Ben-Coombs's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lord of the Clocks pt. 1a]

Good work

A surprisingly accurate parody of the Lord of the Rings film. Though I personally think this 'clock' thing is far too overdone, this is still very well made. It is very good visually, though there isn't as much animation on the actual characters (they have no limbs and stuff). The jokes about this website were clever. Though it always sounds stupid when people use 'gay' in an insulting way. The voices were good I think. I didn't get what that wiggling arrow thing was by the Gollum character. Anyway, I will watch the next part when it's done.

StrangeClock responds:

Because Clocks don't have mouths to indicate they are talking, clock's hands or arrows are generally used to indicate who is doing the talking.

[Forsaken - Episode 1]

Interesting

A pretty good animation here... an interesting idea, and quite well done. I liked the glowing weapons, I thought the music worked very well, and the fight scenes were excellent. Though the characters themselves looked a bit silly being stick-thin and all that. It sort of spoils it for me. Being shadowy black works very well with the general feel of the animation, but it would be so much better if they were more human shaped. Anyway, most of the voices were good; I liked the one with the sort of romanian accent, makes him more vampire-y. One thing I didn't quite get was that when one vampire says to use the new type of bullets, it looked the same as the ones he was using already.
Anyway, this is a well made flash movie, and it's a shame you won't conclude it.

[No Need for Bushido 2]

I liked it

Quite a good flash cartoon you've got here. I found the 'special, foolproof move' especially funny for some reason. The 'paper cutout' style comes off as slightly lazy but it does work, it reminds me of the great game Paper Mario. A couple of things I noticed were that the water at the bottom of the waterfall looked a bit unconvincing, as did the campfire (maybe try some frame by frame animation for flames and things, it's far more effective.) I found the music fits very well, and the characters voices were well done too. Anyway, good work on this (and chapter one).

No-Need-for-Bushido responds:

Will look into it. The paper cutout style is partly due to my desire to make flash movies before fully understanding the program. Expect better stuff as I learn what the heck I'm doing.

[Starcraft Homeworld remix]

I love starcraft

This is a good starcraft-based thing... I definately like how the characters and vehicles were drawn, though the actual animation wasn't the same quality. Though I know it's a lot harder.
Another thing I kept thinking when watching it is it could be a lot more 'dramatic'. Such as that protoss just stands in front of the tank as it moves towards him and gets killed, but he could have tried to defend himself or roll out of the way before being crushed or blown up. Also afterwards his comrade leaps onto the tank and pokes it a bit with his energy blades and it randomly blows up, which looks sort of strange. Imagine you had him leap onto the top, and start tearing huge bits of metal off, smashes his way into the cockpit, and slices up the driver inside. All with cool camera angles and zooming in and stuff. That would be so much more exciting.
Also there isn't much of a coherent 'story' to this, but I suppose it's difficult when using quotes from the game.
But anyway, this was still well done. It'd be good to see more in the future.

LegolaSS responds:

yes, in my next one im going to focus more on fbf then good graphics, and mabey have some funny easter eggs hidden away

[Egg]

Excellent

Great short you have here. The 'punchline' was great, I wasn't expecting that to happen. I like the movement of the chicken, such as the wings blurring, the way it sort of 'bounces', and all that. The music in the background fits well too. The length and timing I think you got right too, not too long but still builds up well to the end. There isn't any way I can think right now this could be improved on. Nice job.

Cheesius responds:

Well... I could re-draw and animate the background. Which I did :) Give it another look, it's prettier.

[The 5 Shades of Brown]

Pretty good

I like the idea behind this (and the others in the 'five shades' series), with the colour scheme and set theme, and the mix of different animator's styles. Well I know it was supposed to be about nature and more than half were about weapons of mass destruction, but what's a good flash movie without explosions? Heh heh. There is definately some good animation in these. Good work.

[Birdthingy]

Great short here

Wow, good job here. I really like the 'painted' looking style of this. The wizard guy looks very good, as do those bird thingies. The colours used are also very good. It may be short but there isn't really much to add to this. Great job.

[Len - ep. 1 - part 2/2]

Well I liked it

Yeah, the low video quality was slightly annoying, but this is still great. It was all pretty well drawn. I liked the ruined city and the flying craft... those little robots looked and acted like headcrabs from half-life but mechanical, but that might not have been intentional. The explosion effect was very good too. For the main character (Len?), he's travelling in the desert, so he could do with more stuff, like flasks of water, food, a compass, and that sort of thing. Though I liked the way he had those goggles and mask for the sandstorms.

RonaldRaven responds:

you're right, about the desert equipment. I actually thought about that, but since this was my first animation, I decided I was too lazy and too unskilled to draw that stuff frame by frame. but he does have a pack on his back, though. I won't say what's in it, yet, but it has some useful equipment inside (according to the story).

the guy that did the music and audio for the movie said the same thing about the robots that you did. in the script we just wrote "small, one-eyed robotic spiders," so I just went on that when I drew them.

glad you liked it. cheers.

[Tornado Beat]

Interesting

Fun abstract-type thing, some good ideas in here. I particularly liked that sort of orange-glowing-breaking-apart effect... you know what I mean. Maybe some of it could have been a little smoother looking, and the ending was too abrupt. But anyway... keep animating, good work.