Year One

Bah!  It's so much more work to make a video that doesn't play properly than it is to just write 5 minutes of text.  But, people are lazy and more likely to watch 5 minutes of video than read 5 minutes of text... i know i am.

youtube link here:

Video link

National Treasure

Or the movie that should've ended Nicolas Cage's career, but didn't.

National Treasure is all kinds of horrible.  I'll get to the details, but first, let's see if this sounds familiar:

An ancient secret society hides a series of cryptic clues in plain view in places of great historical importance that would lead the most discerning individuals to find a great historical treasure.  There's some seedy characters who are out for the treasure for their own selfish reasons, so it's up to a protagonist with near encyclopedic knowledge of ancient history to solve the riddles and discern the clues that will lead him to the treasure first.  Along the way he meets an impossibly hot female professional who he inevitably hooks up with romantically.

That's right, it's like the plot of a bad dan brown novel!

Now i know what you're thinking: "a bad dan brown novel"?  Surely you jest!  That would imply there are "good" dan brown novels.

Of course, this is no coincidence.  National Treasure was released at the end of 2004, a year after Dan Brown's successful The Da Vinci Code (4 years after Angels and Demons), and it makes no mistake that it is blantantly ripping off the plot, but with the backdrop of the US instead of Europe.  I guess Disney felt that using a European setting would be too similar.  Either that or they felt average americans would be too stupid to accept a setting outside the United States.

Interestingly enough, a lot of the same "ancient masonic mysteries" appear in National Treasure as in The Lost Symbol.  One might cynically think this a case of the plagiarised ripping off the plagiariser, but i think it's probably more likely that they're both borrowing heavily from the same mythos.

But enough preamble, let's run down the plot in a little more detail.  I know i'm breaking my cardinal sin of "not spoiling" here, but screw it.  If it's good enough for other reviewers to spoil movies, it's good enough for me.  Besides, the movie's terrible anyway, so i'm doing you a favour.

SPOILER TIME

Nicolas Cage plays an unlikeable man-child that believes himself to be an honset-to-goodness Knight(s Templar) and has tasked himself with finding and protecting the hidden Masonic treasure of the title.  After following a clue given to him by his grandfather decades ago, Cage, with the help of a wealth financier (Sean Bean), manages to track down a clue that eventually points him to a map written on the Declaration of Independence.

Because Cage and his comedy relief side-kick (Justin Bartha) are good guys, they immediately conclude it's impossible to follow the trail since it would require getting their hands on the actual Declaration of Independence.  A movie, however, needs conflict, so Bean decides he's going to steal it anyway.  Cage of course swears he'll stop him from committing such a crime, thereby quing the forced conflict of the movie.  Bean does the usual villain rant "if you're not with me, you're expendable" and we're treated to a rather pointless firefight.  Why?  Why not just lie to Cage about stealing the Declaration of Independence and go about scheming behind his back anyway?

Anyway, things go from bad to worse as Cage discovers no one believes his warnings that someone is going steal the Declaration of Independence.  Cage, being the "stand up" guy that he is, decides the only way to keep the Declaration of Independence from being stolen is to... wait for it... steal the Declaration of Independence.  Of course, once he's done this, he views it as his duty as a "responsible citizen" to follow the map and find the masonic treasure himself.

All this, of course, makes the primary conflict now look silly since both the good guys and bad guys have identical goals and methods, with the only real defining characteristic being that Bean and his men were quick to get violent.

Oh well? ...

Of course, in the process of stealing the Declaration of Independence, Cage and Bartha end up accidentally kidnapping Dr Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), who is the head of the National Archives and protector of the document, while trying to evade Bean and his men.  Kruger wastes no time in whining like a child for Cage to give back the Declaration of Independence, prompting Bartha, wise man that he is, to remind Cage of the duct tape in the back of the van.

Sadly, this being a Disney movie ("for the kids!" and all that) and the strict laws requiring a sideline love story in movies overrule Bartha's better judgment, so Cage turns down this suggestion and Kruger instantly becomes a willing party and love interest without a single word more of protest.

Lazy story writing makes baby jesus cry!

Now that the writers have painfully beaten their way to the point of the story they wanted to start at to begin with, it's time for the protagonists to actually get some "treasure findin'" done - that is, by interpreting the clues and discerning the puzzles.  To do this, the characters take turns playing stupid just so they can explain the clues to the audience and presumably each other.

After some improbably plot twists and action sequences, including a firefight in the streets that attracts the attention of no one, the Declaration of Independence and some other MacGuffin's land in the possession of the badguys and the plot finds the good guys and bad guys working together once again.  While at first it seems almost consensual, it turns out that the badguys have also taken to kidnapping and have abducted Cage's father (Jon Voight) to use as a bargaining chip to force Cage's compliance.

Of course, why they really need Cage's help when they have all the clues themselves is a mystery.  The writers handwave it as being "Cage knows more about history" and can more readily discern the clues.  A stretch, to be sure, as the bad guys seemed to have done just fine keeping up the chase, even snubbing the FBI (no, really) and evading the police without holding any of the MacGuffin's themselves.

Anyway, with Cage's help, the group finally manage to trace the clues to an underground crypt, but run into a dead end.  Bean is convinced that it's not a dead end and manages to threaten one last clue out of Cage and the other good guys before leaving them to die in the catacombs, along with the Declaration of Independence and all the other MacGuffin's they've collected, since he apparently no longer needs them.

Bartha moans for a bit about dying, but as it turns out, Cage had given Bean a fake clue to get rid of him while the real treasure was actually right under their noses.  Cage and company find the treasure, contact the police and return the Declaration of Independence.

End of story, right?  Well, there's still all that uncomfortable bit of "stealing the Declaration of Independence" and "resisting arrest" and the like.  So, what does Cage do?  Why, bribe the FBI agent, of course (he even says so in the movie)!  He gives the treasure to various museums with a number of conditions, ranging from giving credit to his colleagues to avoiding jail for himself.

It's revealed that the agent is a high ranking Freemason and he accepts the bribe, provided someone else goes to jail in Cage's stead.  Bean takes the fall, Cage and Kruger get married and everyone lives happily ever after.  The ending is just as cliched and ripped off as the rest of the movie, though arguably in a different sort of way.

By the way, just for the record, here's the breakdown:

Good Guys: breaking and entering, stealing, kidnapping, resisting arrest and bribing an officer of the law.
Bad Guys: breaking and entering, attempted stealing, kidnapping, resisting arrest and attempted murder.
Motivation for both: finding a treasure for personal gain.

So yeah, i guess the bad guys are worse than the good guys, but it's a close call.

Well, that's National Treasure.  It looks, feels and plays out like a Dan Brown-esque adventure, but with the notable exception of being up front about it's factual inaccuracies.  Unfortunately, it's not a particularly good adventure movie and the flaws against it are numerous: the plot is forced, the suspense feels fake, the characters are not particularly clever or endearing and the story is childish.  Also, it stars Nicolas Cage.

I've heard other reviewers citing this movie as a fun ride if you can get past the inplausibility, but i think that's a stretch.  After all, any movie, no matter how horrible, can be a "fun ride" if you can get past its flaws.  Well, maybe not any movie... *cough*Observe and Report*cough*.

Over all, i give this movie 2.5 of Dan Brown's books out of 5: D.

Astroboy

The movie based on the anime based on the manga from more than 50 years ago!  I guess this means Hollywood's slowly running out of other people's ideas to make into movies and it's only a matter of time before we see something creative and new, right?  RIGHT!?

...

 So, what about the movie Astroboy?

The movie seems to take a very bizarre focus.  While one would initially expect the primary audience would be fans of the old cartoon, there is an inordinate amount of "childishness" in the movie itself.  It isn't bad to appeal to wider audiences, i suppose, but it sure is jarring when you try to mix childish humour in with more "adult" themes without any form of subtlety or nuance.

The plot is as simplistic as it comes.  As a quick gloss over, here it is:

Dr Bill Tenma (he sounds japanese, right?), voiced by Nicholas Cage, works as a military scientist for the obvious villain of the movie, President Stone (voiced by Donald Sutherland).  During a weapons demonstration, his son, Toby, is killed horribly.

Dr Tenma, crushed, uses his robotics knowledge to build a robot that looks like his son and shares all his memories.  Dr Elefun (Bill Nighy) warns Dr Tenma of the problems of this, but Tenma doesn't listen and is more than a little disconcerted when the resulting Astroboy (Freddie Highmore) is not like his son at all, except in physical appearance.  Tenma then rejects the confused Astroboy and the movie "officially starts" as Astroboy goes on his quest to discover what his "true purpose in life" is.

*phew*

There's a whole bunch of problems with this set up, not the least of which being, "What the hell is Cage doing still making movies?"  Seriously, his career should've ended with National Treasure (next time... next time...).

The stupidness in the plot is that Toby wasn't really "accidentally" killed, either.  He was killed because of the direct, malicious interference of the bad guy.  Stone was pretty clear, too, that he was going to do something dangerous that all the scientists in the room were against.  Of course, Dr Tenma seems to maintain his loyalty to the military inexplicably after this tragedy and his later rejection of Astroboy makes him anything but a sympathetic character in the eyes of the viewer.  Some how, the movie still treats him as such, though.

There's also a lot of talk about "positive" blue energy and "negative" red energy that makes absolutely no sense but drives the plot for the better part of the movie.  As far as the viewer's concerned, though, the only thing that seems to matter is that blue = good and red = bad.  Yup, that simple.

The biggest failing of the movie is in the characters: you'll either love them or hate them, there is no inbetween.  Characters in this movie come in two flavours.  Flavour one: childishly simplistic, like the obviously evil President Stone or the obviously good Dr Elefun.  Flavour two: painfully unlikable, like any of the so-called "comic relief" characters.  The latter are easily the most annoying and unnecessary part of the movie, yet that didn't stop the writers from injecting painfully unfunny jokes into as many scenes as possible.

Despite all the above, though, i do have to say Astroboy isn't the worst piece of shi... cinamatography i've seen and is in fact somewhat entertaining.  It's certainly better than the likes of 9, which has mysteriously managed a rating higher than Astroboy on www.rottentomatoes.com (albeit, both have "rotten" ratings).

Astroboy's not a movie to be taken seriously and the last scene puts the entire movie into perspective:

After defeating the villain and claiming to have found his "purpose" in the world, Astroboy finds acceptance in society as a hero.  Instantly, out of nowhere, a giant tentacled eye appears in the sky.  Someone declares it an alien invasion and off Astroboy goes to save the day!

It's such a ludicrous scene, you can't help but smile - and that's just what i did.  I give this movie 6 and a half nostalgic moments out of 10: C+, why not.

Signs

 I had seen this movie before, but i'm reviewing it only now for two reasons: 1) i've not seen any more recent movie and wanted a review up and 2) i saw Signs recently.

Firstly, since this movie is a good few years old now, i'm going to assume i can spoil the hell out of it.  If you haven't seen the movie by now, likely it's not your interest anyway.

Signs is an M Night Shyamalan movie that's more accurately described as a suspense-horror movie than either one of those separately.  Mel Gibson plays a former Catholic priest who's lost his faith thanks to a random accident that killed his wife 6 months earlier.  Because the real life Mel Gibson is fanatically religious, it's probably a safe guess that his character will "get over" this little loss in faith by the end of the movie.

The movie starts off with the characters finding some crop circles in their corn field and are curious as to the origins of them.  While Mel originally believes it to be the work of rowdy neighbourhood teenagers, he is proven wrong as the real source is slowly revealed to be something considerably more alarming.

Signs utilizes the usual effects of horror movies and there's lots of scary scenes that are derived from shock value - loud noise or unexpected visual just thrown onto the screen.  This is made more pronounced by stillness of the other scenes to the point of complete inaction.  A fine tactic for horror movies, but it only really works as an atmosphere builder when the characters show some signs of life on their own, which the characters of Signs don't.  Creepy vacant stares and slow paced monotone conversations are the norm for Mel Gibson's family.

But atmosphere building is atmosphere building and i can't really fault a film for these methods if they're successful - and Signs is certainly successful at this, if only because the overwhelming calm of the first 20 minutes of the film is so omnipresent.

The most glaring problems of the movie come with the aliens themselves.  There is literally so many idiotic contrivances that slowly stack up it can be hard to maintain any kind of suspension of disbelief.  Like, why are alien transmissions able to be picked up on, of all things, a baby monitor but not the satellites and communication tracking systems of the militaries of the world?  And it's not just "vague static" that's picked up, but a message so clear that even the main characters recognize it as an alien code.  Guess the military should start investing in baby monitor technology or something.

Now, that's just a taste of what's to come.  Once the invasion actually starts, the stupidity level jumps through the roof.  Mel Gibson boards up the windows of his house to prevent the aliens getting in and he and his family hide in the basement, blocking the door.  Of course, this kind of tactic wouldn't work against an invading human, yet somehow these masters of interstellar space travel and cloaking technologies are utterly foiled.

The movie attempts to handwave this by saying the aliens "wouldn't use their own technology" in an invasion because they don't want us going nuclear and spoiling the resources.  This is a huge leap in reasoning and a failure of suspension of disbelief.

Now think about it: just because aliens aren't using technology on us, would we not use it on them?  Put it into perspective: if Iraqi troops were storming Washington DC (and not the other way around), do you think the US would just leave their nuclear arsenal untouched and rely only on conventional arms?  Pft!  Don't make me laugh!  And Iraqis are just "weak ol' humans" after all.

Further, if the aliens can master faster-than-light travel, a marvel human scientists believe is impossible, their technology advantage would so far outstrip our own that it wouldn't be so much a war as a complete and utter curb stomp.  It'd be much more in the aliens interest to end the conflict swiftly with their advanced technology than to let it drag on and increase the risk of nuclear retaliation.

But let's put all of that aside for a moment.  Let's just say that this idiotic handwave of "not wanting nuclear retaliation" makes any kind of sense.  Let's just give M Night Shyamalan the benefit of the doubt.  Ok, you still have aliens on earth being denied entry by what is essentially a locked door.  God damn, man, you don't need advanced technology to overcome that obstacle.  A stone age axe would do!  But instead the aliens pound impotently against the door in increasingly futile attempts.  It's.  Just.  So.  Stupid.

But it gets worse...

Invading a planet and not using your vast technological superiority over them is one level of dumb.  It increases alien casualties and the chance that nations may retaliate nuclearly.  So, how can fighting "hand to hand" be dumber?  What if the planet you're invading and the enemy that you're fighting are composed 70-90% of something you're incredibly weak to?  Yup.  Aliens are weak to water.

Why would a race of aliens weak to the most abundant element on this planet try and invade it?  What if it rains?  We already laugh at Hitler and Napolean's armies dying in Russia's frigid winters.  Can you imagine if an army had to stop fighting because of a little fog or rain or humidity because it might melt their skin?

Further still, human blood, sweat, saliva and other fluids all contain large amounts of water.  For all intents and purposes, we'd be the Ridley Scott Alien to the Signs Aliens!  Do you think humanity would want to invade an acid laden planet of acid inhabited by acid-spewing aliens that bleed acid while armed with nothing but their fists and wits?  Hell no!  That's called being too fucking stupid to live - which i guess the Signs aliens are.

I'm also left to wonder, what the hell resources were these short-bus riding aliens after to begin with?  Not water: it kills them.  Heavy metals are more common around supernovae, which should be easy for them to get to with their space crafts.  They obviously can't use any of the carbon life forms here if water is toxic to them.

The movie makes passing mention that they may have been after humans themselves, but this also makes no sense.  The aliens are vastly superior technologically and physically, easily jumping 2 stories from a standing position.  How the hell could a weak ass human help this kind of species?  We're not even remotely physiologically the same, either, so medical experimentation is out.  There is no reason why these aliens would want to invade earth.  Zero.  This fact alone makes the aliens in this movie more laughable than scary.

*sigh*

The ending is another kind of stupid all together: a story telling stupid.  The aliens, defeated, flee in terror so fast that they leave their wounded behind.  One of their wounded is an alien with the life-altering debilitation of a chopped off finger (courtesy of Mel Gibson).  The alien, livid, apparently, stays behind with the sole intent on seeking vengeance on Gibson's family.

Uh, what?  This makes no sense!  The aliens all look the same to us (as in, the audience).  I'm betting humans all look the same to them.  How would this alien know who and where Mel Gibson is?  But even beyond that, say he did know; is losing a finger so worth vengeance that you will throw your very life away for the mere chance to get even?

Remember, in this aliens eyes, none of this can possibly be sure.  Humans are now killing aliens with water, his buddies are all gone and never coming back, for all he knows Mel Gibson could be dead, dying or lying in hiding with enough rations to live for weeks.  To this alien, it's a complete and total suicide run with a very slim chance of success.  This alien dies of course, but in a much more dramatic way than in the next rain storm.

Shyamalan goes out of his way to make the defeat of the aliens, particularly the last one, seem almost like divine intervention.  Of course, when you're dealing with a species of alien so wrecklessly stupid and self-destructive, it's a wonder you'd need any divine help at all.  Maybe it's only by God's good graces that such a pathologically stupid alien race decided to invade thereby ensuring human victory.  Either way, Gibson's character uses the events as proof that God is real and is assured that his family only survived because of God's will.

We are told that the other human casualties are in the millions which leads one to wonder: why would God spare Gibson's family but kill millions of others?  Did those other people not deserve life, too?  Even in the movies, God's a dick.

Oh well.  I can't really slam this movie all that much.  As far as suspense and quick shock value, it does its job well.  Even watching it a second time i felt a little chill in my body, so Shyamalan must've done something right.

I give this movie 3 failed invasions out of 5.  That's a C+, say.

The Lost Symbol

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.

My first literary review and it's on video!

This was incredibly difficult for me to do, given my lack of a) a decent computer b) decent recording instruments, c) technical knowledge and d) a decent voice.  But at long last i've done it.  I've included the transcript below for those unable to view youtube for whatever reasons.

Video is hosted on www.youtube.com


Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code were a mess of historic and scientific inaccuracies that often broke a more astute reader's willing suspension of disbelief.  But that's not to say that Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons weren't entertaining in their own right.

They both delivered fairly compelling suspense, even if it came at the cost of some factual accuracy... ok a lot of factual accuracy.

But they were pieces of fiction.  They may not have been classics, but they were pretty entertaining to read.  So, how does Dan Brown's new novel, The Lost Symbol, measure up?  Well, let's find out.

It's got all the usual Dan Brown formula: a fanatical enemy, ancient conspiracy theories, a hot female "scientist", an early on bad guy who's actually a late story ally, and yes, it's even got it's share of factual inaccuracies for those hard-core fans who insist that if it's not factually inaccurate, it ain't Dan Brown.

Of course, how much it follows said formula may itself be a criticism of the book, but i'm not going to criticise it for that alone.  No, there's much worse things i can criticise this book for.

For starters, the characters all suffer from the same kind of obfuscating personality flaws that are only present in badly written suspense novels.

Characters will regularly forget to mention details until the exact moment when it would be of maximum shock value.

And i'm not talking small details here, like Langdon forgetting an ancient symbol he once saw.  I mean plot altertering details that no one in their right mind would or could forget short of blunt-trauma to the head.

I feel cheated when an author purposely leaves out critical details that are anything but "ordinary" and then drops them in unceremoniously and expects the reader to be shocked.

The other thing that annoyed me about this book is Brown's fumbled attempts at foreshadowing.

While a skilled writer can subtly hide their plot points amongst the finer details of the story, Brown uses such a heavy hand in his writing it's impossible not to figure things out almost immediately.  Anything that's even slightly foreshadowed is instantly and easily recognized as a critical plot element.

The identity of the main villain, particularly, became so blatantly obvious as the novel progressed that i was stunned, stunned that anyone would treat this as even a remotely startling revelation.  It seems the only way Brown can keep a secret from the reader is to deliberately tell them nothing.

Now that i've got some of the literary points out of the way, let's talk about the facts.

If you've read The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons or really any of Dan Brown's novels, you already know that he has a little problem with facts.  In keeping with trends, The Lost Symbol is no different.

For example, one point in The Lost Symbol required Langdon to turn an object 33 degrees, which he does by turning the object to the RIGHT, ie clockwise, which has the desired effect for the plot.

But degrees are measured counterclockwise, so turning the object to the right would be to turn it to negative 33 degrees.  A basic error that would've taken all of 2 seconds to correct.

Ok, now i admit, that's a bit nitpicky and an extremely unimportant point.  But that's just one small example of the errors in The Lost Symbol.  Many more, and i mean MANY more, come in the form of pseudoscientific babble from the field of Noetics.

What is Noetics, you ask?  It's a field one of the characters affectionately describes as "philosophy meets science".

It's bullshit!

I promise you, if you have any knowledge or respect for science or philosophy, you are going to cringe every time Noetics is brought up.

But let's move away from all that crap for a second.  Sorry, i meant Noetics.

Dan Brown also includes some references to wikipedia in his writing.  But just listen to these passages that characters are supposedly reading from the online encyclopedia.

"To ensure this powerful wisdom could not be used by the unworthy, the early adepts wrote down their knowledge in code ... cloaking its potent truth in a metaphorical language of symbols, myth, and allegory.  To this day, this encrypted wisdom is all around us ... encoded in our mythology, our art, and the occult texts of the ages.  Unfortunately, modern man has lost the ability to decipher this complex network of symbolism ... and the great truth has been lost." (pg 407)

...and later...

"According to legend, the sages who encrypted the ancient mysteries long ago left behind a key of sorts ... a password that could be used to unlock the encrypted secrets.  This magical password - known as the verbum significatium - is said to hold the power to lift the darkness and unlock the ancient mysteries, opening them to all human understanding." (pg 408)

Who writes a wikipedia article like that?  Nobody!  Nobody fuckin' writes an article like that!

This kind of purple prose is more likely found in books on astrology or ghosts and goblins or some other form of pseudoscience.  It's certainly not what i'd expect to read on wikipedia or any encyclopedia for that matter.

At the very least, the above passages would be litered with "citation needed" tags if not a banner declaring how much in need it is of a massive clean up effort by a more skilled writer.

I don't know, it's like Dan Brown just said to himself, "well, people know i don't fact check anyway.  I may as well just make up whatever i want."

As for the ending of The Lost Symbol, it has got to be the most unsatisfying ending of any of the Dan Brown novels i've read.

While Angels and Demons and Da Vinci Code at least had some feeling of climax and resolution, The Lost Symbol just doesn't.  All the suspense just kind of ends and Brown painfully just walks Langdon and the reader through the last bits of the book tying up all the loose ends out of obligation.

Even the way he ties up the loose ends is unsatisfying and if you're like me, you'll probably just think that the entire adventure was one giant waste of everyone's time.

The Lost Symbol is easily the weakest of the "Langdon trilogy," but, if you read Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code and liked them, you're going to read it anyway.  You're also going to see the movie, because this book, as you'll see, was definitely written to be made into a movie.

Overall i give this book 3 symbols out of 5: a C-.  But bear in mind, that's only when comparing it with other Dan Brown novels.

Paranormal Activity

A guest review, by Saphin

Saphin's given me permission to put it here and edit it lightly (i want to keep it mostly intact).  Given my lack of activity lately, this should bridge the gap between my last review and my next one (which is coming soon, hopefully).

This movie invoked so much ire in me that it MUST be reviewed PROPERLY somewhere!

A quick synopsis:

A young twenty-something couple, Katie and Micah, have just taken the plunge to move in together and they notice they're being haunted by a ghost demon. Katie is interested in terrified by these paranormal activities which have never happened before been happening since she was 8. The couple hire a paranormal investigator psychic who tells them he can't help them so Micah and Katie Micah decides to take matters into his own hands and get rid of the ghost demon himself.

You'd be amazed how many others reviewers got simple things like the plot summary WRONG.

If you want to watch Paranormal Activity, spare yourself and watch the trailer: you'll save time, money, and still see everything that's worthwhile in this movie. Half the movie i was on the edge of my seat.... because i was waiting to see the cool shit that happened in the trailer.

There's not much to this movie, so there's not much to say about it - the movie is THAT unremarkable! Like all Hollywood horror movies, it overuses shock tactics like loud noises and sudden cuts to scare you. The ending felt very unnecessary and there's often a lot of build up to nothing. Also, could they at least TRAIN the actors to use a camera properly? They give them a nice fancy HD Camera so they can shoot the entire movie out of focus and blurry. Is that were their $11,000 budget went? An HD Camera and two no-name actors? They couldn't spare a few extra bucks to teach them how to run a camera properly?

Reviewers are hailing Paranormal Activity as "the scariest movie of the year" and it deserves that title. It IS scary that someone thought investing $11,000 and 7 days on this crap would be a good idea.

This movie embodies everything that's WRONG with the industry these days: unoriginal concept, cheap to produce, and absolutely abysmal writing (if any). No need to pay a camera man, let the actors hold the camera! No need for lots of actors, 3 people is enough!  Audio? Who cares if its whack! its supposed to be psudo-documentary! Writers? who needs 'em!

Its a clever idea every once in a while, so I'm happy that the market isn't saturated with movies like this (after all, how many Blair Witch Projects do we need?[Editor: i'd say one is too many]) but it just smacks of "bottom line budget" film making. I guarantee this will kill the industry. But then again, people seem to LIKE the bottom of the barrel crap Hollywood is churning out these days, so who knows.

Unfortunately i can't say it was a total waste. I am aware that I'm overly offended by this tripe but I'm more upset that I bought into all the hype. It's not a bad movie, but it's not a great movie either. There were a few moments I found myself expectantly chuckling and fewer moments still where I was startled (mostly thanks to loud noises and my sensitive ears).

Capitalism: a love story

So, this review is coming a little late, but late is better than never i suppose.  You may disagree, but that's why i'm the blogmaster.

If you've seen a Michael Moore movie before, you probably know what to expect.  Given his fame, he does tend to "preach to the choir" as it were.  If you don't already largely agree with his views, there's very little chance you're going to see his movies.

It's going to be a challenge to separate out the review from the political persuasion.  I guarantee that each and every review out there that i've read reviewed Michael Moore, not the movie.  While liberal reviewers praised the message, conservative reviewers whined about how much they hate liberal messages (and liberals in general).  I'll try to avoid this idiotic attitude, but i'll air on the side of a liberal view-point, if only because if you're a conservative, you're not going to see this movie anyway, no matter how good or bad it really is.  Hell, i'm willing to bet that if it cured CANCER, the staunch conservative would still rather die than watch Michael Moore.

Capitalism: a love story examines the mixture of capitalism (the economic system) with democracy (the political system).  While it's true that these are very different systems, most people in the western world have largely come to accept the two as one and the same, or at the very least, 100% compatible.  In his movie, Moore attempts to examine how closely related they truly are and see if they truly are as compatible as we in the west take them to be.

Now, if you're a typical conservative movie reviewer, this is as far as you're going to get into the movie: the by-line.  After this, you apparently start claiming Moore to be advocating some kind of Stalinist communism.  Of course, Moore never says this and it seems to even be the case that he's in favour of capitalism, albeit a more mixed economy version than is currently practiced in most westernized societies.  I'm not going to go into the details here, 'cause the movie does that just fine - it's the anti-Moore reviewers who seemed to have missed the movie in lieu of their own tired points.

Most of the movie is spent focusing on the human side of the equation.  Moore showcases cases of pure corruption that were allowed and indeed encouraged by an economic system that, as profit-driven economic systems often do, only care about the profit margins.

Moore does a particularly good job of exposing the corrupt idea of "dead peasant" insurance, in which corporations secretly take out life insurance policies against their employees in order to turn a profit in the event of "unforeseen" deathes.  Some of these come in the form of even hoping for employee suicides.  Given the increased prevalance of "fast paced, high preassure" work environments (go on, check any job ad), one is left to wonder if some of these suicides are more than tragic accidents.  Of course, speaking as one who's seen fellow employees having mental breakdowns because of increasingly unreasonable damands placed upon them, i think it's more than mere speculation to say "yes".

Since Moore's not a numbers man, like myself, he spends much more focus on tugging at emotional heartstrings of his audience.  Unless you're minds been rinsed and lathered in ideologies or you have a heart of stone, there's a good chance much of this will affect you.  Regardless of your political persuasions or what you think of Moore, it's not easy to watch families being thrown out into the street, often illegally, because they can no longer afford the mortgages or second mortgages they were talked into getting by bankers looking to make short-term profits.

A (short) aside: critics often cite the borrower as being in the wrong for accepting a mortgage that they cannot possibly pay, but this fails the capitalistic litmus test.  If the banks are lending money it is they, not the borrower, who is responsible for this judgement and they, not the borrower, who takes the risk in lending the money.  A truly capitalistic society would allow the banks to fail and the borrower to screw the lender - the market's punishment for poor decisions.  Yet who got the bail-out and who lost their house?

Now there's a lot more to Moore's movie than just the above, but i really don't know how to talk about it all without just rehashing his cases in my words.  There is classic "Michael Moore" moments of sensationalism, but there's also some good points hidden for the more cautious and discerning viewer.  That being said, not all his arguments hold any water.  The religious talk, particularly, does nothing for me, but i at least understand where he's coming from with it.  The purpose is to appeal to the religiously inclined in the theatre which, according to wikipedia, is a full 76% of Americans as of 2008.

So, is Moore's film any good?  Well, it's entertaining, but only if you agree with him.  He makes the case against "capitalism = democracy" quite well, but he's by no means the first person to do so.  Not only have others done this, but they've done it better.  The Trap by Adam Curtis (reviewed here on this site earlier) is much more poigniant and telling, but has a much narrower argument to make.

Ultimately, you'll only see this movie if you agree with Moore anyway so i can only rate it in terms of other Moore movies for you:

Better than Farenheit 911 and Roger and Me, not quite Sicko or Bowling for Columbine material.  I give this 2 "invisible hand of the market" thumbs up (out of 3).  Let's just call that a B- (yes, i'm aware it's not actually a B).

Surrogates

Bruce Willis in his biggest role yet: playing two different versions of Bruce Willis.  Now, i know there's a lot of Bruce Willis fans out there who think he's a great actor, to them i can only ask, "have you seen Armageddon?"  I'm still pulling splinters from my eyes for that one, though admittedly it wasn't just Willis who gave them to me.

Surrogates, so i'm told, is based on a comic book series.  I'm not surprised to learn this since hollywood's long since run out of original ideas.  I swear this is the product of inbreeding, nepotism and "networking" that keeps the same talentless hacks employed perpetually while effectively stonewalling any new blood.  But i'm just bitching now.

So, about the movie?  Surrogates is a suspense-thriller, sci-fi, action type movie.  Sci-fi because it's, ya know, robots, action 'cause there's some decent action and suspense because the entire driving element of the film is the solving of a crime and mystery before "bad things happen".

The movie juggles the three genres with varying levels of success.  The action is mostly decent, the sci-fi is omnipresent and the suspense is, at times, simply thrown in to make the audience say "i didn't see that coming", with little or tenuous relevance to the plot.  These aren't huge points and i openly admit i'm nit-picking, but i'm kind of sick of seeing "twists" thrown into stories just to make me go "wow" (which i seldom, if ever, do).

For the most part, though, i think the film is entertaining enough.  The premise is that everyone, save a few thousand people, now has a "surrogate", a personal robot that they use to interact with the world while keeping insulated from perceived and actual dangers and hide in anonymity.  Basically, it's like the internet of today, but with robots!  This point is driven home in the opening sequences when a hot blond surrogate is revealed to be controlled by a fat, middle-aged white guy.  Shocker, right?

The surrogates are said to protect their "operators" from any danger (as that is, indeed, their purpose), so naturally, it's not long into the film when an operator does in fact die and the chase is on to find the how and why.  Enter Bruce Willis, a cop (always a cop) whose sense of justice naturally runs deeper than anyone elses.  His job is to find out how this is even possible and catch and bring the criminal to justice.

While initially i was intrigued by the fact that a weapon could be used to kill an operator through a surrogate, somehow the film thought that this wasn't as interesting and the focus instead switched to "who built it" with the "how it was possible" being hand-waved away.  I won't lie: this saddened me since the latter has a much more obvious answer.  I won't tell you "the who", but i'm sure you can guess it without any clues at all.

I'll spare you all the details of the movie, but suffice it to say that Bruce Willis will solve all the problems and invariably learn along the way that life is much better experienced in person than through a compu... surrogate.  Unfortunately the ending is nothing but a contrived coincidence and no amount of whiny fandom reasoning will convince me otherwise.

Ultimately, the movie's not bad.  It very much is a dumb action movie, despite what it and its fans might say to the contrary.  I give it 7 out of 10 surrogates.  That's a (low) B.  B for Bruce Bwillis.  It's probably more of a 'D+', but that has no cleverness to it... just like Surrogates.

End of the Line

Now, i'd like to talk a bit about something else, if you'd allow me.  I wrote this post not drunk on booze, as i usually am, but on pure anger.  You see, every time i think i've seen the absolute epitome of human stupidity, some asshole, or more likely group of assholes, will invariably come along and prove me wrong.

My bank had recently moved to a new location and i was going there to beg... er, apply for work.  While there i noticed something interesting.  Usually, the line in front of the tellers is guided by velvet ropes and other throw-up barriers.  This is because banks provide impossibly slow service and they need to regulate the line that will undoubtedly form.

I always hated these velvet rope thingies because if you came into a bank and no one was there, or worse, one or two people, you'd have to walk through this stupid little maze to get to the tellers.  So imagine my surprise when i saw that instead of that, i noticed a mat on the ground that followed a specific path and had arrows on it instead.

"Huh," thought i, "that's pretty neat.  It's less obtrusive and easier to navigate, but still conveys the idea of what should happen should the line get too long."

As i stood in a separate line waiting for service myself, the line slowly grew from the 2-3 people to about 15 or so.  Unfortunately, as more and more people entered the bank, instead of following the obvious intent of the mat, they formed a simplistic, linear line that lead to, and crowded up, the entrance of the bank itself.  Bea-fucking-utiful.

Now, you can concoct all the bullshit reasoning you want, there are two (and only two) reasons why this happened:

1) people are too fucking stupid to understand what arrows on a mat mean.

2) people are too fucking lazy to walk the extra few steps to form the line properly.

Any other reason you concoct i guarantee is covered by one of those reasons.  Whether it be some BS about "pride" or whatever the fuck you're thinking, it's either stupidity or laziness.  Period.

Now, you might be saying, "Tipz, you're getting worked up about nothing."  To you i say, NO!  I'm not getting worked up about "nothing," i'm getting worked up about the obvious stupidity of the human animal.  Those stupid velvet roped mazes banks and others use to manage lines are a way to corral you and keep the unruly ignorant masses organized.  They were designed because the banks felt they couldn't trust people to be smart enough to manage themselves with something as idiot-proof as "ordering" without fucking it up.  Well, i guess they were right and when the bank does bring back the velvet rope maze, to the inconvenience and chagrin of us all, you knuckle-dragging douchebags will have only yourselves to blame and you'll know that i'm blaming you, too.

...

I know what you're thinking: did i go on that rant for nothing, or was it just for that stupid picture?

 

Watchmen

To those who are needlessly fastidious: from here on out, i will refer to Watchmen the graphic novel as a "comic book".  If it makes you feel any better, i'm doing this specifically to piss you off.  Otherwise, stop taking things so seriously.

Watchmen is a super hero "comic book" deconstruction.  That is to say, it takes the superhero comic genre and substitutes in "real" human characteristics and attitudes.  These are almost always negative characteristics because, hey, superheroes already embody all the positive ones.  A deconstruction makes the characters more "identifiable", or at least that's the idea.  Like the Greek Tragedies of old (yes, it's THAT old), it shows that those we look up to are just as flawed as any one of us and emphasizes the tremendous "pressures" those we elevate as heroes are put under.  I only bring this up because it's important to understand what Watchmen is going for in order to truly appreciate it for what it is.  If you don't understand what "deconstruction" is, you can never appreciate what Watchmen is.

That being said, i didn't appreciate what Watchmen was attempting to go for.  So why'd i bring up all that deconstruction crap?  Because if i didn't, there will be some douchebag out there accusing me of "not getting it" or something.  I've heard it all before and quite frankly, it's just fanboy-speak for putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "i'm not listening!"

So, why don't i like Watchmen?  Well, firstly it reeks of formula.  My brother (who studies film) once told me that in order for a movie to be classified as an "action movie" it must have a fight scene for every 11 pages of dialogue.  With Watchmen that's exactly what you'll get - one action scene every 11 pages of dialogue.  I know that this is why they did it because the action sequences have no point.  None of them go anywhere, matter or seem to have any importance outside of the exact moment the action is occuring.  There is no fallout from any action sequence, no consequences beyond "badguys defeated" and no lead in beyond obvious cues of "here comes a fight".

Even the climactic battle at the end seemed to happen for no other reason than because it should.  The fight is broken up with periods of choppy dialogue that seem down right cordial at times.

Watchmen's story itself is just PAINFULLY predictable.  Even though it's a deconstruction, the story is ripped right from any comic book in the world wholesale without any hint of irony.  I'll try to be delicate, as usual, because the story is what people want to see, but i still want to put this in perspective.  That being said, I don't consider this to be a spoiler because its that fuckin' obviousness!  None the less, the film inexplicably treats this as spoiler-worthy, so i will as well.  If you're sensitive to this kinda stuff, skip to below this section.

"Spoiler" below

To show you how predictable this story is, let me set it up and see if you pick it up.

A law (by nixon) has outlawed vigilanteism and the old superhero group has mostly gone into "normal lives", except for a few who are either operating for the US government (Dr Manhattan) or illegally (Rorschach).  The story starts with one of the old Watchmen being killed: the Comedian.  Rorschach quickly figures out that it must be one of the old members of the team or a supervillain they used to fight because they were the only ones who knew the Comedian's secret identity.  Villains are barely mentioned, so the viewer knows it's a team member.  But who?  Well, let's run down the crew!

The Nite Owl II: a batman knockoff.
The Silk Spectre II: resident female character.  Yeah, you know what that means...
The Comedian: dead, so...
Rorschach: the "rebel" of the group.  Think "like wolverine" in the xmen, and you're close to his personality.  He's also the primary protagonist.
Dr Manhattan: the only really superpowered one.  His powers make him unto a god, but he's more concerned with trying to keep the world at peace.
Ozymandias: the "smartest man in the world".

And that's our character line up.  I don't really think i need to say anything more than this - it's literally that obvious.  The movie tries to throw some red herrings in and distract you with side plots, but it's done so poorly, i'm not sure if they're there for the audience only (in which case, they were badly done) or just for the characters (in which case, what's the point?).

At any rate, they certainly don't draw away any suspicions the audience has to who the real villain is and nobody (but the characters) are surprised when Ozymandias is revealed to be behind the murder and other goings-ons for reasons that are non-sensical to say the least.

This actually brings me to another point that's omnipresent in hollywood now and forever: anti-intellectualism.  Seriously, how often is the "smartest character" purely evil?  If not evil, bumbling?  Too fucking often!  Why is it that the only intelligent characters writers can write are blinded by ambition or so quixotic that they're oblivious to common sense?

Are people seriously that afraid of intelligent people in real life?  Well, i guess so, since i've heard people argue in frankness that the Third Reich's scientists (like Mengele) did what they did for pure ambition and not out of racist maliciousness. 

At any rate, suffice it to say, that if this stereotype were to die tomorrow, it would be several decades too late.

"Spoilers" end here

So that's Watchmen.  A predictable, formulaic deconstruction of a superhero comic.  I know i'll be lynched by fanboys for saying that, but it's true.  Ultimately, Watchmen was a movie for the fans of the comic.  Everything it does has been done before and better, from all the stuff i spelled out in the spoiler tags to the ridiculously played out "society hates/fears superheroes" backdrop.

I could go on to tear apart what the movie thinks it's doing, but in all honesty, all that doesn't matter.  A movie's just a piece of fiction and fiction's there to entertain.  That being said, the harshest thing i can say about this movie was that it was unbelievably dull.  2.5 hours plus?  I can believe it.

I give this movie 3.6 boringly portrayed superheroes out of 6.  It's not the worst, but it's damned well not worth the 7.8 on www.imDb.com: C-.

9 (2009)

This movie's name is probably the most interesting part of it.  Sad, i know.

Another movie advertised off of the producer.  Probably something to be expected from our money lovin' society that the money lender gets higher billing than the creative artists involved.  I like Tim Burton's work, as a director, but to try and market every movie he even lent money to as a "Tim Burton" is just nauseating!  But this is a rant for another day.  What about the movie 9?

The movie takes place in a futuristic world after a war between machines and humans have all but destroyed it.  Yeah, we're doing that again, apparently.  The movie is about a group of mini-robots made out of gloves or something called the stitchpunks.  The titular 9 is the protagonist of the film (though not the leader).

The biggest selling point for this movie seems to be its animation quality.  Unfortunately, it's about 10 years too late for its CGI to be considered novel.  Even then, full CGI movies that were novel were brought to us by the likes of Pixar, who are masters of weaving good stories.  Remember when CGI was cool just because?  Yeah, me neither.

What's worse, 9 is one of those movies that pretends to have hidden depths.  Not has hidden depths - pretends to have.  Despite all the writers' attempts to the contrary, 9 is ultimately a very shallow piece of fiction.  What few depths it does have have been done a million times before a million times better.  And if you think that's hyperbolic, you just haven't seen the movie.  What story there is is so incredibly stupid, it's embarrassing!

Even the climax of this movie is embarrassingly shallow.  That warm feelings i got during the resolution were not of heartwarming, but of humiliation and embarrassment.  It was very much my hope that my fellow theatre goers didn't see me sitting in the theatre watching the movie with them (lest they think less of me).

As for the characters, there are a lot of words i could use to describe them but "annoying" generally sums it up.  A group of mostly cowards, the stitchpunks are not that interesting to watch.  The only non-cowards of the group just seem uninteresting.  They even seem to have this attitude about each other.  The most interesting one of the lot is 9 himself.  Even then, his most defining characteristic is his "niceness".  This is in the same vein as batman's most defining characteristic is his badass-ness.  So, yeah.

There are other characters, like the only female stitchpunk, 7 (yeah, you know what that means).  But by in large, the movie's not about them and they just serve to act as walking, talking plot devices.  Need 9 to be heroic?  Throw in a stitchpunk to be saved.  Need 9 to be a leader?  Throw in a stitchpunk to be lead.  Need 9 to be in a conflict?  Yup, there's a stitchpunk for that, too.  In fact, there's a stitchpunk for pretty much everything.

The one that bugged me the most was, by far, 7.  I'm not sure why, but i think a lot of it had to do with the assigned attribute of being "mysterious".  All the stitchpunks treat her like some kind of aloof loner, but nothing she does leads the viewer to believe this is what she's like.  Nothing, that is, except bailing on a moments notice (and she's the "warrior" of the group, people!).  What's worse is, there's quite literally only 9 forms of "life" on the planet that are friendly to the stitchpunks.  How is it they know nothing about her?  It doesn't make any sense!

The one saving grace of the movie is that it's mercifully short.  Unfortunately, it's still the longest hour and a half on record.

I didn't pay to see this movie (i used a free ticket given to me by a friend), but i still felt ripped off.  Unfortunately nothing i can say or do will ever bring back that free ticket...

Even though i used to be a fan of Tim Burton, his produce credit needs a lot of work now.

I give it, er... 4 and a half numbers out of 9.  D - D minus.  Really, i'm just being overly generous.

Picture: one of these days i'll have an original idea for the artwork.  And on that day, i shall draw it!

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds... or however the hell it's misspelled... is Quintin Tarintino's (or however the hell that's spelled) latest bloodfest.  It's a wwii revenge movie, because sometimes (just sometimes) winning the war and instituting an unconditional surrender is just not enough of a kick in the balls to your long-since dead, discredited and completely historically dehumanized enemies.  Yup, sometimes a "revenge flick" is just what you need.

About the movie itself, it's not that bad.  There is a little less blood than i had expected given, well, it's tarintino.  Some of the atmosphere development goes on far too long and the build up becomes draggy.  The action that follows is typically high intensity but way too short lived for the preceding build up.

The characters are all over the place.  Brad Pitt's character seems to lack presence despite being the main character.  You get brief glimpses of him being... sadistic and psychotic, but that's about it.  He's said to be a brilliant leader and is known throughout nazi-germany (for his sadism, mostly), but you never really see him do anything.  The rest of the "Basterds" have less importance, still.

The best character in the film is, by far, the main villain: Hans Landa, the jew hunter.  Landa (Christoph Waltz) is nothing short of a brilliant villain.  Everything his character says and does just oozes with a kind of insidious creepiness.  Yet, Waltz plays Landa as a character who is sophisticated and brilliant all the same.  It's one of those roles that's definitely deserving of praise (an oscar, maybe?).  When an actor can make even eating a strudel seem like an act of evil, you know he's done a good job.

Sadly, the rest of the movie's villains are nothing but incredibly shallow stereotypes of all the worst nazi characteristics (just so ya know they're evil!).  This seems like an odd choice of characterizations because the only reason to use such stereotypes is to hammer home a heavy-handed point.  A practice that is almost wholy unnecessary when dealing with someone as infamous as Hitler.  It's not like anyone in the audience is going to mistake Hitler for a redeemable character or anything.

Yet Hitler, Gobbels and any other nazi you see is portrayed as a slobbering degenerate oaf who laughs at the death and misery of others (get it?  They're EVIL!).  They may as well have also said "and they're small in the pants" after every nazi introduction.

Now i'm not trying to defend nazi murderers, but let's face it.  Shallow villains is more of an insult to the viewer than who you're characterizing them after.  "I don't trust you to understand why this guy is evil, so i'll make it as obvious as posssible."  Just seemed kinda dumb to me.  Oh well, Waltz' character more than makes up for it.

Though i'd like to go on about other issues i had with the film, many more are very much plot significant, so i don't want to spoil them.  Suffice it to say, when you walk into a movie, there's a set of truthes you take to be universal and infallable.  There can be acceptable breaks from reality, even with these truthes, but you have to really really need it to be plot significant in order to pull it off nicely.  When a writer/director does it just because, it can be a little bit like a cold shower - uncomfortable, if not outright offensive.

Now, normally i avoid reading reviews of movies i'm planning on seeing since most reviewers just spoil the plot outright.  But because i waited several weeks to see this one, i inevitably saw a glimps of a review somewhere online (can't recall where).  This reviewer said Inglourious Basterds was basically a world war ii movie with the jews cast as nazis.  At the time i didn't understand what this meant, but after seeing Inglourious Basterds i think i know.

Ultimately, there are a lot of times little things i can pick at in this movie, some of them more glaring than others.  I'm not going to say the movie was bad, though, 'cause there were times i did overtly enjoy it.  There was the characteristic gore and violence, at least some decent atmosphere building (the opening scene comes to mind) and even some humourous scenes for good measure.  Definitely a good mix of elements.

All in all, i give this movie 4 and a half dead nazis out of 6.  Plain ol' B.

...

Hey, that's a good review!

*sorry about no pic... i'll put one up later if i can think of something clever.

District 9

Well, it wasn't horrible, i can safely say that. District 9 is one of those movies that i walked out of and didn't know what to think. I wasn't disappointed, but i wouldn't say i was entertained either. I think the problem is the film was too scattered for me to form an easily defined opinion on it.

The premise is that aliens have come to earth but, instead of raging war, are simply some kind of pathetic group of refugees, found starving to death in their own mothership by humans (the ship had been left floating for months in earths atmosphere). The humans take pity on these aliens and promptly do what humans do best: quarantine them in a massive concentration camp. From here on out the aliens are essentially treated like any minority, complete with all the biases that go along with that.

It's a different kind of premise that just screams all kinds of questions at you. Like: how is it that aliens that are capable of space travel end up starving to death on their own mothership? Why did they come here to begin with? How does the mothership defy gravity? Why are the aliens so ill-prepared for space travel - a journey they surely must have undergone hundreds of times before? Why didn't the aliens attempt contact first?

The film tries to give some hand-waved answer to some (but certainly not all) of these questions, but the attempt is more trouble than it attempts to satisfy. I guess we're just not supposed to think about these kinds of things... i mean, the writers obviously didn't.

Neil Blomkamp (director) utilizes "mockumentary style" for the entirety of the film - complete with sections of fake "interviews" with the characters. No doubt this was meant to be "different" but it just comes off as kind of distracting. Particularly since halfway through the movie the film drops all pretense of a documentary and turns to full-out action sequences. The shakey camera, inexplicably, remains. It does return to it's mockumentary roots, but not until after a good hour or so.

The story itself is kind of about racism and discrimination. It's an allegory for apartheid south africa (the forced removal of the residents of District 6, specifically) - but with aliens instead of black people. Actually, there are black people in the movie. Nigerians to be specific - they're the unambiguously evil ones. Actually, i don't think they were attempting to stereotype in that role, it's just sort of unfortunate that it happened.

One of the things that kind of bugged me in the movie is Blomkamp's choice of main character: Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a whiny, stuttering, bumbling government employee who only got where he is through pure nepotism. Gee, how often have we seen that stereotype? Way to fucking much! Sure, he grows throughout the movie (mostly in realizing how utterly foolish he was), but i couldn't help but think that the characterization was so unnecessary. Either Wikus is a not-so-subtle jab at government employees in general or a pathetic character only the equally pathetic audience could relate to.

On the whole, the movie's not bad. Sometimes it's hard to determine what Blomkamp was going for: an action movie with heads exploding or a story about discrimination. Having both isn't bad, though, since an action movie without a point is moronic and a movie with a moral but no action feels like a lecture. It still feels weird when it switches gears though.

As i said, this movie isn't bad... but it's not good either. Either my sense of tase has been systematically eroded thanks to the crap coming out of hollywood or this truly is an average film deserving of everything that title bestows. At any rate, i give this movie 4 unanswered questions out of 7 - that's a C.

By the way, sorry for the lame picture. Sometimes a movie is so unremarkable in its mediocrity you can't say anything clever about it. Don't worry, one of these reviews i'll come up with a good picture again!

Mass Effect

No, i'm not dead, i've just been... bored. Anyway, after many a weeks, here's a new review! This time, Mass Effect!

Yup, another video game review - mostly because there's nothing but awful awful movies in theatres recently. I did see an awful movie on tv recently, but that's about it. Maybe i'll review it later.

Anyway, Mass Effect is an "old" game, so let's get on with the review before it's already announced sequel is released.

Gameplay and Control:

I played Mass Effect on my brother's XBox 360, so the control is based on their controller. You play as (insert name here) Sheppard, one of humanity's best soldiers. Actually, you have a choice of making Sheppard one of a number of different character classes from combat heavy soldier to support heavy engineer or anything in between (but the engineer's the best).

As far as most of the game control is concerned, it's pretty good. Using weapons and abilities (the core of combat gameplay) is fairly intuitive and control of the main character is very effortless.

It's a little annoying that Sheppard can't pivot on a dime, instead needing to walk in a circle to turn around. This is only problematic because occasionally you'll end up getting stuck in some piece of background while trying to turn around in very tight spaces. It's not a big thing and happened to me only a couple times, but still annoying. Thankfully, recovery is fairly easy.

The main problem in control comes from using the incredibly broken Mako, a tank of kinds. The mako itself has 6 wheels, but controlling it feels like it's only got one. Slight movements in the joysticks will send your car hurtling over debris and the steering control is nothing short of abysmal. Because of this, one might think straight-aways would be a dream, but no. The overly sensitive joystick will have you veering all over the place even on the straightest of roads.

Ok, so driving sucks. But the bad control doesn't stop there - even shooting with the mako is terrible! The cross-hairs on the screen are largely meaningless when aiming. If the target is too close (and they "don't exist" in memory if you're too far - but their bullets do) the crosshairs provide no degree of accuracy. Essentially, you'll want to "zoom in" on everything if you ever want to hit whatever it is you're shooting at.

This wouldn't be so nightmarish, but you're pretty much required to use the mako in every bloody mission! Sure, you can get out whenever you want, but most planets have "hazardous" atmospheres that will slowly kill you and objectives are impossibly far apart on foot, so you're pretty much required to drive. You will eventually get "used to" the controls, but you will never like them. NEVER!

Other than the combat sections of the game, which are solid, the game has segments of "talking missions". These can get drawn out at times, but are necessary to provide the backstory to the game. They also allow you to shape your character's personality through the game's choice system. There are some combat related choice missions, but most of the choices come in conversations.

Like most games that offer choice, your choices are between "good" options and "evil" options. Unlike most games, Mass Effect also gives you a "neutral" option, but these give you the least interesting cut scenes and benefits, essentially ensuring you never ever use them.

Depending on how you play, you'll get either "paragon" or "renegade" points that will allow you to unlock other speech options in a depressingly few conversations throughout the game. Unfortunately, while the existence of choice is a good novelty, it seems to be only that, and the game will continue no matter what you say or do. To a degree, this is good, since "open sandbox" shouldn't mean the game's story is compromised repeatedly, but it also means you'll only be making the choices for the complete novelty of being known as either a renegade or paragon.

Graphics and Music:

Graphics are good and the create your own character section at the beginning is a nice touch. Unfortunately, and this may be only my XBox, sometimes the details won't load in completely. Colour palettes and other "superficial" details are the usual victims.

The graphics are largely great, but this comes at a horrible price: loading! I hate loading screens. Personally, i'd prefer a trade down in graphics to loading screens, but the graphics whores of the world essentially drive the gaming market now and they don't seem to care about loading screens so long as graphics are top notch. Ultimately, if you can handle the frequent loading, you'll love the graphics.

Music is well done, too, adding atmosphere but staying in the background. There's a flaw in my copy that occasionally has the music trumpet over the voice acting, but with subtitles on, it's not an issue. My only real qualm with the score is it tends to be composed almost entirely of extremely short pieces of music, several bars in length, requiring them to loop it infinitely. Ah well. As i've said before, music is background to gameplay and story, and in Mass Effect, that's not different.

The Story:

Because Mass Effect gives you so many opportunities to exercise choice, i was deceived into thinking the story was far deeper than it actually was. Personally, i was expecting a story with scores of double agents, villains becoming good guys, good guys becoming villains and conspiracy theories aplenty. However, this is a far cry from what the story actually is - and i won't go into the story details here for obvious reasons.

This isn't to say the story's BAD, just a little more simplistic than you'd guess just by the initial set ups.

One of the better done aspects was side-quests that actually fit into the mainline story. Almost all games have side-quests now, but few will bother to integrate them into the story and they just become "tack ons" for those aiming at 100% completion. While Mass Effect sidequests don't drastically alter the mainline story, they do compliment it.

There's also a side romance story that's fun if for nothing else than some of the funniest choice-response combos in the game. I find something absolutely hilarious with Sheppard's flirting style and inflections. Definitely the one moment i was thrilled to have voice acting.

Characters:

Mass Effect's characters come from a variety of different alien races, almost all of which hate each other. While the characters are remarkably well fleshed out, it just seems like your character, Sheppard, is the only one who isn't a rabid racist... that is, if you choose for him not to be.

Unfortunately, despite the scores of characters you will meet on your journey, most are forgettable. In fact, the only characters of any interest are the ones on your own crew who you can talk to between missions. But even your crew has a set of stock personalities and almost everyone's character can be summed up with two to three sentences.

While this is definitely a weak point, it's not enough to make the game bad by any stretch.

Final Comments:

All in all, i liked this game. It was fun, had an interesting enough story and the choices added just enough of a spice up to make me feel like my decisions mattered (even if they really don't).

There's definitely replay value in going through and choosing other character classes or different speech options. There's even alternative difficulties, if you're into that sort of thing. The only downside is that no matter how many times you go through the game, no matter what choices you make, the story will never ever change beyond one or two sentences from select responses.

I have many choices for my rating system here, but all of them are essentially an A.

It's Massive Effective!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

*NOTE: i'm going to assume you all know the spoiled-forever twist at the end from here on out. Ye have been warned!*

As the movie abruptly ended, a lone voice rang out in the audience: "what the hell was that?" I had to check to be sure it wasn't my own voice, because that's very much what i was thinking. So, what was wrong with this movie? Oh, where to begin.

First of all, you know the byline to the movie? It should (and with the book, does) have something to do with the actual plot. While i don't want to spoil anything here (no matter how "obvious"), suffice it to say the "half blood prince" of the book is far more important than he is in the movie. It's so forgotten in the movie that when the reveal finally does come around the audience has long since forgotten or cared about it.

Secondly, plot: In the book, Harry and Dumbledore spend copious amounts of time delving into the memories of Voldemort and the people he'd met, which helps to build the story of how Voldemort rose to power - all of which was done while no one suspected the worst. There's also quite a bit of friction that's developed between the main characters as Harry becomes more and more convinced that Snape is evil, while Dumbledore (and others) are unwaveringly convinced of Snape's "goodness".

The cumulative effect is that when Snape does kill Dumbledore, Harry is vindicated for his steadfast belief while others are quick to be convinced they were duped. The killing itself even has a feel of surprise in it - though this was infamously ruined almost immediately by asshole fans and the internet (and i shall never forgive them for it!).

So, what do we get in the movie? Well, none of the above, that's for sure. Instead we're treated to stupid teen-love stories that, while accurate to the book, seem to establish nothing beyond what the viewers already know to be the end result. It's not that i don't like love stories, i just don't like trite ones. Especially when they occupy the whole damned film to the exclusion of the main plot! If you've read any of these other reviews on my site here, you'll know that this is far from an uncommon occurrence in today's hollywood.

Snape killing Dumbledore still happens, but it's much more expected than even a spoiler could make it and it has much less impact. Even if you didn't know what was going to happen, there's no way the movie would ever convince you it was shocking or unexpected since the entire subtext between Harry and Dumbledore is gone.

Next up: pacing - the movie has none. I'm serious. Steve Kloves and David Yates (screen play writer and director respectively) have absolutely no concept of flow, it seems. Scenes are just thrown together with almost no blending, so much so it feels like watching an unedited version of a movie. Yes, the cinematography is brilliant at times, but the shear feeling of disjointedness between the scenes just ruins the effects.

What's truly odd is that the movie plays the script like it doesn't have enough time, yet it clearly should. Most of the teen-love can be lost without much of the spirit following suit. There's also a superfluous scene added in (that i swear never appeared in the book) where Death Eaters attack the Weasley home. This scene serves zero purpose, establishes nothing and serves only to show the actors who would otherwise be no-shows for the plot.

Speaking of actors who have no point in the plot, you know Nymphadora Tonks? If you're a reader of the books, you do. But chances are if you only watched the movies you have no idea who i'm talking about. That's because in 2 movies of having her as a character, she's yet to be named, aside from a throw-away line: "don't call me Nymphadora!" It's almost become a game to me: i want to see if they'll go the entire run of movies without revealing her name once.

Anyways, there's so many things i could go on to say are wrong with this film, particularly as it stands as an adaptation from the book. It's a poor stand alone piece and i doubt even those fans who've only seen the movies will find much of value here. What David Yates and Steve Kloves did to the plot is unforgivable. It seems like the only relevance this movie will have in the long run is as a painfully long 2.5 hour set up for the last 2 movies (yes 2... from one book).

So, what do i give a movie that has no plot, poor pacing and an unnecessary by-line in the title? One and a half youthful indiscretions out of 3: D-.

Oh, one more thing: as of this writing (July 16th, 2009), rotten tomatoes review is 87%. Are you for fucking real!?

The Hangover

There's comedy and then there's "comedy".

Ok, i'll start off by saying this: this movie is probably a lot better than i'll give it credit for, but it's also a lot worse than others give it credit for. For all that it is, The Hangover is certainly not one of the greatest comedies you'll ever see. It's not horribly dull, but it's not interesting enough to warrant the reviews it receives.

The main problem is that The Hangover relies almost exclusively on low-brow humour. It's not that this kind of humour is bad, but an entire movie composed of this kind of humour just doesn't work, completely alienating those who don't think fart jokes and slapstick are necessarily comedic gold. Whatever happened to clever word play, intelligent social commentary and snarky one liners? We still get them in The Hangover, but they're oh-so very rare! Well, ok, we don't get all of those, but there are a few clever quips - just not enough to make it a good comedy. I swear i can see when the actors are trying to be funny.

Most of the plot is incredibly contrived, but this is to be expected from most comedies. Doug (Justin Bartha) is about to be married and his friends decide they will take the bachelor party to vegas for one last blast. Complications (and supposedly hilarity) ensue. His "friends" include a mishmash of characters: Phil (Bradley Cooper), who's the bored cynic of the group; Stu (Ed Helms - he was funnier on The Daily Show, i swear!), the "weak willed" one; and Alan (Zach Galifianakis), the dumb one. Doug fills out the roles as "the straight man" for much of his time on screen. Don't be fooled by the set up: the story's not about Doug!

While for most of the movie the characters stubbornly stick to their predefined roles, given this is hollywood, i'm sure you can guess they will all overcome their characterizations by the end to show you that they are "more than what they let on". Yes, even the stupid one. Most of them won't even have very compelling motivations for the change - like Phil: he'll go from hating his family to loving them inexplicably for no reason at all. I guess this is a minor point, but it's kind of an annoying one.

The movie tries for the old "reverse order" plot dealy and has the friends wake up in a destroyed hotel room, groggy and unaware of what had transpired. We're treated to some unusual sights like a live chicken wandering around, a tiger in the washroom and a baby in the closet - and things get weirder from there! There's definitely an interesting hook here, but the film doesn't really do anything with it. Much of what's shown is never explained and that which is is given spectacularly unsatisfying explanations.

Since i'm sure everyone's seen the trailer, it'll come as no surprise that Mike Tyson is in the movie. Why? Apparently the group went to Tyson's mansion to party it up. Don't expect more explanation than that, 'cause you'll never get it. The "comedy" of the situation comes from urine jokes and slapstick *yawn*.

To the film's credit, the mandatory-by-law love story is sidelined to Ed Helms' character becoming more of a man when he finds a more respectable woman than his own controlling bitch of a girlfriend. Don't get me wrong, i'm happy this wasn't primary-plot material, but it still seems like an unnecessary component of the film.

Naturally, everything that can present itself as a problem will eventually be taken care of come the end of the movie so that poor Doug can get back to his waiting bride in the nick of time for his wedding. By this point, most comedies usually give on up the comedy component and just sort of fill in the blanks to have the story fill out as expected and The Hangover is no different. Despite my blasse explination, i don't fault the film for this. It is spectacularly difficult to have a movie end on a comedic high note and fill out the plot.

There's a few more "comedic" scenes at the end, but they're all but expected by this point, ruining whatever clever unexpectedness they were going for. During the credits the film treats the viewer to a slide-show of scenes from the group's missing digital camera to try and show you what had happened during their blackout more completely. I can't say that it adds anything more, though that may just be me speaking.

Overall, The Hangover is an ok comedy... though you'll really really have to want that laugh to get it. This is a glass half-empty: C minus.

Btw, sorry about the hastily done picture. I wanted to get the review up sooner than later and that really gave me not that much time for a "good" picture. I'll try and make it up in the future, but no promises!

Ghostbusters the video game review

Yup, it's another video game review... If you find them long and boring to read, here's a drinking game to get you solidly hammered: each time you see the word "ghostbuster" take a shot!

The first Ghostbusters movie was marketed as comedy, but it was so imaginative and well done, is it any wonder it captured the imaginations of adults and children alike? The movie was so successful, it spun off a sequel, a cartoon series (one which anyone who grew up in the 80's and early 90's will no doubt be familiar with) and a plethora of video games. While the cartoon was an unbridled success for most of its run, the video games were absolutely abysmal! I know; i had the first one for the NES (The Angry Video Game Nerd has an entire set of videos dedicated to the awfulness of the old-school ghostbuster games - see them over at www.cinemassacre.com). Given the poor track record of previous games, how does the newly released (and unimaginatively titled) Ghostbusters the video game compare? Well, let's find out.

First off, i played my game on the Wii, but it's available on all systems. Most people seem to prefer the Xbox360 or PS3 versions, but from what i can tell, it's largely based on superficial graphics preferences. Honestly, though, i can't compare since i haven't played the other systems versions (and i probably never will). So this will largely only be a "Ghostbusters the video game for the Wii" review.

Gameplay and Control

The game is set up so that you play as a new recruit for the ghostbusters there to test their equipment and (possibly) expand their team. The other ghostbusters are all there (with Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Ackyrod and Ernie Hudson even reprising the roles as voice actors), but they largely serve as support characters.

The control for this game is... great! No, really! It uses the wii-mote + nunchuck in the most intuitive possible fashion you can think of. The controls are so obvious that even a child could handle this - and that's how it should always be, people! I'm sick of games that claim challenge because their controls are crippled or difficult to grasp (and invariably poorly explained).

While i'm sure that even a marginally intelligent gamer can figure out the controls without any instruction, the game still provides a few (brief) tutorials on how to use the basics as well as how to switch weapons and equipment. The tutorials are largely done in-game as "explinations of the equipment" from the more experienced ghostbusters and can easily be skipped or even disabled via a menu. This means that you don't have to (unless you choose) watch cut scene after cut scene while replaying levels; it's a welcome addition.

I should also point out that all equipment usage can be done in real time in-game, meaning there's almost no need at all for bringing up the menu, except to pause, read a little backstory or disable/enable unlocks. Finally! A game that understands what a menu should be used for! This does wonders for immersion when you don't have to constantly flip into a menu screen for simple actions.

Gameplay is engrossing and, thanks in part to the interactive control-style of the wii-mote + nunchuck, feels a lot like you are a ghostbuster! Seriously: this is the game that every kid of the 80's has always wanted! Too bad it took more than 20 years to get...

The game is mostly wide open, allowing you (and at times, encouraging you) to destroy almost everything in every room and allowing you to wander the levels mostly unhindered. There are a few distracting game flags (like waiting for another character to open a door for you), but most of the time the limits seem acceptable.

While the ammo is unlimited, the proton pack does overheat from time to time if the stream is used continuously. It's not distracting or anything, but it can happen more times than you want, leaving you running in circles while your proton pack cools down enough to be of use again.

The AI that controls the other ghostbusters also seems to get worse and worse as the game progresses to increase the challenge. This isn't a bad thing, but does make very little sense when you stand back and think about it: how is it that these veteran ghostbusters can't handle a few ghosts without my continuously saving their asses? The harder difficulties (and higher levels) will also see you trying to revive the AI characters more than you care to. Fortunately, if there's more than one, they can revive each other.

Now, according to other reviews i've read, there are some purists out there who insist on controller-style fps (first person shooter, if you're not in the know) controls and thereby conclude that the Wii's controls are "gimmicky" or something; don't listen to these people! Honestly, i liked games like Starwars Battlefront or Goldeneye 64 for fps controls on a controller, but it is by no means "better" than point and click - just a very good adaptation given the tech limitations they had to deal with at the time. Technology has improved since the days of the NES gun, hopefully gamer attitude will improve one day as well. But i'm not going to hold my breath.

Graphics and Music

Graphics... ah, graphics. To the superficial gamer, the Wii's cartoony feel ruins the game. Of course they're wrong and i'll give them no shortage of ridicule as a result. Sure, nice graphics are nice to look at, but they don't enhance gameplay in the slightest nor do they make them more immersive. If you believe otherwise, you're wrong. No, this isn't debatable, nor is it only "my opinion". "Bad graphics" is more an issue of compatibility. When graphics don't suit the "feel" or tone of a game, they're bad (be they realistic 3D models or pixelated nonsense). There are no shortage of games that put graphics above gameplay and suffer as a result. As far as the Wii's version of Ghostbusters is concerned, the cartoony graphics fit the tone to a 'T' and give it a charm all its own.

As for music, it's the music used from the ghostbusters movie. What more could you ask for? It fits the genre and is exactly what the player wants. That's not to say it's perfect: the music repeats ad nauseum to the point it can get droning. Thankfully, it is in the background to the gameplay and story. Suffice it to say, you're more focused on busting the ghosts than listening to the soundtrack.

One last thing: the Ghostbusters theme song! I may be wrong, but i recall the only place it playing was the credits. I mean, i don't expect it to be played everywhere, but really? The credits? You expect me to watch the credits just to hear that awesome music? You bastards!

To the developers credit, they did include a simplistic "catch slimer" mini game that runs during the credits, so you're not just listening. Still, i just missed hearing it more, i guess.

Story

Dan Ackroyd has said that the game is essentially supposed to be a third installment, continuing the story from the 2 movies. In other words, this is a sequel... but good. The script writers make good use of the backstory of the previous movies and exploit the fact that everyone playing the game is intimately familiar with them. That's not to say the story is unfollowable to those who don't know anything about the ghostbusters (do people like that exist?), but it is a lot more gratifying for fans.

While the story does connect to both the previous films, it is more solidly a continuation of the events of the original Ghostbusters film. Gozer's minions seem to be springing back up and it's up to everyone's favourite ghostbusters to find the root cause and put an end to it. While the player character is part of the plot, most of the story is given by the other 4 ghostbusters with sparing references to the player character. Peter Venkman even goes as far as to say he doesn't want to know the players name "just in case". Really, it comes off a lot more charming than it sounds.

As the story progresses, however, the ghostbusters do gradually warm up to the increasingly invaluable "rookie" they've hired (Rookie? Please! I've been playing a ghostbuster since i was 5 years old!). The whole story culminates when, once again, the ghostbusters are forced to cross the streams to defeat absolute evil. Egon, Ray, Peter and Winston start to cross their streams when Ray turns to the player and nods for him/her to join in - this is a team thing, after all! An all but meaningless bit of gameplay follows in which the player (you) must join in with the other 4 in their "heroic sacrifice" and cross the streams... just like a real ghostbuster.

Wow. These guys knew who they were writing the game for!

Yeah, it's not Shakespeare, but it is a lot better written than a lot of mindless action games (particularly those adapted from movies). The humour and creativity of the movies definitely comes through and it's better for it.

Characters

Ray Stanz, Egon Spangler, Peter Venkman and Winston Zedmore are all there, reprised by their respective voice actors. What's more, you can tell the actors actually cared about the roles, giving all the proper inflection you'd expect, even for some of the cornier lines.

I know i downplay voice acting sometimes, but Ghostbusters definitely does it right. The side chatter of the characters is natural and unobtrusive enough that it sounds and feels exactly like what you'd expect the ghostbusters to engage in while on the job.

They are the same characters you're familiar with from the movies and cartoon and the game doesn't disappoint in adaptation. Ray is easily excitable and fun loving, Egon is reserved and thoughtful, Peter is lazy and sarcastic, Winston is eager but practical. The player character is left in the dark for personality (and name!) but it sort of works, allowing the player to sort of insert themselves in the role as they see fit.

The only issue that really comes up is a lack of line adaptations for the male or female player character choices. While most of the time the ghostbusters refer to you with generic "rookie" or "new blood" comments, there are a few points where they will gleefully refer to the player as "he" no matter what. It's a little grating considering how much care they gave the rest of the game. Why didn't they just have identical lines stored with "she" instead? Were the voice actors billing by the word or something?

Final Comments

My one major qualm is the brevity of the game. Sure, they have a few unlocks and scans and art pages to collect as well as a decent co-op mode, but seriously, is that it? They could've provided so much more with very little effort. Why not give a few random "bonus" levels for after the game? Not story driven, just good ol' fashion ghostbustin' (it makes us feel good)! It wouldn't even be that difficult!

Video game developers, take note: make 6 or so random "house" levels (a kitchen, a dining room, a few bedrooms, bathrooms, basement or attic), populate them with a random (catchable) ghost or two from the game and throw in some random minion ghosts for extra fun. You can even have a randomly chosen ghostbuster accompany the player on the mission. There. I just increased replay value and all it would've required was 6 new level designs and a random number generator with everything else just taken from what's already in the game.

As it stands now, there's very little to pull you back into the game other than playing through a few levels on a whim. Replay is definitely very low. However, that being said, this game is by no means bad.

Other reviewers have described Ghostbusters the video game as a "love letter to the fans", and that's exactly what this is. It thrusts the player into the role of "ghostbuster" and allows them to experience what it would probably feel like to be one. Controls are intuitive, gameplay is fun, story is solid and the characters are uncompromised. Non-fans will still find much to enjoy, but this game was clearly made for the 5 year olds inside each of us who remembers fondly the movies or cartoons and the desire to be a real ghostbuster themselves.

It's impossible to review this game without a nostalgia filter because it's so strongly invoked and it's a major part of enjoyment. Ultimately, if bustin' makes you feel good, get this game. I give it an A.

By the way, as for the pic: i was going for "lame". I think it came out well!