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Reviews for "The Pretenders"

A Pleasant Surprise

There were people who got miffed into thinking this is a serious production, but this is exactly how my brothers and I used to play around in the house, if we weren't playing (and endlessly analyzing) video games.

With the exception of jumping around for the advent of delicious grub (we devoured most everything and didn't care as long as it wasn't poisoned), it was dead-on in its portrayal of young kids who take on different roles. To have grown idiots perform the leads makes it funnier, although you could have had someone who knew how to play a father/elder sibling figure for the third character. That was the weakest link, and instead of poor production value, it was a sour actor.

I don't get why ads had to be placed onto the final product, but so be it.

This was actually pretty fun, and it surprised me. I almost overlooked it (mostly due to a few sour reviews before me), but I'm glad to have viewed it. Maybe if I peruse my old entries and reviews, I'll remember the other locale and view it there as well for the best effect.

Fro responds:

Wow, thanks a lot.

I do agree about the father figure, but we had to work with what we had. So instead we used the angry brother.

As for the ads, they are put there because.. we make money from them lol. Why wouldn't you want ads put on a submission?

I'm happy that you enjoyed it and thank you for the well thought out review.

Not bad at all.

Overview-I can tell that you all have put a lot of effort into this movie, with the voice overs on the guns and ultimately, narration. It starts out in a dark light, but I don't see any relevance of having the introduction start out with the road at night.

General Quality-Obviously rating this would be like a child rating the Blair Witch project; I know nearly nothing about cameras other than SLRs and digital, and it is clear that this was a low budget movie, so professional equipment is out of the question. Given this, I would suggest that after the introduction narration ends with, "They say a lot of things..." you should cut out the road part, or at least clean your damn windshield!

Quality Visual-I'm sure you were shooting for the over dramatic, but in the beginning it just lets on too fast to be taken as a serious film (wink wink.) If you're determined to keep the night driving scene, you have to build up to it with a bit more detail, such as having an overlay, or "flashbacks" of the murders to make the viewer subconsciously say, "oh my god, this is devastating" so that they can fall into the FroNick Trap Of Comedy. There is also a lack of lighting, but I think it has been covered already.

Quality Audio-It is painfully obvious which parts have been voiced over and which ones were not by the faint buzz noise that plagues camcorders today. I'm sure that editing out the noise from it would be too time consuming, but voicing over everything is the only other alternative I can see to improve the quality. I've seen a couple of student made movies regarding this, but yours seems to be overall decent.
--------

High Points-
The Gun Sounds. They are absolutely perfect for the movie, since they are easily distinguished between each other, not to mention it brings me back to a TS cheat that does the same thing.

The Anal Fissure Cream. This was it, the main spin that told the viewer, they've been punk'd, rick roll'd/rig roll'd, and/or played(FTOC'd). The main thing I liked about it had to be that it was subtle, yet it wasn't. The way it was spoken seemed like it was being taken serious, until you realized what was being said.

The Smiley Faic locations-I always had a spot for people who are given the evidence, and everything to solve it right in front of their faces, and then dismiss it as "unsolvable." I also like the reference to the cherrybomb-mailbox arson a while back. Whoever thought of this part I would like to commend.

Low Points-
The music choices were excellent, but the transitions are a bit hasty. For instance, you have this beautiful violin solo, then it cuts out and another track is played. I would recommend that they overlap just a titch to give it a smooth transition.

The "My Family" title under the photo was a miss. I know it was supposed to be the FTOC, but it was a bit too subtle. Build up to it a little bit more and I'm sure you'll get your desired result.

Summary~
Overall, it was pretty good. Try to work on the transitions, voice overs, and lighting. Your strong points are that you have a great comedy sense of humor, and a creative twist on the storyline, like how there always seems to be one person that doesn't follow the movie, such as the guy from Snow Wars who pointed out the time, the cameraman from Hay wars at the end, and last, the angry character that Corey shoots at once. Once.

Finally,
I tried to be as unprejudiced as possible.
~SA

Fro responds:

The driving scene was suppose to represent how the cop was endlessly searching for this murderer late into the night. I also noticed how dirty the windshield was after the movie was put together.

The whole flashbacks thing is a decent idea, but you do see the file size right? We could only fit in about 30 more seconds so it might have seemed a bit rushed if we added too much in that short amount of time.

The white buzzing noise is something we missed this time around. I think it's a better idea to have the buzzing noise during the whole thing just because it's easier to have then editing it out of the other parts.

The gun noise still makes me laugh for some reason.

The anal fissure part almost killed me because I didn't know the voice actor did that part.

Lastly, the music will be noted better next time.

Thanks for the great review. Always appreciated from you.

I liked it

~~REVIEW~~
very good movie, i thought it had some decent acting looks like you guys did homework with other real movies and such, but corey you are killing me with the size hehe, but regardless i still enjoyed the flash and had a really good story, i thought it might use some "SUBTITLES" the voices were not bad, but it might just make it that much better. anyways great movie even if it was 18.9 mb's hehe

~~THINGS TO IMPROVE ON~~
Add some subtitles just an opinion though

~~OVERALL~~
Awsome movie great story, cant wait for more

~X~

Fro responds:

Sorry about the size. It's much better than it's original 80 MB size though!

Ha, I'm happy that you enjoyed it and perhaps we'll find a programmer to make it so you can turn subtitles on and off in the future.

Thanks for the review.

Great Job...

Great Job, I really liked the part when Nick acted like he picked up a gun off of the counter but he just made a gun out of his hand.
Great job, but I couldn't give it 9/10 since I didn't especially like the ending. But the rest was great.
I'm glad there are still live-action films on Newgrounds, keep on makin' them, you do a fantastic job, but try to get a little better lighting next time, though.
All in all, Great Job...

Fro responds:

And how would you like this to end? You can think of a better ending? I really want to know because your the second person to mention the ending.

lol

mine wouldnt load

Fro responds:

Lol so you reviewed it without watching it? Sucks to have a slow computer huh.