Saturday 18 December 2010

First Impressions: Just Cause 2

Just Cause 1 was a very strange game. It had great ideas, such as the whole game being based around outlandish stunts and fun rather strict realism, but I don't think it quite pulled it off.

The story was tedious to the extreme, the scenery was pretty but the combat was awful and there were many confusing controls for simple actions.

Just Cause 2 seems to be the game the original should have been.

I've played for 2 hours so far, and in that time I've accomplished the following tasks in no particular order:

- Swung from a moving helicopter one-handed.
- Commandeered said helicopter for myself.
- Destroyed an enormous base.
- Engaged in a car chase by standing on the roof of a speeding vehicle.
- Caused a chasing Jeep to roll over spectacularly before exploding.
- Hooked an unfortunate baddie by his foot to a moving car.
- Hooked a bad guy's moving bike to a tree.
- BASE jumped from a mountain.
- Had a Raiders of the Lost Ark style punch-up with the driver of a car.
- Ridden on the roof of an airliner.

Only a couple of these things have happened in scripted missions, and to be honest I've spent most of my playtime either laughing or grinning like a fool.

The story itself is still terrible, but now in a good way. I couldn't work out if the first game was trying to parody action films or was just really cheesy. The sequel is definitely the former.

During one cutscene Rico (the protagonist) is chatting to a guy he's rescuing from some soldiers. He pauses briefly mid-sentence to casually scoop up a live grenade from the floor and throw it back without even looking, and sure enough there is a scream off-screen as it blows up.

So I'm very surprised so far, and pleasantly at that. I'll come up with some kind of review once I've gained more of a lasting impression.

In other news, I'm going to try and post up some of my Blood Bowl opinions and teams, my habit for movie reviewing has taken the blog in quite a different direction!

Monday 13 December 2010

Movie Review: Gladiator

I fancied watching an old favourite film of mine recently: Gladiator.

Having first watched it 10 years ago, I remember thinking how wonderful the battle sequences looked, and how perfect the ending to the film was.

10 years on, I have to say my feelings haven't changed. In fact, I think they've grown stronger.

The Action and Aesthetics

You know how every second film in recent years seems to have CGI for the hell of it? One of the most refreshing elements of Gladiator is that Director Ridley Scott knows when to use CGI (the awe-inspiring huge battle sequences) and when to scale back on the technology and use live action filmed with real stunt men (the up-close action sequences).

The difference is immediately noticable. Watch "300", a far inferior film in my opinion, and look at all of the battle sequences closely as they happen.

You'll notice immediately that when King Leonidas is slicing and dicing enemy troops, all the blood present is in bizarre diamond shapes, obviously computer generated, and never settles on the ground. This is combined with all the enemies on screen being CGI too (the whole enemy army was made of "man in mask" clones who don't cast shadows?!) and some really ridiculous CGI stunts (hurling a full grown man over your head with a shield bash?...Riiight-o!).

Then watch Gladiator. The actors are gritty and realistic, the fights look believable and have a concussive impact to them. The effects, particularly the blood and dust effects, were obviously performed using squibs and real machinery - and they look fantastic.

In this new(er) age of obsession with computer generated pixel men falling over with crappy over-the-top animations, it's a breath of fresh air to see real horses and men performing stunts.

The difference in budget between these two films? $30 million. Gladiator had a $100 million budget, 300 had a $70 million budget. Yet Scott extracts immense value from that pretty small gap in budget and makes a far more believable picture.

The Story

The story is at heart a revenge story. However, it touches on many themes: greed, lust for power, deception and the moral ambiguity of war. The film is also a really interesting look at Roman society.

Despite some minor factual errors that history buffs will spot immediately (such as the rather dubious fighting tactics of the Roman Legions shown), the film doesn't often compromise accuracy needlessly - aside from the clearly fictional elements of the story, that is.

One of my favourite qualities in the film is how it's themes are universal and unpolitical: good and evil, the triumph of the human spirit against all odds.

Like Touching the Void and The Shawshank Redemption, the film gives us a really splendid glance into not only the darkest pits of despair, but also the brilliant highs of being a human being. Despite a bittersweet ending that almost always gets the throat choking up, Gladiator finishes on an up note.

Acting across the board is top notch. Russell Crowe is excellent as the grizzled, valiant Maximus, Djimon Hounsou provides a calm balance in the form of his friend Juba and Oliver Reed, Joaquin Phoenix and Connie Nielson are all top notch.

Ralf Moller deserves a special mention for his performance as Hagen, a huge Germanic barbarian who looks more like a shaved bear than a man.

Final Word

Unlike Braveheart, a "similar" film (which I loathe!), Gladiator isn't interested in distorting events of history or making sweeping moral generalisations and passing it off as "real". Instead it uses a loose framework of history to weave a compelling fictional story.

And it does it successfully with every crashing sword, roaring chariot, hushed whisper and epic orchestral score.

Speaking of music, this film's soundtrack is also sublime - just listening to it is enough to provoke shivers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8v2TUQomZU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgCevpO18t4&feature=related 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAOTSO9ioZk

Overall, Gladiator is like a hybrid of what made old "epic" films great, combined with modern ideas and techniques, all mixed together with the heart of a good old morality play.

5/5.

[*][*][*][*][*]

Sunday 28 November 2010

Movie Review: Touching the Void

Put simply, Touching the Void tells one of the most incredible stories you're ever likely to hear - doubly so because it's true.

It's a movie-slash-documentary recreation of a real-life disasterous mountain climb in Peru, undertaken by two British adventurers in the mid twenties.

The two guys, Joe and Simon, along with their support man Richard (who remained back at camp) return to intersperse the on-screen action with interviews about their thoughts and feelings throughout the events in the film.

I may as well reveal the events - the film delivers the story in such a simple but spectacular fashion that knowing "what happens" doesn't do anything to change what you'll feel when you see it. You will still be amazed by the survivors' retelling of events.

We know both Joe and Simon survived, because obviously they give us the interviews. What we can't get until they explain is the ordeal they went through, and the enormous impact that has on the human body and spirit.

After successfully reaching the summit, the two begin their descent. Joe, moving first but blinded by a snow storm, slips down the side of a vertical drop and breaks his leg.

That sounds painful enough, but Joe recalls that his shin bone had splintered, and actually grated right over the top of his knee. Simon refused to leave his friend to die despite their lack of supplies, and the two slowly and painfully began threading down the mountain.

Such a drastic event is only the beginning of their troubles. In the next scene, Joe slides too far over a cliff edge. Unable to hear or see him, Simon didn't know how far the drop was and couldn't do anything to help. Stuck for hours in a wind chill factor of "around -80", Simon felt the snow under him giving way, and eventually cut the rope to save both of them from falling.

Quite what you must feel after slicing away your friend's lifeline I don't know. That's not the end. Joe survives the 150 foot fall into a dark, hellish crevasse. He then goes on to escape his icy prison by lowering himself deeper into it.

Without food or water and completely alone he nonetheless crawled and hopped across around 5 miles of cliff-ridden snow and rocklands to safety over the next 4 days. His leg was so agonisingly painful he was nearly blacking out with every movement. Unsurprisingly, he was completely delirious by the end of his journey.

The cinematography is superb, great landscape shots. The recreation is well filmed, and the story itself I must admit had me close to tears by the end. That a man can endure so much is almost more surreal than most fiction.

Final word:

Highly recommended, a truly excellent film.

5/5.


[*][*][*][*][*]

Wednesday 10 November 2010

Movie Review: Harry Brown

*May contain spoilers*

Harry Brown is a weird film. That's about the best way to describe it.

It starts out like a hard-hitting realistic drama, and then morphs about halfway through into a vengeance-fuelled killing spree that seems lifted from the pages of a comic book.

Similarly, the film flits between chillingly accurate portrayals of British 'hoods', and an apparent alternate universe Britain where total anarchy reigns.

Whether the film is in one mood or not, at any given point it is very, very dark indeed. It has an almost unique quality to be bleak from beginning to end.

Harry Brown is a reaction to increasing street crime and yob culture in Britain, but it does not offer any solutions. Perhaps that is what the film intends - there are no easy solutions. Even the main protaganist seems to become slowly consumed by the hellish things that happen in his home area throughout the film.

First of all, the film gets off to an intimidating start. Opening scenes of the film are very powerful, and had me hooked to the screen immediately. Filmed on a mobile phone, they depict a gang of hooded youths initiating a new member to their gang. They shove drugs in his mouth and force him to smoke them for an extended time, and then with the spine-chilling words "This is how we roll", someone hands him a loaded pistol.

The next scene shows the same group roaring around on mopeds from a passenger perspective. They harass pedestrians and eventually begin firing their weapons, ending with the 'accidental' murder of a woman walking her young son in the park.

As they flee the scene, they crash violently into a truck at a junction. Fade to black.

Wow. The filmography during these first scenes is gritty, frenzied and pretty disturbing in itself, which is quite an accomplishment as usually I moan about such camerawork making me nauseous.

From there on we meet Harry Brown (who is in bed listening to news of the killing on the radio. Pretty neat linking trick there). Played by Michael Caine (an actor who varies very much in his work, but he's definitely solid here), Brown is an ageing ex-Marine previously posted in Northern Ireland during the height of the Troubles.

Caine conveys the loneliness of Brown's life wonderfully. Brown goes through a morning routine of sitting at his kitchen table, silently drinking tea, eating his breakfast, and then visiting his comatose elderly wife at the hospital.

In the evenings, he plays chess with a friend named Leonard (David Bradley, who you will immediately recognise as Filch from the Harry Potter films), the only person who seems to be there for him.

In between these activites, the estate he lives on is constantly plagued by violent, replusive young criminals who care nothing about the police or the law. Leonard in particular is constantly victimised.

It doesn't take long for things to quickly spiral downwards, and at around halfway into the film a broken Brown tools himself up and warms up the old military training.

Sean Harris puts in a notable performance as a drug-addled pimp-slash-gun dealer. His husky, hoarse voice and absolute lack of morals make him one of the most menacing and watchable characters to appear (however briefly) in the film.

The "twist" at the end of the film was not to my liking (it felt a little like it was added on for the sake of it) and the film steadily gets more ludicrous as it progresses.

My biggest issue, strangely enough, is with Harry's very first killing. The police don't realise he's the vigilante until right at the end, but I saw a glaring error immediately. Harry gets ambushed by a knife-wielding mugger, and when the guy goes to stab him, he instinctively turns the knife back on him without thinking, stabbing him in the heart.

The guy dies and Harry shuffles off home, destroying his clothes and wiping up the blood in a shock.

However, surely his prints would be all over the knife? Game over. Except not in movies :\

Final Word:


The villains (aside from Harris anyway) are sadly one dimensional. They spout the foulest language imaginable and do some very repulsive things.

The scenes in which the villains work best is in those in which Harry simply observes them from a distance harrassing and terrorising others- behaviour which is carried off with horrifying authenticity.

Intense verbal abuse of a female police officer was perhaps the most disturbing thing in the film, coupled with sexual abuse of a gang member by a drug dealer. Both were pretty shocking, though the second scene felt more exploitative, as if it had been included purely to shock.

The movie is also pretty violent, and there are several rather nasty uses of gore throughout. Overall I'd say the swearing is definitely the worst thing though. Expect to hear the "mother of all swears" multiple times.

My 'favourite' scene was probably when Harry confides in a dying criminal one of his most upsetting memories of the Troubles, that he never told to anyone else before, not even Leonard or his wife. A member of his unit was shot in a similar way to the criminal, and Harry recalls that they couldn't call in a medic to help him, and instead watched him die.

After Harry has finished speaking, there's a very short but poignant moment before Harry finishes him off  where the weakened scumbag seems almost to finally realise what a wretched human being he's been...but far, far too late.

Similarly, that little window gives a perfect insight into just how much Harry has become like those he crusades against with his use of extreme violence - and there definitely lies the most interesting part of the film.


3/5


[*][*][*][ ][ ]

Saturday 30 October 2010

Movie Review and Analysis: Full Metal Jacket

Yes, not the Bourne Identity still. I know. I'll watch it soon!

*This review contains spoilers*

Full Metal Jacket is a film that, despite famous lines of dialogue and the impressive performance of R. Lee Ermey, I only recently got around to seeing.

Let me say this now - I thought The Shining, also directed by Kubrick, was a good horror film. It is.

Even so Full Metal Jacket is an even more effective horror film despite being a different genre altogether. It has to be one of the most openly anti-war films I have seen.

The first half or so of the film centres on some green US Marine Corp recruits being trained up for deployment in the ongoing Vietnam War.

R. Lee Ermey plays Sergeant Hartman, a tough, intimidating and yet generally fair Drill Sergeant. Kubrick apparently allowed Ermey to improvise his lines, something which he almost never allowed his actors to do. It was a wise move - the ad-lib nature of the lines (many of which are profanity filled and repulsive) allows Ermey's performance to shine given his real background as a drill instructor. The actors actually look scared and uncertain the minute he opens his mouth.

 That's SERGEANT R. Lee Ermey, you scum-sucking waste of space!

There are many moments of dark humour in the first half of the film, most often through Ermey's creative put-downs of his recruits. These are interspersed with some profoundly disturbing scenes, most of which centre around Leonard Lawrence (Vincent D'Onofrio), or as Hartman calls him, "Gomer Pyle".

Lawrence is an unfit and mentally slow recruit who has an almost childlike innocent demeanour. Hartman's relentless abuse of him during numerous failed training drills, and the other recruits' bitter (and even violent) resentment towards his ineptitude is shocking but captivating.

Other main characters include Joker (Matthew Modine) and Cowboy (Arliss Howard), who form a friendship while at the barracks.

 Joker

Joker attempts to help Lawrence with aspects of the training that he struggles with (even helping him dress smartly), but slowly becomes exasperated. After one particularly bad foul-up in which Lawrence gets the entire group punished, he is gagged and then beaten with bars of soap in the middle of the night by his fellow recruits.

Joker eventually caves into the frustration along with the others, and joins in the beating of the helpless Lawrence. One of the most haunting shots of the film shows Cowboy, the only recruit not to join in, lying in his bunk and covering his ears to drown out Lawrence's cries.

Ironically this harsh kind of treatment transforms Lawrence into a model soldier, and he becomes one of the best in the unit at the various discipline drills. Then Joker notices that he is holding conversations with his rifle in private.

From there things get worse and worse, eventaully building to a tense crescendo. In the dead of night, the unhinged Lawrence loads his rifle with live ammunition. Joker walks into a shower room to find him screaming drill commands and shouldering the gun. Horrified, Joker is powerless to calm him down.

Hartman wakes up and attempts to defuse the situation, but his ultimate lack of emotional understanding proves fatal. Lawrence shoots him dead when he begins to shout orders at him. Grinning uncontrollably, he considers killing Joker too, but eventually sits down on a toilet seat.

Before the stunned Joker can do anything Lawrence lifts the rifle and promptly commits suicide - an act which brings the first half of the film to a chilling conclusion.

Lawrence, mid break-down

How close is a "model marine" to a psychopath in a system which encourages loss of emotion and dehumanisation? The film makes a powerful and uncomfortable argument that the line is very blurred indeed.

Is the system of mentally breaking recruits to form new soldiers as inhumane and cruel as war itself? Or even worse?

The second half of the film covers the actual war, in which Joker is assigned a journalistic role. He frequently writes semi-propaganda stories for army media to appease his superiors.

A lot of reviews I've read rate FMJ highly, but state that the film loses cohesion after the first half. Here I agree, but I don't think it's to the detriment of the film.

The rest of the movie has a kind of organised chaos about it. We move rapidly from location to location with Joker, again culminating at the end of the film in a prolonged tension-laden scene. We see fleeting pieces of the war with Joker's eyes and start to build up our opinions as he does.

This half of the film is of course home the infamous comic relief scene with "Da Nang Hooker", which popularised the whole "me so horny" thing that you still hear occasionally today.

The film throws us another interesting scene here. On the way to his next assignment (which coincidentally causes him to run into Cowboy's squad) he flies in a helicopter.

The door gunner, firing the machinegun at enemy troops, repeats almost constantly under his breath:

"Get some. Get some. Get some, get some. Get some. Get some."

Apparently unaware he is even muttering it, the camera pans round to reveal that he is actually gunning down civilians below indiscrimately. Joker notices this, and asks the soldier incredulously how he can shoot women and children.

The gunner boasts of his kill count (157 people and around 50 water buffalo, apparently equivalent in his view) and explains that shooting women and children is easy. "You just don't lead 'em so much."

This scene is never laid to rest, which is partly what makes it so uncomfortable. Joker doesn't respond, we never see any kind of conclusion to such a dark moment, the film simply moves on.

It's hard to sum all of the characters up, but easily one of the most prominent from here on is "Animal Mother" (Adam Baldwin), a heavy-machinegun toting soldier in Cowboy's squad. He is renowned for being brave and aggressive while under fire, and we see numerous times that he is.

However, he is simultaneously cold and emotionally hollow, his feelings apparently burnt away by the fighting. When Joker questions his motives for what he does, he explains that all that matters is "winning". Being right doesn't matter, and it was never about that. His whole motivation comes from surviving the next battle, and the prostitutes they all frequent afterwards.

 Animal Mother in a tough situation

From then on Joker finds himself in the thick of combat (and is widely criticised by his peers for having never killed anyone before). This all changes in the final act of the film.

Cowboy is forced to lead the squad after the previous leader is killed by a booby trap. Eventually the squad advances through an urban area, where a deadly sniper picks off several more squad members. Animal Mother suppresses the sniper and leads the squad forward.

Cowboy himself is sniped and wounded while answering the radio. His last words echo weakly from training: "I can hack it." The others can do nothing to help him but whisper words of encouragement, and he bleeds to death.

Finally they settle on killing the sniper as payback. They sneak into the building and Joker is the first to encounter him - or more precisely her. The sniper is a young girl dressed in a dusty uniform. Joker's gun jams as he goes to fire on her, and he cowers behind a pillar as she shoots at him.

Eventually she is gunned down by Joker's friend, who tastelessly whoops with joy as she lays dying on the ground. The Marines gather around her and she starts whispering something.

Eventually Joker's friend stops cheering, everything becomes silent and someone asks what she's saying.

"She's praying." Joker says. Animal Mother reasons to leave her "for the rats", but Joker insists that they must put her out of her misery.

She begins quietly begging them to kill her, and AM tells Joker that he'll let her die quickly - but only if Joker himself does the deed, and so gets his first kill.

Joker hesistates for a long time, grimacing and staring at the floor, but eventually he pulls the trigger. No-one speaks for a while, and then everyone but Joker begins whooping and cheering again, who just stares down at the corpse pale-faced and vacant eyed.

The closing scene of the film shows the soldiers marching across the landscape and singing, and Joker narrates that he "is in a world of shit, yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid."

This very ambiguous statement is all we get in way of closure, and it works perfectly. Has Joker found some kind of meaning in the horrors he has witnessed? Is that what his last quote refers to? Or has he finally lost his grip on humanity, like so many other characters in the film?

The "world of shit" quote is particularly interesting. Early in the film, Hartman informs the Marines that "No Marine dies without permission", because doing so lands them in "a world of shit".

One of the last things that the mentally broken Lawrence says to Joker in his final scene, is that he is "in a world....of shit."

Does Joker's use of the term imply that he has also lost that "spark" that makes us people? Or has he become stronger, having overcome that initial shock, and understood what Lawrence meant in his final moments?


Final Word:

So this has been a long review/analysis, and I could rattle on more (I won't fortunately ;) ) but FMJ is a film that really gets you thinking. Every few moments something comes along that really feels masterfully planned and executed, and the whole film drips with themes.

The ending, and scenes such as the soap beating generate a kind of emotional reaction that movies so regularly fail to nail. That alone makes FMJ more disturbing than any horror film and many times more poignant than lots of other films in the same genre.

If you want to see an occasionally amusing, frequently chilling film which has a hefty layer of meaning on top, I highly recommend this film. Just make sure you're suitably hardened for the harsher bits before you turn it on.

5/5


[*][*][*][*][*]

Saturday 23 October 2010

Movie Review: Orphan

*This review contains spoilers*

"There's something wrong with Esther." is the tagline for this film, and it certainly isn't lying.

Unfortunately though, Orphan is one of the most frustrating films I've watched in recent times. It's a textbook example of how needless cheap scares and shoehorned cliches can derail a decent thriller.

Peter Sarsgaad and Vera Farmiga play a kind and well-off couple who have a nice house and lovable kids. Their life is shaken when they lose their third child before birth. They decide, after much deliberation, to adopt a child. That child is Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman).

Esther is something of a child prodigy. She's polite, mature, intelligent and is very good at art. She also has some rather bizarre personality traits, and her history is dogged by a series of tragic accidents.

I found the first half or so of Orphan very watchable. It was surprisingly smart for a "horror" film, and reminded me more of a thriller. The characters were likable and believable. As the story progresses, we learn things about them not easily guessed (Farmiga's character used to have an alcohol problem, for example).

Interesting characters who develop? A dubious antagonist? Unreliable viewpoints? Good film so far.

Sadly though, the film is filled with these little nuggets that seem forced in from the scripts of other, lesser films.

It's kind of like someone in Hollywood watched the film, then said "Nah, this won't appeal to the market enough. Throw some cheap-ass scares in and change the ending."

So, the character building and interesting build-up is then interspersed with some of the most ludicrous "make-u-jump" scenes I've seen in a film. Think of it, and it's in the film. Kids laughing suddenly (at deafening volume), things banging, sudden unusually aggressive hugs, that sort of crap.

It just feels so unneccesary and cheapens the whole movie. It's like eating lobster and having a guy run up and bellow in your ear at random intervals.

Even worse, I didn't actually jump at any of the "sudden" bits (and I haven't done in any film for some time now). That makes it feel even more redundant.

Then I mentioned it felt like the ending was changed. Well, yeah. The film does well to avoid cliches until about 50-75% of the way through, and then they start sprouting like ugly mushrooms.

Cops taking a millenia to arrive when needed? Check. Main character dying through very dubious judgement? Check. Antagonist refusing to be killed off? Check

It really is sad to see what felt like such a promising film take a nosedive, and all because it tries to up the "horror" side of things while ditching what made it interesting in the first place.

Final Word:

Orphan oozes a kind of sneaky, devious charm until around halfway through. Then it tries to escalate things higher and higher until it has nowhere to go but cheesy horror film territory. Disappointing.


3/5.

[*] [*] [*] [ ] [ ]

Monday 11 October 2010

Movie Review: Casino Royale

Weren't expecting that, were you?!

Since unfortunately I didn't manage to see The Bourne Identity this weekend, I decided to have a look at the "old new" Bond film.


Now, while I found the original James Bond movies entertaining as a kid, as an adult I find them dated and tedious.

Yes, Roger Moore and Sean Connery game some reasonable performances, but the content was formulaic and sometimes rather insulting, especially in the oldest ones.

*Old Bond film rant starts here*
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Bond is some kind of superhuman being in all of them who is ridiculously excellent at everything. Villains are always genius madmen who nonetheless are too stupid to just shoot Bond, and insist, every single film, in putting him into "escapable situation X".

The other bad guys are always great at murdering anyone but Bond, and then they suddenly become incompetent morons who can't shoot straight. Ebert's review of Casino Royale also nailed something I find annoying in most films: when was the last time in an action film, if ever, that the main character was killed by a machinegun?

It's strange movie logic that comes up again and again - machineguns aimed by baddies make sparks fly everywhere, but are otherwise utterly useless against a hero. On the other hand, a simple pistol in the hands of a hero becomes some kind of 100% accurate railgun that can kill 10 people in 5 seconds. Sigh.


Then there are the women, perhaps the most irritating part of old Bond films. They're always named after some kind of lame double entendre (which fortunately I never cottoned on to as a kid, aside from thinking the names were "weird".)


Holly Goodhead, Pussy Galore, Mary Goodnight, Honey Rider.


I mean, the second one in particular isn't even a vaguely realistic name, and it's pretty graphic. Quite why the films are seen as harmless for kids when the characters are practically named "Ivanta Shagyu" I don't know >_>


Then there's how they behave. I forget which film it is, possibly The Man With The Golden Gun, but the girl helps James fight the baddies. She's insultingly stupid and inept, hopping around and squealing "Oh James, I don't know what to do! Which button do I press?!" when the only button is a giant red one.

Plus there are also several Bond films with cringeworthy lines towards racial minorities. I'm don't like how Britain is so PC-obsessed now days, but even so some of the Bond films definitely class as being in the "exploitation" genre.


So, old Bond films: The villains are idiots, Bond is some kind of superman, henchmen are useless, black and asian people are stereotyped completely and all girls are sex objects with IQs of about 10. Nice.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Rant end*

The following review may contain some spoilers.



Fortunately, Casino Royale is a departure from 99% of the crap in the old films.

The main antagonist isn't a bald maniac with a base on the moon, but a slimy, desperate banker who provides large scale investments for terrorists.

The "Bond girl" (Eva Green) displays refreshing intelligence and saves Bond's life on several occasions.

Q, the gadget guy, and Moneypenny are both missing. Instead there is just M (Judi Dench), Bond's boss. Dench puts in a characteristically decent performance. This cuts down quite considerably on the cheesy humour typically associated with the "Bond formula".


Bond (Daniel Craig) is very competent at his job, but is also ruthless and emotionally cold, something that intentionally makes him quite unlikable in several scenes. While still intelligent and sharp-witted, he is a more realistic character than in any of the old films. He is a human being with strengths and flaws rather than a man made of steel.

In one scene he seduces and manipulates a target's wife purely to gain information - she is murdered as a result. As the body is bagged up and removed from a beach, M and Bond stare at it.


When M speaks her voice is sad, almost disgusted. "I would ask you to remain emotionally detached, but that's not really your problem, is it, Bond?"

Bond doesn't seem to feel a twinge of guilt. "No."

This more mature character development is a shining example of how the film differs from its predecessors, in which I couldn't imagine a scene anywhere near as stark or chilling.

Even the action has had an overhaul. While the scenes are familar: fights in speeding vehicles, fights in stairwells, car chases, they also soak up the new visceral feel. Bond frequently ends struggles blood-smeared, beaten and exhausted, but his enemies end up even worse. No longer are fights your usual Bond case of Big Evil Man With Cheesy Advantage versus Man In Sharp Suit.

Sebastien Foucan, one of the big names of parkour, makes a cameo in a very impressive chase scene.

Mixed in with all this are casino scenes that manage to milk every last drop of tension from the turning over of two cards, and an end which results in the villain's demise in a far more satisfactory and creepy way than any over-the-top cartoony death ever could.


Final Word:

Casino Royale is in a different world to the Bond films before it, and I highly recommend watching it even if you typically dislike old Bond cliches.

[*] [*] [*] [*] [*]

5/5

Friday 8 October 2010

Coming Soon: The Bourne Identity Review

This evening I hope to sit down with The Bourne Identity, a bowl of noodles and/or a beer and write a review for it, work permitting. If not, maybe this rather redundant blog post will jog my memory!

Friday 1 October 2010

Movie review: The Day After Tomorrow

After enjoying Collateral in my last review, it makes sense that it couldn't last and I've now seen a film I loathe!

I have seen The Day After Tomorrow perhaps 4-5 times. This is not out of choice, but because (for perplexing reasons I can't fathom) it is on TV about every 2 weeks. Nothing else is on when it's on either.

Let's get one thing straight from the start: I am not "trendy" when it comes to Global Warming, which is what this film claims to be about.

(Global Warming rant here. If you want to skip, move down second dashed line!)
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I accept there is a problem, yes, and I believe we should closely monitor it. I also believe mankind should attempt to be eco-friendly as much as is possible while maintaining efficiency.

However, I don't believe this scaremongering crap that has been so popular lately - that we are going to be the "tipping point" with our CO2 emissions.

Why? Well, when one huge-arse volcano can erupt at any time and totally dwarf the CO2 emissions of the entire Human race, I tend to think this talk of Human tipping points is ludicrous. Include underwater volcanos we don't even know about and the fact that geysers are always spewing crap out (plus the gases emitted when tectonic plates shift) and we start to look less and less significant.

Scientific evidence for this "human factor" theory is also weak, and this is what really annoys me.  Take the leaked emails from East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, which announced that "[we] must suppress the level of change" - I.E. no significant evidence to point to human-caused climate change, but the Unit wanted to cover it up. That's great ethical science right there!

There is a cult-like mentality (ingrained in many self-righteous individuals I have met personally) that we are killing the planet with CO2, and the science is being bent to fulfill this political agenda. Science is there to present an empirical, quantitative truth, but sadly with GW that one goal seems to be obfuscated completely.

The way half of this stuff is presented is really more like religious zeal than factual evidence.

The Government loves these types of smug fanatics and this kind of perversion of science. Up taxes, and people actually agree with it! Perfect!

This is all compounded by the fearmongering adverts put out by the government and climate change groups. I remember seeing one recently aimed at children, which announced that "scientists" (got to love generalisation) have told everyone that we're all going to get screwed soon by it. Then we see images of animals and people drowning, and kids crying.

Another I saw showed a tearful young girl being teleported to an arid desert, and then being nearly killed by huge tidal waves. Then a stark voice boomed out about CO2 emissions. What scientific references did the ad make use of? None, naturally. Just a whole load of fear-spreading bull.

Now, one of the most "GW-active" people I know pretty much sums up the whole mentality. He owned 8 phones at one point recently, and must change to a new phone model once every couple of months. He also owned two laptops and a desktop computer.

I presently have one laptop, one desktop, and one cheap phone. According to this guy, I was a "materialist". I almost choked laughing! Similarly, he announced on his FB that "flying is immoral", strangely after he broke up with his overseas partner, who he was previously flying out to every 5-6 months.

I haven't been on a plane for about 8 years.

Yet this guy is THE Eco-Warrior™. It's amazing, simply incredible...but he sees himself as some kind of enlightened saviour of the planet, and naturally is a great big fan of the more baseless scaremongering ads and campaigns.

He has no idea of the science, as demonstrated in his poor reasoning over energy efficiency and countless other eco-related areas, but hey, he's a GW crusader, so logic and hypocrisy be damned!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Review resumed)

Well, basically TDAT layers on the GW theme thick. Chokingly thick. The protaganist is a super-enlightened scientist who suddenly realises the world will end due to climate change in a couple of days.

Naturally the politicians are all idiots and refuse to listen, and the film just keeps piling on the smug lecturing. "If only they had listened earlier!" is a common expression, often followed by a saddened headshake or a melodramatic kneading of the forehead.

Yes, we're stupid for not subscribing to the CO2 tipping point craze. We get it. We don't need any more patronising bollocks, thank you very much. Oh wait, we're going to get it anyway. Cheers!

Anyway, the film goes through every disaster movie cliche in the book. Tsunamis, ice storms (which somehow freeze low-flying military helicopters but not the protaganist's car. He must have an Eco-Warrior™ Shield. I wonder how much CO2 it takes to keep that thing rocking) and all other sorts of stuff.

Everyone except the Enlightened Few act like brainless tossers and generally die. There is a "brave sacrifice by cutting my climbing rope" scene that you see in every film ever to feature climbing ropes.

There are some truly laughable scenes, such as when a group of survivors successfully outrun a skyscraper-sized tsunami, or (my personal favourite) when they run away from the weather!

That's right, the building they're in freezes behind them amd they run away from the ice as it materialises in seconds behind them. Futhermore, they "shut out" this bizarre demonic freezing agent by shutting a door.

Ell-Oh-Ell.

So yeah, cliched, stale disaster movie with syrupy coverings of very biased Global Warming preachiness, this is one of the most tiresome films I have seen for a while.

Final Word:

Plot is gusty with heavy showers of smug. Extremely dangerous conditions, do not stay indoors, leave the house if neccessary!


1/5.


[*] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Also, because it's perfect (and you suffered my rant):




Watch 'til the end for big lols ;)

Sunday 26 September 2010

Movie Review: Collateral

*This review contains some minor spoilers*

There are two ingredients I've noticed are almost always present in good Thriller films, and I think they're the fundamental difference between a Thriller and an Action film - theme and tension.

Action films are a genre that I personally find tedious and stale the great majority of the time. Musclebound stars making tiresome quips as they mow down Faceless Baddie #79451 get me frowning. Even more so when the plot can usually be summed up in three words. Man gets revenge. Man kills things. Manmade gratuitous explosions.

That's all old tat. So back to Thrillers and themes.

To use an example: No Country For Old Men, a thriller that holds a fond place in my heart, has themes which encompass greed, guilt, the breakdown of social morals and fate. These themes combine with a terrifying use of tension to create an edge-of-seat experience. Guns don't fire every five seconds, but when they do it almost always means a character we care about is in dire peril.

Collateral is a similar film, in that although it does have action-filled scenes, it also cranks up the tension, and focuses on characterisation far more than gunfire and explosions.

Don't make him angry

Set in L.A., the plot primarily features cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx), who has been planning for a long time to start his own Limousine business, but somehow has never got around to it. Early in the film he meets a high-profile lawyer named Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) when she rides in the back of his cab.

It's clear the two like each other, but unlike many films, where vulgar lines start getting hurled around immediately, the scene comes across as pretty natural and realistic. The two simply chat and get on well. Max starts to become a character we can empathise with, due to both a good script and an admirable performance from Foxx.

Annie leaves him with her card and departs. The next fare Max has is a strange man named Vincent (Tom Cruise), who dresses in a sharp suit, but sports a messy stubbled look. He is friendly, but also cynical of human nature.

He tells a story of a man dying on the LA metro, and his corpse only being noticed six hours later despite passengers sitting next to him in all that time. This theme of social apathy and urban dehumanisation continues throughout the film, even influencing the plot at several key points.

It soon turns out that Vincent is a hired killer, and a good one at that. I'm not usually a huge fan of Tom Cruise, but here he plays Vincent perfectly. He is both disturbingly cold and yet endearingly animated at the same time, striking a mix between likable intelligence and frightening ruthlessness.

Vincent offers Max $600 to drive him to several different spots around the city. Max drops him off at an apartment first, and then is horrified when a body suddenly lands on top of the taxi from a window above.

Vincent is quite calm, and forces Max at gunpoint to clean the taxi and stow the corpse in the boot of the car.

From there on the film proceeds at a menacing but measured pace, with Max strongarmed into taking Vincent to the rest of his victims. Following the trail of bodies is LAPD officer Fanning (Mark Ruffalo), who believes members of the FBI are wrong to suspect Max as the murderer.

Between killings Vincent and Max talk to each other in the car, and gradually more is revealed about both. Unexpected and very tense scenes occur. One has the police pulling over the taxi for its broken windscreen.

Another has the duo meeting a jazz club owner (Barry Shabaka Henley) and having an intriguing (and very sad) conversation.

In a particularly good scene, Max is required to pose as Vincent to Vincent's criminal client Felix (Javier Bardem). He explains they've never met him in person before, and so Max can take his place if he can improvise well enough. If not, they'll probably kill him. Either way Vincent is able to sit safely outside in the car.

Javier Bardem is a very skilled actor. In No Country For Old Men, he put in an iconic performance as the unstoppable psychotic Anton Chigurh.

Here, in his portrayal of the laid back but intimidating Felix, he switches instantly from friendly chit-chat to weighting every word with solid malice.


"If Santa Claus were to make a list...and [his assistant] were to lose it...how f***ing furious do you  think Santa Claus would be?"

From there on the film ploughs ahead, with several surprising twists. The film manages to remain firmly in the realm of plausibility. There is a car crash not followed by an explosion, something which stunned me.

In fact, I don't think the film contains any explosions, and it's a very refreshing change indeed.

Vincent is one of the most interesting movie 'villains' I have seen in a recent film. His rationalisation of his job ("Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That's us, lost in space.") raises some very interesting questions on morality. Does morality even exist in a purely atheist, scientific outlook on life, or is Vincent simply a sociopath? Why does it matter, ultimately?

The ending is a final release of the tension throughout the movie, and neatly sums up the themes in the film as things seem to go full-circle.

Final Word:

I went into Collateral expecting your typical crappy explosion fest, but left with a satisfied smile on my face. The film balances action with a fresh cast of characters and a plot that really does introduce some interesting questions. Performances all around are solid.

I'm going to give the film 5 stars, not because it is perfect (no film is), but because it is a very entertaining piece of cinema.

One thing I noticed throughout the film was the pleasing lack of swearing. F-bombs are dropped, but they are not generally used in casual conversation, and not to anywhere near the level I've seen in other films recently. It's amazing how much more impact they have when they're not coming out of someone's mouth every two seconds. Definitely a plus.

[*] [*] [*] [*] [*] 

5/5

Saturday 25 September 2010

RTS Games: Atmosphere

So I've rehooked myself on the strategy game Dawn of War II lately, and am enjoying it a lot when I get time to grab a match.

Relic Games seem to have a great knack for making very immersive, exciting strategy games. In the days of old, playing Command and Conquer, real time strategy games were fun, but not really all that visceral.

That changed with Dawn of War, an RTS from Relic based on the Warhammer 40k world. I've never been a tabletop gamer myself (and in fact, the game was my introduction to the whole W40k thing), but Relic managed to bring the subject matter to intense life.

In DoW, your units were no longer generic pixellated tanks that just muttered "K." when you clicked a button.

Space Marines screamed "For the Emperor!" as they ploughed knife-first into crowds of Chaos Cultists. The Imperial Guard Assassin droned "One shot...is all I need..." in hushed monotone as he slaughtered enemies from afar.

Chaos, by contrast, had you leading an army of reckless psychotics. Chaos Marines burst out laughing at random intervals, muttered "Yeeeeessss!" and started twitching even when just standing around.

The Chaos tank driver was my personal favourite. His gravelly yell of "After a thousand battles, one only sees DEATH!" was a pleasure to behold.

The arrogant Eldar gloated smugly as they vapourised thuggish Orks, and Orks provided a really great comedic boost.

Firing a machinegun isn't all that funny, but a big, stupid muscly green thing firing a poorly made machinegun and shouting "Don't touch da teef! I want da teef!" tends to raise a smile.

One huge leap forward was that units could enter melee, and would actually fight each other in hand to hand combat rather than just stand there as in  many other previous strategy games. 

Then there was Company of Heroes after DoW, a WWII RTS game that balanced humour with grim violence delicately and respectfully. CoH added situational dialogue and music along with sound effects that raised the bar for RTS immersion.

Music at the start of the game would be quiet with an ominous tinge as you began to mobilise your troops. Soldiers would chat casually as you moved them around the map.

Then you'd run into an enemy MG42 team hiding in a house, and suddenly the music became a frenzied orchestra. The guns roar, bullets whizz and thud and your men hurl profanities as they lie down in a ditch. You move back to base to send out more guys, and can hear the first squad screaming for help through the radio. Intense to say the least.

Dawn of War II takes the best intense bits of CoH and the great factions of DoW, and splices them together to create a game that is grin-inducing fun even when you're getting completely hammered - a quality that is as rare in games as it is welcome.

Thursday 23 September 2010

Being A Dickhead's Cool



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVmmYMwFj1I

Found this video this morning, and I laugh just thinking of it!

I was under the impression that I was the only person in the world who thought all these people wearing mismatched clothes and "hard man" tattoos were, to put it plainly, twats.

Apparently though, there are other sane people out there too :P

Sunday 19 September 2010

Mirror's Edge - Plot Grievances

 *Contains major spoilers.*

So, I just finished quickly replaying Mirror's Edge, and I thought to do the game justice, I would briefly go over why exactly the story creates such a frustrating experience for me.

There were two main things that annoyed me:

A: Overuse of animated cutscenes. They muddle the plot considerably.
B: Important plot points left hanging in mid air.

Plot Irritant 1 - "The Assassin Plotline" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To quickly summarise, the main character, Faith, has a sister, Kate, who is framed by shady forces for killing a mayoral candidate (the "good" candidate who wanted to reverse the evil regime. Blah blah.).

Now, you spend about 3/4 of the game trying to find out who killed him to help out Kate, including multiple levels where you chase an athletic masked figure, who later is revealed to be the assassin.

This assassin turns out to be a close friend of Faith, a fellow Runner named Celeste who became a traitor.



Okay, I'm thinking, the scene is set for some kind of real, concrete resolution of that plot point now, right? Well, it would seem so. You grab Celeste's gun and have an extended martial arts fight at the end of one level. It ends with you pinning her to the floor.

That's when things turn weird. Apparently the developers didn't think this was dramatic enough.

Suddenly the game cuts to an animated cutscene, which abruptly shows Celeste wriggling free and stumbling away. Again. Then Faith magically appears in front of her (?!) apparently being faster now that she's beaten Cel up a bit. Regardless Cel suddenly produces a second handgun from her belt (Wtf? She can just summon guns from air?) and threatens Faith.

Then bad guys arrive and begin shooting at them both (the same bad guys Cel works for...riiight), allowing Faith to grab the gun and kill them in a ridiculous explosion. Then, as the smoke clears, Faith walks off, dropping the gun, and Cel is nowhere to be seen. Faith doesn't comment on this, she just mutters that she's off to save her sister, and the guy on the radio to her says that he "heard all [he] needed to."

And that's all that's mentioned of Cel. Presumably they're keeping her as a villain in the sequel or something, but seriously...3/4 of the game devoted to catching her, then she just vanishes? And in an extremely lame way, with none of the characters being at all interested in finally finishing her off? Sigh. Welcome to Mirror's Edge, where things don't have to make sense!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plot Irritant 2 - The Schizophrenic Police Lieutenant



This one's simple. There's a CPF (the original "good" city police) officer named Miller who through the whole game alternates every animated cutscene or two between helping you and being a dick.

In one (pointlessly animated) cutscene, he arranges to meet Faith, and then jams a gun in her face while talking. In another, he is seen talking with a major bad guy. Then, at the end of the game, he shoots two mercs attacking you and suddenly goes massively out of his way to help you.

I guess they did this to keep the player guessing, but it ended up making me so unsure of his character that I just wanted him to help out or die.

Obviously the same writer who worked on Cel finished this part of the plot - we never even get to know what happened to him, we just hear an ambiguous gunshot as he talks mid-sentence over the radio. Then we don't hear from him again.

Another classy cliffhanger bloody annoying ending!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plot Irritant 3 - The Absolutely Ludicrous Ending



This is by far the most bemusing part of the game. Kate is to be executed, and the bad guys also want Faith dead.

So naturally, when the last major baddie has Kate at gunpoint, and Faith at his mercy, he kills both of them.

Wait sorry, that would make sense, what am I thinking?!. No, what I meant to say, is he doesn't do anything except talk for ages! Yeah, that's more like it.

Then he bundles Kate onto a chopper (which is going to Loltown or something. It's never explained) and a load of SWAT guys with machineguns run up behind the unarmed Faith.

What happens next? Well, the bad guy says something cheesy like "Sometimes you have to jump Faith." He then starts shooting at Faith from the hovering Chopper, and the 4-5 SWAT guys also begin shooting.

Why he didn't shoot earlier doesn't matter, and neither does the fact that Faith can dodge 5 machineguns at once from about two metres away. She's FAITH!11one!

Anyway, then the "WTF" factor is suddenly dialled to 5000. Faith leaps into the helicopter (which is about 1-2 metres off of the roof) and kicks the big bad out of it to his death. Then the helicopter starts to crash because the SWAT guys' bullets hit it (lol) and so Faith grabs her sister and throws her out (o_0).


Then Faith leaps out of the chopper, which is spinning at about 400 miles per hour, and lands on the roof as it blows up. She then hugs her sister, and the two stare out at the city as the camera zooms out and soft music starts.


Processed all that yet? No, I haven't either!


In the review I mentioned a stupid deus ex machina ("from nowhere") plot resolution. What was that? Well, remember those SWAT guys firing hundreds of bullets seconds ago from the roof? When Faith and Kate hug on the roof as the chopper blows up, they're suddenly gone.


That's right, a whole squad of gun-toting bad guys about to kill the heroines all just cease to exist in the ending moments of the game with no explanation at all. What. The. Crap.


Plot Irritant 4 - What was the point? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So the game ends with a logic-defying ending, two major characters with totally unknown fates, and the radio guy who helps you all game (Mercury) dead in a brief animated cutscene.

Mercury was quite possibly the one no-BS, fully-developed character in the game that I rooted for, other than Faith herself. And he gets shot off-screen and dies in a 20 second long piece of abrupt animation.

The last thing he says is "No 'sorrys', Faith. Just don't let them win."


From that quote I assumed the end of the game would have Faith bringing the evil government crashing down, or liberating the city, or some massive event of vengeance. Instead she saves her sister, disappears a SWAT team with magic, and that's about it. Evil empire lives. City doesn't change. Merc is unavenged. Half the cast has vanished.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So if anyone is actually still reading after this extended rant, I think really my overwhelming feeling is of disappointment. ME is a game that really feels great in places, but it's like somewhere things got cut out or rushed, and the last half or so of the story got thrown together as a result.


Gameplay videos coming soon.

Friday 17 September 2010

Review and Analysis: 28 Days Later

*Contains spoilers*

As a Brit horror film, and one with some interesting concepts at that, 28 Days Later is a movie I want to lavish with praise.

Unfortunately, it's a good film in parts, but it can never seem to fully scramble over that wall to solid, consistent quality. It comes close to having some really poignant and creepy moments, and then shoots itself in the foot with some really bizarre and crippling plot and logic flaws.

It's a significant step above films like The Hills Have Eyes, which don't even try to pretend that they're not rehashing old cliches, yet it gets stuck in third gear somewhere along the way.

This film was one of the (if not THE) first to feature "fast zombies". As if being set upon by hordes of shambling zombies wasn't bad enough, 28 DL features living humans infected with a virus that is like Rabies on crack. Victims generally become very violent and sprint around screaming. On top of that, even a droplet of infected blood is enough to convert you. These are all ideas that crank up the creepiness in a genre that generally sticks to the beaten track. Good start!

Let's continue through the plot.

Things look promising as the main character, Jim, wakes after a traffic accident...only to find the hospital he is in is completely empty. There are many haunting shots of Jim wandering around London, which is equally deserted, an apocolyptic event apparently occuring 28 days before he awoke.

Of course it is gradually revealed that the Rage virus (freed from lab animals in the intro) has decimated the UK in that time.

Here is my first minor niggling logic irritation. Maybe the military cleared some of the corpses away before they got overrun, but how come there are only about three dead people on all of London's streets? Why are the motorways almost TOTALLY empty in this film? Surely there would be some kind of mass panic, and they would be jammed with cars and bodies?

I can overlook that though, because the imagery is intriguing. Fair enough, artistic liberty and all that.

Soon Jim startles a bunch of Infected, and meets up with Serena and Mark, two other survivors who are apparently geared up for fighting. They save his hide. Serena seems cold and efficient, Mark is a little warmer to Jim.

They go see Jim's parents the next day, and find that they died relatively peacefully, commiting suicide by pills some time ago.

Infected break into the house and attack Mark, who Serena mercilessly kills with a big knife before he even starts changing. It's left ambiguous as to whether he was actually infected, or she was just being paranoid, but presumably it's the former.

Moving on, Serena and Jim are chased into an abandoned apartment block, where they meet Frank and his daughter, Hannah.

Now, this is logic flaw number 2, and it's harder to pass this off as artistic license instead of poor writing/horror cliche. Frank fends off the Infected by defending the stairs of the apartment as Serena and Jim go into the flat.

Frank competently holds them off. He's wearing full police riot gear and has a baton. Sensible man! My goodness, did I just praise a horror character for being clever? What madness is this?

Of course, good things can't last. When the gang decides that they are running out of food and must leave the apartment, Frank leaves wearing a T-Shirt, and doesn't bother to take the baton either. Double-you-tee-eff.

It's about this point that the film goes into the second half, and I find my previous 4-star plus opinion wavering considerably as the writing starts to go a little nuts.

Firstly, we have the gang driving up to a road. There are two routes - one through a pitch-black tunnel, and one through a safer route. They decide to take the tunnel, because it is faster. Okay, it's not sensible, but at least there is an explanation. They enter the tunnel with grim looks of determination.

Then, driivng through the tunnel, and bouncing over bits of wrecked cars, they start laughing. Yes, you read that right. Laughing. Why, I don't know. Presumably it was meant to be that kind of "relief" laughter, juxtaposed with the tension before the scene.

Unfortunately they didn't really carry that off, because I was left totally confused as to why they were all laughing like morons as they drove over wrecked cars and corpses. Regardless, they idiotically wreck their tyres while doing this and have to get new transport. They also get attacked in the tunnel. Totally didn't see that coming.

Now, from here on Frank gets infected, shares a quick speech to his daughter, and is then shot to death by the military. He gets infected in a stupid way - shouting at a bird eating a corpse, which then drips blood into his eye as it moves off.

I'd be terrified of being infected in that situation, so you could count me cautious of blood and dead bodies. In this film though, running over to corpses and aggravating feasting birds is the clever thing to do.

Here is where the final act really plummets off a cliff. Any subtlety the film has is abandoned now, and we learn the soldiers were just luring survivors to exploit them rather than help them. The Major in charge explains: "I promised them women!"

Yes, that's correct. The soldiers have been fighting for less than a full month, and they have become insane women-craving lunatics with insatiable libido. WTF.

Since Brit soldiers have been fighting in Afghanistan for 8 years without developing a tendency to hump anything that moves, I really don't understand why in this film apparently it makes sense for trained men to go nuts in 28 days.

Of course, the Major, with all his years of army experience, doesn't just tell his men to stop acting like dicks, he promises them women. Sighface.

Needless to say there is much gratuitous violence, the soldiers die, and the gang escapes Britain. The end.

Final Word:

A really intriguing first and second act is sadly ruined as it falls into the realm of stupid plot devices in the second half. The film attempts to show that "Man is the real villain", but instead totally discredits the tension and atmosphere built earlier in the film.

My one tip to horror movie developers - don't cheat. What I mean is, if Frank had worn the riot armour for the second half of the movie, but been killed anyway, that would have been cool. It would have preserved the atmosphere and made sense.

The fact such an apparently important item suddenly disappears just to make the group more vulnerable in later scenes takes an axe to everything that makes a horror film good.

Rating: 3 out of 5

[*] [*] [*] [ ] [ ]

Review: Mirror's Edge (PC)

So, today I decided to redownload my copy of Mirror's Edge from Steam after not playing it for a while, and that got me thinking on doing a review.

ME is a funny game. It's innovative, and that is its one key strength.

The gameplay revolves around parkour, the practice of moving physically around an area (particular urban locales) in the fastest and most efficient way possible. The first thing (and this always irritates me!) - it IS parkour, not "free running", as many people believe.

Parkour is all about efficiency of movement by climbing, running and jumping. Free running is all about leaping off of railings and doing flips as you move around to wow people. It is the "Whoah, duuuuude!" version of parkour.

ME does the whole parkour thing really well. The whole game is played from a first person viewpoint, as the character of Faith, a female "runner". Maybe I should explain that.

In the not-so-distant future, society has apparently become a utopian place. People live in huge, gleaming, permanently bright and sunny cities, decorated in almost obsessively eye-catching colours.

Underneath the pleasant exterior, the unnamed city the game is set in (and apparently the world at large) is micro-managed by a despotic regime that forbids free travel of information, and thus keeps the populace happy through apathy and ignorance.

Runners, male and female couriers of information, leap around this cityscape using parkour, delivering messages and data, trying to restore more free will to the citizens and/or start some kind of revolution. As one character says, things were better "when the city was dirty and alive".

The game's story, surprisingly for such an interesting concept, is one of it's weakest elements. It starts out pretty good, but drags on without really coughing up anything really interesting. Several characters in the game change their motives multiple times, sometimes giving the feeling that the story has gone one or two twists too far.

The ending in particular is weak (it has a rather lame deus ex machina element to it). It leaves the game at a real cliffhanger, and gave me the feeling that ultimately I had solved nothing, and made no difference during the game. Not cool.

The first person view really gives the game a "realistic" feel, despite the almost surreal surroundings of the city. You hurl yourself over walls, slide under pipes, crash through doors and kick guns from the hands of your pursuers all in first person. That means that you will literally have the camera roll over vertically when performing a commando roll, for example.

It sounds nauseating, but you soon get used to it, and it is very cool.

I mentioned guns, and that means combat. It is the one thing that drags the gameplay down, particularly in the later sections. The fun of the game largely relies on the unique movement. Building up momentum and performing a death-defying leap onto a roof is very satisfying, particularly when you look back and the chasing corporate cronies can only stare helplessly as you get away.

Unfortunately the game feels the need to crank the shooting up to 11, something that has ruined many innovative games. You find in the later levels you won't be jumping or running much - instead you'll be walking down corridors gunning down hordes of SWAT-like baddies.

That's okay if you're playing a dedicated first person shooter, but although the gunplay mechanics in ME are pretty good, they're not A+. You'll soon yearn for the freedom of running away from the guns rather than just walking around shooting Identikit Evil Man #04430 in the face.

The hand to hand combat is more exciting, and early game you'll definitely enjoy surprising the odd sluggish bad guy with a flying kick to the gob.


Finally, the game has a really interesting graphical style. The city is unnaturally clean and bright. The colours both guide you (a form of "runner sense" allows you to quickly pick out a door you can bash through, for example, by colouring it eye-searing red) and decorate the environment beautifully.

Enemies and other characters look pretty realistic, yet strangely "perfect" at the same time, much like the city. Their eyes gleam with light reflections, and armour, clothes and skin designs are top notch.


Final Word:


If you're tired of shoot-a-thon games where the colour palette seems to consist entirely of grey, brown, and brown/red, then ME will give your eyes and senses a much needed holiday.

Overall I recommend the game. Time trials tasks give the game replayability, and if you can ignore the increasingly silly turns of the story (and stomach the shootier levels at the end of the game) you should find the glowing jewel of the open gameplay shines through.

I give the game 3.5 (rounded to 4) out of 5 for really being bold and attempting something new, even though it does have flaws.

At certain times, when the gameplay really flows, it's easy to grin like a maniac. Being chased through a brightly coloured subway station as trains hurtle by was a perfect example of a level I thought was really fun to play.

[*] [*] [*] [*] [ ]

Friday 10 September 2010

Online Accounts and Patience

*Readers should be aware that I was in a bad mood while typing this. Any such posts will be tagged with "Ragepost". Swearing and sadistic remarks may be at above average levels.*

I hate computers.

I was rather hoping that all my game-related bile had dried up from yesterday's prolonged outburst at DLC. Unfortunately not, as an infuriating experience this morning has proved.

What is it with games (and for that matter, other online services too) having ridiculous account systems that make the user fly through freaking hoops just to do the simplest things?

Ages ago, I enjoyed playing Company of Heroes, a WW-II themed real-time strategy game, made by developer Relic. Then I bought the expansion, Opposing Fronts, and much fun (read: swearing) occurred while I faffed about trying to get the two products to work in harmony due to the game's bizarre online account system.

Recently, after a long absense from the game, I picked up the mini-expansion, Tales of Valour (I refuse to spell it the American way!) for a sweet £2.50 deal on Steam.

Right, I'm thinking, just fire up Opposing Fronts, key in the ToV code from my steam purchase, and everything should work. I can have a brief game against the AI, play with shiny things, done.

No, of course it is never that simple. I'm greeted with the Relic Online login screen. I've long since forgotten my account, so I get the piece of paper I wrote it down on (after forgetting it once in the past and having a massive pain in the neck).

Login! Oh wait, I can't, because it tells me the details are wrong. They can't be, since I haven't changed them since writing them down. That means that the game needs to be patched before it will recognise my login details.

This leads to a lengthy attempt at installing a small 26mb patch through the game's updater.

Does that work? No prizes for the answer. I open all the router ports the game requires for updating, to absolutely no avail. It just tells me that the download failed. No reason or anything, natch.

I then sod around for about 45 minutes (no exaggeration, I've been sat here for a full hour now) Googling how to actually find the patch version of the game, so I can manually update it, and then perform that. Naturally that required this weird "Cancel download to get up prompt for disc validation." dance.

Excuse me, but how the bloody hell am I meant to know cancelling the download instead of just letting it fail will let me validate my game with the disc?! Why is there no "use disc" button? /tearhairout.

Apparently all this assorted bollocks is in place to provide an easier experience for the user. Since that is obviously rubbish (having to download at least 10 patches does not equal user friendliness), it is clearly a purely anti-piracy measure. Got to love how those have a tendency to screw up the experience for legitimate customers only.

I'm pretty sure the pirates don't even have a login screen on their version, so no need to bull around with all this kind of rubbish, plus they get the game free.

Nice job gaming industry, nice job!

Thursday 9 September 2010

Games and "Downloadable Content"

There is a new marketing technique taking gaming by storm. It is called "Downloadable Content", or DLC.

Consoles have been doing this since the XBox 360, but it's something that is now slowly creeping it's way into the PC sector.

First of all, I'm not against all forms of DLC. In the past there were always expansion packs for games that you could buy in a store to add new stuff. They typically added quite a bit of new gameplay or story. Fallout 3's DLC generally has a good reputation as it adds a lot of content, and the original game was well made.

What I am definitely against, however, is this new tide of "bullcrap DLC". Games developers have recently been making a game with a lot of content, cutting a lot of that original content out, and then re-selling it after release as DLC packs, often for £5 or more per purchase.

Alternatively they deliberately build the game around some kind of minor but irritating flaw (such as a poor ending or lack of weapons), and then bring out DLC almost immediately after release that "fixes" that problem.

Deliberately gimping your product, mis-selling it, and then re-selling lumps of it strikes me as a pretty unethical business practice and I'm surprised the companies in question are even allowed to do it legally.

Take Mafia II for example. In trailers for the game, several missions (complete with dialogue, fully rendered cutscenes and everything else) are totally missing. There are no "side-missions", but simply a main story that winds through the length of the game (which works well since the story is strong, but it still feels as though something was cut out.)

Then, a couple of days back, after the game has only been out about a week at most, suddenly the developers (2K) released a DLC pack, currently priced at £6.30 on Steam. Now, I only just paid £29.99 for the game, there is no way I'm dropping £6.30 less than a week later.

This pack is called Jimmy's Vendetta, and features a bald mercenary out for revenge. The pack is apparently far more "arcade" in nature, and features 30 tasks that have you racing around the city shooting enemies and blowing stuff up.

Thirty may sound a lot, but the whole extra content pack can apparently be finished in around 40 minutes, the tasks are so short.

Short missions with an arcadey feel? That sounds almost like the side-missions that seemed "cut" from the game!

2k vehemently denied this, insisting everything was new content that they'd freshly made (in a week, lolz). They dug their own grave with that one. In the (new) apartment in which Jimmy stays, screenshots clearly show the name "Vito" (the standard game character) engraved on the apartment ownership sign. Oops!

Honestly, if you paid for a delicious burger, would you expect a big bite out of the meat inside? And then you're told that you'll have to pay extra to have that chunk back, in a slightly different form?

Since Mafia II's ending is left very ambiguous (someone even joked that the next DLC will feature "The ending and an epilogue.") I wouldn't be surprised if they're going to release a crap-ton of missions for Vito for £6 a pop soon as well.

Someone even spotted a future pack named "Joe's Adventures" in the game files - Joe being a character that the ending hinges around.

It's not unique to Mafia II either.

Fallout 3, while generally regarded as having very good value DLC, also had a remarkably crappy "standard" ending that prevented you playing on with your established character. Many fans were annoyed by this.

Presumably the decision was made to deliberately make it quite a closed ending let down, because the next DLC pack suddenly changed it to an open-ended "keep-playing" ending. *Insert cash register sound*.

Meanwhile CoD:Modern Warfare 2 has been charging £10.99 for maps already in the original game, just ported over to the sequel in 5 minutes. You have to be joking.

Steam is also telling me that "Sniper: Ghost Warrior" (which admittedly I've never played) is now charging £9.99 for 5 new multiplayer maps. Call me crazy, but the whole game was £29.99 I believe.

So 5 new maps (for which only the mapping and artistic parts of a dev crew need to work on) cost 1/3 of the original price? Lol.

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I think the only way to stop this pretty cynical cash-cow esque technique of selling every last drop of a game is to stop buying the lamest of the DLC packs.

Sadly time and time again gamers have proven that they don't have the will to take such an action, and I imagine it will be several years before it becomes such a rip-off that most of the public stop buying it.

Until then, I'll bitterly enjoy watching people spend £6 for a new gun/hat/car for Vito.

Friday 3 September 2010

Sturm Von Stahl BB League Week 1 Report

So for Season 6 of the online Blood Bowl league I play in I decided to do a  "video-comic" match report.

I spliced in-game sounds into the mix and hopefully it will be reasonably enjoyable even to those who don't play the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6zoRHbmPWU

Youtube was kind enough to desynch the sound about halfway in onwards, but meh.

There are a few lame in-jokes there. One in particular is that for some reason it always seems to look like my guys are getting hit in the nuts when I take screenshots :\

I've had several matches since then, but unfortunately real life got a little crazy a few weeks back and so far I've been unable to give them the same treatment. All in good time, with a little bit of luck.

Thursday 26 August 2010

Mafia II, District 9...and swearing and censorship in movies and games.

This is something that has bugged me for a while. Swearing in both videogames and movies seems to be steadily heading towards dropping f-bombs every second word.

Personally, I have nothing against  violence and/or swears when it would typically be appropriate, but sometimes I find the sheer volume of excessive gore and cursing just turns me off of a film or game entirely.

Take District 9 (which I will review shortly). I really enjoyed that film, though I felt the action-heavy big robot scene dragged on a bit and felt tacked on.



The one single thing in the whole film that grated for me was the cursing - sometimes justified (I'd be swearing too if someone wanted to cut my arm off), but by the end of the film, where one of the bad guys was inserting obscenities into every sentence, it felt a little strained.

Can't the bad guy just say "Then just kill him." rather than "Then just ****ing kill him."?

Or "I'm going to kill you." rather than "I'm going to ****ing kill you."?

Or "How do I open this thing?!" instead of "How do I ****ing open this ****ing thing?! ****!"

>_> <_<

There were also plenty of gory body explosions that were a little gratuitous, but performed more to give a sense of power than out of mean-spirited sadism - no problem with that.



Then similarly in the videogame world, I was recently playing the Mafia II demo and I've gone on to purchase the game new, something I generally don't do. However the demo was very impressive and the first game had a fantastic story. Despite playing more curse-heavy games like The Getaway (every second word in that game is literally an F-bomb, ridiculous) I was still struck by the level of cursing in the game.

Now, take a scene from the demo - you ("Vito") and your Mafia colleagues (Joe and Henry) have to assassinate some kind of mob boss as he shows up to a whiskey distillery. Things go wrong and his workers are able to drag him inside as you ambush his car, leading to a long gunfight and the distillery catching fire.

During this exchange many swears are dropped, mostly by Joe, who is easily the most foul-mouthed of the lot. He screams curses and bellows furied insults as bullets spark off of the car he's crouched behind. It all feels justified and very intense.

Then, after taking out the enemies, he calls on you to kick a door open. "You first Vito, you're the ****ing war hero."

Hmm, little unneccessary maybe, but he's a coarse guy, so it makes sense.

Inside the distillery there's more swearing. Eventually the target is reached, and there is a cutscene that is both violent and swear-filled, but with good reason - the cornered boss begs pitifully, then sneakily wounds his would-be killer before finally being shot. It manages to be very uncomfortable viewing for all the right reasons, and Vito's expression flickers uncertainly as it plays out before him.

Unfortunately, this is followed by Joe literally swearing at everything that happens afterwards, however mundane, as if the dialogue writers gave up with their adjectives. I dawdle for a moment as he carries the wounded man...

"What the **** are you doing Vito?" is my reward for slowing down for two seconds to grab a Tommy Gun - even though Joe isn't actually moving himself at the time either.

Outside, I bump into a pedestrian and he barely stumbles. "Watch where you're ****ing going!"

Then I apparently drive too slow in the car (though I'm not being chased). "You drive like my ****ing grandmother!"

The list goes on, leaving a distinctly District 9-esque vibe of "was that one really neccessary?"

The short of it? I think both swearing and violence can be used very effectively to convey mature and thought-provoking messages, but I think care has to be taken not to cheapen the impact by throwing in lazy swears every five minutes. If anything I think that really detracts from immersion and any kind of meaning being conveyed.


* On a related note, Mafia II's collectable items are apparently made up of 50's Playboy pin-ups. Really I have no idea what they were thinking - it seems laughably tacked on and, as a gaming website put it, apparently put in to make sure to alienate the female audience.

There are no GTA-style prostitutes in the game and Vito can't fist-fight women due to his own personal morals (though he's free to shoot them and run them over...)

Of course the silly side content apparently had to be put in just to make sure that girls can't just enjoy the story like guys can after all...and guys can't share the game with their partner or families without feeling uncomfortable.

Very lame "collectables", 'nuff said ¬_¬

Monday 23 August 2010

Review: The Hills Have Eyes

So nothing else was on TV last night and I watched this from around halfway to the end.

Unfortunately the film had two things that always drive me crazy in horror films - psycho mutant hillbillies and utterly dumb characters.

Mutant hillbillies actually rank lower on my originality scale than zombies. At least zombies are menacing and their origins are generally not explained. Their properties and actions can be changed to suit a different type of story.

Mutant hillbillies are even more predictable - you just know that they'll live in some crappy shack, and they'll eat tourists, etc. etc.What's worse is they seem to be in about a third of all recent horror films.

Now, at about halfway in the film looked like it had some promise. Then the characters suddenly went into full-on idiot mode.

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Let me pose some questions and see what you would pick in a mutant hillbilly situation, compared to the characters in this film.

Question 1: A group of mutants have kidnapped your baby and killed most of your family. You eventually find the kid, guarded by a bald, nasty looking woman in a chair. You have a baseball bat. Do you:

A: Sneak up behind the murderous kidnapper and beat her to death before sneaking out with the baby?
B: Sneak to the baby, pick her up (leaving you unable to use the bat), and then try to sneak out?

Question 2: You have a pistol with one magazine left. An unarmed crazy bloke is running towards you. Do you:

A: Take careful aim and shoot the guy dead?
B: Run away screaming while firing all of your bullets inaccurately over your shoulder?

Question 3: You are fighting a huge guy with a big axe. Eventually you stab him with the broken remains of your bat. Do you:

A: Keep hitting him with anything nearby until he's dead?
B: Stare for thirty seconds while he slowly pulls the splinters out and then starts walking towards you?

Question 4: A hillbilly comes very close to killing you in a fist fight, leaving you badly injured. You grab a shotgun when he's distracted, hit him three times in the face, and then shoot him twice in the chest. Do you:

A: Walk over to the body, pump the rest of your shells into it, and then throw it off of the nearby cliff for good measure?

B: Walk over to the body, smile, drop the loaded shotgun next to it, and then act horrified when he gets up and grabs it?

C: Wish someone in Hollywood could come up with a single original idea and stop watching shit like this?

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If you answered A to the questions you're a normal, sensible human being. If you answered B you've got a guaranteed place in the movie making business, and would be a great infuriating horror protaganist.

If you answered A to all of them and then C on Q4 as well, I am very much in agreement with you.

Final Rating:

I'm giving this film 1/5 for descending into the land of extremely lame cliche.
[*] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Tuesday 17 August 2010

Supermarkets

Have you ever noticed that supermarkets seem to be a kind of congregation area for people who enjoy making life frustrating? Sometimes I'm convinced that there is some elaborate conspiracy that shoppers and staff alike are in on. They all communicate with each other to make buying some simple items a mind-numbing chore.

Now, to be fair, the majority of the time you'll go into a supermarket and staff will be friendly, professional and pleasant to ask for assistance if you need it. My beef most certainly doesn't lie with these people, and to them I raise a salute.

No, my irritation lies with those like the Aisle Juggernauts, as I'm now going to start calling them. They'll shove a cart right down the aisle in an unswerving line and nearly take your foot off without so much as an apology. If they're having a bad day you'll get a dirty look as if it's your fault that you couldn't phase through the wall to escape them.

Then there's the Boasting Bloke, who is by no means restricted to the supermarket staff profession, but is especially annoying here.

At one point I was in Tesco's to buy milk, newspaper, bread. Boring stuff. That was when I noticed the shelf was blockaded by three guys and a staff cart, two of whom were listening to the Boasting Bloke.

As I stood a few paces away, staring at the milk as if my sheer concentration would cause the group to melt, Boasting Bloke continued to witter on smugly.

"Yeah, so then we went for drinks at blah, and I said blah, and then we all blahdeeblah'd! Hahaha! Yeh, yeh, you know it. And then I was like, blah, I can do that! And then I met her at the bar, and blah-"

At this point I muttered "'Scuse me." to no effect. Concluding that manners were apparently a foreign language in this aisle, I came back right at the end of the shopping list, only to find the prat still rambling on about his great night down the brain donor's clinic pub.

Disturbingly, I found myself  subconsciously sizing up how to best deliver a fatal overhead smash with the crispy French baguette resting in the trolley, but decided against it.

Fortunately the situation eventually resolved itself when an elderly guy practically rugby tackled him out of the way.

Finally for staff, there is the Amateur Juggler. There is a guy like this down my local mini store who just can't seem to resist performing advanced theatrics with food as he puts it through the scanner.

It's not enough to just scan it, he has to spin it round in one hand, slide it through upside down, perform keepy-uppies and eventually reverse header it into the bag. This is combined with a total lack of sense in regard to the fragility of the items.

Maybe it's a squishy cake that he zips through the scanner and slamdunks into the bag? Or perhaps a pack of biscuits that he decides to hurl the jar of marmelade on top of?

Then there are the other customers. I won't go too far into that, this post is already long so lets break it down into brief little classes:

- Mr/Mrs. Vacant - Baked Beans are apparently so wondrous that they deserve being stared at for fifteen minutes...but not before they've blocked the whole aisle with their trolley.

- Which Sandwich? - Lunch is a matter of grave importance for this shopper, who instead of just browsing, will continually lift up various items, stare at them, and put them down. This continues for around five minutes, with the offender always picking up the sandwich you want just as you lunge towards it.


Then there are the new self-service checkouts, which berate you in sudden loud harsh voices if you look at them the wrong way. Lack of a proper queuing system also means that queue places are usually assigned via gladiatorial combat.

Do you have your own shopping hates? Feel free to comment them, I'm sure I've missed quite a few!