Title: Escape and Sacrifice Company/Director: Wirepuppy Films/Tony Teulan Genre: Drama Reviewed by MidbackMan Summary: Tony Teulan's Tale of a Jewish family who are forced into the ghettos of Nazi Germany and forced to escape and a story about a girl who makes a sacrifice for a young boy who she's fallen in love with. Scale: 1 to 10: Very Bad A film of just terrible Quality; Don't bother 11 to 20: Bad A few slightly redeeming qualities but still not worth your time 21 to 30: Its okay Very ordinary technical stats; Not worthless but not great 31 to 40: Good Above average; Usually recommended to the fan of the specific genre 41 to 50: Very Good Well worth your attention; Content and design are spectacular Review: E&S has an overall decent idea but unfortunately falls flat of being anything more than an average movie. It's poorly written script - full of kiddie babble was annoying at times and what I blame for being the cause for some of the stale acting. I'm not going to trash the script only, though. Let's be straight forward here. I was a big part of this film being one of the main characters. I thought it would have impaired my judgement but I am pulling out any part of me that would give Tony a good review just for the fact that we're friends and I have such a large part in this film. It's a good thing too because it would be too hard to hide the fact that I'd be lying if I said this movie was anything more than 'Average.' The script wasn't the only fault for the bad voices. There were NUMEROUS problems with the voices, not just the acting. Voices were used multiple times. I assumed this was an accident sometimes since I have witnessed a glitch with 3DMM that replaces certain voices with others if you import a new scene with sounds in it. I've heard good and bad comments about the voicing but no one else has spoken of this in it, did anyone else have this problem or was it just me? Hey, 3DMM is an old utility and has bugs. What can I say. If Tony was at fault and he happens to read this, a note to Tony: watch your movies before you release them. Other problems I had with the voices included such times where voices may have been too soft to hear, then I would turn my speakers up to almost full volume to no effect then someone else's voices would come in and they would be so loud that my ears would pop. Once again, I suggest to Tony that he edit his sounds to be the same volume or ask that people record them with a better quality microphone. As far as other sound sections go the sound effects were ugh... Bells and Alarms were extremely annoying and loud - not to mention played constantly when they played and seemed like they wouldn't stop anytime soon. Luckily, they did. Music was also much annoying. I've seen the pre-release version of the movie which didn't include half of the things that the full version did and one of those things was music. The music was added by Bryn Doherty and if I were him I wouldn't advertise anymore for Music Man. Personally, I'm going to ask him to do my next movie's soundtrack but after listening to his choices and placements I am rethinking that decision. Hopefully, Bryn will be better with my movie than he will with this 'Drama' which sounds more like a mini-series on the WB. Personally, I would've picked some stuff like MetallicA's, 'Nothing Else Matters' but it's not my film. Really, it wasn't the selection of music that bothered me - just the placement, really. Music was put in odd places when it could have served better in others. A great example is the very first scene - not the actual first scene but rather the first scene of the movie. Ugh, you know what I mean... During a quick and poorly animated scene animation that introduced you to the store of one of the main characters, where a rather interesting conversation was held, a very annoying background song played. I don't know what you would think but it doesn't go, buddy. The animation was nothing to look at either. Tony said this movie was going to have authentic WW2 scenery but truthfully, it looked pretty lame at times and I don't know it could be compared to WW2 pictures since I've seen city streets in China Town, Boston that looked Dirtier and when I've walked down them and looked around, my surroundings didn't shake and look all weird, either. Basically, the animation is pretty sloppy. Character animation as well as sometimes I was unsure of somethings. An example of this is when Jodie, one of the main characters who pushes her brother off of a bridge apparently, looks more like she is falling and her brother rolls off of a bridge without any force or reason. There were a few things in this that fall into the miscellaneous category such as the 'DVD' features. First off, it's not a DVD so shouldn't they be called something else? It's not very original and is annoying. I stopped the movie and passed them. 3DMM doesn't have a feature to make the movie stop automatically so the viewer is forced to intervene and don't even bother using thet theater since you'll have to sit through it for a while since Tony made the menu about 300 frames instead of just one. What else can I say that's really, really bad about this movie? Okay, just some quickies: There is written narration that is shown on the screen during scenes where people are usually trying to hold a conversation. It would be alright if the conversation were rather background chatter instead of an integral part of the story. Unfortunately it isn't. The scene's where they were displayed were also too short and I'm not a speed-reader so I was forced to stop the scene. That's just bad Direction Tony... tisk tisk. The movie also seems to present an unended feeling. I know it's a two-part movie but it shouldn't have been or at least should have offered some comfort at the end instead of another conflict. There is no climax and once one problem was solved another instantly presented itself at the very end. Story: 5/10 Graphics: 6/10 Creativity: 6/10 Voices: 4/10 Music: 5/10 Total: 26/50 (Twenty-Six) The Movies Highs: *Opening Music was good *Overall decent idea which needs improving - A professional touch as it were The Movies Lows: *The scrollong Text is annoying *Music at innapropriate times and none at appropriate times *Scenery which doesn't look 'Authentic' and the animation of the scenery was dodgy *Voice Quality was bad; stale acting; bad voice placements interrupted other voices; voices used repeatedly (accidentally i assume); bad pronunciation of words from certain characters; some voices too low to hear while other voices and sounds were frighteningly loud... *Poorly written script with false sense of emotion & poorly written dialogue. *Character animation was too slow sometimes and others it was too fast and hard to understand sometimes (read review for examples) *WRITTEN narration presents itself DURING dialogue *No Ending - A To Be Continued Feeling *DVD features were unnecessary and useless Bottom Line: Someone said that this movie was made with "cinematographic understanding." Personally, it reminds me more of Star Wars: Episode 1. It's definitely not as Epic as the hype this movie generated would have you think. It's nothing special. Maybe as a book, if Tony took a couple classes in Creative Writing he could improve it and who knows what could come of it. But right now as is, you're better off to find something else unless you're starved for a movie. NOTE TO READER: As always if you agree or disagree with any of the opinions or technical scores in this article please feel free NOT to take it up with MidbackMan or the management of Review Central since no one really gives a rats ass about what you have to say. That's why you're at this site. Also please understand that the technical scores do not always reflect the opinions of the review since the reivew is more aimed at how enjoyable the film was to the viewer.