Kill all them superheroes!

This is... an odd movie. Superhero movie, and yet... it doesn't have superheroes in it? Probably to make it easier for filming. Probably it's really about four people and their relationships, and what they do when they are being themselves.

Rickshaw has taken over a town, which is quite an impressive feat. He has kidnapped four superheroes, taken away their powers, and now getting them to run all over town to save innocent citizens by facing fatal challenges. (Why didn't he just straight up kill them? Because where's the fun in that?)

By not having their powers, this raises questions about if this is a superhero movie, because there aren't superheroes, there are just people dressed up in wacky costumes with ideas about being do-gooders. (One of them looks a little like Phoenix Jones, not sure if that is intention and this is then a statement about that.)

Anyway, the whole supervillain (and sod it, let's call him a supervillain) plan is completely incidental, as it is just a way for the four people with a 'history' to come together and be forced to work together again, and thus those old issues come up. And those issues are pretty generic 'relationship fail' and 'jealous of being in the shadow', etc. Even the superhero coat of paint doesn't make them any more non-superficial.

Jason Trost does a good turn as the lead actor, although goes over in intensity more than once. That's what happens when the writer and director don't reign the actor in... especially when they are all the same person. Lucas Till and Sophie Merkley don't quite come up to the same standard, and James Remar (Dexter's dad) is just going for the 'having fun' mania acting style (which now makes me think Joker while I'm writing this, but he doesn't come off as such on screen).

A drama masquerading as superhero dramatics, it's a decent enough character piece, but nothing that innovative.

[END]

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Darkstyder

[This was a continuation of last session, in which we ended with space combat. And so picked up that battle this session. Which went the whole session. And we had about three or four extra rounds. As you might guess, the rounds took a long time because there were a lot of ships on the battlemat.

Which is just part of the reason I felt frustrated over all this. Basically the enemy side had far more ships than we did. The tokens we had represented groups of two or three ships, or, in one case, six ships.

Because, what it comes down to, is that we did the wrong thing for this particular tactical situation. Instead we acted like typical PCs and went in for the fight. Which isn't what we were supposed to do. We were supposed to ignore the bulk of the ships and target one particular group. Which most of our ships couldn't reach. And those that could wouldn't be able to deal with in time due to imbalanced numbers (two versus six).

You can say 'this is what you were supposed to do' all you like, but then there's the other frustration of dice rolls. The dice are set up so that only rarely do you actually hit. And the hits anyone did only really chipped away at the other side, so it wasn't like there was a great whittling down of ships in play. Both sides had this, but getting decent hits was not a common occurrence  more like no hits with lots of advantages and disadvantages, which just made more no hits.

Ultimately, we lost named and unnamed NPCs, and our captain was nicked. Yeah. So, at the end of the day, we aren't winning, nor even seeming to get anywhere useful, because we didn't do the right play out of the gate, and the dice aren't there to make hits happen.

... wooo! ...]

[END]

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Ultimate Avengers

In an effort to make more money, Marvel reinvented their superheroes into being a whole new universe of newer, hipper versions of their standard heroes. Because why not? This is the Ultimates universe, because they are all the Ultimate heroes. Which doesn't make it at all confusing that the Avengers are Ultimatised, and called... The Ultimates. On recommendation, I got the collected sets of Volume 1 and Volume 2.

So these are the Avengers, but not. Due to being done when Marvel were reinventing the movies, these Avengers are formed under SHIELD, which is led by Samuel L Jackson Nick Fury. There's a lot of set up in Volume 1, also known as 'character development', which involves various heroes being stupid and petty and annoying. And then there's an alien invasion to take up the second part. In Volume 2, we get the team breaking up, then coming back together again, because that's what happens in superhero team comics, and could easily end up happening in the next Avengers movie.

The new versions are... interesting, but variable. Hulk is more amusing, although far more violent, and actually has some form of repercussions to his rampages. Iron Man is... more of a team with Tony at the head in the suit? It's not entirely clear, and I don't have Ultimate Iron Man to find out. And the Iron Man outfit looks stupid. Captain America comes across as a bully and a jerk, really, although his character never really interested me. And Giant Man, Wasp and Hawkeye help fill up the ranks.

While I have many a compilation, these compilations do highlight the episodic nature of the issues, with discontinuity between 'this issue is character based' and 'this issue is a big fight'. As an alternative universe, it's decent enough, but given that it is different, I do feel that I need to be aware of the wider universe to fully get these stories.

[END]

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Shush Place Relevations

Oh, a sequel. First movie... not terrible, but I knew far less about Silent Hill then. Now... I wouldn't say I know too much, but certainly I could spot references.

Heather is haunted by dreams and visions of strange creatures, and continual calls back to Silent Hill. And when her father gets kidnapped and taken there, she doesn't have much choice but to follow. Then she encounters a lot of monsters and there's a fight she isn't involved in, and then the movie ends.

Being 3D, the film makers decide to poke many things at the audience. Such as explanations. Every ten minutes there's a character to suddenly deliver several pages of exposition, before leaving off screen to not be seen again. And this is interspersed with various creatures that are there to be creatures on screen that are there. Ie., there isn't much connection.

However, there is a lot of connections with the Silent Hill 3 game, which is Heather returning to Silent Hill, following on from the set up in 1. A fair few scenes are referencing levels from the game, and Heather is dressed as she is in the game. And the ending references Origins and Downpour.

Adelaide Clemens gets a lot of work to do, with few scenes not involving her. Sean Bean is there being Sean Bean, and Carrie-Anne Moss is there behind a lot of white make up. And surprise Malcolm McDowell!

The disconnect between slabs of exposition and monster shots drag the rating of this movie down, but is a decent enough adaptation of the game.

[END]

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Android Insufferation

Is this a student film? It feels like a student film. And not in a good way. These are not good thoughts to have when watching a movie when the director, at least, has spent a few years making movies. And yet...

It's the "future", in 2535 (a setting is completely cohesively maintained, and not at all ruined when, while in a created base in the "future" they go past a fire extinguisher last checked, according to the prominently displayed label, in 2010), there are robots, and they have lightsabers, Yep, lightsabers. 'Cos that's a thing that robots get in the future, despite the fact that only one robot has it and why wouldn't all when they can cut through anything? Anyway, the robots are building new robots, which is a bad thing? So a group of peoples are sent in to get info and end up fighting the new robot which picks them off one by one in an incredibly convincing way...

Because the special effects are so real. And not at all incredibly fake, which at all doesn't explain why there are only a handful of shots in which real actors are in screen at the same time as CGI creatures they normally cut away to. And the guns all fire entirely realistically and not put not muzzle flashes in post-production, except for those shots they forgot to put muzzle flashes on, although the fire was firing really. So amazingly done, guys.

And the actors were not one-note at all. There was even a twist! Which everyone could guess after the first hint, not that it wasn't original at all. And a lot was spent on location filming in that one warehouse and that one office place, and that one set they had that they reused over and over... at least the sound was perfectly clear and not at all incredibly garbled whenever they had intercom speech.

And yet, somehow, 2.1 rating on IMDB. Weird.

[END]

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Psycho Sevenpaths

The poster for this movie looked interesting, some big names in there. And it looked to be heading into humourous territory. And, I see, by the same guy that did In Bruges, which takes a while to get going, but is good.

The movie stars like a better version of a Tarantino movie, and then gets better again. It's about a guy who's writing a movie about seven people who are psychopaths, and there also happen to be seven people in this movie who happen to be psychopaths (more or less). While being slightly self-referential, it's also just engaging and absorbing, and while watching this I took moments when I recognised that I was just straight up enjoying it.

Those big names I mentioned: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken and Woody Harrelson. Yeah, right! (There are also some women in this, but they don't matter. And it doesn't help when the movie points this out about itself, because the women still aren't well written.) There are some great moments with these people, and it helps that the movie isn't taking itself seriously.

Definite thumbs up, check this movie out.

[END]

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Hobb'it? I only Read'it!

Peter's talking about the movie, which I already did. But since I haven't mentioned the book..

One thing that struck me when reading The Hobbit was how comedic it was. At least at the beginning. It got a lot darker towards the end, but I hear some of the chance in tone is due to rewriting after Tolkein did LotR. Certainly the blue and yellow caps of the Dwarfs speak more to Disney cartoons than a serious squad of fighting dwarfs... not that they do a lot of fighting.

I had thought I had read the book before, remembering the Riddles in the Dark section that everyone does. And yet, as I went on, I had to remembrance of anything I was reading. Did I give up? Did I just forget it? Did I never read the book in the first place, or only read that chapter? Certainly I know I had to have a second attempt to read LotR (which I'm now tempted to re-read, what with the movies and having read The Hobbit). Certainly I didn't expect that end of Smaug, and as for the Battle of Five armies...

Still, I can see where they will be padding out three movies out of this. Peter Jackson loves his big battles, so boom, yeah, Five Armies it is. And who knows how long the dragon attack will be...

But this is Bilbo's book, so he gets a lot to do. Even when having to incapacitate the dwarfs in order to give him something to do. He uses the One Ring (before it was known to be the One Ring) a lot, and given they're going slo-mo with the movie, I'm not sure how well that's going to come off. Perhaps that's how they will be padding out the movie? Bilbo invisible versus the spiders and in the Elf settlement... ten minutes just to cross the room!

Actually the best moment for Bilbo is in the stand-off before the Battle, when Bilbo takes events into his own hands to try to end it. Yes, this is so he will be able to get back home and stop whining about not being home. Which he does. A lot. But yeah, going against the Dwarfs with the Arkenstone is a great character moment.

This book is a good paced read, and I'm glad I gave it another go.

[END]

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