Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Not a bad effort at all from director Joe Johnston here. He has in the past directed earlier favourites of mine including Honey I shrunk the kids, Jumanji, The Rocketeer, October Sky and Jurassic Park III if I really stretch it. I have to say I really quite enjoy the retrofuturistic angle he employs, a very similar angle to the one he employed in the Rocketeer. He also really knows how to cast a leading lady for these types of films, in the case of the Rocketeer Jennifer Connelly who realistically couldn’t have been cast any better. In this film Hayley Atwell and even though I haven’t the faintest idea who she is, she was perfectly cast. These World War II noir type films he directs also seem to carry a heavy sense of nostalgia for the imagined America that was which even has me missing the old days. Chris Evans nails his role as Steve Rogers and doesn’t come across as the cocky arrogant character of his previous films such the Fantastic Four and Sunshine but rather as the archetypal American that the world wishes was really true. Hugo Weaving was good as Red Skull even if he did sound too much like Victor Meldrew at times, enough that I was expecting him to shout ‘I don’t believe it.’ any road. Still it’s almost as if every bad guy role in movies was specifically written for him as he does essentially come across as a walking amalgam of every Bond villain since Dr No. And finally Tommy Lee Jones fared well as the comically uptight General in charge of the project. Even though he’s essentially the same character in every film he’s ever been in, he’s always a welcome addition I suppose. The CGI was pretty good, maybe a little too Star Wars and I’m never overly keen on it in movies but still it was well done. But overall the general feel of the film was good. Go see.

In Time (2011)

It’s with a heavy heart that I write to tell you that I’m reviewing the trailer for another film… and that it stars Justin Timberlake. Ok he’s not that bad really but the plot of the new film he’s in that’s set to be released this October possibly is.

Directed by Andrew Niccol of Gattaca fame, In Time depicts a future where everyone stops aging at 25 years old and will die one year later unless they are able to purchase more time. Time is the universal currency of this film and the more a person has, the longer they’ll live. When the title character (Justin Timberlake) inherits a massive amount of time from someone he soon finds himself on the run in an attempt to keep it. Or something along these lines anyway. It sounds very much to me like a twisted version of Logan’s run (which was decent to be fair).

Despite the concept of this film sounding a shade crap, I have faith that Niccol will do something interesting with it and faint hopes that it will be as good as Gattaca – very faint hopes I might add. With names like Olivia Wilde, Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy it does have a chance. In truth I think it will end up feeling a bit more like Limitless than being a classic but no doubt it will be a good yarn anyway.

Duke Nukem Forever (2011)

So after 15 years of waiting, was it worth it. Erm… nope. It might have been if this game had been released ten years sooner. Unfortunately the game just betrayed the amount of time it had been sitting around on the drawing board not getting made. Don’t get me wrong, it was still Duke Nukem and it was still fun, the boss stages were truly a pain in the arse, the quips of Duke were highly amusing to listen to. But in terms of graphics and gameplay it felt like a game of a bygone gaming era. The game is a very generic and very linear shoot-em up with little in the way of storyline and certainly no decisions that could ultimately change the outcome of the game. The graphics are lacklustre and reminiscent of a first generation X-box game, certainly nothing to write home about. The character models were poor and lifeless as was any dialogue with them, perhaps even harkening back to Duke Nukem II a little in some cases. But the real question is, did I enjoy the game? You bet your ass I did. The nostalgia value was high and although this game is still bested by its predecessor I think there may be something for LAN gaming parties on the PC in future here. The final boss felt pretty epic as well, if a little too easy.

Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon (2011)

Don’t even know why I’m posting a review of this, it’s absolutely terrible. I didn’t like the first one much, it was watchable but not fantastic. It had some semblance of a storyline and a fair amount of CGI. The second one I haven’t seen all the way through but from what I’ve seen, it’s just CGI and no storyline. This one is the same thing, oodles of CGI like that on its own has the capacity to make a good film. A good film doesn’t necessarily have to have any CGI and any director worth his salt will use it very sparingly (see Christopher Nolan). A really great film can hold its weight without anything other than dialogue (see The Man from Earth). I think ultimately I’m just bitching because I think Michael Bay is a poor director, so much so that I’m hard pressed to think of a single decent film he’s been associated with save for maybe the Island, perhaps half a point for Armageddon although I think that is a truly terrible film except for the absurdly amusing interactions of the characters. So are there any reasons to like this film? Well there’s Rosie Huntington-Whiteley but she’s not a spectacular improvement over Megan Fox in any way. There’s the very cool introduction to the film which uses a sequence of American presidents sitting in the oval office and other events from bygone eras cleverly recut to imply an alternate motive behind history. Then there’s… Leonard Nimoy and I had to wait until he quoted The Search for Spock before I finally realised it was him. Epic fail. Ultimately not a complete waste of a film, it had some cool moments but is sorely lacking in terms of what $100 million should really buy.

Old World Blues

Can’t believe this has been out six days and I didn’t even know. From all counts it is also the strongest expansion pack across both FO3 and FO:NV. Awesome. There is also one further DLC pack to come – Lonesome Road. And then years of no more Fallout. Epic fail. Still at least I’ve got FO3 for the PC now, maybe some heavy modding experiments to come.

Mass Effect (2007)

Well this caught me off guard. Having been goaded into going to PC world and having a conversation with someone I thought was American but in fact just had an American accent, I ended up buying this game being assured that it was the best science fiction RPG out there. I’d seen the cover for the game and various advertisements a million times but nothing about it ever particularly caught my eye. Anyway on the advice of two salesmen and a £5 price tag I decided to give it a shot and see what all the hullaballoo was about.

I honestly wasn’t expecting to like it at all but after the introduction cut scenes you end up on Eden Prime, a human colony recently invaded by a sentient race of robots known as the Geth. And from that moment, the vista and music tell you this game is going to be something else. The game really just throws you into the action and initially you have no clue as to the nature of the galaxy you’re in. A complex plot unfolds rapidly though and draws you in very quickly. As to the nature of the plot, I would have to describe it as more or less a space opera a la Babylon 5. In fact the parallels between Mass Effect and Babylon 5 are obvious even from the beginning – a galactic community of races who don’t necessarily get along with each other, complex human politics adding to the problem of galactic relations, the citadel vs the babylon stations, jumpgates vs mass relays, and the most obvious parallel – a first contact war between humans and the most powerful race in the galaxy – the Turians. In Babylon 5, it was the Minbari although in Mass Effect the war wasn’t as one sided and humans were begrudgingly given considerable recognition in the galactic arena after a very short amount of time because they inflicted more casualties upon the Turians than they suffered themselves in this war. This of course leads to resentment amongst the other races who view them as dangerous upstarts already seeking to control everything despite being newcomers. Ultimately though the game takes a turn for the dramatic even with the background of political intrigue as an unknown race known as the Reapers threaten to wipe out all life in the galaxy. Trying to convince the council that one of their own special forces agents is responsible is tricky but this level introduces the citadel which is essentially a giant space station built by an extinct ancient race known as the Protheans. As the game progresses, the fate of the galaxy would seem to rest firmly in your hands and the nature of the RPG allows you to make either renegade or paragon decisions which will ultimately carry over and affect the next two games.

As for the actual RPG mechanics, they’re not perfect and initially seem too complex to get to grips with – in fact it took several hours of gameplay before I fully understand exactly how they worked. Once understood they do however enrich gameplay. But where this game really shines is the graphics and score. The graphics are majestic on every level and planet and this is only further augmented by the haunting score that accompanies the game. Every aspect of it feels very finely crafted right down to the superb script and voice acting. I would even go so far as to say this was the best £5 I ever spent. The game weighed in at about 33 hours gameplay for me which is longer than I suspect it takes most people but I did select my class as vanguard allowing me to use biotic abilities – which feel as though they have limited usefulness. I wouldn’t quite say this was the best RPG I’ve ever played as incarnations of Fallout still beat it but in honesty, it’s damn close and I sincerely wish there were a few more games out there that set the quality bar this high. Of course upon completion, the fun didn’t stop because it took me less than 24 hours to buy the next instalment in the saga which I will review shortly.

A bit of SEO

Just building some inbound links for a client website so mostly ignore this post.

www.handsworthfencingservices.co.uk

The Social Network (2010)

This film was recommended to me a while ago but like most things lately, it’s taken me an age to get around to watching it. And I must say I was very impressed with it. Directed by David Fincher (Alien 3, Fight Club, Se7en, The Game), the film chronicles the development of Facebook and the legal battle that ensued because of the epic levels of corporate backstabbing that took place during its early days. Truly the film is a mostly accurate telling of the site that rewove the fabric of society even as it unravelled the friendships of its creators.

There were a couple of reasons I liked it so much really – the first being Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg. Somehow he manages to convey a synergy between uber nerd and ice cool that I’ve never seen before – and it works. His character is just awesome. In fact the arrogance his character displays when dealing with others throughout the movie is above par legendary. Some of the quips are hilarious such as when being sued by the Winklevoss brother’s – “You know, you really don't need a forensics team to get to the bottom of this. If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook.” or when asked by a lawyer if he was paying attention during his deposition “I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall, they have the right to give it a try - but there's no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie. You have part of my attention - you have the minimum amount. The rest of my attention is back at the offices of Facebook, where my colleagues and I are doing things that no one in this room, including and especially your clients, are intellectually or creatively capable of doing. [pauses] Did I adequately answer your condescending question?”.

Other characters in the movie are similarly great. Justin Timberlake puts in a decent performance as Sean Parker and manages to convey the appropriate level of douchebaggery for his character although now that I think about it, I’m not sure he was acting. Not really I’m just talking shit because his ex-girlfriends are Cameron Diaz and Jessica Biel, what a rank A bastard. Andrew Garfield who plays Eduardo Saverin is the tragic character of the film who assists Zuckerberg in founding what is to become a business empire only to get royally fucked over at the first hurdle.

The film does take some artistic licence with the way events really unfolded in real life but I personally feel they add to the point that the film is trying to make – which is the perhaps cliché money can’t buy you happiness idea. I agree more with Woody Allen that no it can’t but it gets you a damn good bargaining position, but that’s just me. The film illustrates this best by showing Mark at the end sat alone in front of the website he created sending a friend request to the girl he betrayed at the beginning. In a way the ending feels kind of tragic and bittersweet.

The soundtrack is perfect for the film and utilises some of the 8 bit samples from games like Mario to give it the digital effect. The cinematography is similarly beautiful. And finally – this probably wouldn’t have been a gripe for many but it’s something I had to congratulate this film on because I’ve never seen it in any film that involves computers ever – an accurate portrayal of what computer hacking actually involves instead of the graphical bullshit seen in films like hackers and swordfish. Wow he was actually using Linux and referred to things like PHP script, PERL and EMACS. Even the code on screen looked accurate from what I could glean as did the CBA factor when something was evidently going to be too much of a pain in the arse to do.

Overall this is a cinema landmark and an exceptionally well told story for something that could otherwise be considered quite a boring and dry tale that no one would really care about. IMDB Rating: 8.1 / 10

Change of Focus

When I originally set this blog up, I had intended it to be a pure consciousness stream. In practice though I just don’t have that much time to blog. This problem has been further compounded the last couple of months by being a slave to randomenglishman who is busy building his empire. When this empire is complete, we will all become creationists, staunch death penalty advocates and quasi-national socialist daily mail readers hell bent on exterminating every last magpie purely to see if it’s a good idea.

Anyway I digress, to counter this problem I’ve decided to change the focus of the blog to being purely a media review site for movies and gaming. That way it’ll be a bit more manageable. I’ve also deleted all the discussions that were clogging it up to give it a feel more in line with what was originally intended. Watch this space.