Reviewed by Mike Belfance

This is one of those movies that I liked a lot better after seeing a second time. That said, I definitely don't think it's a classic or anything, but it's a sign that the director has a lot of promise. "The Masters" is one of the few karate movies ever attempted in 3dmm. It's not an easy genre to work with in 3d Movie Maker, mostly because the actors movements are so rigid and their actions are so limited. Considering that, the action scenes are pulled off really well- the problem is that the action scenes are the only things really pulled of well in this movie. Whether that's enough for you or not depends on the viewer.

The story is basically non-existent. It has a bunch of karate masters fighting over a book. If JDR Revival is mindless entertainment, then this is entertainment you can enjoy even if you're in a completely comatose state. Before you watch this know that this is NOT a movie you watch for it's storyline. This movie is carried by it's action scenes. Thankfully, those are pulled off well. It's a great credit to the director as an animator that he actually made these characters *look* like they're actually fighting using karate. The movie heavily uses pre-made scenes, but they are used to great effect in the fight scenes. Every little thing in the pre-made scenes are used to make the fights more interesting: tables, arches, chairs, piles of bones, you name it. The car chases also, even though they start off kind of "meh" get very cool by the movies end.

With fights this cool looking, had it been released in 1998 when movies like "1000 Hearts" were being released, this would have been an instant classic. Back then you could have, say, a giant skeleton appear and start chasing the main characters for no reason at all, and as long as it looked cool, no one would care. Now however movies are getting more professional, so while cool fight scenes could have carried a movie into greatness back then, the things the movie is missing stick out a lot more as serious problems now. First of all, good sound effects are seriously lacking. The director used all default 3dmm sounds for the most part- which rarely sounded right. The sound of a book opening when someone stands up, for instance, really doesn't fit. The gunshots sound more like balloons popping, and the "footstep in bones" sound effect doesn't really work for someone flipping over a table. Also, the lack of any story means you really don't care which one of the characters wins the fight going on, which kind of takes away from how much you can get into the fight scenes. There are some construction problems as well. Cars are all midget-sized, buildings look more like neon colored rows of boxes, and the rain at the end is kind of...strange looking (I personally would be terrified if 3d blue parentheses were falling from the sky). On top of all that this movie has the most utterly pointless ending ever, which might have worked for a "Who's the Director Anyway?!" episode, but doesn't really fit here.

Still...the fight scenes are just so friggen COOL! For me, that's worth at least an average score, especially considering that the entire point of the movie was basically just an excuse to do some neat fight scenes. With that in mind, it did it's job. The animation is cool in an "old school" kinda way. It has more than it's fair share of problems, but if your looking for mindless, well-animated action (and you've already seen the JDR movies), this is the movie to get. I give it a 68% out of 100%.

68%