tangomargarine

I'm not entirely sure that the movie turned out the way it did because they were purposely doing it that way, and not just out of general sloppiness and...lack of talent? But after viewing much of their other content, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on that.

In my mind, the whole point of the movie is that the humor, plot, effects, etc., etc. are sloppy and lazy. It's "bad" for meta reasons, after all the tearing apart of similar low-budget crapfests they regularly do on Best of the Worst. One of their repeated complaints is "I just came up with a plot that makes more sense in the last five minutes", so they're putting their money where their mouths are, so to speak.

Yeah it's not going to win any awards (my one major complaint is Mike's "acting voice" is irritatingly phony), but I thoroughly enjoyed it for what it was. If you're a fan of the RLM guys already, just sit back and enjoy it for the dumb fun that it is.

This is a rare occasion where I find myself actually preferring the spinoff over the original. In this version you don't have the mandated minutes-long scene every episode where Toma Kamijo lectures the villain of the week on how what they're doing is wrong, while you're rolling your eyes and wishing he would just shut up.

The tradeoff is Kuroko Shirai freaking out and screaming at you about once or twice an episode, and the drama is a bunch of high school girls instead of a 14-year-old boy whining about morality. Railgun tends to be more direct and less philosophical, as the titular character usually just blasts stuff instead of talking her enemies to death...but that's understandable given their difference in powers.

There's some plot problems later on where you wonder where the heck Railgun's parents are, that she's being asked to make ethical decisions for herself as an 8-year-old in flashbacks, too, but maybe that's just an anime thing? The plot arc enemies they fight can also strain suspension of disbelief at times (especially considering this is supposed to be the more scientific and less fantasy of the two shows), but if you've watched Index already, that's old hat.

Still a fun show if you're willing to wobble over and back across that line of whether you should take it halfway seriously, or just sit back and enjoy the nonsense.

Disclaimer: Oh, apparently there's a third season now. I've only seen the first 2 so far.