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DVD Megaman
 Run time: 93 min Rating: 3.9 Genres: Action | Drama | Sci-Fi Director: Eddie Lebron Writers: Eddie Lebron Stars: Jun Naito, Jeanie Tse, Edward X. Young |
| Storyline A brave robot volunteers to combat the mechanoid minions of a mad scientist bent on world domination. |
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| Plot Keywords: mad scientist, fan film, android, based on video game, character name in title | |
| Details: Country: USA Release Date: 15 May 2010 (USA) |
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As a fan of the Mega Man game series I was intrigued by the fact that a fan movie was going to be made. The film creators based the movie off the very first NES game. The enemies are Elec Man, Guts Man, Bomb Man, Ice Man, Fire Man, Cut Man, and of course Dr. Wiley. They also kept the fact that once defeated, Mega Man could use the powers of the defeated robot to help him fight the other remaining robots. The Mega Man and Proto Man costume was actually quite good for a low budget film. I personally liked how they integrated his Mega Blaster Arm Cannon into the costume. The casting was especially good for Roll (Mega Man's sister) Her transition from Video Game to movie was outstanding. She is exactly how I would picture her in real life.
Sadly, when it was all said and done, the movie was just not that good. Let me start by saying the acting is horrible. I've seen some pretty bad acting in my time, but this has to be one of the worst I've encountered. The fight scenes were fast and pretty much one sided. It seemed like that spent too much time on story telling and less on the actual action. The thing with fan made movies is their target audience is going to be the fans, and not the casual everyday person. As fans of the game we all know the story of Mega Man. So it confuses me as to why they would spend 1/2 the movie telling the story when we all know it? If you're a fan of the the Mega Man franchise or have played the game it is worth a watch. If you know nothing about it I recommend skipping this and watching something else.
Maybe I'm a little too old to remember the video game, but as someone who came into viewing this film pretty cold I found it to be pretty entertaining from start to finish.
I should point out this movie has the look and feel of a low budget indie flick, but in my opinion, the storyline, acting, and characters surely make up for it. After getting past the first 10 minutes, I found my interest growing. The characters are genuinely interesting, and the story progresses along nicely. Nice performances by "Rock" and "Roll" (cute names), and "Dr. Light" along with the other supporting cast. My favorite of course was "Dr. Wily". He puts so much emotion and effort behind the role he genuinely comes across as being despicable! The fight scenes are a little short and the computer animation shows, but we're not talking about a film here that had the budget of "Transformers 1 & 2", so it's understood and forgiven (in fact I found both the Transformer movies to be quite boring and unimpressive).
There are some laughs and chuckles throughout the 90 minutes. Some intentional, some maybe not. But I can genuinely say, for someone who is as picky and critical of low budget sci-fi films, I actually enjoyed this one through. Give it a watch, you may just find yourself enjoying it as well!
A low budget fan made movie. There's certainly a lot of care and attention put into this movie. In terms of plot it actually works as a movie. Quite a rarity for a video game adaptation. Despite the pacing being right, the dialog and delivery is horrendous. These are amateur actors doing it for fun, but sometimes it's a little too much. Many scenes reminded me of the obnoxious and obvious cartoons of the early 90s. The effects were very basic, but served the plot well. Films like this are always good to see, as it is the storytelling that comes first. Sure, the film is predictable, with poor lighting, bad acting, and dull camera work, but it was nice to see a movie that wasn't after my money.
Full disclosure: I happily contributed a few bucks to both Eddie Lebron and Daniel James for their work on this film. I'm also rock out to The Megas regularly, and I'm a huge Mega Man fan from my early days of video gaming. Yes I'm probably biased in this review. Also, review may contain some spoilers.
That said, Eddie Lebron's Mega Man movie may not stand out to a large number of people, but it stands out because of what it is: an independently made movie, done over the course of a few years, honoring one of the most well known video game franchises of all time.
It's a movie based on a video game. With very rare exception, they turn out horrible because they don't stick with the source material or they make it as cheesy as can be. See the Super Mario Bros. movie, Street Fighter in both it's live action incarnations, Double Dragon, to an extent Doom, etc. as examples of video game movies done wrong. This movie sticks very true to the original game, one of the classics of the NES, allowing for some ret-conning done in a sequel to include Blues/Protoman and throwing in plenty of nods to the original. It gets the story right, and when it comes to video game movies, that's half the battle right there.
It's an independent movie, without much budget. That's why some of the costumes may look like someone went to a 'bike shop' and some of the CGI may be lackluster. Still, considering that it is an independent movie without any backing from from a studio or from Capcom, it gets more right than it gets wrong. With a bigger budget it could have included more robot characters from the game rather than just 'reports' of them on a TV screen, or grander battles with the robot masters and the Yellow Devil, but even boiled down the movie gets what it needs to get.
Acting: Well, some of it was definitely hammy. Personally I found Dr. Light to be rather stiff, but not intolerable. Dr. Wily I found hilarious and fully engaged in his role. Rock & Roll both hit their characters pretty well, and while not much can be said about the Robot Masters, they're on screen for how long anyway?
Sound: Ups and downs… There are places where the sound effects are lackluster or even missing. The real gem here is the score by Daniel James, created from scratch with the exception of nods to Wily's Castle and Protoman's whistle, two very recognizable NES themes even years after the game's release. James does an excellent job of conveying the mood of the film, creating themes for the characters, and providing great symphonic energy at all the right moments. The ending credits with songs from video game cover band The Megas also fits well.
Overall, if you want high quality production but don't care about story, go back and see some of the awful video game movies of the past. You're welcome to waste your time on that kind of eye candy that will do nothing for you. If you want to see a video game movie done right, and you're willing to forgive some flaws in production value because of it's independent nature, there aren't many movies that will top Mega Man.