Rants On A Postcard Please

2011-11-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

Let's give Terra Nova a pass on it being a show that described ITSELF as "Lost meets Jurassic Park". OK, so the temporal whatjamacallit let's them live in dinosaur land and because one of the idiots from Star Trek: Voyager (Brannon Braga) is the showrunner, it's vaguely explained with some technobabble that may or may not become critically important at some later juncture...

But let's examine the idiocy of the show itself, beyond the premise. Now we have our people from 2149 living 85 million years in the past, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth... because dinosaurs are cool! Now, the problem of the week in episode 1x07 is that a meteor went BOOM and caused an EMP - amazingly, this is actually something that even relatively small meteors can do! It's happened a few times and has taken down power grids etc.

This seems to be relatively common knowledge as both Colonel Badass and Data (the brainbox daughter of the protagonist) almost immediately identify it. The first problem we encounter is that while the EMP is created by the meteor "exploding" in an air burst above the ground, the remains still hit the ground and cause a "sonic shock" (presumably, a regular shockwave wouldn't be science fictiony enough). Now, as the barrier for Terra Nova is just wooden bars with great big gaps - this means everyone has to hit the ground... a solid barrier would at least have mitigated that and prevented any dangerous high speed projectiles being hurled into people.

The second - and more obvious problem - is that LITERALLY EVERYTHING has a computer chip in it. EVEN THEIR GUNS! This is a period which had a considerably higher level of meteor activity and yet they didn't think about this? Oh but they might have back-ups, you say! They do! Phew, problem solved! Oh, wait - no. The EMP is capable of slagging ANY circuit in range - active or otherwise... oh, they're kind of fucked then... Oh! No, of course not - they've got a machine to make replacements! Thank goodness all of Terra Nova hasn't been reduced to a pre-electronic age! Wait, what's that? The machine that makes replacement chips itself requires one that was melted by the EMP?! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Hilariously - and for the purposes of dramatic convenience - there is one guy in the whole colony that can fix microchips that have melted. It's the evil Ozzie bartender! Quite how he's supposed to fix something that has presumably melted is never explained - these days, if a CPU breaks... it's pretty much done and these are chips from 150 years into the future (and hence presumably even smaller and more complex), it seems unlikely that even a trivial problem could be fixed - least of all by a guy in a bar with no tools.

But the whole situation is made even MORE ridiculous when we have Colonel Badass pronounce that their perimeter - which is apparently will with microchipped landmines... OK... - is down and that any number of beasties could charge through the barrier like it wasn't there... NO FUCKING KIDDING! If only you came from the future and could somehow make... some kind of METAL WALL! Seriously, what is WITH these people? They've brought through dozens, if not hundreds of lovely prefab buildings, enough weapons and vehicle to supply a small army and a state of the art medical facility and as revealed in this very episode, the sum total of ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE (oh, don't worry - THAT was shielded from the EMP!).

Yet, at some point during the planning of this second chance for humanity someone thought they'd just skimp on the walls and just have a bunch of logs a full grown man could fit through - or a dinosaur the size of a full grown man! Oops! In fact, Colonel Badass actually decides that as they're down to a useless barrier and harsh language, they need another line of defence - which turns out to be a big ditch that they fill with petrol or some such and ignite with flaming arrows (naturally when handed a compound bow, Timecop knows EXACTLY how to use it - because... well, because he's a main character damnit! Having one of the minor supporting characters who actually might have been trained to use a bow is stupid!). Hey, you know what would be sensible? Maybe if you hadn't waited until the last minute to dig a ditch to stop the hundreds of different species of 40 tonne beasties that run around all over this place!

Of course, the EVIL Sixers use the crippling stupidity of the Terra Novans to try and get the magical box of McGuffin because the Spineosaurus was just a distraction while the Sixers sneak in to get the McGuffin. They go on to exposition that this surgical strike was clearly the result of a mole - not just the fact the box was in a cupboard and in the most obvious location possible. Which rather begs the question - the mole clearly knew exactly where the McGuffin was - it was easy to get to and there was no one guarding it... it seems a regular occurrence for kids to sneak out of the colony, so you'd assume that as it's essentially just locked in a stationary cupboard the mole could just break in and sneak it out - no need for a potentially dangerous diversion or surgical strike.

Idiotic.

2011-06-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

For over a decade, Duke Nukem Forever has been the punchline of many jokes throughout the gaming community - due in part to its unfortunate choice of name and for the rest of it, the fact it spent twelve years in development hell, repeatedly winning vapourware awards with scarcely anything to show for it didn't help... and then 3DRealms itself went tits up and everyone assume that the forever would become a literal one... but here we are and the Duke has finally returned.

One thing to note is that Starcraft 2 was in development for around the same amount of time as well and while it may seem unfair to compare an RTS and an FPS, there are certain obvious differences... Starcraft 2 FELT like it had been in development for that length of time and it felt like a game that had endlessly been tweaked and polished at every stage of production.

There was absolutely no need for Blizzard to do that, all they really needed was a game that was properly balanced for the obsessive competitive multiplayer market and they'd have coined it in... but they produced a single player game with elaborate cutscenes - a few of the typically gorgeous and amazing fully rendered CGI ones and dozens of ones that were in-game and still managed to look better than most fully rendered cutscenes in other games - which offered a variety of missions in the generally very bland world of RTSs, a few choices, plenty of laughs, an entire soundtrack JUST for the bar! Lots of little extras you could pick up, a whole entirely unnecessary mini-game of Starcraft themed shoot 'em up you could play just for laughs... and lots of character interactions that were entirely optional but all very enjoyable - not to mention a spoof of FOX news. In other words, it felt like the time take had been time well spent.

Why go on about an unrelated game of a different genre? Well, despite their comparable times in development the same cannot be said for Duke Nukem Forever. It's no secret that the development of Duke Nukem Forever was troubled and the final product clearly shows that. The word on the street is that Gearbox pretty much ended up with various bits and pieces of what 3DRealms had made in the past decade and then basically hacked them together to make the game that was just released... that certainly seems about right.

That isn't to say there's no enjoyment in the game - it immediately harkens back to the Duke Nukem 3D with Duke casually relieving himself in a urinal. It takes a while for the game to actually get going after the little opener - which turns out to be a Duke Nukem game, played by Duke (complete with snark about how it took 12 years to make, hohoho). After this, there's wandering around Duke's building which seems to comprise his penthouse, museum, a TV studio and casino... at pretty much every instance, people will gush at Duke and tell him how awesome he is and pretty much everything with a vagina will hit on you - which varies in amusement.

After that, it's straight into the action... which is... unremarkable. This isn't helped by the fact that for reasons best known to the developers, the game decided to limit itself to two weapons and replaced the health bar with a shield... oh, sorry "ego". What is with the aversion to health bars these days? Regardless, it invariably means that shooting involves you running out and then ducking for cover although the game offers you a few power-ups... beer makes you tougher (but makes the screen blurry), steroids increase the power of your melee attacks and you've got the ol' Holo-Duke to distract the enemy... given that you've got a recharging health bar and even on hard, the enemies aren't particularly challenging, these are really more novelty items. Although, the ability to execute enemies is quite useful - restoring your ego immediately.

Your ego can also be supplemented by a number of different items that you'll find around the level. These can be something as simple as looking at pictures of boobs, to bench pressing or getting a good score on Duke's own pinball machine. It's a nice touch but really, it's not that critical to pick these points up - it's just nice to have some interaction with the world... it kind of breaks up the shooter stages...

Not that the standard FPS sections really require any real break, they're pretty much dealt out in bite sized pieces. You run to area A, you fight a few waves of bad guys, you kill them all... and then you run to area B, where you fight a few waves of bad guys, kill them and move on... Rinse and repeat. About the only reason it's amusing is because of what Duke says but even then, as short as this game is you're probably going to get a bit bored of hearing about pork chop sandwiches - that or get hungry... or both.

Of course, there's more than just the mini-games there are two bits to distract from the run-of-the-mill shooter this game is. First off are the driving sections, there are actually two of them. One at the start of the game, where you're shrunken down and using an R/C car to drive around in and another where you're in a monster truck which apparently has the fuel capacity of a thimble. Again, there's nothing much to comment on here... they're pretty standard driving sections - you drive along the road until run out of gas, then fight some bad guys and then run back to your truck... It's neither good nor bad, it was simply... there.

The other notable break in the game is about a third of the way through, where Duke - despite having the ability to shrug off bullets and grenades TO THE FACE - gets KO'd (eh, happens to the best of 'em) and enters a dream sequence which has... well, no bearing on anything. It's a chance to enjoy the strippers that Duke Nukem 3D was so infamous for and play a number of mini-games (notably, air hockey and a variation of whack-a-mole) while essentially doing a fetch-quest that gets Duke out of his coma... this part is really what contributes to the whole thing feeling like some kind of Frankenstein's monster of parts, sewn together to make one uneasy whole.

Yes, it has Duke Nukem being himself and there is plenty of the kind of humour that you'd expect - including copious references to other game franchises and games... but it's more than a little ironic that Duke proclaims "power armour is for pussies", when this game seems like a late to the party Halo clone in many respects. We've got the regenerating health/shield, limited to two weapons + grenades, a very linear style of map progression, the occasional somewhat awkward driving section (Duke even gets to jump out and flip his car, just as if it was a Warthog!) and of course, jumping puzzles... oh, wait - that's really more Half-Life's bag.

It's also incredibly short... which is in some ways a blessing, given that there were a pretty limited number of weapons and enemies, which made it all feel perhaps more repetitive. One of the loading screens tips - if you get to a stage of the game that makes you die a lot, you may want to get a book because the loading time aren't fast - suggests that different weapons do more or less damage to enemies... maybe they do but given the fact more than half of your enemies are "pig cops" and they mostly carry machine guns and shotguns, expect those to be your bread and butter.

Not to mention that all bosses require you to use explosives or a turret to kill them and those are naturally on hand with infinite ammo... which makes them ridiculously easy to kill, especially as the RPG can actually lock-on... Which surely makes the purpose of a boss battle somewhat ridiculous in itself? Oh and the game also bubbles over with such imagination that you get to fight two identical bosses twice. Oh, sorry - did I say identical? Well, they're exactly the same except that instead of just bringing their health down to zero once, you have to do it more than once.

It's really hard to know who this game is aimed at. It's obviously not for anyone looking for a serious FPS game but at the same time - because even the average Halo clone has set a higher bar than this... OK, so maybe nostalgia? Well, it does have Duke in it and the humour certainly hasn't matured in the past decade... but given the fact the single player campaign is so laughably short, even by the low standards of contemporary gaming - even if you love every joke and get every reference and find it hilarious... is that really worth the price of admission? Because this game almost certainly isn't going to have a big multiplayer community and it's hard to imagine people buying the game for the multiplayer because on the PC and consoles... there are just better games you could spend your money on for a multiplayer game.

In short, there's no real reason for anyone except the most die hard fans of the Duke to even consider handing over money for this game. If it wasn't for the titular character and his jokes, this game would be so forgettable you might not even be able to remember what you were playing as you played. As it is, to say that this is an inauspicious return to gaming for Duke Nukem would be a massive understatement. Perhaps if it comes out in a budget pack with some other games you want, then maybe it would be worth considering spending some money on - but really, it's just not that good.

2011-02-08T22:58:00.000-08:00

The UK has a history of SCI-FI that is chequered.

In recent years about all there has been is Doctor Who and Primeval... which are respectively mostly good and rubbish.

But the BBC will keep trying... and so, OUTCASTS!

A show that is struggling to get as many cliches as possible!

It's post-apocalyptic, it's an off-world colony, they had a virus that killed only kids, that have clones, they blamed the clones for the virus that killed their kids, the clones weren't able to produce BUT NOW CAN and as we're all of two episodes in - you can imagine we'll get some pay off on the vague and mystical notion.

The horrible acting, dialogue and just general tedium does NOTHING to make this show good.

Did the BBC learn NOTHING from The Deep? This is just another car crash. It doesn't matter if you get the budget or the high profile actors if the script is rubbish - it's going to be a bad product.

Why, oh why must the business hate and belittle writers? THEY MAKE THE SHOW.

Perhaps there was nothing to ruin here.

2010-10-12T19:28:00.001-07:00

Batman/Superman: Apocalypse - let's begin, shall we?

This follows right on the heels of the previous Batman/Superman animated feature - Public Enemies and in much the same way as that, it follows the comics in a general pattern of story... so, if you've read that - you'll know pretty much the entire story.

If you haven't - this picks up almost immediately after the end of Public Enemies, with the giant kryptonite mountain... sorry METEOR impacting into Gotham river. Batman turns up and finds a ship... and in that ship is SUPERGIRL! Except, it's comic book land so... y'know, a fight between Supergirl (only just learning to use her powers) and Batman begins.

Naturally, he eventually just gets some kryptonite out and we cut to some time later. Kara is at the FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE with Bats and Supes... Batman is naturally suspicious about a hot girl with super powers, claiming to be related to Superman and all that kind of stuff... Anyway, Superman trusts her and they take her to Metropolis... whilst trying to fit in, Batman and Wonder Woman essentially spring a trap that shows Supergirl isn't ready and she goes off to the Wonder Woman's magical lesbian island of Amazons for Spring Break for some hot girl on girl action... y'know catfights.

As one might guess, this is all going fine until Dark Seid turns up, abducts Supergirl and brainwashes her.

Supes, Batman, Wonder Woman and Big Barda get together to save her... Batman might be the world's greatest detective but going to Apokolips seems... fairly insane... but as this shows, being THE GOD DAMN BATMAN or his Bat Armour... or... SOMETHING allows him to be thrown against pillars and damage them and still be... well, alive. Most people who get thrown against a solid stone surface with any force would just collapse and die. Batman is fine though.

Anyway, Batman - being THE GOD DAMN BATMAN - basically beats Dark Seid saying "Oh, yeah - armed a bunch of world destroying bombs and if you don't let Supergirl go - BOOM! I'M THE GOD DAMN BATMAN!"

So, everyone goes home and all is well - OR IS IT?! Superman and Supergirl get jumped at the Kent's farm by Dark Seid... who points out that he just said he wouldn't mess with Supergirl... So, I guess he's lawful evil? Amusingly, Supes gets KO'd very early on and Supergirl does most of the punching. Predictably, evil is vanquished and good triumphs!

If you liked Superman/Batman: Public Enemies - this is pretty much more of the same. The story is neither complicated nor deep but it's very tight - that's presumably a function of the limited length of these features - and as far as action goes, it delivers. The quality of animation is impressive... one curious thing is that Granny Goodness not only LOOKS quite mannish... she sounds like a man. That's a minor quibble though, most of character design is great and the voice acting is all pretty good though.

Overall, probably the best DC animated effort thus far.

2010-04-05T06:42:00.000-07:00

Being the massive cultural phenemenon it is, changes in the actor of the eponymous Doctor of Doctor Who are inevitably burdened with people shaking heads and saying doom. So, when Matt Smith was announced - there was a great deal of clucking about him being a mere 27, the youngest Doctor ever.

Needless to say, the first episode Eleventh Hour has silenced many critics because Matt Smith and new head writer/executive producer Stephen Moffat kicked the living daylights out of everything that fanfic writing loser RTD ever did. He's energetic but not like a child sans ritalin (Tennant) and expressive but not gurning (Eccleston) and while it's just the first episode, there is no sense he's going to spend his whole time moaning about how he killed all the Timelords or how he's "so sorry" about absolutely EVERYTHING.

The episode starts right where The End Of Time left off, with the new Doctor, trying to stop the TARDIS crashing into Big Ben... amazingly, instead of crashing into slum council estate to a Billy Piper wannabe, we get him going into a village. A village that is not London... OR CARDIFF. Admittedly, the series has gradually moved away from the extreme constrictions of the first RTD season but this seems a a good fresh start and the Doctor running through a village is distinctly old school Who...

There's no pointless referencing of pop culture, gratuitous injection of homosexuality and no horrible cheesiness that makes you cringe... not to mention that technobabble and ridiculous fixes for problem are nowhere to be seen. In fact, the Doctor himself observes that he saves the day with no TARDIS and no sonic screwdriver. Which is a nice touch - a far more innovative solution to the problem presented than the Doctor simply babbling wildly while jumping around like a jack in the box with ADHD.

There's a great deal more subtlety to both the Doctor and his new companion, Amelia Pond. They are much more understate... the show does not feel as if it is going to lapse into slapstick or schmaltz and the second episode had a chance for both. It's the kind of subtlety that you'd never see in an RTD script and generally struggled to emerge under his auspices and the Doctor has yet to be venerated as some incredible and infallible person - one of the primary flaws of RTD's writing of the Doctor was that in all of three seconds, everyone would think he was the best thing since sliced bread... things with Amelia have been a little different as the Doctor kind of dicked her around a bit... and she's apparently running away from her wedding.

So, thinks are looking interesting.

2010-02-23T11:04:00.001-08:00

Star Trek: Online had something of a rocky development but has finally finished its beta and is out.

The game breaks down into two sections - space and away missions. Most of the game is you flying around in your ship and ships come in three flavours: escort - damage per second, cruiser - tanks and science - doing buffs/debuffs. In much the same way, classes break down into tactical, engineer and science... which equates to much the same.

Your ship itself breaks down into the the equipment you have on the ship and the bridge officers you use - as well as bonuses your character gets for various starship abilities. Bridge officers provide abilities in addition to the ones you have yourself, the number and type being dictated by the class of ship you have. The abilities can do everything from increase weapon damage to improving the shields of fellow fleet members.

The obvious comparison as regards space combat goes is EVE online, things are considerably more dynamic in Star Trek: Online and you don't need to spend hours working out what kind of weapons are best for your class of ship and so on, not to mention that while in EVE online the destruction of your ship results in its permanent loss, in STO you respawn after 15 seconds. While this might kill the tension somewhat it also means that one can focus on playing the game without developing an ulcer, for fear that your new ship that cost hours of play time to buy and outfit will get destroyed because your connection decided to fail at an inopportune moment. Weapons are straightforwardly divided into energy weapons and torpedoes/mines - energy weapons like phasers and disruptors are better at damaging shields, torpedoes and mines damage hulls.

To make combat more interesting than the usual fare, shields are split into 4 sections and weapons are mounted front or aft and different weapons have different arcs of fire - with arcs of fire tending to be traded off against the damage per second. So, combat tends to require a combination of balancing shields and manoeuvring to hit your enemy's weakest shields and also, changing your power management and using your special abilities to gain advantage - and naturally, different ships manoeuvre differently - meaning that the more nimble escort craft can get away with the more powerful weapons, while more ponderous cruisers require the generous arcs of fire to keep the pressure on their enemies... All of which means that you need to be actively guiding your ship to make the best use of your weapons in a fight.

The missions undertaken in your ship are generally along the lines of the following:

Defend a sector - which entails just slogging through a certain number of random instances by killing a certain number of enemies.

Patrol a sector - which is slightly different as you go to a number of different systems and you can just have to scan for anomalies or beam down to planets or see off some pirates.

Specific missions - these are longer and generally involve more than one part and might require travelling to more than one system and several sections of space and ground combat.

Fleet actions - BIG instances where you have to take on several large numbers of enemy ships in what can amount to pretty epic battles. They even show a leader board at the end.

The other side of game are the away missions, these are carried out in a more traditional MMO manner with a third person perspective, equipment, weapons and what pass for STO's version of potions and spells. The notable difference here is that you have your bridge officers with you - so you're controlling a squad. You get to assign points to their skills for both space AND ground combat - in much the same way as you yourself progress through the ranks and skills. As you'd expect of an MMO, twitch reflexes are now required here - point and click. In truth, most of the killing is uninspiring. You get bonuses for flanking enemies but it feels as if this aspect of the game was tacked on. Granted, it's nice to be able to walk around starbases, your own bridge, explore strange new planets - and not ALL away missions require you to shoot a horde of idiotic Klingons or Gorn... Some involve scanning stuff or talking to people!

Perhaps the problem with the game is that Star Trek was always envisioned as a peaceful utopian future where everyone just gets along and humans are all about lofty aspiration such as peaceful exploration and the like. There are some exploring missions - go out and scan some rocks... but the entire setting of the game - 30 years after Nemesis, tying into the new Star Trek film by having Romulus destroyed because Spock forgot to set his alarm clock and the Klingons running amok and at war with the Federation (again) and the Borg showing up (again) pretty much your standard MMO situation. Speaking of Spock, Nimoy offers some insight (as well as titbits on load screens) into the current situation of the galaxy, when you enter a new sector of space for the first time - which is a nice touch...

Beyond the fact it's the ol' galaxy in conflict type scenario, the game does spend quite a lot of time making sure to reference familiar characters or their progeny. You get to choose from the well known species of the Star Trek universe, familiar designs of starships and they've even got systems referenced from the shows. Naturally, that won't do anything for you if you're not a Trek fan but if you've watched the shows, it's good to see that some deference is shown and isn't just tacking a franchise name onto a game for the sake of it. It's a little vexatious that you can't decide at the start of the game whether you want to create a Klingon or Federation character but given the considerably greater emphasis on PvP in the Klingon game - that makes sense from a logistical stand point.

The game itself is somewhat unusual in that you don't choose a specific server to play on, rather everything in the game is instanced. Rather helpfully - especially when you're starting out - when you blunder into enemy contacts (aka the random instances you have to beat for defend sector missions) these instances add other people, so you don't need to take on a dozen ships at a time, so... there's a greatly diminished need to shout "LFG!", for at least some of the more casual mission... and that means in the big ol' fleet action missions, you can get a WHOLE mess of people with a big range of ability, which is in itself entertaining if nothing else...

But of course, this IS an MMO - and the variety of missions isn't huge and many are just variations on a theme but you NEED to do them, if you want to get the equipment, cash (sorry, ENERGY CREDITS) and XP to progress to better ranks and hence better ships and so on and so forth - so, the grind is there but then, that wasn't exactly going to shock anyone that has played an MMO before... it feels like something of a disservice to call this EVE lite, not to mention a gross oversimplification as EVE represents at higher levels of play a lot of stuff that Star Trek: Online isn't eve trying for but in the sense that it's a space based MMO where you cruise around the galaxy, blowing people up... it probably warrants the comparison at least fleetingly for being in the same ballpark... or at least, in its carpark while EVE bites someone's ear off inside it. It's really nothing exceptional - if you love Star Trek and are looking for a game that allows you to experience Trek with other people, this is definitely the game for you... as far as the average MMO player goes... Perhaps if you have tried EVE but found it an entirely too punishing experience that didn't have a learning curve, so much as a learning suicide cliff (they have actually addressed that issue - although, the game remains insanely complicated and punishing and not overly friendly as regards its interface for the uninitiated) but WANT some kind of space game where death just means a 15 second respawn and not potentially hundreds of hours of work down the drain and combat doesn't require you to spend some time understanding the relative strengths and weaknesses of your race, class, ship and weapons... then this is probably your best bet for the near future... Something like an MMO Freelancer, perhaps?

2010-02-17T08:18:00.000-08:00

Halo: Legends is to Halo what the Animatrix is to the Matrix and what Gotham Knight was to the Chris Nolan Batman films, a series of animated shorts by different Japanese directors, mostly in a standard sort of anime style.

It's - as with the aforementioned similar ventures - a mixed bag of seven different tales.

Origins is pretty good but really, it's not a story. It's essentially an excuse for Cortana to retell the Halo universe's backstory. Nice art and action but it's really not a story, per se - it just feels as though someone wanted to do a lot of explosions and stuff with The Floor... or that someone felt a person buying Halo: Legends might not have the first clue about the series, so decides to fill them in. Regardless, it's enjoyable but by its nature - is kind of shallow.

The Duel... apparently Elites are Japanese. Down to living in pagodas (seriously) and wearing samurai armour. Maybe that's part of the lesser known canon... regardless, this is something of a disconnect from the rest of the stories as it's about an Elite - apparently the first Arbiter - defying the Prophets. For this heresy, he LITERALLY fights an army. There isn't a lot of sense to this story and it has a weird, kind of blurry almost... sticky animation. Clearly done for stylistic reasons but it doesn't really do much. It's OK for the background and establishing shots but for for action... less so, although the action is kinda cool... but the trite story and the fact you don't really have any time to get to know the character... it's really just action cheesecake with no substance.

Homecoming - pretty standard anime style here. Girl SPARTAN on a planet, has flashbacks to how she escaped from SPARTAN training... again, there is a feeling they're trying to tug on the heart strings when they've just tossed a character at you. The intercutting of the stories - ticking and tocking back and forth between the past and present - is a little jarring too and... doesn't really add much.

Odd One Out - you could be forgiven for thinking that this was someone trying to pitch a Halo Saturday morning cartoon... but basically, SPARTAN 1337 is a gag character and this whole thing is a joke... not a very funny one though. There is the odd titter but really, if they wanted to do a parody of the Halo universe there is so much to do with the existing stuff you don't need to create a deliberately over the top goofy/wacky character who keeps getting punched into the ground etc. So, really - not that interesting.

Prototype - they seem to like their trite messages in this package... I suppose it's hard to get something deep and meaningful into twenty or so minutes... but still.

The Babysitter - this probably comes level with "The Package" as the best of the bunch and really, they're both in a different league to the others. We get some feel for the characters and the animation is good, with some good action and the general awesomeness that goes with having a SPARTAN involved. It even includes one of the characters from ODST... yeah, who cares about that? Still overall, a good effort... again, the Covenant seem to be living in distinctly Far Eastern style housing for no reason but it works.

The Package - naturally, anything involving the ubiquitous Master Chief from the franchise itself is going to get extra points almost as a matter of course... quite WHY the original voice actor wasn't used (it kind of detracts... he did three games just to get shoved aside here?) is a mystery and the guy sounds more like he's trying to do a Batman impression than anything - though, fortunately NOT a Christian Bale Batman. The fact this is a CGI affair may lead some people to think that in some ways, it's more like a cutscene than anything else but that's at least a mite unfair and it's not as if the Halo cutscenes weren't suitably awesome. It's really what a Halo feature should be, people running at Covenant forces and shooting the hell out of them. Also some nice space battles and just general awesomeness. It ties with "The Babysitter"... mostly because it was pretty to look at but invested nothing in the characters.

So, there you have it... really, this is only something a big Halo fan should go out of their way for. Still, at least you get almost two hours of actual material - which is more than you can say for Marvel or DC animated features that struggle to make it past an hour (excluding credits). So, make of that what you will.

2010-02-12T17:04:00.001-08:00

FEAR 2, eh? Kind of felt a lot like the original FEAR.

Slightly better looking, you can find upgrades to increase the length of your bullet time... the weapons aren't quite the same and you're facing slightly different baddies... oh and you get a few romps in powered armour suits that allow you to mow down enemies with impunity...

Otherwise, there isn't a lot to say. It's still a mix of tactical gunplay, creepy facilities and regular hallucinations that sometimes try and beat you up. The AI is still good... and this time they throw in some bastarding little wretches - well, they're just like the things in Gears of War - that sneak up and attack you... inexplicably requiring button mashing... At least it's not a TRUE quick time event.

If you played the first game... it's very similar. If you haven't... there's no real need to. Although the first one might be slightly longer and more engaging...

2010-02-12T00:21:00.000-08:00

Bioshock was one of those strange creatures - the spiritual successor - and has now spawned its own literal successor Bioshock 2. The end of Bioshock (either one) didn't really lend itself to an obvious sequel... and the nature of the game itself - which is to say one that invested itself so heavily in a single locale - rather committed any sequels that might come to again returning to the underwater dystopia of Rapture. Naturally, that's not a bad thing per se because the atmosphere of Rapture was superb but it does mean that the game is going to be covering familiar territory.

And indeed, it does. Despite the fact you're playing as a Big Daddy - the most iconic adversary from the original game - very little has changed. Hardly anything, in fact. You still have guns and plasmids... the place is still full of crazy splicers and you do research with a "genetic camera" but other than that, it's all quite similar. The only big difference is a somewhat insubstantial one - the weapons are different. As a Big Daddy (well, Big Daddy prototype... at the start of the game, you're as weak as a kitten) you get a drill as your default weapon and a rivet gun, later collecting a Gatling gun, shotgun, remote hacking tool, rock launcher and the like. This is really the ONLY area of the game where it feels like anything substantial has been reworked.

Plasmids are almost completely unchanged, there are a few more tonics and unlike the first game, you have a common pool for them, rather than only getting X number of tonics for one type of enhancement... The enemies haven't changed a great deal. There is exactly one type of new splicer - the Brute, who is somewhere between the Incredible Hulk and Mr. Hyde from the lamentable Van Helsing film (or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, take your pick). They're easily the most powerful of the splicers but still some way below a Big Daddy. There is in fact a NEW Big Daddy, the Rumbler - he uses turrets and stuff... and looks kinda different and of course, there's the much touted Big Sister. They're pretty damned rare, while you have to fight a Big Daddy every time you want to get a Little Sister, Big Sisters only turn up after you've harvested or saved about three Little Sisters... so, you'll fight only a handful of them... although, they are considerably more powerful than Big Daddys, with their plasmids and agility, so that's probably for the best... and that's ALL the new enemies, all three of 'em. Oh no! There are two new versions of the Big Daddy, the Rumbler and the Alpha Series. So, four. Four new enemies.

The main change to gameplay - in fact, make that the ONLY change - is that as a Big Daddy, you can now adopt Little Sisters, after you kill their Big Daddy. So, to get more ADAM - the stuff that lets you buy fancy new plasmids to shoot fire, electricity and so on - you have your Little Sister harvest corpses... which leads to the splicers attack and naturally, you need to defend the Little Sister until she's done. In fact, if this leads to you having some deja vu - that'll be because you did this IN THE FIRST GAME. It's just that back then, it was an arbitrary task and had no reward beyond progressing in the game... so, yes innovation ladies and gentlemen!

No, you're definitely not going to be playing Bioshock 2 for revolutionary visuals or gameplay because this is very much more of the same. So, it's fair to say that if you liked the original game, then you will probably enjoy this... if not, then you won't like this. It's hard to say much more about the game - it's enjoyable enough, although even on hard with due diligence, not even Big Sisters or Big Daddys pose any real threat and regular enemies must attack en masse to be anything more than a nuisance. In fact, the game has something of an inverse difficulty curve - at the start of the game despite being a Big Daddy, you can be offed quite easily by a pair of splicers if you aren't paying attention, by the end of the game with the right plasmids (and it seems like the freeze plasmid might be a TAD overpowered when used in conjunction with a fully pimped drill) the only real challenge comes at the very end of the game when wave after wave of high level enemies are sent at you.

If one were to ignore the story, then this might as well be some extra levels for Bioshock, so few and far between are the differences. One might not necessarily see that as a bad thing, of course - Bioshock was an enjoyable game, as is this one and of course, this has the addition of multiplayer, if such things should interest you. So, if you liked Bioshock - get it and if you didn't don't bother.

2010-02-04T17:55:00.000-08:00

Mass Effect 2 had a lot to live up to.

Being a Bioware game these days leads to high expectations and being a sequel to Mass Effect - universally loved and well received, or near enough - that would go without saying but the build up for Mass Effect 2 started back in mid-2009 and it didn't stop until the game was loading up.

Must like the first game, you're immediately thrust into action - and a rather lengthy and super special awesome cutscene that sets up the game before you reprise the role of galactic bad ass. Things are mixed up slightly this time around as you're working for the shady Cereberus group, who it was possible to encounter in the first game, entirely as the bad guys. They're a human supremacist group and are very much modelled after every shadowy conspiracy type organisation ever. Regardless, you're working for them to try and put a stop to a spate of colonies disappearing - because as it's an RPG, no one else can ever get anything done.

The major difference from the first game is probably the first one that you'll notice - there is ammo. Given that Mass Effect made a point of there being no necessity for reloading - with weapons just overheating - it can be somewhat jarring and does make the game a rather more generic experience... but in practice, the ammo is plentiful and you're only going to be stretched for ammo in seriously protracted firefights. Beyond this, there is a HUGE simplification of the levelling logistics. In fact, most things in the gameplay department have been streamlined. There is no purchasing or finding weaponary, the number of abilities a character has been reduced to four (one of which is unlocked by gaining their loyalty) and weapons/armour upgrading has been all but scrapped.

This might all sound as if some horrific amount of damage has been done to the game but really, it merely allows for more time to be spent playing the game and focusing on the story - rather than spending hours trying to get an optimal load out for your party. It's perhaps somewhat unfortunate that the system introduced essentially means that you get gun A and then later can get gun B - which is in all ways better - but Mass Effect was never particularly heavy on sitting around and fiddling with stats and so on, so it's not really a loss.

The upgrades in question require minerals, which leads to what is the weakest part of the game - the mining mini-game. Much like the original, Mass Effect 2 lets you fly around solar systems (in this case, you literally direct your ship around the solar systems) and scan planets. The difference here being that you're not arbitrarily awarded stuff for a scan or dropped onto the planet in the MAKO, to spend hours roaming bland and generic landscapes, vaguely hoping to find something interesting. No, your scan will - 90% of the time - lead to the mining mini-game. This involves dragging the cursor over the planet to try and find mineral deposits by using the scanner. It's not horrible but it's time consuming and repetitive... and it seems strange for a game that seems designed with the intent of focusing on the narrative and the action above all else to toss in something that utterly removes the player from both... but about 10% of the time (which is probably an overly generous estimate) you'll get an anomaly and this leads to a unique encounter. These are all great fun and are a country mile better than bumping around in the MAKO for hours on end - so, really a huge improvement over that dynamic from the original.

As this is a Bioware game, it almost goes without saying that the voice acting and writing in this game is excellent. As before, one generally has a choice between a good - or paragon - response, a neutral one or the bad - renegade - responses. This has been supplemented by what could ALMOST be considered a quick time event, if that weren't an insult. In addition to dialogue, at times during a conversation, a paragon or renegade action may be available to you and by clicking appropriately, one can do anything from toss someone out of a high rise to stop someone getting shot. It's a very simple but effective way to increase the involvement of the player in the Shepard character.

The story itself is enjoyable although, despite the disappearance of entire human colonies... the threat never feels quite as imminent as it did before, possibly because of the nature of the enemy... there is no equivalent to Saren here, no nemesis for Shepard to talk with... and it hurts the story somewhat. Saren served to tie the overall thread of Mass Effect together, here we've just got an army of mooks who never really say much. Of course, it's still interesting but they don't quite get the epicness of the first game. That said, the more personal elements of the game are good. The first game only had a few personal sidequests, ME2 has a full one for all the members of your crew - they're all unique experiences and depending on how they play out, you can gain the loyalty of the party member, giving them a snazzy Cerberus jumpsuit and unlocking a new ability.

All in all, an enjoyable game that did what most good sequels should - take the framework of the original game and improve upon it. Other than the mineral mini-game and the initial surprise players of the original will have over having to reload their weapons, instead of just waiting for it to cool down, there really isn't much to complain about. The game balances humour - there are some hilarious conversations in the background on the various worlds - action, story, romance (there are EIGHT love interests compared to the original three) and sci-fi goodness into one easily digestible package. Bring on Mass Effect 3.

2010-02-04T17:20:00.000-08:00

Dragon Age - Bioware finally escapes the strictures of licensed properties and establishes its own intellectual property... which is being dubbed "dark fantasy". It's really just takes the traditional fantasy mix and moves things around... and yes, probably slightly more dark in tone that the average fantasy franchise, with the near total destruction of humanity in the past, dwarves locked in a constant battle for survival with the darkspawn (who periodically try and wipe out everything in Blights - which you're trying to avert) and elves are second class citizens, often used as slaves and treated with open contempt.

As a Bioware game, the writing and story is top notch and is the greatest strength in a game that drags on. The reason for this is very simple - the gameplay isn't particularly exciting. It's standard D&D stuff - all tick tocking masked behind a friendly interface and the player able to stop and issue orders at any point to your party. For the most part, the RPG element of the game has been stripped down to bare bones. Rogue, mage or warrior... and depending on your class and racial choices, you have a number of different possible starting missions which make some trifling difference to the game after they're done but it's a nice touch.

Thankfully, the party is not limited to the Mass Effect group of three but rather you get four in your party... not quite at the Baldur's Gate levels but still, an extra party member is always a bonus - especially as there are the occasional interactions between the NPCs... again, it's not on the same level as Baldur's Gate but it's still nice to have it there. Regardless of that, in camp you can interact extensively with your entire party to get their backstory and gain influence with them. Influence is gained by making choices they approve of when they're in your party, saying the right thing to them or just giving them gifts. This is really where the game shines - the characters are all scripted wonderfully and the voice acting is really top notch, making interaction with the characters a joy rather than a chore.

The game almost manages a wonderfully cinematic quality, right from the start. Again, scripts and acting are superb and the action and direction of the cutscenes is great. They seem to almost effortlessly manage to incorporate a sense of epic scale at times and at others, quiet intensity. It's very impressive to see this all done almost entirely with the in-game engine but then, the engine is quite impressive.

Where the game falters is the gameplay... the difficulty randomly varies, meaning sometimes attack will be easy to shrug off and other times, they'll be inexplicably harder, despite a similar number of identical enemies and when it comes down to it - it's also very rinse, wash, repeat. By halfway through the game, the combat are starting to get tiresome and by the end, it's little more than a chore to be rushed through to beat the game. Compared to something like KOTOR or Mass Effect where combat was fun AND challenging, this is a real let down and easily the weakest of Bioware's latest. There are some nice touches - like the ability to have spell effects combine - but really they're just minor and the game is in danger of having grind.

All-in-all it's a good game and worth playing for the story, if not the gameplay.

2009-12-22T02:20:00.000-08:00

Avatar has been over ten years and $300m in the making and the hype for it was fairly bold, claiming that it was going to revolutionise cinema FOREVER! In truth, the visuals for this film are often very impressive but while the appearance of the film is often astonishing and does mark a watershed in effects, this is offset by the remarkably clichéd and banal story.

There have been been many rather unkind comparisons to Ferngully and many to Dances With Wolves. In fairness, aspects of both are in the film... but it borrows very heavily from the general area of film that equates the military and big corporations as BAD. The scientists are all very reasonable, seeing the unique ecology of the planet and thinking that IT and not the uber valuable unobtanium is the important thing on Pandora... and yes, they called the material they're there for unobtanium... So, they go for a LITERAL connection to the planet... because the Na'vi can literally plug into trees, animals, the big flying beasties... presumably evolution on Pandora has managed to bypass the biological equivalent of not having a laptop recognise the printer that's plugged in. It's ALL very hippy and it's the kind of tree hugging Gaia type claptrap that would have felt dated... well, back around the time of Ferngully.

It's very much set up to make it obvious that the corporation is BAD AND EVIL and the colonel is clearly spoiling for a fight from the get go, complete with his big scar and bad ass attitude. It's very clear that there's no compromise possible, the imperialist forces of capitalism are bad and evil, the noble savages can do no wrong with their hippy ways.

The events of the film are related by a handy capable ex-marine who apparently fell into it because his twin brother got shot and he's a genetic match, blah blah blah and he's there because it pays well and he needs money to get his legs fixed. So he goes to Pandora, which is apparently 5 years away... eh, whatever - this film has giant flying mountains and biological USBs and a military too stupid to know what orbital bombardment is. Anyway, John Generic is on his whole - gain trust of noble savages schtick. Obviously, initially he is working for the EVIL corporation but one he gets himself some sexy blue space babe, he's all about saving Ferngully - uh, sorry the rainforest... or whatever the hell it is he's saving.

So, we basically go through what amounts to about two hours of Pandora's Walking With Dinosaurs. Really, that's literally about it for the first two hours, John Generic just explores the world, the Na'vi and gets it on with hot Na'vi (your mileage may vary). Then the military/evil corporation get unhappy and go to war! This is an action film with very little action, basically this film pulls all the action punches until the final act. It's visually impressive but there's just no real plot here and the characters are all so forgettable. It just goes to show, you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars and never bother with a script... hmm, that sounds like the Star Wars prequels... this is better than them, certainly visually and at least the plot is coherent.

2009-11-26T11:01:00.000-08:00

So... the first half of RTD's Doctor Who finale of finales has graced our screens... As one would expect, when a much loved character is about to be offed... it's fairly serious in tone but even that can't stop RTD from pushing in some totally inappropriate, unfunny comic relief - including flaming homosexual... As with a lot of two parters, it seems likely that come part the second, it's going to be obvious that a lot of the first part is filler.

John Simms is again wasted as an actor. He's a GOOD actor, whether it's RTD's script or the direction he received... or he's just hamming it up... it's all a bit much... of course, that said - given the visual effects used - it seems likely that most of it is down to RTD... so, it seems fair to give Simms credit for working with what he had.

If precedent is anything to go by, it seems likely that this will have an unsatisfactory resolution though...

2009-11-21T07:10:00.000-08:00

Joss Whedon must be starting to feel like he's not wanted on TV. After the success of Buffy and then not-quite-as-successful-but-almost Angel he went on to Firefly... which was much loved but kinda dicked about and short lived. So, now Dollhouse has suffered a similar fate.

Similar, mostly in dying a death. Dollhouse made it to season 2 only by conceding to considerable budget cuts and it wasn't many episodes into season 2 before the old pattern repeated itself. It disappeared from schedules, got shuffled around and then before the half-way mark... Dollhouse was gone.

Of course, there is an inherent danger to a show by a writer known for his ability to build characters, where at the end of every episode, a reset button is hit and her character is literally deleted... that and the fact Dushku really wasn't a great choice for someone required to show a very large range. Also, Dollhouse kind of suffered from the X-Files Factor - which is to say, there is an enormous global conspiracy... but all we get to see is people sitting in the same office...

For whatever reason, Whedon fails again. Maybe he needs to try something that doesn't involve waif fu?

2009-11-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

There is something called an idiot franchise - that is to say, a franchise which has fanboys (or girls) so loyal and unthinking that anything with the right name on it will inspire the easiest of all partings, a fool and their money. There are some obvious candidates for this... EA games and horror films. EA has been pumping out various slightly different iterations of sports games for over a decade now - to the point one starts to feel less contempt for the company and more for the fans... although, as it's EA... there's still a lot of contempt to be felt for them.

Microsoft seem fairly intent on making Halo their torch blazing idiot franchise. Now, some are going to immediately say that Halo was great etc. The first was certainly something that made the X-box a player in the console market - and let's face it, Halo is really much, much more about the multiplayer than the single player, regardless of the orders of magnitude more that was put into that in the second two games...

So, why say this is the dawn of an idiot franchise? First off, Halo Wars... ok, you might say - RTS games on consoles... those are never really going to be great. Some types of game favour a mouse and keyboard, some a controller - and hey, it had some pretty cutscenes and it wasn't actually MADE by Bungie. Sure but it was just a cash-in... and of course, now Halo: ODST has been done... Bungie have bailed, well almost. They're signing off with Halo: Reach - which they've said little about but will presumably be a Halo prequel and FPS.

Bungie can't really be blamed for what went down with Halo - Microsoft bought them and the game concept changed radically and it became the X-box's messiah, very much the Alpha and Omega. ODST was not a high note to finish on - it's a bunch of characters you don't know, doing stuff you don't care about and really, the ODST boys are pussies compared to Master Chief. The chorus of voices on this game echoes much what the developers said - it's not worth full price. It's just an expansion, pretending to be a game... But... in short order, all these sins will be forgotten.

Why? Because... THERE'S A NEW HALO GAME! Which will be the last one to have anything to do with Bungie - all Halo properties henceforth shall be dealt with by a Microsoft subsidiary. Yes. Microsoft want to milk this cow dry enough that they not only bought the intellectual property from Bungie, they're actually making a company to exploit it. A company PURELY to develop Halo titles... the power of fanboys is as awesome as their ability to let fanaticism override intellect time and again... After all, if Halo: ODST being a full priced release when the game amounted to a fairly limited add-on for Halo 3... then it's fair to say the shark has been jumped.

2009-11-15T19:19:00.001-08:00

The Water Of Mars... Well, if you want to be an uber fan and put that into an anagram generator... Do so. Anyway, the spacing of these specials has been pretty piss poor but then, that's probably not RTD's fault. You'll probably know he wrote this script by the "OHAI I HAVE THE BROTHER WITH THE HUSBAND!" bit... but we get "YES, THE ENVIRONMENT HAS BEEN BAD DUE TO POLLUTION!" so there's an environmental message... one of the events being subtly dubbed the "Oil Apocalypse"... actually, as far as environmental messages go - that IS subtle but that's more a result of them being generally anvilicious.

So, we don't really hang around in this adventure, Doctor Who turns up on the Mars base and says hi - for reasons of plot that will become apparently later, he materialises his TARDIS for about the first time ever - not in a cupboard but on the surface of Mars... which means he's mincing across the surface in a space suit. Anyway, in short order, the Doctor realises that this is a DOOMED expedition and that it's one of those fixed points in space etc. For some reason, this is related by the Doctor flashing back to the BBC news website or something - showing the obituaries of those on the base... which is a little strange but saves exposition.

Naturally, problems arise almost immediately in the form of WATER SPEWING ZOMBIES. Who were apparently trapped under the ice or something and now a SINGLE drop of their water will infect someone faster than you can say "28 Days Later". The twist is of course, these zombies are smart and can make water... so, they're kind of fucked. In fact, the Doctor ELABORATES to them just how fucked they are. Or rather, how their fate is inevitable.

They went on - at length -before this episode came out, that it would be the scariest ever (they seem to say that a lot)... but really, it's far more action than anything. The situation is fairly hopeless... but that doesn't equal a scare factor. Just a lot of heroic self-sacrifice etc. etc. It's really just an enjoyable yarn... which probably means RTD is saving himself up for his final episodes.

A lot better than Planet of the Dead and The Next Doctor... but that's not exactly saying much, is it? Also... why were these specials SO badly spaced? There were supposed to be four in 2009 but it seems there will only be 3... as the Christmas Special is going to be a two-parter that finishes in early 2010. Still, that means there are going to be specials in TWO months. Poorly planned.

2009-11-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

To make a comment about remakes would be to tread upon ground that is walked all too regularly, so let us generously not mention that of the new V - which is, yes... a remake of the classic 80s TV miniseries. So, anyway - the basic story can be summed up (and the show even makes the reference) as the start of Independence Day with giant ships showing up over all the major cities on Earth. The big difference being that they don't explode monuments, they're all smiles and sunshine... OR ARE THEY?!

Naturally, too good to be true! As if good natured aliens would ever stop by Earth to give us something for nothing - because naturally, the space hooker from Firefly (their leader) tells us that they're just stopping here for a weekend break but they'll give us technology and stuff to cover the inconvenience... and this is in the first five minutes, including an entirely gratuitous and unnecessary jet fighter falling out of the sky and exploding.

The show doesn't waste much time in showing us that the aliens are plotting against us. In fact, it's pretty telegraphed by the way they behave - even if the end of the first episode didn't pull any punches in that regards... which kind of kills the suspense, beyond how. Oh, wait - no. They want to infiltrate human society. They don't really say WHAT they want... but yeah, then... if they're so technologically advanced - they could have tossed an asteroid at us and wiped us out to harvest everything.

Just the usual failing.

2009-11-11T02:08:00.000-08:00

It is - of course - tradition for horror franchises to contrive some way to return the killer and thus allow there to be additional films and thus, more money - what makes the Saw franchise a little different is that the third film ends with him being pretty unambigiously killed and the FOURTH one shows him in the process of being autopsied (and no, he's not jumping up like Michael Myers or Jason). So... it's somewhat impressive that having died in Saw III, his machinations are still afoot and as elaborate and nigh infallible as ever in Saw VI.

There ISN'T really much to seperate this film from the others... there is actually something of a narrative thread here, which is to say - this film is a BIG author filibuster about health care in the USA and the role of the insurance companies in screwing people over on their health insurance... all of which takes something of a back seat to Jigsaw basically exceeding a BATMAN level of planning, forethought and prediction.

It's not hard to see why the writers want to keep Tobin Bell around, he's pretty much the only character who has been in every film and he's a fine actor and really, the most iconic thing about the entire film series is the creepy puppet with Tobin Bell doing the Jigsaw voice - that and the twist at the end of the film.

This is pretty much what anyone who has seen a Saw film would expect, which for most means this probably won't be worth going to the cinema for.

2009-11-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica started by telling us that the Cylons had a plan... so, now sometime after the end of BSG, we have the release of "The Plan"... and it's no exaggeration to call this a glorified clip show.

We get some insight into certain events - mostly (as you'd expect) seeing what the Cylons were doing in the human fleet... Apparently their master plan didn't involve Galactica escaping - they wanted to wipe out humanity in one move... and the way they kept getting the fleet's position was because the human form Cylons that died were giving co-ordinates to the Cylon fleet.

There isn't much to write home about. For the true BSG aficionado - it will fill in some blanks... but really, what it seems to highlight most is that the plan... wasn't very good. Other than that, it really comes down to... a little background. There are no cosmic revelations to be had about the story, no awe inspiring twists... which is probably for the best. For an average BSG fan... maybe not so much - possibly for nostalgia value... but if you want to watch the show again... why not just watch the show again?

2009-11-04T12:37:00.000-08:00

Lost has popularised flashbacks to an epic extent. The bandwagon is one that the whole TV industry has been all too keen to jump on... so, it's perhaps somewhat appropriate that Fast Forward should offer us the opposite... which is to say, a global event where near enough the entire population sees 137 seconds of their lives six months in the future.

An interesting premise for a story, yes? Well - yes... it's an interesting premise. Shame about the execution. Several episodes in and it's hard to really care about any of the characters... You really need to care about the characters in this but whether it's the writing, the direction or the actors... it's hard to like any of these characters.

And that makes it difficult to really take any interest in the show. Apathy toward characters kills any real interest in the overall plot - which amounts to how the "flash forward" happened, who did it and why... but yeah, who cares about that when most of the characters are either bland or spend their time being angry and shouting a lot. Most of these people are constantly at the level of angry Rush from Stargate Universe. It's based on a book - maybe it's better to just check that out and save yourself the time.

2009-10-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

Onward, ever onward the seemingly indestructible Stargate series moves - with four incarnations (yes, four - though few will have heard of the abortive Stagate: Infinity and fewer still watched it) it's hard to keep things fresh. So, we have a team sent to a distant galaxy and with no way home, trapped on an Ancient vessel and... NO, this isn't Stargate: Atlantis.

The premise is similar... but really it has more in common with Voyager and that was just a rehash of Lost In Space and that was really just The Odyssey (IN SPACE!). So, no real point in trying to poke holes in it for that. Also, there are obvious differences. The people aren't on the ship by choice - the ship itself is totally fucked... in fact, thus far the episodes have revolved entirely around the basics of survival. Which is in direct contrast to Voyager and Stargate: Atlantis - where just about everything was fine after the pilot episode.

However, someone clearly felt the plight of humans on an Ancient spaceship that is falling to pieces, stranded millions of light years from home with limited resources and no idea where they are or even if they're going to survive. No, that has to be padded with tedious flashbacks and Ancient communication devices. The occasional flashback is OK but the Ancient communication devices mean everyone can just chitchat with their loved ones - Voyager waited what was it... four years before they did this? AND THAT WAS VOYAGER! Still, all these flashbacks and

Beyond that, the cast is poor. Robert Carlyle is a capable actor but here it feels like someone said "HAM IT UP!" and he has chewed his way through entire sets... but his character is the only vaguely competent character other than Eli (MIT drop out/boy wonder) and Young (the barely tolerable O'Neil/Sheppard equivalent). Eli is the only one that is really relatable - he's kind of the equivalent of Daniel Jackson in the sense that he's the ordinary guy who is kinda dead ending in the world and then come men come along and BOOM, he's in his element.

To be honest, Eli is the only person seemingly capable of coming up with ideas and Rush is the only person that understands the ship. Young spends most of his time bitching about what a bitch Rush is... despite the fact Rush (who shouts at people because they've no clue what's going on) has been right... more than anyone. Not to mention the fact Rush is the person seemingly MOST concerned with the immediate task of survival, Young hasn't been sabotaging Rush but by ignoring him, he's not really advanced their cause. It's so manifestly obvious that they're stuck where they are for the time being...

In many senses, it is as if we're going through a further iteration of the Stargate dynamic. For those who followed SG-1 and Atlantis, this may be something that will be obvious. For those less acquainted... Stargate started out as pretty much PURELY military, the air force of all things... but as the show progressed, various tentacles of the government wrapped themselves around it and this somewhat culminated in the IOA - who served the same purposes as previous senators and various other people had... to be a thorn in the side of the SGC. Atlantis somewhat progressed this idea by being a mission led by scientists with a civilian administrator who had the final word... of course, she was rubbish... but it was a logical extension.

Stargate Universe is trying to give us something in the same vein... except that thus far, beyond having a mix of military and scientists... the power structure is clear.

All in all, pretty lacklustre. Poor casting, mediocre and lazy writing - making the senator's daughter an utterly unsympathetic... And really, who cares about any of these characters? They're just bland. It needs work.

2009-09-30T19:57:00.001-07:00

Some names when involved with a potentially interesting film, lead one's heart to sink... so, naturally any expectations for Pandorum should evaporate when one sees that Paul W.S. Anderson is producing. In fact, it may be worth remarking upon the fact that some time ago Anderson directed the somewhat obscure sci-fi horror Event Horizon. Despite the time which has passed - that film remains superior.

The premise of the film is like some manner of composite of tropes and cliches. The monsters are the offspring of those creepy beasties from The Descent and Ghosts Of Mars, most of the film involves the ever popular running around dark tunnels and everyone's favourite AMNESIA! Really, the amnesia is just there to justify the exposition and there's so little plot here, it's really not needed. Oh, wait! Flashbacks! We get a few of those too! Even though they serve no real purpose beyond padding.

So, Earth gets massively overpopulated - and the Elysium is built to go and find a conveniently discovered Earth-like planet that could sustain a human colony. What isn't revealed immediately is that the purpose of this giant ship full of people is to colonise the planet. One area where the film should gain some kudos - the ship is actually flying at sub-light speeds but don't worry plenty of time to make up for that lapse! Which really isn't too long - apparently the monsters are actually the colonists which made them EVOLVE! Or something. It's not really explained but then, it's not the kind of film that should ever try and have a clever story.

The protagonists wake up with aforementioned amnesia and find everything is broken and realise that they're in the "generic something went terribly wrong and we're fucked" scenario. The sci-fi horror clichés pile up and what little plot is given by snatches of exposition. We get a mandatory ticking clock and a twist and then it plods its way dutifully to the end.

It's hard to say anything about the film - it's just so very unremarkable. It's not bad... it's just a waste of time but hard to hold any strong feelings about it.

2009-09-29T09:27:00.001-07:00

Regardless of how much contempt, loathing and hatred is showered upon Twilight - no one can deny that while it has been roundly critically bent over a table that it made money. And so, it came to be - vampires were the new fad!

So - someone thought it was a good idea to make a Twilight imitation with the original title, Vampire Diaries - so you know it has vampires in it! This shows première is mind crushingly banal, it makes the last season of Smallville seem like Shakespeare by comparison. For no reason, we have our main vampire character enrol in high school. He establishes he's over 100 years old! Oh, there's something about one the girls being something important or something stupid like that and while vampires here don't sparkle... they're entirely immune to sunlight, apparently. Hence their ability to stalk girls at high school.

The female protagonist is some vanilla blandness that had her parents die - presumably of boredom. What is there to say of her? Oh, she has a brother who is apparently doing the drugs - coz he's sad. It's just so hard to care about this, it's generic good looking high school drama WITH VAMPIRES. Honestly, regardless of what you had to say about Buffy - at least it had characters that weren't such cardboard cut outs. It's ironic that one of that the brother is on the drugs because the acting in this show isn't bad - it simply isn't there.

If there wasn't much to say about Defying Gravity - there's nothing to say about this. It's just so insipid and derivative. Sure, Defying Gravity stole a pre-existing concept down to the ship design but at least they tossed in mystery. This is just Twilight: The Series.

Bottom line: Try and forget that shows like this even exist - they will only diminish your will to live and increase your hatred of humanity.

2009-09-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

Sci-fi is never easy as a genre on TV, you're instantly just by having that word in your description making a big demographic have their hand drift toward the remote control. So, in recent years shows have tried to move away from the archetypal aliens of the week and have tried to be rather more involved in terms of drama and characterisation. The most obvious and successful example being Battlestar Galactica, which was very much about the characters and their interactions.

So, it seems like Lost and BSG got drunk, fumbled around and had Defying Gravity, the newest shade of sci-fi bland. We've got a not too distant future situation and we're following the trials and tribulations of some astronauts on a trip around the solar system for MYSTERIOUS REASONS!

The first thing to notice is the irritating narration. This will come in pretty regularly - maybe they got the idea from Heroes! - and just try and make some obvious point about what has just happened. Also, it's incredibly opaque as regards the fact it's a voyage in space. Static caravans seem to be more in motion than this space vessel. Granted, in the solar system it's probably somewhat hard to convey a sense of motion as it's really only planets that you can see getting larger or smaller but that's what exterior shots are for.

Another thing to mention is - this is basically a long, drawn out BLATANT thieving of the concept behind the quite enjoyable BBC production "Voyage To The Planets" which is a two part docudrama about - you guessed it - a journey around the solar system with people landing on planets! Admittedly, it's a more pointless trip than in Defying Gravity but then Defying Gravity shamelessly stole the ship design.

There's really not a lot to say about this show - it has bland, generic flashbacks which were old news by the end of season one of Lost and the big reveal was just so lacklustre and not even a big reveal, so there is inevitably to be more magical mystery - if the show makes it that far, which seems far from certain. So - a dull, lacklustre show with forgettable characters with a premise clearly lifted from elsewhere and with populist elements dolloped on.

Bottom line: Don't bother - dull, bland and derivative. The televisual equivalent of beige.

2009-09-17T04:44:00.000-07:00

So, again it's time to comment on how DC has a whopping one live action film franchise (albeit one that is probably the best critically received) while Marvel has a half-dozen projects in the works... but of course, DC is producing animated features and the latest is Green Lantern: First Flight.

So, Hal Jordan is just in a flight simulator when a Green Lantern ring takes him to a dying Green Lantern and before you know it, he's all Green Lantern'd up and... well, y'know... and this is in the first five minutes. No need to take the origin story slow, eh? Of course, it's somewhat difficult to give a great deal of depth to a Green Lantern origin - it's pretty much "here's your ring, good luck with that."

And we get him head off to Oa and all of a sudden, Hal is doing the Green Lantern thing with Sinestro. For those that are unaware of Sinestro's backstory - it's fair to say that his role as bad guy is telegraphed and that it's all but impossible to miss the fact he's cast as the traitor type character for whom the phrase "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" was surely coined. He's openly contemptuous of the Masters and shows very little in the way of restraint. He and Hal are running a very literal good cop/bad cop routine.

We pretty much bounce from this scene to another - bigger action scene... and then, it's just exposition about Sinestro's end game, framing up Hal and then setting up the big fight at the end... As usual, we're in a very short turn around. About seventy minutes... so, really - there's very little time between events for anything approaching character development or serious plot, which seems silly as we got a decent amount of that in Wonder Woman but here, it feels a lot more flat. In fact, Sinestro is the only character that really feels fleshed out.

There are - of course - plenty of the Green Lantern roster for those that know their stuff from the comic or cartoons but hardly any of them really get any time. To the point Killawog is probably the only one that anyone will remember. Even Hal feels a little flat. Oh, yes - he's the square jawed good guy who pretty much walks in and kicks ass with his power ring (despite a total lack of training) but Sinestro just feels like he has more depth but that's possibly a function of the fact he gets a comparable amount of screen time to Hal and he has motives and so on, Hal is kind of just along for the ride.

All in all, it's ok. It's fun... there's some pretty cool action in there but it's just not Wonder Woman but not amazing or anything. Too shallow and the action really doesn't compare to Wonder Woman... or the plot... or the characters.

2009-09-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

District 9 has been one of the most highly anticipated films of 2009 - and that can be said without adding the qualifier of sci-fi. The basic premise being aliens pull up over Johannesburg but... due to the nature of their society, they don't really have any leadership. So they sit around on their ship for three months before people cut it open.

We then jump forward a couple of decades and the ship is still sitting there and District 9 is a big shanty town for the million or so "prawns" that were inside the ship. People seem pretty blasé about the aliens, in fact - even actively hostile, with resentment and a demand for segregation. Needless to say, while none of the characters in the film ever MENTION Apartheid - the parallels are blatant and utterly undisguised.

If you can live with that, then this is an interesting film. Enjoyable, action packed and certainly one of the smartest films of the year thus far. There are a few plot holes and the change in the style (the film starts in a documentary style and then for reasons that are fairly obvious, it becomes more conventional) can be a little jarring... but certainly an all around entertaining film that looks AMAZING for the comparatively modest budget of $30m. Honestly, the fact that the aliens in this film are almost entirely CGI is easy to forget and films with bigger budgets have done far less convincing work, with far more money.

2009-08-07T04:34:00.000-07:00

There is an urban myth... of a video tape - that if you watch, you die. Street Fighter: Legend Of Chun Li won't kill you (probably) but it will make you WANT to die.

The first problem is Kristin Kreuk as the eponymous character. Her acting was barely acceptable by TV standards, so expecting her to carry even a low budget film was never a good idea. Secondly, you may be surprised to find out that Kreuk is half-Chinese - because she really doesn't look it. In fact, she never looks the part and really - they could have said she was Cammy for all the difference it makes.

So, Kreuk is basically daughter to a wealthy business man - but turns out daddy goes and get taken hostage by the EVIL M. BISON! M. Bison is Irish by the way... and blonde and apparently his "evil" involved some petty thieving before transiting into property development. Yes - the megalomaniac who wanders around going "OF COURSE!" with a giant red cape and cap and general martial arts stuff is gone. Now, some might say - that's due to a demand for realism? Actually, no. Chun Li tosses fireballs around and manages to drop about thirty floors without missing a beat - after a very Les Yay fight with one of Bison's henchwomen, which also involved her hurricane kick. Yes, she was upside down, rotating with her legs akimbo a few feet above the ground for several seconds. Is no one AMAZED by that? No.

So, basically the film goes from one idiotic scene to another. It's all just so WTF. After Chun Li's dear dad gets kidnapped she goes on the whole "find the guy who did it" thing. This involves some guy who used to be in M. Bison's EVIL property developer gang. Damn them! So he teaches Kreuk how to kick ass and chew bubble gum... and FIREBALLS. Also, fighting blindfold. Presumably they didn't put in bullet time because they didn't have the money, so we have a bizarre scene with Kreuk catching stuff tossed at bells.

There's a bunch of stuff to try and make you give a damn about how all these people are being evicted from their homes and given the fact Chun Li seems to have pretty much forgotten about her father by this point, that seems sensible. So, we get the inevitable bit where Chun Li's master sacrifices himself and we get some more time wasting and then Chun Li has the paint by numbers fight with the designated M. Bison - the END. THANK FUCK.

This film is pretty much a crime against humanity. If you're not intoxicated in some manner when you watch this, you might be driven insane by it, such is the awfulness. Kreuk does not look the part, she does not act the part and really, most of the martial arts of note are the hilarious fly by wire stuff, nothing else is anything more than the choreographed equivalent of beige. The plot is practically non-existent and one has to ask WHY? Hell, Street Fighter the FILM did a better job of Chun Li's backstory and M. Bison was... M. Bison - NOT A BLONDE IRISH PROPERTY DEVELOPER. That would be like making Emperor Palpatine a flamboyant encyclopaedia salesman... although, we'll have to wait for future "improvements" to Star Wars to see if Lucas goes for that.

Bottom line: STAY AWAY! Far, far away

2009-07-27T01:08:00.000-07:00

In 1990, back when gaming was played exclusively on screens the size of postcards in darkened rooms, a game was released and - yes, you guessed it... that game was The Secret Of Monkey Island... probably launching one of the most critically acclaimed and well known adventure game franchises of all time. With quirky humour, amusing characters and no fear of sending itself up... it's not surprising that it embedded itself into a certain section of the collective gaming conscience.

So, 19 years on and three sequels later we come to the first chapter of a new Monkey Island tale... appropriately called Tales Of Monkey Island: Launch Of The Screaming Narwhal. Probably the first thing any Monkey Island veteran will notice is that most of the original voice cast returns, most importantly Guybrush is back as if he never left.

All rather surprising, as the adventure genre has all but died out due to the stifling monoculture of FPS games... and MMOs. Regardless of trends in gaming, here we have a spiffy new adventure game. Long story short - it's funny, has a good level of difficulty... Guybrush is the MIGHTY PIRATE and so on... not really more than a weekend of play if you're casual.

Wholesome pirate fun.

2009-07-14T06:17:00.000-07:00

When Heroes appeared a few years back it was met with universal adoration from critics and audiences alike. It made the initial hype of Lost seem luke warm by comparison. A story of ordinary people with extraordinary powers - mostly just trying to live their lives and yet all being drawn together by fate. Most people would agree that it was probably one of the most easily compelling pieces of TV for many years. In short - it was a well conceived and well executed, developed its characters and built up and up and up to a

The show - like many others - was somewhat inconvenienced by the Writers Strike but regardless, ploughed on. Naturally, when your entire first season is generally considered a televisual masterpiece -that's going to be a hard act to follow. Especially as almost all the storylines brought up were resolved - aside from a few people who may or may not have been alive or dead.

In many ways, this created an almost immediate problem for the show. There was no inherent direction for it to go. While the destruction of New York is far from the top of the scale of epic, the ending didn't really create any particular reason for the characters to stay together. This led to one of the biggest differences between season one and season two. With season one, we hit the ground running. We know there are all these people with special abilities and continue to build momentum with their interwoven tales. Season two was, by contrast - ponderous. As events pick up four months after the climax of season one - we find that, indeed - many of the characters have moved on and so we spend a considerable amount of time establishing this. Also, it's worth noting that a season slated for twenty four episodes became one that was eleven episodes... you'd think that would mean it was MORE intense.

It was lacklustre and introduced some characters that... just went nowhere... and a lot of story lines... that went nowhere. We had a whole character arc with Hiro that seems to have had pretty much no effect. We had Peter go through a character arc... that seems to have had pretty much no effect (beyond depowering him). Ditto Sylar. Ditto Claire. Ditto EVERYONE.

Season 3 was just a BIG mess though. Oh, we had plenty going on! It was just that we traded the sort of... real people dealing with powers angle for SUPERHERO SOAP OPERA! Now, that's not bad per se but we had so many "Oh, I wasn't really dead." And so on type stuff... and "I'm your father... no, not really." And so on. It's a soap opera in the truest American sense of the word.

The ante is upped in season 3, in that THE WORLD IS AT STAKE! Also, we go all X-men - because apparently everyone with powers must be contained... The Company was SO much more interesting than generic government goons taking people down. Yet, here we are in that scenario. It all feels so contrived. People feel as if they're being pushed around like bets on a roulette table, not drawn in by the string of destiny.

Obviously, when your first act is so full of win... it's hard to follow it up - BSG didn't have smooth sailing but almost managed. Lost utterly failed... but Heroes... just went to pieces.

2009-06-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

Prototype is at it's heart - nothing more than a mish mash of different tried and tested gameplay and story elements. The free roaming owes a lot to GTA, the gameplay and powers are a lot like what you'll get in Devil May Cry and its ilk and the story is pretty much Resident Evil. While not having an original idea in its pretty little head and not being overly pretty... the game is still great.

Alex Mercer is a - sigh - amensiac who wakes up after being dead. He has to piece together his life and work out what's going on with the infection of Manhattan by a virus and yadda yadda yadda. It's not very original but who cares? YOU GET TO TOSS TANKS AROUND. Literally. You can pick up tanks, cars, helicopters.

The story really isn't very much to write home about - government conspiracy, supersoldiers resulting in zombies and that kind of thing. That's irrelevant - although, as a gameplay dynamic you can run around the city and "absorb" people to uncover the backstory of the game. This absorption can also be used to gain and improve skills and infiltrate enemy bases. It's actually a pretty nifty dynamic. Although, the AI in the game is so AWFUL that you can get away with just dropping 100m from a rooftop dressed as a soldier in front of another soldier and he'll high five you instead of shooting you in the FACE.

Not that point blank machine gun fire would do much becuase it's worth noticing even at the start of the game - you're RIDICULOUSLY powerful. Insanely super powerful and that is why this game rocks. On normal difficulty you are as a GOD. Once you kick in your power ups, you can shrug off artillery shells - small arms fire does noticing. You can heal by chowing down on unsuspecting people in most situations. Really only a pack of Hunters will poses a threat. You can hijack tanks and helicopters, fly (kinda), use the weapons of the soldiers and use a variety of abilities - whip, claws, GIANT SWORD ARM and enhanced strength. Plenty of moves to use.

Beyond the usual storyline missions there are GTAesque challenges that... don't really do much, they're just there for extra playtime. Running along the roof, absorbing people and good old fashioned murder. Not to mention you can just go and break into military bases or tear apart the hives.

The game is to be played purely for fun. There is no deep meaning. The game tries to inject some sense of an epic storyline with the "Web of intrigue" backstory mechanic but that's not really that important. Not are the mini-games - this game is about running around and smashing stuff in a number of awesome ways. It doesn't matter that the plot is a big cliche or that the voice acting is Resident Evil level... it's all just a bit of a laugh.

2009-05-28T03:20:00.000-07:00

Terminator is one of the few franchises that managed to accomplish that ever elusive superior sequel, while The Terminator was and is held in high regard, the slightly less gritty and depressing and rather more upbeat and explody Terminator 2: Judgement Day is probably one of the most beloved and popular films in the science fiction or action genre. Naturally, such popular franchises seldom stay on the shelf forever and a few years back we had the rather less well received Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines... which was kind of a rehash of 2 and really seemed like a gratuitous set up for today's topic, Terminator: Salvation.

The "problem" Terminator 2 had was... Judgement Day was averted - that's kind of why they gave Arnie a molten metal bath. So, while Terminator 2 espoused free will and a maleable future... 3 went "Oh, yeah - sorry guys, the war is inevitable, sucks, right?" thus making the events of the film fairly pointless but nicely setting up the events of Salvation, a jolly post-apocalypse fight against giant killer robots. Ok, people sized killer robots... well, some of them are giant - which is awesome.

In fact, one of the best things about the film is that we aren't limited to the iconic shiny skeletons, walking around with plasma weapons. We've got mecha terminators, motorcycle terminators and even kind of little snake ones. It would have been pretty easy for the designers to be lazy and just stick with the established staples, so it's good to see that they didn't skimp on this aspect.

More interesting than the design is the fact the focus of the story is rather less on John Connor. He's got a good amount of screen time but Kyle Reese has a decent amount and a new character Marcus gobbles up plenty of it... in fact, it's really more his story. Which is something of a surprising choice. Really, the logical angle of attack is Kyle Reese and John Connor with their somewhat bizarre relationship...

So, the story? How about the story? Ok - we start out with Marcus on death row. Then we jump to the future, Christian Bale is shooting robots and being awesome... sadly, no one else quite passes the "must be this awesome to live" test and they all die. Yup, there's an inspiring saviour of humanity - managing to preside over the death of everyone in his squad.

Anyway, Marcus and a young Kyle Reese meet up and Kyle doesn't think there's much suspicious about a muddy guy, wandering around the post-apocalyptic wasteland, oblivious of the fact humanity got its ass beat by Skynet and now there are killing death robots, looking to kill any meatbags they see.

Inexplicably, Kyle Reese is a high priority target... but that means Skynet would know the future. So... why would it keep the deathcamps and not just murder everyone if it knows that future stuff? Anyway... we go through some nice actions scenes. Marcus finds his way to John Connor - turns out Marcus is actually a machine... and there is some signal that stops Skynet. The big plan is to use this signal to stop Skynet - even though it's a really obvious trap... guess they should have had admiral Akbar with them.

So, Marcus was designed to go to the Skynet HQ all along - who'd have thought! But he's actually got his free will. This doesn't stop Skynet from going all SHODAN and going through exposition on its plan. Long story short, the battle is won but the war is not yet over - and John Connor gets Marcus's heart... making him mostly just a McGuffin.

2009-05-20T00:35:00.000-07:00

JJ Abrams pretty much said from the get go, he never really liked Star Trek as a child... which probably - somewhat perversely - made him a rather good choice for the inevitable reboot of the franchise. Why inevitable? Because Star Trek is just about the longest running sci-fi franchise, with one of the most rabid fanbases...

Which has been the problem in recent years. The TNG films especially were perceived as lengthy episode, aimed at the fanbase - rather than the actual general public. Which isn't a particularly good way to make money. Hence, Hollywood's current golden boy being given the keys to the broken franchise.

There isn't a great deal to say about the film, as it happens. It's solid and enjoyable but... it's forgettable. It skirts close to being little more than a big dumb action film but... it avoids that - not due to the idiotic story - because of the solid casting. Bones and Spock are dead on... Kirk is passable... the other characters are as transitory as they are in the series. So, it's not quite built around the pretty (if rather too frequently prone to lens flare and shaky cam) action scenes entirely. Which isn't to say Nero isn't a two dimensional non-character... because, he is. Even IF you were to read the comic that precedes the film for his background his motivation still equates to BEING INSANE.

Thin story - good characters, good action... decent film. There isn't much to say about it. It's just kinda... And that sums it up. Not QUITE big dumb action but really - not far off. Better than Lost... but so is slamming your genitals in the door.

2009-05-07T03:29:00.000-07:00

So, Transformers Animated has returned for a third season. While it's probably not something that could strictly be called a retooling things definitely seem to have changed direction to some extent. Following the revelation that Sari is part machine, she basically becomes - through a series of events - an autobot/human teenager. Her role is notably dialled down and the show has a far greater focus on the robots and a more consistent focus on the conflict between the autobots and decipticons, particularly in regard to Cybertron.

It's a good direction for the show to move. Clearly, this is never going to be the G1 show and it's never really TRIED to be... and it's rather too late in the day for that now. The changes do represent a marginalising of the less interesting aspects... and a general improvement. Still not great... it's not in the same league as Spectacular Spiderman or Wolverine & The X-men... but it's better than it used to be.

2009-05-01T18:38:00.000-07:00

Ah, Wolverine - a word that sets a million fanboy hearts racing. Fanboys are shit and need to die.

Of course, the fact Hugh Jackman is Wolverine means... well, girls melt for him. Guys think he's awesome. Fanboys... are like lawyers. Not really human. Not worth the consideration of being human.

This film apparently needed ten minutes extra... it really didn't. It needed a STORY. Wolverine's story is one of the most tediously over covered parts of Marvel continuity these days. Given the fact his origins are SECRET... anyone that touched a comic book probably knows the Weapon X story by heart.

Sadly, even the recent animated Hulk vs. Wolverine managed to do a better job at the Weapon X story... and everything except Wolverine popping his claws back in the mid 19th century is skipped over. Granted, 150 years would be a fair bit to cover but there you go. After we get to Vietnam, gross insubordination leads to the an execution for Sabertooth and Wolverine - who are half brothers, by the way. So, we get to them joining the Weapon X project. Wolverine gets a bit bored of murdering people - he has apparently fought in a good portion of all major conflicts in the 19th and 20th centuries... so, makes sense he might get bored of seeing his brother go crazy.

There's no real point getting to know his team mates because they're one dimensional and their screen time is easily counted in seconds. Get used to that. There are a whole gamut of mutant cameos that are short even by cameo standards. Even characters that are significant to the plot - like Gambit... who actually is essentially there PURELY as a plot device to move Logan from A to B - don't get a great deal of screen time. It's really all about Wolverine... like all the X-men films, really. Anyway, he hooks up with Silverfox and is a happy lumberjack - for... no reason but predictably... walking away from a secret black ops group doesn't work out too well and Sabretooth is murdering former team mates - but who REALLY cares. There's no investment in these characters... so, Sabretooth kills Silverfox and Wolverine goes to Weapon X to get adamantium so he can murder Sabretooth.

Then he goes to fight Sabretooth - fights Sabretooth... Then Weapon XI turns up. Yeah, not a real character from the comics... and he has a half dozen powers - oh and he's supposed to be Deadpool... even though Deadpool just has a healing factor... and the fight was fairly anticlimatic.

Then, naturally - Wolverine's memories get wiped by a magical plot device bullet. Silverfox dies... again - oh and Emma Frost is her sister... and another swathe of meaningless mutants... including Cyclops... for no real reason. They do nothing more than run out of the base after Wolverine frees them. So, Gambit comes back to pick up Wolverine - and Wolverine goes off to forget everything and wander around until the X-men film...

It's the problem all prequels suffer from... you always know where things are going to be come the end... so, we knew that Logan was going to end up having his memory wiped... ah well... That's really the least of the problems. The characters really just seem to orbit Jackman, pushing him in the direction he needs to go. The story is pretty weak and it's hard to give a damn about anyone other than Wolverine and maybe Sabretooth because no one is really around long enough to do more than show their abilities. Wolverine's claws look terrible throughout - it's very obviously they're CGI... Really, just a chronically weak story, pretty average fight scenes and just a slew of not very compelling cameos that amounted to little make this a pretty luke warm film. Fanboys might get hung up on some of the details... but really, they're not worth paying attention to compared to a number of rather more glaring inadequacies.

2009-05-01T17:21:00.000-07:00

DC has... a huge monopoly on characters that have become ingrained upon the collective cultural memory of the West. It goes without saying that Batman is probably only really in competition with Superman for the most ubiquitous... although, these days Batman is probably firmly on top in terms of popularity - not least due to the uber popular Chris Nolan Batman films.

Naturally, that was preceded by the Timmverse Batman: The Animated Series and the Justice League cartoon. Which are generally considered by fans and critics to be awesome. Even the somewhat weaker Gotham Knights is still pretty solid.

And then came THE BATMAN. Unashamedly aimed at the 5 year olds and mentally retarded. Mostly the mentally. Whatever the Timmverse was... was so quickly forgotten in this shameful embarrassment of that abortive nonsense. That well... uh.

Anyway, THE BATMAN finished. It was natural for fans to be apprehensive about Batman: The Brave And The Bold... It was pretty much proclaiming to be campy... but as it happens... it's pretty good. It's using some of DC's less known villains - but deliberately so... Blue Beetle is there, the Green Arrow and Batman have a rivalry. Not nearly as campy as one might think.

Batman is still kinda broody not the campy 60s Batman... or the pointless The Batman character... It was easy to see this as a futile venture but it has proven itself... It's rather enjoyable.

2009-04-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

Red Dwarf was - once upon an early 90s - a popular sci-fi comedy TV show. Also a book. The TV show was a "cult classic" which translates into normal English as "something a few people liked rabidly". Despite that, the following grew and it became engraved in the collective consciousness of the nation. Then Craig Charles had an unfortunate run in with the law and things stalled for several years, before the generally panned seasons 7 & 8 - which seemed to substitute good writing for a bigger budget and totally changed the status quo by replacing Kochanski (played by a different actress) and then putting the crew on a fully populated Red Dwarf.

Season (or series) 9 starts with the status quo fully returned. Red Dwarf is once again populated by the four characters that became synonymous with the show. Of course, it's not too long before we get a stereotypical Russian science officer hologram appearing for... no reason. She does some exposition on how the sea monster in their water tank is their ticket home. There really isn't anything that funny here... the characters feel flat and beyond some bad taste gross out humour... there isn't a lot going on.

That's pretty much the entire first episode... pretty meh. The next episode sends our characters to Earth... but in the most horribly contrived barely fanfic level of writing. The characters find this is an Earth where Red Dwarf is actually... a TV show. Yes, you've waited for all these years for an episode that is essentially a giant 4th wall breaking fanfic. This involves the crew meeting a lot of people who talk to them about their show and even a reference to the TV CHANNEL the show is being screened on. They really couldn't slap it around your face anymore if they tried. They even get in a car version of Starbug - and they call it, get this - CARBUG! Yes, you'd best be wearing a corset or your sides may split. Anyway, for some reason they decide that they need to find the actor that plays Lister to find out how many episodes they have left. It would almost be a relief for a little slash fic type action to alleviate the dire writing. None of the cast even seem to give a fuck, they're all just phoning it in. Who can blame them?

The third episode starts with them pulling into Coronation Street - for those either too middle class or not living in Britain, that's the setting and name of the most popular soap in the UK, which Craig Charles starred in... so, more 4th wall fun - doing... not very much for a while and then ending up walking into the pub to find the actor Craig Charles... who then gives the exposition required for the story to continue by sending them to meet the show's creator. So, this has actually become self-insertion fanfic.

Grant Naylor explains to them... a whole bunch of rubbish, including the bleedin' obvious - that there have been REPEATED Blade Runner references (for no other reason that... because), right down to Cat leaving little origami figures everywhere - which actually has a reason but a very stupid one. There's a bit where it seems as if Naylor is in control, then he gets shot... then Lister uses the typewriter and essentially becomes God... then it turns out this is actually ALL JUST A DREAM.

No, that is not a joke. It was all a hallucination induced by a despair squid - so, yes. Not only did this read like a bad self-insertion fanfic set in an idiotic 4th wall breaking alternate reality with a pointless Blade Runner homage jammed in, it ALSO turns out to be ONLY A DREAM - and a rehashed concept that was done a hundred times better the first time around.

To summarise - it would have been better if they'd called it a day a long time ago. Series 7 & 8 were pretty creatively bankrupt but compared to Back To Earth, they are positively high art. Just about as bad as it could realistically have been without including George Lucas and Jarjar Binks.

2009-03-17T05:22:00.001-07:00

As is obvious to any cinema goer - Marvels march of films continues... they're pretty much booked up until the Avengers film and they've just got a whole lot of stuff going on in terms of live action, animated features, animated series and the like - even if the Iron Man: Armoured Adventures looks like the most horrific piece of trash ever conceived... since The Batman.

Where is DC and its slew of - much better known and more recognisable - superheroes? Naturally, the world gets excited when there's a new Chris Nolan Batman film about to come out... Superman was met with general indifference and the sequel is going to need to give the titular Man of Steel something more than a fucking mountain of kryptonite to fight.

DC has however made a few forays into the animated features - the previous outting was the pretty damned awesome Justice League: New Frontier, which is definitely worth checking out and now, we've got Wonder Woman. While the live action film sits in purgatory, quietly waiting to be made... we have this to tide us over.

Wonder Woman is often pushed in with Batman and Superman to form DC's "big three"... but really, that's more of a publicity stunt than anything. Despite having been around since the Golden Age... she's not really on a par with either of those characters... so, it's nice to see her get a film to make her own...

And this is QUITE a film. The JLU cartoon had more than its fair share of crowning moments of awesome in terms of fights... but just the opening battle sequence of this film easily puts those to shame in terms of animation and awesome. As with most of these features, it's about 70 minutes... so, the story is pretty simple. We get the backstory of the Amazons and Wonder Woman and the long and short of it is, Wonder Woman has to go into the world of men to take back stray jet pilot Steve Trevor and also stop an evil unleashed that threatens to etc. etc.

It really isn't going to win any awards for the complex weave of stories... it's very simple but there's not a lot of time to tell a complicated story and the simple one works. Naturally, we get Wonder Woman starting out to be a bit "MEN ARE EVIL!" but of course, she relents a bit on that one by the end. The romance angle is there - Trevor is a bit of a goof to start with but he's a decent character and does a good job of cutting WW some slack... because a lot of people might have been tempted to call her a bitch.

Something a little surprising about the whole thing - although, the DCAU tends to be rather more relaxed about such things in straight-to-DVD releases - is that there are quite a few deaths... and beheadings. The beheadings are - in fairness - only done in silouette but there are people being stabbed and having their spines broken... nothing that would get close to warranting the term gore... but it's nice to see battle scenes where those without powers can actually die.

So... in summary, a good yarn with some absolutely wonderful action and battle scenes. The final battle especially, I suspect - will be a crowd pleaser... and there's even a nice little tease at the very end... that many fans of WW and probably the DCAU will smile at. For DCAU and WW fans, a must... and for general superhero fans too. If you finished the recent Hulk Vs. and felt it was too action light? Give this a try. Wonder Woman tosses and gets tossed through more buildings than her insurance can realistically cover. All good wholesome fun with a simple but steady and pretty well paced story. Enjoyable to the point where it's worth hoping that there is more to come.

2009-03-11T04:58:00.000-07:00

All comments about Watchmen - the film - will invariably be preceded by "based on the greatest graphic novel of all time." And... it's fair to say that that Alan Moore's piece will take quite something to be supplanted for that honour... Much of Moore's success with it is because he weaves a story of incredible complexity and density, using the medium to the fullest extent possibly. Which is why many people were worried about the film. Adaptations are a tricky business at the best of times and Watchmen was very specifically written to be a comic, not merely a story TOLD in a comic... SPOILERS AHEAD!

That said, Watchmen (the film) does a FAIRLY good job. Rorschach sounds rather too much like Christian Bale's Batman... but the wonderful effects of his mask make that a forgiveable offence... and the film uses a lot of the dialogue and iconography from the comic pretty much verbatim. The entire intro monologue is pretty much directly in line with the book.

The issue of course becomes one of time. There are just a lot of elements that had to be dropped for this film to be of an acceptable length. That's a given of the change of medium. They do however manage to cover the backstory of each character rather well... but the ENDING... the ending is where it all falls apart.

Moore spent considerable amounts of time hinting at some plot beyond the mere mask killings and that while Rorschach might rabidly obsess about it - the reader especially has plenty of incite to the fact that there is something more afoot and that it's not going to be pretty... of course, what this turns out to be is the fact that Adrian Veidt - former superhero - has come up with a plan to SAVE the world from nuclear armaggedon. Which involves manufacturing a threat of alien invasion by teleporting in (thanks to Dr. Manhattan tech) a giant alien which explodes (because teleporters work about as reliably as they do in Star Trek) and also, psychically imprinting images of cosmic horror on the survivors... basically, to make humans do what they do best, unite in fear of something different to them! It's also explained that The Comedian stumbles upon the island where all this is going on and that this is what breaks his spirit...

Some fans of the graphic novel got very upset about the squid... as some fanboys will. Really, what it was... was no big deal. It just had to be a threat to unite the world against an external threat by introducing the outside context problem. Hence pulling humanity BACK from the brink of destruction - albeit it at the cost of millions of lives.

Now... the ending in the FILM... They kind of ignore the advanced tech that Dr. Manhattan made possible and have "free energy" as a recent development... which Veidt uses as a means to simulate an attack by Dr. Manhattan - essentially to the same end as the alien attack. Except... this doesn't really make any sense, although - he never actually says "I'm Off To MARS!" in this... it's fairly clear that everyone knows he has fucked off... so, why would he come back just to sucker punch New York? It might seem trivial but it's FURTHER exacerbated by the fact Nite Owl sees Dr. Manhattan waste Rorschach, does a "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"... and then goes to bitch slap Veidt and declares the terrible perversion of humanity this constitutes.

Which might be somewhat acceptable if it wasn't for the fact about 30 seconds earlier, he was saying "Yeah, I'm down with keeping this secret." Part of the CRUX of the film is the moral greyness of the actions of Veidt and the obvious similiarities to the Tale Of The Black Freighter. He is a man GUIDED in his own eyes by right at every turn and yet, in the end - he has become a murderer but feels entirely justified. This pretty much slaps us in the face - almost as much as with Dr. Manhattan's genitals - and says "THIS IS BAD!"

For some people, this will not be a big issue for others it will be. It doesn't really mesh with the overall story. It's kind of hammered in and a number of compromises - beyond those required to compensate for the different mediums - are made in terms of continuity for no other reason than... uh...

The ending aside... For those that pay attention, Zack Snyder (the director) gives you a little hint of his previous film - 300 - by having The Comedian's flat be... 300! Don't worry, if you miss that little tipoff... you'll probably manage to work it out from the repeated and gratuitous use of the slomo/speedup action cuts the made seems to have a raging hardon for - and also the overly long, rather awkward sex scenes. If you don't mind the stylistic slomo of the action scenes, they're fun... although, there are a few more added in but that makes sense - this IS a long film... and the book is not particularly action packed. So, it's an understandable compromise.

Much like the dropping of the Tales of The Black Freighter comic and the newstand owner and not really having the detective involved in The Comedian's murder do much outside the first five minutes. Or reducing Rorschach's running around and beating people up... or his backstory... You could have made Lord of the Rings in its entirety seem short if you'd wanted to FULLY explore the backstory of every character in the same depth as the graphic novel.

It's really... just OK. About as good an adaptation as one could really expect. Nowhere near the same level as the graphic novel... and certainly not the kind of film you want to see if you're expecting a brainless superhero action film... but... just... OK.

2009-02-23T08:21:00.000-08:00

So... Easter Special of Doctor Who - PLANET OF THE DEAD!

It's an RTD episode - there's another writer as well but the script reads like the usual RTD-level fanfic, so the other seems irrelevant. The episode starts out with the former Bionic Woman doing a gem heist - hilariously, she wears a mask to conceal her identity... which she removes after all of three seconds, to thereby render its wearing utterly pointless.

Things of course, get off to a start when she boards a bus to escape the fuzz - and THE DOCTOR gets on. As usual, he starts talking like an escaped mental patient to endear himself to our lady thief. The police give chase when they manage to work out she is on the bus but luckily for her a rip in the fabric of space and time appears in the tunnel and the next thing you know it, our double decker bus is under alien skies... in the middle of a desert. It's actually a pretty passable intro. Not too long to get into the action - not quite the Christmas Special and it's nigh instant segue but fairly acceptable.

Naturally, a double decker bus disappearing in the middle of an enclosed tunnel warrants the attention of UNIT - it was them or Torchwood... and who would you want? As something of a deviation from the norm, back on the bus the Bionic Aristocrat Thief Lady appoints herself leader. The Doctor talks about the wormhole - prompting the bus driver to run into it and burn up. Guess you should have mentioned that bit before saying "oh, there's the way home!" So, unlike your Stargate type of wormhole, this one apparently disintegrates people who aren't surrounded by metal. Unfortunately, the bus is stuck in the sand.

We have the mandatory introduction of the other people on the bus... but really, beyond the Lady Thief, the characterisation is so shallow and the role played by the characters themselves so tangential, that they might as well just be faceless drones. Also, there's a HORRIBLY embarrassing stereotypical black woman WITH MYSTIC POWAHS! She magically works out that turning up on an alien world might be BAD. It's really quite cringe worthy - clearly RTD was trying to make up for Martha Jones.

Amusingly, the Mary Sue factor of the Doctor - which RTD is always keen to ramp up... and we learn that the sonic screw driver can apparently instantly make a phone call Earth (although - why they didn't just use the same rationale as they do in Stargate isn't really obvious) from the other side of the universe and polarise glasses - is somewhat paralleled by Lady Thief and her magic back of holding. One could be forgiven for thinking that at any moment she might pull a full length ladder out of it.

Anyway, as this is really all about the Doctor and Lady Thief, they decide to tell the auxiliary characters to stay near the bus and to not do anything interesting while they're gone - that is, after they have a wonderfully awful moment where UNIT staff gush over the Doctor (he can tell when you're saluting on the phone!). It's sickeningly saccharine and grade A Mary Sue material - because making the Doctor the LAST Timelord didn't up that enough, y'know?

So, the aliens show up! But they're nice aliens! That's actually a nice touch. As they are ugly fly headed aliens. Anyway DA DOCTOR finds out a bunch of metal coated flying stingrays - STINGRAY DADADADA! - have descended upon this planet and reduced everything to sand. There's a pointless scene where MORE - actually justified stuff - comes out the magic bag. Then a Mission Impossible moment. Then sadly, the aliens go and die. Pointlessly. This is of course after we discern the REASON this planet has been reduced to sand. Flying metal stingrays. OF DEATH. Yup, they generate a wormhole by... flying around a planet. Many times... didn't Superman do that? Oh wait, that was to do something stupid... like turn back time... this is a LOT more reasonable. Actually, in RTD land - this makes PERFEC sense. If you think that's a mispelling - no, it's irony.

The Doctor goes and does a big OH! I AM SAVING YOU - thing. He makes the bus... a HOVER BUS. There is pointless bit where a UNIT gusher doesn't want to condemn the Doctor to being trapped. Naturally, this is all false tension... because we KNOW the Doctor will get home. Or he could use the sonic screwdriver to make sand into a time badger. Y'know to burrow into the past... or... something?

The gushy scientist played by a more irritating than usual - and he's non-tolerable at the best of times - Lee Evans (for some reason a Welsh person? Did they secretly want Torchwood here? The Welsh really are rubbish... but RTD seems to have some manner of paraphilia for them) decides to grow a pair when he's instructed to close the wormhole to prevent the STINGRAYS, STINGRAYS (dadadada!) coming through the wormhole. This makes sense as apparently the wormhole is 10 miles wide... but then... it isn't about 30 seconds later when the bus flies through, as do a few STINGRAY - all in the exact same place.

Predictably, the Doctor et al (really, only one person died?) make it through. The wormhole is closed, aliens are defeated. Further - cringeworthy - gushing over the Doctor happens. He then tells the Lady Thief how he thinks she needs to be judged and how she can't be a companion - because, stealing his TARDIS and her saving people and him being moral when it fucking suits him - so she needs to get arrested. She gets put in the back of a car... but then the Doctor uses his sonic deus ex to let her out.

And the horrible evil law enforcer inevetually bangs on the bus as she flies away.

Eh... it has some pretty effects and it doesn't have the horribly clunking Christmas Special plot... but it's still an RTD episode and since Who started again there have been decent episodes and RTD episodes. No WONDER RTD doesn't want to listen to the fans. If they're older than 10 they know he sucks... unless they're retards. Which a lot of them are.

In summary, RTD is rubbish - like him at your peril.

2009-02-12T19:52:00.001-08:00

Into The Wild Green Yonder is – apparently – the last Futurama… and let’s not mince words, it’s kind of dull.

Bender’s Big Score was pretty good but really, none of the Futurama films have surpassed what should have been the opening gambit in a masterful strategy of increasing awesomeness. Oh, this isn’t as aimless as the Beast With A Billion Backs or as much of a wasted concept as Bender’s game… but it’s still relatively high on the meh scale for what is supposedly a swan song.

Of course, Matt Groening presumably has such astronomical amounts of cash from the Simpsons he stopped caring over a decade ago. So presumably, after Futurama tanked – it was pride that made him go back to it… or something. He clearly wasn’t that interested in the show though because there is little pride in this final outing.

It has the kind of unashamed left wing messages you’d expected of him but that’s it.. not really worth watching. It’s ninety minutes of not very funny stuff. Futurama has always suffered from the issue of action/drama vs. comedy. Here there is such a lack of comedy it’s pointless.

Don’t bother, unless you desperately seek some minor sense of resolution.

2009-02-12T13:06:00.000-08:00

So, as if Demons wasn’t enough for you to contend with – the BBC has also managed to turn the pilot of “Being Human” into a full blown series. It’s the simple tale of three supernatural beings – a new werewolf, an old vampire and a ghost – living in a house together.

One of the obvious irritations of the show is something that seems to be increasingly popular – Vampires waltzing around in daylight. At least they aren’t sparkling but it’s just rather tedious to have their weaknesses eroded… At least in Blade, the guy had some SPF50 on to stand in the sun. Here, they don’t seem bothered at all… and they suffer from “Buffy syndrome”. Which is to say, that they bite some and have maybe a mouthful of blood… then the person dies. Granted biting into the jugular is going to lead to you dying pretty quickly by bleeding out but as with Buffy, it’s rather ridiculous that it seems to be INSTADEATH!

Anyway, the basic dynamic is – the girl ghost hangs around the house, while the guys go to hospital. For some reason, our old vampire chap is “off the wagon” and so doesn’t need to get his teaspoon of blood via murder. It’s not really explained how he manages to survive/be immortal WITHOUT blood. He just does.

The werewolf guy has the angst shtick. Which is a bit of a change from the broody vampire – not that he doesn’t have issues but it’s fair to say, the werewolf issue trumps that. How is it trumped? Because he gets to moan about how once a month he become a ravening beast. Yeah, they seem to like the monster root… because, the people are shown to be the exceptions to the rule. Anyway, he likes to be a whiney little bitch about his problem a lot.

And finally ghost girl… yeah, it’s fair to say that most of these characters are pretty much summed up by their monster characteristic because even after a few episodes they’re pretty flat. She’s got the beyond cliché UNFINISHED BUSINESS… and only other supernatural beings can see her. She pines for her fiancé who is now hooked up with someone else.

Somewhere in the background, there’s an evil vampire plot but don’t get too excited. Things are moving along slowly... so, it's likely the run will end before anything much happens. About all you can say for it is... it's a relatively novel concept as far as things go. Shame about the execution.

2009-01-28T09:50:00.000-08:00

Ang Lee's "Hulk" having been atoned for with the rather better received The Incredible Hulk, Marvel has released "Hulk vs.", which is specifically Hulk vs. Wolverine - a fight that fanboys seem to get all kinds of worked up about - and Hulk vs. Thor.

They're totally unrelated, both forty minutes long and pretty much excuse plots for big fights. Which is pretty much what anyone looking into these is going to want.

Hulk vs. Thor is almost painful in its excuse plot. We start out with some exposition from Loki about how Odin does some magical sleep thing once a year and during that time, Asgard is vulnerable and Thor and his pals have to protect him. Loki figures this is a good time for him to send the Hulk in to wipe the floor with Thor - all pretty non-sequiter.

Loki gets Enchantress to work some magic mojo on Banner, separating Banner and the Hulk and then doing some mind control on him (because that ALWAYS goes so well). Loki goes to town in control of Hulk and wipes the floor with a bunch of guards and minor characters who were chatting at the start. Naturally, Thor comes along to lay the smackdown but Loki manages to do a pretty good job of thrashing him.

A lot of this fight is almost beautiful but it's not that impressive as a fight. Inevitably, Loki dicks around too much and the spell is broken. At this point, Enchantress goes "Oh... wait - so, the plan was to KILL Thor... well, I wasn't in for that!" And Loki offs Banner. The Hulk just about beats Thor to death but then Enchantress comes and kisses it better (literally) and for some reason, the Hulk decides to go back and beat the hell out of the city some more.

Thor has some words with Loki but then Enchantress tells us that with Banner dead, she can't return the Hulk to Midgard. At this point, Loki realises - and Thor choking him might help. Irritatingly enough, we are teased with occasional shots of the cannon fodder defence of Odin - which looks pretty awesome but we KEEP missing the good stuff, it seems. Well, what would you rather see - an idyllic after-life for Banner, or the fighty fighty?

Naturally, this being a story with mythology - all you need to do is pop to Hell or its equivalent and ask the relevant deity for your soul back. Banner angsts for a while but chickens out, it turns to Loki to finally convince Hella to take the Hulk. Which naturally saves the day. Of course, then they have the Hulk running around the Hell-equivalent and for some reason this necessitates another fight and then Hella sends him home. Loki gets his comeuppance, Odin wakes up up and we find pretty much everyone survived getting stamped on.

The pacing is pretty uneven, we're slow to start off and constantly, CONSTANTLY avoiding the big fights. We get one decent sized Hulk/Thor fight and one pretty short one at the end. The story really is an embarrassment. It was all so arbitrary. Fun but there's so much "that's it?" feeling. Far too much cutting away from the action and filler for something that is cutting to the credits at close to forty minutes.

All-in-all, it's decent but the pretty animation can't rescue a story that struggles to be mediocre. It's almost as if they'd decided to a double feature and just plucked Thor out of thin air because... well, he's another well known Marvel heavy hitter. It's something of a shame they didn't go for something a little more interesting... Thor is pretty much solidly getting his ass handed to him by the Hulk. So, any notion that this would be more of a match of equals is flawed. Something that pitted Hulk against maybe Juggernaut might have been more fun... and wouldn't have required the terrible excuse story.

Hulk vs. Wolverine is rather more interesting and isn't so painfully contrived. The name is a big misnomer though. The conflict here is really more about Wolverine vs. his former compatriots from Weapon X - Lady Death Strike, Deadpool, Sabertooth and Omega Red.

Wolverine starts out not sure what's going on, before we cut to four hours earlier. Wolverine does his badass thing - including JUMPING OUT A HELICOPTER WITH NO PARACHUTE... and kind of sliding down a mountain. Yeah, he runs around being cool before he tracks down Banner. This being Wolverine... he antagonises Banner but naturally, doesn't off him and ends up getting punted across the forest.

Cue fanboy pleasing fight. Healing factor and adamantium aside - Wolverine would pretty much be paste after the thrashing he takes... but THE POWER OF FANBOYS COMPELS HIM. Round two is just getting underway when Weapon X turn up and tranq the hell out of both of them.

Cue another flashback - this time to Wolverine getting abducted by Weapon X goons and getting his adamantium... and a bit of training and escaping. In which Wolverine kills about a dozen people. It's pretty awesome. Deadpool is also great - in fact, he's a terrible scene stealer.

Deathstrike wants to off Wolverine... but escape ensues and eventually he frees Banner. They do a bit of escaping and fighting - then Wolverine stabs Banner so he'll Hulk out. This results in some awesomeness from most everyone. Even a little more Hulk vs. Wolverine - gasp! Then... we have the mandatory explodey base... but... why the tease of Wolverine & Hulk at the end? It's a fantastic finishing shot but leaves the question unresolved and the Hulk vs. Wolverine quotient very low.

Hulk vs. Wolverine isn't quite as pretty as Hulk vs. Thor but it is really in a different ballpark as far as the story goes. Now, it's fair to say that you'd have to have been hiding under a rock not to have a basic grasp of Wolverine's back story insofar as Weapon X goes but the retelling is cool and gives the characters a reason to be there rather than "the plot demands it".

It's a little ironic that this is shipping dubbed "Hulk Vs." because it does feel a lot like he's really just cameoing despite being the titular character... he does the HULK SMASH, fairly competently but it really feels as if he's never given time to shine... Not just that but anyone hoping these would be actual Hulk stories, will be sadly disappointed. Thor allows for Banner to be a whiney little bitch a bit but really, it's all very trite and the kind of pathos that defines the character is pretty absent.

Bottom line: worth it if you've been gagging to see Wolverine just run around and MURDER A LOT OF PEOPLE, like a bad ass - without the child friendly parameters of the recent cartoon. Worth it if you just want some pretty cool fights... Definitely worth it for people who are Deadpool fans... if Wolverine hogs the screen time from the Hulk, Deadpool steals the scenes from Wolverine... But, if you're looking for something you can get your teeth into? Not for you, not really. The stories are insubstantial and in the case of Wolverine, the kind of stuff even a level one fanboy could summarise without thinking... Really, just there for the bigger fans or those who like the big fights. Those buying it because they love the Hulk - will be a little disappointed.

2009-01-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

If there's one things that British shows should know not to do - it's try and imitate American shows.

Why? Money, mostly. American shows have more of it -a lot more, overwhelmingly vast oceans compared to tiddly little paddling pools, really. That isn't to say it's impossible for British shows to match the US in this department... Doctor Who probably proves that there's the ability, if seldom the inclination... and really, even Doctor Who can't regularly compare to even a lightweight like the later seasons of SG-1. Outside of period dramas, it's just hard to compete in terms of on-screen wow.

Despite these obvious disadvantages, ITV felt compelled to give us "Demons". The Buffy wannabe that's the better part of a decade too late and far, far behind the curve.

The parallels are there - teenager (although, this time a boy) finds he has a destiny fighting the forces of the supernatural and here's his team to help him fight it with ask kicking and quips. He's apparently a descendent of Van Helsing... they might as well just have said he was the new Slayer. Of course, as noted above - this is like Buffy but not as good.

In fact, in essentially every aspect of its nature it fails to compare favourably to even the later, boring and wangsty Buffy seasons. Budget and writing are very much lacking here... and if you don't have one, you really have to compensate with bags of the other... Sadly, here we lack much in the way of plot, dialogue, action and a lot of the time even the acting is poor... Gene Hunt doing an American accent... why? Like much of the show, there is only "why?"

Thus far there have been five episodes in which the characters struggle to move beyond broad stereotypes of the kind of characters these shows contain. There just isn't the amount of stuff you'd fit into a Buffy episode - where you'd have time for laughs, drama and the mandatory ass kicking. In its defence, Demons doesn't even TRY for the comedy side of thing... but then, that just places the show somewhere in the middle of the road. It's not REALLY got all that much action in it, the drama is pretty thin, the effects aren't anything to write home about and it's not really going to have you laughing - except at the idiotic characters.

It's perhaps not overly awful - in the way that Bonekickers managed to be... but then, at the same time... you could ENJOY Bonekickers because it was such an overwhelming unspeakable abomination, that one had to ask if it was just an elaborate prank... so, memorable in the "so bad it's good". Demons will probably not linger so long in the memory. Barely worth the waste of 40 minutes...

2009-01-07T15:58:00.000-08:00

If you've not heard of Resident Evil - a franchise more prolific than the fictional viruses it is focused on - the chances are you've been hiding under a rock, while frozen in ice at the edge of space and your TV has been on the blink. If that's the case, the basic story is - evil corporation wants to make perfect weapon via use of mutagenic virus (mostly the T-virus but there are several other flavours but mostly the T-virus and the G-virus). Unfortunately, one of the side-effects of the virus is that it turns people into zombies... of course, given that the MAIN series of games is soon to be in its fifth instalment - things have become a little more complicated than that... but, that's the gist.

In contrast to the fifth instalment of the game, Resident Evil: Degeneration hasn't been overly publicised and is in fact wholly CGI... and seemingly canonical - unlike the live action films... This actually includes characters from the games and ties up some loose ends from the games. It certainly isn't going to win any points for story telling or voice acting and it definitely isn't the prettiest CGI you've seen - Advent Children puts it to shame - but you're not here for a whole lot of story... you're here for zombie killing.

The story starts off with Claire in an airport, incidentally meeting a cookie cutter sleazebag politician. People aren't too happy about all manner of biological research being done on their back door - what with various zombie related incidents and all. So there are a number of protests. We start out with a fake out - a guy pretending to be a zombie lumbering toward the sleazebag politician. Which is followed five seconds later by a REAL zombie - it starts chowing down on the nearest available person and all hell breaks loose.

Hell breaking loose involves a 747 CRASHING INTO THE TERMINAL - and exploding AND then zombies jumping out of it to shamble toward Claire and her little kiddy and the sleazebag politician... Yeah, you had a feeling they might all manage to survive this far, didn't you?

Anyway, they manage to make a momentary escape but - naturally - a building full of zombies isn't the easiest place to get out of and the whole place is locked down because this isn't a Romero film and hence, the military aren't inept/chaotic evil. Although, that's somewhat overshadowed by the fact they send in Leon - who is a bad ass - and give him the generic bad asses who KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ZOMBIES.

How many times does this happen? You'll have an expert or some situation where one person/group are shown to know the score... and tell people "Do X". So, it's inevitable that they will then either not do X or do the exact opposite of it. You have to ask WHY they bother to use experts sometimes... Leon's squad is pretty keen to follow this trope because there is a lot of trying to help zombies, shooting zombies anywhere BUT the head... amazement that they can survive a few clips of ammo and this is DESPITE being TOLD. Needless to say, Leon repeatedly saves their sorry asses.

The two groups meet up and escape - the senator does a fantastic self-saving bit that really deserves an award... mostly because he DIDN'T get chowed down upon... generally when these guys go "Fuck ya!" and make their own dash for safety, they're dead sooner than you can say lowlife. Naturally, one of the idiot SWAT-substitute team gets bitten and does the "LEAVE ME BEHIND!" and everyone else gets out in time for tea.

At which point Claire discovers that WilPharma was actually making a vaccine for the T-virus - and she'd been protesting against them! Bitch. They actually have some trucks full of the stuff but wouldn't you know it - they get blown up... and this is all part of a bio-terror plot to expose the truth behind Raccoon city. While it's fair to say that this IS probably a good way to scare the authorities into doing that - you'd think people familiar with what happened would want to make sure they prevented a recurrence?

Regardless, we get about the only "character building" in the story - where we found out the SRT girl is in fact the sister of Curtis, the crazy bio-terrorist... who is rather peeved that the government has covered up Raccoon City because his family died there. It's worth saying that true to most Capcom stuff - the dialogue here is absolutely dire. Whether that's the result of translation coupled with the half-hearted voice acting remains to be seen but it's regularly so awful you'll be laughing at the "drama"... but it's all about the zombies. Actually, the airport is really the last of them.

We have our heroine go to WilPharma. The researcher chap chit-chats with her and after a call from the Senator spills his guts about the G-virus being there and how they wanted to develop a vaccine and so on. Then he goes "Oh... I need to go fix the server." In the most awfully stilted piece of dialogue the entire film has to offer - which is saying something. 7 seconds later he's telling her there's a bomb about to go off and she sees Curtis running through the building... so much for security.

And cue giant explosion. The level of damage is fairly inconsistent but... no one is perfect. Naturally, Leon and SRT girl head over after the phone line cuts out... because this high security research facility has revolving doors. SRT girl finds her brother - who for some idiotic reason thinks injecting the G-virus into himself is a good idea. He has enough time to talk to her a bit before a couple of dozen soldiers appear - watch in shock as he grows a giant eyeball on his shoulder and one of his hands becomes enormous. Seriously, when that starts happening - you start shooting the bastard.

As one might expect - giant mutated things take more than a little automatic fire to slow down, so he plays possum and then pretty much wipes the floor with the troops. Luckily, Leon turns up and manages to get a walkway to drop on the bastard. The building is then about to ignite itself... oh dear and Curtis ISN'T REALLY DEAD! Yes, you're shocked by the revelation... just how is a GIANT EYE so invulnerable? Powers! The powers of a giant mutant zombie eye.

So, the entire facility is apparently built over your standard infinite drop to the CENTRE OF THE EARTH! Not even a little exaggeration. Naturally, as the base has magical means of detecting the virus - it starts "jettisoning" parts of the base... INTO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH. It must have been some planning application to get that. Naturally, you can guess - evil is killed and all named characters manage to live to see the light of day.

And if you don't see the twist at the end - you're as smart as a zombie.

All-in-all - not an unreasonable effort. Not thrilling and it sags a lot between the two main action sequences... because, this is really just two action sequences stuck together. For Resident Evil fans, a must... zombie fans will find there rather less to get their teeth into here. It's fun enough but rather lacking in substance and zombie killing.

2009-01-03T15:26:00.001-08:00

The Fallout series is... one even veteran gamers might consider old. The first game saw an outing back when the number of pixels use to define an entire character would literally not come close to what is in a modern characters little finger. That said, games back then made up for in gameplay what they lacked in graphics - the good ones, anyway.

The premise of the series is a fairly common - if far more elaborately articulated - post-apocalyptic world. The world went the way of nuclear war and everything approaching civilisation as you and I know it, went the way of the dinosaur. Certain people struggled on, in the irradiated world. Various others - lived secluded in big ol' underground bunkers - known as vaults. The first game draws its protagonist from vault 13. Fallout 3 gives us the Lonely Wanderer from Vault 101.

Your father is Liam Neeson - but that shouldn't come as a surprise... This is a Bethesda game! And they're using the Oblivion engine (that being The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion)... And, some jolly good voice actors. In fairness, he doesn't have that much more to say than Patrick Stewart did in the aforementioned... but it's nice that they put the effort in.

So, a Fallout game - naturally, circumstances precipitate your departure from the cosy vault into the rather less hospitable wastelands, this time in the Capital Wastelands... formerly Washington D.C. The post-apocalyptic feel is wonderful, from the ramshackle development of Megaton to the rather more respectable Rivet City... you're never really treated to the kind of visual diversity that you had in The Elder Scrolls but then, this is set in a world approximating our own. So, you don't get distinct designs just for the sake of it - there are differences... but they're just less striking because few of the settlements are really towns, per se.

As with TES games, you're given free reign over what you do. Which means - you can pretty much go off and explore and forget the main quest and explore the wilderness, do sidequests or just mince around to your hearts content. In fairness, the rather limited nature of the main quest - and realistically, the only thing that would stop you from doing it in an afternoon might be the fact you'd need to play for a bit to get the levels and weapons to win through - means that if you want to feel you've got your money's worth... it's probably best you do that anyway.

One of the issues with Mass Effect was... unlike previous Bioware games, you didn't just bump into sidequests in the course of following the main quest - KOTOR is a prime example... but then, it's just to be generally venerated anyway. Now, some might say that in both cases, it's more about freedom. KOTOR was limited to about a half-dozen planets which weren't huge. Mass Effect had literally dozens (excluding the sizeable mission planets) and Fallout 3 has just one big ol' map that you could spend ages combing over but then, that's something of a problem.

After a certain point you have to ask - is it really WORTH it? There are a fair number of weapon types... but one hunting rifle is much the same as another. There is about one "unique" weapon for each type of weapon which will look the same but boast slightly better clip sizes or damage... it won't set your world on fire.

Weapons leads us nicely into combat... This is (sadly) fairly straight forward TES style combat. Which is to say, if you've got ranged attacks - start shooting and if you've got melee... close to bludgeoning distance. It has ALWAYS been the weakest element of TES games but Fallout 3 manages to mitigate it with the staple of the previous two games VATS.

VATS essentially emulates turn-based combat. You have an allocation of action points - different weapons require different more or less - which you can use to target specific body parts of your enemies. These vary depending upon a number of things - your weapon, proficiency with it, its condition and so on. For those that don't care for the not-very-good FPS combat the game offers, this is a very valid alternative... To reference Mass Effect again though, this doesn't offer you fun firefights... because, it's entirely possible to just run out into the open and sit there for a few seconds, in Mass Effect all but the most heavily armoured will die outside of cover. Fallout 3 makes it easy for enemies (and the player) to run at one another. So, there's no real disadvantage to being a melee character. It makes things rather less interesting and realistic.

What is somewhat more interesting is that VATS or no, damage is area specific. Headshots do more damage, you can shoot weapons out of people's hands... impede mobility by shooting their legs. In fact, the game accomodates gory decapitations (because for some reason, a headshot results in a decapitation - mostly) or limbs falling off... or in the case of the "bloody mess" perk. A person being dismembered upon death... that would probably have been more helpful in Dead Space. You're also treated to random slomo shots - everything to the decapiation to a bullets view of the hit. Some people might get bored of it but it's got a variety of different possibilities, so it's not exactly the same thing every time - plus, the laser and plasma weapons have their own special death animations.

Shooting things isn't the only course of action though - at least in quests, during your travels you'll encounter giant critters, Raiders and Super Mutants who communicate exclusive via the medium of stabbings and shootings - many of your tasks will offer you the chance to talk problems out... for good or ill. Naturally, the options available to you are somewhat affected by your stats and demeanour... because Fallout 3 has a karma system.

It's the typical one - where ALL deeds (good and evil) are e-mailed to the entire world. Everything from detonating a nuke in a town to giving water to a beggar or stealing a fork. Something of a standard device but then, if you lose karma for doing bad things when no one is looking... why bother trying to conceal your misdeeds? Obviously, if you go around selling people into slavery and just wantonly killing... that makes sense but it's a common enough game dynamic and not really anything but a niggle.

Fallout 3's problem is that it's never really that... engaging. Yes, it does somewhat tap into the mythos of the Fallout universe but only in the sense of atmosphere. The main quest is of minimal interest and difficulty and of course, once it's done - game over. That's not so surprising though - the level cap for the game is a whopping 20, attributes are capped at 10 and skills at 100 and with even minimal effort, you can max out the stats for your play style long before then.

Most quest rewards are pretty boring and really are only worth doing for the XP. There is the occasional fancy gun or special ability but these tend to be the exceptions. Not quite to the Morrowind level of "Thanks for saving the town... have a paperweight and a punch in the face." non-reward... but sometimes it can feel like it... and the fact that if you REALLY want to explore the game world, you have to just march around and occasionally find camps and such like. There IS the fast travel option but that's only to locations you've visited... and a lot of places you'll have to bump into. It's not MMO grind... it's just a bit boring, wandering through the wastes. There aren't even a half-dozen major settlements... the game considers a "settlement" to be about 3 people. The nature of the wasteland means you're not going to be bumping into big cities... but Fallout 1 & 2 had far more in the way of meaningful settlements and here, they're just... kind of empty and not very interesting.

It's fun for a few hours but games costing what they do these days - not really worth the price of admission. Sure it's pretty and has body parts flying in all directions but we're at a stage where eye candy isn't something to get excited about and ditto flying body parts. It suffers from the flaws of The Elder Scrolls in terms of gameplay but it doesn't really counter with the rich environment and backstory. There are SOME fun quests and it does an excellent job of translating the Fallout world into a gritty first person experience but... wandering around broken cities and ruins is almost certain to make you think of Half Life 2 and Gears of War. It's just... not a lot of anything. It isn't bad, it just lacks anything with which to wow all but the most casual of casual gamers. About all that can be said is that VATS is something of a salve for the very awkward mishmash that TES games call combat.

2008-12-14T14:53:00.000-08:00

Finishing games - something that the vast majority of professional reviewers never do... preferring to form opinions based on the size of their backhanders from the publisher and let's be honest if you've not seen a review that was so overhyped that seemed more like a press release and less like a review... you've never spent time at Gamespot or IGN (allegedly) - can sometimes be a disappointment... a crowning moment of awesome or leave you with kind of a lingering sadness, knowing that... it's all over.

Dead Space is one of those genuinely involving gaming experiences where you want to play until you get some answers... it's not really spoiling a lot to say that (despite the fact you have the opiton to replay and find out more stuff upon completion) Dead Space leaves you scratching your head... the gist of what has happened is obvious but many details are vague.

The game seemed to have unfortunately picked up the title of "Half-Life... IN SPACE!" which really isn't fair at all. First off - Dead Space isn't even an FPS. It's all played out (for good or ill) in the third person. Secondly - it's not a shooter game. It's survival horror. Half-Life and it's spawn have had their creepy and tense moments but you're seldom counting rounds or taking care to off enemies in the most conservative manner possible.

You'll seldom - if ever - have a wealth of ammo in Dead Space and even when you do, it can all slip through your fingers very easily... and while in Half Life one would often laugh in the face of a few dozen enemies... one can often find that the lack of ammunition makes for few fights to be considered "easy"... although - setting difficulty to hard might have something to do with that.

And of course, the not very often named enemies - "necromorphs" - are in and of themselves the reason one may not have a bag full of ammo... unlike pretty much all other enemies... they're not really bothered if you pump a mag into their chest and even decapitation doesn't bother them too much. As you'll learn very quickly in the game - otherwise your gaming experience will be rather tedious... you've got to dismember them. A strange achilles heel... but it makes the game that much more interesting because you're not just indiscrimately firing guns at people and expecting them to drop dead.

Of course - this is survival horror... so, you've got a few things going for you. Mainly, your shiny space armour can be upgraded (more hitpoints, more inventory space, less damage taken... and more air... that one is pretty useless) and all your weapons can get improved clip size/damage/reload etc. which you get from power nodes... of course, this does force you to choose weapons - and you can only carry 4 anyway... you get money too. So you can spend it on ammo, though generally the suit upgrades and power nodes are a better investment than ammo...

If you want a comparison - this game is a lot like System Shock 2... Your gun doesn't break after shooting it twice... there's no need to hack but... well, there are plenty of plot parallels and the the enemies are oft similar. Yahtzee seemed to compare it to Doom 3... but beyond the obvious notion of hell being unleashed (in this case, entirely metaphorically - vs. the very literal version in Doom 3) it's not a valid comparison. Oh, sure - logs all over the place to show the things that led to it all - but that was very much taken from SS2 to start with... so, let's not toss additional pretenders in... this game is very much System Shock 2's spiritual successor. Much, much more than upstart Bioshock.

A couple of levels into Bioshock, you could laugh at the enemies - murder them easily and just generally not worry about anything but Big Daddies... who you engaged at your discretion and even on hard weren't THAT worrisome with proper preparation. Dead Space seldom allows you such luxuries. Enemies appear from air vents that are EVERYWHERE, creepy music pervades and they like to sometimes play dead. In fact, the AI is such that even if you run away from the reanimated carcasses, they'll sometimes still follow you. Not to mention the fact they'll sometimes play dead and of course - drag themselves along the floor to get you.

The story involved is fairly interesting - if only for the mystery involved. You're still asking questions at the end. With SS2, you pretty much knew what the deal was midgame. Dead Space gives you a notion but there's a LOT unanswered even after the end credits roll. It's nice to be able to walk around a game and NOT have a character pop up and spew forth a long expositional dialogue. In fact, some of the logs are in rooms you have to access with power nodes - presumably to entice you to play through again to get a better idea of the events of the game. Which you can actually do - WITH all your equipment from the first try.

It's a nice touch, as improving weapons is a fairly important thing to do in the game - given that as you progress, enemies become rather more recalcitrant about actually... y'know dying... again. As well as the weapons (you're only allowed four and... it's fair to say that the fact the game seems to have a bias toward the ripper - read, space chainsaw -means the choices become fairly obvious), you can upgrade your stasis module (make enemies and machinery slow down... NOT bullet time), kinesis module (NOT the gravity gun - about all it's good for is moving specific game objects and getting out of reach ammo) and your suit. Which means you've some greater level of choice in gameplay... although, in fairness - if you don't save up for the suit upgrades, the suit improvements and such... you're fucked. At least on the hard difficulty. Which any reasonably experienced gamer should use... because it's a decent challenge level... Although, PC gamers will NOT appreciate having to wrestle with the 3rd person perspective, which is at times - a greater foe than the enemies.

Speaking of the enemies - they come in a multitude of shapes and sizes. Most of them prefer closing to melee range to jam various spines into you, with actual ranged attacks being the exception - from the smaller, weaker enemies. Which is just as well, as the larger enemies can sometimes off you with casual ease. Especially the mini-boss characters, who will just go straight to the "I'M EATING YOU!" cut-scene death.

The dismemberment makes for an interesting variation on the standard playbook of either shooting things in the head or just pumping the bastards full of enough rounds to kill them... and it's probably the first PC game that can truly be dubbed "survival horror" without the words "Resident Evil" involved... not that RE was really a big PC title. All, in all - if you like survival horror, sci-fi and so on - it's definitely the creepy game for you and really shouldn't be sullied by comparisons to FPS games. It has that element to it - but it's really a lot more.

2008-11-23T06:36:00.000-08:00

JJ Abrams warned fans that his Star Trek would not be their Star Trek... in fact, he pretty much said he was going to take the mutilated carcasses of the franchise and play Frankenstein because THIS IS NOT A REBOOT. Which seems fairly stupid - the franchise was worn out and something entirely new may well have been to the benefit of it, rather than simply going out and making the cast younger and edgier.

Much was made of the teaser trailer released some time ago, where people are seen spot welding the Enterprise together, on the face of a planet... which - surprise! - vexed a lot of Trek fans who pointed out that we don't even weld modern ships together these days and that it's pretty stupid to build a ship on a planet... presumably because all previous instances of construction have been shown in orbit... which makes sense, given that the majority of ships in Star Trek have never shown any great affinity for landing on planets.

As one might imagine, the release of the new trailer has provoked a new round of concern and speculation. The greatest concern seems to be pretty obvious. This looks a LOT like a Star Wars trailer. A great deal of action, explosions and fisticuffs that put it more in the territory of summer blockbuster/popcorn movie than in traditional Star Trek territory.

Of course - if anything - this addresses what must be one of the main failings of the franchise to date... that they're prone to be ponderous introspection and a pretentiousness that often led them to be rather boring... only die hard Trek fans could really sit through the seemingly endless hours of tedium that are Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Even with the now infamously misleading editing of trailers, it seems unlikely that the new Trek film will have to worry about a dearth of action and in many ways, the fact that it was so easy to equate the Next Generation films with episodes was oft to their detriment - especially in terms of general appeal.

The other questionable decision is naturally the fact we have scenes with young Kirk and young Spock. No, not the 90210 aged types. We're talking Anakin podracing age. The opening shot is Kirk in a car (AN ACTUAL CAR) driving toward a cliff, before leaping out at the last minute and proclaiming his name. Little is ever really gained by showing bad ass protagonists as kids.

Terminator 2 got away with it because we'd really only HEARD about John Connor. He was never introduced as an adult character... and as a teen, he was actually pretty decent - and we're just ignoring that Sarah Connor Chronicles happened because it's canon defilement of the 1st degree.

It's not fair to judge a film on the basis of a trailer but Trek fans are already foaming at the mouth that this seems to be action, action, action. Perhaps what set Star Trek apart from much of what came before and what came after was the fact it wasn't predisposed to that. Oh, yes - even the original series had its fair share of fisticuffs and space battles but that was never the thrust of the show... and depending on what you like to believe, it was the necessity of fisticuffs and space battles that led to the prosaic, formulaic blandness of Voyager and Enterprise.

Trek fans are... often rather undiscerning - the fact some will still defend Voyager tooth and nail should be proof of that - but this seems to have irked those who are beyond the "any trek is good trek" mob. This was a fairly predictable moment from the time Abrams came on-board, he likes pretentious pseudo-intellectual stuff (just look at Lost)... which suits Trek down to a tee... but at the same time, he likes lots of big explosions and Mary Sues (just look at Alias).

What will the 11th Star Trek film be? Only time will tell... and whether it'll be a good or bad film remain to be seen... but it seems likely to be far more popcorn that Star Trek.

2008-11-07T07:20:00.000-08:00

Good TV shows are fleeting things... to be treasured while they last... even seemingly untouchable shows like Lost, Prison Break and Heroes can quickly succumb to the high bar their own first seasons sets.

The easiest way to explain True Blood without giving too much away is...

It's a world much like our own... the only difference being - vampires are real and have revealed themselves to the world at large after the advent of a synthetic blood product called "Trublood", which allows them to be sustained without feeding on humans. As one might guess, this leads to a number of tensions - which form the backdrop for the story.

Much of the story focuses around Anna Pacquin's character - Sookie - a psychic girl, waiting tables in the deep South and the events surrounding her friends and family... To say more would be saying too much...

The show effortlessly balances drama and humour, with liberal helpings of suspense (the kind of fairly regular cliffhangers Heroes had in it's first season) and sex and violence and all that jazz. The vampire aspect is pervasive but not overwhelming... in fact, there's something of a magical realism here... this IS a world where things considered supernatural dwell but - much like Heroes - it's never to play second fiddle to the subject of interest... although, often the two are interwoven wonderfully.

The show masters magical realism in a way that few others can dream of... and in many respects, you can see this as being a suitable rebuttal to the notion of the ass kicking girl fantasy - namely Xena and Buffy and the imitators as numerous as they were unmemorable - where one felt that the comedy and slapstick of everything was upped to a point where it was clear that it was all rather tongue in cheek.

True Blood is... rather more mature - which isn't to say it lacks humour, far from it... but it's a rather more serious animal. Not that Buffy didn't love to indulge in endless vampire wangst but with True Blood it feels like something more than fodder for fangirls. There is a depth to the characters that means, they're not just "troubled vampire" or "psychic southerner"... and really, that's what puts this show a country mile above anything else to do with vampires.

2008-11-05T07:30:00.000-08:00

Bender's Big Score was... a pretty good addition to Futurama... it fitted together nicely as a story and didn't get the "this is really just 4 episodes glued together" feeling that some of the Family Guy "movies" have had... although, one could argue that Family Guy episodes play like a dozen gags and pop culture references glued together...

Beast With A Billion Backs was considerably less enjoyable. The latest effort, Bender's Game, is in some ways better and in some ways worse than it... but they average out to be about the same and both short of Bender's Big Score by some distance.

The basic premise of the story is a parody of Dungeons & Dragons and Lord of the Rings... it's Futurama does fantasy, essentially. Which in itself works fine but it takes so LONG to get to what feels like the ACTUAL story, that you're halfway through the film by the time the set up is out the way.

The set up is that Mom is jacking up the price of dark matter... which leads to some fairly uninspired exposition and the paper thin reason for Futurama goes fantasy... a MAGICAL D-12! Given that it's hugely contrived - it seems a shame that they took so long to get around to the fantasy realm, which is quite interesting and not used enough.

Fans of the show will probably enjoy it but really, it should have been a lot better.

2008-11-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

Dead Set - the name a play on words... with one being the literal situation of the show and the other, meaning motivated toward an objective - is a zombie show that falls somewhere between Sean of the Dead and 28 Days Later. Comparisons to both are inevitable as the show has some humour in it and of course, the increasingly popular track and field zombies.

In five instalments, the show catalogued your average track and field zombie outbreak - the twist being that the protagonists are all in some way involved with the infamous reality TV show Big Brother... because the writer is a well known loather of these shows, there was an expectation of satire... but beyond a few references and zombies dully staring at screens of the show, there isn't much... there is certainly some humour but for the most part, this is played as a fairly straight horror film.

Things kick off on eviction night... as one might expect, someone does ol' stupid act. It's really 28 days later because the infection is nigh on INSTANT. Cue track and field zombies. Including Davina McCall having her throat ripped out...

This sets into motion the dynamic of the things... the witless non-entities of Big Brother (and some of the production staff) stuck in a zombie apocalypse. There are some jokes but mostly straight horror.

The real problem with running zombies is... they kill tension. You have a bunch of people lumbering toward you? That's slow and intense. Running, it's a bit - oh, it's all over! Especially when they're magical zombies. The regular kind, they can run forever. No real need to eat, sleep, drink...

As it goes, the show is pretty good. It's fair to say, while it's not even tipping the scales at 90 minutes, at times - it feels like it's stretching the material a little thin but that's only at the low points... When the show is on form - it's firing on all cylinders and it DOES build momentum. The times it feels weak are toward the start.... overall, it's a fun zombie film.

2008-10-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

Not content with having alienated everyone over the age of 12 as far as Star Wars goes, George Lucas continues his relentless crusade to milk the cash cow.

Someone has said, "You can't ruin Star Wars"... in a sense, that's true.

Regardless of the loathsome prequels... we have (another) cartoon. This time, in CGI. For those who have stopped paying attention - and who can be blamed - this was all launched by a film, setting up the basic premise of Anakin with an apprentice... who, as with most things jammed into continuity is - naturally - never mentioned.

As with the previous - rather wonderful - Clone Wars cartoon, this is set in the eponymous conflict and so... action abounds. Unlike the cartoon, Clone Wars gives more prominence to the actual clones. They actually take off their helmets and demonstrate some personality here, which is good because they're sufficiently competent to be likeable.

The films demonstrated the rather monumental idiocy of the battledroids - here, it's turned up a notch and definitely played for laughs... it DOES humanise them a bit more but then, droids AND clones are both killed, so... we're reckless with all synthetic life, it seems.

The premise of the film is simple - if pointless - after a little introduction of Anakin and his new apprentice - Asoka - we find out that Jabba's son has been kidnapped. Why does this matter? The Hutts control a lot of trading routes. If the Jedi rescue the infant Hutt, they get access to those trade routes or something.

The most obvious thing to notice with the film - and cartoon - is that it takes some time to get used to these stringless marionettes. Their expressions are extremely limited and at times, you could be forgiven for thinking that this was just a game that you were playing... except that they're probably look less stiff and lifeless.

Despite that, the quality of acting is considerably better than pretty much everything in the prequel trilogy... not that that is particularly difficult. Regardless, the inexorable march toward being a purely eight and under franchise continues... There's pretty much no character development, there's the inexplicable pink R2 and of course, the plot is laughable.

Essentially, there's just a progression of the film from one action sequence to another... and yet, it all feels rather hollow. The battledroids are 10 times the fodder stormtroopers were and even the clones seem to be more than capable of taking out dozens of them with ease...

The cartoon is somewhat more interesting - although, unlike it's animated counterpart Grievous is again somewhat bungling and cowardly... One has to wonder how the Seperatists are really able to support their war effort. Or why... Oh, obviously the manipulations of Palpatine are behind it all but there's still little sense of underlying causes beyond "BECAUSE!" Which is rather too endemic in the Star Wars prequels, people are idiotic or gullible to forward the plot... so, it would probably be rather too much to ask the spawn of the prequel franchise to try and explain away the nonsensical war.

The action doesn't always focus on Obi-wan or Anakin. We've had episodes about clones, other Jedi... Jarjar (sigh) and so on. So, there's a diverse focus... but that's presumably because, there's only so much more than can be done in the Clone Wars period.

How does it compare to the highly acclaimed - and straight forward awesome - Clone Wars cartoon? It seems almost unfair to compare them. The cartoon was great, it actually managed to take the card board cutouts that Lucas hamfistedly stuck into a trilogy more geared toward shifting merchandise than telling a story and made them INTERESTING! In a couple of the episodes, we had more development of Anakin and his fall from grace than in the entirety of the prequels... the CGI fare is markedly more standard Saturday morning fare.

If you're even marginally interested in Star Wars - it's worth watching and it does include some pretty cool fights and action sequences but it lacks the characterisation and special X-factor that made the cartoon so enjoyable and memorable. That, coupled with the puppet-like CGI means that this may be fun but will struggle to rival it's predecessor in the affections of viewers.

2008-10-03T04:10:00.000-07:00

Autumn - or Fall if you're so inclined - is a season where the days shorten, the nights draw in, the sun weakens and the leaves on the trees turn a dozen hues of gold and rust. It's also time for new seasons for TV to start! Making an an unwelcome return, Smallville season 8 - so, now 5 too many - lumbers onto the scene with about as much energy as a hibernating sloth.

Smallville started out as an attempt to re-energise the live action televisual fortunes of Superman after the rather dire New Adventures of Superman, featuring Dean Cain and Terry Hatcher... it was rather low budget and cheesy in that early 90s way... the first season was passable because they pretty much set up the Lex vs. Superman dynamic nicely but after that, they kind of lost the plot.

Which is really the problem that Smallville has had for some time... It wasn't exactly a show that hit the ground running... but over the first season there was a gradual buildup and that really worked for seasons two and three which culminated in a rather sublime finale. Everything was up in the air...

And then season four happened and in a single episode, everything that had been built crumbled like a sandcastle before an oncoming tide. The cliffhanger was lazily resolved in a binge of deus ex that all too quickly restored the status quo - minus Pete. Except of course, we just had a bunch of stupid stuff happen and the bottom kind of fell out of the show.

In truth, there are two problems that arise for any long running show. It either stays the same or changes abruptly - either in terms of cast or format or style... The secret is walking the line, letting a cast evolve, letting the focus shift... Farscape was only around for four seasons but managed a considerable evolution of its cast and format - but never in a jarring way.

After leaving the safety of high school, Smallville seemed unsure of what to do. Season 8 has seemingly dismantled the support apparatus of its eponymous setting, Clark moving to Metropolis to become a journalist... Not only that, Lex is currently AWOL (replaced by some sexy CEO chick), Jimmy seems to have been strangely absent (replaced by a much more ruggedly handsome chap) despite having just gotten engaged and it seems Green Arrow is back on the rota while Maw Kent and Lana finally drop off the radar.

That's quite a sizeable change from the original cast... currently, only Chloe and Clark are left as regulars. Although, it's fair to say that they've somewhat dominated the cast for some time... and with Clark's parents out the picture, Lionel Luthor dead and so on... It's pretty much down to the irritating Lois to fill that void and prevent Chloe and Clark from just driving the show entirely by the themselves... although, they have effectively been the dynamo behind the show for some time. Chloe is the computer boffin who just hands Clark the information he needs, when required - and then he bursts in and shouts at people.

It's a show that still fills its remit - it's 40ish minutes where your brain can go into sleep mode and you'll still maybe get some enjoyment but the excitement? It's gone and you can never help but feel that the writers don't want to give Clark flight because that would be the end of his development. Oh, maybe he's a tad less naive than he used to be but he's not really changed. He's still duplicitous and wholesome. That's about as far as the character goes. Oh, sure - we can toss in the Lois/Clark angle... their love/hate relationship has been there since she was crowbarred in.

A corpse staggering along... let's hope this season is the last.

2008-10-02T03:03:00.000-07:00

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was never a show that was going to have a happy ending... And it seems the end is nigh and not a moment too soon. Some might blame the Writer's Strike... but really, that should have given the producers time to sit back and think.

Because this show was in need of a dire rethink. Granted, it may have effectively retconned Terminator 3 out of existence (T3 wasn't... horrible - it was just an unnecessary addition, the next logical step was post-Judgement Day) but beyond that it was less than useful. On a TV budget, you're just never going to be able to recreate the kind of special effects that made Terminator the success it was.

Stargate is the obvious parallel to draw... but Stargate was a much easier concept to adapt. With a few minor tweaks to the continuity, it became a dial-a-plot device. Terminator never afforded a TV spin-off that kind of oppurtunity - nor should it have. Yet, we had SCC anyway... but it seems clear that the exact notion of WHAT was going to be done in the show was less than clear to those involved in its production.

They did have a recurring nemesis in Chromarty but really, he was as inconsistent as Cameron. No disrespect to Summer Glau but does she really do anything else except the monotone scary ass kicking girl? She's ok at it but really, it did not help the seeming aspirations of this show and it's conspicious desire to be Whedonesque... at least, one has to hope that this show was trying to immitate Buffy... because, if they just stuck in the high school element for no reason - then the show was even more listless than it appears.

There were no definite concepts... in fact, the obvious reason for the retcon of Terminator 3 was that T3 stated what seems fairly obvious... that the conflict between man and machine IS inevitable - as a consequence of John Connor AND the Terminators being created by predestination paradox. SSC essentially tossed that out the window and said Skynet was just some random assortment of chess programs and traffic cameras.

We were spared the "Terminator of the week" but thus far there have been... four in total. None of them really that inspiring of terror - mostly because they seem to take about ten seconds to decide that it's a good idea to kill John Connor... which is, just about enough time for some to hit them with a car or something... because you know what? They're fighting GOD DAMNED ROBOTS FROM THE FUTURE WITH 9MM PISTOLS!

Those things aren't even that great at killing people, so is it any surprise their efficacy against time travelling killing machines is akin to that of a water pistol?

With a plot that didn't know where it was going, a bunch of characters who didn't resemble in the slightest their big screen equivalents, a low budget "Terminator vision lit" that looked awful... This show had a future about as rosy as that of humanity in it's own continuity.

2008-09-15T03:46:00.000-07:00

Despite the somewhat questionable title of "Wolverine And The X-men", the new Marvel cartoon - featuring... well, the X-men (oh and Wolverine!) is actually rather good. The animation is slick and smooth... and it's really a cut above the rather insipid animation we've been seeing in the West for many years.

The story starts a year after Professor X and Jean Gray disappear and the X-men have pretty much disbanded. Wolverine is pretty much riding around, doing his loner thing. As one might guess, events lead him to realise that Xavier or no - the world needs the X-men.

Thus far we've had a good mix of foreshadowing, action, various mutant cameos - Boom Boom, Pyro, Colossus, Night Crawler and Dust just in the first episode. So, it certainly seems to have been worth the wait... and certainly far superior to the rather embarrassing X-men Evolution... Of course, where that show went wrong was that it made almost the entire cast about 14, except for Wolverine and the Professor... It seems that a more mature class (it's mentioned Bobby Drake is over 18) has thankfully prevailed this time.

It's clear that the series is building to the ever popular concept of X-dom, that of a conflict between mutants and humans... interestingly, although the title sequence includes Wolverine et al taking on a classic Sentinel, currently the anti-mutant forces are just guys with guns... although, the second episode introduces a scorpion like Sentinel prototype. One has to ask who thought that purple and pink would strike fear into the hearts of mutants...

Regardless, we've got plenty of elements at play here. We've got Rogue joining the Brotherhood, the lingering questions over the disappearance of Xavier and Jean... the still mostly disbanded X-men, the clearly oncoming war against the anti-mutant forces of the MRD and so on... there's just an awful lot that has been touched upon in just two episodes... but despite the fact they've introduced these elements - one doesn't feel overwhelmed, merely that things are building... some more quickly than others.

Definitely a show worth watching for any who had lost faith in Marvel cartoons, or just Western animation in general.

2008-09-10T07:28:00.000-07:00

Marvel - in contrast to DC - is a veritable mass media machine these days. Not only have they seemingly dozens of films in the pipeline - both animated and live action - but they're also working on more than a few animated series...

But their latest foray into the direct-to-DVD market that is ever so popular these days is "Next Avengers"... If the name isn't familiar to you, that's probably because this particular DVD had a few names - although the concept never really changed.

It's a pretty straight-forward idea, really - and one that's been done before, though... never at any length in the animated medium. Anyway - the premise, the Avengers are great and all. Save the world, bring peace and harmony etc. Then they settle down, have some kids... shortly after that Ultron pretty much wipes the floor with everyone, kids are flown to safety etc.

Things start some time later with the kids in their adolescence... we've got Thor Girl, Captain America Jr., Black Panther Kid... and Wasp Boy. They're all being looked after by an old Tony Stark... and are blissfully unaware of what's going on in the outside world - despite the fact Stark pretty much tells them through the medium of bedtime stories. As one might expect, things do not continue so peacefully. Vision comes back damaged and the kids accidentally activate the "Iron Avengers".

Why Stark made the Iron Avengers when the greatest threat faced by humanity is currently a robot capable of hacking pretty much any piece of technology is never explained... but he's a billionaire supergenius, so he probably just has that kind of stuff lying around. Anyway, as one might guess a half dozen robot blasting off at top speed throw something of a spanner in the works as regards hiding.

So, Ultron flies out to finish the job. Stark sends the kids away and does his Iron Man thing. Vision is all for taking the kids to the Savage Lands but runs out of power. The kids decide they should go and destroy Ultron... because, well - he just wiped the fucking floor with all their parents who were at the top of their game... and there were eight of them. Still, they are children so logic presumably gets trumped by youthful optimism/naivity.

Anyway, they head to Ultron City and start smashing robots... actually, just Thor Girl does that because she's the only one of them that's actually vaguely useful in terms of ass kicking. As one might expect, 4 kids vs. a city of robots is not exactly a winning formula. Turns out that Hawkeye's boy is here too (yes, this is a pretty male slanted cast) and after the classic "grudging acceptance" thing, he stops being such a downer and turns up to help the kids in their plan to rescue Stark from Ultron.

It all comes down to the kids tricking Ultron into paying a visit to an old Bruce Banner - who is still the Hulk... As one might guess, Hulk does some smashing and things are all happily ever after... well, except all their parents are still dead... except Thor. He's just being an absent father or something... had to go off and look after Asgard, yadda, yadda. Fortunately, he's paying some kind of attention and saves his daughter when she starts freezing in space.

All in all, it's a slickly animated piece... it seems that Marvel have decided that they want a decent quality of animation in their stuff now and it's really about time. Western animation was really just starting to look like it was for the under 5s and the mentally challenged. As with most of these things, it's not even making the magical 90 minutes... but the story is reasonably paced and as this is clearly aimed primarily at a younger audience, it makes sense that it's not some lengthy odessy.

It's fun, the action is decent and the characters are likeable... and really, it's so short that you're fairly unlikely to have any opportunity to get bored with it. Nothing earth shattering just the usual but enjoyably packaged and suitably superhero flavoured. Not a patch on Wolverine & the X-men but still quite fun.

2008-08-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

Brendan Fraser as a scientist of any description seems about as likely as Einstein moonlighting a professional wrestler... yet, the premise of this remake of Journey to the Centre of the Earth is that he's a professor of geophysics. The long and short of this by the numbers action remake is... by the numbers.

Brendan Fraser's nephew comes for a visit... his mother brings a box of Brendan's brother's stuff. He disappeared ten years ago and blah blah blah. Fraser is basically trying to keep on the crazy work of his brother and as it turns out, he thought that the Journey to the Centre of the Earth was in fact, a factual account... which gives the film free license to copy many features of it verbatim, albeit with fancier special effects.

So, Fraser discovers geological conditions or something like that are identical to those when his brother disappeared he decides to take his nephew off to him with Iceland. They find the daughter of some guy that knew his brother... blah, blah, blah. Naturally, they end up trapped underground and after a run away mine car ride - they fall through the ground and end up... IN THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH!

It really feels like they rushed it... obviously, they couldn't have made this a serious exploration... because, well - it's Brendan Fraser. Having him head something serious AND scientific... people would have probably laughed up their internal organs. So, it's something of a down and dirty, no-frills wait until they get TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH! As it takes about 20 minutes to get to this point, there's not a great deal of time to waste on things like characterisation... because by science, this film will be the mandatory 90 minutes or it won't be anything!

So, really - there's just a progression from one CGI fest to another... but then, really - that's what this film was based around. A special effects extravaganza with Fraser screaming and hitting things a lot - presumably so we'd forget he was a scientist. We get glowy birds flying around, the giant mushrooms, the sea (with plenty of fishies)... but this doesn't really make any sense... The temperature is climbing and it's established this is what killed Fraser's dear ol' brother... yet, there's plenty of life in here... so presumably it can just magically survive temperatures hot enough to boil water...

Anyway, we get some carnivorous plants, floating rocks... and then a giant magical geyser that helps the team escape. Not to mention the mandatory facilitation of possible sequels.

Not particularly awe inspiring but you can't fault it in the sense that... it does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. It's 90 minutes of brainless action involving Brendan Fraser... that maybe a redundancy but still, it's what's to be expected and it's what is delivered. No one will win any Oscars for this film but it's an inoffensive way to pass an hour and a half between now and death...

2008-07-27T05:44:00.000-07:00

Dark Knight was never going to have an easy time of it. Batman Begins set a high bar and the hype for Dark Knight and the building anticipation of it began almost as soon as the premier ended. Combined with the untimely and unfortunate demise of rising star Heath Ledger, it's hardly surprising that Dark Knight had such massive box office success in its opening weekend... what IS surprising is the general agreement - the film lived up to the hype.

Heath Ledger's performance is truly excellent... which, given the strong portrayal by Nicholson in the 1989 Burton film is saying something. It's new... and very much in keeping with the nature of the atmosphere Nolan has created. Very concerned with realism and a dark, brooding atmosphere... this results in the Joker being simultaneously very different from previous incarnations but very much the same and similarly, Two Face - whose appearance in the film wasn't even touched upon in the trailers - is done in a way that bears little resemblance to the comic book treatments but remains true to the character.

Some might be concerned about the replacement of Katie Holmes... from a continuity point of view... it's unfortunate but in a more circumspect sense? Her substitute is infinitely more suited to the role, so the change of actress is a net benefit... had Holmes been playing against Ledger's sublime Joker, it would have been almost as embarrassing as everyone in Superman Returns trying to act with the talent of Kevin Spacey.

There are a few twists in the film... but most of them are fairly obvious to those paying attention but sitll enjoyable... and overall, the only real failing of the film is maybe that it's pacing at times is a bit on the slow side but overall, the almost universal adoration it received is well deserved and certainly - this deserved to punt the tedious Spiderman 3 into the long grass because it surpasses it in every facet of its existence.

2008-07-26T16:11:00.001-07:00

When George "It's my story" Lucas embarked upon the Star Wars prequels... Stars Wars fans rejoiced in collective orgasm. For years fans of the original trilogy had speculated about the first three chapters in the Star Wars epic - all of them dying to see the origins of the characters they dearly loved... the fall of Anakin Skywalker, the Clone Wars... all these things.

Perhaps people should have been a bit wary after Return of the Jedi, when apparently darker takes - wherein Han Solo died - were rejected... and Wookies were replaced with Ewoks. Or the somewhat limp wristed ending to The Empire Strikes Back - which had enormous potential for some manner of cliffhanger ending... beyond Han being encased in carbonite... although, in fairness - it remains above and beyond all other Star Wars films by orders of magnitude.

So where did it all go wrong?

In the overall sense… there are several failings.

The most obvious is that – despite twenty years – George Lucas fucked up. He had twenty years to get something that would mesh with the original trilogy and yet, there are several glaring contradictions that are just idiotic. The relationship between Amidala and Anakin, his “fall”, Amidala’s death, Anakin builds C3PO… the list is long.

The second most obvious? The Phantom Menace is pointless. It introduces only ONE character of merit and kills him… Just imagine the original trilogy starting with Luke dosing around and doing nothing much… It’s clear that in his way, Lucas tried to parallel A New Hope… but sadly, he wasn’t quite able to pull it off… because, truth be told – he wasn’t stealing directly from Samurai films.

The third – there is just so little to recommend these films. Star Wars was never exactly winning people over by virtue of its story telling. It was an epic story, played out across a galaxy in turmoil. The Prequels are about a TRADE DISPUTE, not just that but the dialogue is so awful and so utterly unconvincing… people act illogically because that’s what’s required of them. Even the acting is awful… and to be honest the total prevalence of CGI makes the term “special effects” useless.

The Phantom Menace:

Plot wise? As above stated – the film serves no real purpose. Sure, it introduces the characters but… that didn’t require a whole film.. why? Because the only one that has any real depth DIES! Liam Neeson is about the only person in the whole film who acts worth a damn.

There’s no real comparison to a galaxy in turmoil over civil war, compared to… A TRADE DISPUTE!

And Anakin… AS A CHILD! The baddest brother in the galaxy? As a douche bag white kid? As if him being a happy old white guy in Return of the Jedi wasn’t enough of a kick in the teeth. Not to mention he’s Mary Sue’d up… he can build C3PO… he can build a pod… why? WHY?! There’s no reason for these things… well, the pod allows us to have one of the prequel trademarks.

Scenes that feel like video games… that you can’t play! Presumably because many of them go on to be part of games you can play… regardless, it’s not really good to watch. No one really engages with what’s happening because… nothing is happening for them. They’re playing jump around in front of the green canvas… so, almost every one of these scenes – and they all drag on for considerable amounts of time – has people looking rather indifferent to quite dangerous situations. Of course, the quality of acting in the prequels isn’t exactly legendary at the best of times but these scenes serve only to highlight it…

And then of course, while there are the bloated CGI action scenes… we also have the CGI nightmare of Jarjar… it’s hard to tell whether Lucas became so surrounded by yes-men and fanboys that he simply thought that this was genuinely a good idea or whether he’d merely grown so contemptuous he wanted to show the world he could give loyal fans the one fingered salute and still produce a box office smash – or so combination of the two… but regardless, it’s hard to cover any new ground as far as Jarjar hating goes. It’s all been said.

Then of course we have probably the most controversial and stupid aspects of the entire Prequels debacle. The fact the Force is apparently a bunch of teeny tiny little organisms in someone’s blood – telling them what to do… uh, ok… and somehow that relates to their power level… why no one ever thinks to harvest them and inject a bunch… And the fact that said teeny tiny little organisms decided to have a party in Anakin’s mother’s womb and conceive the little douche… the latter may have served some purpose if it wasn’t NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. Like many aspects introduced in the Prequels, it’s never an issue in the original trilogy and hell, after five minutes – it’s not even an issue in the film it was mentioned it.

And of course, we’ve got everyone being motivated by idiocy. The Trade Federation are a fairly ill defined entity but it’s hard to understand why they have an army as the name implies they’re a corporate organisation of some sort… but the reason they decide to occupy a planet – then pretend they didn’t – is never clarified.

Similarly, Amidala’s course of action isn’t exactly logical. She runs off to Coruscant and when she doesn’t INSTANTLY get help, decides to go back to Naboo… ok, that helps thin the ranks of the Gungans but it’s the singular most illogical course of action for a leader to take. Her duty is to try and get the occupation of her planet ended and her best chance of that is with the Republic, not heading back to a warzone… Which doesn’t even BEGIN to cover quite why they take a child along with them.

And of course… Anakin taking out the control ship. Shields in Star Wars now seem to act like… actually, it’s impossible to say really, they seem to just do whatever they’re required to do by the plot. So, while the idiotically dressed Noob pilots fly around bitching about how the shields are too strong for them to penetrate – Anakin manages to FLY INSIDE THE SHIP. You’d think there’d be something to stop someone doing that… especially as the hangar seems to lead right to the reactor bay… it feels a lot like Lucas felt a need to draw parallels between Luke and Anakin… but while there was quite a lot of tension and build up to Luke blowing up the Death Star… this is just a little kid being irritating and managing to blow something up… by accident. Which magically stops the droid army. Talk about a glass jaw.

The fight with Darth Maul is actually great – except for the stupid way that Darth Maul is offed. He’s supposed to be a bad ass Sith Lord and he just stands there – looking at Obi Wan, jump up, grab Quigon’s lightsabre and then cut him in half. He still looks surprised when he’s falling in two pieces. Again, it’s just something where someone is an idiot because that’s required.

And then we wrap up with a camera shot that makes it obvious to all but the most mentally retarded of viewers that PALPATINE IS SIDIOUS. That was probably obvious, what with any Star Wars fan worth their salt knowing that it was Emperor Palpatine… but then, that simply makes the manipulations less subtle… He pretty much says “Hey, Amidala – why not impeach the current Supreme Chancellor, then I’ll fix everything by being a bad ass!” Which – by the way – happens in about five minutes.

Attack Of The Clones:

So… for some reason, an immensely inept assassin is trying to kill Amidala… It’s never really explained WHY – presumably the Trade Federation aren’t too keen on her but there’s no real reason for them to hate her that much… and this is something like how many years after the events of Episode 1?

Anyway, the immensely inept assassin detonates a bomb on Amidala’s ship AFTER she lands… You’d think that SPACE would be a good place to detonate a bomb but apparently not. It doesn’t matter anyway as Amidala has pulled her ol’ switcharoo again… So her handmaiden gets toasted… who cares?

Lucas said he wanted this film to be a love story… to say that it was a failure is kind of like saying that Jarjar Binks wasn’t a big hit – and one of the few things to show Lucas actually paid any attention to the criticisms of the first film is that he has a vastly diminished role in this one.

First off, Anakin might now be full grown but he’s basically still the same whiney little douchebag he was before. Not only that, he regularly bitches people out for his own failings, espouses a dictatorship and, let’s not forget – a bit of wholesale slaughter of men, women and children. Yet despite this, the age gap and the fact she met him at an eight year old… Senator Amidala can’t wait to marry the fucker.

The big problem though is… the Separatists. Why do they want to break away from the Republic? Why is the Republic ready to go to war? The reasoning for the war is essentially non-existent because the Separatists are commercial entities – why would they WANT a fight? Wars are expensive to wage. Also, isn’t the Republic democratic? Shouldn’t these people just be petitioning to get out and then be let out? It’s not as if the Republic seems to be a particularly strong entity… they didn’t give a flying fuck when Naboo got invaded, after all.

Also, what’s with Count Doofus? He basically spills his guts to Obiwan about the plan… treachery or manipulation – either way it’s a ham fisted effort. No wonder Palpatine has him sliced and diced. He’s either treacherous or grossly incompetent.

Not to mention the “investigation” into the clone army lasts all of five minutes… they make a big deal out of it. THEN FORGET IT. Whatever happened to their concern about a plot to destroy the Jedi?

And did Amidala suffer brain damage? What kind of fucktard puts Jarjar Binks in charge? Of course, she DID marry a fuckwit like Anakin so, clearly she’s an idiot.

Jango Fett? What’s the real point – beyond giving the fanboys something to think about on long winter nights… It’s pretty pointless and making him a Maori is just… idiotic. He’s introduced, has a fight or two and then gets beheaded… guess you should have had a neck piece in there, ol’ chap.

There’s also an issue with the fight on Geonosis… first of all… even if the Republic ships dropped out of hyperspace right on top of the enemy – they’d have SURELY known to the point they got more of a warning that the enemy merely turning up in the sky – it seems logical to assume there’d be some kind of space battle given all the Federation ships in orbit. Not to mention the idiocy of having a big part of your ship planetside…

Revenge Of The Sith:

Really Attack of the Clones ends where the Prequels should begin and Revenge of the Sith where it should end… Which is to say, the Clone Wars should be what this trilogy covers but it really doesn’t even touch upon it.

Anyone that watched the seminal Clone Wars cartoons will know this begins where it left off… but rubbish. It’s also the explanation for why General Grievous sounds like a French child molesting, asthmatic. He’s supposed to be a bad ass that kills Jedi and was giving the Republic a run for their money… but he just comes across as your average bungling Saturday morning cartoon villain. It’s easier imagining him facing off against Inspector Gadget than a Jedi.

The original trilogy really put some emphasis – and indeed, pretty much everything Obiwan tells Luke about his father is used to make the point – that Anakin Skywalker was a good guy who over a period of time was seduced by the power and lure of the Dark Side and became Darth Vader… This film pretty much takes that idea and tosses it out the window. One minute Anakin is ready to take down the Chancellor when he (AFTER THREE FILMS) works out he’s a Sith lord. Then all of a sudden, he’s cutting off Mace Windu’s hand, swearing allegiance to the Dark Side and rounding up younglings to slaughter. Looks like someone set this Anakin Skywalker from good to evil!

Except, it’s not as if one can ever really say he was good – last film he went and did a pretty good job of killing some kids too! Ok, granted last time it was because he was angry at the death of his mother and this time it was because Palpatine said “Yeah, go kill those little fuckers.” But that’s not exactly a fall, so much as maybe miss stepping because you thought there was an extra stair.

Lucas may be tacitly admitting that he phoned that part in by having Padme reiterate that this is all new and bad… Except it merely highlights the idiocy of all this because Padme knew that Anakin had killed kids and espoused dictatorship… not to mention just generally being petty and spiteful – oh and violating a bunch of Jedi codes by shagging her.

And all that’s FURTHER compounded – and by this point the contrivance is getting to such a level that it seems as if skill has actually be exerted to make it this idiotic and stupid – by the fact the only reason Anakin supposedly signed up with Palpatine was to save Padme… which he kind of tosses out the window when he FORCE CHOKES HER.

Then she LITERALLY dies of a broken heart. It’s almost as if they were taking bets to see how many horrible clichés they could use in the most literal sense for this film… What’s important though, is that this contradicts another established piece of continuity. Leia says she KNEW her mother… that seems a little unlikely if she dies all of 5 seconds after popping her babies out.

Regardless, Anakin and Obiwan have another poe-faced fight over lava – because hey, it’s just liquid rock at a few thousand degrees. It only hurts you if you touch it! For some reason having the high ground is a big deal to people who can jump around with no regard for the laws of physics… But, why doesn’t Obiwan finish off Anakin? It makes no sense. Maybe he doesn’t have the heart to finish Anakin off… but then, that doesn’t really make any sense as leaving him to burn to death with his arms and legs cut off seems infinitely more cruel… in fact, it just plain doesn’t make any sense. There is no logical reason for Obiwan to leave Anakin there. Furthermore, if Obiwan left him for dead in a horrific amount of pain – you’d kind of figure someone that gets ticked off by little things like the escape of the Millennium Falcon, would want to see Obiwan die long and slow.

The wrap up is really little more than an exercise in pushing the piece to where they need to be for the original trilogy to happen… but then, why even BOTHER with that if there’s going to be stuff like killing off Luke & Leia’s mother…

Summation:

In truth, there’s a lot to find fault with in the prequels on almost every level. From continuity with the original trilogy to basic logic to just plain horrible dialogue and acting. Even if one ignores the inherent betrayal of the originals that this amounts to, there’s little to recommend the films beyond the action set pieces.

The battles suffer from being little more than run of the mill CGI fests… these aren’t exactly special these days and there’s nothing to really recommend the Prequels battles beyond anything else. They’ve had more money thrown at them but they’re not particularly interesting and they include such futuristic tactics as “running directly at your enemy while shooting wildly”… no cover for these guys!

And in what way are these robots ANY threat to the Republic? It seems that Anakin and Obiwan could just hack through a million of them and really, the only thing at stake would be time. The only time it seems as if they’re actually capable of killing Jedi is in Episode 2 when they have people totally surrounded by them…

It’s rather sad that the prequels couldn’t even get the details right… yes, the pieces are pushed into place for the original trilogy but there’s just so many things that are unnecessary. Anakin BUILDS 3PO?! Anakin was the virgin birth? Anakin was the Chosen one of some prophecy?

Ok – those things COULD have been ok… but they were just dropped. They were all dead ends. Just loose ends, raised but never resolved. At best they’re just pointless ways to fill screen time – at worst, they’re terrible clangers that make no sense and detract from the overall mythos. Midichlorians being a PRIME example. One could scarcely ruin a mystical energy field more comprehensively than having it be tiny little things in your blood.

The choice to use Ewoks in Return of the Jedi, rather than Wookies was really just the start of Star Wars graduating wholly toward a demographic barely into double digits. The logical conclusion of this path being the new Clone Wars CGI fest but the facile and shallow nature of the Prequels… it’s hardly surprising that Lucas calls them kid’s films… that’s what he made them. Albeit a franchise which includes decapitations, incest, genocide and Jarjar Binks.

For anyone who had even passing interest in the Star Wars franchise before the prequels, it’s easy to see why people feel betrayed… there is something of an inherent danger to prequels. Unless they’re artfully planned, they’ll fail because they’re forced to either fit in between existing continuity or merely ride rough shod all over.

There are easy examples – like C3PO and Anakin – but there are more problematic ones… Most specifically, Anakin and Obiwan… Or possibly just to simplify it? Anakin… Really, didn’t everyone think this was going to be the tale of his fall from grace? It sure should have been.

That might have been a perfect situation… a teenage Anakin joins the Jedi order – his training rushed because of the Clone Wars… he’s reckless but his intentions are well founded… but slowly the power of the Dark Side beckons to him… a series of moral compromises that eventually lead him to fall from grace.

But no, we get a guy who is turned to the dark side essentially by Palpatine saying “Oh, go on – kill some irritating little kids!” Which in a single scene manages to accurately capture the hamfisted conception of the prequels… that or Qui Gonn dropping a clanger about midichlorians.

It all just goes to show, you can throw as much money you want at special effects but it’s all for naught if you haven’t got the writing to back it up, it’s not going to be anything more than a glut of explosions. Hollow cash ins that lessen everything that made the original trilogy good.

2008-07-25T06:06:00.000-07:00

Hellboy 2 was never going to spend a whole lot of time in the lime light, sandwiched between a film that had been hyped for over a year... and one that had been hyped since the instant its predecessor hit the box offices... Even The Incredible Hulk dwarfed Hellboy 2 in terms of presence...

So, Hellboy 2 was always going to have to take a stand against the box office monsters of Ironman and Batman on merit, rather than marketing and hype... which seems rather a shame because it doesn't really compare favourably to any of these films... That's not to say it's bad - there's some visuals in this that are far too original and funky to make their way into the far more mainstream of Marvel and DC films - and that's part of the charm of the film.

Sadly though, it doesn't really grab the attention... The Bureau comes off as MiB on a shoestring... and whether that's true to the comic or not, it doesn't feel particularly compelling. In fact, that's the entire problem with the film. The world is in danger... but that danger never feel particularly pressing. Abe falls in love... but it's never particularly evocative... Hellboy feels torn about trying to defend a world that doesn't love him but who cares... even he doesn't seem to spend more than a few minutes on it... ditto

And it's not really helped that they telegraph the ending... Was there any necessity to have as LITERALLY the first scene in the film being the one that explains how the good guys are going to win... ok, it means that we don't have someone just going "Oh, I know how we can win." out of the blue but... eh, it just means that there's the gratuitous action scene before the final fight... and no particular reason for it.

The visuals are the strength... but the story is weak and it's far too much of the generic A to B to C stuff... which is probably why it's rather unengaging... that and it tries to cover a multitude of topics in a rather short space of time and so, never covers them with sufficient depth that one might actually be interested. It seems like a classic case of numerous ideas having been pitched and rather than thinning them out and just working on a few, they just all got tossed in and everyone hoped it would work.

It's enjoyable enough for a comic book film but not really that good compared to its mainstream rivals.

2008-07-21T03:56:00.000-07:00

It's likely that Robert Heinlein's RPM is probably sufficiently high that his grave could alleviate the energy crisis the world is currently in... and doubtless, if he were able to see the latest sorry chapter in the film franchise that bears little resemblance to his seminal/controversial novel penned a half century ago - it's entirely probable the energy output would be similar to that of the Sun.

The film based Starship Troopers has sought to portray the regime of the Terran Federation as utterly fascist - ruthlessly executing dissenters, opposing religion and having practically no regard for either its civilians or those that serve. These have been considerably expanded upon in the 2nd two films. The 2nd - and utterly dire film, which presumably exists to make this one look better by comparison - one showed us the Mobile Infantry as merely "meat for the grinder"... which given the laughable tactics and horribly ineffective weapons they're given, seems fitting - and about a million miles away from the exceptionally well equipped, well trained and exceptionally effective MI that Heinlein conceived of - and effectively created/popularised the idea of power armour and even predicted the direction of military tactics in the real world.

The third film is somewhat more political than the previous incarnations... whereas their message of a fascist state with no real regard for human life was merely something that was mere mentioned in passing, here we have something going out of the way to make the point. Several scenes have character condemning those that don't "do their" part and the propaganda/news clips are where one can see the likes of Fox News being in about 10-15 years time in their unremittingly right wing agenda, with little apparent regard for whatever facts might happen to be in the way. It's so over the top that it actually passes through the overblown satire - which the first film did so well - and passes into eye rolling and indifference.

The film starts with the defence of some farm planet - the war is still ongoing... and the Bugs have bred some new species to help in their efforts to exterminate humanity. Apparently this is the "frontline" in the war... it's not made clear how, exactly. Apparently we have to take their word on it. Johnny Rico - clearly the actor fell on hard times - is hanging out there to defend it. One of his former comrades comes along - now a general - is there and so is the Sky Marshal... he's the head honcho, if you'd forgotten.

Johnny and his old pal go to the bar for a few drinks with T'Pol. There are a couple of hick farmers there who are bemoaning the fact the Federation are there, saving them from being bug chow - also, for some reason everyone is now referring to the bug as "Archie". Why is never explained... "BUUUUUGS!" seemed to work better... is it some kind of reference to the fact the Americans called the Viet-Cong "Charlie"? We may never know. As you'd expect with hick farmers shooting their mouths off in a bar, things end up with a brawl...

Long story short, something goes wrong - the colony is over-run. Johnny is blamed but avoids a court martial to go off on a super secret mission that means he'll only really come back in the last 5 minutes... He's going to work on the film's namesake MARAUDER!

The Skymarshal heads up to his ship in orbit, they somehow get hit while at warp and have to abandon ship. Naturally, we follow T'Pol and the Skymarshal as they crash onto a big ol' generic desert planet - it does have a sea but all we really see is the desert. There's no time for a rendition of "we do like to be beside the seaside" because the twitchy chef - whose chances of survival are about the same as him winning the lottery - sees a bug.

For some reason, despite the fact they're supposedly all members of the military, discipline and the chain of command instantly breaks down. The cook is jittery, the Sky Marshal's aide turns out to be a religious nut (which is illegal, remember)... the big dumb strong guy isn't taking orders, neither is the doctor... and the Sky Marshal is out to lunch... Looks like it's T'Pol's job to hold it together.

She decides to move away from the escape pod - the merits of this plan are debatable. You're in a big ol' desert... here you've got a defensible position, you'd be passing that up to... what, wander around on a barren enemy infested planet? Kind of makes you think they should have taken some marines with them instead of the flotsam and jetsam with the most important man in the Federation.

Or is he? Johnny's friend Dix finds that a distress message from the Sky Marshal was classified. Although, he shouldn't be surprised as he saw the admiral that did it impersonate him to deliver a speech... anyway, turns out she has thought that the Sky Marshal has been compromised by the brain bug they captured and now believes the "brain of brains" to be God... so yes, he's gone batshit crazy.

As you can guess, things don't go so well in the desert. The doctor confesses the Sky Marshal has gone off the deep end - as if you need a medical opinion, when the guy starts spouting about God all of a sudden and how he had a jolly nice chat with him. Shortly after this, the doc falls down a hole... then the twitchy chef meets his end... The CGI of the bugs here is absolutely DIRE, it's at times worse than the CGI cartoon... if they weren't spending the budget on the script or actors or effects... what WERE they spending it on?

The Sky Marshal reveals to his remaining compatriots that God is the bug "brain of brains" and that he's going to make peace with it... by which he obviously means, spill his guts about the disposition of human forces and lead to their total destruction... so in other words, a bad thing. Which is all related to us by the uber-brain itself... sigh. Fortunately the agony is almost over. Johnny Rico turns up in some mechs that he stole from Command & Conquer and amazingly they're actually effective against the bugs - there's a first time for everything... they save T'Pol and her bible bashing friend - both of them praying like they mean it, in possibly the most idiotic religious conversion scene ever.

They blow up the uberbrain by destroying the planet... religion is adopted because the Admiral observes that it's a good way to instil mindless obedience - pretty cynical, eh?

It's fair to say, it's not as awful as the previous instalment - their guns actually shoot something more threatening than blinking lights and the characters aren't walking personifications of every war film cliché ever... however, at least that film was actually a cohesive effort... a fucking awful one that probably could induce brain damage but it was a film that knew where it was going.

Starship Troopers 3 wants to do a whole bunch of things... but it doesn't really succeed in any of them. The religion angle is laughable - T'Pol converts to religion because the bible basher tells her to pray... uhuh. Given her utter contempt for religion before that, it seems fairly stupid. Especially as she's saved by Johnny Rico in his C&C brand mechs.

It seems conceivable that these "Marauders" are a doth of the cap to the original concept of the Mobile Infantry using power armour but really, it seems a bit late in the day to be worrying about the vision of Heinlein... because he'd likely be so outraged by the senseless idiocy of the first film, he'd have no inclination to see the others unless it was for a massive law suit... And in any case, these are more mini-mechs than true powered armour and their "strategy" is essentially "stand in a line and shoot the hell out of everything"... so, it's not as if mobility is a huge factor... they might as well have sent in moving pill boxes.

And of course, there's the Fox...uh, Federation News Network... espousing the death of "peace terrorists"... it really does go past satire to just trying so hard to hammer home a point that it's insulting. Yes - they're fascists who hate free speech and demonise people who exercise free thought an execute any who question the war or the Federation.

All in all - a car crash that should be avoided at all costs... there's nothing here for anyone. Not the sci-fi fan, not the action fan... not even fans of the original film. Even intoxicated, this makes for difficult viewing.

2008-07-11T07:13:00.000-07:00

Gotham Knight - or the Batmanamatrix, in reference to the notion it emulates the Animatrix, referencing the same continuity but ultimately being of little true consequence to the film that precedes or succeeds it - is the newly released Batman animation.

The six stories told are without a great deal of overlap... being as they are, simply set in the interim between the end of the last film and before the beginning of the Dark Knight... suffice to say that while the style varies between them that the animation is all of a suitably high quality - although, it's rather strange to see the slightly different realisations of Batman and Bruce Wayne, as they're all voiced by the same voice actor.

The stories vary considerably - from Batman testing out a magical bullet shield (which is fortunately one of the shorter stories and where Batman quickly rejects the device), to Batman saving cops from a mobster shoot out all the way through to Batman and Deadshot facing off. The Animatrix seemed to flounder because of it's different directors and styles... and the Animatrix was essentially just a way for the Wachoski Brother's to introduce the irritating hero-worshipping Kid and explain how Zion was aware of the Machine's digging.

Gotham Knight doesn't have any stories that are facilitated by a particular plot need. They're presumably just what the writers thought would be cool... and it works and even if you find one of the stories dragging a bit, you've always got the prospect of another one just around the corner... all in all, an excellent way to whet the appetite for the new Batman.

2008-07-05T05:52:00.000-07:00

Stargate staggers on to a second direct-to-DVD movie... We've already seen off pretty much everyone that opposed SG-1, all they've got left is Baal... who had a lot of clones but the film starts with us being told that the last clone has been captured and they're about to perform a symbiote extraction on the Tok'ra homeworld.

As Baal is a SG-1 bad guy, this naturally has the usual - banter where he makes grandiose claims about revenge. Unlike most of the other times that system lords have had their backs to the wall, this time it actually works out. Turns out while this guy IS the last clone - the real Baal was smart enough to turn off his transmitter thing and is still alive and well and even built a time machine. We have a kind of "The Sound of Thunder" moment as people are able to SEE changes in the timeline - most notably people disappearing... it turns out that these changes are apparently moving at the speed of plot because there's plenty of time for the remaining SG-1 (O'Neill gets stabbed by the clone, Teal'C and Vayla vanish) get to the stargate and travel back to Earth.

Turns out though, it's not their Earth. Well, it's their Earth but where the Stargate programme never existed because Baal went back in time and blew up the ship carrying the Stargate... well, almost. Turns out Mitchel's grampappy tossed the explosive overboard so that it just ended up frozen in the Artic. Anyway, as you'd guess the chances of them escaping being pretty much nil - they're rescued by O'Neill... except, this being an alternate timeline - he doesn't know them... except Carter, she's a dead astronaut.

What happens next is necessary for reasons of - amazingly - logic and plot. The three of them are all debriefed at length where they explain the Stargate programme, the alternate timeline and how they need to fix things before Baal comes along and rapes the fucking shit out of them. General Landry - because naturally, it being an alternate timeline they don't bump into different people... just people they know from their timeline - points out that SG-1 doesn't have the RIGHT to change what is the status quo for this entire universe... clearly somewhat missing the point that Baal isn't exactly keen on humans... them being mere cattle to him and all. Still, it is a valid argument - who are SG-1 to say their timeline should take priority. Maybe everything in this universe will be just smiles and sunshine? Hahaha and Teal'C might stop saying "indeed". So, anyway everyone signs non-disclosure agreements and agrees not to communicate. They're all relocated across the country and then we get the ol' "years pass" montage in which precisely fuck all happens.

Yeah... this thing has been going on a while and a whole lotta nothing has happened. Presumably the writers realised that too because at this point Baal's uber fleet jumps into system - yeah, this is one of the shots they used for the very misleading trailer - and they sit there. We get a who's who of the old system lords but none of them get much more than a couple of words to say. Naturally, Teal'C is here and Gould Vayla - who is Baal's queen... yeah, choose a woman who is pretty treacherous WITHOUT the extra treacherous alien parasite - that won't come back to haunt you.

It's basically surmised that since his appearance, Baal has been doing very well because of his future knowledge... that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Sure, Baal would know where various Ancient pieces of technology were but the moment he starts doing things in this timeline, his knowledge of future events is going to become useless because... that's how causality works. He'd know the people he was playing against but it seems a bit foolish to say that his every move would be a right one. Evil Vayla makes it clear that she's suspicious of him... jeez, tip your hand why don't you.

Baal - unlike everyone else - seems Earth as a resource to exploit, rather than an enemy to nuke into oblivion and then take what's left in the debris... which seems pretty fucking sensible, even though Earth could essentially put up no resistance in this timeline... or at least - that's what Baal thinks.

As soon as a dozen big fat ships turn up - actually they send some recon flights around the Earth first but that's fairly irrelevant - SG-1 go and see the president. He's just as adamant about altering timelines. Anyway, their Stargate programme is apparently located in the Antarctic now and they're also drilling to the Ancient's weapon platform... so SG-1 head off in some F-16s. What follows is essentially the only pretty combat you'll see... F-16s vs. Deathgliders... And then some Migs... well, actually that happens after a strike on the two sites in Antartica and after Vayla - GASP! You'll never guess! - turns on Baal and cuts him in twain, then orders an immediate bombardment of Earth... but not before loyal Teal'C can run off to enact Baal's final plan.

Anyway, SG-1 go to the Russian Stargate - handy! - and magically, Teal'C arrives to help with a handy gadget for activating Stargates which aren't powered. They find out that Baal's time machine was actually just a massive system of satellites to look for solar flares throughout the galaxy - solar flares being what have caused time travel in previous instances. Apparently though, Vayla knew about this place... so, wait... she KNEW about the secret time travel machine all along and never thought to sneak off and use it herself? In fact why is she sending people there? Why not just nuke the damned place from space? Right about now she's just about queen of the god damned galaxy - there's no reason to do anything but blow this thing up and cement her rule. Also, Teal'c et al don't take more than an hour or two to get to the stargate... and yet Vayla is there about two minutes after them? Since when did they have Ludicrous speed on their motherships?

Regardless of these gaping plot holes, SG-1 basically hold off the bad guys who are ringing in - in something that wouldn't be out of place in an episode, really. Everyone dies, except Mitchell who gets through. Jump to the same scene from the start, except Mitchell is sitting in the hold with a rifle and him and the guy that gets vapourised the first time around shoot the fuck out of Baal and his minions. Which hits the reset button. We return to the present day, Baal burbles about his terrible revenge but nothing happens. The symbiote is extracted and then smashed on the ground. We see Mitchell's locker picture now has his grandfather and him from the other timeline... which really suggests that the timeline hasn't actually been truly reset but merely altered to essentially resemble the original more closely... Oh wait... didn't the EXACT SAME THING HAPPEN IN MOBIUS?! AND for that matter, 2010?

That's the sad inevitability of a time travel theme where things are so thoroughly altered... the reset button is going to be hit at the end because... fans would have a fit if you fundamentally altered the universe they loved and it would essentially be tossing all your old continuity out the window... so, any sci-fi fan worth their salt would know that things in this episode were always going to be temporary. Which really made it something of an exercise in anti-climax... not to mention the fact that this was sorely lacking in action... we spend a WHOLE lotta time in the middle with the SG-1 kids sitting around, moping about their lives and their inability to fix things.

And sure, they defeated Baal - FINALLY... but that's not exactly that exciting... and if he had been sitting on his time machine... why wait until all his clones were dead? Was that really necessary? Not that it really matters.

All in all, it's really... kind of dull. The action takes up precious little of the time and the rest is ponderous and ultimately irrelevant given that the reset button is hit. No character development, no revelations... not even any real fun and not even a particularly interesting plot. Don't bother seeing it - or you'll wish you could go back in time and destroy the DVD you bought.

2008-07-05T04:23:00.000-07:00

Hancock, Hancock, Hancock. There are a couple of different types of comedy film… you get the kind of relentless joke after joke films with no real attempt at any serious message, like The Naked Gun or American Pie. Then you get the films that can’t make up their damned minds and switch between serious and comic faster than you can blink – like East is East where scenes of domestic abuse can quickly transition to unattractive girls getting humped by very large dogs… Finally, there’s the films that start out funny and then about halfway through they go “Oh, how about a message and some seriousness?” Like… pretty much every Adam Sandler film and that’s the school from which Hancock seems to be spawned.

This will likely to some people feeling rather disappointed with Hancock because it essentially gets to the halfway mark and suddenly, loses all the fun energy and becomes rather serious and the joke count drops and you wonder what happened to the guy who wrote the first half of the film and why he didn’t write the second half.

Things start out with quite a lot of promise, Hancock is a drunken superhero whose intentions are good but whose methods leave a lot to be desired. Drunkenly destroying large amounts of property while trying to apprehend criminals and carelessly wrecking vehicles as he attempts to save people. Needless to say that this is quite the juxtaposition to Superman… as Hancock’s appearance is greeted with derision and contempt. This really could have been a great premise if only it was explored in more depth but halfway in this film is barely forty five minutes, so depth isn’t something we can really afford.

So - Hancock saves a somewhat down on his luck but all around good guy PR chap from an immensely unlikely accident. The crowd are pretty much shouting "YOU SUCK!" because of his hamfisted rescue technique. PR guy says "Hey, he just saved my life!" So, PR guy takes Hancock home for dinner... because, well he just saved his life. PR guy and his son seem to be about the only people in LA that like Hancock... PR guy's wife seems to be instantly on edge - so you know somethings up there.

Inevitably, the PR guy tries to turn Hancock around - he realises that he's inherently a good guy, trying to do the right thing and that people should love him - not hate him. It's not actually made particularly clear why Hancock is so bad at his rescues... He's a sloppy drunk, sure but you don't go around trying to rescue people who keep complaining for no reason... but that's never really elaborated upon... Anyway, PR guy convinces Hancock to hand himself over to the authorities to show he wants to make amends for essentially being a monumental fuck up as regards property damage and so, he's sent to jail.

If you hadn't guessed, this is pretty much the point at which the film gets serious. PR guy's basic plan is - if Hancock is a good guy, turns himself around and stops fucking up that they'll want him back as crime soars... yeah, we've got a city full of people that commit blatant crime when there's a Superman analogy (even a drunk one) around... that's pretty much a given in these situations though. Anyway, we spend some time showing how Hancock is progressing and eventually the chief of police calls him in for a nasty hostage situation from a bank job gone wrong. Hancock swoops in and saves the day without destroying everything.

There is adulation for Hancock as he becomes the hero he should have been, PR guy is naturally now everyone's best pal - although, he still wants to push his world changing branding... but people are really only interested in Hancock. Hancock relates how he woke up 80 years ago in a hospital and recalls nothing of his life before that moment - hence when the nurse asked for his "John Hancock", he assumed that was his name... but little more of his history is related.

Apparently PR guy had a skin full and when they get home, he goes upstairs to sleep it off. The tension between Hancock and PR guy's wife culminates in a kiss - followed by her tossing a fridge at him, knocking him out into the street. He's stunned but the next day - when the film seems to remember that it started out as a comedy - he smacks her about with various kitchen items while her husband is distracted and she agrees to meet up and tell him what the deal is.

Turns out, both of them are part of some race of superpowered beings who have been around for over 3,000 years. Everyone else has died though, apparently the one weakness they have - and yes, it's really as stupid as it sounds - they were created in pairs and they're drawn to one another, when they're in proximity their powers fade and they become mortal and die. Apparently this has happened several times with Mary and Hancock but he got brained when he was mortal 80 years ago and got the most common brain condition in Hollywood, AMNESIA!

The idiot crooks that Hancock beat in the hostage situation are showing just how stupid they are... because, despite the fact Hancock gets shot and wounded stopping a robbery... there is NO POSSIBLE WAY they could have known he was going to lose his powers unless they're psychic... So, they were pretty much going to chase after a guy who is bullet proof. Damn, they deserve the schooling they get.

As you can guess, Hancock decides it is a far, far better thing he does now... and flies off to save New York and leaves PR guy and his wife to live a normal life... even though she's immortal.

It really feels that the breaks slam on as soon as Hancock decides to reform. The second that happens, the film gets to be a LOT more angsty. It's more drama... the comedy comes to be thin on the ground and you're left wondering what happened to that rather amusing initial premise... because that's how the film was sold. Not very good superhero... but then it turns out he's actually a 3000 year old superbeing whose one weakness is Charlize Theron.

We don't really find out just why he's drunk and a fuck up... Oh, he rises to the challenge PR guy sets him but that's such a generic, loser makes good that if it weren't for the superhero angle - it wouldn't be anything remarkable... It's short and yet, it feels like it drags. The initial premise disregarded for no real reason. It's initially enjoyable but it just becomes so generic that the fairly original concept might as well not have been bothered with. It honestly feels as if the writer for the funny first part walked out after penning the first thirty minutes.

Probably best to wait for the DVD to rent... all the wasted potential just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

2008-07-04T04:03:00.000-07:00

Wall-E is the much anticipated Pixar film about a cute little robot thinger... although, given the fact that Pixar is churning out more films like Finding Nemo than Toy Story or The Incredibles - you have to wonder why people love them so... Disney's insipid influence is clearly starting to show... but at least Wall-E isn't an orphan or something...

So, the film starts out with Wall-E zipping around a deserted Earth city which is littered with mountains of garbage. Him and his cockroach pal hang out and it's all very cute - no dialogue or anything, just him mooching around. Very pretty but beyond indicating that humanity are out in space, not a lot is going on.

So, this could go on forever but then, Eve - a shiny i-pod like robot - comes along and then we essentially have more of the same for a while until she finds a plant, which she takes and then causes her to shut down. Then she gets hoisted off by her ship and we have a long protracted scene where Wall-E is basically trying to get back to her. Again - it's got some great visual spectacle but the plot content is microscopic and dialogue is minimal... but then given the fact that both the main characters are all but mute - that shouldn't be a surprise.

We find humanity has been - as intimated on Earth - floating around in space because things went tits up. This has apparently led them to become pampered blobs who achieve nothing as their every whim is catered for from birth to death by fleets of cutesy robots. Some deranged Right wingers in the USA think this is liberal propaganda but really, it seems like more of an excuse to have the cutesy robots flying around. The humans are pretty much relegated to second place and besides a tangential and mostly irrelevant subplot of romance between two of them spherical humans, only the Captain really has any significance at all.

Because, as it turns out - the EVE robots have been checking Earth for signs of life for 700 and now it's become capable of sustaining life again. Which leads to operation recolonisation - heading back to Earth and starting over... it's not made clear if the Axiom contains the entirety of the surviving human population nor why - as they have FTL - why they didn't just try looking for a new planet... but then, this film makes little effort to be engaging for adults like Toy Story and The Incredibles. Which is sad because part of what made Pixar good was the ability to relate to more than one demographic...

Anyway, for reasons that aren't entirely clear - the plant inside EVE has disappeared and that needs to be stuck in an analyser so everyone can go home... but the prospect of going home starts to get to the Captain, as he realises that humanity has literally spent the last 700 years sitting on its ass. As it turns out though, this is because project "Cleanup" failed and this has - for some reason... mostly that of plot - been kept secret. The auto-pilot, which is literally an evil steering wheel, then decides that the status quo must be maintained...

As one can imagine, this leads to more chasing around. Some of it actually in space, where Wall-E and EVE get to act about as romantic as robots get. Naturally, the plant is found and they must rush to try and get it back... so, a lot more chasing and pretty CGI etc. but often little amusing or interesting... it would be no simplification to say, evil auto-pilot is defeated, plant is returned and everyone returns to Earth and lives happily ever after.

There's just nothing to it. Yes - it's pretty and yes, it's cute but even for a paltry ninety minutes, this really struggles to justify itself plot wise. Of course, that's what you'd expect when you've got your main characters a couple of words away from mute. There's some nice emoting from both Wall-E and EVE, considering they lack actual faces and the obvious thread in the film is as much the relationship between the two of them as it is the struggle to get humanity back to Earth but there's not really much time taken out from the set pieces and mooching around to give any justice to the latter. The relationship is nicely understated for a kids film... but really, that's all you can say about this film. It's a good kid's film.

That's a stark contrast to the aforementioned Toy Story and The Incredibles, which one could say were pretty good films - period. That's because they had layers to them, there was a plot, characters, action and a humour that functioned on more than one level. This film makes no concessions to adults and so... what is there to say? Fine for the kids but not something to seek out unless you're a blind and unquestioning Pixar fan.

2008-06-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

It's best to start out by stating two facts.

First off - Bioware is one of those rare game companies that are almost entirely reliable. In fact, only Blizzard are comparable in terms of consistency. Which means that their games are almost always - Neverwinter Nights offered a fairly poor single player experience - fantastic... it's something gamers appreciate and something that is incredibly rare.

Secondly - Mass Effect IS a good game. Criticisms which are about to be laid at its feet are not impediments to that fact... merely things which stopped it being quite as epic as it should have been.

The first thing to point out is - Mass Effect doesn't optimises your configuration... initially this made it seem as if it was an uber whore, putting Sanginus Nox - a machine that managed to cope admirably with Crysis - into jerk city... Fortunately this turned out to be because the audio was running on software alone... once that was sorted the game ran just fine. Also, your experience with the DRM may vary... but as usual, it seems to have been more of an impediment to legitimate players than pirates... Clearly it's asking too much for publishers to learn lessons.

The premise of Mass Effect is fairly standard - you're trying to stop the run of the mill bad guy from destroying the galaxy. It's more elaborate - naturally - but it's hard to go on without spoiling it. Although, the story doesn't develop so much as it is spilled out by various bouts of exposition. This is probably one of the main flaws of the game... you never really get the feeling the plot is developing, you just blunder from one plot update to another. Not only that but if you've played Knights of The Old Republic, there are some definite similarities. Although, that said - while the premise it uses is somewhat cliche, the universe it's set in is definitely interesting and is probably one of the strongest aspects of the game.

It's inaccurate to dub this game an RPG... at least in the traditional sense... the game is more Deus Ex than KOTOR in that there's no RPG style tick-tock round combat - which KOTOR contained... albeit in a rather unobtrusive manner. Although, it's third person and of course, you can pause to issue orders to your squad. At points the game actually manages to give you what are fairly realistic firefights. Which is to say, unlike in an RPG when range attacks will be exchanged briefly before everyone runs at one another to get within melee range - if you break cover to try and run up and bash people on the head here or just stand out in the open, you're probably going to end up dead and unlike KOTOR, if your main character dies in a fight - game over. This can be a little irksome but at least makes sense as the control you have over your squad mates is fairly loose. Which can become frustrating when they stand in the middle of a room and die, overall it's fairly passable - although the enemy AI does occasionally have a propensity to stop hiding and just run at you or try and circle strafe at point blank range.

The combat itself has configurable difficulty, ranging from the hand holding "point in the general direction of something and it falls over dead" to "hardcore gamers only", presumably the options are there so that those not au fait with more realistic, less tick tock combat are not frightened by a game that does occasionally require reasonable accuracy and reflex - at least on the higher settings. Of course, the options included allow you to determine whether the combat is a formality or a big part of the game. Regardless, it's a fairly intuitive system and barring the occasional idiocy of your squad mates it's quite enjoyable. As you'd expect, weapons and armour can be upgraded and there are variety of items out there - some better than others. Rather vexingly, weapon skills are class specific - so, if you're a Vanguard, no matter how good you get, you'll never be able to skill up with an assault rifle. You can still use one but even crouching down on a single shot basis with no wind, you'll be lucky to hit the broad side of a moon. Also, there's a notable absence of melee weapons... you can run up and pistol whip people but no discernible melee weapons but then given the combat dynamics of the game, they'd probably be the equivalent of suicide for all but the most heavily armoured and shielded individuals.

An interesting aspect of the weapons are that you can buy licenses. Basically this means that there are some merchants who will sell you a license and that the vendor on the Normandy can then stock that brand of weapons or such - as there are several companies that produce weapons. It's nothing huge, just an interesting touch that adds something for the more obsessive player to do... although, some of the sidequests would surely provide just as much of that.

Romances and party subplots are a little thin on the ground - but then when you take into account the fact that the game is so short, that's not surprising but more on that later - and on the first play through, despite trying to pursue a relationship with the blue chick, randomly the human girl ended up jumping Sheppard's bones... with no real warning... so, it was rather... hollow, not at all like the romance options in KOTOR or Baldur's Gate 2 where there could be lengthy and sometimes tricky romances. The sex scene that Fox News decided to start foaming at the mouth at is laughable - you're likely to see raunchier things in shampoo commercials. All-in-all, this aspect felt somewhat tacked on... a mere concession to the Bioware tradition. It's not bad but it feels so woefully underdeveloped and for one of the love interests to throw herself at you when you've not really pursued any of the romantic interest options is just poor.

Speaking of tacked on there are two other aspects of the game which feel rather incongruous in this way... the most obvious is the Mako. Basically, when you go to a planet that isn't in the main plot - you get dropped in the Mako... basically a magical tank that never gets flipped over and can go up almost vertical inclines. It's not bad... in fact, sometimes driving around and blowing up enemies in this fashion is actually pretty fun but sometimes bumping around on the uneven terrain of a planet, hoping to find stuff - ore deposits only show up on your radar, not the overview map. It's really the driving around on the uninteresting planets going from point A to B over abysmal terrain that proves to be irksome. In fact it feels as if they've tried to increase the action quotient with this aspect of the game as there are several main plot missions where you're essentially forced to hop in the Mako and drive along a preset route. It's just something that feels slightly out of place in the game but that for whatever reason Bioware shrugged and decided they'd stuck it in there, they might as well make use of it. It's not bad but it just gets boring after a while.

The other is the irritating subgame that you have to play EVERY time you want to try and open a locker or pick up an artifact or even survey minerals. Essentially you have to move an arrow to the centre of a circle in 15 seconds - although, hacking skills are still relevant and if you've gone someone that isn't imbued with the right skills, you should prepare for just about every box to be unhackable within relatively short order... not that it matters. Regardless, it's just a somewhat irritating and pointless endeavour that doesn't add anything to the game except a level of irritation. Fortunately you are sometimes afforded the chance to simply use "omni-gel".

Unlike KOTOR, Bioware seem to have deliberately made this game more console friendly. You don't have a proper inventory... just a big long list of the stuff you've got... also, no searching bodies for loot... although, that's a nice time saver... the level up situation is a lot simpler than previous games Bioware games too. Given the combat logistics, it's not surprising the D&D rules are out the window. There are no attributes like strength, intelligence etc. to mess around with. All you've got are the various skills your class has, some need to be unlocked but beyond getting a specialisation - these are the skills that will have to do you for the entire game.

The rogue equivalents in this game basically get a bunch of tech related stuff that lets them mess with other people. Affect the overheat of their weapons, hack AI and so on... the caster equivalent use mass effect things - which equate to toss people around, mostly... which NEVER stops being hilarious to watch. Plus it tends to render groups of enemies all floaty and useless... and the DoT warp allows you to bypass shields... which is a real bonus with some enemies.

And of course, what kind of Bioware game would it be without the aspect of morality? As with previous Bioware titles, you are often presented with opportunities to act nobly, selfishly or just indifferently. At times, conflict can be entirely circumvented by the correct dialogue and at other times, one can force conflict with a suitably belligerent attitude and even the most satisfying - cold blooded murder in public for your own gains.

An example - choosing the Earth background means at some point your character will be approached by someone from a gang you used to run with. He asks you to talk to a turian who is has a fellow gang member in custody. Naturally you can either choose at this point to take the mission or tell the guy to get lost. When you proceed to the turian, you can then either try and persuade him to free the criminal or tell him the gang member's plan. The latter prompts the gang member to arrive at which point you literally have the option to just turn around and shoot him in the head to prevent him from spreading stories of your somewhat chequered past. So, essentially all the depth that you'd expect... one very slight difference is that the dialogue responses are not word for word what will be said but rather the general tone but as you'd expect the choices you make mould the game and there can be significantly different outcomes given your responses.

The most vexing thing about the game is... just as things seem to be gaining pace... it's over. The main missions and a good portion of the sidequests can be be completed in a little over 20 hours... naturally, there are more sidequests for those inclined to go looking - there are several systems that you never have any cause to go to which are there essentially for the purposes of additional missions. The main plot breaks into essentially 7 missions - naturally, you can just play through them at any point - but it's not exactly compelling. There's no sense of uncovering a mystery like there was in KOTOR - you fight your way through the requisite bad guys and then are generally treated to a few steaming portions of plot exposition. In fact, several times this plot exposition is really only tangential to the main plot and so there's something of a feeling that you're really only seeing the development of the main story in the final act where it's essentially threeish exposition fests which explain something that any astute player will probably have clocked pretty soon into the game.

The fact that the story itself is built upon sci-fi cliche upon sci-fi cliche doesn't help. Ok, there are some aspects of sci-fi that are just so cool that people can't help but use them over and over but surely a different spin could have been put on things... compared to compelling yarns that Bioware has done before this one comes off as too short and too shallow. KOTOR gave you pretty extensive dialogue options with your crew and while there's some banter in the levels, the interaction never really gives you any feeling of true depth and there are hardly any of the spontaneous NPC on NPC interactions of those games - a little talking in lifts but that's about it...

But then, given the games length - that hardly seems surprising... and it really is to its detriment. While Mass Effect certainly does a good job of hitting the ground running the main plot missions don't feel particularly pressing until the last act and then when there's all that momentum built up - the credits roll. Now, as mentioned above - there is the option of galactic exploration, fly to clusters and get assigned missions when you get there, find a bunch of things etc. There's no doubt that there are many more hours in the game for someone who fastidiously WANTS to 100% the game... but surely if the game was better designed then these wouldn't have required you to go somewhere "just because"... and it seems fair to comment that Mass Effect WAS advertised as epic and seems to think of itself as epic... the potential was there but it's never realised and the fact that this is apparently being stretched across a trilogy seems to be a concession to EA's lust for profits over quality games rather than any sort of vision of Bioware.

In the final analysis, it's a fun game that can be enjoyed by RPGers and action game fans in roughly equal measure - although RPG fans may be left somewhat disappointed by the rather shallow dynamics - and while it's good, it feels as if it was really just getting started. No sooner have you got into the swing of things than it's over - oh, naturally there's the replay value of going through it again, looking for those random sidequests, playing it as evil instead of good, etc. but it's never really the same the second time through and given that this game is from Bioware, it's rather disappointing that it's all over so soon. Which is, in it's way - a backhanded compliment... but then, when you're forking over your cash for a game, you probably want something that will take you more than a few days of hard gaming to burn through, don't you? In fairness, still better value than going to see a film and it is enjoyable, pretty and interesting... it's just a shame that it's (relatively) shallow and short... let's all hope that Bioware hasn't sold their soul to the devil by working with EA...

2008-06-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

M. Night Shymalan - or M Night Shitalan as he's more commonly known - is currently being defined by his meteoric descent into uber lame. He impressed with Sixth Sense but to say it was downhill from there would be like saying the centre of the Sun was a little bit warm. Naturally, as the man works in Hollywood - and people are stupid enough to go and see how much his films suck - the one trick wonder still has a job.

So, to surmise this holocaust of bland boritude so you need not suffer the torture... After a bunch of construction workers jump off their building, cut to Billy Wholesome, the Maths teacher is asking kids about the bees - where did they go. It's not important to pay attention to this. Bees are completely irrelevant. Actually, everything is.

Anyway, after this utterly irrelevant parcel of bland we cut to Billy Wholesome and the other teachers getting told there has been some terrorist attack and it's time for school to be out. Billy talks to his mate who gives us pointless information about Billy's marriage - this will also prove irrelevant! - and then they're off home and then meeting at the train station. The train stops in the middle of nowhere because apparently no one is talking. FOREBODING!

So Billy Wholesome, his weird wife and the extraneous child - that belongs to Billy Wholesome's friend - are hanging out at a local dinner, trying to figure out what to do. Billy Wholesome's friend is there too. He's actually a more interesting character than everyone else put together - but given the number of people dying, you know someone interesting is going to die real soon... and yeah, there isn't anyone else. Sorry, chief. The news in the dinner suggests that the pattern of attacks is spreading across the Eastern seaboard and is affecting smaller population centres. Everyone in the dinner clocks that they're smack bang in the centre of the affected area and people decide to get the hell out of dodge rather than going the wrong way or staying where they are.

Billy Wholesome's friend is intent on meeting up with his wife - oh, you just KNOW that'll end well. Anyway, there are some not very tearful farewells and extraneous child is given to Billy to look after. Billy et al get a lift from some hippies, one of whom suggests that plants have suddenly magically started making the neurotoxin that makes people kill themselves and waffles on in the kind of way you expect of someone in an M. Night film to do.

We have a group of people meet up at the road and they decide to head out into the fields, away from everything... if this was just about any other film ever, these people would live because this is the film equivalent of genius level IQ these days... not running toward the problem, avoiding population centres... of course, they're allowed to do this because it gets them killed. WHAT A TWIST!

Billy Wholesome is pondering this whole conundrum. Why smaller and smaller population centres? Oh, did his friend died. Yeah. No real relevance to anything but presumably they felt they needed to give some closure rather than just have him disappear. Anyway, Billy thinks that ol' hippy was right and somehow plants are responsible... then when the larger group ahead of them end up shooting themselves he decides that the plants reaction is being triggered by smaller and smaller groups of people - you can tell people are going to die when the wind starts blowing... and yes, it really IS that idiotic. This is confirmed when Billy sees two groups converge and get to dying. Ah, poor hapless characters... if this were a monster movie or a zombie movie you may have lived...

Billy's picked up some smart talking kids from the previous group. Thankfully, when Billy tries to stop by a hick house for help they get shot to death... They keep going and get to your bog standard crazy old woman's house. She's one up on the hicks though, what with not want to blow their heads off. The crazy old woman really lives up to her name. She invites in three strangers - she's a shut-in and hence oblivious to "The Happening". Apparently it's just good manners to invite strangers into your house, feed them and put them up for the night because damn she hates them! This isn't exactly helped when Billy is found going through her stuff.

Eventually, she goes outside and then ends up killing herself by smashing the windows in. Billy runs to lock himself in a room. For reasons of dramatic suspense, his wife and extraneous kid are in an outhouse that's connected to the main house with a speaking tube - mentioned earlier for no reason than to set this scene up. It's supposed to be touching but much like the rest of the film, falls flat because the characters are dull and struggle to be two dimensional. Eventually Billy decides he doesn't need no stickin' tree spawned neurotoxin to have a death wish and runs outside into the gale that symbolises the deadly death thing... and he's OK! WHAT A TWIST!

Yup, probably tens of millions of people are dead but it's ok because these jokers survived... It also goes to show just about anyone could have survived this ordeal by staying inside and closing the windows and doors... Anyway, no need to worry about that because cut to a few months later, the trio of two dimenisons are living happily together and Billy got his boring wife knocked up...

Cut to France, a gale starts to blow and... EVERYONE STOPS MOVING! SACRE BLEU! WHAT A TWIST!

This film clocks in at under the regulation summer fare of ninety minutes but it'll feel like longer. There's no easy way to describe this film's genre... possibly suspense? It's not horror and it's a million miles away from action... but it's hard to call this film a suspense because it... well, it lacks suspense. There's a lot of Billy puzzling through events but despite the people dying, there's relatively emotional involvement. The only person who shows anything beyond bland ends up sitting in the middle of the road, slitting his wrists. After having watched this film - you may well know that feeling.

2008-06-15T05:05:00.000-07:00

Ang Lee's Hulk was as big a commercial success as it was a critical failure - which is the obvious reason behind the Ed Norton reboot the Incredible Hulk. As a reboot, all of the Ang Lee material is - of course - totally disavowed and we have a fresh start... new actors, new origins and so on.

Ol' Bruce has been on the run for sometime and he's hiding in Brazil. He's doing just fine at that until he accidentally gets blood into Stan Lee's POWER THIRST. It seems Stan Lee's job is now to appear in ALL Marvel films in increasingly gratuitous cameos... Although, this one is still not quite as toe curling as his appearance in Fantastic Four 2.

Anyway, as you can guess. Stan Lee's "gamma poisoning" is instantly equated with Brucie, so General "Thunderbolt" Ross sends his crack team to the bottling plant - including veteran Emil Blonsky. As you'd guess, the capture operation goes tits up and Banner gets angry and then proceeds to trash the team, much to Blonsky's chagrin.

As you can guess, the Hulk does a bunk and Bruce finds himself in Central America. Having been rumbled in Brazil, he decides to go in search of the data that will allow him to cure the raging spirit that dwells within.

Blonsky points out to General Ross that the mission went tits up because of a big green MONSTAH! Ross informs Blonsky that Banner IS the MONSTAH, which leads to Blonsky volunteering for some of your Captain America flavoured super soldier formula. Which comes in handy when he goes to take down Banner for a second time.

Because, there's nowhere else for Bruce to go and get the data than the university of his sweetheart, Betty Ross. There's some of the usual messing around before the military rumble them. What follows is a fairly awesome Hulk vs. military scene on the university campus... Blonsky tried to take on the Hulk one on one... BAD IDEA. He ends up so many shards of broken bone in encased in flesh. If you didn't see that coming... well...

Of course, thanks to magical super soldier formula - he fixes right up and goes for another dose. During the interim, Bruce and Betty go to see the secret Internet contact that he had, who proposed a cure... they go through with said cure and it seemingly works but Banner finds out that "Mr. Blue"... then it turns out that he's actually your run of the mill mad scientist and wants to do the most diabolical of all things HELP PEOPLE! The fiend.

Brucie can't bear the thought of his misery helping to cure disease and the like and insists that all the blood - how Mr. Blue created all this blood is never really explained... presumably he has a blood-o-matic or some such. Anyway, before Bruce can do anything he gets pumped full of tranquillisers and taken into custody.

Blonsky decides now would be a good time to get pumped full of Banner's blood and becomes Abomination while Mr. Blue get some accidentally creating an obvious means for The Leader to make an appearance.

Anyway, Abomination gets his super villains goody bag and finds out the first thing super strong supervillains do is head downtown and start tearing the place up. This leads to some amusing momentary confusion wherein they think the Hulk is loose again. Once they deduce it's Blonsky, Banner decides to jump out the helicopter in the hopes that the cure didn't actually work... jeez, what an optimist. (Un?)Fortunately, the cure was about as effective as crystal therapy and as such we get a protracted fight between Hulk an Abomination that is pretty much everything that the Ang Lee film lacked. The Hulk schools Abomination and then flees the scene - the end... well, except for the gratuitous Stark cameo with further allusions to the Avengers film.

All in all, it's a solid superhero blockbuster. You've got your superpowered bad guy - no Kryptonite mountains here! - you've got your drama, action and big explosions... all in all, this is pretty much everything Ange Lee's Hulk wasn't. The origin story gets about three minutes... and we aren't landed with it at the start... it's a nice change from the seemingly obligatory origin stories that are hoisted upon all superhero films... the obvious problem with an origin is it means you're lumped with a big impediment to pacing. Just look at Spiderman, encumbered by the necessity of setting up Peter Parker. The Incredible Hulk has no such obstacle... and it's nice to see that they didn't feel it necessary to impose it on the story. There are a few nice references in there for those watching - Lou Ferrago as a security guard, giant purple trousers... a few other references. Everything you want from a superhero film or a summer blockbuster and well worth the price of admission.

2008-05-26T05:39:00.000-07:00

You'd think that having the merchandising rights to Star Wars and having metaphorically just excreted 3 new films, that George Lucas would have had enough money to be going on with... but apparently he needs another golden Jarjar or some such, which is the only reason they'd revive Harrison Ford from his slumber to make a new Indiana Jones film.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this film is the fact it doesn't suck. Yes - pretty much everyone was expecting it to suck harder than a legion of berserker fellatio kamikaze hooker but clearly someone made enough threats on the lives of Lucas and Spielberg to make sure it wasn't holocaustically bad. Let's not be hasty - it's not Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Last Crusade... not by a long shot... but it somewhat surpasses Temple of Doom - by far the weakest of the original three films.

The film doesn't really waste any time... it's not long before some commies are get Indy to try and find some relic, atomic bombs are blowing up and so on. The problem the film has is rather intangible... oh, there are some obvious ones - that there's a dramatic disconnect as soon as they transition to the jungle... and that there's an abundance of silliness toward the end... but it simply doesn't have the "magic". Oh, there's Indy cracking his whip... having fisticuffs... all the regulation stuff but somehow it's just never quite able to recapture the feel of the old films... maybe it all got lost when they stuck in an obscene amount of CGI in there... or the ridiculous interdimensional aliens... or perhaps it's the vaguely irritating Indy junior or the fact the jungle chase scene goes on and on and on and the... on and on some more.

Perhaps it just feels slightly less substantial than its counterparts... it's an enjoyable film but it's easier to think of it as a decent summer blockbuster than it is to brand it a successor to the original trilogy... fun but ultimately, feeling too... sanitised to be true to the legacy. Worth watching? Certainly but somehow falling short of being entirely worthy of the title Indiana Jones...

2008-05-17T17:22:00.001-07:00

Time was, when the world was ending... it would end in America. Usually involving nukes, American soldiers or teens... or people and somehow, amazingly - things would clear right up when (their) red, white and blue was flying again etc. etc. Or not.

In recent years though, for some reason, it seems the British isles have become subject to the apocalypse. Be it infertility or viruses, the United Kingdom seems to be where it's at in terms of destruction and death... it makes a kind of sense. Britain allows for a contained environment for the apocalypse to play out but the rest of the world to be unaffected... or at least, such was the case in 28 Days Later...

Doomsday revisits the same basic idea as 28 Days Later - DEADLY VIRUS! Except this one just happens to be particularly virulent rather than turning people into flailing, murderous red eyed zombies... just kills them in a rather unpleasant way. So, after the outbreak in Glasgow someone thinks it's a great idea to just wall off Scotland and hope that fixes everything... Nuking Glasgow was probably a better prospect but oh well... Apparently this solution works just super until 20 years later, there's an outbreak of the virus in the now terminally overcrowded London and the PM sends generic crack troops in to find a cure.

As it turns out, things on the other side of the wall have gone Mad Max/Lord of the Flies... the total breakdown of social order and reversion of a sort of feudal existence... with some cannibalism thrown in... Plenty of the people die when the cannibalistic inhabitants of Glasgow ambush the APCs the team is in and naturally, they're on the menu but eventually the handy person on the inside lets them out and our heroine gets to go and see Malcolm McDowell, who was supposed to be finding a cure... when actually he's gone all kinds of batshit crazy. What is it with scientists in these situations? Do they go "Oh, well - time to go totally insane?" whenever this kind of stuff happens? Regardless, McDowell doesn't want to help Rona Mitra because he's got a castle now and pretty much set himself up as the king... oh and being batshit crazy, he thinks that technology is evil and that it's time for Rona to fight one of his nights.

Meanwhile, Bob Hoskins manages to accidentally cover Prime Minister Julian Bashir in blood when one of the infected magically enters what should probably be the most secure location in the country and subsequently the thinly veiled Gordon Brown scumbag underling takes over, planning to let the virus kill more people to thin the ranks... which for some reason he decides to tell Mitra "Oh, yeah - I was planning on getting the cure you slogged your guts out for... then sitting on my hands to effectively seal my grip on power. Kthxbye!"

Idiotic to say the least... and Mitra hasn't exactly found a cure. She knows that the people who survived had a natural immunity but there are people with a natural immunity to AIDS. That doesn't mean to say you take a litre of blood from someone with that immunity and magically get a cure. Oh, it would definitely help but this isn't like some GCSE science project you can knock out on a weekend.

Of course, when you've got someone who's saying that they're going to let a bunch of people die after you put your life on the line to save them - it's fairly clear that common sense isn't a plentiful resource in this film... Anyway, Mitra gives Bob Hoskin's a recording of evil not-Gordon-Brown saying he's going to let a bunch of people die, kills the punk who has been busting her chops for the entire film and decides to show his head to his old gang... which apparently means she's their leader.

A few logical asides here... The Reaper virus is supposedly deadly because of it's virulence... and yet somehow there was time for them to rebuild Hadrian's Wall AND outfit it with some fancy defence mechanism? Not to mention the logistics of an effective patrol around the coast of Scotland.

Then of course, one has to ask why people are still hanging out in cities... it would be beyond Captain Obvious levels of obviousness to state that society has broken down in the hot zone... yet cities by their nature require civilisation to sustain them. Even though the population was decimated, even relatively small numbers of people need a considerable amount of food and as it has been 10 years since the quarantine

And of course, the usual silly things - like retina scanners working for someone dead/unconscious... That situation was entirely stupid anyway. We're supposed to believe that there'd be a whopping 2 guards protecting the door to what should probably be the most secure location in the country? If you're that incompetent - you pretty much deserve everything you get.

Of course, films like this aren't meant for logical analysis. It's essentially a romp. The virus serves little other function than to offer a post-apocalyptic environment for our heroine to run about and fight in. The rapidity with which her team is disposed of is hilarious, they might as well have just shot themselves in the head the second they went through the gate... The film owes a depth of gratitude to the inevitable comparisons of Escape From New York and Mad Max... but it's clearly derivative but no less enjoyable in the typical action romp manner.

2008-05-05T03:31:00.000-07:00

Marvel Studios - the film arm of Marvel - made its first real foray into the superhero movie market with Iron Man... a character who (despite his recent prominence in the Marvel comic world) is far less well known than by the general public... while this claim could equally be levelled at Daredevil, Constantine, The Punisher and so on... none of them were hyped up to anywhere near the extent of Iron Man (even the new Incredible Hulk movie has been quiet by comparison)...

Most superhero origin films have felt a little weak... there's some need to build a character up before they fall into a bath of radioactive goop that gives them great powers and the ability to fit into incredibly tight costumes. In other words - you're spending a significant amount of time pretty much sitting around waiting for the person to go "OMG SUPERPOWERS!" Of course... perhaps by the nature of Iron Man... there's none of that. It's a more logical process... but then, that makes sense as there's a lot more logic to a guy building a big, bad ass power armour suit than there is to someone getting bitten by a spider and getting spider and emo superpowers.

So, anyway... the story goes pretty straight forwardly. Genius billionaire arms dealer Tony Stark - played by Robert Downey Jr. - goes off to Afghanistan to show the American military just how spiffy his new missiles are... why this can't be accomplished in America isn't ever explained because there are plenty of mountains to blow the hell out of in the USA... but there are fewer Afghani militants in the USA waiting to ambush the American military... So, Tony Stark gets taken hostage and is coerced into building his super duper Jericho missile because if there's one thing Taliban types want to do, it's blow the ever loving snot out of the mountains that cover their country.

The Taliban types aren't very bright because Tony Stark has an epiphany and realises it's time to repent for being an arms dealer and right wrongs... How does he do this? Well, he makes a big suit of power armour... quite how you can confuse a giant suit of armour with a state of the art missile is never explained but such plot details are neither here nor there. After a bit of heart to heart with a fellow captive, Stark gets his act together and runs off in a giant metal suit having killed a lot of people - naturally, his fellow captive heroically sacrifices himself to allow the armour to power up and kicks the bucket after a few last words to Stark.

As you'd expect, Stark skeedadles after setting a lot of stuff on fire. Somehow surviving a considerable fall and the disintegration of his armour on the way to moments later be fortuitously rescued by an American army chopper. He seems pretty fine when he gets home - despite having had the trauma of some time in captivity and so on. As you might guess - his business partner is all smiles and sunshine when he returns... until Stark says they won't be building weapons anymore... Of course, his business partner was responsible for Stark's imprisonment in the first place and selling weapons to the Ten Rings - a very unsubtle reference to the Mandarin for anyone that has any knowledge of the comics.

So, Tony jets off to save his dead friends village in another fairly cool action sequence which climaxes in the Tonster facing down to F-22s. Then, naturally Tony finds out that his business budy Stanes has been the one pulling the strings all along and that he has reverse engineered Stark's original powersuit. Which naturally leads to the climactic finale battle. No prizes for guessing who wins... and for those who choose to endure lengthy end credits, Samuel L. Jackson pops up to tell Downey that there's another film in it for him.

All-in-all, it's a good film. The action is slick and the effects all work, the look of the suits especially seems to work very well and while the "arc reactor" may in effect be just as magical as spider bites resulting in the ability to hang from walls, it seems much more plausible... so this film will likely be a lot more acceptable for people who find the notion of people firing beams from their eyes or acting like giant magnets to be rather childish.

In fact, Downey himself sells the character of Stark as rather relateable. There's no specific way to pin it down but he's very much the playboy and yet still, personable and human and not in the Bale's Batman is... with him, it's an act - as necessitated by the character... and that gives Downey more room to manoeuvre. He has that drink welded to his hand, sleeps around and yet, goes out and saves the day... oh, certainly we can't deny the comic book nature of his suit and his brawling antics... but he feels more real than most.

The real issue seems to be villains... It is important to have a villain (or villains) to face off again... and no one likes Darth Maul syndrome... actually, no one likes George Lucas anymore... but he can just play with all the Ewoks his money bought him. But beyond the final minutes, Iron Man has no real opponent... Sure, he gets away with the appearance of his business partner in the Iron Monger suit... but he's more of a finishing piece than someone who has been there all the way through...

Still, it easily surpasses Spiderman - if not in box office receipts than at least in interest and action... while it may not quite match Batman Begins it seems proof that Marvel can produce films that are more than just box office hits... it seems that it's own production studio has allowed it to be GOOD... whether The Incredible Hulk will prove this to be a trend or a fluke, remains to be seen.

2008-04-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

If you've watched (or read) the seminal Ghost In Shell - probably one of the best known, loved and critically acclaimed anime made - you might well have been experiencing physical pain of a non-specific nature... or perhaps a more general "I've got a bad feeling about this" for no specific reason.

The reason for this is probably that you're at some level aware that aforementioned seminal anime is going to become... a Dreamworks "live action CGI". That phrase is probably filling you with a sense of unease and foreboding... most likely because the last time you heard it was to describe the holocaustically bad Transformers.

Don't worry though, Steven Spielberg is REALLY keen on the project and his last great film was... uh... Jaws?

Prepare for disappointment.

2008-04-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

The funny thing about Jumper - other than the fact Hayden Christensen has inexplicably been cast in a major film after his Manakin Skywalker car crash performance in the Star Wars prequels - is how the protagonist basically forgets his old life then stops by to his old high school sweetheart... and no one remarks upon the fact he disappeared for ages... or the fact that he managed to escape death and so on. Clearly, people just returning from the dead is a regular occurance and one doesn't hold the lack of contact in the interim

Of course, Manakin manages to survive because he's like a less cool, less interesting version of Nightcrawler... yup, he can teleport. Although, Manakin can apparently teleport to anywhere he's seen (with just a photograph) in the whole world. Naturally, having bailed out of school and such, Manakin decides it would be a super idea to rob banks using his abilities. Which makes sense. What DOESN'T make sense is Samuel L. Jackson being part of a centuries old religious order that wants to lay the smack down on the Jumpers.

The Paladins have all manner of doo-dahs to track jumpers and incapacitate them. The only problem being... it's unlikely any of them could have been portable 20 years ago and unlikely most of the could even have existed 30 years ago. Hence the notion of Samuel L. Jackson's ancestors kicking the ass of Manakin's grandfather seems... idiotic. If it's a long standing movement... there were surely some like Griffin who weren't content to stand around and be murdered and even WITH the doo-dahs, they're still at a considerable disadvantage. Sure, Paladins might have had numbers on their side but it just seems hard to imagine them doing a good job.

Regardless Samuel L. Jackson doesn't want no MOTHER FUCKING JUMPERS ON HIS PLANET. So, he tracks Manakin down because... well, Manakin is an idiot having left a trail of breadcrumbs big enough to feed the 5000. Anyway, as you might guess - Manakin isn't too bothered about that - he's sleazing on his old sweetheart (if he liked her so damned much, why did he just forget her for more than 10 years? And how the hell does everyone INSTANTLY recognise him when he wasn't even knee high last time they saw him?) and he's found a somewhat stereotypical Scottish Jumper.

It really doesn't take a genius to work out what happens. Manakin takes his girl to Rome, where he and Griffin bump into some Paladins (his girlie doesn't notice) and then he lets her go home on her own... and she gets pissed. So he explains to her - as all men have to eventually - honey, I can teleport all over the shop... and no, I'm not as cool or as interesting as Nightcrawler. He 'ports her from her house to Griffin's lair... What a schoolboy error - because guess what? Samuel Mother Fucking Jackson has a big box of plot device that allows him to go through the "jump scars" (Manakin did that earlier to follow Griffin, so you can't say that it was entirely unexpected but that merely makes a direct jump to the lair even more stupid).

As you might guess, there's a bit of a fight where Griffin goes mental and does some ass kicking while Manakin kind of douches around and looks helpless while his girlfriend from the OC gets taken by SLJ back through the wormhole. Griffin decides that with the baddest mother on the other side and most of his Paladin pals, it would be a rather super idea to lob a bomb through and let the God they're ever so fond of sort them out. Manakin likes his girlie too much and so steals the detonator for the bomb. Cue the two Jumping all over the world, fighting for the detonator.

Why? Is the only question to ask here... Sure, you can't exactly go to your local hardware store and say "yeah, I'd like a detonator please." but the guy can go anywhere in the world, stop by somewhere and pick up a whole new bomb. Naturally, Griffin being on the side of girl killing - Manakin eventually manages to trap him in an electricity pylon... Electricity is shown to inhibit the ability to jump... but only due to the fact it inhibits the ability to concentrate... or something, in any respects... the chances are the pylon would either kill Griffin or that there wouldn't be any electricity running through it. Him standing there going "Ouch!" is just idiotic.

Griffin out the way, it's time to save the girl! As you can imagine, Manakin has a GREAT plan. Jump right in there! Which isn't so much a plan as idiocy. He's a good guy though, so his plan to jump the entire apartment works just fine. He 'ports it right into a lake and naturally, saves the girl... the fate of the other Paladins is somewhat unclear but he takes Samuel L. Jackson to a cave in the Grand Canyon and tells him that "I told you I was different." Presumably Samuel L. Jackson will agree... because no one else would have been stupid enough to leave him alive.

Finally, we have the touching reunion between Manakin and his estranged mother. She didn't leave because his father was a douche - she left because she was a Paladin and didn't want to kill him. Presumably if she'd quit being in a super secret organisation, she'd lose her health care and a good pension... so, abandoning her son was the logical course of action... and of course, having announced to her that he's alive... she naturally has to kill him... ah, the bond between mother and child - truly unbreakable.

The premise of the film is interesting enough... although, in all honesty it's like a somewhat less interesting take on Heroes... that is to say, ordinary people, extraordinary abilities... except they're all the same and half of them are Hayden Christensen. It's a predictable yarn and essentially follows the ol' boy meets girl but tosses in "boy disappears for 10 years due to teleportation ability" and "loses girls to secret religious order of technological murderers". The only reason to watch is to see people bamph all over the planet. Which is ok but hardly a reason to waste your time.

2008-04-04T06:37:00.000-07:00

The heart of any good zombie film - or pseudo zombie film - worth its salt, is the sense of a world turned upside down. A place where the rules have changed instantly, inexplicably and irreversibly. People go through disbelief and denial and eventually - if they manage to live long enough - they come to accept the grim truth, that there is only survival now.

Diary of the Dead may employ the now tired narrative method of "billy films everything"... but then, it does it for FAR more sensible reasons than Cloverfield did "I've got der camera, better film everything DUR!" No, Diary makes more sense in its documenting of the events that occur. In fact, in many senses - it's integral to the story.

Pretty much off the bat, things go South. The dead being so rude as to come back to life. A couple of sensible people decide to head out to the well fortified mansion. The rest decide to just mess around and go home. In a big ol' Winnebago... not the best zombiemobile but it seems to do OK. Naturally, people start out not knowing what's happening - not believing and so on.

The dynamic is different to most other zombie films... we start with a half dozen people, who actually all know one another. There are people along the way but the disparate group of survivors, thrown together by fate isn't present... and that is rather a staple of zombie films - fuelling tension between people. Once everyone gets the whole "dead rising from the grave to feed on the flesh of the living" thing though, they're about as cohesive a group as a group of college students can be.

They take a rather different view to the normal groups... there's no holing up in the nearest mall or barn. People want to get home... or at least they do for a while. Eventually they realise that survival and not family reunion is the way forward. About time. Naturally - it's a Romero film - the military are NO help... negative help... did the military kill his family? Although, in a situation such as envisioned by a zombie apocalypse - it makes sense that the military would end up running the show but really, the interactions with other groups are transitory. In fact, at the perfunctory 90 minutes the film itself feels rather transitory...

There's no real chance for the characters to develop... even those who don't have a camera glued to their face - in yet another example of people wantonly ignoring survival instinct... but that's necessary for the method of storytelling... in fact, it's pertinent to the social commentary of the film. In much the same way that Night of the Living Dead made points about racism and Dawn of the Dead pointedly mocked mindless consumer culture - not to mention the shameless anti-military message of Day of the Dead - Diary of the Dead makes very obvious observations about the nature of the media... the distortions of the government, the distance that one gains from events by filming them... and how voyeurism has become so common place.

As zombie films go... danger seldom feels pressing here. Occasionally there are moments - most notably in the barn when there is a horde of zombies encroaching and the Winnebago needs fixed - but on the whole, the group are merely in a situation where potential danger is present... although, they seem to be totally safe inside their vehicle. Zombies do seem to inexplicably appear en masse at rather convenient intervals - really, you wouldn't think there would be dozens of people hanging out in shambling distance of a barn or remote mansion. In Dawn of the Dead it made sense - zombies were heading to malls because of residual memory... there doesn't seem much reason for them to show up in the middle of nowhere... but then, they're necessary for tension and so on... just as their general absence is necessary for the voyeurism and documentary making to occur.

The commentary is pretty tame compared to the rather stark messages of Romero's original trilogy. It's not exactly as bare faced as zombies walking around a mall, it's just "ooo - the youtube generation!" The compulsion to document. It feels as if the story is really just a vehicle for that observation, it's focused on more than the zombies... naturally, there's a bit of "people are rubbish" too but then that's hardly original. It's all very rushed... even though we're dropped almost immediately into a situation where the characters are aware of events - even if some are sceptical - and yet still it feels as if the film is rushing to get everything tied up in a neat ninety minute package. Which is easily to the detriment of the film. Developing the characters, adding in more action... would have greatly improved things.

In terms of action... well, there's precious little. Which is at least realistic... the kids never come across a handy cache of automatic weapons and instantly know how to use them... but then, neither are they instantly beset with hordes of zombies from nowhere - ok, it happens in the middle of the film and at the end but not nearly as much as in your average zombie film. So, in other words - don't expect this to be on a par with the Resident Evil films or the Dawn of the Dead remake because there isn't a whole lot of zombie shooting here. In that respect, it follows the similarly shot Cloverfield... no excesses of information or action... just pervasive tension.

If you're in the mood for Blair Witch (minus the excessive amounts of incessant screaming and nausea inducing camera shaking) meets zombies... it's probably a good match but it's far from Romero's best work... and even the cringe worthy Land of the Dead was better - although just barely. For Romero and zombie fans only, really.

2008-04-03T05:28:00.000-07:00

Spectacular, Spectacular Spiderman!

So, the Spiderman movies managed to make an already popular character even MORE so... as if Spidey really needed it. Naturally - it having been some time since the previous incarnation of an animated Spiderman - it was time for a NEW Spiderman cartoon - Spectacular Spiderman.

Another new cartoon, another beginning. Peter Parker has had a summer to hone his wall crawling skillz by the time things start and wouldn't you know supervillains have started popping up, just as high school begins.

Unlike other rehashes, this remains fairly similar to the general Spiderman mythos. Spidey is the smart, fast talking webslinger whenever the city needs him and of course, struggling to balance that with being in the far more hostile environment of high school and also, helping his Aunt May help ends meet.

Somewhat surprisingly, Gwen Stacy is centre stage - in terms of potential love interests - and Mary Jane has only been mentioned in passing... although, it seems inevitable that she will turn up as she's been mentioned several times... not that Spidey really seems to have much time for fraternising between his crime fighting, school, the Bugle and so on.

Currently - and as one might expect of a new series - the show has very much revolved around the creation of Spiderman's well known rogue's gallery. This translate to roughly a villain a week for Spiderman to defeat - just as well he doesn't have much of a social life, eh?

Stylistically, it favours the more... facile animation style that is ever more prevalent in cartoons. That said, while it may be somewhat less detailed than the 90s, the animation is very slick - so the trade off is fair.

We have some interesting development of characters and relationships, the foreshadowing of the Kingpin (who has been behind half of the villains that Spidey has faced) and so on. It's not exactly Earth shattering stuff but thus far, it's proven to be entertaining. Again, it's not a show that should be compared to it predecessors because, while Spectacular Spiderman is much closer to its roots than, say, Transformers Animated - it's simply not executed in the same way. One to watch.

2008-04-02T03:44:00.000-07:00

Fresh from the rape of Michael "SFX aren't plot?" Bay, the Transformers franchise rolls ever onward, battered and bruised... but still massively profitable because it will take more than one hack director, inexplicably hired time and again to ruin good films - forget 9/11, THAT is a conspiracy.

Anyway, as proof that Michael Bay failed in his mission to sink one of the most awesome franchise ever created to the briny deep - we have a new Transformers cartoon, Transformers Animated.

As seems to be the trend these days, all previous history of the show has been summarily disregarded and the only thing that has remained is the basic premise and a few of the core characters... well, actually - just the basic premise. Giant sentient robots from Cybertron come to Earth and defend it from the evil forces of... THE DECEPTICONS!

It's best not to talk about Transformers Animated in terms of the original (Generation 1 aka G1) cartoon because they're very different animals... Transformers Animated has a sexy teen Optimus Prime (well, a somewhat inexperienced and scrawny Optimus at least) along with Bumblebee (essentially a hyperactive 6 year old but still the noob of the group), Rachet (who is essentially Kup from G1), Bulkhead (the heavy hitting sensitive one) and Prowl (NINJA ROBOT!) stranded on Earth, protecting the All Spark.

The differences in design and style are big and owe more to Teen Titans and The Batman than G1. ALL the robots - although, more the Autobots - are far more humanised. Pretty much everyone has a face, is capable of gesticulating and body language and even the massive Bulkhead is still extremely human. This is a far cry from the huge, blocky, monolithic very robotic designs of G1 where few concessions were made in terms of anthropomorphism.

The Autobots don't just LOOK more human, they ACT more human. There is a lot of talk about emotions, friendship... They seem entirely capable of feeling pain and are far more prone to damage than their G1 counterparts ever were. In fact, few episodes have passed where damage hasn't been incurred upon our brave robot defenders... which brings us to the next point.

While in G1, humans were... at best, an after thought, in Transformers Animated - they're very much a part of the show. Hell, the Autobots are based IN Detroit. Ok, they're in an abandoned factory... but that beats G1 where they were out in the middle of nowhere, fighting Decepticons in the middle of nowhere and so on. No, the cityscape of Detroit is full of people. The most important of whom is Sari.

Sari gets a key charged by the Allspark - allowing it repair/heal the Autobots and do all manners of mischief to anything with a keyhole. Given the propensity of the Autobots to get totally schooled - this is a fairly skill and probably why they keep Sari around. She also helps acquaint the Autobots with Earth customs and her father happens to run a major robotics company - Detroit is now heavily automated by his robots, to the point where there are robotic police drones - the success of which is predicated upon... MEGATRON! Or rather, the disembodied head of Megatron.

Yes, another BIG difference is that there isn't a weekly smack down between the Autobots and Decepticons. In fact, at the start we don't really have any and even by the end of the first instalment we've only got four, I suppose five if we count Black Arachnia... which we shouldn't. So, instead of Megatron's weekly plan to get enough energon to TAKE OVER THE UNIVERSE, we have various villains of the week - some of whom are orchestrated by Megatron remotely, Sari's father is totally unaware of this... mostly because he's a putz but he's also the second of three main human characters.

The third being the bumbling, technology hating police chief. As one might guess, in a city where technology is so prevalent - especially in the police force - he's something of a comic relief character, prone to a short fuse and slapstick comedy... although, occasionally effective at his job, or at least as effective as one can expect a meatbag to be against a race of hyper advanced alien space robots.

The effect of human characters and the lack of persistent Decepticon threat makes the show dynamic entirely different. G1 was essentially robots! Humans may have been there but they were along for the ride... Sari and a variety of rather less friendly homo sapiens prove to be far more in the driving seat in terms of plot. Sari driven by her inherent need for fun and mischief - the villains mostly by money and/or revenge. It allows for more variation than G1 and the introduction of characters has been far slower - it's only by the end of Megatron Rising Part 1 we have a full team of Decepticons... although, thus far the Decepticons have generally been shown to be far more powerful individually than the five Autobots.

Megatron and Starscream are very much unchanged from their original incarnations. Even though Megatron might be sans body, he's still the consummate schemer, planning and manipulating for his own ends - even if that is just a new body, mostly. Starscream remains the powerful, underhanded, backstabbing and opportunistic turncoat that everyone loves. Even if he's often sporting a cutesy sneer now, he's still quite menacing in his single mindedness to lead the Decipticons.

In terms of the Autobots... Prime is unrecognisable. He's a leader but not the confident, powerful one from G1... he's unsure of himself, dependent upon the advice of the rest of the team and hesitant... Not to mention angsty. Bumblebee is more hyperactive but in many ways, that's in keeping with the younger feel of the show... Ratchet is Kip, there's not much more to say.

As the constant references to G1 should illustrate... while the basic idea of robots that become vehicles is still there - the execution, structure and style are a world away and while the end is still to get children to buy the merchandise, they go about it in very different ways. While the G1 team would be happy to smash some Decepticons, let Spike think he'd helped and go home... Transformers Animated is more interested in plots and lessons. Not only that but the characters are substantially more human in all senses and humans play an infinitely bigger role - it makes it a far more relatable show...

People who cut their teeth on Megatron and Optimus Prime going toe to toe may well baulk at the changes but this is not attempting to be Transformers G1 any more than the live action film. If you watch it, not expecting G1 - you may be pleasantly surprised by some of it... if you're hoping for G1... you'll hate it unconditionally.

2008-03-28T03:49:00.000-07:00

Bye Bye Bionic Woman.

After a - by US standards - poultry 8 episodes, the remake of the 70s show is now merely (allegedly) awaiting the official confirmation of its cancellation.

Some might blame the poor timing of the writers' strike but that seems likely to only be an aggravating, rather than causal factor. The simple fact of the matter is that the show was weak, derivative and rather prosaic.

Ever since Buffy and Xena popularised the idea of ass kicking wise ass heroines, we've had a slew of them on our screens. Bionic Woman just goes to show that you can't simply cross your fingers and hope that it'll magically work... and it's very easy to see the similarities to Buffy here. Girl living an ordinary life, gets abilities, has to start fighting bad guys... except of course, whereas Joss Whedon had a rather well articulated metaphor of High School literally being Hell, Bionic Woman went for the rather more tedious Alias angle... fitting that spying in with class, home life and of course, romantic dalliances. At least we didn't have to suffer any Bionic wigs...

It's simply somewhat tedious that there seems to be a compulsion to portray strong women as capable of doing so many roles, so flawlessly that they're essentially perfect and hence, rather shallow and uninteresting characters. Our Bionic Woman is pretty much capable of - on any given day - keeping her somewhat rowdy sister in line and fulfilling her role of surrogate mother, doing an A-grade paper and of course, smashing whatever evil criminal/terrorist gang there is out there and probably managing to flirt with some preternaturally handsome romantic interest too. Women are supposedly better at multi-tasking but that might be pushing it - still, at least she was more likeable than agent Sydney Bristo.

In truth, the ease with which parallels can be drawn to other female led shows the inherent problem with Bionic Woman. It was very much paint by numbers - specifically other people's numbers. Beyond her superhuman abilities - and these days, that's not exactly a unique selling point - there wasn't much to recommend it. The mish-mash of elements never really allowed anything to shine through. There's action but it's not awe inspiring, there's drama but it's not going to knock your socks off, there's humour but it's fairly bland.

Bland, prosaic, mediocre... all apt words to describe the show. It's an inoffensive way to pass the time but so much so that you may find yourself unable to really recall WHAT exactly happened... Oh, there were probably some terrorists in there... something about a bomb but details will be dim. Really, the best thing about the show was Starbuck being the "evil" Bionic Woman and her roll was rather transitory. All in all, the show is - or was - a perfect storm of bland and it's cancellation should not be mourned.

2008-03-13T05:09:00.000-07:00

While SG-1 may have - thankfully - been put out to pasture and shot repeatedly in the head, it's legacy lives on in a series of straight to DVD releases. Never stop milking a cash cow until it's dead.

Naturally, the last season of SG-1 ended on a bit of a "meh"... with plenty of loose ends and no real resolutions to the current problems the Milky Way faced at the hands of the Ori. Enter - THE ARK OF TRUTH to give us some kind of closure on the whole thing.

Despite having managed to follow the paint by numbers instructions on their deus ex Ascended being killing plot device 4000, the Ori's followers are still going around the galaxy with more zeal than a televangelist and a LOT more fire power.

Where one deus ex plot device failed... another will surely succeed. Enter the Ark of Truth. SG-1 are -naturally - the only people in the entire universe to be entrusted with finding it and hence we start with them, looking... when they bump into Erin's old boyfriend. After some jiggery pokery, they manage to get him to join them and they head back to SGC for cakes and rigorous interrogation by the new IOA douche.

For those who don't know or have forgotten the IOA are the latest in a series of governmental/bureaucratic foils for the brave, anti-paperwork SG-1 heroes... there have been many variations on the theme but essentially they're always meddling for nefarious purposes or just plain stupid. Robert Picardo's petty bureaucrat pales in comparison to the aggressively asinine behaviour of the new boy.

As it goes, the SG-1 team have to take him along as they look for the Ark and the friction between him and Mitchell couldn't have been more by the numbers if it tried. It's been pretty much the same with all the douchebag bureaucrats. Anyway, he's along for the ride and as it turns out after things finally get going... he decides to sabotage his own side by... DUN DUN DUN! Unleashing Replicators. Yeah. Fan favourites.

To be honest, it takes some of the impact out of defeating probably the greatest enemy the SGC EVER faced to just be able to recreate them... and to be honest, you have to question the wisdom of using them to defeat the Ori... Yes. They probably could take down the Ori... but the Replicators aren't really interested in one galaxy. They'd probably prefer to take all galaxies and given their original appearance, it seems likely that after overtaking the Odyssey they'd not hesitate to come to the Milky Way - again. So, in the long sad history of bad ideas... it seems to be another very big one.

On the plus side, at least these are ACTUAL diabolic mechano and not the rubbish T1000 ripoff human form replicators that low budgets have subjected us to in recent years. Nope, these are bonafide evil mechano spider things. Which is for the best. When Replicators became people, it made them tedious. Their whole schtick was that they were faceless and inhuman... Of course, in what amounts to poetic justice IOA douche gets mauled and taken over by Replicators... It's actually fairly stupid. Robozombie.

While this Replicator related fun is transpiring, Daniel, Teal'c et al are searching for their much needed insta-win device on the Ori's home planet. The lone Replicator has been true to its name and there are plenty of them... Quite why they didn't chase after it when the ARG failed isn't elaborated upon. Idiocy seems the likely answer... Anyway, the Ori show up as part of IOA's diabolical plan to use the Replicators to take the Ori out, so the ship skedaddles.

It's around this point that you'll notice it's taken 40 minutes for stuff to actually happen... regardless, it's with incredible ease that Daniel et al find the Ark of Truth. They pretty much waltz in, pick it up and then get captured... except Teal'C, who gets left for dead. Despite the pivotal importance of what happens on Celestus... it feels pretty much like an after thought to the action on the Daedulus.

Which isn't a bad thing... Replicators have always been a fun enemy. The SGC personnel pulling out their shotguns and pumping out hundreds of rounds of ammo - it should be noted that there is actually a scene where Mitchell RUNS OUT OF AMMO! Possibly for the first time in Stargate history. Fully automatic P90s can fire 900 rounds a minute and have a clip of 50 bullets... why it choose this moment to stop having an infinite amount of ammo... we may never know. Also, watch out for the most unnecessary and gratuitous use of profanity since the Transformers Movie.

So, ignoring the somewhat tedious Celestus events... The Daedulus is being taken over by Replicators, they're resistant to the Anti-Replicator Guns but there's a shut-off code. Of course, as it happens the person who knows where the shutoff code is, is the IOA type... who has now become ROBO-IOA HUMAN-REPLICATOR THING! It looks fairly stupid and the notion of Replicators being able to integrate into a person like that to extract knowledge is even more so. Robo-Douche starts beating Mitchell up... I can't blame him. As you may expect, a guy full of metal isn't really phased by getting shot or punched. Or even - as it turns out - getting exploded. Fortunately though, unplugging the Mechano from his brain lets him tell Mitchell that the plot device to deactivate the Replicators is on the back of the crystal. After getting beaten up a little more he manages to tell her this and then blows up the queen Replicator and gets TOSSED from the room.

Someone had clearly been watching Terminator because the explosion leaves a big Replicator style Terminator endoskeleton rip off leering at Mitchell and random soldiers shoot at the innumerable normal Replicators - but then, Sam finds the off switch! The Replicators all fall to pieces. Which just leaves the Ori ships surrounding them, happily firing away.

Probably best to elaborate upon the fact that Daniel has escaped captivity and has had a tete a tete with Morgan Le Faye, the Ancient who has made their journey ridiculously easy... Of course, this is when find that Adria has Ascended and has taken the God complex to its logical extreme. Fortunately, the Ark of Truth is sitting on an unstable table and while laughably distracted, Daniel works out how to switch it on, a Prior comes in and Teal'C shoots the Ark so it falls and the Prior - literally - sees the light. If it sounds contrived, it's because it is. Then - because it's an insta-win plot device - everything is ok!

There's a little time to wrap up but that's about it...

All in all, it feels rather rushed. In fact, it feels as if you've dropped into the middle of things. Given that it takes a long time for the action to get under way, this is probably a blessing in disguise but the action isn't particularly amazing - especially for a movie, even a straight to DVD one. There have actually been more action packed, special effects laden episodes... namely the original appearance of the Replicators... this feels rather cobbled together. The use of Replicators proof - if needed - that the SG-1 vehicle has been tapped dry of ideas. The introduction of an IOA douche seems unnecessary - he has literally no chance for character development before he's locked away and Replicatorised. It seems there had to be someone else they could have used that had some history and despite the fact the IOA are consistently depicted as bureaucratic idiots, this one takes the biscuit. It feels as if they wanted to wrap up the ill advised Ori arc but didn't really know what to do, so they just contrived another deus ex plot device - Stargate is pretty much littered with them, really - stuck in some mandatory action and had it all wrap up in the obligatory 90 minutes.

It feels as if all of this could have been done just as well in an episode - which somewhat highlights the obvious point of this DVD. Money... Which isn't surprising but it doesn't offer the impact that has been achieved in the series. There was little real tension here, no characters were in danger of being developed and no special effects risked awesomeness when they could stick to tried and tested. In short, it's a disappointment. It doesn't have much of a plot to speak of and the action - while putting B5's rather dreary Lost Tales to shame - is nothing the numerous Replicator episodes haven't done before... often better. In fact, it feels as though some of those episodes were gutted and then copied and pasted to fill the immense holes in plot and pacing here.

It's a small mercy that we weren't subjected to the irritation of budget pleasing human form Replicators but really, that's the only good thing you can say about this effort. It's got the A to B to C style plot feel of The Matrix: Reloaded... Earth is threatened but nothing much happens about it. There was a great chance for another great big guns blazing Earth defence battle like they had when Anubis got around to attacking Earth... but no, the Ori sit on their hands for no discernible reason, giving the magical win device time to do it's thing and for Adria to be banished or whatever.

It just feels flat. There's conflict... but it feels so by the numbers... or that you might just have accidentally put a regular episode in... surely this kind of project - which will rake in the dough -should be giving the viewer more bang for their buck? There really isn't a huge amount of that. It simply lacks any real punch. Yes, it's more Stargate but really, after 10 years - we've had enough.

2008-03-05T06:36:00.000-08:00

After a mere 9 episodes, the first season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, has concluded.

It's been a tradition, especially in recent years, to end on a bang. To make sure that people are on the edge of their seats for the next few months until the show returns to the air... logically a show that involves a small group of people, fighting to stop robots from the future killing them/creating a computer that will precipitate a nuclear war that kills billions and then round up the survivors for summary execution - that should involve one helluva bang, right?

There was no bang... barely even a fizzle. Quite what the point of having the two episodes together was is unclear as well... perhaps as a fiddle for ratings because they seemed no more related than any of the other episodes. In any event those expecting a return to the action packed, tense and compelling action and drama of the pilot, you can forget it. That seems to be a momet that will never be remembered.

Not that the final episode doesn't tease you with the prospect of some action... but when said action occurs, it's witnessed indirectly... in an artsy style. It merely serves to show how weak the link between Cameron's films and this TV series is. Time and again, this show has tried to replace action with tension... it goes without saying that an excess of action can become tedious... and hence, there is a need for the tension, the suspense or simply the waiting in between... but then, at the opposite end of the scale... there's the excess of tension. Sarah Connor Chronicles doesn't even do that well... there's this tension, between almost all the characters... but it's not building or changing... it's just there.

The pilot set a bar for the show, a high bar. There was action, drama, explosions and tension... all nicely knitted together. The change of pace for the rest of series was like hitting a brick wall in a jet fighter. There are clearly numerous issues with the format that weren't considered... mostly, what do you do with a TV budget to imitate a franchise well known for its action set pieces... the answers is just hope people forget that part.

The lack of action might have been forgiveable... but... the core cast was... at best unengaging and at worst, irritating. Sarah was easily the most irritating. For someone who is supposed to be teach her son how to save humanity, she's really doing a lot of mollycoddling and teaching him how to be a pussy.

The Summernator - aka Summer Glau... it's hard to tell whether the girl has a pathological inability to act or whether her stint on Firefly made her a prettier, blander Buffy. While she is quite frankly preferable to Sarah Michelle Gellar - that's a lot like saying it's better to slam your hand in a door, rather than having poured boiling water on it. Clearly, at some point someone thought "it would be great if we could get her to do the unintentional humour again!" but then didn't bother getting people with the comic skills to do it... Not to mention the fact that her personality in the first episode is apparently turned off in the rest of the show. Shows of her trying to be "more human" are so prosaic, hackneyed and utterly cliché in all honesty, they'd have achieved better results sticking her face over Data's in scenes from TNG.

And of course, the "great" John Connor. It's somewhat hard to believe a whinging, momma's boy will lead humanity. Terminator 3 may not really have made him seem much better but at least he wasn't on his mother's apron strings. The John Connor of T2 was computer savvy, had attitude, leadership... you could see the emergent qualities of a leader in him... with Chronicles John... he's just another teen... WHY IS HE AT SCHOOL!?

His mother is over protective of him, to the nth degree... and yet, she puts him into school? Why? Is that going to help in the war against the machines? Somehow it seems unlikely that even LA will have classes on how to wage guerilla warfare against a numerically and technologically superior enemy. Anyway, while it might be an "ordinary" life... it seems like a strange move as it's clearly putting him in a fairly exposed environment.

Although, his mother acts - by and large - erratically. She wants to destroy Skynet before it's created but, oh - John, off you go to school! There seems to be an inherent conflict between preparing your son to be the saviour of humanity and trying to let him have a normal life... much as there is an obvious clash of interests between her deranged maternal instincts and constantly taking him out on dangerous missions.

The only interesting or likeable character is the hapless FBI agent who is following in the footsteps of the Connors. It's interesting to see how he finds the clues and starts to piece together the truth of Sarah's life. Not that he likes what he finds... Which makes it all the more interesting.

To another, more technical aspect... Perhaps one of the most iconic aspects of Terminator was the Terminator's eye view. The red tinged perspective, scrolling data, analysis... it portrayed the cold, calculating nature of the machine that walked as man. So... to show a Terminator's perspective without it? It's beyond lazy... it just removes that feeling and the way it was used felt like lazy storytelling and a betrayal of something so intimately associated with the film franchise.

The final episode - as mentioned, unrelated to the penultimate - sees the Connor crew finally get their hands on a meaningful lead on that pesky machine, The Turk. To be honest, the Turk subplot has been pretty dull since Andy died... and Sarah's mourning over him is beginning to grate and obviously, we're going to have to endure more of it as the Turk is still MIA.

The other aspect is our FBI friend tracking down the Cromartie... final score, FBI 0 - Robot from the Future 12. Of course, we see literally NO action. Just people getting tossed into the pool. Just typical of the anti-climactic nature of the show thus far and in truth, if you can't go out on a bang people's interest will wane as quickly as the ratings of this show.

2008-02-20T08:20:00.000-08:00

HD-DVD is dead... long live Bluray.

While it's certain that Toshiba will knock out HD-DVD players, in just a few weeks the fortunes of the rival formats have removed all ambiguity. Many "technical experts" RUSHED to state the bleedin' obvious... wait for it! Every PS3 sold had a bluray player in it!

Gasp. Really? Many men have achieved the rank of Grand Admiral Obvious today.

In all honesty, that was always going to be a tipping factor... while the PS3 might have had slovenly sales compared to the X-box 360 and the immensely popular Wii - it had still managed to sell (as of January 1st, 2008) 10.5 million. So, even though HD-DVD had several studios on it's side and it managed to sell over 2 million players (roughly half were standalone players, others add-ons for existing products)... it was still in a whole other ballpark to Bluray.

Given that Sony has had more than one setback in trying to pioneer a new format, it made sense that they'd win this one... While the PS3 will likely struggle to make up the lost ground that the Wii's hugely broad appeal affords it or the head start the 360 got... it has certainly given Sony the last laugh in this pointless, costly and totally avoidable format war... Still, at least the sudden shift by studios has precipitated a quicker end than many had predicted... ultimately, format wars hurt everyone - the industry and the consumer.

2008-02-19T00:37:00.000-08:00

Since sometime around the release of Star Wars: Episode 2: Attack Of Further Merchandising, there have been rumours and murmurs of a Star Wars live action TV show... apparently slated for 2009 but clearly not content to wait that long before mugging Star Wars fans - or as some of them like to think of themselves George's piggy bank - there is to be an animated (CGI, naturally) film covering the Clone Wars.

If you're reading that and thinking "that sounds familiar...", it's because it is. The Clone Wars was covered in some depth by the eponymous cartoon - from the chaps that brought us Samurai Jack - and was in fact almost as good as the prequels were bad. Of course, surely this begs the question... why rehash this already trodden ground. As with anything Hollywood - the reason for repetition is always the same - tried and tested = cash in the bank.

In fact, this couldn't be any more of a perfect storm of bankable cash cow if you injected pound coins into a bovine fetus.

Firstly, it's Star Wars... and if you stick that name on something, it'll pull in a few million punters straight off the bat - after all, people were still turning up to Revenge Of The Sith, despite the fact all evidence was... it would suck.

Secondly - it's CGI... Every kid's film for years has been CGI... so, hitting the family demographic again. Not to mention that action, explosions and so on that would be budget busting in a live action film are - while still time consuming - far more cost effective... Which means you get more of 'em.

Thirdly - it's pretty obviously going to be a rehash of - or at least, take several elements from - the immensely popular and critically acclaimed Clone Wars cartoon.

On the bright side, the fact it's derivative of an excellent piece of work where General Grievous doesn't sound like an asthmatic French kiddie fiddler means that there's no particular need to worry about excessive ham fisted dialogue... best to just hope for lots of action and Jedi japery. Perhaps it can instil some confidence in the somewhat resentful and cynical Star Wars fanbase...

2008-01-23T06:29:00.000-08:00

For many months, people have anxiously awaited Cloverfield... apparently the preview screening had people searched for recording equipment and people roving the aisles with night vision equipment. All suitably in line with the viral campaign that got the hype for this film sky high.

In retrospect, it's fairly obvious that the reason for this secrecy was for a single reason... they didn't want people to realise that it was rubbish. Although, that probably shouldn't come as a surprise when it's produced by the man behind Lost and Alias... It's been said already but bears saying again - this film can be summed up in the following sentence - Godzilla meets Blair Witch.

It really is that simple. Actually, to be fair - The Blair Witch Project was better because it was an original concept at the time... and of course, used two cameras and had the people using said cameras for a reason - that reason being they were making a documentary. In Cloverfield, it doesn't really make much sense... Ok, the guy is videoing the party... I'm fairly sure that when it comes down to a life and death situation - you don't keep that camera rolling regardless... you drop it and get the hell out of there. Perhaps it's conceivable that you'd want to document the Godzilla wannabe but why you'd feel it necessary to keep the camera on constantly and such seems a trifle idiotic. It's also worth noting that if you felt motion sickness during Blair Witch - it's going to be worse with this.

What about the much touted monster? As it turns out, earlier speculation of a "Whalezilla" was way off... which is a shame because that design was a lot more interesting than the design they used here... not that you really get more than a couple of good looks at the thing... sure, less can be more but here it was just... barely anything. With Godzilla, you can accept the ability to shrug off an entire country's firepower. With the Cloverfield monster, it doesn't even look like it could support itself - let alone survive a few dozen bombing runs from the USAF. Hell, you can tell your designer sucked more than a legion of quantum singularity powered super whores when some joker on the internet makes a better design in his free time than the professional you got to do a piss poor rip-off of the monster in Godzilla 2000.

As if a poor man's Godzilla teleporting around the city to menace our shaky handed hero isn't enough, the creature in question has a bunch of mini-monsters on it. They're not particularly original either. Somewhere between a bug from Starship Troopers and an angry woodlouse. They're there for the occasional fright and to put in a more pervasive sense of danger... After all, something of roughly human size can sneak up on you a lot more than something big enough to punch the face off the Statue of Liberty. Kind of a cheap way of adding more excitement... in much the same way never showing the monster was a cheap way of making this film.

It's funny. This film is... probably worse than the American Godzilla film. At least that gave you money shots and such. This is just a Blair Witch clone with a monster instead of a witch... And it can't claim originality... It can certainly claim to have generated a hilarious amount of hype... but hype is about all it's good for. The inevitable sequel may well fall in Blair Witch 2 territory but then... at the same time, it would be hard pressed to suck more.

All in all, coming in at LESS than 90 minutes - this isn't value for money. It doesn't even get close to a good way to pass time from now unto death. If you want motion sickness though, this would be great.

2008-01-04T10:50:00.000-08:00

It's a matter of public record that if you want to bollox up a good idea - you give it to Paul WS Anderson. Hence the first AvP being a kid friendly waste of time that was more critically slammed than a bearded, kiddy fiddlin' murderer. Despite that, it did OK at the box office - despite an idiotic concept.

As it happens, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem - aka AVP:R - doesn't have much to do with Paul Anderson... and is also rather good. What a coincidence! AvP doesn't really waste any time, following on directly from the end of the previous film... Predalien included. Despite the obvious idiocy of the Predators taking one of their fallen comrades on board without checking to see if he had a xenomorph embryo in him, it gets things going post haste. The Predalien gets loose and promptly, makes the Predator ship crash. A ship chock full of facehuggers. Which quickly find a couple of unwitting hunters to impregnate.

Billy Administrator Predator on Predator World has his "something has bolloxed up" alarm go off. Has a hissy fit and jumps in his "emergency fix it" space ship... as you do. Given that the purpose of the mission seems to be to exterminate, it's surprising only one person goes... also, whatever happened to their self-destruct? If Billy's bud on Earth had just blown up, it would all have been over... As would the film.

To pass some time, we see something about the peaceful life in Nowheresville. Which involves jocks beating up people they aren't fond of. Shortly after that, the father and son hunters who were face hugged get to birth some chestbursters. After about five minutes... actually, probably a bit longer. Not quite the insta-burst of AvP but neither the more realistic. Anyway, shortly after some homeless are also impregnated.

Not to worry, Billy Predator HAS ARRIVED. Still alone. He finds the Predator ship - and tools himself up. Uh, shouldn't you do that BEFORE you go on a mission? Then sets the ship to implode. Which it does. In a massively unimpressive lightening thing.

Naturally, a father and son disappearing doesn't go unnoticed even by the slack jawed, simple minded folk of Nowheresville. So, in the middle of the night - they decide to have a look. Real good idea. Amazingly, they find nothing... until morning.

While some other tedious human stuff happens. The Predator checks the sewers... this Predator makes the ones in AvP look like schoolboys and then some. With some pretty fun fighting in a sewer... when things go a bit pear shaped, the Predator punches out of the sewer... Yeah, he rocks.

Then one of sluts in Nowheresville decides she wants a date with paroled, beat up pizza waiter... which is nice. Until an alien turns up to eat people... but it ate the jock stereotypes. That could happen to you jocks! Yes, strong anti-jock message... Being a jock, gets you killed.

Also, the Predator was having some laughs taking out an Alien - blew the power grid. Eh, if you had a plasma caster - you'd probably manage it too. Easy enough.

The national guard show up shortly after the heroes hole up in a gun shop. It's fair to say, the National Guard get schooled like remedial students in the Hitler Youth. Yeah, the only hope for the town is dead. A lot like the entire population of the hospital... The Predalien can instaimpegnate women, it seems. Naturally, in keeping with AvP the chestbursters seem to instagrow.

After a little murderin' - of humans and Aliens - at the gun store, the Predator finds its plasma casters both broke. Y'know, thank fuck these aliens arrive in America. If they'd landed in Britain... well, cricket bats and knifing is about all that could have been expected. Incidentally, it is made patently obvious that the USA is going to nuke the area to purge infestation... your tax dollars at work.

The sexy teens decide to go to the hospital, while the sheriff decides to swallow government lies and head for the centre of town. Course, the hospital is chock full of aliens... that INSTASPAWNED... Aliens weren't exactly so close to being believable as it was. What with going from puppies to 7-8 feet of lethal killing machine in a matter of hours... but the whole 5 insta-spawn thing makes it a bit silly, really.

As it goes, Sheriff gets nuked... and most of the sexy teens escape and the cute little girl. Aww! But... KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES... oh and the somewhat painful reference to the other half of Weyland and Yutani...

This film probably won't pleasure purists who'd have liked to see something more along the lines of the original AvP comics but as it goes, the lack of the USMC isn't so damaging. These things have a tendency to reduce down to a bunch of armed, rag tag survivors anyway... it's a shame we didn't get to see a more graphic portrayal of the xenomorphs chowing down on the National Guard... But you can't have everything.

The real reason to watch this film is the Predator. Had a real lot of noobs in AvP... this boy isn't just taking on Arnie or Danny Glover, he's taking on a bunch of aliens AND the usual human dullards... and doing it with style. There are several points where he just owns or has a bit of a larf... he doesn't have the personality of the original Predator, no... but he has the technology and just generally kills things... which is about a hundred times better than the cretinous wastes of space we had in the previous film.

You're not going to see this film for the directing - passable - or the acting - going from tolerable to just rubbish. You're going to see it because it has aliens in it, it has a Predator and general mayhem. It doesn't pull punches on the action... sure, it's a meagre 90 minutes and after the initial burst of death and destruction, the pace slows... but it's fun. It's a classic example of how a film can be enjoyable but not good. It's best to say that, if you have an hour and a half of your life you want to film with action/survival horror of a sci-fi nature... this is how to do it. It doesn't try to be anything else and of course, it's about seventeen times better than the original.

2007-12-29T03:44:00.000-08:00

Christmas has now come to mean the Doctor Who Christmas Special - amongst other things.

This year saw the Doctor - somewhat inexplicably - have the TARDIS crash into the Titanic... Not THE Titanic, A Titanic... which is in SPACE. So despite managing to plough into the interior of the TARDIS (which seems rather silly), it seems to be OK. Naturally the Doctor starts to schmooze and nose around on this space bound Titanic... as it turns out, said Titanic is in orbit around the Earth and filled with aliens... most of whom are indistinguishable from normal humans... but then, so is the Doctor...

After the mandatory foreshadowing of the - let's face it, inevitable - disaster to come, the Doctor meets Kylie Minogue (who is a serving wench). She doesn't burst into song... which - given RTD - one might have expected at some point but no, she does a solid job of acting the part, nothing to wow... but hey, this is Doctor Who... you can't ever expect any really stellar performances because the format practically necessitates hamming up.

Anyway, tis Christmas eve and people want to go visit Earth. The Doctor takes Kylie along for the ride. Meanwhile, Captain Birdseye has gone a bit bonkers - which is what we were all waiting for. The ol' cliche of someone condemning a whole load of people to death - just so their family is looked after. We should probably be glad that a giant space iceberg wasn't what struck the ship, I suppose... not that a comet would have been so out of place...

Naturally, big rocks vs. space ship = bang! Of course, while most of the people are killed the Doctor and Kylie are fine. Along with them are two space Scousers (also, space working class - they won a contest) man and wife... Then there's space jerk... the kind of arrogant high flyer that everyone hates. The space tour guide - who knows the square root of bugger all about Earth and got his diploma from the same place as "Dr" Gillan McKeith... and of course, what voyage in space would be complete without a space alien. In this case, a red midget cyborg space alien... who is some kin of bastardisation of Darth Maul, Mini-me and a gay Satan.

As if being stuck on a damaged ship - sans TARDIS - wasn't enough... the creepy looking angels - fittingly called "The Host" - that populate the ship have gone from mildly unhelpful to straight forward murderin'... with their halos, no less... Oddjob would be pleased. It's not too long before Darth Midget has used his cybernetic bits to generate an EMP to take down some of the Host... quite how a piece of equipment designed to keep him alive can generate an EMP pulse isn't explained... or how it only takes down the Host... Best not to get hung up on these details - especially given the fact the Sonic Screwdriver can do anything from open doors to make a cup of tea.

So, obese space Scouse heroically sacrifices himself by falling into the engine... then Darth Mini-me... then the other space Scouse can't bear to go on living without the other space Scouse and tosses herself into the giant reactor too... what is it with health and safety in the future? Is there such a massive backlash that you're just allowed to have a giant open reactor? With regulations like that, it seems unlikely you'd need meteors to crash into you for a serious accident to happen.

By this point the Doctor has - naturally - twigged that there is more going on here than just a nasty accident... because it's not just the ship that's going to go down... for some reason, the ship crashing into the planet will kill EVERYONE on the planet (that's probably also down to a lack of health and safety regulations... who'd have thought they were ever useful?).

The Doctor being the Doctor - and everyone else being relatively safe for the time being - goes off to get to the bottom of the matter. He does this by just asking the Host some questions. It seems pretty silly, really. You've got your robots set to kill... but if someone says a magic phrase, they stop killing and answer your questions... even aliens are sloppy coders, it seems.

Nevertheless, he manages to get there and finds out Max Capricorn - the same Max Capricorn who owns the company - is hiding out on the ship, in an "impact chamber" that will allow him to destroy the ship and Earth and hence ruin the board that spurned him and land them in jail and then let him quietly sneak off to retire... I suppose we should be glad... at least it wasn't the old insurance scam.

Anyway, Kylie tagged along after the Doctor and appears just after his spiel has run its course. Quite why the Host ignored their order to kill the Doctor and gawked at Kylie driving a forklift at their boss is a mystery... as is why he doesn't ask for help - he's stuff in a life support unit the size of a big fridge/freezer combo. In any respect, enter heroic sacrifice the third.

For some reason, having just killed their boss - the Host decide to help the Doctor who then sets about stopping the ship plummet into Buckingham Palace... with a real cameo from the Queen... didn't the BBC get in trouble for that earlier? Naturally, the Doctor averts crisis for the third year running... Not that a giant ship crashing into London could really make it any more of an urban death maze than it already is... Also, best not to think too much about how the Doctor was able to violate the second law of thermodynamics.

The Doctor then realises he can save Kylie! For obvious reasons of real life practicality - the attempt to revive her fails. Which is a crying shame. Kylie "dies" and Catherine Tate didn't even get horribly mutilated. Well, no one can say the show doesn't make life unfair. So, the day is saved... the Doctor cringes when he realises that the self-serving douchebag survived but a girl he could have had sex with - died. Well, who wouldn't be crushed... Kylie may need to stand on a box to kiss... but she's a fine filly. Much of the nation would have paid for Catherine Tate to fall in an actual nuclear furnace... where was your quality destroying populism then, eh RTD?

The Doctor and the doddering space tour guide abscond via teleportation - whatever happened to TRANSMAT? - to the TARDIS's landing place on Earth where it's snowing. In keeping with previous years, the snow is actually from the spaceship rather than being real. Space tour guide has a credit card with a million pounds on it... how does that work? Regardless, the Doctor says "I travel alone" - a bigger lie than his Scottish accent - and waves goodbye to the senile coot, who is babbling about a house. The blithering space idiot doesn't know a million pounds wouldn't buy you a potting shed in central London.

It worked quite well as a bit of Christmas fun... it felt like it was aiming for a send up of the Poseidon Adventure... but in truth, probably ended up being more of a parody of itself... the overly dramatic music (even the intro and outro). Repeated heroic sacrifices (clearly more is more), the cheesy villain, all the clumsy editing/directing, the stereotype characters, the cliches... OH, the cliches. Still, passes the time... and as Doctor Who goes, it's pretty passable.

2007-12-27T13:06:00.000-08:00

It's fair to say that - like an increasing number of people in TV and film - Ricky Gervais opened up with a closing down sale... Or rather, started with something that he was never -realistically - going to top. The Office was - to say the least - a seminal success on every level. Popular, critical and... the other one.

The fact that even the closing episode of The Office was generally met with contempt - quite why it needed a Christmas special, beyond further enriching Gervais, is beyond anyone's ken - showed he was already a one trick pony.

Of course, like many people that have met with some degree of success in comedy the BBC couldn't deny him. Which isn't surprising given the perpetual absence of good or even tolerable comedy on the BBC these days... outside of panel games. So when someone who wrote, directed and starred in a show that won about a dozen awards in two consecutive years...

So, the "safe bet" of Gervais got another show... Extras. In many ways, it follows the traditions of cringe worthy comedy... but it falls short in so many ways... not least the pointless popularism. The main flaw was always going to be... while many people might have spent a summer in an office job, how many people have ever been an actor? It totally removed the element that everyone could relate to. Millions of people in the West must surely have done SOME office work, if only for a a few weeks. How many people ever tried to be an Extra?

Anyway, after two - quite frankly dire - seasons of Extras... Gervais presumably chose to end the agony of the backlash and contempt for him... Not that it's ever likely to stop. Ironic that he set himself on a pedestal of not doing commercials... presumably because that's "selling out". If Extras and The Office Christmas Special weren't selling out... what is?

The Extras Christmas Special... well, fairly dire and pretty much what anyone who has had the misfortune of watching Extras would have expected. It's hard to see the funny side of celebrities making fun of themselves being fame obsessed. They are... it's just the kind of show that would make you want to stab yourself rather than watch another minute of the laboured, played out jokes with CELEBRITIES. It's just unrelentingly trying to hammer home a message as facile as the faux sitcom.

It would be ironic - not to mention gratifying - if Gervais's career was to follow a similar fate of his screen counterparts. Suffice to say, the same mistakes were made as in The Office Christmas Special. He shows little innovation, originality, humour. People need to stop feeding people that live on the gravy train. Gervais had a single good idea that he did well... Extras, Flanimals (how isn't that a sell out?)... his atrociously awful stand-up routines... all simply proved he was a chancer. Let's hope this timorous effort is a final nail in the coffin.

2007-12-12T03:24:00.000-08:00

For many years, Microsoft have been considered by most of those with the technical prowess to use a computer for more than five minutes before demanding they be assisted in the strenuous task of sending an e-mail to be the industry's great Satan.

In fact, so ingrained in the psyche is this disdain of MS that we even have companies like Apple basing their corporate image on "Hey, Microsoft suck! We're for the cool people! Or stupid people with money who want to think they're cool! Or maybe just exclusively the latter." Which is fair enough given that most people would generally agree that, yes - Windows sucks.

Which of course makes it somewhat amusing - not least to Bill Gates et al - that it still accounts for 90% of operating systems and pretty much has, since home computers became something that were affordable by the masses. Needless to say that this leads to an almost inexorable truth that most people will eventually be coerced into upgrading Windows when they buy a new PC.

The latest offering being Vista - presumably after you announce the name of a product and then go "oh, uh... did we say 2002? We meant 2003, oops." and then "2003? Noooo, we said 2004!" and so on, someone twigs that perhaps it's best to go with something that can remain the same, regardless of the release date. Vista has pretty much made alllll the promises that all other versions of Windows have made.

It'll be more secure! Faster, stronger! Consume more resources than you ever dreamed! More pointless shiny things to impress slack jaw simpletons and so on. The real problem here is surely this... generally by the time a new Windows platform is released, the old one is getting to be fairly robust. The bugs are ironed out, most of the giant gaps in security have been patched, code has been optimised and things run on it without you needing to run off and get some special new patch or the like. So - just as XP becomes something you could actually think of as a solid, reliable platform... here comes a brand new set of problems!

Vista isn't quite the car crash that 98 and XP were but it's a massive resource whore. All the gains one might make with a new machines evaporate and a machine you thought would be able to calculate the square root of infinity finds itself spending half the time making shiny pointless things flash... and even if you deactivate those, you're likely to find that Vista seldom uses less than a gig of RAM. Granted RAM might be comparable in price per meg to the hourly rate of a Dundonian crack whore but that hardly excuses such wanton squandering when two gigs is only starting to become the standard on new machines.

All there is to look forward to now is the next Windows platform... which will be everything that every Windows promises to be...

2007-12-07T09:46:00.001-08:00

Thus far, films of games and games of films have generally failed on many fronts.

Licensed games tend to be thin, unimaginative cash ins... and Uwe Boll is the foremost maker of films of games... If that doesn't sum up the dire nature of them... then you're truly experiencing the bliss of ignorance.

Now Hitman has been "blessed" with a film based on the popular franchise... The game revolves around the antics of bald headed super assassin, Agent 47. Genetically engineered to murder and look damned good in a suit.

The film gets the bald part right, he also kills people and wears a suit... of course, there isn't really much more to it. Naturally, things do not go smoothly for our super assassin. Which means that the film is really more of a poor man's action film. 47 supposedly botches the assassination of the Russian premier but this is actually all a ploy. A vague, dull, generic ploy that is pretty much irrelevant.

It means 47 and some Russian girl run away from people shooting at them... with precious little assassinating and far more bland, generic action which in no way redeems the film. Beyond the protagonist being roughly the same in appearance to 47... there's little to connect it to the game and even less to recommend it as something to watch.

They should have just left it to gamers.

2007-12-03T09:55:00.000-08:00

It would be fair to say that Saw has become the bankable horror franchise of the decade. The torture porn exploits of serial killer Jigsaw plenty of fun for the whole family... more or less.

The writers of the series are aware that the secret of a good serial killer film is that, the death of the serial killer is little reason for him to stop murdering. Somewhat differently from other killers, this is a non-supernatural revenge. Nope, as far as can be discerned - Jigsaw is dead as it gets. Lying on the autopsy table, organs all over... and unlike Jason or Michael Myers - he isn't going to sit up and kill anyone... that's not his style.

The plot of the film is... rather irrelevant. Oh, sure - you could follow it and try and work out the twist but that's not really the point. Nope, you want to see the confusing, winding narrative and the torture porn. Yup and the twist.

It lacks the originality of the first film or the polished nature of the second... it's just not that great unless you want to see gore... and the lack of Tobin Bell, well.