One Less Funny Man

Bye bye, Leslie Neilsen. So much comedy, so much laughter... so long, good sir!

And, of course, more than that to certain sci-fi nerds amongst us!



Classic, in so many ways...

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Unthunked

If someone said they'd planted bombs, what would you do? What. Would. You. Do. One answer is: make a movie about it!

Someone has planted bombs, and without much hesitation, we get to the torture. That's not really the Unthinkable part of the movie, though. There is a lot of complaining about legality, etc., but I think we all readily accept that America will skip straight to the pain bringing if they suspect any terrorism is going on. So, yeah, although they said that people will say anything under torture, they still do the torture.

But as time goes on, they need more desperate measures to get some answers, and we get to the "shocking" bits (that's in quotes as it is obvious that's where the movie is going there). The movie presents a range of options, and somewhat lets the audience decide how far they'd be willing to go, but also doesn't shy away from consequences. Just who is in control?

Skipping to the cast, Samuel L. Jackson is the man, and while not playing a nice character, is within believability (and I'm not sure that any ol' actor could pull that off). Carrie-Ann Moss is the "we must be nice" voice, and I do wonder if could have been as well pulled off if the character was male. Michael Sheen (no relation) gets a tough role, but pulls it off well.

When you think about this situation, the movie does largely address all the points you would think of. However, it doesn't really get that spectacular with the concept, so in the end we have a workable, but not brilliant, movie. That said, can easily wait for this to come out on rentable DVD, as there is nothing big screen about this.

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Despicable Him

Bit late, but yeah, I saw it. All about Gru stealing the moon. But it was never really about that, right?

It's all about how Gru is a villain, but then he meets the little girls, and then he becomes human and... the problem here is that while the villain is not necessarily likable, there has to be some connection with the audience, even if liking how Gru is a dick. But the connection isn't there. You can tell that the script writer is really trying to set up the character to be connectable, but being to spot the trying is making it fail. It's just too easy to see where it is going. (Mastermind also had "bad guy tempered by girl", but the main character there was actually enjoyable.)

There are some good moments in the movie (yes, the unicorn one), however it takes over half the movie to actually get into what it really wants to do (Gru with the girls), that by that time I was disinvested and only very slowly came back.

The big name draw for this is Steve Carell, but also there is Russell Brand and Julie Andrews. Miranda Cosgrove gets interviewed a lot for it, likely the producers trying to make sure the kids come see this. Jemaine Clement is also in this, but I'd be hard pressed to point to his character.

I do need to give 3D a try some time, but this is not a movie I'm going to see again soon.

The best part of the movie... the theme song:

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What happens on the Bus...

Yes, another Desert Bus post, but, hey, these people raised $200,000!!! You can find videos of segments on YouTube, just look for "Desert Bus 4" or "Desert Bus 2010". As one example...



And if you want to watch people playing games for Child's Play more, check out people playing Mass Effect.

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DW: The Coming of the Terraphiles

So this is Michael Moorcock, is it? If this is typical of his style (and why would he not write typically), I can't say I'll be adding a new author to my reading list. Am I saying I didn't enjoy this book? I enjoyed... some parts of this book, but on the whole, no, it won't be an experience I'll be hurrying to repeat. (Looks up Wiki entry.) Ah, that explains something, see below.

The plot is, essentially, straightforward enough, a travelogue across different planets and spaceships, with pirates, it is confounded by the setting. Although it's 51,007, everyone's wacky about Earth history and of course gets it wrong in oh-so-hilarious ways. And by "hilarious", I mean "confusing". Earth World did this and that didn't cause me to have no idea about various things MM is on about here. The corruption of the language doesn't help, and he's mixing up a fair few things... and aside from 'whackit' being something like cricket with bows and arrows, I'm not sure what's going on there. And was the "arrer" different to the "arrow"? Not to mention the "Roogaluator"/"Regulator" nonsense. MM seemed to be enjoying himself writing all this, more than I had reading it.

And the characters are all very... here, I'll jump to the point of "Wodehouse"ian, of people faffing about trying obliquely not to express their feelings while going "rather" and "old thing" and the like. Admission time: I haven't read any P. G. Wodehouse. People keep saying he's someone to read, and yet I have completely failed to. To be honest, I don't see that as an achievement I'll obtain any time soon. Then mix it up with the mixed up setting described above, and it's more annoying than amusing.

One thing I'm not sure about is: did MM ask for the Doctor/Amy pair, or was it part of the contract that he write for them? I wouldn't be surprised by the latter, as the mannerisms, etc., aren't very Eleventh Doctor-ish, and although we get a lot of Bingo flirting with Amy, Rory's name isn't mentioned once, not even in Amy's internal monologue. Eh? Was he only passed a couple of scripts, or early concept ideas, or something? He does a passable job of writing the Doctor/Companion story, but I'm thinking he might have had other pairings in mind...

I got this 'cos I'm a completist. While I didn't enjoy it, I dare say some aspects of above (from author to style) will appeal to others more.

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Zombiegeddon: 13th Bite!

Heading back up to the city, we find some more guards, only these lead us to Karm, the old retainer from our household. Somehow, Hermat Blackmoor (my father) has overthrown the Bandit King and taken control of the city, using zombies from Loudwater (where we were) to supply them. That's really odd...

We leave him with the "zombie attraction" pole and head out to the house my father uses for business. Coming up through the sewers, we get to the cellars and find, oddly enough, zombies! With a corruption specter and something else! The fight doesn't exactly go as we expect, and the zombies prove to be a little tougher that we expected. It takes a few goes and some of us moving unexpectedly, but finally we smack them into submission.

And find a really strange house. Some of the walls and most the doors are now some kind of thin skin! Eeww. It's like some kind of alarm system spread throughout the house. Moving carefully, we get to the top floor, but find more skin. Setting off alarms all over the place, we head into the top floor bubble to find what looks like my father with alchemical equipment (which Dox ends up destroying).

Although I confront it, it quickly becomes obvious that this isn't Hermat, and indeed we will find it to be Seaian, the a-hole. Jasin keeps him pinned down enough for us to move and attack and unleash all kinds of attacks at him and his zombie pals. Dox does the final take down, and Seaian is revealed to be... a Changeling! As he falls, he alerts his mother. Who knows what she has in store for us...?

[That's it for this current season of Zombiegeddon. Next week... Gamma World!]

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What the Bus?

Desert Bus is response for many things... This is not something anyone should know about...


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Ran the Shadows for Beans!

Returned to WARGS for the start of hopefully a new run of Shadowrun games. For this special beginning, we played a mod from the next season (not due to start yet), but to get in we had to donate a can of food (in my case a pack of cans of beans) that goes to the food bank. Good idea, and we get something in game for it. (Extra cans went to refreshing Edge, needed that!)

It seemed like a simple mission, just get some data, all we needed to do was protect the kid doing the extracting. As it was, I sat in the room while the other two killed them with triple passes per turn (I only got one turn, but if you can go more than once, people like me end up sitting and twiddling our thumbs). Still, once that was over, we were done, just needed to hand the data over.

And then everything went south, as we were attacked (more combat! I was one box off death - yay Immortality Flower!), and we barely got away. We have a bodyguard with us and found out the corporation hired us to steal data from them, and... er? Something else going on here.

On the other hand, once we started talking to the proper people, it quickly came down to giving people things and getting money. Easy! (I took my payment in flowers.)

Fun game, and here's to more!

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Hoping for a Bus in the Desert

Didn't post for earlier in the morning as I'm being distracted by the Desert Bus for Hope. The LRR crew sit down and play Desert Bus to earn money for Child's Play.

Go ahead and watch. Or, better, donate. Or challenge to do something for money. Yesterday they played Tomb of Horrors!

Woo!

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I want to like it...

I really do. I'm watching this, and going "there's Abin Sur... Tomar Re! ... hey, Hector Hammond ... is that Pieface?" But... but... The suit is all CGI, and it shows. Look at 1:50, the suit doesn't quite track. And although he's stretching at 2:19, that just highlights the CGIness of it.

And then 1:55... you can see the wires they digitally erased! It's just so obvious...

I doubt they'd release a trailer this unprepared, but I hope there's still more tweaks to the effects to come to smooth them out. Oh, and it's going to be 3D... yeah... joy...



(And then there's this...)

Some time I really need to sort out my dream cast for a Green Lantern movie.

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SJA: Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith

Hey, look it's the Trickster, and in thi... what? ... no Trickster? Dangnabit! Instead, we have a new SJS like woman (who is not at all ever going to turn out to be evil, oh no) who is likable (and not evil) and could actually work as another member of the crew (as long as she isn't evil) and could add an interesting new dynamic (presuming she sticks around for longer than this story as she isn't at all going to be evil).

But while they hint at this new prospect in the first half, in the second half it's once again Elizabeth Sladen with easy shooting days as everyone else runs around saying "Where is Sarah Jane Smith?". Side note, it's ... amazing? intriguing? annoying? just how often her full name is spoken. It's like extra gravitas is added if only all three components are uttered. Then again, just continually going on as "Sarah Jane" instead of "Sarah" probably adds a few minutes to each show meaning there is less script to write, so I can see why they would do that.

Anyway, to continue with the spoilers, we get Luke turning up again, and a completely improbable set of circumstances involving him, K9 and a phone that pushes the limits of technology past their braking point that would have been amusing had it been played for a joke as in Rimmer's enlarging the photograph in Return To Earth, but instead is played as real and just doesn't read at all... (take a breath, and start new sentence)

Anyway, this last episode is average for SJA, which is to say it's good, but not "series closing" big like some past ones. Roll on series five! (I'm still watching, so take that as a thumbs up!)

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Good enough to possibly go terribly wrong

Idugesma and Joo are very talented artists of the violin and piano. You get a hint of their act in Pianomania (will that movie never come out of DVD!?!?!), but here you can see more of their performance in action. Now that takes extreme timing!



(And here they get the whole orchestra in on it!)

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Zombiegeddon: 12th Bite!

While I need to get back home, it's not that easy, what with the zombie hoards patrolling the streets. However, Llorkh is built on old version of Llorkh, so all we need to do is to get down to the ruins under the current city then head north. We get to one entrance just as we get a hint of the zombie pack coming after us, but disable the gate leading in. That'll stop them.

Heading down through the tunnels, we come across a partially destroyed room with a slope leading to a chasm. And there are gnolls there as well. [Woo! Gnolls!] We set about them, and then find there's a sand trap that part sand blaster and part slippy slide to send people into the chasm. As it happens, only the gnolls are caught in their own trap. Doh! To be honest, the gnolls aren't that much of a problem, and the sand soon covered their dead bodies.

However, the gnolls were guard like guards that were probably a part of a group we encounter next, which includes a human with a bow, a huntsman if you will. Dox, looking like a gnoll, wanders in and sits on the vacant throne, while the Bard pretends to be my father. The huntsman isn't happy about either of this and sets the gnolls and wolves on us. Although the huntsman doesn't prove to be a problem, the rest of them are, and it's quite a long battle to deal with them. I get bloodied! Dox gets knocked out!! Twice!!! Clearly though, as we are heroes, we prevail... although I do wonder if we just killed what passes for the Resistance around here...

Continuing on we find a large shaft that gets us up a few levels and along another tunnel that leads past a well from which issues some strange sounds. Up from the well comes... a Grell! Although it knocks the monk down the shaft (and out of the fight), we range fighters collectively stomp it in a few rounds before it can do any more damage (and my ability to get inside its head and confuse it [lowering its defenses] proves very useful).

We decide to rest before pressing on, and for some reason we know we'll wake up on the morrow stronger... increased in our abilities... [although it's only level five, with one extra daily power].

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They didn't Mis the Fit

Excellent strong opening episode to series two of Misfits I thought. Some nice gags about probation workers, and a new villain du jour that leads to some really weird moments. Oh, and Nathan's back.

And bringing in a "mysterious figure", who, frankly, looks like they completely out class the rest of the MisFits so that'll be interesting to see unfold.

Have you caught up with them yet?


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Another sign: Belief in things that don't exist

Recently the Catholics decided they were missing an important component of their churchly congregation, namely: Exorcists! (And overseas is just as uncritical as here, or rather, here is just as reprinted as overseas.)

"Possible signs of demonic possession include scratching, cutting, biting of the skin; profound displays of strength; and a strong or violent reaction to holy water."

Yeah? That's certainly a sign of something. A severely disturbed person who needs proper psychiatric help, for example. But of course people won't just leapt to a supernatural explanation when there's a perfectly possible natural one. Clearly those who are asked to perform an exorcism will first make sure that an exorcism is appropriate. Right?

"Overwhelmed with requests for exorcists, United States Roman Catholic bishops are holding a special training workshop in Baltimore this weekend to teach clerics the esoteric rite, the Catholic News Service reported."

Special training, like psychiatric training, or at least enough to know when to call in professional psychiatrics or other suitable doctors, and not just assume that an exorcism is the answer.

"Catholic Church law stipulates that only properly trained priests can perform the rite - and then only with the permission of their bishops."

The law also stipulates that all natural steps are followed first, right?

...

Right?

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Of Steam, Steel and Murder

Tesla's tower destroyed, we need to instigate rescue and recovery, and find out if an airship can pull up a building...

And introducing the new hero of the peoples: The Midnight Marmoset!

Find out how this season of SSM kicks off in Game 26.

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SJA: Lost in Time

So there are three pieces of metal needed for something, three 'keys' as they might be terms in a certain context, and they are scattered throughout 'time', and they can be any object and... stop me if you've heard this before...

That said, Rupert Laight merely uses that as an excuse to have three different stories going on, and while those objects do play a part in the events unfolding, it is more about the people the three regulars meet and that interaction on a personal level that really matters in this adventure.

And those stories are interesting. The three main cast all get beats and by the end of the two-parter, you are interested in finding out what happens afterward. Well, except for Jane. Strangely enough, I was more interesting in the fictional people than the actual historical person. Eh, for whatever that says.

I don't really have anything to say about the cast, except if Don Warrington isn't available, Cyril Nri would be an excellent alternative.

A nice character piece, and then next time we get the anti-Sarah Jane.

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De-Masked

I would love to make money writing superhero fiction. However, the first step for me would be to not be in New Zealand. It's "well known" that getting science fiction published is dodgy at best, and superhero fiction? Fergedaboudit.

And just to show off how easy it is to do in other countries, we have Masked, editted by Lou Anders, a collection of superhero fiction by a variety of authors, including Peter David and Joseph Mallozzi (just to name two writers that I'd experience in some way before). As collections go, some stories are better than others, but on the whole the average is better than most collections I've read, no complete clunkers in here.

One interesting aspect I want to mention is the anti-power guy. Not anti-"power guy", but "anti-power" guy. I find the idea of someone who can cancel other powers to be a source of mutiple possibilities, and yet it isn't really used that much. Here we have at least two (that I recall) stories that feature that very concept. More interestingly, on the side of the villains, as if having a good superhero being able to cancel an evil superhero's powers wouldn't be a good idea. The main concept I want to play with that is the hero who knows he's in the right against all supers, and none of them can touch him. (That said, that person could easily be countered by a gun, for example, so more than just "no powers" is needed there.)

Anyways, the point is, I should move from New Zealand, but before then you should pick up this book.

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Proud?

Not sure about that, but then it's not my corporation. Still, I'd miss some of the series they make...


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Der

After the rubbish of his last movie, it was good to see Bruce Willis return to his action role. And it has to be said, it is a damn fun movie!

Bruce Willis is an old guy (actually, he's only 55) and is an ex-CIA agent. Now people have come to kill him, and the woman he's been talking to. Why? Because... eh, not that important. What is important is that he hooks up with other old people and they go out and severely kick some ass. Morgan Freeman. John Malkovich. Helen Mirren. And opposed to them our own Karl Urban (and you can still see him McCoy'ing his way through some scenes at times).

The movie comprises of a set pieces, loosely connected by the plot, but mainly featuring Bruce Willis beating someone up. The others have moments as well, and there are lot of moments when physics takes a definite back step to Hollywood effects. But, hey, it's fun, so I'm willing to forgive them. (I might have to find the comics this is based on and see if that is just as much fun. Warren Ellis? Should be!)

So yes, definitely a movie to go see. To repeat: it's fun!

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The (Killing) Event

So a big thing happening on tv is The Event. A strange thing happens with a plane as the President finds out that We Are Not Alone. Then a guy is racing across the country to save his girl-friend, and...

Y'know what, this is just such a mess of criss-crossing plots, I don't really care. I've seen four episodes and am ready to draw conclusions about the series. It was billed at one point as the next Lost (yeah, as if that's something to aspire to), but it could easily be the next 24, what with all the twists and turns and Presidents and multiple things happening at once.

But here's the thing. And not even Lost was this dick-ish, and it was very dick-ish. Whenever anyone, absolutely anyone, threatens to reveal anything approaching what is really going on to the audience, they are killed. Even though there are plenty of people with plenty of facts. Some of them even ostensibly on the "good" side of the narrative. But absolutely nothing shall be told to the audience, not a hint, not a fact, not even a tip of a nod that whatever is going on is actually important. Either the good guys turn out to be bad and start killing, or the bad guys are really bad and start killing ('cos this is one of those shows where the bad guys are leagues ahead of everyone else, except the one lone under-resourced hero of course), but as long as whomever was thinking of talking is dead, that's all that matters.

There're mysteries, there're slow reveals, then there's just continuously giving the finger to the audience.

How bad is it? This show thinks it's so wonderful, with side-by-side plots, and going back and forth through time to reveal... whatever irrelevant piece of information it doesn't want anyone to actually know... that in the first episode, we get a hint of the event, then cut back to "23 minutes earlier"... which then takes the whole hour long episode to get back to The Event...

Screw you, The Event. Screw you.

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Megamob!

Ooh, another superhero movie! Clearly animation is the easy way to go with this, so still waiting for a big budget live action movie with many super-powered beings...

Being the hero is easy, but Megamind (a last surviving child from an alien planet shot to earth) finds it easier to be the villain. Time and time again he fights against Metro Man until finally... he wins! But then what...?

So yet another take on the superhero genre, and we are seeing more of the villain's side in movies. Probably because they get the better lines. Which is one problem this movie has: the humour gets in the way of the plot. It's not until around two-thirds into the movie that the plot actually really kicks in and the jokes die down and the characters get motivated properly. (Not that what happens is particularly original, you can call most 'twists' before they happen, but it's still decent.)

Speaking of names, that cast list is large (not surprising for DreamWorks): Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey, David Cross, Jonah Hill... even Ben Stiller is in there. And not over the top antics from Ferrell (for a change), although Pitt doesn't sound that comfortable in voice over.

Amusing enough, could be more amazing.

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Starhyke

Many years ago Claudia Christian returned to science fiction, over in England, in a comedy series called Starhyke.

In the future, a thousand years from now, Earth has gone out and killed pretty much everyone, but are fighting the Reptids. Earthers enjoy success due to suppressing all their emotions. A Reptid plan is to go back into the past and the Nemesis follows... however, a device from the Reptids eliminates their inhibitions, and so they now have to find the Reptid mothership in the past and deal with their emotions...

AND WACKINESS!!! WOO!!!!!!!

The comedy is full blown, and focused on one thing: sex, sex, sex. Every episode seems intent on deriving humour from sexual single entendres, sexual references, sexual confusions, sexual... well, you get the idea. Oh, and there is also plenty of fart jokes and such as well. Yes they are on a spaceship, but that's merely backdrop.

Now, I still have two episodes to go, but of the first four the first three are rubbish. Episode four was marginally decent, but I don't have high hopes for the final two. Not even Jeremy Bulloch (yes, he's in this as well) can save this series.

This series was brought up at Armageddon with a question about series two. We can only hope it never happens...

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Creepers Jeepers

Just after the start of the latest Millennium there were two feature films about a particular monster. I will admit that Jeepers Creepers did try for something different. Only failed in that it wasn't that good. Note: I will be discussing the endings, but as these films are years old I'm not hiding the text.

Number One follows brother and sister as they observe someone dumping a body and they decide to investigate. Only to have the murderer track them down, and prove to be something not entirely human. There is a sense of the script being self-aware at several moments. Mention of someone doing something stupid in classy horror movie way. But a far better moment (in the trailer) of when sister hits the creature, brother asks if it is dead. "They never are," she replies, and then proceeds to drive over it several more times. Yeah. However... in the supposed final confrontation with the monster, that moment works in movies because the confrontationers are supposed to be a credible threat to the creature, they have some plan or weapon or something to take the creature down. In this movie, the creature isn't even slightly phased by the people with guns and so that final battle just feels like another mid-movie action sequence and that there will be a finaler confrontation with it. Only there isn't. Then movie then just ends, with a final note to try to justify the title, which doesn't really work.

Number Two is at the end of the current Creeper spell, with it attacking a bus full of school teams (a basketball team and some cheerleaders, plus some adults that die early). There is also a subplot with Ray Wise coming to avenge his boy (a rare case of a kid dying in a horror movie). While in the first movie the flying ability was a great reveal, here the creature is flying from the word go, making this more like "attack of the eagle!" than a horror movie. There are couple of neat effect sequences, especially where it is replacing its head. However, there is a long period in the middle of the movie where it is simply threatening the kids and they are running about on the bus and repeat and repeat. Deaths are few and far between, for a change when kids are about, but also, for a change, the kids are running around manically, having sex, and otherwise splitting into singles to be picked off. Odd. Ray Wise comes in with the only real ability to damage it, and again fails to fall into the "one blow and it's dead, honest guv" trap of other horror movies. Indeed, there's a neat tag set in the future that shows he is not stupid at all.

So these are standard monster creature features, but still manage to have long moments when you're waiting for them to get on with it. While I wouldn't suggest hunting them out, if you do come across them, could do worse that giving them a go.

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SJA: The Empty Planet

This is a nice tight story. Yes there is running around, getting caught, running away, running around, getting caught again, but it does tip over into the absurd. And while Elisabeth Sladen might have liked the easy money for her appearances, I'm sure the production team didn't have that easy a time of it make sure all the streets were cleared.

Just in case I give away more than intended, I'll just tuck the rest of this away...

So, yeah, the planet is empty... but really? Rani and Clyde are the only ones? And just happened to right beside where Harry... I mean Gavin is? Artistic license is one thing, but that does push it. And Gavin, eh? Growing up with the Durdsleys, only to find out he's a wizard... er, I mean... well, yeah. Could be a little rip off of a particular source there, but it's not like he's got a scar, and even then the Wonder Child Trope is hardly new.

Yet again, the Rani focus, although there does seem to be a push in this series to hook Rani and Clyde up. I'm not sure what's up with that, can't say I really see that working, but, hey, she's a girl, he's a boy, what's a TV series to do? Be like every other TV series of course!

The robots looked good. Better than some of the outfits the parent series has! But I did notice a continuity problem with the glass smash and front layout as per the interior set versus the outside shop location they chose (no glass smash, and door is in a different place).

Decent episode, and shows that you could have yet another spin off series that didn't even feature any Doctor Who connection!


Next time: More time travelling than Doctor Who!

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Watch TV much?

So try this TV Theme quiz, 44 of them, see how many you can get. (The answers are on the page so you need to click through.)

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Zombiegeddon: 11th Bite!

After a breather, we took a look around. Going next door in the warehouse, we found... a large pit of zombies. Huh. Going next door we found... a large pit of zombies. Huh. Going next door we found... a large pit of zombies. Huh. Going next door we found... a recently deserted guard room. Huh.

As we were looking around, the Bard poked in the wrong cabinet and set off a trap that closed and locked the doors and released some zombies. Oh! Novelty! We haven't fought them before! And it gets to be a bit of a gangbang and they prove to be rather tough. I actually have to take damage, what's up with that? The battlemind teleports all over the place, and Dox runs away, and it takes a while for us to beat them down. Strangely, Dox find a magic item in the debris on the floor. Weird.

Continuing on, we find a bunkhouse, then an indoor tavern where the dark cult hangs out. With Veren (or Beren, I'm not sure), a lieutenant. He tells the cultists to charge them, the shapeshifters look like important people and try to make the cultists attack Beren, and the cultists just want to run away. Running away does make them easier to deal with, but we still have to take some on. Getting too close to Veren gets some of us blind, but soon Jasin and I start the smackdown on him and put him out of our misery. Jasin goes a bit too far and actually kills him. [So much for that potential plot exposition. Meh, never bothered us yet.]

On him are two rings, which are communicators of some kind. I try one, hear a voice in my head, then the symbol on my arm starts glowing and the ring breaks. W? T?? F??? Something very strange is going on.

Dox goes through a door and discovers that we are now in Llorkh, the city were I started. Where my family is. I just know Seaian is behind this. I have to see my father. I explain some of my back story to the others (I'm a bastard child [apparently] and Seaian is a dick), and after the rest while exposition happens, I am determined to visit home. I must find out what happened...

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Saw it 3D times

Have to admit that this series has had a complicated (and not entirely clean) plot growth over the movies. Revelations about previous movies, conflating time lines, and, of course, complicated set pieces that end with some one dying.

And now in 3D! But whatever about that...

This is basically two plot lines, one of which is the ongoing continuity of trying to hunt down the latest Jigsaw killer, which is only tangentially connected to the other plot of some guy wandering through a place and failing to stop gory effects sequences from happening, which is entirely new and original... about four movies ago... I'll cut for a moment to the end to say that it isn't that great an ending, and there really isn't anything stopping them from doing another Saw movie aside from the ratings.

The myth-arc stuff is overblown, and just presents someone as completing dominating everything with no problems... where's the fun in that? And the set pieces are pretty samey, frankly they've run out of ideas for truly interesting traps. As mentioned, this has been done before, so not impressed by another retread.

Acting-wise... well, people come to these movies to see people die, so the actors themselves are rather secondary. Tobin Bell is good as ever, and Cary Elwes... looks like he's put on some weight since he cut his foot off... everyone else runs around and screams and yadda yadda yadda.

This is the "final chapter", and this movie certainly kills the series off. Only watch if you really must see the next Saw chapter.

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That Raven

Courtesy of QMx:

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