Bill's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[What are the odds?]

This was incredibly refreshing in the sea of what is usually done among flash animation. I'm more of a fan of narratives and immense character animation but this truly held my attention. This and Dot Dot Dot really inspire me to try out text based animation sometime soon.

[BeyBlade Was F'n Dumb]

The greatest strength of this cartoon is it basically shows in visual form what most people including myself thought of BeyBlade. It sums up how fucking limp dickedly lame spinning battle tops are in a quick satire swoop. BeyBlade was a few years after my ridiculous young buying fad toy years so I never got attached to it but this cartoon pretty much sums up what I thought the show was like when I skipped past it on tv. I liked the subtle text jokes especially the angle of the eyebrow one.

[A Hellbenders Christmas]

Comparing this christmas special to the rest of the series is interesting. The Ice Cream short really nailed down introducing the characters in a purely humorous fashion. Applooza had pretty good writing overall with a good pay off when the story wrapped itself up but seemed like it was over powered by the gags which isn't necessarily a bad thing at all. These two animations really set up a good base for the series.

Then comes this Christmas Special.

I believe this episode fit with the duration of the episode really well. The writing was all directly relevant to the characters goals. It shows the characters good intentions all the while royally fucking everything up in the process. Even when Chris and Zach try to sing more quiet something you'd expect to not have any terrible consequences, ends up being worse than being too loud.

I thought the singing by Jason Paige was hilarious, I love how Zach and Chris's movements synchronize at the beginning of the singing. You guys really put to use the almost blank canvas likeness of the Hellbenders faces for this scene especially when Chris's face changes with Jason's singing.

The singing scene was the great climax of trial and error of these characters it really mixed the built up feelings of what was witnessed before with good humor and felt satisfying in a story sense and in a humor sense. I felt the power behind it.

The jesus scene wrapped up the whole thing in great absurdity. RicePirate really nailed jesus in a nonchalant and casual way. The voice in combination of the static like nature of his drawn body was funny as fuck.

Like always, animation and art was fantastic and watching these cartoons gives me hope for more people to raise the standards of the visuals they expect from 2D internet animation.

I'm even more interested with seeing how this series unfolds, how the characters develop how Zach and Chris's goofy nature plays off off the very straight environment and other characters.

The overall power behind Chris and Zach's expression and creativity is making me wonder how much deeper these characters go. Maybe its been just the product of merely humor but the power of creating a clay monster that devours people and having the musical ability to save christmas and summon jesus has a mysterious depth to it.

Which brings up more questions about why Chris and Zach are illustrated in a stained glass window in the original intro church scene and why they're called Hellbenders in the first place. Is there something much more sinister to these goofballs or are their intentions really all good?

I look forward to finding out.

psychicpebbles responds:

Damn dude, thanks for the in depth review! Glad you like it, and there will be more to come.

As far as the stained glass window goes, you'll have to find out as the series progresses.

[National Spelling Bee!]

Threebrain was one of my biggest influences for going into flash animation when I was a wee little kid in elementary school. People saying it's repetitive are missing the point that the repetitiveness is the vehicle for the different jokes. The "sometimes there's money in it" joke was funny. The way the lady is drawn is funny too. It's dumb when people judge animation based purely on writing, if you do that then what's the point of animating it?

[Plungerdog - 03: Dog Day]

I've watched this 5 times by now, we need more episodes Jae!!!

[Curious George Plays Game]

Although it's short I really like the compostions and storyboarding of the animation!

ToonHole responds:

Although it's short I really like this review. <3 Premo

[Dogma]

Oh man I love this. This was fantastic and it's sad to see it's not getting as much love as it deserves.

Hornybeeee responds:

Thanks haha, newgrounds truly is a fickle place

[Until It's Gone]

Great job, I loved the new style. I'd have to say this animation sums up all my current feelings with work and life at the moment. The last 5 months of my life have felt like a blur and I really feel like I'm missing out on other important things or parts of my life I used to enjoy have deteriorated. Keep up the great work!