Mega Man

Mega Man

A short entry for your Monday. This film is a dedication to Nintendo Fred (you know who you are). This movie tells the story of the little blue bomber that entertained kiddos on the Original Nintendo and Super Nintendo in the 1990s. A little fella who just wanted us to all get along. His name… Mega Man.

Quote: You know, I never liked you.

Like many of you, my love for video games began with a little guy named Mario (mostly his brother Luigi, truth be told, I as the little brother was never allowed to be Mario). That all being said, Mario has gotten plenty of play (get it?) where this guy named Mega Man was really my favorite, and nobody knows anything about him. WELL, TODAY IS YOUR DAY, LITTLE GUY!!!

It seems I am not the only one who wanted to show love to this blue hero. They made a (terrible) independent movie about him in 2010, and guess what… I watched it!!

So this story is about two scientists who create robots in the year 20XX in a city that for all intents and purposes is New York City… but it’s not New York City. They are the creators of an award winning team of man-sized robots who are meant to assist humans with a variety of tasks. Harmony, that’s the ticket. So they basically part ways when Dr. Wily (Dave Maulbeck) expresses his desires for power and control to the more humble and noble Dr. Light (Edward X. Young). Dr. Light decides it’s time to create his greatest robot and creation to date, and what would be… a son.

He creates a robot and names him Rock (Jun Naito). He becomes the brother to his would-be sister, an already functional robot named Roll (Jeanie Tse). Together Rock, Roll, and Dr. Light live in harmony and do just fine. After not to long (because let’s not kid around, it’s only 94 minutes long) Dr. Wiley reappears having stolen all of the original robots and programmed them to kill people, destroy cities, pop little children’s balloons and support Dr. Wiley’s bids for (wait for it…) World Domination. Yes, you guessed it. He is a bad guy.

Back on the ranch Rock decides (cause he is a thinking, feeling, warm inside kinda robot) that something must be done and he is the one who is gonna have to do it. Within about 20 seconds Dr. Light makes some alterations and thus… Mega Man is born, and the fight begins.

So it basically tells the story of the first Mega Man video game (they have now made over 20). For what it is, it’s not half bad, they just didn’t have a whole ton to work with. It could have been great in another world where they had more things at their disposal, but for nostalgia alone, I really enjoyed it, the good parts and the bad.

THE LIST: It could have been great IF…

  1. They had a budget

So that’s the drag about the indies, isn’t it? They are independent of any sort of $$$. The plus side is that the director had total creative control and was able to make the film exactly the way he wanted, but yes, had to stay within what seems to of been a fairly limited budget (in the movie world anyways). There was actually a little bit of production value in here, but it mostly was just available when Mega Man shoots his weapon, and beams up and down from place to place. At the same time there is a whole bunch of garbage CGI work throughout. Some of the villains are played by people, and some are just 100% CGI, and it just seemed that they were unable to do it any other way. They don’t even really pretend it looks real, some of the characters are just terrible looking.

  1. They had some more talent

Again, it was good for what it was, but it wasn’t all that much in the acting department. Rock was pretty decent, as was Dr. Wiley. Roll and Dr. Light were both horrifically bad actors. At times it was enjoyable to watch them try and pull out all the stops, but hey, you’ve either got it, or you don’t . If they could have suckered some big name into this movie, it would have changed everything. It’s a load of crap really, too, you know Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd, maybe Andy Samberg, or one of these guys in my age range most certainly played Mega Man when they were kids. What they couldn’t throw these film makers a bone?

John Leguizamo was in Super Mario Brothers. Van Damm made Street Fighter. Mark Wahlberg was Max Payne and Angelina “I’m a terrible actress” Jolie was Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Yet still NOBODY would throw their hands in to hook up the Mega Man movie. Whatever.

  1. They hadn’t cast Roll

This character was useless. She wasn’t important in the video game whatsoever, and straight up really isn’t even mentioned in any of the first few games. I understand a need to appeal to females in the audience and all of that. Here’s the thing though dude… NO GIRLS ARE WATCHING THIS MOVIE… so what gives?

Roll was stupid, and if anything made women look bad, as if she is supposed to be modeled after a big important woman in Dr. Light’s life. He is a noble, good spirited and learned character. Roll is a ditzy idiot and only insults women. Make her better, or ditch her. Other then her though, I had no major complaints.

(end of THE LIST)

So you won’t find this film on DVD, and it won’t be playing at any of our favorite cinemas anytime soon. If you would like to watch it though, and like me, have no trouble locating 94 minutes in the middle of the night from time to time, then here you go, a link to the movie in it’s entirety. Loaded for free by the Director himself.

Here is a link to the entire movie.

Author: Peter

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