding pretentious around the "your corruption is your fault" point. But after I read the dialogue clearly in the author comments, I realized that it does make sense (if in no other way, at least in the context of teachings that echo this view on life).

The voice was difficult to make out at times, so that could have been clearer, and the dialogue itself could be revised to provide more impact (the speaker would have to work on expressing it better as well). Overall this was a mild success, I think you accomplished what you were going for, but you didn't hit it out of the park. What mainly needs work is the audio (speaking), and visual content that encourages the viewer to contemplate (In the context of visual information, many of the scenes were basically static). What I mean by static is that this flash usually had a single group of images being panned or moved around for each statement the speaker made, but there was little to no information being added during the scenes to better bridge the gap between the visuals and the dialogue. With some more creative substance, the visuals could play out less like separate pieces following each statement in the dialogue, and more like an instrument that helps to focus the mind on the train of thought that the dialogue is establishing. The sound and visuals would be working together to provide a cohesive experience. When the sound and visuals don't flow well enough together, the mind has to work harder to analyze and find the link between the audio and the visuals, and the extra work the mind has to do tends to pull the viewer away from an otherwise immersive experience.

So that's my review, it might not be easy to employ what I suggested but I hope you find it useful. I personally don't follow a religion but I believe there is some sort of god-like force in existence - that might be why I could see meaning in this. The way I see it though, it's only fair to judge this not on the message itself, but on its execution, seeing as people may not share the same beliefs as this flash portrays. Thanks for submitting and good luck on your next flash!

nahtanojmal responds:

Thanks, and point taken. More familiar visuals to tie it together ;D

[Gaia - life and death]

It's true

In its own trippy way, the flash makes coherent sense. The animation was interesting to look at, and after watching it the second time I understood what was going on. It had that clearness about it if you looked at it in the context provided by the title. I give it a 10 because I think it adequately fulfilled its purpose. I think personal tastes in art style have little to do with the quality of the work being judged, and that ratings should somewhat reflect that.

[SMRPG Waltz of the Forest]

It's good

There were some parts of this remix that weren't as good as Marta's though, so when I watched this expecting the most perfect version of the song, it let me down a little. For example, the voice of the goomba at the start just seems to cut abruptly into the next part of the song (the timing didn't seem quite right to me, and that kind of thing can really throw off the mood of the song). If the remix (mostly concerning the vocal parts) was a bit more fleshed out, I would consider this a 9 or 10.

The animation was nicely arranged, and crammed in a good amount of references to SMRPG as well. Overall it was a good flash for a great game, both entertaining and nostalgic. Good work to all involved, and good luck Chris on your future work.