Author Archives: Doc

What If…? S3 E7

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Spoilers

“What If the Watcher Disappeared?”

The penultimate episode of the series What If aired this morning on Disney + and it took a step back to the first season.

Captain Carter returned to the series that she had been a major part of during the first two seasons and she brought with her a group that was called The Exiles. This was not a group of Exiles like in the comics, but a group that was from the run of What If…?. The group featured Peggy, Kahhori, Byrdie the Duck and Goddess of Thunder Storm.

First off, Byrdie the Duck was the grown daughter of Howard and Marcy the Duck from episode four. Voiced by Natasha Lyonne, this is a whole on original character from What If… and then they teamed Byrdie up with the other major original character from season two of What If…?, Kahhori.

Storm’s arrival was also extremely exciting and well done. Voiced by Alison Sealy-Smith, the fan favorite voice of Storm from the X-Men’97 and animated series, Storm was hauling around Mjolnir and showing herself to be one big time badass. Having Storm in the show, and giving us a Storm that felt just like the Storm that we know was a wonderful treat.

The show’s beginning let us know that something was wrong as it was not the Watcher’s voice doing the narration over the opening credits. Instead, it was the voice of The Eminence who have taken Uatu prisoner, ready to punish him for his breaking of the Watcher Oath.

Peggy realized that the Watcher was in trouble and she decided that The Exiles needed to go to the Fifth Dimension to help the Watcher, but she did not know how they would do it.

Bring in… Infinity Ultron. The one individual ever able to go to the Fifth Dimension on his own. This is how the show returned to the first season, as Infinity Ultron was the big bad of that season.

I did like the fact that this Infinity Ultron had succeeded in his quest and, because of that, had an existential crisis. He realized, way too late, that destroying all life would not bring peace, that in order to have peace there must be life and to have life, you must have conflict.

This was a first part of a two-part finale for the series as the Exiles went to the Fifth Dimension to try and save their friends.

One more episode tomorrow for the series.

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E7 What If the Watcher Disappeared?

E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier?

E6 What If 1872?

E5 What If the Emergence Destroyed the Earth?

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

E4 What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched?

2025 Genre-ary: Documentaries

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2025 kicks off with our third annual Genre-ary. We started with Sci-Fi movies. Then we did Musicals. This year, we will be doing Documentaries.

Again, this will be documentaries that are movies or shorts. There will be no doc series such as the Jinx. Of course, it is a DailyView which means I will be watching a movie every day in the month of January that I have never seen before.

I have compiled a list of documentaries from over the years that I have not seen before. Some will be well known ones, some will be ones we have never heard of before. I will be including some 2024 films instead of waiting for the June Swoon.

I will keep the tally of the Genre-ary on this page.

2025 Genre-ary: Documentaries

Wednesday, January 1: The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (2024)

Thursday, January 2: The Amazing Jonathan Documentary (2019)

Friday, January 3: The Turnaround (2024)

Saturday, January 4: An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

Sunday, January 5: Remembering Gene Wilder (2023)

Monday, January 6: ReMastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black (2018)

Tuesday, January 7: The Blue Angels (2024)

Wednesday, January 8: In-spi-ra-tion (2023)

Thursday, January 9: Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show (2017)

Friday, January 10: ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke (2019)

Saturday, January 11: Nature Boy: 30 on 30 (2017)

Sunday, January 12: Hoop Dreams (1994)

Monday, January 13: Will & Harper (2024)

Tuesday, January 14: Have You Seen Andy (2007)

Wednesday, January 15: The Rocket on the Roof (2016)

Thursday, January 16: Bigfoot: Fear in the Woods (2020)

Friday, January 17: 65 Roses (2019)

Saturday, January 18: Daughters (2024)

Sunday, January 19: Amy (2015)

Monday, January 20: MLK/FBI (2020)

Tuesday, January 21: The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Wednesday, January 22: MoviePass, MovieCrash (2024)

Thursday, January 23: Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (2016)

Friday, January 24: American Tragedy (2019)

Saturday, January 25: Whitney (2018)

Sunday, January 26: Misha and the Wolves (2021)

Monday, January 27: Last Breath (2019)

Tuesday, January 28: There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane (2011)

Wednesday, January 29: Capturing the Friedmans (2003)

Thursday, January 30: Invasion on Chestnut Ridge (2017)

Friday, January 31: Girl in the Picture (2022)

2024 Year in Review: Best Documentary

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I do enjoy a good documentary. I am going to have a list of top ten documentaries for the year. Nine of them are movie format and one is a weekly series. There were a lot of weekly series that intrigued me, but it is harder to fit those into the schedule than straight movies.

I am also going to officially announce here that in January, for the annual Genre-ary DailyView, where I watch a movie that I have not seen in a certain genre every day for the whole month. This is the third year for the Genre-ary (we have had sci-fi and musicals) and in 2025, the topic for Genre-ary is Documentaries. This starts on Wednesday, January 1st.

Best Documentary

Previous Winners:  Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, My Scientology Movie, Tickled, Finding Neverland, Tiger King, The Beatles: Get Back, Lights & Magic, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie

Here are the top 10 docs of 2024.

#10. Elton John: Never Too Late. A look at Elton John’s life and his music. Found on Disney +.

#9. Blink. An emotional story of a family who had 3 out of 4 of their children who had a genetic disorder that would eventual lead them to lose their sight. Their family went on a trip across the planet to give the kids experiences they could always remember.

#8. Brats. I saw this on Hulu this year and it was all about the group of young actors from the 1980s called the Brat Pack and how that nomenclature affected their careers.

#7. Music by John Williams. Another Disney + doc on a famous figure, looking at the life of the iconic composer John Williams and all his amazing movie music.

#6. Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal. The WWE documentary on Bray Wyatt, who just passed away. The emotional doc spoke to his friends and his family, including brother Bo Dallas.

#5. Beatles ’64. Another Disney + doc, this time looking at the Beatles from 1964, the year they arrived in the United States.

#4. The Greatest Night in Pop. A Netflix doc that details the events of the night where the song “We Are the World” was recorded. Amazing footage from the actual night.

#3. The Jinx: Part Two. The one series on this list, and one that I considered to make the winner. I enjoyed this weekly series on MAX that followed the rest of the story of killer Robert Durst.

#2. Jim Henson Idea Man. This is the fifth doc from Disney + on this list. Ron Howard directed this documentary on the Muppet creator Jim Henson. Very emotional and a great look on one of the most creative men in entertainment.

#1. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. The doc on Christopher Reeve is powerful, emotional, and shows us what a hero Chris Reeve was, before and after he played Superman.

Squid Game S2 E2

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“Halloween Party”

I have really enjoyed the start of season two as the show has not even made it to the games yet. They have taken some time to dive into more of the story of the characters, and not just Gi-hun.

We have spent time over the first two episodes with Kang No-eul, who was a refugee from North Korea who is continuing to try and get her daughter back from the North as well. She worked at an amusement park as a mascot and we saw her relating to a little sick girl. We thought she was going to join the games, but, instead, she turns out to be one of the pink guards instead, which was a cool surprise.

Gi-hun and Jun-ho meet up after the Russian Roulette game and have the initial misunderstanding as you would expect. They team up to try and stop the games. We get to see how much Gi-hun has been preparing for this over the last couple of years.

The scene where Gi-hun is having one of his teeth pulled in order to put a tracker in a fake tooth is a wild one and showed you what Gi-hun has become. The scene with Gi-hun showing all of his money piled up on his bed was shocking and again gave us an insight into the character of Gi-hun and what was important to him.

Gi-hun is back in the games and they will most likely get started next episode.

Squid Game S2 E1

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“Bread and Lottery”

After season one was a massive, worldwide success on Netflix, Squid Game returned with season two dropping on the streamer. The initial season of Squid Game was designed to be a one-off season and there were no intentions on bringing a second season to screen. Then, it became one of the biggest shows on Netflix and the demand for more games became too overpowering.

So, I watched episode one of Squid Game and it was full of tension and drama, but a little different than what we had become used to in the first season.

Seong Gi-hun returned to the show after winning the games last season. It is three years later and Seong has become obsessed with finding the games once again. He hired an army of men to scour train stations in search of the man who recruited him into the games.

Meanwhile, Hwang Jun-ho had survived his gunshot wound and fall from the cliff and he was struggling with his own obsessions. He remembered being shot by his brother and he is trying to find the island where he had fallen.

Both men feel as if they are co-leads in this first episode as things are slowly working to bring them together.

The whole Russian Roulette scenes were really tense and difficult to watch. The mood these scenes built really give us an idea of what this season is going to be like, even if we have not yet arrived in the games. I think it is smart to focus on Seong and Jun-ho as the main protagonists of the season so far.

2024 Year in Review: EYG Frame Award- Best and Worst Animation

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Animation has had a big year. However, it seems as if I did not see as many animated movies as I should have. I was starting to look at the list of films from 2024 that would be in the June Swoon in 2025 and there were several animated movies that I had not seen.

Still, I have five animated films for the best and three for the worst. We’ll do this one as a list.

Best Animated Movies of 2024

#5. Kung Fu Panda 4. This one was nowhere near as good as the other films in this franchise, but was still an enjoyable watch. Jack Black is always fun as Po.

#4. Robot Dreams. Watched this during the 4F and it was decent. It received Oscar award nomination last year, but I counted it this year.

#3. Transformers One. A film that I really loved and a film that I almost skipped because of a trailer. This worked so much better than I thought it would.

#2. The Wild Robot. A beautiful story of a robot and a baby goose. Many believe this is the current favorite to win an Oscar this year. Could be, and it would be well deserving.

#1.

Inside Out 2

Pixar’s huge hit this year, Inside Out 2 may be just a step behind the original, but it was every bit as great of a story. Great CGI. Greta emotional storytelling. Great characterization. Inside Out 2 was the highest grossing movie of 2024. It is a massive success and I loved this movie.

Worst Animated Movie of 2024

#3. Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 3. Such a classic comic event turned into a dull and flat animated movie. Part 2 was just about as bad.

#2. Despicable Me 4. Minions and their adventures. Boring. This one is not for adults in any way.

#1.

The Garfield Movie

This movie went ahead and took the character of Garfield and made him an action star. Forget about the choice of having Chris Pratt voicing Garfield, this film did not have any idea of what the character of Garfield was and that is the biggest sin you could have.

2024 Year in Review: Best and Worst Horror Movies of 2024

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Unlike sci-fi, there has been a ton of horror movies. There are plenty to choose from for the best and worst this year.

Best Horror Movie

Previous Winners:  A Quiet Place, It, Don’t Breathe, It Follows, The Conjuring, As Above So Below, Cabin in the Woods, Doctor Sleep, Black Box, Fear Street trilogy, The Menu, A Haunting in Venice

Best Horror Movie of 2024

Runners-Up: There are some great horror movies and several of these are going to wind up in the top 10 of the Best Movies list coming soon. I was hoping to give this award to a couple of these along the way. Such as Abigail, which when I first saw it, I figured this was the winner of this award. Heck, for awhile, this had a shot to be at #1 overall on the year (Spoiler alert: It will not be). I had loved Late Night with the Devil with David Dastmalchian. I found that to be completely original and reengaged the old found footage subgenre. I placed Alien: Romulus in this category instead of Sci-Fi and it was one of my favorites of the year. Another surprise film was Heretic with Hugh Grant. That movie was another huge hit and one that I loved.

However, I just recently saw the film that needed to win this award. It will be somewhere in the top 5 of the year on the final list.

Nosferatu

This vampire movie was such an amazing feat. It was basically the story of Count Dracula, but with Count Orlok in his place. And it was beautifully shot, acted and presented. It was creepy and scary as could be. A master class of visual storytelling as well as creation of a mood.

Worst Horror Movie of 2024

Runners-Up: There were an excess of poor horror films this year. The year kicked off with one of the worst with Night Swim. Imaginary I saw plenty of trailers for, but it was terrible. Dumb bear. Tarot is in contention for one of the worst films of the year, not just horror-wise. The Strangers Ch. 1 was a unnecessary reboot that ruined the franchise immediately. The Watchers… honestly I do not remember anything about that one. The Exorcism was one more bad movie starring Russell Crowe. Not his best year ever. Immaculate was another flopper among these horror flicks.

The worst horror movie of 2024 is from the same franchise that had the worst horror movie of 2023… a sequel!

Winner: Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2

This one fooled me. I went in thinking this would be better. I had seen a couple of positive reviews and I thought it would be good campy fun. Nope. Just the same horrendous acting, violence for no reason and just lackluster storytelling. The worst horror film back to back years… has to be a record!

2024 Year in Review: Best and Worst Sc-Fi Movie

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I have not seen much science fiction this year. That made this award very easy.

In this category, even though I could, i do not include any sort of superhero movie. I eliminate those from this category. They have their own award. I also decided that Alien: Romulus would not be in consideration for this because it is more of a monster movie than anything else. Same would go for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

After that, there just was not much remaining.

Best Horror Movie

Previous Winners:  A Quiet Place, It, Don’t Breathe, It Follows, The Conjuring, As Above So Below, Cabin in the Woods, Doctor Sleep, Black Box, Fear Street trilogy, The Menu, A Haunting in Venice

Best Sci-Fi Movie of 2024

Runners-Up: Spaceman, Code 8: Part II, The Substance

Winner:

Dune: Part II.

I liked this more than the first one, and the special effects are absolutely killing it. It is also one of the most sci-fi-ish movies of the year.

Worst Sci-Fi Movie of the 2024

Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver

Scargiver took the really bad Rebel Moon and made it even worse. Who could have guessed? I suppose we just have to wait for the four hour director’s cut…

2024 Year in Review: The Logan/”Hurt” Trailer of the Year and other things

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Trailers are so important to spread the word about movies to the public, specifically the people who may not be as tied in to movie news as some may be. So this year we are instituting a new award for the best and worst in trailers from 2024.

Best Trailer: Superman. This was a tough choice, but this teaser trailer made me excited to see Superman next year, and that is the job of a trailer.

Worst Trailer: Transformers One. I’ve said this before, but I hated this trailer and it nearly caused me to not want to go see the movie. It highlighted all of the humor that simply did not work in isolation. In context, it was much funnier, but in this way, it was horrible. For such a great movie, this trailer was an epic fail.

Best TV trailer: X-Men ’97. Yeah, baby. The mutants were back and this trailer gave us a glimpse into the brilliance that we would get in X-Men’97. How did this become such an amazing show?

Why show that Award: Deadpool & Wolverine reveal of Laura. It was in the final trailer, like a week before the movie released and the trailer spoiled the appearance of Daphne Keen as X-23, aka Laura from Logan. Why? There is no way that her appearance was going to encourage someone else to go see the film at this point. It was just a waste of a spoiler and a poor choice.

Creepiest Trailer: 28 Years Later. This is legit scary. I was totally creeped out when I first saw this trailer and every time I have seen it since, I have had an uneasy feel. Great use of atmosphere and tension to promote the movie.

Most Unexpected Trailer: Karate Kid Legends. Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio? Weird. The trailer does give us an idea of what the film will be like. How does Cobra Kai play into this, if at all?

What If…? S3 E6

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“What If…1872?”

What If in the Old West.

Shang Chi and Kate Bishop make their returns to the MCU in this cool Western story as they chase after The Hood, a character that the MCU has not yet introduced (although he is coming in Ironheart next year).

The pairing of Shang Chi and Kate Bishop worked for me as they pursued the Hood for their own reasons. The show did keep the characters at a surface level, depending on your enjoyment of the previous uses of the character to pull you in. For me, that worked.

The action of the episode was top notch with some awesome animated martial arts fights. The opening scene featuring John Walker, voiced once again by Wyatt Russell, was a neat set up for what we were going to get.

Shang Chi in search of his sister, who he had believed had been taken by the Hood works as well. Having her be the Hood in the end was a nice twist that I did not expect.

Walter Goggins reprised his role as Sonny Burch from Ant Man and the Wasp. Here he was a very sinister second hand man to the Hood. To be honest, he was much more memorable here in What If that he was in Ant Man and the Wasp. I like that they brought him in for this role.

1872 was a limited Marvel Comics series that placed Marvel characters in the Old West. Steve Rogers was the sheriff of the town and Wilson Fisk was the big, bad businessman. Fisk wound up feeding Steve Rogers to the pigs in a scene that stuck with me since I read it. I do not remember much else about 1872, except for that moment. This What If…? episode did not include those characters but I could see it being something going on in another location in this world.

There are only two more What If…? episodes left. With the final scene being the other Watchers confronting Uatu, and his interference will be a major arc to wrap up the series. The Watchers have sworn an oath to only watch and to not interfere, but we have seen our Watcher interfere several times over the three seasons. I am curious to see how this will all wrap up. I know the trailer had Captain Carter and Kahhori in it, so I expect to see them during some kind of conflict with the Watchers.

E2 What If Agatha Went to Hollywood?

E3 What If The Red Guardian stopped The Winter Soldier

E6 What If 1872?

E5 What If the Emergence Destroyed the Earth?

E1 What If the Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?

E4 What If Howard the Duck Got Hitched?

Getting Lost

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What a treat.

I think I had a knowledge in the back of my mind that there was a documentary in the works for LOST, but I had not gone looking for it. Then, I was on social media (I do not remember if I was on X or Facebook or Bluesky to be honest) and I found someone talking about the documentary being available on Prime for rental. I rushed over to Prime immediately to see if I could find it. And there it was.

I have to explain this. I have never been as connected to a TV program as I was with LOST. It was at the very heart of my being. When it ended, I felt like I had a hole in my heart that I just could not fill. It was a physical gap that had an emptiness about it. All these years later, I still think back on the show with so much love.

I was excited to watch this documentary and it immediately grabbed my attention. It had interviews with nearly everyone in the cast, producers, writers, fans and they were talking about all of the major aspects about LOST, from the cultural significance to the influential impact on TV to the importance of the show on people’s lives.

They talked about the pilot and how they were making the pilot without any expectation that it would ever be picked up. They talked about the Tailies, “The Constant,” Not Penny’s Boat, Charlie’s Death, “We have to go back,” Walt, the finale etc.

The documentary did not shy away from controversy either. They addressed how the finale is a divisive episode that split the community apart. They talked about the report a few years ago stating that the LOST writer’s room was filled with bullying, racism and sexism (which I had not heard about before this) and they asked Damon Lindelof about it. Matthew Fox did not appear via an interview for the doc and there was an ending moment where J.J. Abrams asked if they did not get an interview with anybody and the voice off camera said Matthew Fox. Abrams said, “Seriously? You never got Foxy? Come on, really?” and then said “That’s too bad. His loss.” I wonder if there was something contentious going on there. Dominic Monaghan apparently also declined an invitation to talk.

Filmmaker Taylor Morden included some specific details about the LOST fan community, including the podcasts that sprung up and also some of the charitable work done by the LOST community, especially dealing with cancer. There were some famous fans that were interviewed such as Samm Levine and Bobby Moynihan.

I loved this documentary. I may not be the most unbiased when it comes to my thoughts on it, but I do think that they went out of their way to include everything about the series, even the bad things.

AND IT WAS NOT PURGATORY! THEY WERE NOT DEAD ALL THE TIME!

Um.. sorry about that.

Nosferatu

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I have been looking forward to this movie for quite awhile. I have enjoyed every time Nosferatu has found his way onto the screen and so I expected to enjoy this too.

This is basically the Bram Stoker Dracula story with Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) in the lead vampire role. Orlok has become obsessed with a young recently married woman named Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) and he stalks her while tormenting the people of her town.

There are so many things that are great about Nosferatu. The acting was sensational from everyone. Nicholas Hoult played Ellen’s husband Thomas brilliantly. Willem Dafoe was Prof. Albin Eberhart von Franz, the bizarre professor with the idea on what needs to happen. Aaron Taylor-Johnson played Thomas’s friend whose wife, Anna (Emma Corrin) was friends with Ellen.

The cinematography and images on the screen were absolutely stunning. The shots of the sea with the Demeter was artistic as could be. The imagery of every shot on the screen was beautiful and compelling. There was a shot of Orlok’s shadow with Ellen at the very beginning of the film which was amazing. There were images everywhere in the movie that stood out, showing what an amazing job director Robert Eggers has done on this movie.

I loved the coloring of the film too. It made it feel special and even the most frightening moments of the film looked lovely. The craftsmanship of the film is stunning and this film will be earning several tech Academy Award nominations when it comes time.

The movie was violent and brutal. There are moments where the images were difficult to watch.

The only drawback I can say is that it is basically the Dracula story retread and it might be a touch long. Other than that, this is a masterful reboot of the iconic film. I had went into the film with high expectations because I had heard so many positives about it, so that is always a danger. All of my expectations were reached and exceeded. This is a fantastic movie.

5 stars

EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week

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December 26

This is the final EYG Favorite Comic Covers of the Week for 2024 as next Wednesday’s NEW COMIC BOOK DAY is January 1st. And since it was the last week, of course there were about eight books in the contention for these three medals.

Shout outs to the runners-up that did not make the medal round: The Creeping Below #2, Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #3, Hello Darkness #6, Sabretooth: The Dead Don’t Talk #1, and Metamorpho #1.

The final medalists for 2024 are…

Bronze Medalist

X-Men #9

Cover art by Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer, & Marte Gracia

What a cool use of the Wolverine claws, showing him facing off with Psylocke. The claws almost pop off the page.

Silver Medalist

Absolute Wonder Woman #3

Hayden Sherman & Jordie Bellaire

Boy does Wonder Woman look bad ass. The grey background looks awesome and the red symbol stands out wonderfully.

Gold Medalist

Redcoat #8

Variant Cover B

Cover art by Brad Walker & Brad Anderson

This variant cover is soooo cool with the red background and the way Simon Pure’s coat blended right into the background. Then, the big ass gun is a great example of perspective. I picked this off the stand today, replacing the cover A that I had in my pull box. This is the final gold medalist of 2024. Congrats!

Creature Commandos S1 E5

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Spoilers

“The Iron Pot”

The Creature Commandos focused on Frankenstein this week, seeing some back story on him that turned out as tragic as one might expect.

This series has been up and down for me. This episode was good, but it really felt too quick, as if it rushed through. I would have said inconsequential, but Rick Flag Sr. sure looks like he is dead. I have a hard time believing that, but he sure seemed dead, and that would be clearly consequential.

However, the word was that Rick Flag Sr, as played by Frank Grillo, was playing a part in future DCU projects, and that the animation was all cannon, so I can not believe that I just saw him killed by this Clayface-looking monster.

Perhaps this is my own personal taste too, but the animated blood that is done so much here is overkill. I think the blood loses its impact when it is used as much as it is. It is the same way I feel about Invincible. I would rather keep the bloodshed to a minimum to keep it feeling special. When you just see bloody kill after bloody kill, it desensitizes the viewer and minimizes the effect. That is my opinion, but I thought the blood use in X-Men ’97 was much more effective than it has been in Creature Commandos.

Twenty-two minutes feels less than this show should have. At the very least, it should be 30 minutes, but this just felt like it was over and it had just started.