My Thoughts on "Godzilla"

Godzilla (2014)

"What a promising start to a movie that seemed to just get worse and worse."

Overall: 3/10

            This review is Spoiler-tastic.

            "Godzilla" combines the worst aspects of "Pacific Rim" and "Man of Steel".
            It is actually so close in tone, theme, and visuals to "Man of Steel" that it kind of pisses me off.  There are scenes that seem to line up, and character roles that parallel to stupefying levels.  Instead of a 20 minute opening on Krypton, we have a 20 minute opening next to a terminal nuclear reactor.  Instead of Pa Kent dying in a silly way, we have Bryan Cranston dying in an anti-climactic way (he had up till this point been the main character, and the only one acting to any measurable degree).  The role of Clark Kent is given to Aaron Taylor-Johnson (who gets no good lines, and no character traits beyond plot useful skill set, criminally wasting the actor).  Lois Lane is replaced with Elizabeth Olsen (another actor who is put to zero use, she could be cut out of the movie entirely and it would make things better.... Just like Lois Lane really).

            Dozens of military personnel firing meaninglessly at indestructible monsters replaces military personal firing at Kryptonians... Though the Kryptonians had personality, motivation, tactics, and acknowledged the presence of humans.  Then you have David Stratheirn (Admiral), RichardT. Jones (Captain), and Ken Watanabe (Scientist) taking the place of Superman's supporting cast Harry Lenix (General), Christopher Meloni (Colonel), and Richard Schiff (Scientist).  And taking the Superman's role of vaguely heroic destructive force for good(?) is Godzilla, a vaguely heroic destructive force for good(?)... I'm not kidding, the scenes of Godzilla swimming in formation with the Navy is comparable to Superman learning to fly, and the exploration of the massive caverns analogous to finding various Kryptonian ships.

Come on, this framing of a civilization in collapse before the awesome power of nature has the protagonist on the other side of the screen.

            There is a scene in which Lt Aaron Taylor Johnson torches the eggs of the monsters who Godzilla is fighting, immediately followed by the giant monster seeing her destroyed nest and sad music plays, like we are supposed to feel bad for the monster that has caused the deaths of thousands and whose brood would have killed billions... Kind of like how Zod was seen as more sympathetic once Superman blew up the Kryptonian nursery ship.  The monster then goes berserk and fights harder against Godzilla, like Zod fought harder against Superman.

"Krypton HAD IT'S CHANCE!"

Maybe we should do something about this guys?  Guys?

Though in complete Fairness, they both stole the image from "The Matrix".

            Let me shift gears and talk about how it resembles the problems with "Pacific Rim".  "Pacific Rim" is retarded as hell.  Mecha is the most stylized and preposterous thing in popular science fiction.  In real life mecha would not function because of how physics works, drones with rockets would work a hundred thousand times better and be much, much cheaper.  Its why the modern Navy flies more planes then it has Dreadnaughts and Battleships.  But that movie wears its stupidity like a badge of honor, it is about giant robots and monsters.  Once you accept that planes do nothing, they stop having planes in the movie, you don't see useless crap being useless... Unlike in "Godzilla" where the military just keeps shooting useless crap at the monsters who barely perceive it.

            "Pacific Rim" plays the goofy concept, with characters that are one note, but memorable.  You remember the Russian team with the blonde hair, that the Chinese team was triplets, that the Australians were a father son duo, the main operator wore a bow tie, and each of the scientists had either the trait of sniveling or reckless, and much like "The Avengers" a put upon Black guy was in charge and being talked down to by a criminally stupid budgetary committee.  Everyone looked different enough so that you could appreciate them, get a sense of them, and say something to the effect of, "Ah, now he's dead... That's too bad."  (Charlie Hunnam looked a bit too much like the Australian pilot, but whatever).

This is a weird part, because it is one of the few times Godzilla could easily avoid plowing thru something and he does anyway.  Normally he dives under them (ships), or is unable to move around without wrecking things (buildings).

Wait a minute... Is a 60 year old franchise lifting from a movie that came out last year?  This can't just be a random parallel creative moment.  They're identical.

            "Godzilla" is so pretentious and does not even have the good sense to hide its stupidity while being so.  For instance, the monsters emit EMP's which shut down electronics, which the movie demonstrates as causing jets to crash.... SO WHY DO THEY KEEP DEPLOYING JETS AT ALL?  All they do is drop out of the air and accomplish nothing, so just stop launching them.  "Pacific Rim" said conventional weapons were useless, so you don't see useless conventional weapons being meaninglessly hurled against the Kaiju.  Guns are shown to be meaningless in Godzilla and totally ineffective.  Thousands of M-16 rounds are fired along with numerous blasts from tanks and ships... WHY DO THEY EVEN GIVE SOLDIERS RIFLES IN THIS?  In the later part of the movie you see soldiers in vests carrying rifles while on a mission to disarm a bomb... What do they need the guns for?  The armor slows them down and does nothing else; when the 70,000 ton titan steps on you the vest won't help.

             Let me complain about something else.  In the middle of the movie Godzilla is about to attack one of the monsters in Honolulu, and it is shaping up to be awesome.  It hard cuts to a child sitting on a couch watching the fight happen on the news.  Fuck you movie.  It was such an insulting cock tease that I gestured at the screen and began laughing in the most dismissive tone I have ever heard from myself.

            Then there are issues with sound design.  Godzilla only makes noise some of the time even though he should sound like a freaking avalanche with every step.  There are multiple instances of him sneaking up on the other monsters, including when he kills the big monster at the very end of the movie.  Monster staring at human hero... and then BAM!  Godzilla-ed.  Fuck you.  The other monster does this too in the middle of the movie to a train transporting nukes.  It just appears in the darkness and the two humans hide on this bridge, like the monster is going to attack them... Which makes no sense because it never shows any interest in humans.  It does not eat humans, it eats radiation... which I am actually fine with.  Though that adds another issue that humans become meaningless to the story, the only thing humans manage to stop is a bomb they stupidly set up to kill the monsters.  Humans are irrelevant in this story, and actively hurt themselves in their own confusion.

            Music is also an issue.  Like I mentioned above the scene in which the humans manage to destroy the nest sad music plays for the monster.  I'm sorry movie, I stopped empathizing with the giant monsters an hour ago when they destroyed Vegas and that they seem to be pretty much incapable of perceiving humans as little more than insects... I don't feel sad for them.  AT ALL.  I laughed my ass off at that.  I can compare this to a Godzilla movie that already exists, "Godzilla Final Wars" which I hated at the time for its poor pacing (and that is still an issue) but Jesus did it at least have some levity.  The music in it is rock and roll as the atomic breath vaporizes lesser monsters.  There is no moody orchestral... THERE IS ONLY ROCK.

            It also has a "The Dark Knight Rises" issue with the ending, sending a multi megaton nuke out to sea on a fishing boat.  A nuke they were hoping to fire off 30 miles from the city to avoid fall out.  But it is still in the San Francisco Bay with only 2 minutes left on the timer... unless that fishing boat can go 900 miles an hour everyone who isn't dead in San Francisco is going to have cancer next week.

So is he laying on his tummy in the water here?  Cause he is so big he should not be at all underwater this close to an island.

            There are no jokes, no sense of adventure, it is a joyless, colorless slog.  There is a giant atomic dragon on screen and none of the soldiers give so much as a "HELL YEAH!"  While trying to save the city from a nuclear blast.  This actually makes me look back of "Transformers" forlornly.  In "Transformers" the soldiers fight a giant killer robot in a middle eastern village only managing to repel it with devastating levels of air support.  A great scene, made better by the soldiers having personalities, and managing to be jokey and having a sense of adventure while fighting the giant robot scorpion.  Hell even in "Man of Steel" there are jokes and upbeat tone moments: like Superman destroying a big rig, Lois escaping from Zod's ship, or the "I think he's kind of hot" comment at the end.  I can't quote a line from "Godzilla" that wasn't said with a tone of grim resolution.

            In summation, it is dumber than "Pacific Rim", more joyless than "Man of Steel", and lacks a sense of urgency or fun that leaves it boring.  I kind of hated this movie.

            I had no expectations, how did they fail to meet them?

Whatever... It was never High Art.

Movies of 2013, Superhero, pt2, Superman

Man of Steel, or "Holy shit?  Did Superman just...?"

Overall: 6/10

Why don't they just put a halo over his head?  The Christ imagery is thick as any movie I have seen in years.

            I have written about this movie before and what I was really stunned by is how it compares to "Thor the Dark World" which came out later that same year and I will discuss tomorrow (because this review ran really long).  "Man of Steel" is just fine.  It is probably the most expensive film I have ever seen that I have reacted this 'meh' to, though I liked it a lot more when I initially saw it because I thought (and still do think) that it has the single best action sequence of the year involving the devastation of Smallville.  There are numerous issues, most of which have been hit on a lot by different people but I have at least one that I haven't seen anybody else write/talk about which I will get into too.

Problem 1: Lois Lane and everyone at the Daily Planet is completely useless.

            These guys should not have been in the movie at all.  While Amy Adams is a great actress, and Laurence Fishburne is a great guy to play Perry White, my point is that they have no point.  Literally everything they do could have been done by someone else to greater effect, or left out of this movie entirely and put into the sequel.

            For instance, Lois shows up at an archeological dig in the frozen north for a 20,000 year old alien craft, Clark is there because he thinks (and is right) that it is connected to his mysterious origins on a world unknown.  Lois goes out at night and finds Clark digging his way through the ice to the ship, she is attacked by the ship's security, Clark rescues her and then takes the ship and leaves her behind.  The real issue here: why did that have to be Lois?

            There is another character named Dr. Hamilton, played by an Emmy Winner, Richard Schiff who would have filled this story role much better.  A scientist that follows the mysterious alien to an ancient ship.  Follow that up later in the movie when General Zod takes Superman prisoner, and inexplicably takes Lois too.  Why?  She has no value, instead have Hamilton ask to be taken along, that he wants to see this alien society with alien technology and be an ambassador from Earth.  Zod would allow such an envoy because he wants Hamilton to relay what is coming to Earth authorities when he does attack (cause Zod is a dick).  Instead you have Lois along for adventures that she contributes nothing to, relaying information she can't understand between characters who could just talk to each other..

            By beefing up Hamilton's role it would also complete the themes of Father figures offering Superman choices in the movie, Jor-El the scientist telling him to be a messiah, Jonathan Kent the human telling him to live his own life, and then Dr. Hamilton the human scientist offering a compromise of being both a man, Clark, and a hero, Superman.

More time with these guys would have been better than the completely useless time spent at the Planet.

            The scenes in which Lois investigates and finds Superman in Smallville could have been the opener to the next movie, having a crafty reporter recap the events of the first movie while seeking out the hero and then offering to help him become a part of the world rather than some mysterious savior would do a lot to help the hypothetical second film shift into gear.

Problem 2: Metropolis was totally pointless.

            Zod is supposed to be a tactical genius with a technological advantage over those he is at war with (Earth) so why is he situating his key piece of technology (the key to his whole plan) in a major metropolitan area in which it could be exposed to attack by the most powerful military on the planet?  Why not park the things at the north and south poles?  It would take hours for American or Russian military weapons to be brought to bear against him, by which time the gravity weapon would have such a huge wake that no plane could fly in it, and no missile could be modified to target it (missile targeting depends on gravity working a consistent and certain way).

            Heck have it in Smallville, the idea of Superman's Earth life being literally smashed to nothing by the gravity of finding who he is would be a really good METAPHOR with a lot of emotional resonance and have just as many tactical issues as attacking Metropolis.  And the destruction of Smallville in this movie would prompt Clark to move to the big city in the second movie.

Problem 3: Lara Lor-Van of Krypton is completely useless.

            Aside from giving birth to Clark the role of Superman's Mom in the story is... Couldn't tell you.  To look stoic while her home planet explodes with her on it.  Compare this with Freya's role in "Thor the Dark World" (SPOILERS for Thor 2; go watch Thor 2, it is a lot of fun and has a lot working for it).

Well, I was a well developed character.

            To skip spoilers continue to my next problem.  In "Thor the Dark World" Frigga, Thor's Mom takes it upon herself to protect Jane Foster, Thor's girlfriend who is the designated MacGuffin carrier.  Freya fights against and nearly kills the main villain of the film and is only undone by the biggest physical threat seen in the movies aside from the Hulk.  Frigga is crafty, smart, has good (albeit limited) character interaction with the main characters, she has traits and a role in the story to die heroically trying to protect the universe from ruin and darkness.  Freya is cool.  Lara is not.

            How would you fix Lara?  Make her a warrior.  On Krypton people are not born, they are created and grown for purposes.  You could be designed to be a scientist, laborer, leader, soldier, or whatever.  Superman's Dad, Jor-El is a scientist, and somehow he manages to kick several soldiers' asses at a time and go on daring adventures... Let's not have him do that.  Let's have Lara do that.  Have her be a member of the warrior class, same as General Zod, and another symbol of duality in Superman, he is the child of two forbidden lovers, one a scientist, the other a warrior, it would also so Krypton to be more divergent from Earth toward gender roles, that being a man or woman does not mean one thing or the other, a concept only hinted at with the villain Faora.

            This could also add an element to Zod disliking Jor-El, that Lara was a good soldier till she met Jor-El and then left Zod's army.  It might also explain why Lara does not appear as a hologram later in the movie, that she (not Jor-El) was busy fighting Zod and buying time for Jor-El to get baby Superman on his rocket ship, so Jor-El did not get a chance to scan her into the program, currently it just looks like Jor-El left her out for no reason.  Lara is the most underused character in the movie.

Problem 4: Krypton's gloomy look.

            Krypton is the most well known planet in popular fiction aside from Planet X, which is actually just a generic catch all term for a hypothetical 10th planet in our solar system.  Having existed for 70 years Krypton has been drawn hundreds of times by a multitude of artists who have seen it as a world of crystal, a world of brightly colored tights, or in this case a world of very cold metal.

Seriously, when everything about the culture screams evil, you feel less bad that they are all dead.

            This is really the least of my problems with the movie.  My personal favorite look for Krypton is from the Animated Series in the 90's, or the goofy but shameless look in the "All Star Superman" comic from which some of Jor-El's dialogue is directly lifted.

            This is not the only movie out there going for Alien = Dark, and so it does not set itself apart from the pack.  "Star Trek" in 2009 turned heads by having everything incredibly white and shiny (hard to keep clean, looks like Apple took over) but it was eye catching and you felt like it was a bright shiny future worth saving.  In fact that is another good comparison, in "Star Trek" the main bad guy comes from a doomed plant in a dark ship that has a squid or spider like design and uses a gravity weapon to destroy of world full of people; "Man of Steel" has a villain from a doomed planet in a dark ship that has a spider or squid like appearance and he uses a gravity weapon to try and commit planetary genocide... Hell, the climax of each movie involves hitting the big unstoppable ship with a tiny ship causing the big ship to be sucked out of reality by a black hole... Fuck, that is some lazy hack writing when you get down to it.

Okay, Zod has far fewer tentacles/legs on his ship.

And come on, this space beam is orange... Not Blue!  Come on, totally not the same.

            Maybe having the main bad guys, General Zod and company show up dressed like they are going to fight "Flash Gordon" might have seemed silly, but isn't that kind of interesting?  Invasion of the goofy aliens sounds cool to me in an age of cynical and grim dark.

Problem 5: The double beat.

            The first 20 minutes of this movie is Krypton getting obliterated and having a civil war at the same time.  It is a weird alien planet with elements borrowed from "Avatar" mixed with "Alien", that is fine (even if it did not appeal to me it is a fine way for there to be an authorial stamp of those making the movie, "our Krypton is different").

            At the midpoint of the movie Clark discovers a spaceship that has a hologram Jor-El tell him about Krypton's obliteration and civil war... This is called a double beat, explaining something to the audience something they saw or have already had explained to them.  The effects and art direction of the scene are beautiful, using no color but clever moving relief sculpture to illustrate the war... Hell, this could have been the only thing we see of the destruction of Krypton, cutting out the whole opening, which is ultimately filler.  The fact is, pick one or the other, having both does only one thing: it kills the movie's momentum.

            To fix this scene you have to have Jor-El say, "I must explain to you about the end of Krypton and why you are here on Earth."  Then cut to something else.  The ship warming up to fly away, Zod's ship appearing at the edge of our solar system, Dr. Hamilton analyzing something.  But you do not explain to the audience a second time something they already know.  It is a waste of time.

Problem 6: Most of the fights.

            The fight in Smallville is the highlight of the movie and steals the thunder from all other encounters.  It is fast, destructive, showcases Superman's strength and speed, and displays the threat Zod's forces present to the Earth.  Zod's forces are fast, strong, and have training as soldiers, allowing them to use martial arts and group tactics to effect; but contrast, Superman is faster, stronger, can fly, has super senses and heat vision, but is limited by lack of training (who needs to learn wrist locks or effective punching when you can bend metal by flexing your toes)?  The Smallville throw down is amazing and showcases better than any other movie superheroic action with modern special effects.

This was the turning point of the movie, When a pilot gets vaporized into bloody mist by a Kryptonian soldier.

            The fight immediately after word is between Superman and robot tentacles in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  Here is the thing, they probably did this to shake up how and what Superman was fighting, much like how "Iron Man 3" has him fighting in a small town bar, catching people as they fall out of a plane, or an oil rig.  Visual variety is important in keeping the audience engaged, and is a big part of why the Smallville fight is so cool: Gas Station, Main Street, Department Store, Diner, Train Station, Bank, Corn Field, Farm (also allows for criminal amounts of product placement, even though Sears and IHOP do exist, so it is product placement that doesn't feel all that out of place).

            Smallville has so much to look at, so much to throw, to hit, to break, and things to be broken over, it offers a lot of destruction in an area that looks lived in and people can see themselves living in.  The middle of the ocean has no visual variety, and the tentacles just swirl around and try to ensnare.  The Tentacles are boring.

            Honestly the Smallville fight should have been the end of the movie.  Metropolis, while offering untold carnage is visually boring, dozens of buildings are falling over (cool, yes) but they all might as well be identical, none of them has visual personality or a sense of reality, they are just really big grey, and seemingly empty buildings.  Compare this to "The Avengers" which has Captain America killing aliens in an attempt to stop a massacre of civilians in a random lobby, and how (in spite of being filmed in Cleveland) the movie showcases real buildings that have a variety of visuals to them.  Hell, the part where the Hulk races through a populated office building knocking through cubicles and around people, jumping through a window and tackling a space dragon to keep it from slamming into the building and killing everyone is great, it shows signs of life and stakes.

            The final end of the movie (the most controversial thing about it) only works because Superman and Zod's fight terminates in a structure that has people in it that are in peril because of Zod, the gravity of the situation is shown on the micro level instead of just a giant smoking crater.  Where as the Smallville fight has people everywhere, feet away from soldiers getting obliterated by Faora, an awesome foe who is not named Ursa for some reason.

            And I don't know why so many action sequences seem so empty, Zack Snyder was smart to show the home front in "300", Nolan showed in the "The Dark Knight" that there were people everywhere for Batman to rescue, and David Goyer had Blade rescuing people in "Blade" several times.  All of the creative team have managed to capture the human element in their past movies, so why is it hit or miss here?

My Thoughts on "Fate/Zero"

(A short while ago I did a first impressions at JACT, an anime club at Florida State University, and we watched some of "Fate/Zero"; last weekend we watched a little more and this is my thoughts on that...)

            "Fate/Zero" is by no means the MOST baffling of anime I have ever seen but it have so many problems layered on top of one another the thing starts to break down just halfway through the cold opener of the pilot and does not build up steam enough to escape the event horizon of my apathy.

            I will however complain about lots of stuff that I identified as issues in the first 3 episodes, the maximum amount of time I was given to let this thing impress me.  It failed, it is dead to me, and here is the autopsy.

            1) The loads and loads of cryptic info dumps.  This is an egregious problem with genre shows and if I had to point to an example of what to follow, "Witch Hunter Robin".  In the first episode a fish out of water main character is drafted into a secret society of magic users that police witches.  They have cool weapons (that we see in use) each of the main protagonists interact to show off in efficient ways their personalities in regards to one another, nothing is too term heavy, and visual depictions of things move the story forward.

            In "Fate/Zero" long conversations referring to any number of cryptic terminology and arcane political minutia make it impossible to follow in medias res.  What is more, the nature of the show makes it impossible to see the principle characters interact with one another in any substantive way.  There is no main character to whom things are explained and demonstrated, there is no haunting nursery rhyme to allude to the various mystical elements that come later, and there is very little clean displays of rules in action.  Everything has to be explained, explained again, and explained again, never getting clearer.

            2) Good God, the cast is gigantic.  This would actually be less of an issue if each cast member was as physically and emotionally distinct as they could be, but if you were to stand 4 out of the 7 wizards next to one another I couldn't tell you which was which.  There are 7 wizards competing in the show for the Grail, they in turn have 7 very distorted historical figures to work with, they also have at least one supporting cast member though sometimes 3 or more, that means there are upwards of 30 characters introduced in the first 3 episodes.  "Game of Thrones" wasn't so intense with introductions.

            Compare this to a show like "Bleach" or "Naruto" in which the first 3 episodes have maybe 6-8 characters in total focused primarily on the main character and his supporting cast.  Those worlds even had mythologies that were a lot more original and used a vocabulary that was clear, and lended itself toward explanation rather than being cryptic or trying to sound epic, even now that both those shows have dozens of characters, each character has visual personality and their introductions were paced out to allow each time to plant themselves in the minds of the audience.  "Fate/Zero" jumps into the deep end of its own story, as if you were starting 30 episodes into a normal series.

Yeash...

            3) "Fate/Zero" is studded with "MEANING".  Studded is a derogatory term I use for stories which have imagery from myths and history, but those things do not in anyway add to the story, what those things serve to do is add a layer of fake legitimacy to the work.  "Fate/Zero" throws around terms like Grail, and names like Bluebeard or C'thulhu without giving any of those terms the respect they disserve. 

            For instance, an objective is to summon the spirit(?) or manifestation of a famous historical sword fighter to serve as a servant in an upcoming grand battle, like Pokemon but with Historical figures.  They ask for and get King Arthur, who was apparently a woman the whole time.  Why they chose to do this I have no idea, if they wanted a prominent female warrior to serve in this battle there is no reason to alter the gender of an established figure, instead just get Joan of Arc or Boudica.  Instead they throw out Arthur cause... Reasons?

            4) Who are these people?  Alexander the Great of Macedon is a character in this series, and takes on the visage of an 8 foot tall red haired behemoth riding a chariot, several things wrong with that, as Alexander was Macedonian, and thus was ethnically Serb/Slav/Greek, not a lot of groups known for their red hair.  Then you have Gilgamesh portrayed as a blonde Adonis, even though he was Sumerian and is shown standing in front of pictures of tan skinned and dark haired Sumerians, highlighting the shows lack of research on the people they are presenting.  All of it is like this.

            You might say in rebuttal, "it is a cartoon, who cares if they have Arthur as a woman or if they have a blonde middle easterner?"  I care.  It goes back to the idea of this thing being studded with meaning, these names and titles, totems and symbols are all supposed to make us think something profound or interesting is happening... It isn't, it is a trick.  They are using these characters to trick your brain into thinking there is something important going on, when really it is just a very generic anime action series plot, with slow pacing and stilted dialogue.

 

Gilgamesh portrayed as a Sumerian.

Gilgamesh as presented by "Fate/Zero", and probably how Neo-Nazis like to think of him.

            What is more, I can explain what is going on faster than the show can.  There is a society of mages, divided by class and breeding.  The noble houses of this society gather every so many years to compete for the Grail, a powerful item which will bestow one wish to the victor.  These mystics fight with the souls of legendary beings, generals, kings, soldiers, and rogues (though I still find it stupid to have "caster" be a summon able thing by a wizard, it would be like having "human" as you power animal/spirit guide).  Each competitor is chosen at random and each has their own goals, supporting casts, knowledge base, and tactics.  Hell, I wrote a poem:

Seven will come so fast

to dance the dance of death

From Heaven descend breath

Of life of legends past

Wishes from Chalice lips drips

to quench the breadth of thirst

For power, chaos, conquest

Marks call souls to unrest

            But there is no clever presentation, the characters all look alike and sound alike, they all have the same jargon heavy dialogue, the few who stand apart do so mostly because of the "historical" figures they conjure.  The pacing of this show is a disaster, information should be woven into the narrative, not read to the audience like encyclopedia entries.

Initial Thoughts: "Deus Ex: Human Revolution"

            I went to Target the other day and found a 3 for 2 sale on video games.  Being that "Skyrim" was still 60 bucks and that was just not cost effective I instead decided to go the cheap bastard route and grabbed three Science Fiction games off the shelf.  One horror, "Dead Space 2" which I have not cracked open yet.  Another was puzzle, "Portal 2", which I really like though have an odd complaint that there might in fact be too many jokes in it.  And lastly an Role Playing Game, "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" (Christ that trailer is pretentious).  This little blog is about that last one.

"The Matrix" is still popular right?  Right?

            I have some complaints about this thing, and I haven't even finished the first level... Actually, that is my main complaint, the first level.  Here is the problem, since it is a role playing game, I have to determine what role I want to play, stealth killing opponents from the shadows or fire fights out in the open.  What is more I can chose to be more up close and personal, with stun guns, or far away with rifles.  This sounds great right?  Well, it might be, maybe they should let me play both a little and then let me decide.

            The game's first mission has you rescuing hostages from a luddite militia, you can chose to go lethal or non-lethal, up close or ranged... they then give you one weapon.  One.  Mother fuckers, if I were a rent a cop I would have truncheon, mace, and a side arm.  And they think a stun gun is enough for heading into a hostage situation?  Give me more guns.  Give me all the guns!  My character is a billion dollar cyborg prototype, and you cut costs when its game time?  Keep in mind all I have played is the tutorial, which had no stealth sections, so I have no idea if I even like stealth action, so how am I supposed to make a decision on that front?  What are the benefits of lethal vs non-lethal?  I don't know, they don't tell you.

MORE DAKKA!

             Another thing, I got the Tranquilizer rifle, and it is shit.  Too late to get a sub-machine gun?  Oh, well I guess I will just do melee stealth kills for now, "Assassin's Creed" and "Man Hunt" taught me how to do that much.  Guess what, there are power bars for melee knock-outs/kills.  You know that thing Master Chief does with such grace and ease it is akin to cracking his knuckles?  Yeah, you can do that twice before your body starts malfunctioning.  I, as a flesh and blood real life entity can choke out more than two people without needing a protein bar, hell give me a heavy pointy rock and I'll knock people out all god damn day, and the billion dollar cyborg super agent can't?  Huh?

A bowling pin will also work.

             Then there is the text problem, I knock a guy out and have to pick pocket him, can't read anything on the screen, pictures are vague, so I pick up everything and hope my inventory description will be legible, and I have a big HD-TV, I can accept and forgive this sort of thing from "Dead Rising" which was a launch title on the 360, but the system has been out for more than half a decade, text should not be a complaint.

            Here is a petty one: the main character sounds like he is out of breath all the time.  I know they are going for a gruff angst ridden anti-hero because there isn't 10,000 of those out in the world already, but does he have to sound awful?  Nathan Drake and Master Chief are angst ridden, but they hide it behind an upbeat snide attitude and straight talking can do spirit respectively.

            Controls.  When you are walking around, it is first person, but if you take cover it switches to third person, this happens in such a way as to completely disorient you.  I played "Red Dead Redemption" entirely in third person and it didn't hurt my immersion in the story.  I played "Fallout 3" entirely in first person and had no issue with cover and stealth.  Why does this need to juggle the two?  Pick one and do it well.  There are even first person games with cover systems that work really well they could have ripped off, like the first "Call of Juarez".  This is a dumb way to run things.

            Lastly is the plot.  Regular humans dislike cyborgs because they are unnatural, they are using augmentations to their bodies with technology.  That is horseshit.  I hate to break it to you, but anti-biotic treatments are not natural, neither are cell phones, artificial heart valves, or clothing for that matter (clothing is an artificial skin we wear to protect our real skin from the elements).  Furthermore the story shows that while people might want to get augmentations, they don't have to, they can be stupid like Jenny McCarthy and falsely believe that augmentations cause various forms of retardation.  There is a false dichotomy that drives the plot's main conflict, and that is poor writing.

            So pacing, presentation, controls, and core themes and story telling... Each fail right out of the gate for me.  That is a shame.  Who made this?  Square Enix.  Yeah, should have figured.  Compared to something like "Mass Effect 2" which has a clear motivation, clean combat, and solid writing and presentation I wonder why "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" has been so highly recommended.

Oh, and it isn't the setting or concept that is the problem, as this is my favorite anime ever, and it is very much the same thing.

I review "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 1" pt4 Finally

            While we are in the dungeon waiting for the worst characters in the movie series to come in and save the day I'll continue the review.

            Okay, can someone explain to me what is up with the wands?  They imply that there is some sort of magical connection between a wand and its user.  Since Lord V is imprinted on Harry they have twin wands, they each connect to that design and combination of magical ju-ju.  So how are they able to use other people's wands?  What is the advantage of using your own wand?

            Now let me bring this all the way back to my first complaint of Bellatrix.  Again, good actress, and the the problem isn't so much the character but how the character is used.  And the perfect example is at the 'heroes' lowest point in the movie.  They are captured and are being imprisoned and interrogated by Bellatrix, which is like a bull dog interrogating a canary, she doesn't ask questions, she just chews trying to get it to sing.  Bellatrix is stone stupid.  Harry has the most pathetic disguise they could throw over him, his face is puffy, and Bellatrix can't tell it's him.  He has the same scar, the same glasses, same voice, same height and coloring... Oh, and he is traveling with his two best friends, that like finding Batman with Superman and Wonder Woman, but he's wearing a red cape so the Joker can't tell it's him.  Bellatrix then commences to get her ass wrecked by an elf and some teenagers, getting a killing blow against the worst character in the franchise (Dobby, read "part 1", complaint two), and earning my love and respect.  Feelings you shouldn't have for the psycho antagonist.

And there is the pitch!  Oh!  She hit the batter square up in the face and he's down, yep... She killed him.  Today is a great day in baseball.

            Speaking of psycho antagonists.  How has no one tried to kill Lord V in his sleep?  The man is a monster.  A literal and figurative monster.  He supports ethnic superiority, rule through violence and bloodshed, and has no real management strategy beyond blaming minorities for problems.  Why are people following Lord V at all?  In fact, what is his ultimate goal?  He seems to want to kill Harry Potter, but why?  because Harry, having survived inexplicably in his youth is a symbol of hope to those he suppresses?  So what?  He's a teenage orphan that sheds supporting cast members like a leper sheds fingers.  Harry is lucky, but far from competent, yet he is orbited like he has value.  Why?

I'm not the first person to say that the Wands might just be a penis metaphor right?  Okay, then I won't go on a long pick it apart rant about how that makes perfect sense in a coming of age story, though the Sword makes that metaphor twice over.

            And another thing, nobody thought to go check the Malfoy residence, nobody thought that might be the headquarters of the bad guys?  Snape killed the headmaster of a prestigious private school, less than a year later he is the headmaster of that school, is this "The Highlander" franchise where killing someone gets you their power?  Why aren't the parents complaining about his?  Why isn't he wanted for murder?  Seriously, explain to me why Malfoy is walking free?  And that no one of authority bothered to look for him, at his fucking house.  Is this a British thing?  "Hey, um."  "Yes officer, did you want to search the grounds?"  "Well, yes as a matter of fact."  "Well, we're a bit busy could you stop by some other time?"  "Well, I suppose if you are busy.  What time would you like us to come by on our man hunt?"  "I don't know, my schedule is all over the place right now.  Could I just give you a call when you could come over and conduct your search for the man wanted for conspiracy to commit murder and treason?"  "Yeah just drop us a line when you aren't busy, no need to rush."  Who is running this place?

Yeah, nobody saw this sniveling little shit turning into a sniveling little shit villain in the future.  Christ he can't even kill a helpless old man with dignity.  Hey, if you disagree with Voldemort: defect.  Lord V is just going to fuck you and your whole social order over in the end anyway, he is a nihilistic sociopath and you sided with him... because?

            And a complaint that everyone has touched on, what was the deal with Hermione erasing her parents' memories?  As soon as I saw this happen I said to myself, "Aren't they going to wonder about all the empty frames around the house, not to mention the empty bedroom that they never filled with crap?  What about their neighbors?  "Didn't you have a daughter?  She went to boarding school, you brag about her being top of her class all the time?  What do you mean you don't know what I'm talking about?"  Why wasn't Harry's step parents given the same treatment?  Hell, why weren't they given the same treatment in the first movie?  They are abusive shits and Harry should have been allowed to live and work at Hogwarts during the summer, learning to train animals with Hagrid and getting some sort of internship as a page at the Ministry or something.  Instead the school sends Harry back to the people who had him living under the stairs since he was a baby, and for whatever reason hate him but don't want him to go to boarding school.  They make no sense as characters and should have been dismissed as quickly as possible but are kept around for bland manufactured drama.

You just know the neighbors are going to end up calling the cops because they'll assume that these people killed their daughter and just want to cover it up and go on with their lives like psychos would hope to do.  It'd be like the ending to "Shutter Island" without all the competent acting.

            Well, That's all I could think of, but considering I saw it opening week, 5 and a half months ago, and not since... Well, the negative made an impression.  I guess that is part of the issue, The best character of the whole series has been Hogwarts and it wasn't in this movie.  A lot of the peripheral magical world was in "Deathly Hollows", but it was the extreme periphery, the wilderness and the muggle world.  The whole thing just came off as very dull and full of the bullshit angst that "Twilight" has forced into the genre of modern fantasy.  This series lost its spark, and much like I saw "The Revenge of the Sith" out of obligation to the "Star Wars" franchise, I'll see "Part II" out of obligation to this series though I only really liked two of the movies.  It is sad really, they had a built in audience so they took for granted the millions they would make and the hoard of apologists they would have fighting for them, so they made a mediocre film just to cash in an additional time when they could have wrapped this whole thing up by cutting out a lot of the nonsense.

            You all get that don't you?  That this movie was created specifically to make more money, not to give the prose room to breath on film.  That they realized this gravy train won't be ripe for remake for at least 10 years and that they needed to draw it out a little longer to savor the money flow.  This is a scam.  Whatever.

They don't look sad, he looks bored and she looks pensive.  I would say they are going to go on to very little acting wise, but with my luck this guy will be the next incarnation of "Doctor Who" and I'll grow to like him and be brainwashed into apologizing for this series of blogs

            Fuck me, are they camping again?!

I review "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 1" pt2

            Alright on the move again, maybe we're done with the camping long enough for something poignant to happen.

            Another nitpick there are a lot of wasted scenes in this movie.  Like the train scene.  A guy who looks like General Zod is standing on the tracks and stops the express to Hogwarts to inspect the train... Why is Neville on that train?  He is a known associate and collaborator who participated in Dumbledore's Army, shouldn't he have been on some sort of hit list?  You know, a list you hand to Bellatrix so she can entertain herself playing with entrails and not kill minions for shits and giggles.  What is more, why are they stopping the train at all?  Can't they just wait at Hogwarts?  The place is run by Snape now, you could hang out, have some tea, rather than flying to the middle of the countryside to stop a train that only has two stops.  Both of which you know and can be at.

KNEEL!  Before ZOD!

Also, not to harp too much on this, but this is the original image, dark and colorless and nearly imperceptible as anything other than a mess of shadows.

            Or here is another wasted scene, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione enter that hidden apartment that unfolds from the surrounding structure, its very dusty and unused, even though they were there like two movies ago and it seems like an obvious headquarters for the good guys to use.  When they enter that apartment a wisp of dust takes the form of a wrathful ghost of Dumbledore and charges the three and then vanishes... In the theater I said loud enough to be shushed, "The fuck was that?", and then Ron immediately says, "What was that all about?" and I laughed my ass off.  When the characters don't know why a random, never to be mentioned again scene is there, time to cut some fluff.

So this is here to scare off the local riff-raff who might break into the apartment?  The magically concealed apartment.

            Why is there a wedding in this movie?  The plot isn't crowded enough that we have to throw this random set piece in from the book?  If you want to show the growing strain between trying to live a happy life while in a shadow war there are ways to do it, like in the last movie when they burned down the Weasly's home, which was awesome... Funny how that house looks right as rain without mention of how they repaired it.  In fact that would have been a better illustration of the tension, trying to rebuild a home, which had been burned down by lunatics.  Really the wedding isn't the only unnecessary part, but showing Ron's eldest brother and his wife was pointless, they disappear quickly, existing solely to have a wedding, solely to set up the plot.  Why couldn't they have been married off screen?

Because if there is one thing that says, "sure to be exciting" is being a guest at your friend's brother's wedding.  Also, this image has been color enriched so it isn't a blob of darkness.

            Hey, why is the Prime Minister talking to three high schoolers about a high school principle's will?  Couldn't this part of the plot been handed off to Lupin or better yet Luna's father, giving him an actual reason to be there in the first act instead of just dropping him in cryptically, practically with a sign around his neck that says, 'Foreshadowing' (actually he was wearing his Deathly Hollows medallion if I remember correctly, so he was literally wearing a sign that said foreshadowing around his neck).

I'm so glad we got to spend 30 seconds with this guy so we could really feel for him when his betrayal came, as opposed to it feeling like a rushed and anti-climactic sub-plot swept aside for more camping scenes.

            Speaking of the Deathly Hollows, this series doesn't have enough MacGuffins and Dues Ex Machina flying around that we had to throw in 2 more (I say two because the cloak was in an earlier film and is thus an established device).  Isn't it funny how a stone that brings back the dead wasn't mentioned when Dumbledore died, or how no one mentioned or thought twice about burying Dumbledore with the most powerful magical item on the planet?  Little irresponsible to leave that WMD sitting in an unguarded crypt when a terrorist is running around looking for weapons he can easily get his hands on.  Its like storing a nuke at the Gettysburg memorial with no guard.

"Hey, you think we should even bother to put one of those Dumbledore ghosts that are made out of dust so as to scare off grave robbers?"  "No, you kidding.  Let's use the same security my paper boy uses: put a big rock on top of the thing."

            So Lord V has taken over the ministry in a bloody coup... Nobody going to say or do anything about that?  Just gonna go on about your business?  People have to know what is going on, they create a secret police for dragging people off to mock trials and they change who is in charge of Hogwarts... To the guy who murdered the last headmaster.  Nobody has any objection to what is happening, which I could buy if Lord V wasn't a literal monster and instead a nice guy who had a point, but he has no point.  Lord V wants to cleanse the wizard community of those who had muggle parents, I was under the impression that he had a muggle parent?  So, why isn't anyone confronting him about this?  How is he able to just take control without other groups opposing him?  Where are all the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff members of this society who think it might be a good idea to keep their own liberty?  Where are the Slytherin members who don't want Lord V in control, are Snape and Black the only two?  Bleh...

            MacGuffin, MacGuffin, who's got the MacGuffin?  Sword?  Anybody got the magical sword?  How about the medallion that drives you paranoid?  I dislike immensely that much of what needs to happen falls on items that have not been identified or explained until this late in the game, it screams of being out of ideas and pulling stuff out an orifice.  Why did Ron have a vision of Harry and Hermione fucking when he opened the Horcrux?  If Harry knew he could open the locket by speaking in snake tongue why did they pointlessly blast the thing with their wands when they first got it... HOW DID THEY HAPPEN TO FIND THAT SWORD?  Bad, bad plotting.

This happens.  It isn't subtle.  And it makes no sense. Because if you are trying to get somebody not to destroy you, showing them a picture of a guy doing his girlfriend is only gonna piss him off.

See?  And he's got the MacGuffin Sword cocked any ready to rock.

            And... They're camping again.  Urgh.... Fine, while they have a random dancing scene I'll contemplate what my next blog will consist of.

Make me a sandwich.