Reviewed by Aaron Haynes

When Bown and Pogo approached me on MSN to upload Pogo's new film, a parody of Replay, I was EXTREMELY skeptical. I told them I didn't want to use up Goro's webspace by uploading a bunch of Ramza/Bown hate movies. Upon watching the movie, uploaded to a Geoshitties server or something, I instantly felt guilty and mirrored it on Lock 'N Toad; The movie was not just a rip on Replay for its own sake, but achieved a lasting appeal by innocently mimicking every last aspect of that movie, elevating it from simple parody to complex commentary on Ramza's epic flop. With KRB Revival, lightning strikes twice as Pogo builds upon the Ramza/Bown hate movie examination he started in R:R, creating a bit sloppier, but just as funny indictment of Killing Ramza Brave as he did of Replay.

The biggest thing I was worried about with this movie was that it wouldn't really have a central hook to it like Replay: Replayed did, making it into a movie that just kicks KRB over and over again for 10-15 minutes. But while Replay: Replayed was fascinated with the complete and utter failure of Replay on almost all levels (not to make a stab at Ramza here, but the movie is so supremely bad that it starts to mesmerize rather than aggravate -- R:R didn't so much tear it a new asshole as thoroughly examine every aspect of it with a mixture of disbelief and wonderment), KRB Revival ultimately emerges with a central point as well. It's not about slamming the original Killing Ramza Brave as a bad film (that has been done several times over by just about everyone), but about examining the world of Ramza and Bown's hate movies, satirically pitting them against each other, and just as it's running out of steam, calmly and quietly make one simple observation that brings every insult war, every ruined movie thread, and every penis joke crumbling down: Why don't Bown and Doughboy just put him on their ignore lists?

Admittedly, this is the pessimistic way of looking at it, but after months of this, I probably would have had the same idea Pogo did. The Bown/Ramza thing has cooled to a point where a statement as powerful as KRB Revival would have been becomes a little unnecessary, but it works in a kind of retrospective way. And god damn is it funny.

KRB Revival obviously draws its name from the bizarre and controversially received JDR Revival, but the name joke is not all this film has in common with the aimlessly funny epic. JDR Revival is used a looking glass for which to view Killing Ramza Brave through: By using music and sight gags from that movie, Pogo paints a new picture of KRB, showing us without a single major change to the order of the film's events that it's basically an action movie that picked Ramza as a target rather arbitrarily. The Revival imagery and feel to the movie is maintained a stylistic approach, too, as simply repeating Killing Ramza Brave in its entirety but in parody form would get boring REALLY fast, and the new way of looking at it helps.

The parody here is genius. Pogo does the same thing he did with R:R, using the exact events of the original movie as a metaphor for the way he plans to skewer it. In KRB, Bown and Doughboy are outraged at Ramza's new teaser. Now we've pulled out to the real world, where Bown and Doughboy are outraged that nobody liked KRB, and it turns out the layer of reality above KRB is actually still KRB. If you think about it long enough, it's like peeling an onion. You go down at least four layers before you get to the level "Person in Da Citie" exists on. Bown and Doughboy head to the BB to kill Ramza Brave again (I wonder if Pogo had intended for the "Okay, but here's the real top layer of reality" implication in KRB Revival to mimic the dream sequence in JDR Revival? The more I think about it, this movie DOES have more layers than an onion), and this time "Person in Da Citie" is the original Killing Ramza Brave and....you really have to see it. The stabs are so subtle that it's easy to register them but not be blown away by how brilliant they are.

The Replayed series of movies often toe the line that divides satirizing the original material and not straying too far in order to avoid extra animating. Pogo pushes it a bit farther here than he did in Replay, sometimes inserting off-subject sight gags in an attempt to spice up long scenes of nothing much new happening. The problem with this is that the parody aspects of KRB Revival are so good that when we see lowbrow humor that doesn't match the relevant parody, it damages the feel of the movie somewhat. I don't know if it's because KRB is significantly longer and a different sort of movie than Replay, but it does run out of steam in places. The experience as a whole is highly entertaining and I've seen it a bunch of times, though.

Bown and Doughboy reappear to do their own voices for the parody, and the acting is....well, sorry, guys, but it's just as bad as ever, aside from a few well-delivered lines. They don't cross the parody line, though, always speaking as if they were playing themselves and not in on Pogo's joke. Pogo himself does an incredible job as Ramza, recurring the role from Replay: Replayed. The Ramza character has the best lines in the movie, and they're delivered so brilliantly ("SAY HELLO TO MY IGNORE LIST, BITCH!") that they stick in your mind the way few lines in 3DMM movies do (and I mean for good reasons, Jeff). Many of the best moments in the film have their punchlines delivered by Ramza -- I had to stop the movie when Ramza's character from his own films and Bown and Doughboy from KRB finally meet for the first time (remember that whoever's making the hate movie always portrays the hated person as being a homosexual mongoloid retard, so this was actually an iconic moment). Ramza stares at Bown and Doughboy, who are staring back from behind the 1-foot high cover in the BB building. There's a brief silence. Then, Ramza blurts out, "FUCK, YOU GUYS ARE STUPID!!!!" and walks off. I couldn't stop laughing.

Then of course there's the way it ends. Pogo totally blew my mind here; I was expecting some kind of parody of the safe drop at the end of Killing Ramza Brave, but the revelation Bown's character makes ("Come on, Doughboy, we don't have to take this shit") and the way they ultimately deal with Ramza made my jaw drop at how simple and brilliant it was all at once. Of course, there's one more lowbrow gag after that which kind of kills the moment, but I can't really penalize for it. KRB Revival manages to not only follow up Replay: Replayed and match it step for step, but expand on the messages that film introduced and arrive at a smart, if pessimistic answer. Pogo, my hat's off to you. Hoping to see Redux REDUCED before too long. ;)

Critical Score: 85/100.
Personal Score: 90/100.