Sunday 28 December 2014

Movie Review: Strange Days

A while ago I heard of "Strange Days", a sci-fi movie set in LA during an alternate 1999. It got pretty good reviews (~70% average) so I thought I'd give it a watch.

The basic premise of Strange Days is interesting: SQUID magnetometry (a phenomenon ironically used in my work field as a Chemist in real life) has evolved to the extent that it can be used to completely record someone's feelings, thoughts, emotions and experiences on a "tape", directly from their brain.

Obviously, this technology is not merely limited to recording mundane things. The film opens with a bombastic sequence in which a man "tapes" the robbery of a store, culminating with his own gut-wrenching death as he falls from a building. This depiction of real death in a "tape" makes it a "blackjack".

The main character, Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is a washed-out ex-cop who makes a sleazy living from selling "tapes" that allow users to experience illicit thrills. He has a pathetic hang-up on his ex-girlfriend, Faith (Juliette Lewis) that's bolstered by his constant re-watching of his SQUID memories of her. While he proclaims that he has ethics ("I don't trade blackjacks, everyone knows that."), most of the film he comes across as a loser with minimal scruples.

Fiennes does a really good job of somehow making Lenny likable enough to care about. It'd be very easy, with his fake Rolexes and selfish demeanour, to make him a character that the audience takes an instant dislike to. But somehow he hits that sweet spot where we pity him because his life is such a wreck, and also perhaps because his wretched state stems from losing his "true love".

Really, though, the show is stolen by Angela Bassett as "Mace", Lenny's close friend. A bodyguard in an LA completely overrun by crime, Mace is tough, smart and uncompromising. However, she's also caring, compassionate and honest, unlike almost everyone around her in the film. It is often her discussions with Lenny that give the film it's best moments.

Unfortunately, the film itself for me was a real example of how poor scripting and lazy action scenes can really detract from a movie. Despite Fiennes and Bassett putting in performances that are worth watching, the story itself devolves into being almost nonsensical by the end, and it feels like the film entirely squanders the ability to really explore the whole "tape" concept when it goes off trying to make some really vague, confused statement about civil liberties instead.

Firstly, there is a ridiculous amount of repetition. The worst example in the film has to be the club scenes: there are so many scenes in which Lenny walks into the same club and bickers with Faith and nothing actually gets resolved that I started genuinely feeling like the DVD was stuck on a loop or something. This is combined with slightly bizarre drawn-out shots of Faith singing in the club with a Grunge band that seem to go on for ages and contribute nothing.

Philo Gant (Michael Wincott) is Faith's new man. He is one of the most pointless and irritating characters in the movie by far. He plays a part in the plot, but is a 2D character stuck in the same loop of walking around pouting and threatening Lenny while not doing much else.

Finally, the action scenes are just stupid in places. We have a scene in which a bad guy gets shot in the chest three times at almost point-blank range, but then simply jumps up and is fit enough to have a car chase immediately afterwards because he was wearing a weedy looking bullet-proof vest. There are a couple of good fight scenes with Mace, but the majority of them are so over the top they're just silly.

The ending deserves a paragraph of it's own: it's clear that the scriptwriters wanted to produce an "unexpected" ending, but they do it through a really formulaic twist that doesn't make any sense at all. Especially when it requires us to believe that one of the main characters is actually a psychotic rapist, but can completely hide that trait from everyone else for years.

-

So what do we have? We've got a unique and interesting concept that is actually left barely explored over the course of the film. It's perplexing: the story could have been really strong if it focused on the profound nature of being able to experience any sensation as any person, but the fact that doing so requires that you leave your own consciousness and ethics behind.

Similarly, making the action more realistic and cutting all the pointless scenes with Gant and Faith to allow us to focus on Lenny and Mace would have made the film much more lean and dynamic.

As it is, though, with so much filler and so many pointless scenes, parts of the movie are a real drag. Combined with the ludicrous ending, it's a real shame that I can't give it more than 2 stars.

Rating: 2/5
[*][*][ ][ ][ ]

An excellent premise with some strong main characters, sadly hampered by a go-nowhere story and a complete inability to actually use that premise in the plot in a meaningful way.

I still recommend seeing it if you're a Fatboy Slim fan: you'll immediately recognise Mace's amazingly distinctive shout of "Right here, right now!" as one of his samples.

Tuesday 25 February 2014

"Assassin's Creed III": Soon to be called "Creed III".

So I got the last installment of AC on Steam for £3.74 during the last sale. A bargain, so it's probably unfair for me to criticise it here.

But I shall nonetheless. Because as engaging and interesting as it feels at times it suffers from the same glaring problems of almost every AC game thus far:

1. The protagonist is far too strong in combat, to the point that it's ridiculous. Combat is too easy, in terms of game mechanics. Stealth is underdeveloped.
2. We're not actually "assassins" in all but the first AC game. We're just playing renegade badasses that go round pulling off crazy martial arts and seducing wenches.

1. Combat:

Point 1 was never such an issue in AC 1. It was fairly plausible that Altair, a ruthlessly trained expert warrior, could perhaps take on 6 or 7 poorly trained Middle Ages militia in a swordfight to the death.

AC II I think was almost the combat apex of the series. It took AC 1 and made it a bit harder. Brute Guards were capable of being quite dangerous, as were the Spear guys, until at least you realised that disarming them both made things much easier.

Brotherhood was a disaster in terms of combat, excellent though the core game was. The "execution" chains made everything boringly trivial: Brute Guards were now just as easy to kill as standard rookie soldiers, and that was a real step backwards in terms of game challenge.

And now, since I missed Revelations, I'm back to AC III. And if anything, combat seems worse than Brotherhood.

My first real fight in AC III was against six soldiers. Redcoats, to be exact. Redcoats armed with muskets and bayonets.

What was my weapon of choice in this dangerous scenario, reader? Have a guess. Yes, that's right, I used my bare hands.

At first kung-fu fighting gun-wielding baddies seems cool, and the animations look fantastic. But the simple notion of fighting with 6 armed men with no weapon and utterly kicking their arses is completely ridiculous. If they shoot at you you get this stupid human shield move which basically gives you an invulnerability field. You can even counter two bayonet charges at once with no weapon yourself!

The core problem is that fighting with any weapon in the game seems to feel identical. You're just as deadly with a sword as you are unarmed, which makes no sense at all. The fact that you never actually have to run from bad guys since you can take on 20 at a time with just your hands really emphasises the weaknesses of the game.

2. The "Assassin" in "Assassin's Creed". Where is it?

This, I think, is the absolute crux of the issue at the moment.

In AC 1, Altair was an Assassin. That was his sole purpose, with some extra story layered in regarding Templars and the Assassin Order. The game revolved around killing high profile bad guys, and dramatically escaping the city afterwards.

The escape scenes were easily the most enjoyable part of the game for me. Running away from the entire city guard while bells sounded out and awesome music blared was exhilarating, and made you really appreciate the parkour mechanics.

From AC 2 onwards, we seem to have drifted from Assassin into the realm of "Generic Male Fantasy Badass Guy". Tons of scenes in the sequels seem to have absolutely no function in eloquently explaining the plot, especially Desmond's plot in the modern world, which feels like it's been going nowhere for decades now.

AC 2 and Brotherhood in particular devoted far too much screen-time to Ezio getting laid with historical women, prostitutes and minor female characters - which I always thought was utterly bizarre. Yeah, we get that the protagonist is supposed to be "cool" and everything, but why is having random sex with every female character the best way to illustrate that? The answer is that it's not. It's a really lazy (and almost sexist) way to try and give a character more depth than a 2d lasercopy.

AC 3 seems to have the same exaggerated "dashing rogue" laziness going on - the first mission with Haytham he already gets about 6 women flashing doe eyes at him in cutscenes or the background.

Other diversions, such as the historical cameos, are at times a bit stupid too. I sighed when AC III introduced me to Benjamin Franklin, and then immediately explained he's lost pages of his Almanac. "That's a fetch quest for completely irrelevant collectibles, then." I thought, rolling my eyes. And it was. It had absolutely nothing to do with the plot.

I'm a no-nonsense Templar assassin (no capital!) who's just arrived in America. Why the fuck would I want to hunt for pages of some guy's missing book strewn around a city? It's totally nonsensical and almost screams "YOU ARE PLAYING A GAME."

Then we have sidequests. Piles and piles of sidequests, inane stuff like delivering letters or stealing from chests or randomly doing errands for peasants (for absolutely no logical reason).

But where are the assassinations? Why do we only get to use our Hidden Blade, apparently the game's signature weapon, about once every 4 hours? Why do we never seem to actually kill any important characters until right at the very end of the game(s)? Why do we never sneak into large restricted zones to silently kill enemies?

The best mission of Brotherhood by miles was the one where you sneak into the huge circular castle to try and kill Cesare Borgia. The caste was enormous and had many different entrances. You could silently eliminate guards and lookouts, and climb all over it with parkour. It was a glimpse of what AC should actually be about - sneaking into a heavily guarded area with all your different skills, to kill an important enemy.

Unfortunately, it was the only mission like that in the whole game, the rest being stupid things like chasing pickpockets or delivering letters to people like some kind of cheap precursor to FedEx.

*Sigh*

Diversion aside, if I play Black Flag I hope it's about the actual assassination again, not just wandering around having conversations that end in collectible hunt non-sequiturs and random cutscenes that don't actually further the plot one iota. But given that the game is now about being a fucking pirate, not an assassin, that's highly unlikely.

What will Assassin's Creed V be? "AC V: Robot Ninja Pirate's Sidequest Simulator." perhaps?

Saturday 4 January 2014

Breaking Bad: Quick Thoughts So Far (Season 2)

So after a good friend pointed me to Breaking Bad a while ago, I have to say it's rapidly becoming my absolute favourite TV series since...well, since anything!

1. I'm a Chemist.
2. I like intelligent crime drama.
3. I like dark comedy.
4. I love media which depicts smartly written characters who have real motivations and personalities.

Breaking Bad satisfies all four in spades, with razor sharp writing and acting that I can only describe as absolutely spot-on.

I'm way behind, only now starting on watching right through after getting the box-set for Christmas. But the show is consistently fantastic so far.

I think the most fascinating aspect of the show thus far is easily the central shift of Walt's morality. Even more than his morality, actually: his humanity itself.

Walt starts Season 1 as a character who is almost unquestionably sympathetic. He's a decent man who, through a lack of assertiveness and simple bad fortune, has essentially been screwed out of everything he could have expected from life as a successful, honest scientist.

He's felt dead for a good chunk of his whole life. He has a stressful home life with a disabled son, a wife he struggles to express his emotions to...and biggest of all, a crushing sense that his brilliant understanding of Chemistry has got him nowhere but teaching to a bunch of uninterested, obnoxious teenagers. He's frequently too nice to offend others, and submits to pressure rather than pushing to put his desires and viewpoints across.

So when he's abruptly told he's dying of lung cancer (despite having never smoked, no less), it's understandable, even if certainly not condonable, that he begins to feel deeply sickened (and envious) when he sees the idiotic local drug pushers rolling around with more money than he's ever seen.

When he realises soon after he begins cooking that he must murder Krazy-8 to save his family from retribution, we see the despair and sadness wracking him terribly with guilt as tears flow down his cheeks.

Fast forward to Season 2, Episode 10, the episode I just finished. Walt's spent several episodes manipulating Jesse with Machiavellian grace, remorselessly lying to him and showing next to no compassion when Hank confiscated the funds he required to even have somewhere to live.

At the end of the episode, he has the following confrontation with a couple of up-and-coming meth peddlers he spots at the local DIY store. Going from the "silent partner" who very much prefers to force Jesse into getting his hands dirty, we see him suddenly assert himself as a street hardman directly:


"Stay OUT of my territory." 

It's like Walt has ceased to exist in this clip, with Heisenberg taking full control. Bryan Cranston is utterly convincing with his narrow eyes and ice-cold snarl - fabulous acting. The other guy may be bigger, but just look at that dangerous look in Walt's eyes, the thinly veiled disgust on his face, and you know immediately that he's not a guy you want to fuck with. At all.

After his "blowfish" discussion with Jesse, we see that Walt's toughness isn't bluster, either. He has nothing to fear from death, already possessing a death sentence.

Walt's disgusted look is doubly ironic considering that the big bald guy and his partner could almost be a mirror showing a more physically imposing Walt and a dirtier, more meth-y Jesse. A clever casting similarity I'm sure was deliberate.

I think the most heartbreaking thing is that as Walt becomes more adept at being Heisenberg, he starts losing everything that makes him Walt. In Season 1 he was a decent man making a lame effort at being a hardcore criminal. Now, he's sliding towards being a ruthlessly efficient hardcore criminal, but losing what makes him a likable, decent human being completely in the process.

Very interesting. And very funny. And very sad.

I love this show ;)