Resident Evil tells the story of Bryan (Austin Abrams), an ordinary medical courier whose trip through Raccoon City quickly turns into a nightmare. There’s no Leon S. Kennedy, Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, or Claire Redfield here. Bryan isn’t a trained police officer or a hero who can fight off monsters. He’s just a regular guy trying to survive, and he often struggles. Abrams plays him as someone who reacts to scary situations the way most people would. When something looks like a trap, sometimes the best move is just to walk away. Even when he gets a gun, it doesn’t suddenly make him good at using it.

Bryan’s vulnerability brings both humor and horror to Resident Evil. That tension helps explain why Cregger’s approach works. In Barbarian and Weapons, Cregger showed he knows how to play with what the audience can and can’t see, and he does that here too. Darkness hides figures in the background and foreground, and the movie quickly makes you feel like something could be hiding anywhere. I found myself scanning the screen even during quiet moments. Just when you start to relax, Cregger surprises you with a well-timed jump scare. This is the kind of horror movie that’s even better with a crowd, where everyone laughs one minute and jumps the next.

Resident Evil fans will notice how well Cregger understands the games. Without giving away any spoilers, you shouldn’t expect to see a bunch of familiar enemies. The dangers Bryan faces aren’t just taken from Capcom’s list of monsters, but the movie is full of references to the games. There are green herbs, typewriters, and first-person camera shots that remind you of Resident Evil 7 biohazard and Resident Evil Village.

Even more importantly, Cregger brings the games’ mechanics into the story. Bryan slowly finds better gear, and things like ammo and scavenging really matter. He moves through different parts of Raccoon City, just trying to stay alive. All the while, something dangerous keeps chasing him, which will remind longtime fans of the pressure from Mr. X and Nemesis. Instead of feeling like an adaptation of a specific Resident Evil game, it feels more like watching someone play a new one.

Resident Evil finally gets the movie it deserves as Zach Cregger delivers a scary, funny, fast-paced survival horror thrill ride.

Cregger also smartly avoids weighing the movie down with too much explanation. The story is simple: one man needs to survive the night and reach his destination. Details about Raccoon City and what’s happening around Bryan come out naturally, instead of pausing for a big backstory. This makes it one of the easiest Resident Evil movies to recommend to people who haven’t played the games. The quick 90-minute runtime helps, too. The movie moves fast and rarely slows down, with Abrams carrying most of it. Zach Cherry, Kali Reis, Paul Walter Hauser, and the rest of the cast are fun when they show up, but this is really Bryan’s story.

My biggest complaint is that Cregger sometimes seems almost afraid to make the movie look too much like Resident Evil. That reluctance undercuts the same game-like feeling the movie otherwise nails. The monsters feel more like creations from his own imagination than creatures from Capcom’s world. Not to mention, familiar images from the franchise are used sparingly. As a fan, I sometimes wished he would lean more into the classic Resident Evil style he’s clearly avoiding. It’s like watching someone purposely get every answer wrong on a test, just to show they can do something new.

I get why he made these choices. Cregger isn’t trying to remake Resident Evil 2 or fill the movie with Leon, Jill, Wesker, and a bunch of familiar monsters just for fan service. He wants this story to take place in a different part of the same universe, and that’s what makes it work. This version doesn’t focus on which scenes fans want to see on screen. Instead, it asks what it would really feel like to be an ordinary person stuck in that world.

Overall, Resident Evil is scary, often funny, fast-paced, and a real thrill to watch with a crowd. Most importantly, it finally makes a live-action Resident Evil movie feel like the games. For the first time in a live-action Resident Evil movie, I wasn’t just spotting references to the games I love. I actually felt like I was watching someone try to survive one.

Rating: 4/5 atoms

Resident Evil hits theaters on September 18th.

The post Resident Evil Review – It’s a Thriller Night in Raccoon City appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Over time, you pick up on the tricks. You start to spot where a scareactor might be hiding. When you see a dark corner or a strange gap in the wall, you can almost guess when someone will jump out.

But that doesn’t make Halloween Horror Nights any less fun for me. It just means I appreciate the event differently now.

Now, instead of just counting jump scares, I pay more attention to the production design, costumes, effects, and how well Universal pulls me into another world.

In that sense, Halloween Horror Nights 2026 might be one of the best years I’ve had.

This year, Universal Studios Hollywood features eight haunted houses. Some are based on well-known properties like Sinners, Stranger Things, Hellraiser, and Evil Dead Burn, while others are original ideas like KILLceañera: Music by SLASH and Dead, Deader, Deadest.

I went through all eight on opening night, so here’s how I’d rank them.

8. Killer Klowns from Outer Space

I don’t think I’m really the target audience for Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

I haven’t seen the movie, and cheesy 1980s clown horror just isn’t scary to me. So this ended up being the least frightening maze of the night.

Visually, though, I can’t really complain. The maze is much more colorful than almost anything else at Halloween Horror Nights. Universal does a great job bringing the movie’s weird world to life, even for someone like me who isn’t attached to it. The sensory touches, like the smell of cotton candy, are a fun bonus.

The best part comes near the end, when a Klown uses a police officer like a puppet. The scareactor’s timing, lip-syncing, and physical performance really sell the illusion. It’s fun, but since I don’t have nostalgia for the movie or a fear of clowns, this is the maze I’d skip if I came back.

7. Evil Dead Burn

I haven’t seen Evil Dead Burn, and that turned out to be both a good and bad thing for this maze. I could mostly follow what was going on, but I didn’t know enough about the movie to get the context for a lot of the scenes.

That doesn’t mean the house was ineffective. If anything, Evil Dead Burn shows you don’t have to know the movie to enjoy a Halloween Horror Nights maze. The over-the-top kill scenes are fun to watch, and a few even made me want to see the movie.

The bathroom scene stood out to me, and the house gets more violent as you go, so there’s always something to see. But since I’m not familiar with the movie, it mostly felt like walking through a bunch of scenes for fans, instead of one continuous story.

I’d do it again, but only if the line was short.

6. Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness

It’s hard not to smile when you walk into a Halloween Horror Nights maze and suddenly hear “Crazy Train.”

That might also be the main issue with Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness as a horror maze. The house looks amazing and turns Ozzy’s music and style into a wild walk through his songs. Even though I mostly know his music, there was a lot to enjoy.

The giant bat animatronic was my favorite thing to see in the house. And of course, the soundtrack is unbeatable.

But some of the scares don’t really fit with the music. Sometimes scareactors pop out with Ozzy’s famous laugh, but it sounds more like someone having fun than something scary. Instead of thinking, “Something scary is about to happen,” I just thought, “Awesome, it’s Ozzy.” That’s probably not what a haunted house is going for.

But as a celebration of Ozzy Osbourne inside a Halloween Horror Nights maze, it works really well. If you’re a fan of his music, you should definitely check it out.

5. Stranger Things

Stranger Things was the biggest letdown of my night.

That might sound harsh, but the maze actually looks amazing. The set design is an easy 10 out of 10, and as someone who knows the series well, it’s impressive to see places and moments from Stranger Things 5 brought to life. There are even little details to look for, like Eleven’s Dungeons & Dragons stat sheet at the end.

However, in terms of scare factor, the Stranger Things maze is the least scary of them all. Even worse, our walkthrough had some big pacing issues. We had to stop a few times because too many people were ahead of us. Haunted houses really depend on timing, and when that gets thrown off, it’s easier to see the scares coming or to see the same scene over and over again. Sinners made me feel like I was inside the movie; Stranger Things just felt like familiar scenes strung together.

Fans will still find a lot to enjoy. I just wouldn’t wait in a long line to do it again.

4. KILLceañera: Music by SLASH

KILLceañera has something the houses based on big franchises can’t copy: it feels familiar culturally, but you still don’t know exactly what’s coming next. Universal’s original story is about Lola’s quinceañera turning into a deadly revenge plot, keeping HHN Hollywood’s tradition of houses inspired by Latin American culture and myths. SLASH wrote an original score with Spanish guitar, including the song “15 Candles.”

That cultural influence makes the house feel more real than a lot of the other mazes. It was also my pick for the best-looking maze and the best atmosphere at the whole event.

My biggest complaint, which goes for HHN in general but stood out here, is the mannequins.

When a maze mixes real scareactors with fake bodies, you’re supposed to wonder which ones will move. But some of the dummies in KILLceañera looked so fake that the illusion was gone right away.

Still, the atmosphere makes up for those issues, and I’d gladly go through this house again.

3. Dead, Deader, Deadest

This was the big surprise of Halloween Horror Nights 2026. Universal describes Dead, Deader, Deadest as an original haunted house taking guests through an abandoned funeral home where disturbing acts once occurred.

Going in, I didn’t expect much. The name says “dead” three times, so I figured there would be zombies. And yes, there are definitely zombies. The story wasn’t super clear as I walked through, though. I got that it was a funeral home run by a weird owner, with chemicals that brought the dead back to life. But honestly? It didn’t really matter.

Dead, Deader, Deadest had the best scare sequence of my whole night. Near the end, zombies attack from almost every direction. Animatronic bodies move on the floor while live scareactors come at you from other spots, making it feel like an all-out assault on your senses.

For someone used to HHN’s usual jump-scare rhythm, this was one of the few times that actually surprised me. It’s my pick for the scariest maze of 2026, the best original maze, and the biggest surprise of the event.

2. Hellraiser

I didn’t think Hellraiser would end up this high on my list. I know the franchise and have seen the movies that inspired the maze, but I’ve never really been a big Hellraiser fan. However, this maze was really good.

Universal based the house on the original trilogy—Hellraiser, Hellbound: Hellraiser II, and Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth—and sends guests through the Lament Configuration into the world of Pinhead and the Cenobites.

Universal starts building the atmosphere even before you go inside. As you get closer, you see the Lament Configuration, and Pinhead appears outside, talking to people waiting in line. It’s a great way to make you feel like you’re about to leave Universal Studios and step into a freaky, nightmarish world.

Inside, the sets and costumes look amazing. The best moment was when I saw what looked like a Pinhead statue. But it wasn’t actually a statue. A scareactor was perfectly hidden and suddenly revealed himself, giving me one of the best jump scares of the night because it broke the usual HHN pattern.

That’s the kind of thing I want to see more often. Hellraiser didn’t just copy the movie’s look. It actually used those visuals to surprise and scare guests. Even though I didn’t expect much, this is the maze I most want to go through again.

1. Sinners

Nothing else was going to take the top spot. Sinners was the house I was most excited to see before Halloween Horror Nights, and it still lived up to my expectations. I’ve watched Ryan Coogler’s film several times, so I know the characters, locations, and style really well. Universal doesn’t just show you scenes from Sinners. It makes you feel like you’ve stepped into Sinners.

That feeling starts before you even enter the maze. The loading room itself sets up the world, which is something I hadn’t really experienced at HHN in this way before. Once you’re inside, the mix of costumes, sets, lighting, and practical effects is amazing.

My favorite part is the scene where vampires attack Club Juke. Instead of scareactors just popping out from the walls, the attack comes from all sides. Vampires show up above you in the rafters and below you, making it feel much more chaotic. There’s even a part where a vampire comes down on cables.

Another small but effective detail is the glint in the vampires’ eyes. It might seem minor compared to a huge animatronic or fancy room, but those little touches make the illusion work.

Was Sinners the scariest house this year? No. But that’s why I don’t think Halloween Horror Nights should be judged only by scare factor anymore. Sinners was my favorite maze because it shows off everything Universal’s designers do best. The sets, costumes, and effects were amazing. Most importantly, everything worked together to make me feel like I was inside a movie I already knew really well.

If you only have time for one maze at Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood this year, make it Sinners.

Final Thoughts

After years of going to Halloween Horror Nights, I know it’s hard for these mazes to really scare me anymore. There are only so many ways to hide a scareactor around a dark corner before regulars start to notice the pattern.

Jump scares are still fun. Darkness can still get to me, especially when I’m walking through an area without a crowd. And Dead, Deader, Deadest showed that Universal can still surprise me when they mix different effects in new ways.

But fear isn’t really why I keep coming back anymore. I want to see what Universal’s creative teams come up with. I want to see cool practical effects, great costumes, and settings that make me forget I’m just in a theme park for a little while. Plus, I’m eager to see how well they can recreate a movie I’ve watched over and over. By those standards, Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood 2026 is a great year.

It might not be the scariest year I’ve had. It is, however, one of the best-looking. And honestly, that might matter even more to me now.

The post Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood 2026 Haunted Houses Ranked: Sinners Steals the Show appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

I learned this the hard way: by getting hit and dying over and over.

Parrying, Reflex Dodging, and recognizing enemy attack patterns are the basics of combat in Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Once these skills become second nature, the game gets much easier.

If you’re having trouble surviving against the Genma, here are some key lessons I learned while playing.

Stop Treating the Dodge Button Like a Dodge Roll

One of the toughest habits for me to break came from playing other action games.

Whenever I saw a big attack coming, my first instinct was to dodge roll out of the way. Many action games like Elden Ring and Black Myth: Wukong use a dodge roll, but Onimusha: Way of the Sword doesn’t. Instead, you have Reflex Dodge, and if your timing is off, you’ll probably get hit. If you press the dodge button expecting a roll, you’re almost certain to get hit.

So, you need to change that mindset. Practice Reflex Dodge on regular Genma enemies until it becomes muscle memory. Eventually, you’ll be able to do it even in the middle of hectic boss fights.

Use Whatever Defense You’re Best At—But Learn Both

If you’re better at parrying than Reflex Dodging, focus on parrying.

If Reflex Dodge feels easier for you, use that instead.

Staying alive matters more than sticking to one playstyle. Still, don’t ignore either mechanic. Boss fights will test whether you can tell which attacks to parry and which to dodge. For example, grabs must be dodged, so even if you’re great at parrying, you still need good Reflex Dodge timing.

Many attacks have a brief pause or a clear movement right before they hit. The more you see these animations, the easier it gets to know exactly when to react. Yes, you’ll probably get hit a lot while you’re learning. Parrying is usually more forgiving, so I like to use it for defense. But don’t assume that every enemy has the same timing. Practice against all of them.

Turn On Action Prompts If You’re Struggling

I strongly recommend trying out one setting: Action Prompts. Turning this on shows button icons that help you respond to incoming attacks.

This taught me something important late in my playthrough. I came across attacks that seemed to require a Reflex Dodge. But after turning on Action Prompts, I realized I was supposed to parry them. Parrying not only blocked the damage but also staggered the enemy, making the fight much easier.

If you keep getting hit and can’t tell if your timing is off, you might actually be using the wrong defensive move.

If you don’t want extra help, you can turn off Action Prompts, but it’s a very useful tool for learning.

Attack the Stamina Bar, Not Just the Health Bar

Don’t focus only on dealing direct damage. Breaking an enemy’s stamina can be even more valuable. Successful parries drain stamina, and if you empty the bar, you can use a cinematic finisher for big damage.

For bosses, I liked using the Earth-Shakers Oni weapon because it takes a big chunk out of their stamina bar. For groups of regular enemies, I preferred the Wind-Whipper since its wide attack can hit several enemies at once.

The main point is simple: don’t just ask yourself, “How fast can I empty this health bar?”

Instead, ask, “How can I defend myself against this enemy to create an opening?”

Don’t Get Greedy With Combos

When you get an opening, take it, but remember that your next defensive move could be more important than your next attack.

Mixing light and heavy attacks works well because you can deal good damage without getting stuck in a long combo. How much you can attack depends on the boss. Some enemies stay stunned longer, while others recover quickly.

Your Healing Animation Can Get You Killed

One of the most frustrating parts of Onimusha: Way of the Sword for me is that healing isn’t instant.

When Musashi uses a healing item, you have to wait for the eating animation to finish before your health returns. I often made the mistake of spamming the heal button, seeing Musashi eat a hozuki, and jumping back into combat, thinking I was healed. But I wasn’t.

Against aggressive bosses, that’s an easy way to get killed.

Step back first. Create an opening by blocking or dodging, then heal.

Healing items are rare, so don’t waste them. Boss fights often have multiple phases, so save your healing items.

Keep track of your Hozuki Pouch and how many healing items you have left. If you run out often, upgrading the pouch should be a priority since it lets you carry more healing items.

Upgrade Around Your Weaknesses

Don’t just follow someone else’s upgrade order. Upgrade based on what’s actually causing you trouble.

If you keep taking damage and running out of healing, look for materials to upgrade your clothes and Hozuki Pouch. Better clothes boost your defense, and a bigger pouch means more healing items.

If you’re good at parrying and dodging, it might make sense to focus on upgrading your weapons and attack skills. You can change your skills later, so don’t feel stuck with your first choices. As you play, you’ll find which abilities suit your style best.

Don’t Let Groups Surround You

Fighting one enemy is easy. But as you get further in the game, facing several aggressive enemies from all sides can get chaotic quickly. I found it best to keep repositioning so most enemies stay in front of Musashi.

This helps in two ways. First, it reduces surprise attacks from behind. Second, it helps with one of the game’s biggest issues: the camera. Lock-on is useful, especially for special attacks, but sometimes it puts the camera in a bad spot or gets stuck, making it hard to see attacks coming.

Keep moving. Step back when you need to. Don’t be afraid to play defensively until you’re in control. If there are ranged enemies, try to take them out first, but always watch for attacks from the ground.

Don’t Run Away From Bosses—Study Them

When a tough boss beats you, your first instinct might be to put as much distance as possible between you and the boss. But some bosses can close the gap almost instantly. I found it better to stay close, block often while watching my stamina, and spend time studying the boss.

Watch the body animations.

Look for breaks.

Learn which attacks can be parried.

Learn which need to be Reflex Dodged.

Watch for grabs.

Then start responding.

Be careful not to block too much. You need to manage your stamina, and later bosses can punish players who are too defensive with a steady stream of attacks. Early attempts aren’t just about winning—they’re about learning your opponent. It’s like Edge of Tomorrow: you keep dying until beating your opponent becomes instinct.

Sometimes You Need to Stop Attacking

This might be the most important lesson in Onimusha: you don’t always need to be dealing damage.

Sometimes the right move is to back off; sometimes it’s to block. Other times, you should wait for a parry chance or position enemies in front of you. Sometimes, it’s best to collect Souls during a break before the Genma can grab them.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is especially tough if you’re impatient.

Breathe

You’re probably going to die a lot. After a while, it can get discouraging and make you want to throw your controller or punch your desk. I’ve almost thrown my controller more than once after getting close to beating a boss, only to get hit by one combo, die, and have to start over.

So, my best advice is to breathe. Take a deep breath in and out. Calm yourself, because the game can get really frustrating. If you’ve been stuck on a boss for hours, take a break and come back later.

Remember, every missed parry, failed dodge, and tough boss fight teaches you something you can’t get from upgrades: you learn more about the enemy, and you learn to stay calm under pressure.

In Onimusha: Way of the Sword, that might be the most important upgrade of all: knowing the enemy better.

The post Onimusha: Way of the Sword Survival Tips From Someone Who Died A Lot appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

After spending around 42 hours on the main story and side content, I had mixed feelings. Way of the Sword has a lot going for it: the sword fighting is often spectacular, the characters are fun, and Musashi might be my favorite protagonist in the series. Even so, I wasn’t sure the game delivered the return I had hoped for. Primarily, because its strongest elements didn’t fully outweigh its weaker ones.

Unfortunately, I found it harder to love this game than I hoped, mostly because of some questionable choices with the difficulty, boss fights, and overall pacing. Those issues kept Way of the Sword from feeling like the comeback I wanted, even though its combat and characters do a lot right.

At its core, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a lot of fun to play.

The sword fighting is fast, smooth, and a lot of fun when everything comes together. Musashi defeats enemies with a cinematic flair, especially when he takes down several Genma in a row. At its best, the swordplay feels like a samurai version of John Wick.

It’s easy to pick up the combat system, but mastering it is another challenge entirely.

Blocking, parrying, and dodging aren’t just extra moves—they’re the heart of the system. If you just mash buttons, you’ll go down fast, and the enemies make it clear you need to balance aggression with patience.

I relied heavily on parrying during my playthrough, mainly because I couldn’t consistently pull off Reflex Dodges. At first, parrying is pretty forgiving, but later bosses become much faster and harder to predict, so you have to react quickly to avoid losing a lot of health.

Of course, you can upgrade Musashi’s sword, armor, and Oni Gauntlet by finding materials in the world or buying them with Red Souls. Even so, Way of the Sword never lets you just overpower enemies. Survival still depends on how well you can parry or dodge attacks, even with better gear.

A lingering issue is that the game doesn’t explain some mechanics well. For example, at first I didn’t know whether to press Square or Triangle at the right time during Blade Barrage. However, turning on the Action Prompts setting helped a lot by showing the correct button prompts during attacks. As a result, the system became much easier to follow.

I strongly recommend turning that option on.

Action Mode Is Brutal

Here’s another tip: don’t be misled by the difficulty names.

Story Mode is basically what I’d call Normal difficulty, while Action Mode feels more like Hard Mode.

I spent about 40 of my 42 hours playing in Action Mode before switching to Story Mode for a while, since two bosses became too frustrating to keep fighting at the higher difficulty.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword includes many features you’d expect from challenging action games inspired by the Souls series. The combat is tough, but you learn from each fight. The game punishes reckless attacks, and boss fights require you to recognize patterns. Healing means waiting for the right moment, and the game expects you to learn from your mistakes.

The difficulty itself isn’t my issue. What bothered me was that overcoming it in Way of the Sword doesn’t always feel satisfying.

Boss fights often became more annoying than rewarding. Most bosses have two stages, and the final boss has three. If you die in a later stage, you have to start over from the beginning. You might parry attacks successfully for 10 or 15 minutes, save your resources, and stick to your strategy, only for one mistake to ruin everything.

Healing adds to the stress because it isn’t instant. Musashi has to finish an eating animation before his health comes back. Against aggressive bosses, just finding a moment to heal can be tough. Plus, if you get caught by certain attacks, bosses can enter Blaze State, making an already tough fight even harder.

I usually knew why I died, but just understanding your mistake doesn’t make the frustration of having to repeat precise defensive moves any easier.

Many times when I beat a boss, I felt more relieved—or even lucky—than accomplished. That’s an important distinction.

In games that focus on punishing the player, beating a tough enemy should feel exciting. But whenever I defeated a boss in Way of the Sword, I usually just thought, “Well, I’m glad that’s over.”

Because bosses and sub-bosses show up so often, they stop feeling special. What should be dramatic encounters instead become another obstacle between you and the next part of the story.

Your Biggest Enemy Might Be the Camera

Not all the difficulty problems come from enemy design. The lock-on camera also needs improvement.

There are times when Way of the Sword often puts Musashi in tight combat spaces. Unfortunately, the camera tends to bump into objects or buildings that block your view of the enemy.

In a game where spotting incoming attacks means the difference between a successful parry and losing a lot of health, blocking the view of an enemy is a big problem. It becomes another thing for you to overcome when the deck is already stacked against you.

Enemy groups are especially frustrating for this reason. Regular enemies aren’t that smart on their own, but if enough aggressive Genma show up with some tougher enemies, things can get overwhelming fast.

Having a variety of enemies is a plus. Some require you to use ranged attacks, while others dodge and force you to play defensively until they find an opening.

Early on, these combinations make fights interesting. Later on, though, fights can get boring because the game throws too many enemies at you at once.

Musashi Steals the Show

Fortunately, the story gave me a strong motive to keep moving forward. Musashi starts as a cocky young man whose sharp tongue and stubbornness often get him into trouble.

The use of Toshiro Mifune’s likeness works really well for Musashi. There are lots of small details in how Musashi moves and acts that remind me of Mifune’s performances, like the way he sometimes scratches his face. Even a small movement during a fight can show Musashi’s confidence, which fits the character perfectly.

The Japanese voice actors also do a great job, giving the supporting characters a lot of personality.

The story is a large-scale dark fantasy samurai drama with horror elements, world-ending stakes, and some humor thanks to Musashi’s personality. His journey is about self-discovery and grappling with a power he never wanted, and he is the character I care about most.

Fortunately, people new to the series should not have any difficulty understanding the plot, since it isn’t necessary to know the earlier Onimusha games beyond a basic grasp of the Oni Gauntlet and the Genma.

The villains are entertainingly evil, even if they aren’t very complex. You end up hating them, but their motivations aren’t deep enough to make them feel like more than one-dimensional characters.

Beautiful—Most of the Time

Onimusha: Way of the Sword can look absolutely stunning at times.

The environments are beautifully detailed, the Genma designs are excellent, and the combat animations are spectacular. Musashi’s cinematic scenes especially do a great job showing his facial expressions and mannerisms.

However, there’s a clear difference between those cinematic scenes and the regular cutscenes. Sometimes the characters look a bit flat. The lighting, shadows, and textures feel more like those from the PS4 era, and at times the character models seem almost separate from the detailed environments around them.

The presentation is never damaged, though the difference is noticeable.

Was This the Onimusha Return That I Wanted?

Since I finished Onimusha: Way of the Sword, the question has been difficult to answer. There’s a very good game here.

The sword fighting is exciting, Musashi is great, and exploring is rewarding since searching every corner helps you find materials to upgrade your gear. The environments are beautiful, the Japanese voice acting is excellent, and the story delivers a satisfying ending.

I really wanted to say Capcom had another home run on its hands, but I can’t.

The sheer number of bosses and sub-bosses, repeated multi-phase battles, frustrating camera, tricky defensive timing, and steep difficulty in Action Mode eventually wore me down. Those choices are the main reason Onimusha: Way of the Sword didn’t fully land for me, even if I can see why others might appreciate them. Since I’ve never really enjoyed this style of action game, I often wondered if Onimusha needed to include so many of those design choices.

Longtime fans of the earlier games might find themselves asking the same thing.

On the other hand, players who love demanding action games might feel the opposite. Action Mode is a real challenge, and finishing the game actually unlocks a true Hard Mode for those who want even more punishment.

For everyone else, I really suggest trying Story Mode. Even though it’s called Story Mode, it’s not just an easy way to experience the story—it’s more like a standard Normal difficulty.

I’m glad the Onimusha series is finally back after more than twenty years of waiting. I just wish I had enjoyed playing through it as much as I enjoyed seeing the series return.

Rating: 3.5/5 atoms

The post Onimusha: Way of the Sword Review – A Long-Awaited Return That Cuts Both Ways appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Watching Project Hail Mary shows just how impressive big science fiction films can be. Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller mix science fiction, comedy, drama, action, and adventure so well that no single part takes over. The humor keeps things light when the science gets tricky, the emotional moments add weight to the mission, and the action brings real suspense.

Ryan Gosling delivers a strong performance as Ryland Grace, a scientist who wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how he arrived. Grace isn’t your typical action hero, and Gosling brings out his awkwardness, fear, humor, and vulnerability. Whether he’s worried about a new problem or excited about a breakthrough, his reactions feel genuine, and his “every man” persona makes you root for him.

But the heart of the film is Grace’s relationship with Rocky. Their friendship turns the story from just a space survival adventure into something much deeper. A lot of the film’s humor and emotion comes from watching them learn to talk to each other, build trust, and share what they know.

Their friendship also highlights one of Andy Weir’s main ideas: progress comes from working together, sharing knowledge, and not giving up even when things seem impossible.

The film delivers everything I look for in great science fiction, especially with its amazing space visuals and sense of scale. While it has big ideas and striking images, it’s the humor, humanity, and friendship that really make it stand out.

Movie Review: 5/5 atoms

Video

Project Hail Mary is available on Ultra HD Blu-ray in native 4K, HEVC/H.265, Dolby Vision/HDR10 presentation with a mix of 2.39:1 and 1.78:1 aspect ratios. Project Hail Mary delivers a beautiful native 4K image that fits the format perfectly. First of all, the contrast really stands out, with the ship displays, stars, and spacecraft lighting shining clearly against the dark space. Highlights look bright and strong but never overexposed, and the black levels are just as impressive. Shadows are deep and realistic, and the darkness outside the ship creates a truly black background without hiding the details in the ship’s darker corridors.

The color saturation is another highlight, with deep reds and rich greens bringing the image to life, especially when Tau Ceti e—nicknamed Adrian—first appears. The background colors pop against the bold red of the spacesuits. The detail is impressive, showing things like Grace’s light stubble and the textures and flaws on Rocky’s surface. I didn’t notice any major artifacts, and the edges look clean without any fake sharpness.

The film used a ‘film out’ process, which means the digital footage was transferred onto real film stock and then scanned back in. This adds a bit of grain, which keeps the image from looking too clean and gives the sharp 4K presentation a nice cinematic feel.

Video Review: 5/5 atoms

Audio

Project Hail Mary is available on Ultra HD Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos or, if Atmos is not supported, a 7.1 Dolby TrueHD audio presentation. This review will cover the Blu-ray’s Dolby Atmos mix. The Atmos mix for Project Hail Mary focuses on precision rather than just power. The sound panning through the soundscape is dynamic and smooth, and the placement of sounds within the Hail Mary is especially impressive. For instance, alarms, notification pings, mechanical creaks, and Rocky’s movements are all accurately positioned. The ship’s computer voice and the chimes also add a playful sense of direction.

The mix uses the height channels to add nuance to the ship’s setting, where sounds from above create a realistic sense of vertical space without drawing too much attention. The quieter atmospheric effects might be even more effective. The surround channels use echoes, mechanical noises, and ambient sounds to gently wrap around the listener, making you feel like another passenger on the ship.

Daniel Pemberton’s score fills the room but never overpowers the quieter character moments. At the same time, the dialogue always sounds clear and natural, and it never gets drowned out, even during the more chaotic scenes. The bass follows the same approach: the subwoofer adds a satisfying weight to engines, ship movement, and bigger scenes when needed, but never feels overdone.

Audio Review: 5/5 atoms

Special Features

Project Hail Mary has the following bonus features that can be found on the disc:

• Audio Commentary by Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
• Earth’s Favorite Eridian
• Deleted Scenes
  • Day 1 Food Paste
  • I Think I’m Handling Things Pretty Awesome
  • How To Put On A Spacesuit
  • You Sleep, I Watch
  • Maybe We’re Cousins

Features Assessment

The bonus features may not be extensive, but they give fans a nice behind-the-scenes look and add some enjoyable extra value to the 4K release.

The feature-length commentary stands out as the most in-depth extra. Lord and Miller have great chemistry, making their discussion about adapting Andy Weir’s science-heavy novel, balancing humor and tension, and handling technical and storytelling challenges fun to listen to. They share helpful information in a way that’s easy for anyone to follow, while still giving film fans plenty of behind-the-scenes insight.

The featurette on Earth’s Favorite Eridian runs just under eight minutes and focuses on making Rocky feel real. It covers the different techniques used to create the character, including puppetry, animatronics, and digital effects. It’s interesting to see how many methods went into making Rocky seem believable, especially since the final result never looks like just a visual effect. The only downside is that it’s a bit short—Rocky deserves a longer making-of, so this feels more like a fun introduction than a full behind-the-scenes look.

The disc includes five deleted scenes, totaling just under ten minutes. While these scenes aren’t crucial to the final film, they offer a little more time with Grace and Rocky and are fun to watch after seeing the movie.

Special Features Review: 3/5 atoms

Overall, Project Hail Mary is a fantastic film that, at this point, is still one of my favorites of the year. The video and audio presentations look and sound fabulous, while the special features are a bit lacking.

Overall Review: 4.5/5 atoms

Project Hail Mary is now available in stores on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray.

This Blu-ray was provided by Alliance Entertainment for review purposes.

The post Project Hail Mary – 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

We’re looking at robotic arms launching riders through simulated superhero training, rally cars bouncing over tough terrain, huge Audio-Animatronics, enormous physical sets, new coaster features and even a journey right into the Mayan Underworld.

Although Disney has also confirmed that a complete reimagining of Disneyland’s Tomorrowland is underway, the most exciting announcement gave us a much clearer understanding of how Disney intends to make its new attractions stand out.

This was especially clear at Avengers Campus.

Avengers Campus Is Finally Getting Its Big E-Ticket

Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure will finally open in 2028, including two new attractions: Avengers Infinity Defense and Stark Flight Lab.

Infinity Defense is by far the larger of the two. Iman Vellani will reprise her role as Ms. Marvel and will recruit guests to join the fight against King Thanos—a version of Thanos who actually won. Then, they’ll travel across the Multiverse to gather the Avengers to stop King Thanos.

Disney is committing to creating very large physical environments that combine with similarly huge media scenes as guests travel from one place to another, such as from Wakanda to Asgard and to New York City. The ride system will use the same fundamental technology as Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure at Tokyo DisneySea. Thus, Infinity Defense may incorporate motion, physical scenery, and large-scale digital environments.

The event will also see Jeremy Renner reprise his role as Hawkeye, Anthony Mackie as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, and, most excitingly for me, Robert Downey Jr. return as Tony Stark.

Guests Take Flight Thanks to Stark Industries

Downey won’t be stopping there; he will also be at the Stark Flight Lab alongside Mackie and Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel.

The kind of attraction seems entirely different since guests will board two-person “gyro-kinetic pods” which travel along a track before being caught by huge robotic arms. The arms will then lift the pods and perform high-speed flight maneuvers reminiscent of those in Iron Man and The Avengers. In fact, Disney has assigned individual personalities to the robotic arms, drawing on the character of DUM-E, Tony Stark’s robotic assistant.

One of the things I’m most looking forward to, as a huge Iron Man fan, is seeing Downey reprise his role as Tony Stark. Avengers Campus takes place in the Marvel Multiverse and has no ties to the main 616 timeline. This allows Disney to place Tony Stark beside Sam Wilson’s Captain America and other heroes who, in fact, could not have coexisted at that stage in the films.

Villains Land Is Going Big

Plans for Disney’s Villains-themed expansion of its Magic Kingdom were first revealed in 2024. Still, it wasn’t until D23 2026 that the official name, Villains Land, was announced, along with its story and a great deal more detailed information about its two main attractions.

This won’t be a minor addition; Disney has compared the size and scale of Villains Land to that of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

The main attraction will be a Maleficent roller coaster, along which riders will race through enchanted briars surrounding her mountain-top fortress, with Disney hinting that the coaster will include elements the Imagineers have never tried before.

The concept art makes the experience feel appropriately intimidating by depicting dragon-inspired coaster trains rushing through Maleficent’s collapsing fortress, green fire burning from the surrounding towers.

The next attraction takes you down into the ground.

Guests will go down into the catacombs under the Evil Queen’s palace, where the Magic Mirror will take them into a supernatural Mirror Realm full of Disney Villains. According to Disney, the experience will combine special effects with physical sets to bring the setting to life, and concept artwork depicts characters such as Cruella de Vil, Jafar, Dr. Facilier, Scar, and Ursula.

Villains Land is so exciting because Disney has never before devoted an entire park area of this size to its villains. It is impossible to determine whether attractions like Monsters Unchained at Universal’s Epic Universe place any extra pressure on Disney. Yet it is clear that competition has raised the expectations regarding what a modern dark-themed attraction can achieve.

The land will be as large as Galaxy’s Edge and include two main rides, indicating that Disney plans to meet those expectations vigorously.

Piston Peak Brings the Cars World into the “Wheelderness”

The idea of having Piston Peak National Park at Magic Kingdom always seemed like an unusual way of getting Cars into Frontierland. However, the new information about the new Cars ride has made the attraction much more interesting.

Instead of building a new version of Radiator Springs Racers, Disney is focusing on off-road rally racing.

Cars Ridge Run Rally has riders speeding over rough ground that is based on America’s national parks, with them climbing Piston Peak, arriving at a frozen mountaintop, going down a camelback drop, and then finally rushing through a field of active geysers before Lightning McQueen and Mater announce the end of the race for the Racing Sports Network. Disney is emphasizing the bouncing and rough terrain as part of the experience, not just scenery riders pass by.

Since I enjoy motor racing, the idea of a rally event appealed to me. Because rally racing is inherently chaotic, fast, and very bumpy, basing the attraction on that physical sensation could make Ridge Run Rally come across as considerably different from Disney’s current Cars attractions.

The ride next to it, Miss Fritter’s Daredevil Spin-Along, is quite different. This family attraction brings the demolition derby from Cars 3 to life using a school-bus-sized Miss Fritter Audio-Animatronic to supervise the chaos.

The secondary attraction also seems to have an enormous physical centerpiece.

Indiana Jones Is Heading Straight to the Underworld

There has always seemed to be a certain appropriateness about this change. Since DINOSAUR and Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure use the same ride technology, it is almost as if we have come full circle, with the former becoming a completely new Indiana Jones experience.

What Disney is doing isn’t just transferring the Indy ride from Disneyland to Florida.

Indiana Jones and the Myth of the Jade Serpent will take place in an ancient Mayan temple close to a cenote. On this site, a local legend holds that a passage leads down to the Mayan Underworld, taking visitors into a situation much like Indiana Jones’. Various difficulties occur, causing the riders to go through a portal and leading them into encounters with monstrous bats, giant scorpions, fire, and the huge serpentine Tsukán. According to Disney, the Imagineers have been seeking advice from archaeologists, anthropologists, and experts on the Mayans while developing the attraction.

The company has also shown off a massive, hand-sculpted Audio-Animatronic replica of the creature, which towers over the Imagineers standing next to it. Harrison Ford is also officially joining the attraction, confirming that the ride will use his likeness on the Indiana Jones Audio-Animatronic. This marks the first time his face has appeared as Indy in a Disney Parks attraction.

Disney Isn’t Finished With Tomorrow

The most unexpected thing about the showcase was also the announcement that gave the least detail.

Finally, Tomorrowland at Disneyland will undergo a complete reimagining.

Disney states that the Imagineers are just at the starting stage of development and therefore there are no final attraction plans. All the company has committed to is a transformation that will include new attractions, more open areas, and a renewed emphasis on the optimism, innovation, and possibility that originally characterized the land. Unfortunately, it’s also been revealed that the Tomorrowland refresh will take precedence over the Avatar Land expansion at Disney’s California Adventure.

If current developments in robotic flight arms, rally racing, giant serpents, vast physical environments, and experimental coaster technology indicate the direction to which Imagineering is moving, what specific plans does the company have when it gets the chance to reinvent Tomorrowland completely?

It is possible that we will not know the answer for a while.

But after what Disney just showed at D23, playing it safe would almost seem out of character.

The post D23 2026: Disney’s Next Generation of Rides Is Getting Wild appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Tōkon is easy to get the hang of. Moving around feels smooth, and attacks are split into light, medium, and heavy, plus standard and heavy special moves. Using these with different directions makes it much simpler to remember your character’s moves, instead of having to memorize the complex inputs you usually see in fighting games.

That same simplicity shows up in Tōkon’s team mechanics. Bringing in teammates with a press of a button feels natural. As a result, you’ll be launching opponents, swapping characters, and finishing with a big team attack with relative ease. When you compare it to Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Tōkon is less chaotic and makes cool combos much easier to pull off. But don’t mistake easy execution for an easy game.

Easy to Learn, Difficult to Survive

Someone who simply wants to pick up a controller and mash buttons can absolutely have fun with Tōkon. You’ll hit things. Cool Marvel stuff will happen. Characters will fly across the screen. For a while, you’ll probably feel pretty powerful.

Then someone counters you.

Defense is where Tōkon starts to separate casual players from those who really know the game. Timing matters a lot, and if you know when to counter, you can quickly turn defense into offense. Because combos aren’t that hard to do, a single well-timed defensive move can lead to a long and punishing combo.

This creates an interesting situation in Tōkon. Arc System Works made the controls easy for newcomers, but the game doesn’t really reward you if you stay at that beginner level. This becomes especially noticeable in Story Mode.

The game gets harder as you keep winning against the CPU, and there’s no way just to pick a difficulty and stick with it. If things get too tough, losing lets you lower the difficulty for another try, but once you win, you’re back to where you started. For players interested in learning the game’s systems, I understand the philosophy behind it. Tōkon wants you to improve.

If you bought the game just because you love Marvel and want to enjoy the story, this can get frustrating. You might end up stuck in a loop of losing, lowering the difficulty, winning, and repeating, unless you’re ready to spend time learning defense and your characters’ moves.

The same goes for online play. You might get by with button mashing at first, but anyone who knows Tōkon’s defensive mechanics will quickly beat you.

Thankfully, Tōkon gives you some exceptional tools for becoming that better player.

A Fighting Game That Actually Teaches You How to Fight

Tōkon features some of the best teaching tools I’ve encountered in a fighting game.

The tutorials teach you the basics through hands-on lessons, and each character has a guide that explains their main moves. There are also practical combo lessons that show how to turn certain attacks into real damage, plus a great free-form combo challenge mode.

Instead of just asking you to memorize a set button sequence, these challenges might have you use a specific move in a combo and hit a certain damage goal. It’s a small distinction that completely changes how you learn.

Rather than just copying someone else’s combo, you’re encouraged to try things out and learn how your character’s moves fit together. The exercises show you what to do after landing Spider-Man’s overhead, how to follow up when you don’t have Assemble Meter, or how to get the most damage when your resources are full.

Add in a great Training Mode, searchable replays, replay takeover, and helpful training presets, and Tōkon gives you just about everything you’d want for learning a fighting game. It doesn’t eliminate the steep learning curve, but it does make learning the game a lot more fun.

Four Heroes, One Fight

The team system also gives experienced players a lot to try out. Your first character is your team leader, and you start fights with just part of your four-person team. You unlock more teammates during the match by breaking the stage, causing wall splats, or even losing a round.

It’s a smart system because it stops matches from getting out of hand right away. Even if your opponent gets ahead early, unlocking more teammates gives you more ways to fight back. Once you unlock your third and fourth characters, things get a lot more interesting. You can start a combo with one fighter, switch to another to keep it going, and maybe finish with a big team attack.

Building your team adds another layer of strategy. Maybe your main character has trouble with Magneto’s zoning. You can set up your team so someone else can handle him better. Or if you like using Blade but have trouble breaking through defenses, you could start with a character who’s good at mix-ups, get your opening, and then tag in Blade to keep the combo going. The controls might be simple, but there’s a lot of depth underneath.

Marvel Through and Through

Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls really shines in its roster. Arc System Works didn’t just drop Marvel characters into an anime fighting game. Their personalities actually shape how they play. Spider-Man swings around the stage with his webs and can trick opponents into anti-air attacks by hanging above them before jumping away. Magik uses portals to attack from odd angles. Storm controls the weather to move things, control space, and even pull enemies toward her.

Then there’s Deadpool.

Deadpool might be one of the most fun fighting-game characters I’ve played in years. His moves are basically a tribute to the whole genre. You’ll spot attacks and references from Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, The King of Fighters, Tekken, Guilty Gear, and more.

Accidentally using his take on Scorpion’s famous “Get over here!” move always made me laugh, and spotting bits of Yoshimitsu and other fighting-game characters in his animations kept Deadpool fun to play, even when I was losing.

That focus on character is true for the whole roster and might be Tōkon’s best feature. These aren’t just Marvel skins on fighting-game templates. Spider-Man fights like Spider-Man. Wolverine is as aggressive as you’d expect. Storm controls the battlefield just like she should. Beating the CPU at Level 4 with Wolverine was when I knew he’d be my main. His aggressive style just fit how I like to play.

More Than Versus Mode

Surprisingly, Story Mode is another key highlight. The campaign has five episodes, each focused on a different Marvel team, with stories written by comic writer Kieron Gillen. Instead of just using regular cutscenes, most of the story plays out as a motion comic, and different manga and comic artists give each episode its own look.

As a big anime fan, I loved seeing artists like Hiro Mashima (Fairy Tail) and Betten Court (My Hero Academia: Vigilantes) put their own spin on characters like Captain America and Spider-Man. The stories can be a bit formulaic, and I liked some episodes more than others, but the way they’re presented makes them worth checking out. They also give you a good reason to try every character on the roster.

Unfortunately, a lot of the anime scenes get reused between episodes, so after a few stories, you’ll probably end up skipping scenes you’ve already seen. Outside Story Mode, Survival gives you another big solo challenge: survive 100 battles that get harder as you go. Every five rounds, you pick stat bonuses to boost your fighter, and your progress saves at those points. It’s not as tough as most Survival Modes, but it’s still a fun way to play.

Then there’s Arcadia Rumble, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls’ quirky multiplayer side mode. Up to eight players can explore a big lobby with their custom avatars, collect stars, power up fighters, complete events, and battle each other. The mode switches between prep phases and classic 4v4 fights over five rounds.

It’s kind of like someone turned the City Trial mode from Kirby Air Riders into a Marvel fighting game. I don’t think I’ll spend tons of time in Arcadia Rumble, but I like what it brings to the game. Even better, it lets players of all skill levels compete without every match turning into a super technical 1v1 fight.

Final Verdict

Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls does something you don’t see often. It makes fighting look simple, but it’s not actually easy.

The simple controls let casual players jump right in and pull off cool attacks, flashy combos, and big team moves. But underneath that, the game still demands good timing, defense, matchup knowledge, and smart team building. That’s what makes the game great, but it can also be frustrating at times.

If you’re here just for Marvel, you might find Story Mode’s changing difficulty tougher than expected. And online, you’ll quickly see that button mashing won’t replace learning the game’s defense.

But if you’re willing to learn the systems, you’ll find a really rewarding fighting game with great learning tools, tons of team-building options, and one of the best Marvel rosters I’ve seen.

And for longtime fighting-game fans, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls gives you plenty of depth without making you do crazy controller tricks just to pull off something cool. I’m not the fighting-game player I once was, but Tōkon might just inspire me to get better again.

Rating: 4/5 atoms

The post Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls PS5 Review — Easy to Pick Up, Ready to Fight Back appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

That combination works surprisingly well.

There is a Spielberg-like sense of emotion beneath the science-fiction spectacle and growing dread. Mitchell lets the film breathe enough for its characters to establish themselves before things start going horribly wrong. At the same time, nobody will mistake this for Mitchell suddenly becoming restrained. His camera still has that wonderfully uneasy quality, dwelling just long enough to make you wonder if something important is hiding in the frame. When the movie gets nasty, Mitchell’s fondness for gore comes through clearly. The result feels like a strange collision between classic blockbuster filmmaking and a much meaner genre movie.

What really keeps The End of Oak Street moving is how unpredictable it becomes. The basic setup might make you believe you know the kind of science-fiction thriller you are watching. Mitchell seems aware of those expectations and spends much of the movie setting them up so he can knock them down. Several moments take sharp turns into territory I wasn’t expecting. For better or worse, that willingness to get weird gives it an energy many polished studio sci-fi films lack.

David Robert Mitchell channels Spielberg in The End of Oak Street, a bloody sci-fi thriller packed with surprises and made for a rowdy theater crowd.

It is also funnier than its grim circumstances suggest. The humor doesn’t turn the movie into a comedy, thankfully, but brief moments of silliness and well-timed reactions keep the doom and gloom from becoming exhausting. More importantly, those laughs make the darker moments hit harder.

Sometimes the movie feels like it is testing how far it can push the expectations of this kind of thriller. Not all swings will land equally for everyone, though. Yet, I would rather watch Mitchell (or any other director) take those swings than not at all. And if possible, see this one with a crowd.

Overall, The End of Oak Street feels designed for that communal theater experience: the nervous laughter, the sudden gasps, the occasional horrified yell, and those wonderful moments when an entire auditorium realizes, almost exactly at the same time, that something terrible is about to happen. Mitchell has made a sci-fi thriller with plenty of tension and gore, but also heart, humor, and a cheeky desire to keep pulling the rug out from underneath you. That unpredictability is exactly what makes it such a blast.

Rating: 3.5/5 atoms

The End of Oak Street hits theaters on August 14th.

The post The End of Oak Street Review – Come for the Mystery, Stay for the Mayhem appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

The cast features an eclectic mix of actors, especially if you’re a fan of J-pop boy bands or classic yakuza movies. Daisuke Sakuma, best known as a member of Snow Man, plays Daiya with an easygoing charm that makes him instantly likable. Yuta Nakamoto of NCT 127 brings a cooler, more guarded energy to Kiryu. Neither performer is just there to attract music fans. Their experience as idols helps during the dance sequences, and both understand the film’s playful rhythm and know when to let the veteran actors steal a scene.

And steal scenes they do. Kippei Shiina, Renji Ishibashi, and Hitoshi Ozawa have spent years playing tough guys, gangsters, or authority figures. So, it’s a delight to watch them parody these roles. They still carry themselves like people who command the screen, then they’re asked to dance. The contrast stays funny, especially because Uchida treats their frustration with just enough sincerity.

With clever casting, energetic choreography, and memorable brawls, The Specials transforms a ridiculous premise into crowd-pleasing entertainment.

The premise also gives the film room to explore emotionally guarded outsiders who don’t know how to work as a team. Their rehearsals become awkward, quasi-group therapy, and Urara adds warmth without making the story sentimental. Yuzuki Hirakawa brings a welcome presence to a film otherwise crowded with psychologically damaged men. By the time the team performs their routine, the retro soundtrack and choreography become more than punchlines. You want them to win the whole competition.

Despite being a playful parody of yakuza films, The Specials has a surprising number of fantastic action sequences. The film mixes clean choreography with flashes of genuine brutality, and Yohei Tateishi’s cinematography gives the daytime comedy a polished brightness before shifting into grimier textures whenever the fists come out.

Overall, The Specials is a film that seamlessly blends comedy out of dance-floor antics and underworld chaos. Better still, its warmth never dulls the danger or makes the characters untouchable. The Specials takes that basic appeal and scales it into a crowd-pleasing ensemble piece. It’s silly, stylish, heartfelt, and far more effective than a movie about dancing hitmen has any right to be.

Rating: 4/5 atoms

The post The Specials (Fantasia International Film Festival 2026 Review) appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

At the center sits Eiji Tsuburaya. The documentary repeatedly returns to the punishing labor behind the original’s production: miniature cities, creature suits, optical effects, detailed designs, and weekly television deadlines that called for movie-scale imagination at an unforgiving pace. Archival footage from the shoots and clips from iconic episodes reveal the handmade ingenuity involved. By the end, The Origin of Ultraman feels as much like a tribute to Tsuburaya—the “Father of Tokusatsu”—as it does to Ultraman himself.

Still, anyone expecting a chronological account covering every Ultra hero, production shift, or major era will leave with gaps. Directors Yu Nakamura and Kazutaka Yoshida are more interested in passion than documentation, and it’s easy to see why. Their interview lineup is remarkable: Guillermo del Toro, Hideo Kojima, Hideaki Anno, Hirokazu Koreeda, and Nicolas Winding Refn—just to name a few. Together, they approach Ultraman as a mythology, childhood memory, religious symbol, design object, and creative trigger.

The interviews are terrific because every interviewee openly talks about how much they love the character. Refn discusses Ultraman with pure excitement, like a kid talking about firetrucks, while Kojima describes believing in Ultraman almost as one might believe in God. That kind of enthusiasm becomes infectious.

The Origin of Ultraman honors Eiji Tsuburaya and six decades of tokusatsu history through archival footage and deeply personal interviews.

The conversations become even richer when they move beyond nostalgia. Del Toro and Koreeda compare Catholic and East Asian religious traditions while discussing why they believe Ultraman connected so strongly with audiences in Mexico but never became equally embedded in the United States. Original Ultra Q and Ultraman star Hiroko Sakurai gives a more intimate connection to the people who built the phenomenon. Taken together, these perspectives turn the documentary into something larger than franchise promotion, and it becomes an exploration of how popular art travels, changes meaning, and settles into people’s inner lives.

Unfortunately, the filmmaking rarely equals the quality of its material. This is an official Tsuburaya production distributed by TOHO NEXT and Tsuburaya Productions, yet it often looks strangely amateurish. Onscreen text changes style and position without much logic. Names can be difficult to locate, subtitles occasionally compete with other graphics, and transitions between speakers feel clunky. Classic footage and archival material are welcome, but clips sometimes begin or end at awkward points, interrupting thoughts rather than extending them. The problem is not a lack of access. It’s a lack of polish.

That becomes frustrating because the raw material is so strong. A cleaner edit could have created a sweeping cultural history worthy of the anniversary. Instead, the production occasionally resembles an excellent collection of bonus features assembled without enough attention to rhythm. Even so, the film’s affection shines through, and the images, memories, and thoughtful comments help explain why Ultraman has lasted so long.

Overall, The Origin of Ultraman might not be the ultimate documentary as its official label suggests. Still, it does capture something special: the joy on someone’s face when an old hero makes them feel like a child again.

Rating: 3/5 atoms

The post The Origin of Ultraman (Fantasia International Film Festival 2026 Review) appeared first on Nerd Reactor.