Jaded Media

New Review over at Jaded Eye

2010-11-02T13:30:00.001Z

Hello again everybody!

For those of you who don't know, we have a new site over at www.jadedeye.com, and that's where all our new reviews get posted! Please go and check it out.

thanks,

Alex

New review over at Jaded Eye!

2010-10-26T08:49:00.001+01:00

There's a new review up on our new site over at www.jadedeye.com!

Click the link below to check it out!

http://jupperpeep.com/jadedeye/2010/10/26/red-review/

New review over at Jaded Eye!

2010-10-21T13:21:00.000+01:00

There's a new review up, but it's only available over at our new website www.jadedeye.com! Go check it out, and then 'Like' our Facebook page for the new site at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jaded-Eye/154689604542409

The Social Network Review

2010-10-19T09:00:00.001+01:00

On the face of it, I really had no interest in going to see this film. The story behind the founding of Facebook, and exactly how obnoxious Mark Zuckerberg is/was to his friends and colleagues is already a matter of some public record, and so the idea of a film based on an unauthorised book concerned with highlighting the exact extent of his douchebaggery certainly didn't fill me with anticipation. There were, however, a few things that did pique my interest. For one, The Social Network is helmed by David Fincher (Se7en, Zodiac), one of the most respected directors of the past decade, and a consistently safe pair of hands (well, maybe except for Alien 3). In fact, he's usually more than that: capable of turning simple scripts and setups into compelling and believable thrillers (see 2002's Panic Room) without the aid of big budgets, big name stars or elaborate special effects, though equally comfortable working with them all (e.g. Fight Club).

Now that's almost enough to get me to see the film by itself. But when you add to that the fact that the film's screenplay is adapted from the aforementioned book 'The Accidental Billionaires' (by Ben Mezrich) by celebrated The West Wing scribe Aaron Sorkin, well, then you've got my attention. It also doesn't hurt that Kevin Spacey is an executive producer, and, on a more personal note, it stars a certain Andrew Garfield, AKA the next Spider-Man, as Zuckerberg's best/only friend. Though they might have diminished by all this, I still had my reservations going in to the film that what I was about to see would be a dirt-dishing, tabloid-level sensationalist morality tale about a dotcom genius and the people he trod on on the way to the top. I needn't have worried. The Social Network delivers a tight, surprisingly entertaining 2 hours, and, even if you're already familiar with the story, it provides enough great performances and witty scripting to make the experience fresh.

So, how much can you reveal about a 'true' story without it being considered a spoiler? Well, the simple summary of the plot is this: Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), a misanthropic, slightly misogynist Harvard undergraduate/computer genius, invents Facebook with the financial backing of his friend Eduardo Savarin (Andrew Garfield) and possible inspiration from a project he's hired to code for some other Harvard undergraduates, the privileged Winklevoss twins. Things get worse as the site becomes more popular, culminating in Zuckerberg being simultaneously sued by both his now ex-best friend and the Winklevoss twins.

On the face of it, it's a pretty straightforward story, but the skill in keeping the audience interested is Fincher's biggest accomplishment here. He intersperses scenes of the legal interviews of the two lawsuits with flashbacks to the founding of the site and its early successes, maintaining tension but at the same time making the most of Sorkin's at times bitingly sarcastic dialogue. He also squeezes great performances out of every single character, from the spoilt, preppy Winklevoss twins (played by Armie Hammer in a role he can do in his sleep, even though he is playing both twins here – a decision I suspect was just Fincher showing off his technical chops) to the main characters of Zuckerberg, Savarin and internet maverick/shallow bastard Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake).

Jesse Eisenberg particularly deserves special mention for his nuanced, understated but generally reprehensible portrayal of the man who by all accounts is all those things and more. He plays Zuckerberg with a vicious contempt, an aloof and intelligent arrogance with just the right hint of vulnerability and unhappiness that keeps the audience just about on his side. Once upon a time (say, after he did Zombieland) I might have called Eisenberg a budget Michael Cera, but as of this film he should definitely be considered the superior actor, and one to watch in future.

The other revelation is Timberlake's take on Napster-inventing, controversy baiting 'bad boy of silicon valley' Sean Parker. He oozes confidence and creepy shallowness in equal measure without a hint of irony, and is required to present an even more extreme example of selfish, intelligent, childish arrogance than even Eisenberg, combined with a deadly charm. It's genuinely to his credit that he is not just comfortable in such company, but inhabits every scene with vicious and captivating bastardliness that is great to watch.

Andrew Garfield also impresses as the stalwart best friend and put-upon 'nice guy' who gets screwed over, portraying Savarin with warmth and later bitterness as required. Of the three main protagonists, Savarin is by far the least interesting and very little time is given to his motivations and development throughout the film, except for a few amusing scenes concerning a chicken (you'll have to see it). Though not endorsing the book, Savarin was consulted during its writing, which is surprising as he comes off as at best naïve, and at worst foolish in the face of mounting betrayal by Zuckerberg. Perhaps he was keen to have Zuckerberg painted as unremitting asshole, but in the end there are some good points made that make you feel that, though he did not deserve the treatment he received by Parker and Zuckerberg, he certainly should have seen it coming and better protected himself. You can definitely see from this film why he was chosen to be the next Peter Parker/Spider-man, and this film has also succeeded in making me very interested in seeing how that one turns out too.

In all, The Social Network is an example where everything went right with a film. Right director, right script, right actors. Though it's unfair to say the story is a bit of a sow's ear, it's certainly fairly simple (jerk creates website, website becomes popular, jerk meets bastard, jerk also becomes a bastard, bastard gets sued), and the combination of top class talent involved turns it into a silk purse. It's not the riveting 'must see' some people would have you believe, and certainly won't sate people looking for an all-out scandal thriller, action film or biting satire, but it punches above its weight in terms of both spectacle and entertainment, and well worth watching if you get the chance.

Alex

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero Review

2010-10-14T09:10:00.000+01:00

The emergence of the digital download market in the current generation of games consoles has seen a lot of experimentation. We’ve seen the arrival of the multi-player beta as a marketing tool, with publishers incentivising gamers to buy the latest release with the promise of access to an early test of a future game (most famously pioneered with the Halo 3 multiplayer beta included with Crackdown). We’ve also seen Downloadable content (DLC) start to appear in various forms with varying levels of success. When the exclusive “Horse Armour” download appeared for Oblivion (at a price), there was uproar. Indeed people were so disgusted that the term ‘Horse Armour’ is still often used on forums to describe a piece of DLC that people feel should really be either free or part of the game in the first place. The world has come a long way since then, and though there is still some Horse Armour out there, DLC is a huge secondary business for games companies, providing optional extra content at prices most consumers are happy to pay. EA have recently unveiled their latest scheme – Project $10. Buy the game new and you’ll get updates such as weapons, missions or maps (or in the case of EA Sports, online play) included. Buy it second hand, and the extras are a $10 download. It’s a bold strategy to attempt to combat the rise of second hand games sales, and one that is made possible by the on-line functionality provided as standard in Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. An equally bold move was recently made by Capcom, with the release of Case Zero, a prequel to the new full price game Dead Rising 2.

Game demos have existed for decades, pretty much from the point at which media became cheap enough to give away for free on the front of a magazine. They all tended to follow the same structure; a section of the game is offered for free to entice newcomers into trying the full product (a strategy familiar to drug dealers the world over). But here’s the thing: Case Zero isn’t free. And it doesn’t contain any sections from the final game. So it’s not a normal demo. But it’s clearly connected to the full release; it’s not really a stand alone game. What it is then, is an interesting new marketing tool – the mini prequel. But is Case Zero really anything more than a glorified demo that you’re charged for the privilege of playing?

Case Zero’s story is set directly prior to the main game. Once again, zombies are running amok and society is breaking down. We are introduced to game’s protagonist Chuck Greene and his four year old daughter Katie. Chuck and Katie stop at a deserted gas station in the small town of Still Creek to fill up their truck. While there, Chuck gives Katie “a shot” – an injection of the drug Zombrex (no, really), which will stop the young girl from turning into a zombie (she was bitten before the game started). Unfortunately, while Chuck is distracted, the truck is stolen, along with his reserves of Zombrex. And surprise surprise, the town around them is coming back to unlife. Chuck and Katie barricade themselves in the gas station and so the game begins – as Chuck you need to find a way out of the town but more importantly, you need to find a new source of Zombrex, as a shot is only good for 12 hours, after which time, your infected daughter will start to turn.

The core gameplay from the original Dead Rising returns in this sequel-prequel. The aim is still to find objects and rescue survivors whilst killing as many zombies as possible in as many entertaining and grizzly ways as possible. As before, almost anything Chuck finds can be used as a weapon from the obvious (guns, baseball bats, chainsaws) through the useless (rolled up news papers, handbags, poker chips) to the downright bizarre (taking the prize this time around: A Moose Head!). What’s more, new for the prequel, certain items can be combined to create combo weapons, which add to the points Chuck accumulates - these provide upgrades to Chuck’ health, extra item carrying space or new abilities. Some are obvious, such as nails in a baseball bat, whilst others are down right obscure (the drill-bucket?) but they all add to the wacky atmosphere and crazy antics. And anyone who doesn’t get a kick from the Shotgun/Pitchfork combination (named the BoomStick) doesn’t have a pulse.

Back too is the annoying save system (although now three slots are available instead of one) and the restart option. As many of Chuck’s missions are time critical, it’s easily possible to miss an important event. When this happens, you can chose to restart the story, but keep your upgrades. This makes the earlier sections easier as you’re more powerful than before and other challenges that previously seemed impossible can now be completed. Personally, I’ve always hated games that make me replay large sections and yet both the original and this game never annoyed me. Maybe it’s the satisfaction of being able to rescue that last survivor who didn’t make it last time. Or see that critical event I missed before, because there just wasn’t time.

Dead Rising 2 – Case Zero is a great game. And, having played it, I’ve no doubt that Dead Rising 2 itself will also be excellent. But, should I be paying for the privilege? What Capcom have done is taken the core engine of Dead Rising 2 and provided a new location to play in. A new set of art assets have been presumably produced – none of the buildings look like they would belong in Fortune City – the main game’s version of Las Vegas. Everything else has come across from the full price product. Would the experience have been any different if Capcom had provided an enclosed section of the main game to try out as a free demo? Case Zero provides about 3 hours of gameplay to finish first time (certainly a lot bigger than the average demo), but like the main game, there will have been survivors you left behind, or items you missed which are worth tracking back for. In addition, the upgrades you earn in this prequel can be carried forward to the main game. I think, at 400 Microsoft points, Case Zero is a worthwhile investment and recommend it as a good introduction or reintroduction to the unique world of Dead Rising. But, having seen the success of this download (500,000+ copies sold) don’t be surprised to see other publishers jump on the paid-demo bandwagon, ones who may not be as generous as Capcom have been.

JIM

Valkyria Chronicles 2 Review

2010-10-12T08:47:00.000+01:00

The original Valkyria Chronicles was released for the PS3 in 2008. A unique mix of RTS and 3rd person shooter (at least to console gaming), it proved to be a critical darling, getting excellent reviews and many awards. Sales were apparently respectable enough for a sequel but it was never a massive break out hit. The sequel arrives 2 years later, but on a different platform – PSP. The producer Shuntaro Tanaka was quoted as saying “ to allow a broader spectrum of users to discover and enjoy what makes Valkyria special” or, in other words, “sell more copies”.

Valkyria Chronicles II retains a lot of what made its forbear so unique. The core game play consists of battles against an opposing army in both top down (Command Mode) and 3^rd person modes. An overhead map shows the positions of your team and any enemies in sight. Selecting one of your own units zooms down into 3^rd person, where you can move the unit – but only as long as you have action points. As you run, a progress bar at the bottom of the screen runs down until your character has to stop – whether they are well placed in cover or standing in front of an enemy tank. You can select the unit again, but they won’t be able to move as far a second time and only as long as you still have command points, one of which is used each time you select a unit. It all sounds a bit fiddly, but once you get into the flow its works well. Combat is also controlled from the 3^rd person mode, but is entirely stat-based. You tell the unit to shoot (once per movement) and behind the scenes statistics determine if you’ve hit or missed. Once you’ve run out of command points, the other army get to move and attack.

Anyone who played a table top war game should be right at home with the basic concepts. Borrowing many ideas from games like Warhammer 40k, Valkyria Chronicles II is initially a lot of fun. Once you’ve got the hang of the basic mechanics the game opens up nicely, introducing new units for your side and the enemy, as well as new environmental effects, such as snow or night. Unfortunately, the shine starts to fade as soon as you realise how poor the enemy A.I. is. Many of the missions look to be very difficult on paper, but once on the battle field the stupidity of the opposition ensures a smooth ride. The CPU always seems happy to either leave its mission objective base open and inefficiently defended or, like a World War 1 general, throw waves of soldiers into the grinding mill that is a machine gunner in cover. The only real difficulty spikes are when an unknown enemy unit appears, but they all have weak spots, that once identified can always be exploited in order to assure victory. It’s a shame because the core gameplay has a lot potential in it, but there’s never really any drive to explore it when the basic units can overpower every foe you face.

When a game has a poor difficultly level, a good story can often provide enough of an incentive to push forward and keep playing. Unfortunately, Valkyria Chronicles II fails on this level too. The background is actually quite interesting; a disparate nation, made up of many separate races, under attack from within by an insurgent rebel army that wants to ethnically cleanse the country. Against this backdrop, we’re introduced to lead character Avan Hardins, younger brother of the first game’s protagonist Leon. Avan is told of his brother’s death on a top secret mission but no further details can be provided. Keen to learn more, Avan enrols in Lanseal Academy, the most prestigious army training school in the country. Again, an interesting set-up. But it appears that Lanseal recruits very young as Avan is thrown into a series of “encounters” (played out in cartoon style cut scene fashion between combat missions) with fellow school mates of the type of being late for class, arguing over what’s for lunch and helping friends work through adolescent crushes. No one is portrayed as more than 16 or 17, with many characters skewed younger. As benefits the setup, many of the Avan’s friends are of different races, with “Spock Alike” Zeri to “Kirk Alike” Avan one of the key figures . Zeri is a Darcsen, an ancient race who were responsible for invading the lands many years ago. There are some interesting dynamics between the Darcsen characters and some of the other races that make up the academy due to the hostilities of the past, and it makes a rare but pleasant change when these are explored, even though it’s usually brief.

So what you basically have is a group of school children going off to fight in a civil war. There’s obviously the gem of an interesting story idea bubbling here under the surface which could have raised some interesting questions. But when characters are more concerned with whether a girl likes them than the massacre they are about to walk into, something is very wrong. Sequences of villages being levelled under heavy bombardment and civilian slaughters are inter-cut with games of football and friends falling out over cheating in an exam. Ultimately, Valkyria Chronicles II a game defined by its limitations. The limited A.I. fails to provide any challenge. The PSP’s technical specifications limit the size of battles to small skirmishes. And the bizarre story setup of using school children to engage in war limits interesting plot elements in deference to petty squabbles. It’s a real shame as there’s the spark of an interesting plot in here and a very solid game mechanic to work with. But these elements are trampled under a bad story and simplistic A.I. Perhaps the approach to appeal to the broader spectrum of users has in fact fatally broken what could have made Valkyria special.

JIM

New Podcast Now Available!

2010-10-01T08:50:00.000+01:00

Finally, there's a new Jaded Media Podcast available at

http://jupperpeep.com/Jaded/podcasts/Episode_004_resievil.m4a

You can also find it on iTunes, now under our new name of Jaded Eye. We'll be moving across to jadedeye.com in the next couple of weeks, so take the opportunity to bookmark that site and follow us on facebook under the new name- there's a page ready and waiting for you!

Spider-man: Shattered Dimensions Review

2010-09-30T20:41:00.000+01:00

Bizarre as it might seem, Spider-man owes a big portion of his current digital existence to pro skateboarder Tony Hawk. See, back in 1999, Neversoft created a new videogame engine that combined large play areas and fluid, freestyle movement to allow wannabe skaters to live out their dreams of becoming a pro. Come the sequel in 2000, a bonus character you could unlock was the ol' webhead himself. About the same time, they'd been adapting their open-world, fast moving engine to provide Spidey with his own game, for the PS1. The combination of large environments, good writing and free-swinging, wall crawling gameplay gave them a solid hit, spawning a pretty good sequel (Enter Electro) the year after, and cementing Neversoft as one of the turn of the millennium's best (and lucrative) development houses.

In a very rare continuation of form, when Activision stablemate developers Treyarch took over the franchise with the release of the first movie tie-in game (unsurprisingly called Spider-man: The Movie), we were treated to more, and better, of the same. The environments were bigger, the swinging tricks more elaborate, and the story an entertaining representation of the movie, helped in no small part by Sam Raimi's buddy Bruce Campbell narrating with trademark sarcasm.

For a lot of people, myself included, the series hit a nadir with the next game, once again taken from the movie, Spider-man 2. For the first time, the player had full reign over the entire of Manhattan island, with the ability to follow the main story missions or just swing around the city having fun. Both in technical and gameplay terms, it was quite an achievement, and I personally spent a good few hours just roaming the city, swinging from building to building, performing totally pointless but endlessly entertaining acrobatics to the occasional soundbites from the real movie actors or the erstwhile Mr. Campbell.

This was followed up with a third game to tie in to the third movie, which, though it expanded on the previous titles in almost every way, was not so well received by critics. Perhaps it was a lack of new ideas (despite the addition of side missions like rooftop races and other fun distractions) that led to such lukewarm reception? Whatever it was, it pretty much killed the idea of the open-world Spider-man game.

A few more titles showed up such as Spider-man: Friend or Foe and Rise of the Imperfects, but none really had the success of the movie games, despite them trying to milk money out of the franchise every year or so. And in that less-than-fine tradition, we have the new Shattered Dimensions videogame, where new developers Beenox (who have handled the conversions of some of the previous games across to other formats) have taken great pains to express how much they are big fans of the character and keen to please the fans.

The plot concerns four different flavours of Spider-man, presumably in the hope of cashing in as much as possible, as broadly as possible, on any sort of Spider-man fan. The player flits between the different heroes, one per level, fighting the various incarnations of the various Spider-man villains in order to retrieve the broken pieces of the Maguffin of Order and Chaos.

Ignoring the sage advice that you can't please all of the people all of the time, Beenox allow/force you to play as each one of the various Spider-men in turn, switching between Amazing, Ultimate, Noir and 2099 as each level warrants. Though you can choose which order to play them within each act, you do have to complete all the levels before you can move through to the next part of the game, which can become a bit of a problem if you take a particular dislike to one of them (2099, just sayin').

Each world has a different art style, and you can tell that a lot of thought and effort went into developing each level, from the bright cel-shading of Amazing through to the moody monochromes of the Noir world, and it must be said that this is the prettiest Spider-man game yet. In addition, a lot of time has also clearly gone into the writing, making the game full of trademark entertaining banter and a reasonably coherent plotline that really helps tie the whole thing into a complete package.

Unfortunately, that attention to detail didn't transfer to the gameplay. Ever since the second movie game, one of the worst aspects has been the need to buy meaningless combat upgrades for a system that is supposed to be tactical, but ultimately comes down to button mashing. Though some of the attacks are slightly more interesting than previous incarnations, it retains all the previous problems of long canned animations and tedious fights against hordes of cookie-cutter enemies that plagued the later games. The only exception to this is the stealth-oriented Noir levels, where the emphasis is on sticking to the shadows and taking down enemies silently, which have come in for some flak in other reviews for being less interesting, but for me provided a nice break from the all-too-similar other worlds.

Although there's enough novelty to guide you through the first few levels, with plenty of fan-favourite pieces to hook you in, even the constant switching of art styles is not enough to stave of the boredom of repeating the same few fights against hordes of identical bad guys, whether they're crazed Deadpool fans, genetically mutated future scorpions, or dinosaurs made of electricity (no, really). There's an achievement in the game for killing 1000 enemies, which I reached easily before the end of the game. Considering it takes approximately 5-10 attacks to kill each one, I reckon that's nearly 100,000 times I pressed X and not much else throughout the game.

Compounding the mounting tedium is the fact that all the other spider-powers have been sidelined so badly they're barely included at all. In contrast to the open-world environments of the movie games, each level here is a strictly linear affair, with little to no need for web-slinging, and even when it is included it's been seriously cut down, to the point where most of the time you have to be on the lookout for highlighted 'jump spots' that you can web-zip to, which is clunky and frustrating. Wall-crawling too has been largely ignored, and where it is possible, you'll wish they'd left it out due to the appalling camera, which tends to get confused and end up inside walls, or in situations where you can't even see your character. How long have we had 3D games now? 10 years? How on earth is it possible, in this day and age, on a game with a budget this big, to screw up the camera? It's such a fundamental part of the game, I'm amazed they've been allowed to get away with it.

In the end, this is a game that has been developed from start to finish for fans of the comics, rather than fans of the previous games. If you don't know who each of the different Spider-men are already, this is probably not the game for you. Though there's a lot of stuff to commend here in terms of being faithful to the source material and treating it respectfully, there are also serious limitations in terms of the game that they have built around that. It's a more polished effort than most, and certainly improves on some of the more recent offerings, but ultimately fails to impress for more than the fleeting few hours that the story mode lasts, and is not one you're likely to play once the initial fun is done.

Alex

The Town Review

2010-09-28T08:35:00.000+01:00

There's a new crime caper film in town (cool!). It's directed and co-written by an Oscar winner, based on a Hammett-prize-winning book (neat!). It stars two Oscar-winning leading men and a BAFTA winning leading lady, supported by Jon Hamm, lead actor from HBO's hit series Mad Men (blimey!). Sounds pretty awesome on paper, right? But there's one fly in this ointment- two of those people are Ben Affleck. Was that enough to turn you off the film? It is for a lot of people, and it's also totally unfair.

Between some terrible film choices (Gigli, Jersey Girl) and some terrible acting turns (Daredevil, Pearl Harbor), it can be easy to forget that Affleck shared an Oscar for the screenplay of Good Will Hunting, and is emerging with a second career as a very competent director, with his debut effort Gone Baby Gone (starring his brother Casey) earning him industry plaudits along with a solid profit. Even so, there are still plenty of people not convinced by his recent form, and so this sophomore effort still has a lot to do.

Affleck is not the only one with something to prove in this film: in fact the same could be said of most of the cast. Jon Hamm is here to prove that he can cut it as a big screen actor just as successfully as he does on TV. Co-lead Jeremy Renner is here to prove that his Oscar-winning turn in last year's The Hurt Locker wasn't a fluke. Gossip Girl Actress Blake Lively is here to prove that she's more than a shallow teen-drama actor. The good news is, they all succeed. And how.

The story concerns a gang of bank robbers from Charlestown in Boston, made up of Affleck's Doug MacRay, the brains of the outfit, Renner's Jem Coughlin, the standard best-friend/murderous sociopath of the group, and a couple of other guys who barely have a line between them. After a heist goes slightly wrong, they kidnap the assistant manager of a bank (Lively) who turns out to live a few blocks from them. In order to make sure she doesn't talk to the FBI about what she might or might not have seen (they were wearing masks), Affleck stalks her for a while before the inevitable happens and they start a relationship. The romance develops, and Affleck decides to leave his life of crime before he ends up incarcerated like his father (Oscar-winner Chris Cooper) or worse. As ever, getting out is not as easy as he thinks, with Pete Postlethwaite's crime boss/florist (seriously) forcing him to do the fabled 'one more job'. To avoid spoilers, I won't say anything more about the plot, but I think you can guess how things turn out (clue: it doesn't go smoothly).

OK, so the plot is staggeringly predictable action movie fare, but Affleck's greatest achievement is to make it seem fresh. He guides this film through its 120-minute running time without a moment of slack, with crisp, clear, uncomplicated shots and handles action sequences with a merciful lack of shaky-cam and some well-thought-out camera placement. It's fair to say that sometimes when analysing film direction, it's more about the choices that the director didn't take than those he/she did, and that's an important consideration here too. Affleck chooses never to let the direction get in the way of the story, or attempt to clutter the scene with showy camera or CGI effects. Some of these decisions are going to be a necessity of the relatively small budget ($37m), but that just makes it all the more impressive that he has managed to pull the whole thing together so well. There are some sacrifices that had to be made, for example the other gang members' characters are never really developed, and Hamm is relegated to a fairly minor role, but we're still always given enough to not make it feel like we've been short changed, and it's a much better decision than adding another 20-30 minutes to the running time.

Affleck's second greatest achievement on The Town is to squeeze some excellent performances out of a truly talented cast, including his own. The relationships seem real and the romantic sub-plot, usually the weakest link in any film like this, is believable and, more importantly, actually interesting. Though they're not necessarily all characters that we like, by the end of the film they are all characters that we care about.

Affleck effectively combines his and Matt Damon's roles from Good Will Hunting to play MacRay, with a palpable sense of wasted potential. Of all the actors, he's probably the weakest (in the face of some seriously unfair competition), and it is fair to say that his skills as a director have perhaps surpassed his acting ability. But he is watchable, believable and handles the switch between charming and ruthless, emotionless and vulnerable with admirable understatement.

Renner is by turns vicious and charming as Jem, again making a slightly hackneyed role his own: though the character is basically an Irish-American version of Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci's joke-telling psycho from Goodfellas), he inhabits it completely.

Hamm breezes effortlessly through the role of FBI agent Frawley, proving that yes, he does have the chops to take on big screen roles, but equally I wouldn't be surprised if you see him play pretty much this same character in his next few movies: it's just the kind of role he looks right for, and can play in his sleep with charm and depth.

Of the two major female characters, the lead is Claire Keesey, played by BAFTA award winning Red Riding actress Rebecca Hall, who presents a perfectly nuanced portrayal of the vulnerable but strong-willed Assistant Manager traumatised by her ordeal. She's a great foil for Affleck, her character's relatively high education and wealth giving the relationship a nice dynamic that helps the audience empathise with MacRay and invest in the film.

However, the real standout performance in this film is Blake Lively, playing Renner's sister and Affleck's ex, single mother Krista. Though I've never seen it myself, I'd wager anyone who's seen Gossip Girl would not recognise her in this. As of now, we should add her to the shamefully short list of highly competent chameleonic young female actors, and is most definitely one to watch in the future. An endlessly tragic figure, stuck in a dead-end life of substance-abuse, as a poorly-educated, unemployed single mother, who sees the only love she's ever known abandon her, Lively manages to steer the role on a steady course, never losing our sympathy despite some of the choices she makes.

When all's said and done, The Town is more of a springboard than anything else. It's a whole lot of things you have seen before from a bunch of people you probably haven't seen do it. As a piece of original or groundbreaking cinema I couldn't honestly recommend that you must go and see this movie, but if you have any interest in fresh, intelligent filmmaking from a group of truly talented individuals with something to prove, it's well worth it.

Alex

Resident Evil: Afterlife Review

2010-09-23T12:45:00.000+01:00

Resident Evil: Afterlife is really Resident Evil 4, but since numbered sequels are out of fashion at the moment, we get a subtitle instead. If anyone can remember Resident Evil: Extinction (the third one), Afterlife follows directly on. Those who never saw the previous film or can’t remember what happened are well advised to do a little research before going in, because there is almost no introduction to this instalment, save for the briefest of recaps about the apocalypse currently engulfing the planet. We are dropped straight in on the army of clone Alices attacking Umbrella’s latest massive base, built this time under Tokyo. Creating a 90 minute film full of clones of Milla Jovovich would be require a substantial CGI budget, but the writers have a simple solution – kill them all off pretty quickly. Therefore, we are treated to 15 minutes of one of the best stand alone action sequences of the year as the clone army is slowly whittled down and somewhere in the region of 300+ soldiers are massacred. It’s mindless, but it’s well choreographed and beautifully shot, paying a large debt to the Matrix and its sequels. All too quickly, things are back to status quo – only the original Alice is left, and she’s lost all the super powers she gained in the previous two entries. Searching for the promised safe haven of Arcadia (again a plot point from film No.3), she chances first upon her old friend Claire Redfield, and then a small group of survivors holed up in a Los Angles Prison, surrounded by the zombie hordes.

It’s fair to say that plot is not the film’s strong point. The story is baffling for newcomers, and yet at the same time manages to be hugely predictable. Character deaths are signposted a mile away; you’ll never be in any doubt as to who’s going to live and who isn’t. What it does well, for such a relatively small budget (around $60 million) is spectacle. While the remaining action may not reach the heights of the opening, it’s all well put together and entertaining to watch. The film benefits massively from the 3-D. This is not some post-production rush job, but a fully fledged 3-D movie, filmed using the Fusion Camera System, originally developed for Avatar. Personally, I don’t find 3-D altogether convincing, with some sequences still looking like cut-outs, placed in front of a green screen. But ultimately, I suspect this is the nature of shot setup, as not every single image in a movie will maximise the opportunities provided by a third dimension. Despite my scepticism, certain individual sequences looked fantastic, with fully-rounded characters and some static items such as cables or ropes stretching far out of the screen. Quite how any of this will transfer to home viewing is questionable, but as a cinema experience it works very well.

Another thing the film does far better than the previous entries is incorporate aspects of the computer games. While the first three films made use of several familiar faces, it never really successfully recreated any of the game’s monsters or plot lines – the most spectacular failure being the rubber-suited Nemesis of Resident Evil Apocalypse (the second film). In Afterlife, however, many of the creatures from Resident Evil 4 and 5 are not only incorporated but rendered almost perfectly. The Majini/Ganados appear later on, as does the Executioner Majini, who is the best game->movie translation since Pyramid Head’s cameo in Silent Hill. Given how badly such characters have been treated in previous films in this series and other video game based movies, it’s an encouraging sign to see the film makers look more closely at the source material and try to better represent these characters.

Where this representation fails miserably is in the casting of Chris Redfield. Wentworth Miller plays this role, and is simply awful. Quite how someone who spent 4 years playing a tough no-nonsense hero in the TV show Prison Break fails to play a tough no-nonsense hero for this film escapes me, but everything he did or said made me cringe. His performance is terrible. The chief villain of many of the games, Albert Wesker, is brought to life by Shawn Roberts - Wesker appeared briefly in the previous film, played by Jason O'Mara, but here he is centre stage. Any by “stage”, I mean a pantomime stage. Camping it up beyond all redemption, Roberts throws every evil villain trope at the screen, including shooting henchmen to make a point, laughing at how evil he is and regularly underestimating the heroine and her friends. Of course, your tolerance for such characters will likely not be as high as mine (I’m a huge fan of Brian Cox’s Agamemnon, and Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor interpretation), so be warned – this performance is right up there with the best (worst?) of them.

Milla Jovovich reprises her role as Alice – the only survivor of the original mansion outbreak which triggered the series. Now 4 films in, playing Alice is probably as easy for Milla as playing Wolverine is for Hugh Jackman. But to say that takes away what a good job Jovovich is doing in the role. She’s always believable as the tough outsider and handles the action well. It may not be the most dramatically taxing of characters, but Resident Evil is still one of the very few movie franchises with a lead female role. Think of how many female action heroines were created in the wake of Tomb Raider – such as Selene from Underworld, or Aeon Flux. Milla’s Alice is big step above these, and really the only actress better for such roles in Hollywood at the moment is Angelina Jolie. Alongside her Ali Larter also returns as Claire Redfield, although her main job seems to be making Milla look more convincing. While not on a par with Wentworth Miller’s “performance”, Larter doesn’t do much more than sulk and shoot things.

No one would mistake Resident Evil: Afterlife for a great work of art. Looking back in the cold light of day, it’s cheesy, incomprehensible to newcomers and not a great deal actually happens in moving the overall plot of the series forward. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. I had a great time watching it, laughing at the over-the-top action and really enjoying the pace and spectacle of the film. After the dull slump of Extinction, Afterlife has steadied the ship and whetted my appetite for a potential 5th. And with a no 1 opening at the US box office and strong returns being reported worldwide, there’s a good chance Alice will be back to take on the Umbrella Corporation again soon.

JIM

Salt Review

2010-09-21T13:07:00.000+01:00

The star vehicle is a Hollywood tradition. Many a movie is built upon “the package” – actors and director cast before a story is even proposed. The recent Knight and Day is a perfect example of such flawed film making. Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, together at last! Who cares if we have no idea what they will do in this film, as long as both of them are on screen together, it’ll be great! (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t - http://jadedmedia.blogspot.com/2010/08/knight-and-day-review.html). However, the addition of a well-cast star to an existing package can elevate mediocre material into watchable entertainment, especially if the presence of said star bumps the budget up enough to provide the canvas the story works best on. At its core, Salt is a hackneyed, spy-pulp thriller with a crazy plot, which might have better fit as an episode of the Man from Uncle. But with an arguably perfect bit of casting (and a budget that benefits such a name) Angelina Jolie’s Salt is an all together more entertaining proposition.

The film opens in North Korea, two years prior to the events of the rest of the movie. CIA agent Evelyn Salt has been captured and is undergoing torture. It’s a surprisingly brutal opening sequence, somewhat out of tone with the rest of the film. But before things get too graphic, Salt is released in a prisoner swap and heads for home. Cut forward to the “present”, and Salt is back working at the CIA, getting ready to leave the office on the day of her wedding anniversary. Just before she can get out of the door she is called to deal with a walk-in – an alleged FSB defector, who has “important information”: he claims that a Russian agent will travel to New York and kill the Russian President, who is visiting for the funeral of the American Vice-President. More dramatically, he declares the name of this assassin is Evelyn Salt.

The plot up to this point is all laid out in the trailers and makes for a fairly workmanlike introduction. When I saw the trailer, my first reaction was “Jessica Bourne”, due to its plot similarities (agent on the run from the authorities, mysterious past) and what looked like a realistic take on the action sequences – which, it turns out, are almost exclusively taken from the opening third of the film. Certainly, Salt is soon on the run from her CIA colleagues, yet claiming her innocence. However, from here on out, things take a swing to the bizarre. It’s very difficult to explain, as to do so would ruin a lot of the fun of the movie. All I’ll say is that as the plot crosses into the likes of cold war paranoia, child soldiers, def-con 2 and more double crosses than you can shake a stick at, any pretence of a stripped down realistic “Bourne-style” thriller is thrown right out of the window. The plot is so deranged the writers of Modern Warfare 2 would have rejected it as too far fetched. But fortunately, it never stops long enough to let you think too deeply about it. Nobody pauses for a breather or a moment of introspection, and the film is all the better for it.

As agent Salt, Angelina Jolie in just about every single scene of the movie. It’s a fairly taxing role requiring a significant amount of stunt work (which, it is claimed, Jolie undertook herself as much as possible) but also a surprisingly wide range of character beats; all the way from the torture victim of the opening, through panicked fugitive to unflinching, emotionless terminator. While the character transformations are not in the slightest bit believable, Jolie is excellent in every persona she is asked to inhabit. Always engaging, she manages to keep you guessing as to her ultimate motivations – a critical aspect of any film like this. In addition, she hits just the right performance note: there’s no nodding winks or sly references to how daft things are getting: instead everything is played totally straight. And unlike a great many action stars, she’s willing to look beaten up if the role requires it. Rather than the traditional movie “injury” (small scar above one eye), Jolie has no qualms about accepting a more realistic makeup – the flashbacks to her North Korean experiences are a testament to that.

As is often the case in such a movie the supporting cast are given very little space in which to impress. Chiwetel Ejiofor is the agent tasked with hunting Salt down after she does a runner, but other than prove his American accent is flawless, Ejiofor isn’t particularly memorable. Liev Schreiber desperately tries not to follow his typecast tradition (professional Git) as Salt’s boss, but despite the character’s actions, “not a git” simply seems to be a character that Schreiber hasn’t totally mastered yet. Even when being completely altruistic, he never feels in the slightest bit trustworthy. Daniel Olbrychski plays the Russian defector, wandering in straight off the set of a Tom Clancy computer game. And I‘ll give a quick shout out for Andre Braugher – one of my favourite character actors, who here only gets two or three lines in about a minute of total screen time.

Deep down, I think the writers and producers knew what sort of a movie they had on their hands, even if the marketing people didn’t. Coming in at under 100 minutes, including credits, it sets up its story, executes it then gets out before you have the chance to question anything. In the days of 2.5-hour blockbusters, it’s refreshing to see such a compact film. In many ways, Salt is the perfect example of the right type of star vehicle. The same film could have been made as a straight to video effort, staring Steven Seagal or Dolph Lundgren, and it would have sunk without a trace. But in its current form, it’s an enjoyable action adventure, which successfully uses the power and presence of its excellent leading lady to drag moviegoers through its more outlandish plot twists. It may be a wacky ride, but Angelina ensures it’s an entertaining one.

Jim

Halo Reach Review

2010-09-16T23:06:00.000+01:00

Video gaming is still a very immature medium, both in terms of its age and the audience to which it primarily caters, whether literally through machines like the Wii or figuratively, through juvenile and crudely-executed play mechanics (for example, collecting nudie magazines as a side quest). Every so often a game will come along that truly tries to stand out, to break the mould and try something new, be it story (Psychonauts), atmosphere (Shadow of the Colossus) or gameplay mechanics (Guitar Hero), but most of the time anyone trying any of the former two will meet with mediocre sales at best. For this reason, most improvements tend to be incremental rather than radical, building on established themes and methods and tweaking them, sometimes in ways that would be, if not imperceptible, then certainly unimportant to anyone but ardent fans of the medium.

Looking objectively at the new Halo game in this light, it is very difficult to argue that it, or even the wider Halo series, represents anything special in video games: after all, the tale of a grizzled space marine shooting aliens with laser guns is possibly the least original premise that exists in modern video gaming. But the Halo series is all about those little refinements, about a game-playing experience that really is the leanest, most efficient and distilled version of the art in so many ways that set it apart from its contemporaries. Reach isn’t perfect by any means, but Bungie are nudging ever closer to perfection with every iteration in the series, from both a single- and multiplayer point of view, and also getting quicker at doing it (the last entry, the excellent but brief ODST, came out only 18 months ago).

For all but the last game in the series (with the exception of the RTS Halo Wars), you have controlled Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, last of the cybernetically-enhanced Spartans of the UNSC human forces, fighting the group of alien races collectively known as The Covenant. Reach takes us back to before the first Halo game with a prequel, largely to get round that problem of him being the last one so they could give him a team of similarly-sized super-soldiers to work alongside. This time you play Noble 6, the sixth member of the Noble team (straightforward enough, right?): different name, nigh-identical character. To hide this slightly, from the beginning you’re encouraged to personalize your Spartan with different helmet types, knee pads, colours and other things that A: make no difference to the gameplay, B: you’ll very rarely even see, what with it being a FIRST PERSON shooter and all, and C: most of which you won’t be able to afford at the start of the game anyway. That said it’s a nice little touch that helps you connect to your character, especially if you happen to be female, as for the first time there’s a gender option available for the fairer sex to kick some alien butt too (though I can only imagine the sort of reactions you would receive if you should enter an Xbox Live deathmatch with a female character model, judging by the general standard of politeness and restraint that Halo players usually display online).

The story itself is actually one of the weaker points in Reach, and is really a lot more straightforward and unexciting than previous entries such as last year’s ODST. They retain from that title some of the squad-based banter, which is definitely welcome from the point of view of drawing you in to the flimsy story, the cutscene interactions between squad members being by far the best part of a plot that is basically ‘go there, get that thing, kill anything between you and it’. OK, it’s an FPS, I’m not expecting Shakespeare, but compare this to any previous Halo and you can’t help but be a little disappointed. Another slight letdown is the voice cast; with last year’s sci-fi nerd fanservice of the ODST cast being basically that of Firefly reunited, the cast of nobodies employed to voice Noble Team in Reach really shows.

One thing that is as good as ever is the awesome score, with a nice mix of the now-standard choral chanting and hard, catchy guitar riffs as the situation warrants. This is another area in which the Halo series stands head and shoulders above its peers, but although there’s a lot to commend about the soundtrack to Reach as an exercise in using cinematic techniques to set an emotional tone, nothing here beats out the classic Halo themes established and perfected in earlier entries in the series (some of which make a very welcome, if unnecessarily remixed, return).

With the rich mythology and reputation for story quality that Bungie have built up with the Halo series over the years, they are often required not to innovate wildly in order to keep their fans amused year after year, but rather not too deviate too far from the established ‘feel’. In other words, just don’t fuck it up. One area where they gamers will always give them free reign to improve, however, is in the quality of the graphics, and this is certainly the prettiest looking Halo game yet. Over the years the Halo world has gone through multiple enhancements, with subtle improvements on textures and models as the advances in technology allow, and the subtle new character designs on the standard enemies and weapons, which never feel out of place or jarring, a tradition they carry through here.

The flipside of having a built-in fanbase, and especially when you’re doing a prequel, is that you can’t change things too much without raising questions such as ‘why haven’t we seen this vehicle/character/enemy before; especially as this is a prequel. Generally they manage to sidestep this restraint admirably, either by introducing new vehicle sections in settings not previously seen in Halo games. The only thing that we do see for the first time here that is not present in the other Halo games are the new activated armour powers, expanded from the standard sprint to include extra shields, adaptive camouflage (cloaking), and jet packs (sadly nowhere near as fun as they sound). There are also a couple of completely new enemies, but one is only seen in the last level and the other only appears once in the game (though there are two of them at that point), which does leave you feeling that they maybe erred a little too much on the side of caution.

The gameplay mechanics are largely unchanged (i.e. ‘not fucked up’), even if the aim is sometimes a little too generous, almost guiding bullets to your target when one might reasonably expect a near miss, and enemies are a lot more accurate with grenades than ever before- most of the time I died in Reach was because I suddenly exploded from a sticky grenade hurled soundlessly (and unnoticeably fast) from some unseen enemy. Overall if you liked the other Halos, you won’t be disappointed, and it’s a system I much prefer to the hair-trigger twitch gaming of titles like COD: Modern Warfare.

The single player campaign clocks in at around 8 hours, which is not as much as I’d like, but at least it’s more than ODST’s weedy 5-hour affair. The missions are fun and almost nostalgic in their Halo-ness, and they do mix things up as previously mentioned with several vehicle-based sections, though by the end you’ll spend what feels like half the game forced into vehicles rather than on foot, which is a bit too long for my liking. The levels are well designed, as one would expect from Bungie, but there’s nothing really memorable here; the last level and the after-credits sequence is nice, but there’s nothing that you’ll go back to specifically to play with friends: that’s what the multiplayer is for.

In summary then, it’s fair to say this isn’t the best Halo game ever. It’s still an excellent game, with a level of detail, style and maturity rarely seen in games, and even more so in the FPS market. It’s just that if you compare its component parts against other entries in the series, though it might be near the best in some areas, it often comes up short. ODST had better voice acting, Halo 3 had a better story, Reach is definitely the prettiest, Halo 3 had the best weapons, and Halo 1 had more memorable levels. It’s not even as easy as saying that it’s ‘worse’ or ‘better’ than something like ODST or Halo 3; it’s simply as good, but in different ways.

Alex

Repo Men Review

2010-09-14T08:55:00.000+01:00

Repo Men is set in the now standard “Blade runner”-esque vision of the future; a huge city, full of giant video screens running 24/7 adverts. In this world of tomorrow, we meet Remy and Jake: friends since grade school, now working together as repo men for a giant company known as The Union. Technology has reached a point whereby any part of person can be replaced by an implant – artificial hearts, lungs, eyes, ears, you name it. Unfortunately, all the implants are expensive and almost all are bought on credit. Keep up with your payments and all is well. Fall too far behind and, as one character points out: “Can't pay for your house, the bank takes it back. Can't pay for your liver... we come along” Cue breaking and entering, tranquilising of the defaulter and onsite removal of the organ - which if it was a critical one, like a heart, is obviously terminal.

I’m hoping you can work out the next plot point for yourselves. I’ll give you a second or two… Time’s up. If you guessed that one of the Repo Men gets an artificial implant, problems ensue and he has to go on the run from his former employees, then one gold star to you. Remy, following a botched job, gets saddled with a new heart and a fresh payment plan, courtesy of The Union. Once back at work, Remy finds he’s lost the appetite for cutting people open, getting terrible shakes when confronted with a victim. However, rather than find another line of work (seriously, is the salary of a repo man that great?) Remy starts trying to fake completed jobs, gambles and generally pisses away his time until his old colleagues come after him to reclaim the Union’s property.

The lead role Remy is played by Jude Law. Always a hard actor to like, Jude really has his work cut out for him in this role (no pun intended). We’re essentially asked to sympathise with a defaulter who can’t pay his bills against the company who he owes the money to. Little guy against big corporation is a standard plot mechanic, but normally the corporation has done something slightly more evil than offer a finance plan at 17.5% APR! His pal Jake is played by Forest Whitaker, a very talented actor probably best known for his Oscar-winning role in The Last King of Scotland. Again, you’ll quickly guess how Jake’s role will play out in the film, but I won’t spoil everything for you. Suffice it to say, Whitaker handles both his action sequences and softer moments with his usual understated quality, and the banter between the two men is just about believable enough to sell the idea that they’ve known each other for decades.

The two lead women in the film are given very little of substance to do. Alice Braga, most recently seen kicking alien ass in Preadators, takes the role of emotionally damaged female that big strong Remy must protect - such a pained and disappointing cliché. Carice van Houten, star of the wonderful Black Book, is almost unrecognisable as Remy’s wife; Carol. Given nothing to do apart from get increasingly angry at Remy and throw tantrums, it’s a very poor role for such a talented actress. Rounding out the principle cast is Liev Schreiber, playing to typecasting as a complete git. Really, he’s brilliant in this kind of role, always pulling just the right sneer and here managing to play a character who never quite accepts what a pain in the arse he actually is.

The film makes full use of its 18 rating. Obviously the central plot revolves around rudimentary surgery being performed at regular intervals. Beyond that, several of the fights have a real edge to them, the likes of which are rarely seen in mainstream Hollywood action films. Both Remy and Jake are handy with a combat knife, which get regular use and in one sequence, Remy resorts to hacksaw and hammer. It’s very over the top, almost but not quite comical, due to the realistic spurts of blood lacing the walls. Nothing is lingered on, but more than enough is hinted at to make the viewer uncomfortable.

This discomfort is exacerbated by the moral issues surrounding Remy’s revenge. The plot attempts to give him an excuse for the violence he commits against “The Union” and its various levels of employees, but as it escalates considerably in the final third of the movie, I felt it went far beyond any justifications provided. Had the movie ended with Remy’s final bloodbath, it would have left a very unpleasant aftertaste. Fortunately such doubts were blown away by a great ending, which I shan’t spoil here, but suffice to say, provides a wonderfully satisfying conclusion. It’s not an original ending, by any means; having been used and spoofed many times before. But it brilliantly undercuts the weaknesses of the final third of the film and manages to fit into the story without feeling like one of those random twists that totally invalidates what’s come before it. Maybe it only seemed so good when following such a predictable workmanlike story, but whatever the reason, it certainly left me with a much more positive opinion of the overall film.

Repo Men didn’t make much of an impact when it arrived in cinemas. A “b-list" cast attached to a violent action movie was never going to topple Avatar in terms of global box office, but even its distributers have to be disappointed with worldwide grosses of around $18 million against production costs in the $30 million range. It’s a shame it didn’t find an audience, as Repo Men is an engaging ride, which runs at a good pace in the early sections, and follows through on its interesting premise. It may be clunky and terribly predictable, but it knows its limitations and delivers on its promises. It deserves to find a wider audience in the DVD and digital download markets.

JIM

Mafia II Review

2010-09-10T10:58:00.002+01:00

2K Studios are one of those development houses that have expanded by acquisition quite strongly over recent years, buying up smaller developers and assimilating them, Borg-like, into the 2K family, putting them shoulder to shoulder with other subsidiaries of the quiet monolith Take Two Interactive such as Rockstar Games.

2K Czech, formerly Illusion Softworks, were previously best known for PC-centric army shooters Hidden and Dangerous and Vietcong, as well as the original Mafia game in 2002. As with many developers, their focus has switched somewhat from concentrating on the floundering (WoW aside) PC gaming market to the consoles. So here we are, eight years after the first game, with the sequel.

Even though we’ve seen three major releases of the Grand Theft Auto series since the last game, not to mention both Saint’s Row games, Mafia remains the only sandbox game to be set so far in the past- in this case moving the action up from the 1930s of the first game to 1943-51. The first thing that strikes you about the game when you open the box is how perfectly this fits: the fold-out map is bordered with 50s Americana advertisements for made-up products: sure, it’s been done before with more comedy in GTA (Piswasser) and more crassness in Saint’s Row (Freckle Bitch’s), but never with more soul than the lovingly-illustrated adverts for Swift Cola or Stoltz beer, among others.

The attention to detail does not stop there, though. The city streets, fashions, weapons, cars and even patterns of speech have all been lovingly crafted to really make the story of Vito Scaletti’s rise through the ranks of the Cosa Nostra in Empire Bay (New York) into an incredibly believable experience. Within the first couple of hours, you’ll see more textures and models than you’d usually get in three games, and all that’s just to set the scene for the main story.

When looking at Mafia II critically, you can’t let your expectations cloud your judgement of the experience. A lot has changed in gaming and sandbox titles in particular since the first Mafia, so going in, it’s reasonable to assume that this will basically be GTA 1950, with the added bonuses of mafia-related mayhem such as extorting protection money, ripping off parking meters, gambling, running prostitution and the myriad other neat little mini-game style possibilities for earning your mob stripes and moving up to Capo. Well, throw that out the window right now: if you stop thinking of Mafia II as a sandbox game, you’ll consider it a lot more kindly.

Instead try to think of it as a 3^rd person cover-shooter, with some driving involved. Even though there might be 36 unique cars to choose from, and you might have to steal one to get to the mission, the main gameplay emphasis is firmly on the shootouts rather than the driving. The game is also very heavily story-driven; in the first couple of hours this seems like it’s the usual tutorial-style introductory missions, but as you go on from job to job and hour to hour with no break in between them save for a fade to black as Vito goes to bed, you start to realise that the whole game is going to follow this pattern, with very little opportunity (unless you’re the sort of person who can ignore a ringing phone) to go explore on your own. Should you manage to tear yourself away from the main plot you can explore the city, hopping in different cars as the mood takes you, but other than drive around checking out the scenery whilst listening to the excellent choice of period songs on the radio, there’s really not a whole lot to do, except look for the Wanted posters and Playboy magazines scattered across the city. If you’re a real fetch-quest fiend/packrat this might be entertaining enough to keep you going, but I’ve shot/collected/talked to more than my fill of pigeons/CDs/hobos in other games already, thanks.

Sticking to the main story is a perfectly reasonable course of action, and the excellent scripting, voice acting, characterisation and attention to detail are really what make the game stand out. For a game based on an organisation with such a rich and storied past, both fictional and real, it manages to avoid a lot of the clichés that it could so easily have slipped into. Unfortunately, this is also actually kind of a problem. Though the story is unique and interesting, the gameplay tends to be a little repetitive: none of those fun-sounding mob activities I mentioned above appear in the game, with most missions taking the form of ‘come pick me up, drive to location, shoot people, evade police, drop me off’, with very little variety except in setting and setup. Most of the time, if you can avoid accidentally alerting the police, you can get through a mission pretty easily just by biding your time in cover and blasting your way through a building full of enemies before hopping in your car and driving home safely.

Speaking of the police in Empire Bay, they are also a bit of an issue. For starters, they appear to be psychic, as they can tell you’re picking the lock on a car from a good couple of blocks away, and will pursue you relentlessly because of it. They are also quite biased, pursuing you and you alone regardless of who might have started an altercation. Apparently it’s fine for people to firebomb your house and attempt to gun you down as you escape, but if you even attempt to return fire, you’d better hope there aren’t any police within a mile or so or you’re going to find yourself a very wanted man, a status which can be irritatingly difficult to lose sometimes.

There’s also very little progression for the main character through the game. Though I’m sure this is intentional, it does become a little frustrating that Vito is essentially no better off at the end of the game (and, it can be argued, very much worse off), than when he started. Just like there’s no opportunity to run a protection racket in your neighbourhood or play in an illegal poker game, there’s no opportunity to take control of your own destiny and become more important in the mob/game world. I know, these are things that I want the game to do rather than things the game has even suggested it will do, but damn it, that would be more fun. At one point Vito laments the fact that life as a gangster isn’t all pretty girls, fast cars and money. He’s right, of course, but the problem is I would prefer it to be. Back in the day when GTA was still a top-down game, many people thought Driver was awesome, and would only be more awesome if you could do all the things you did in GTA, but with the 3D graphics of Driver. Then Rockstar made GTA 3, essentially killed Driver as competition with Vice City, and have never looked back. In the same way, if some developer were to take the attention to detail, sandbox city and aesthetic of Mafia II, and splice it with the territory-based reputation-building and minigame variety of Saint’s Row, I guarantee they’d have a huge hit on their hands.

All in all Mafia II is a beautifully crafted cinematic gaming experience, with all the upsides (lovingly-rendered period décor, cars, clothes, music and story), and downsides (rigid structure, relatively short length) that entails. More style and substance than Bioshock, more charm than GTA IV, similar shooter/stealth mechanics to Splinter Cell: Conviction, prettier than almost anything out this year, but less pure fun than Saint’s Row 2.

Alex

The Expendables Review

2010-09-07T08:46:00.000+01:00

The Expendables is really two films. On the one hand, it’s a buddy-action movie starring the greatest action cast ever assembled. On the other hand, it’s Sylvester Stallone making a lightweight Rambo film and trying to climb over the egos of his fellow cast members to tell one of the most pointless and hackneyed stories in modern cinema. OK, so the first part still sounds pretty cool, and I was really hoping that would be enough to carry the whole thing through. Unfortunately it ends up being a bit of an incoherent mess, with the two ideas artlessly mashed together with not enough time given to either to make it successful. I get the feeling it was brutally chopped down in the editing room in order to satisfy the running time, and to make up for the fact that Sylvester Stallone’s direction really couldn’t decide which of the two he wanted this to be, resulting in a bit of a schizophrenic mess.

In a plot ripped straight from an A-team episode/75% of all 80s action movies, an ex-CIA agent (Eric Roberts, solid but unsurprising) is bankrolling a generalissimo to exert military control over a small south American island in order to produce lots of delicious cocaine. So the CIA hires a rag-tag group of enormously-muscled unkillable mercenaries to kill him and/or the general. Enter Stallone and his team.

The big thing about The Expendables has always been the cast, and it’s something the countless trailers have made a big deal about, so let’s run down the full motley crew (especially as there really isn't enough plot to fill a review). It’s worth noting that, with the exception of Jason Statham and Jet Li, none of the ‘specialties’ that the characters supposedly possess are ever mentioned, explained or even particularly demonstrated in the film:

Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone): the leader of the group. In charge of things for some reason, has massive arm veins and a face like iron filings stuck on stretched plastic. Given no backstory or characterisation whatsoever, emotional range of a turnip.

Lee Christmas (Jason Statham): Knife specialist and Barney’s best mate. Apparently ex-SAS, has a girlfriend who leaves him because he’s emotionally distant and disappears for months at a time. This is supposed to make us feel sympathy towards him. It doesn’t. If you think his character name is bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Yin Yang (Jet Li): I told you the names got worse. Martial arts specialist, naturally. Underused in the film outside of a couple of pointless fight sequences, his only characterisation seems to be saying ‘I need more money’ or occasionally ‘I need more money for my family’. It is unclear whether this dialogue was in the script or was simply something he said on set so often they decided to put it in the film.

Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren): Sniper. Aha, sniper..Gunner? See what they did there? Brilliant. Dolph Lundgren, surprisingly, gets the most acting to do in this film as the mentally-unstable Expendable who is (we are informed, though never see) on some sort of drugs. Moody, spaced-out, rambling, this massive hulk of a man actually plays the role with incredible pathos, with big puppy-dog eyes showing a vulnerability and fear despite his physical stature that would be utterly incredulous coming from anyone else on this cast. He was genuinely very good in this film, and if this performance is anything to go by, deserves a hell of a lot more ‘serious’ acting work than he’s ever been given.

Hale Caesar (Terry Crews): weapons specialist (aren’t they all?). Good grief. His name is actually Hale Caesar. Doesn’t have a lot to do except being massive, and I do mean massive- the dad from Everybody Hates Chris is possibly the most beefed-up in the whole movie. He likes things that make big noises. Literally. That’s it. Kicks serious ass with a massive shotgun in some of the more entertaining/graphic fight scenes.

Toll Road (Randy Couture): demolitions expert, apparently. A personality vacuum that serves no purpose whatsoever in the film, except presumably to even out the weight on the plane if he and Terry Crews sit on opposite sides. He has no character, no good fight scenes and the only thing vaguely unique about him (he has cauliflower ears) is explained by a needlessly shoehorned-in anecdote that even the other characters in the film are bored by. It’s one thing to write bad dialogue, but if it gets to the point that it’s so tedious your other fictional characters don’t even give a shit about it, maybe that should tell you something. At least this time it’s a toss up between whether the character or the actor has the worse name.

You may have also heard that Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Steve Austin are in this film. Well, Bruce and Arnie are in one scene, together with Stallone, bouncing incredibly awkward dialogue around with the sort of terrible acting chops I genuinely thought they had all long outgrown (maybe it’s ironic? It’s certainly awful), and the scene ends on what is obviously supposed to be a clever line that actually makes no sense at all. Austin is given a bit more to do (physically, at least) as Roberts’s henchman, Paine (oh come on. Seriously?), and the nicest thing I can say is he doesn’t screw up what is essentially a drill sergeant/mean bastard role that in any other film would be just as ably performed by an unknown extra.

Mickey Rourke is also hanging around as mission co-ordinator/motorbike-loving-tattooist Tool (oh for goodness sake). He has one emotional speech that has all the subtlety of a brick with lines that are just as cumbersome, but otherwise he’s fine as an incidental character.

The Expendables are assisted in their mission by the general’s daughter, Sandra, played by Gisele Itié, giving the role the overdose of emotion you’d expect from a Brazilian soap opera actress, and far more than it requires/deserves. Of course, she will be the love interest for Stallone, and consequently the reason for countless deaths of her countrymen.

Now it may seem from what I’ve written so far that this is a complete turkey of a film, but that’s not true. Amongst all the jarring tonal shifts between buddy-movie camaraderie and brutal bloody battles, the needless overuse of shaky cam and the paper-thin characterization, there is the kernel of a great film here. Some of the fight scenes are truly well executed, wince-inducing and visceral without being over the top (though some come very close), and though the plot might be so generic it hurts, at least it doesn’t try and make this ensemble piece Ocean’s Eleven with guns. It’s not enough to turn it into a recommendation, but, just like many people went to Gran Torino for the chance to see Clint Eastwood playing ‘that character’ for probably the last time, if you want to capture the last twinkle of 80s action magic out of this cast, now’s your chance.

Alex

Scott Pilgrim vs The World Review

2010-09-03T08:43:00.000+01:00

There’s a simple problem at the centre of director Edgar Wright’s latest film – Scott Pilgrim vs the World. It’s not the title, although I’m not a big fan of that. It’s not the casting of Michael Cera in the lead, although I’m not a big fan of that either. Nor is it the wafer-thin plot, nor the hit and miss dialogue. No, the real problem is this: who is the target audience for this film? It is being advertised as a merging of the languages of film and video games, but the result is an unhinged cross-over of young, “hip” characters surrounded by ancient (in relative terms) video game tropes. This dissonance cuts right through the film.

The titular Scott Pilgrim is a 22 year old slacker with no discernable source of income. This doesn’t appear to hinder him in any particular way, although his housing situation is not exactly ideal: squatting in his friend Wallace’s box sized studio apartment, even having to share a bed. Scott’s biggest issues in life are his band’s entry in the local “battle of the bands” competition (Scott plays bass) and his love life. He’s currently dating a 17 year old, which all his friends think is hilarious/inappropriate. However, into Scott’s dreams, and subsequently life, walks Ramona Flowers. Looking for all the world like Clementine Kruczynski’s younger sister, Ramona is instantly pegged as “the one”, and Scott commences to woo her. However, before they can live happily ever after, Scott must defeat Ramona’s 7 evil exes in mortal (K?)ombat.

The core plot to this film comes straight out of any number of coming-of-age stories, aimed at the upper teenage market. It could easily have been a cheery indie film premiering at Sundance or an episode of Dawson’s Creek. Personally I’m too old and jaded to care about 20-somethings who never need to work and whose biggest worry is whether their girlfriend still likes them, so the film is already in trouble. Making matters worse, the lead couple, Scott (played by Michael Cera) and Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) are awful. It is impossible to believe that Ramona would show any interest in Scott to begin with, and once they actually become a couple, they somehow manage to show even less chemistry together. Pretty much every time they are on screen the film drags, which is a big problem since they are your leads. There are some cute exchanges of people failing to be cool, which is funny once, perhaps twice, but just dull to watch repeatedly.

The evil exes, which Scott must defeat, are at least a varied bunch with a bit of stunt casting finding Chris Evans (Fantastic Four) and Brandon Routh (Superman Returns) hamming things up nicely. In fact, a number of the supporting actors are a lot of fun, providing almost all of the highlights and laughs in the film. Kieran Culkin plays Scott’s room-mate and landlord Wallace. Sarcastic, aloof, Wallace is a voice of reason for Scott. He gets all the best lines and is the clear stand out of the film. Alison Pill is also good fun as Kim Pine, the depressive drummer in Scott’s band, while Anna Kendrick makes the most of her brief screen time as Scott’s sister Stacey. But it’s really a damning indictment of the main story that these incidental characters shine quite so brightly: their funny asides that are about the only thing that keeps the film going as Scott ploughs through each ex in turn.

Each of these ex battles is a long, drawn out conflict, and this is where the video game references are thrown to the fore. They start at the subtle, such as Zelda sound effects on mobile phones but soon explode out to encompass the entire film. Every battle starts with a “vs” sign between the two combatants and ends with the defeated exploding into coins. Scott gains an extra life and his “stats” increase (both shown as on-screen graphics) during the course of the film. All of this is very cute, but its only purpose in the film appears to be to cover up the anorexically-thin plot. Video games are often accused of having little to no actual plot, so perhaps this in itself is a cute nod to the old arcade machines, for which stories were optional? If so it’s a poor decision.

All the references made in the film are from video games or arcade machines of 20 or more years ago. It feels like the writers stopped playing games in their teens and think that nothing has changed in the medium since they were children. The person who recognises a Mario power up sound or a Donkey Kong reference will now be in their mid-to-late thirties, and will likely not be interested in a story of 20-something slackers whose ‘problems’ they can’t or don’t relate to any more. And those who are closer to the target age range to enjoy this kind of story will miss many of the references and should be insulted that people think this is all that video games still contain. If you really want to make a modern movie about video game culture, you need to understand what’s happening now. Why not reference something as ground breaking as Portal? Or as big business as Call of Duty? Heck, they played in a band – a Rock Band/Guitar Hero sequence seemed like the perfect fit!

At one point in Scott Pilgrim vs the World, there’s a recreation of a scene from Seinfeld, complete with classic intro music and laugh track – a comedy that’s been off the air for over 10 years. The film simply doesn’t understand who it’s targeting. It’s full of characters that anyone over the age of 30 will hate, whilst filled with an image of “hip video games” that anyone under the age of 25 will find insulting – a bit like when your dad tries to be cool. The story is dull and uninspiring, the core characters are deeply unlikable and the nods to video game culture are badly misplaced. So again I ask – what’s the core audience for Scott Pilgrim vs the World? 17 year old die hard romantics with a penchant for late 80s Nintendo games? Perhaps these people exist out there, but this is one movie that has passed me right by.

JIM

New Podcast Now Available!

2010-09-03T08:42:00.000+01:00

For those of you that can't be bothered to read our Scott Pilgrim review, you're in luck: there's a new Jaded Media podcast coming out that's all about it! It will be on iTunes over the weekend but if you really can't wait you can get it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?um6n4nv4tvlmnmh

Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days Review

2010-08-31T09:00:00.000+01:00

Back in 2008 Io Interactive, formerly best known for the successful Hitman series of games (think Splinter Cell with more disguises), brought a new franchise to the world in the form of two death row criminals forced to form an uneasy alliance and run about all over the world killing people. This first game, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, met with mixed reviews and, though reasonably original at least in terms of video game plotting, didn't exactly set the world alight with sales. For that reason, and possibly because its publisher Eidos (formerly one of the seminal British developers of the 90s, producing games like Championship Manager and Hard Drivin', and latterly a rather poisoned chalice struggling to make ends meet with only the Tomb Raider franchise really bringing in any money) was acquired last year by industry giant Square Enix (think RPGs like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest), they have decided to review a lot of the different aspects of the game for this sequel, Dog Days.

First off, unlike the first game, where the player controlled Kane, this time we get to control Lynch. In complete contrast to something that might make this interesting, it makes absolutely no difference to the game whatsoever. There's no real personality to either character, Kane trotting alongside you through the levels spouting occasional charmless banter about how it's not nice to be shot at, and Lynch howling and screaming at various points: he's supposed to be insane, you see, so gunfire sort of makes him like The Incredible Hulk, only instead of getting stronger every time he gets angrier, he squeaks with impotent rage every time he gets hit. They growl flat and uninteresting expositionary dialogue as the game goes on, keeping the player up to date on story events in the least inventive way possible. There is nothing at all about either character that would make a player sympathetic towards them; perhaps they are assuming that everyone has played the first game, and so is already deeply invested in this unsalubrious duo? Despite the fact that one of them has tragically lost his wife and has an estranged daughter, and the other is mentally fragile and is struggling to piece together a new life with a new partner, all of which is threatened by a simple mistake with deadly repercussions in the initial few minutes of the game, I could not bring myself to care even the slightest bit about the plight of either one.

However, one point that K&L2:DD does have in its favour is the fact that it has been designed as a split-screen co-op experience. Ten years ago, it was rare to find a game (except maybe an RPG) without a two-player mode. This is something that has been with us since the very start of videogames, and contrary to some popular belief, gaming has always been a social pastime- from Pong onwards and to this day, the greatest fun to be had is not in beating the game, but either beating or working with a friend. AI has come a long way, but even now those games hailed as greats are arguably more popular for their multiplayer modes than their main campaign – would COD: Modern Warfare 2 be so popular with only its five-hour single player mode for £45? I don't think so. Unfortunately, with the rise of online gaming through services such as Xbox Live, this has presented game developers with a no-brainer: why allow local multiplayer, when you can set the game up for internet multiplayer instead? After all, there are three inarguable reasons why it's a better idea: Firstly, people are at their own home more than they are at a friend's house. Secondly, online play means each system can be used to render the game for each player, rather than having to split the screen in two and essentially run the same game twice on one set of hardware - easier to develop and easier on the system's performance. And last but certainly not least, if two people play in two places, they have to buy two copies of the game. And hence we have the death of local multiplayer on titles that would seem to be designed for it, such as the recent Transformers: War for Cybertron.

Personally I think the inclusion of this mode is the main reason that, despite some pretty damning reviews, the first game sold enough to make this sequel. One of the key success factors of the Wii has been its inclusive nature and emphasis on local multiplayer, and the more the other two consoles have been starved of this, the more forgiving people are likely to be about a game that offers such an experience. Unfortunately this time round, they have competition. Another development team has cottoned on to the fact that there's a whole bunch of gamers going unsatisfied at the moment, and hence we have another sequel in Army of Two: The 40^th Day. AoT:T40thD (there must be a more succinct way of writing that) is even set in exactly the same place as K&L2:DD, Shanghai, but that and the local co-op mode is about all they share. Where AoT gives us two characters with personality, working as a team with an emphasis on shared responsibility, and the explicit ability to build or destroy camaraderie between them through typically masculine fist bumps or insults, working together to help each other open doors or up ledges, K&L gives us two characterless men in suits who are not only barely tolerant of each other to start with, but are incapable of working together on anything more complicated that opening a heavy shutter due to terrible partner and enemy AI and uninspired level design.

The most striking thing (and the source of many complaints when the demo was released on Xbox Live) about the new game, and quite possibly the only thing they spent any time on when developing Dog Days, is the camera system. Contrary to the first game and indeed any other 3rd-person shooters I have played, the camera is not being used just to show you what's happening in the game. No, here the camera is a living part of the playing experience, with (often overdone) lens flare from neon signs, colour artifacts in low light conditions, digital shake when the player is hit, splashes of blood when the player is seriously wounded, and shaky-cam lilting when the player runs. There are some really neat touches and impressive effects here, and from a technical point of view one can tell that a lot of time went in to getting it right. Once again the only problem is that it was time spent on something that absolutely does not matter in the slightest, and in fact serves more to pull you out of the game experience rather than draw you in. You're supposed to be controlling Lynch, but with all the effects it feels more like you're controlling a mute cameraman trying to record a documentary about him, jogging along behind and trying to keep up as best you can. And you're filming the whole thing on your mobile phone. All the pretty light refraction, bloom and static serve only to impress as parlour-trick novelty, delicious multicoloured icing on a particularly overcooked and flavourless cake.

Maybe if Kane and Lynch 2 had come out before the clearly superior (though still not without its flaws) Army of Two: The 40^th Day, things would be different, but unfortunately, aside from a few neat graphical touches and some very stylish cutscenes, this game has nothing new to offer.

Alex

Centurion Review

2010-08-26T17:05:00.000+01:00

Neil Marshall burst onto the scene in 2002 with Dog Soldiers – a horror comedy built around a simple but brilliant premise: British Squaddies vs Werewolves. He followed that up with 2005’s The Descent, a straight-up horror, no comedy allowed, as a group of pot-holers got into trouble deep underground. Two very different but equally well made and received horror movies left audiences in anticipation of what Marshall would do next. What he delivered, in 2008, was Doomsday. Even its defenders, of whom I would count myself one, admit that it’s a mess. Rarely does a film leap genres as often as Doomsday, lurching from Dawn of the Dead to Escape from L.A. to Gladiator to Mad Max without stopping for breath. It's wildly overambitious, attempting a Scottish based “Apocalypse Now” style journey into madness while only ever achieving the madness part. Obviously the Scottish landscape hasn’t scared Marshall off as it’s the setting for his new film – although where Doomsday’s Scotland was a futuristic wasteland, Centurion is Roman one.

Centurion opens with Michael Fassbender’s Roman legionnaire staggering across a snowy mountain range. He flashes back to life at his garrison as it is attacked one night by Picts – native Scottish folk, who, given their dress sense seem to have watched Braveheart once too often. The Picts massacre everyone in the roman fortress, carrying Fassbender back with them as a prisoner. After a brief interrogation, Fassbender is locked away and promptly escapes across the aforementioned snowy mountains, making the opening one of the most pointless flash forwards I think I ever seen. Many films start with an opening scene from later in the film – think of good examples like Inception, or even mediocre ones like Swordfish. But never have I seen a film with a flash forward to all of 15 minutes.

Back in England, the Romans send their “best unit” – the 9^th Legion up to Scotland to teach these locals a lesson. They are to be led into deepest darkest Scotland by a Pict guide, who supposedly has sided with the Romans. Now, do you think she will happily work with her roman masters against her own race? Or might she lead them into a trap and betray them? Hmm, tough one, I know. Well, however it happens…. the legion is ambushed by a Pict army in what is an excellent battle sequence. Clearly drawing from the opening of Gladiator, it's shot with the same washed out colour scheme, the only splashes of colour saved for the fireballs and the blood. Marshall loves his gore (the first death shown in the movie is by pike between the legs) and every fight thereafter contains plenty of limbs hacked off and faces caved in. Entire minutes pass with no sound save for “crunch, squish, urgh”. The ambush provides the centrepiece of the film and it's well staged and presented. Unfortunately, its also the clear high point of the movie, with at least half of its running time remaining.

7 soldiers survive the ambush, including the previously mentioned Fassbender, who joined the legion earlier on. And so begins an extended chase as the survivors rush to get south of the border with the Picts in hot pursuit. Remember the opening 10 minutes of the Two Towers – two groups running across barren, spectacular terrain, captured in breathtaking helicopter shots? Stretch that out over 50+ minutes and you have the second half of this movie. Sure there’s some beautiful scenery to look at, but not much else to stir the blood. There are only a couple of actual action sequences during the chase and there’s nothing all that interesting about any of them. In some ways, it reminded me of the middle third of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with the super-posse always chasing the two leads, but not much happening apart from Butch asking “who are those guys?” To hammer home the reference, Centurion even has a jump from a high cliff into water, although nowhere near as dramatic or fun as the aforementioned cowboy classic.

One of Marshall’s great strengths as a film maker is his group dialogue – think of the squaddies swapping stories and banter in Dog Soldiers or the women bickering in The Descent. Here, it's best demonstrated by the two veteran legionnaires, played wonderfully by David Morrissey and Liam Cunningham. Both are gruff ‘seen it all before’ warriors who know they are past their best, but continually provide support to the main hero. Michael Fassbender, the lead, has received a lot of plaudits following his turn in Inglourious Basterds, but there’s nothing to stretch him here. His role as Quintus Dias is a standard stoic hero, fairly one-note throughout.

Dominic West is suitably gruff as the Roman general who’s happier with his men than enjoying the privileges his title provides – a common stereotype in military movies. He’s handy in the action, but not given a great deal to do beyond that. The real stand out is the Pict warrior Etain, played by Olga Kurylenko. A vision of vengeance, she had her tongue cut out by Romans and hence is totally mute. Despite, or more likely because of this character trait, Etain is a really showy part, requiring lots of exaggerated gestures and close-ups of the eyes. Olga nails this perfectly with hatred flashing across her face, and is a true force of nature throughout the film: It's really only her presence that keeps the second half from totally grinding to a halt.

From such a promising talent as Marshall, Centurion really is a disappointment. Plenty of the trademark violence, cinematic homages and a few choice moments of dialogue lift the film above standard action fair, but I’ve come to expect so much more from this writer/director. Perhaps the reaction to Doomsday has convinced him to tone down some of the more fantastical or bizarre elements originally planned. Or perhaps Marshall always wanted to tell such a straight forward “historical” tale. A shame if so, as the presence of a few werewolves or a crawler or two would sure have livened up this relatively dour chase movie.

JIM

Piranha 3D Review

2010-08-24T14:54:00.000+01:00

Despite being fondly remembered as a prime example of the post-Jaws 'man vs animal' B-movie run of the late 70s, and having a sequel that was James Cameron's directorial debut, the original Piranha series exists as little more than an entertaining footnote in movie history. Now, nearly thirty years after the last entry in the series, we have a 'reimagining' of the first film brought to you in 3D by similarly inexperienced director Alexandre Aja (though judging by his previous work such as the remake of The Hills Have Eyes, he's unlikely to emulate Cameron's career very closely).

Unlike the original, which was based around military powers experimenting on fish to use them as weapons in Vietnam, the remake eschews the traditional 70s 'backpackers stumble across a sinister government-sponsored initiative' for something less provocative. This time, Spring Break arrives at the small town of Victoria and swells the local population around the lake to several thousand people, at unfortunately the same time that a mild earthquake uncovers an underground lake of pre-historic predators just waiting to come out for a snack. Yep, it's the standard horror movie 'sex=death' trope we've seen a million times before. But hey, if it ain't broke, right?

Piranha 3D is a film of two halves. Specifically, the first half is a 'Girls Gone Wild' style Spring Break by the lake orgy of pretty young things breaking all of the rules they put up at swimming pools (especially the heavy petting one), and the second half is a pleasingly, queasingly gory and grotesque horror movie that earns its 18 certificate several times over.

It apes perfectly the feel of the 1970s exploitation-era cinema, and that's both a good and a bad thing. With Hollywood's constant pressure to turn everything into a PG-13 to maximise box office revenues, horror films have a really hard time convincing their backers that an 18 certificate is worth it. Why not just cut a few of the more extreme scenes and open it up to a much bigger audience; give yourself the best opportunity to make as much money as possible? It's a studio trick that a lot of directors are either forced or agree to do. The only films that can carry an 18 certificate these days are those that can prove they will be successful, and at the moment that's the Saw/Hostel style of gruesome 'torture porn' movies that create endless sequels (though this year's Saw 3D promises to be the last). This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: only this type of movie shows things you aren't allowed to put in a 15, therefore anyone wanting something with a little more bite than the glut of 15-friendly horror remakes that are around has no other choice but to go see them, therefore the case is further reinforced that these are the only films that will sell at an 18.

Piranha pulls no such punches, and revels in the ability to fill the screen with naked or semi-naked young girls for little to no good reason (sorry girls, for some reason pretty much the only guy you will see topless is the in-shape but no-spring-chicken Jerry O'Connell), and then shows a similar juvenile glee when thrusting disembodied eyes, vomit, blood, gore and...other things at you in 3D while people thrash and scream in a literal lake of blood. Though the first half seems almost tame in the way the Piranha pick off one or two victims at a time, the second half puts those fears to bed as it goes overboard in a disgusting and utterly brilliant manner, mixing inventive and stomach-churning death scenes with tension, just the right amount of story (don't want it to get in the way, after all) and even a few laughs along the way.

Of course, the flipside of recreating the feel of the 70s exploitation films is that there was quite a bit of exploitation in them, something that Piranha 3D also suffers from. The first half of the film is full (and I do mean full) of young women in various states of undress, gyrating for the camera. Indeed one of the major plot threads of the film is a group of characters filming a porn film on the lake and needing to get back in time for the wet t-shirt competition. Now, I'm a red-blooded male, and I appreciate the female form as much as the next man, but I also consider myself a fairly enlighted guy, and when the camera is aimed squarely at either chest or buttock height for entire shots, it's difficult to argue that these women are not being objectified in the worst way possible. You will see many times more pairs of breasts in this film than you will faces, more bikini bottoms than lines of dialogue from their owners, and more full frontal female nudity than even shirtless men, let's put it that way: whether you consider this criticism or a recommendation is up to you.

The other 70s cliché that the film falls victim to is 'spot the stiff' (no, I'm not talking about the porn scenes this time). The following characters are among those present in this film:

A female sheriff
A black deputy sheriff
The three children of the female sheriff, all under 17 years old
Some porn actresses
A sleazy porn director from out of town
A hometown girl next door who the sheriff's son has a crush on

Can you guess which ones survive this film? Of course you can. There's no point in setting up any tense 'got-out-of-the-water-at-the-last-minute' scenes with some of these characters; we know you're not going to kill them off. In fact, this film would go from cheesy b-movie remake to genuinely interesting horror film if, in certain scenes, we had seen one of the born survivors go down. But then there are some rules that you still can't break, I guess.

One thing done surprisingly well and consistently throughout is the casting, which is impeccable. Though many of the characters only have small parts- none of which are exactly Hamlet- from the opening sequence with Richard Dreyfuss fishing on the lake pre-quake all the way through to Christopher Lloyd's wild-eyed icthyologist, they are all perfectly pitched and hit, if not out of the park, then firmly to the fence. Ving Rhames and Jerry O'Connell are similarly unsurprising but equally competent, and even Kelly Brook performs admirably in a role that most closely resembles a step up for an aspiring porn actress rather than a positive career move for an aspiring Hollywood actress (in fact her co-star IS a porn actress, Riley Steele, though I don't recall even a single line of dialogue for her character).

In stark contrast to every other female character, who are at best cliché, possibly the only thing that gives Alexandre Aja a slim chance of not being written off as an unabashed misogynist is the character and casting of Sheriff Julie Forester, played by Elisabeth Shue. In a film that is unashamedly gratuitous in every other respect, it's pleasantly surprising to see Aja avoids degrading either her character or her authority at any point during the film. In fact, though she isn't the 'main ' character in terms of screen time, she's certainly the one given the most development and backstory, though we're still only talking the depth of a glass of water compared to thimbles.

The 3D is used to good effect throughout, and fits nicely into Piranha's over-the-top exploitation cinema style, with body parts and bodily fluids flying out of the screen. As ever, it's no reason to go and see the film, but if there's any genre that can really embrace 3D, it's horror, and unlike retro-fitted 3D on films like Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titans, the film does use it throughout.

To enjoy Piranha 3D, you must love three things: B-movies, breasts, and gore. And I mean really love them. I like chocolate, but being forced to sit and eat a whole kilo of it in 90 minutes is enough to make anyone a little queasy, which is exactly how I felt after watching this film. It knows what it wants to be, unlike a lot of the misguided or directionless horror remakes we have seen of late, which is admirable, but what it wants to be is also shameless, gratuitous and gruesome. It's a great example of a modern day B-movie, and if you like the idea of that, you'll probably like this.

Alex

New Podcast Now Available!

2010-08-19T08:33:00.000+01:00

The new episode of the Jaded Media Film Reviews podcast is now available on iTunes (just search for 'film review' or 'Jaded Media') or, if you're not an Apple fan/slave, you can also download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?n8vn5a6k94vl1dt

This time the film under discussion is Inception; a rather more serious affair than Predators, as well as some of the upcoming independent film trailers that are arriving on our screens over the coming months. The review part of the podcast does not contain spoilers, however Inception is such a brain-bending film we've also included about twenty minutes of bonus material discussing some of the things that confused or amazed us most. Be aware that this last part DOES contain spoilers, but it's at the end and we do give you plenty of warning when that part is coming up, in case you haven't seen the film yet.

Please download and enjoy!

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Review

2010-08-19T08:00:00.001+01:00

Metal Gear Solid games are real marmite games – you either love them or you hate them. Its detractors will point to the melodramatic story, hammy over-acting and nonsensical plots spread out over multi-hour cut scenes. Its fans will point to the melodramatic story, hammy over-acting and nonsensical plots spread out over multi-hour cut scenes. The “sneaking mission” gameplay can be equal parts infuriating and inspired, often in the same sequence. Personally, I can't get enough of the series. I love the crazy plots and the over-the-top acting, but I also love the sheer invention found within the games. I can’t think of another series that so happily introduces revolutionary gameplay mechanics for a single level, and then throws them away just as quickly. Things like the Sword Mechanic from MGS2 – brilliantly intuitive, yet used only for the final sequences. Or Psycho Mantis “reading your mind” in MGS1. Or dreaming of the return to Shadow Moses in MGS4. Simply Genius.

So it's with huge excitement that I started MGS: Peace Walker – the latest opus from series creator Hideo Kojima. And the last one he's going to be involve with, he says - but then so was MGS2. And MGS3. And MGS4. So really, who knows? Chronologically speaking, Peace Walker is set after MGS3 and the MGS: Portable Ops games but before MGS (or even the original Metal Gear game on the NES). The “Snake” character in this game is actually Big Boss (as per MGS3) also known as Naked Snake rather than Solid Snake – the player character of the other iterations. These two sentences alone probably tell you all you need to know about how convoluted the plot of MGS is getting. Remember, Sony and Konami felt they had to release a database application for the PS3 outlining the whole universe around the time of the release of MGS4, just so players could understand it! A lack of knowledge of the other games doesn’t hurt the gameplay of Peace Walker in any way, but it massively impacts the story’s key strengths – providing further explanation to key events from the “past”, while foreshadowing future (known) events.

Set in the mid-70s, Peace Walker finds Naked Snake in Latin America, slowly building the mercenary force he will later command as Big Boss. He is approached by a KGB agent posing as a school teacher to investigate an armed group which are setting up in Costa Rica – the KGB suspects CIA backing. Snake is reluctant to get involved until he hears a taped recording containing the voice of his old mentor The Boss – who supposedly died during the events of MGS3 (still with me?). Soon, Snake is in Costa Rica, sneaking or blasting his way through a plot of the usual double crosses, triple crosses, speeches on the importance of peace, speeches on the role of the soldier and gigantic walking robots that carry nuclear weapons. There’s nothing overly surprising in the story, and like all prequels, its somewhat hamstrung by the requirements of “earlier” events that are set chronologically later, but its entertaining enough. There’s nothing as good as the surprises of MGS1, or the emotion of MGS3 and 4, but on the positive side, there’s nothing of the lunacy of MGS2’s closing few hours.

The game is exclusive to PSP and herein lies most of its problems. The PSP is simply a bad system to control 3^rd person action games. While the major consoles provide two analogue sticks for movement & camera, the PSP has one awful “nub” and the traditional 4 Sony buttons. It's just too tricky to aim quickly while under pressure, resulting in a lot of spray ‘n’ pray gunfights once/if you’re discovered. Auto-aim is an optional setting, but enabling it removes any chance of head shots, or targeting individual areas on the larger vehicles. As long as you stay hidden, the gameplay is generally slow enough to compensate for the control system limitations, but it always threatens to be a problem. Other gripes are caused not by the actual PSP, but because the game hasn’t always been designed like a traditional hand-held game. Levels are sensibly split into small sub areas (memory limitations perhaps) but there’s no check-pointing in the areas, making any distraction (which is likely to happen while out and about using a hand held) more than enough to set off an alert or death, resulting in much retrying. Worse still, the unpauseable cut scenes that can each last 15 – 20 minutes. That’s just not acceptable on a portable device, especially when the game is so reliant on story; you don’t want and can't afford to miss a beat. All the cut scenes have a cartoon format rather than using in-game assets, and are wonderfully stylised and as “well written” as ever. But they're also plagued by the dreaded curse of quick time events. With no pre-warning that the game contained them, the first time it went into a loop of Snake being shot, I thought it had crashed!

The core story missions are supplemented by Extra-Ops. Like the virtual training missions in MGS 1, these are short side missions with set goals such as blowing up a supply crate or getting through an area without being seen. Another new feature is the option to play the Extra-Ops in Co-op across a wireless connection. I haven’t had the chance to try out what looks like an excellent feature, but it does mean some of the missions feel like they are too difficult for a single person. Either the difficulty scaling is a bit off, or I just suck at the game: though neither theory is impossible, I'd like to think one is more likely. However, unlike the MGS1 virtual training missions, these Extra-Ops have a direct impact on the core game. Big Boss is building a base of operations, so missions completed in Extra-Ops provide resources to build new weapons which can be used in any of the missions, including the core story ones. There’s a whole R&D system built in the background to allow the player to assign these resources, but it's woefully under-explained, and never really feels like its adding much to the primary experience.

The key resource is manpower – i.e. Soldiers. In one of Kojima’s trademark crazy-but-brilliant solutions, Snake is equipped with a “Fulton Recovery System” – think of the CIA invention Batman uses to get out of Hong Kong in The Dark Knight. Any enemy solider, unconscious or nearly-but-not-quite dead can be attached to a balloon, and sent shooting up into the sky, to be picked up and sent back to base. These are then co-opted into Snake’s army and set to work via the R&D system. It never fails to raise a smile, especially when Snake uses it on unwitting allies during some of the cut scenes – ‘Have you ever wondered what a bird feels like?’ WOOSH!

Unfortunately, new ideas such as this are in fairly short supply. The ubiquitous Metal Gear that makes an appearance is a nice piece of design work, although an argument could be made that it's far too advanced for the timeframe it's based in, when compared to “later” Gears from the series. All other boss fights are against vehicles, removing the opportunity for the interesting and unique enemies that the previous games excelled in. Without these flights of fancy and with a somewhat limited story, you could make a case for Peace Walker being the worst game in the MGS series, though in my opinion that’s only because the others set such a high standard. Peace Walker is a solid game if taken in isolation, but then its story makes no sense if you haven’t played any of the earlier games. And herein lies the core problem for Kojima and Konami – the gradually diminishing audience. Playing the same sort of game again and again will always disappoint some of the core audience, but there’s really no way in for the new gamer, so how do you keep sales up? For me, the R&D extra isn’t an interesting enough extension to sell the game on, and I couldn’t take advantage of the multiplayer. Perhaps the next release: Metal Gear Rising, with its advertised "Zan-datsu (Cut & take)” mechanic (hopefully not straying too far from the aforementioned Metal Gear Solid 2’s sword fighting) will find a way to bring in fresh gamers. That’s going be tough however, as it's already been stated that Rising will take place between MGS2 and 4, so could get caught up in the same prequel issues that Peace Walker does. At this rate, truly rejuvenating the series looks to be a bigger task than anything either Snake has so far overcome.

JIM

Knight and Day Review

2010-08-17T08:00:00.000+01:00

Tom Cruise films suck, right? Well, apart from Born on the Fourth of July; he was pretty good in that. A Few Good Men, Cocktail, Top Gun – sure, ok. The Colour of Money wasn't bad, Rain Man was pretty decent, as was Mission Impossible, and Collateral I guess. Huh. It's strange sometimes how a slightly 'interesting' personal life consisting of Xenu-baiting and Oprah sofa-jumping can really colour your opinion of someone. Now, that's not to say he hasn't been in his share of stinkers – Eyes Wide Shut, Far and Away and Lions for Lambs spring to mind. It's just that when you look at it, he's actually done a lot more good films than bad.

The problem that Tom Cruise has these days is that, as he's progressed from a young hollywood hunk into a middle-aged industry mogul, his style of acting has taken a turn for the intense, and he seems incapable of dialling it down enough to make a leading role performance last the running time without dipping into melodrama. The solution, it seems, is to use that intensity in well-written bit parts, such as Magnolia, or even better, in comedy, such as his hilarious turn in Tropic Thunder (by far the best thing in it), or a brief but memorable cameo in Austin Powers: Goldmember.

In fact, since the comedy thing has been working out so well for him, somebody came up with the idea of a film that consists of him being charming, disarming and a little bit insane alongside a pretty but essentially throwaway female co-star (in this case Cameron Diaz, but in truth it could be almost any actress of roughly the same age) for 110 minutes in a comedy-action film. Not a bad idea, right? Well, the pitch was certainly successful, but unfortunately, that's pretty much as far as they got, having not really bothered with anything so tedious as a script, or a single original idea.

Knight and Day is the story (I use the term loosely) of Cameron Diaz as June Havens, a classic car restorer (no, really) heading to a dress fitting for her sister's wedding when she is bumped into by Tom Cruise's suave perma-grinning superspy at the airport. According to the laws of movie cliché, this chance encounter means that he will slip an experimental super-Maguffin into her bags and the pair will be forced to team up to evade a group of shady government operatives intent on getting it back at any cost. Which, surprise surprise, is exactly what happens. A few chase sequences through the streets of a seemingly randomly-chosen european city, some snappy one-liners and the obligatory Tom Cruise shirtless/Cameron Diaz bikini shot, and....bam, we have a movie. If you've seen the trailer, then you've pretty much seen this film: it certainly contains most of the laughs, all the best lines, and a healthy chunk of the action scenes too.

Which isn't to say it's bad, per se, just that, if you've seen a single generic comedy-action film before, you have seen this all already. Here's a quick quiz, see if you can guess the answer - was the technological super-Maguffin in this film created by:

A: A team of middle-aged scientists working together for years,

B: A single super-intelligent, borderline autistic teenager?

If you guessed A - go see this film, you'll be surprised. Paul Dano does a steady job of playing the young uber-nerd with terrible facial hair, but ultimately it's a one-dimensional role far below his ability (see his amazing turn in There Will be Blood for what he can do with a decent character). The same could be said of Cameron Diaz, who is there to be the token love interest/fish out of water/initially-terrified-but-ultimately-empowered-female-equal-to-any-man role model for any girls watching (unlikely). The only bit of characterisation she gets is the utterly unconvincing trait that she loves restoring classic American cars, proving beyond doubt that this film was written by a man, possibly one who has never actually met a woman before.

Clearly this is a vehicle/ego-trip for Tom Cruise, and he also has the only thing approaching a rounded character. He could play this role in his sleep, but it is genuinely the perfect part for him- Two parts Ethan Hunt to one part Maverick, with a three foot grin and the smooth charm of a true sociopath (which he plays with eery effortlessness). He carries the film as the possibly rogue CIA agent Roy Miller, protecting Diaz, Dano and Maguffin against his former government colleagues and the private army of an arms dealer until all gets resolved in the least surprising way possible. In fact, Roy is so good at it that I don't think he takes so much as a punch in the whole film- he does get shot a couple of times, but shrugs it off with less thought than I give to a paper cut. It does somewhat undermine the tension of a shootout when the main character can literally and deliberately stroll into the path of automatic gunfire without so much as a thought for their personal safety. There's cocky, highly-trained professional superspy, then invincible superman, and then there's Roy Miller, apparently.

To be honest, I did expect something a little more interesting from director James Mangold, who has previously given us 2003's tight psychological thriller Identity and the Oscar-winning 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line. This film is nowhere near his best work, though it is competently handled and nicely shot, if, like everything else on the film, a little workmanlike: the action scenes are competent and clear, but overall the pace is slow, and some of the CGI in the chase scenes is seriously wonky.

What he's produced here then is ultimately a perfectly watchable, very middle-of-the-road action film, with some top quality talent that is largely wasted. There's nothing really wrong with it, but then there's nothing whatsoever remarkable about it either. It's the kind of film I would buy my dad for Christmas, and he'd probably enjoy, and it's definitely destined to be a staple of TV for years to come, but it's not going to set anyone's world alight. There's a word for this film, and that word is 'meh'.

Alex

The A-Team Review

2010-08-13T09:00:00.000+01:00

Everyone has their own guilty pleasure movies. Movies that, deep down, you know are terrible. That offer nothing of artistic merit. That the rest of the world think are total rubbish. And yet, you love them. Its hard to describe why you love them – maybe it was just the circumstances you saw them in or something about the film just clicked for you. One of the easiest ways for a movie to land in the guilty pleasures pile is nostalgia. If a movie can provide that sweet nostalgia kick, you can forgive a lot of things that it does wrong. Of course, this can be a double edged sword – get it wrong and you quickly lose the audience as they watch their childhood go up in flames. And its tricky to get right, how much do you update the basic concepts vs how closely do you follow the original? Well I’m happy to report that the latest nostalgia filled movie: The A-Team, hits dead on the sweet spot.

The opening pre-credits sequence introduces the core four and the quirks that define them. Many such films of this nature would spend the entire movie introducing the basic dynamic between the characters – think Starsky & Hutch {2004 Dir. Todd Phillips} as a classic origin story example. Here, however, immediately after the start, the film jumps forward “8 years and 80 missions” later. It’s a great move as it shows the A-Team as a fully formed, working unit but still gets the play the set-up card since they have to be sent to prison for a crime they didn’t commit and promptly escape. This section covers the first half of the film, while the remainder is spent trying to clear their names and get back at those who double crossed them.

The movie is loud, extremely stupid and brilliant. Within 5 minutes of the opening I had a big goofy grin on my face. Within 15 minutes I was laughing hysterically. I alternated between the two for the entire running time. Amazingly, the script is a standout – the banter between the A-Team is fantastic, providing a real feeling of camaraderie. Even more surprisingly, all the incidental characters exchange smart, funny dialogue. Not a moment of the film drags because there's always someone saying something interesting or witty. Sure the story may be going through the motions – it's as predicable as any of the TV episodes, I suspect deliberately so, but even the painful plot exposition sequences are handled with lashings of humour.

The core team are all well cast. Liam Neeson has just the right amount of tongue in cheek as team leader Colonel Hannibal Smith. He might be getting a bit old for some of the actions sequences, but he cuts a believable military leader. Having said that however, talented as he is, even Neeson can’t make Hannibal’s catchphrase naturalistic. Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson has possibly the most difficult job, trying to replace Mr T as B.A. Baracus. It’s a hit and miss performance; Jackson (an MMA fighter by trade) handles the physicality well enough but he’s no actor, which is apparent during some of the few quiet scenes in the film. Still, it would be unfair to label him a weak link as most of the time he’s solid enough. Bradley Cooper takes the role of Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck, but in truth he might be playing both Face and B.A. - He is huge, and clearly under instruction to take his shirt off as often as possible. A desperate attempt to appeal to female audiences perhaps, as there is little else that might interest them here.

The standout of the film is Sharlto Copley - the star of District 9 {2009 Dir. Neill Blomkamp} simply IS Captain H. M. 'Howling Mad' Murdock. Providing just the right level of craziness, a number of sequences seem to have been specifically written to take advantage of his South African heritage. Yet they don’t feel forced, and he knocks each one out of the park. Obviously, the rest of the cast are not going to be filled with A-listers, but Patrick Wilson (slimmed down since his role as Dan Dreiberg in 2009's Watchmen {Dir. Zack Snyder}) is suitably slimy as a C.I.A suit, while Brian Bloom has a couple of wonderful scenes as a private military contractor. Jessica Biel is cast as the token girl – literally, she might be the only woman in the film with a speaking part. She’s playing the role of Decker (although renamed to Charissa Sosa); charged with hunting down the A-team, but is given almost nothing of note to do apart from look pretty. It’s a miracle she’s not either strip searched or forced into a bikini at any point in the film.

A lot of shaky cam impacts all of the mano-a-mano fight scenes. Whether this is a stylistic choice or simply to mask bad fight choreography, only the director truly knows. But it's here in abundance and it is not well executed. Fortunately the other action sequences are much clearer to see, and they are all crazy. The trailers featured the tank-parachute combination which is the highlight, but there’s still a fair few other madcap stunts which defy all the laws of gravity, physics and common sense. At one point one of the characters claims that “Overkill is underrated” – obviously this line was written by the director and stunt team, as it could be the motto of the movie.

The A-Team will not be for everyone. Its incredibly shallow, incredibly stupid and almost completely ignorant of the existence of women, at least as anything other than objects. And yet, it is so brash, so entertaining and captures the spirit of the original TV show so perfectly that it’s easily one of my favourite movies of the summer, and could become a real guilty pleasure for the ages. You need to ask yourself this: does the following exchange make you smile? “Are they trying to shoot down the other drone? No, they’re trying to land that tank.” If the answer is yes, run, don’t walk, to your nearest showing of the A-Team.

JIM

Shutter Island Review

2010-08-10T18:06:00.000+01:00

When your film making history includes a masterpiece, every new film you make will be compared to it. How can your latest release match up to a classic - something that is ingrained into the conscience, that people have watched and analysed tens of times or more? Your new work is always going to come up short. So when your CV includes the likes of Goodfellas, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and Casino, well; the task is hopeless. And so every Martin Scorsese film is already a disappointment before its release. Even his recent Oscar triumph The Departed was pilloried as winning to ease the Academy’s conscience. When you’re universally acknowledged as “America’s greatest living director”, where is there to go but down in the eyes of the critics? I think it would make a fascinating experiment to have released Shutter Island without any credits, or as “a film by Alan Smithee” – and then seen what kind of a reaction it got.

Adapted from Dennis Lehane’s novel, the film opens with a ferry looming out of thick fog, accompanied by a booming soundtrack, promising dread and foreboding. The year is 1954. On board the ferry are two newly acquainted US marshals: Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule. They are travelling to a remote island off the Boston coastline, which houses a large asylum for the criminally insane. Teddy and Chuck are here to investigate the disappearance of a woman. This is quickly introduced as a “locked room” scenario – how could the woman have escaped her cell and evaded the orderlies and guards on the tiny island? The US marshals soon find themselves trapped on the island, as increasingly bizarre weather storms set in. Further investigations start to hint at dark goings on at the asylum, evil acts by the doctors that are being covered up, and slowly but surely Teddy, in particular, starts to question the motives of those around him, and even his own sanity as he digs into the secrets of Shutter Island.

The strange isolated location, populated by a close-knit group suspicious of any outsiders, is a regular trope, perhaps most famously used in the wonderful British Horror classic The Wicker Man {1973, Dir, Robin Hardy}. One of the things that made that film unique was its use of bright stark landscapes. There’s nothing of that here, as everything is drowned in more traditional dark Noir Gothic stylings. The oppressive architecture nicely compliments the “everyone’s out to get me” ambience, backed up by a deafening soundtrack. Set in the mid-50’s, World War II is still fresh in the minds as many of the characters served in the conflict. The connections are felt, but fortunately not forced upon us. It would be easy for the story to have been totally dominated by the war, but instead it provides a logical background to the events shown.

Leonardo DiCaprio appears to have taken over from Robert De Nero as Scorsese’ principal collaborator. He’s cast here, in his fourth film with the director, as the lead marshal Teddy. It’s the kind of conflicted, guilt-ridden performance DiCaprio can pretty much pull off in his sleep but, to give him his dues, in recent years DiCaprio has matured into a solid leading man. His partner is played by Mark Ruffalo – who always projects a calm, laid-back persona no matter how critical the situation he finds himself in. Ruffalo, never a showy performer, is here often pushed into the background while DiCaprio takes centre stage. What looks like a major mismatch in casting, however, explains itself as the plot unfolds.

The inhabitants of the island demonstrate that the opportunity to work with a living legend of a director is a strong draw in Hollywood, as every single part, large or small, seems to be populated with a recognisable face. Not many films can pull in actors of the quality of Emily Mortimer or as “hot” as Jackie Earle Haley (remember, Watchmen {2009 Dir. Zack Snyder} hype was in overdrive around the time of casting of Shutter Island) then slot them into single scene roles.

Max von Sydow and Ted Levine play on their creepy reputations from past performances to great effect, but neither can match Ben Kingsley, who manages to be both softly spoken, kindly and yet deeply menacing all at the same time: It’s the most restrained, understated performance I’ve seen him play in a decade or more, and he’s all the better for it. Just as memorable is Michelle Williams, cast as Teddy’s ex-wife Dolores. She features in a number of dream/hallucination sequences where the film leaps out of its dour surroundings to explore surreal landscapes such as a burning house or an imagined concentration camp.

Brilliantly, as Teddy starts to question his own sanity, so the design of real world locations start to warp. It all very subtle but its just enough to make you question what you’re actually seeing. The unravelling of the core secrets provides a fascinating final third of the film, although DiCaprio is somewhat guilty of overacting in these sequences- It would be nice once to see a little more true emotion and a little less pained gurning from the star. Still, he manages to put just enough ambiguity into Teddy’s words and actions to provide an ending that remains open to interpretation.

Shutter Island could easily be dismissed as a minor piece of work. Though it's true It will never compare to some of Martin Scorsese’s greatest films, but to dismiss the film because of that is do it a great disservice. Shutter Island presents a great cast all performing at, or close to, their best to tell a gripping, taught, twisting story. And of course, it contains the pacing, attention to detail and cinematography of a true master of the form. It may not be vintage Scorsese, but its still a good few notches above your average thriller and you should jump at the chance to try to unlock Shutter Island’s secrets.

JIM

Splinter Cell: Conviction Review

2010-08-04T21:26:00.000+01:00

With the exception of Clive Barker, whose dabblings have produced a couple of seriously mediocre FPS titles (2001's Undying and 2007's Jericho), there haven't been a whole lot of authors who have gotten involved in the videogame world. Considering the crossover between most other media, whether it's actors turned singers, celebrity authors or even hollywood directors turned comic book writers, it's odd that we don't see more authors entering the digital entertainment world, especially with the incredibly immature standard of videogame writing we see in 99% of games. Maybe it's because they don't want to sully themselves in such a fledgling and still juvenile (at least in its content, if increasingly less so in its audience) medium, or maybe it's because Tom Clancy has the whole thing already sewn up. The master of sticking his name on generic spy thriller books he didn't write, he's managed to transfer this skill for outsourcing to the world of games with staggering success.

To his credit he did start out early on, with 1988's Red Storm Rising, but it's only when Ubisoft took over the games company he co-founded that they really started churning out the sequels at approximately the same rate BP pumped oil into the Gulf of Mexico (too soon?). To date, he's had his name on more than 33 games over the last 12 years, over more than five distinct (though some of them barely) franchises, from squad-based combat to FPS, even taking in RTS with the poorly-received 'voice controlled game' EndWar.

About 10 years ago though, a new style of videogames came into existence- these 3rd-person games concentrated on sneaking about, staying hidden in the shadows waiting for guards to come by on their pre-set patrol patterns and having to hoard ammunition like a packrat with OCD because it's rarer than a good Mortal Kombat sequel. These games, for example Hitman: Codename 47, Syphon Filter and, to a lesser extent, Metal Gear Solid, became known as “Sneak 'em Ups”, and for a while they did pretty well, especially amongst the more hardcore gamers.

Usually incredibly difficult, they consisted ideally of many minutes, if not hours, of memorising enemy patrol routes, hiding in dark corners and snapping necks silently, before sauntering through the now empty level, stepping over the corpses of your vanquished foes. Or, as in my experience, a guard discovers a misplaced body and immediately sounds an alarm, at which point you have at best 30 seconds of desperate running away from hordes of oncoming enemies before you're gunned down and the whole thing was a waste of time. For this reason, and a general lack of patience I prefer to call them “Frustrate 'em Ups”.

Splinter Cell first joined this salubrious group way back in 2002, telling the story of lone spy Sam Fisher (with the now-obligatory collection of contacts and advisors in his earpiece), working for the secretive Third Echelon spying organisation (for spies). The game proved popular due to a distinctive visual style (lots of neon green in dark shadows), high tech gadgets and extraordinarily (for a game) high production values, including the casting of Michael Ironside, a hollywood actor who oddly, despite being in full possession of all his extremities, is famous for playing characters in movies who are missing at least one limb (usually an arm, as seen in Starship Troopers, Guy X, The Machinist, and Total Recall) as the now iconic voice of Sam Fisher.

The combination of rock hard gameplay, a requirement for a lot of patience and a generally slower pace have led to these types of games falling out of favour in recent years. The only ones that have managed to survive the fickle fashions of the gamebuying public are those that have either concentrated their offering into an almost cult-level following (Metal Gear Solid 4), or, perversely, done the exact opposite, stripping down the unique gameplay elements into a leaner, more mainstream experience.

It's this second route that the latest Splinter Cell has taken. Splinter Cell: Conviction retains some of the key features of previous entries in the series, such as an emphasis on staying hidden rather than all out firefights, or Mr Ironside's distinctive gravelly voice, but also dispenses with a lot of things that players have long associated with the series, such the ability/necessity to drag bodies out of sight of other enemies, and a streamlined light sensor, switching between colour when visible to enemies and monochrome when you're safely hidden in shadow.

Also included in the game is a distinct re-balancing of the core mechanic, no doubt in an effort to make the game appeal to a wider, more casual, action-adventure audience. There are many who would argue that this is a 'dumbing down' of the franchise, and their indignant forum rage marks this the end of Splinter Cell as far as they're concerned, taking Ubisoft's preference for money over some nebulous 'obligation' to its loyal fans as a personal slight. Of course, it's beyond question that the explosion in the number of casual gamers over the last few years has led to changes in the way that games are made; as production costs and times go up, every publisher has to ensure that their game has the potential to make as much money as possible, and this leads to an increasingly shallow pool of 'low risk' game types and a general homogenisation of more quirky or unique properties into more 'saleable', i.e. generic, offerings. Although it's lamentable that this attitude means we're never going to see another X-Com in the same style as the originals (it's being redone by 2k Games as an FPS), as someone who never really enjoyed the old style of Splinter Cell, I can't say I'm disappointed that they have taken this route in this case.

This is especially true because, though they may have watered down some of the more hardcore elements of gameplay, one thing they have committed to is a bold and impressive visual style. Throughout the game, instructions and objectives appear as if projected onto nearby buildings or cars, and flashbacks play in grainy, washed-out film onto walls. It's a really striking and stylish execution that somehow manages to help draw you into the game world, where a menu or in-game PDA would slow things down. That's another thing that's changed in Splinter Cell: Conviction; gone are the long periods of waiting around in the dark, learning movement patterns or skulking from darkened room to darkened room. Though they have left in enough 'stealth' elements to (at least partially) satisfy the old fans, there's clearly more of an emphasis on action rather than inaction this time around.

The action rattles along through some beautifully-realised locations, all of which you will have seen before, but it achieves the difficult task of not making it feel like you're just retreading old ground. From the streets of Valetta to a showdown in the White House, via Iraq and a few military installations, there's an impressive variety of levels, all big enough to impress, but none of which outstay their welcome. The weapons are similarly familiar, with the obligatory (and almost always unnecessary) weapon upgrade options, and you're also given plenty of ammo should you choose a more confrontational style. As ever with this type of weapon system, you're likely to upgrade a single weapon combo and then just stick with it, but a bit of variety never hurt anyone.

Although the main game itself takes a respectable 8-10 hours to complete, Ubisoft have also gone above and beyond by including not just an online multiplayer mode, but also a 'prequel' chapter that you can play in local Co-Op. Considering the number of games that force you into buying two copies in order to play with a friend these days (even the great Transformers: War for Cybertron doesn't have local co-op, despite the fact the game seems almost designed for it), it's commendable that they have chosen to include this, and especially since it's only vaguely related to the main game.

In truth, Splinter Cell: Conviction is nothing new. But it is a very well-executed, cinematic experience that is genuinely a lot of fun to play. It strikes an excellent balance between stealth and action, with a great atmosphere and stylish visuals that make it a stand out, high quality title. If you have previously shyed away from Stealth Action games like this, give it a go; you might, like me, be pleasantly surprised.

Alex

Triangle Review

2010-08-03T19:05:00.000+01:00

After a dream like opening of broken images and voiceovers, Triangle quickly moves into familiar territory. In a sequence you’ve seen in one version or another a million times before, a group of 6 young, attractive 30-somethings meet up, ready to head off on an adventure. This time, its for a day's sailing on a small yacht. As Triangle is billed as a horror film, it won't surprise anyone to find out that things do not go well: the group are caught in a massive storm and the yacht capsizes. Clinging to the wreckage, they are overjoyed to see an ocean liner drift out of the storm clouds. Once aboard however, salvation is not to be found, as the ship appears deserted, except for a lone hooded psychopath who isn’t too pleased to meet them.

So far, so generic slasher flick. But Triangle has a lot more up its sleeve than that. And if you’ve had the misfortune to see one of the trailers, you can probably work out what that is. Suffice to say, the story expands wonderfully from the initial premise, setting in motion a large number of parallel events through the course of the film. The primary story cleverly interweaves and collides with these interconnected tales, all the while building on the core idea of the movie. It’s a complex setup, but with skilled filmmakers at the helm, proves surprisingly easy to follow. Even if you’re not always sure of everyone's motivations, you should quickly grasp what’s happening, and involved in all the events unfolding on the ship is single mother and survivor of the yacht sinking: Jess, played by Melissa George.

George has to carry the film. As the central figure, she is in almost every scene and must provide not only the audience's cipher of unfolding events, but also portray a huge range of emotions. The film will sink or swim on this role. Fortunately, she is more than up to the task. Never anything other than believable, Melissa’s performance is something to admire. Equally at home as mother, scream queen, doubting her sanity, or vigilante, she grounds the film in a critical level of reality, even as events take a more fantastical turn. The rest of the cast are not given a huge amount to do, short of exchange a few lines of witty banter and die, but they all oblige, and there’s not a duff performance amongst them.

The tension of investigating a deserted ship is an easy sell, but it is still handled well, with all the expected unseen noises keeping everyone on edge. Director Christopher Smith clearly knows how to build suspense, given the right set-up and characters. Once the blood starts flying, there’s no over-the-top sequences (the film is rated 15 in the UK), in fact it has an almost fantasy element to it. In one key confrontation each combatant takes blows to the head from the blunt end of a hefty fire axe or an iron bar respectively. The fact that each is able to stand, let alone dish out more punishment stretches credibility somewhat. I personally think the film would have been stronger had a more realistic tone been chosen for these sequences, harking back to 70’s horror violence. Don’t get me wrong, this is not portrayed as Tom and Jerry style slapstick, it just felt a little too hyper-real to me, given the aesthetics of the film.

One thing that is perfectly pitched, though, is the cinematography. Any time a character ventures out onto the deck, we are blinded by sun light, as the screen is over-saturated with colour. The sequences above deck are almost dreamlike due to this bleached look. Once back inside, colour and brightness are significantly subdued, with a primary pallet of browns and greys. The strong contrast between the burning bright sunshine and the dark, dingy interiors brings to mind the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre {1974, Dir. Tobe Hooper}, which may go some way to explaining my minor reservations about the violence versus what I expected. CGI is used to realise external shots of the ship and here the budget limitations show through somewhat, though it is never overly distracting, limited to showing real world objects on a grand scale. If you’re willing to suspend disbelief about the usual horror movie conventions (Why do they always split up? Why didn’t X just shoot Y, etc), then a little b-grade CGI really shouldn’t distract from the experience.

Triangle achieves that very difficult task of making a complex film simple to follow. Its narrative structure weaves all over the place, yet the strong central performance and simple gimmicks (such as clothing changes to identify timeframes) help the audience quickly place themselves whenever there’s a shift in the action. The denouement throws in an interesting twist, and importantly it's one that doesn’t seem to invalidate anything that happened previously. Initially, I felt it was almost too slight, but upon further reflection, now believe it better explains some of the earlier events. A re-watch is probably required in order to decide if it fully supports or invalidates what came before it, but for now, I’m happy to give Triangle the benefit of the doubt. On release, Triangle was unfairly labelled as a generic slasher flick, but I encourage anyone with an interest in narrative “jiggery-pokery” cinema* to give it a look. Even if horror is not your thing, I think you’ll get a kick out of a well told tale, expertly handled – just try to avoid those trailers!

* It's a genuine, respected term: ‘narrative “jiggery-pokery” cinema’. Honest. Scorsese uses it all the time. Maybe.

Jim

Exam Review

2010-07-29T17:45:00.002+01:00

Imagine going to a job interview where the following takes place: you’re invited into a room with 7 other candidates. You sit at your desk, one per person. On each desk is a single sheet of paper with your candidate number on and a pencil. A man enters room and identifies himself only as “The Invigilator”. He informs you that you have 80 minutes to answer a single question. He tells you that if you leave the room you will be disqualified, if you spoil your paper you will be disqualified and if you attempt to communicate with him or the security guard standing in the corner of the room you will be disqualified. As the clock is started, the invigilator leaves the room, and you turn your paper over, to find it is blank. What do you do?

This simple premise is the launching off point of British thriller Exam. Clearly shot on a limited budget, it extends this idea across 90 taught, well-paced minutes. Everything in the room and hence in the film, happens in real time, giving a realistic air of tension and eventually panic as the job applicants bickers, co-operate, fall out and out do each other in their attempts to decipher not just the answer, but the question as well. Any single location movie such as this one lives and dies by its characters, and Exam presents a respectable, if somewhat stereotypical bunch. None of the applicants are named in the film; instead they soon agree to communicate via descriptive code names - Black, White, Dark, Brown, Blonde, Brunette, and Deaf – the 8^th applicant leaving before she is given a call sign.

Each of the actors playing an applicant is experienced but not well known in cinema. This helps the film’s atmosphere, as with a cast of “unknowns”, there no known “face” that can either be relied upon to see the final reel, or be removed in the earlier sequences, as a shock. As you’ll not doubt have guessed, many of the applicants are more then they appear, with various secrets being uncovered through the course of the film. The escalation is believable as time marches on, and the remaining characters get more and more desperate. Information slowly leaks out about the company running the exam and the greater world in which the film is set. Sensibly, nothing is given away in great speeches, rather drip fed via believable character interaction.

Perhaps the biggest name actor amongst the applicants is Jimi Mistry, an EastEnders veteran, who headlined The Guru {2002, Dir. Daisy von Scherler Mayer). I have to admit to looking this up after the film ended as he seemed familiar yet I couldn’t place him. Personally, the only actor I recognised immediately was the Invigilator – played by the wonderful Colin Salmon. Sadly, Salmon is playing another Basil Exposition role here, appearing when required to dole out plot details but he’s a past master of such characters (think Resident Evil {2002 Dir. Paul W.S. Anderson}, AvP (Dir. 2004, Paul W.S. Anderson) or his recurring role in the Brosnan era Bond movies) and is always watchable. There’s something about his presence and perfectly stated accent that screams authority figure. For me, Chukwudi Iwuji stands out from the group, with an excellently nuanced performance, but each actor is given a moment to shine, within in the confines of the story. It never knowingly devolves into desperate award bating.

Unfortunately, all the strong work of Exam is wasted by a weak ending. By having the characters shown to go to such desperate lengths to secure the job, the film makers have written themselves into a narrative dead end from which they are unable to escape. The answer and indeed the question are solved fairly neatly, but not satisfactorily. It’s the same problem when you heard the answer to a riddle – some people will be impressed by how clever it was, others will groan at how pointless/silly/unguessable it was. Unfortunately, in the case of Exam’s riddle, I fell in the later category. More importantly, the ending sequence calls in question the process by which the original candidates were selected. Given the explanations provided, it seems utterly ludicrous that some of the individuals present at the start would have been headhunted for this job, let alone reach the final 8 applicants.

Whether you enjoy Exam will largely depend on your personal attitudes and expectations. If you appreciate a group of actors working with a taught, interesting script, you should get a lot of pleasure from this film. If you can ignore plot holes in favour of performance, Exam will work for you. But if you want a rounded story that will stay with you afterwards, or a satisfying conclusion to interesting conundrum, you’ll probably walk out disappointed. This is the key question you’ll need to answer, before you see Exam.

Jim

Singularity Review

2010-07-26T21:49:00.000+01:00

1993 unleashed one of the most popular videogames of all time onto the world, with iD software's DOOM. Followup to the groundbreaking and wildly successful Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM proved that the only thing people like more than shooting Nazis is playing a space marine, shooting monsters. Between them, nazi smashers and space marines have pretty much taken monopolised the FPS market since then, with not a single year passing since DOOM where we haven't seen a game dealing with a grizzled, hard-bitten hero toting impractically huge weapons and taking down everything from Demons to Dinosaurs, and we've had a similar number of 'Allied hero takes on the Axis powers single-handed' to match them.

Back when DOOM was new, a small company called Raven software produced another game using the same engine and tools which actually broke the established mould and set the action in a medieval fantasy setting. This game was Heretic, and while it wasn't quite as successful as DOOM, the game did well enough to spawn its own sequel, as well as the related Hexen series.

Raven found their niche in using iD software engines to produce their own games and, lately, more licensed properties, and with a few notable exceptions (such as the fun and successful X-Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance series) have stuck to pumping out well received, high quality FPS titles that, while they don't set the world alight with originality, provide a solid and entertaining experience. Having had mixed critical reaction to last year's Wolfenstein 're-imagining', they've decided to switch up the formula and return to an original property in this year's recently-released Singularity.

Of course, that's not to say that they're straying too far from the tried and tested formulae. From the blurb on the back of the box, you find out that this is a game featuring a time manipulation dynamic (already seen in the FPS world in the woeful Timeshift) about an alternate history (World War Zero and many others) where the cold war escalated and Russia won due to discovery of the mysterious Element 99, which mutates those it comes into contact with (Metro 2033). So far, so generic. In fact, it gets worse as the game begins, starting off in the classic 'sitting in a helicopter talking to your buddy with the side open to show the scenery go by OH GOD WE'RE BEING ATTACKED KABOOM oh phew I somehow survived' scene. Couple this with the kind of hammed up Russian accents that make a certain TV Meerkat seem authentic, an insistence on using backwards Ns and Rs (seriously? Do we still think this is clever? Was it ever?) to remind us the game has a Russian setting and I was starting to get concerned.

As you ease into the story of Singularity, though, things do start to look up. For the first 15 minutes or so, you wander around the abandoned facility of Katorga 12 (which, by the way, is an odd name for a research facility, since Katorga basically means 'Penal colony' in Russian – it's almost as if someone who knew nothing about Russia outside of American Cold War propaganda designed the game), soaking up the atmosphere – assuming you can get over the fact that although they take pains to point out that you've landed on a secret Russian military facility, every sign, note, voice recording and movie is in English, that is. It's a bold move, and shows a commitment to establishing a mood (even if it's a linguistically confused one) that really starts to pull you in to the story. Pretty soon you're tripping back in time, altering one simple but significant event that changes the course of the rest of the game. I won't spoil it as it turns out to be a major plot point, but it's clearly supposed to be a big twist that, to be honest, you'll see coming a mile off.

After this, the pace picks up and you settle into an entertaining stew of jump-scare horror shooter mixed in with occasional military shooter elements to keep things fresh. As soon as I heard that this game also included a time-manipulation tactic, I assumed it would be a Prince of Persia style 'rewind' system, or a Timeshift style 'pause' mechanic. Actually neither applies, and it takes quite a while for you to even get to the Time Manipulation Device, or TMD (imaginative name there, guys), showing that Raven aren't worried that the game needs to rely on this as a gameplay gimmick (though I would have liked it if I'd got it a bit earlier). The powers you gain with the device are to age or un-age items (for example, undoing a collapsed staircase or aging a safe until it rusts off its hinges) and creatures (pretty much an instant kill, though it uses a lot of E99 energy), expanding set time portals, setting a time-locked stasis barrier for protection and pulling items towards you and shooting them away like the gravity gun from Half-Life (for some reason).

Though the time manipulation sometimes seems like an arbitrary extra step, such as when many later items have to be de-aged before they can be used, this is also responsible for some neat gameplay touches, such as manoeuvring a crumpled old crate under a collapsed shutter and then de-aging it to force the shutter upwards. In addition, there are some fantastic aging animations, especially later on when a whole tanker ship begins to rapidly age while you're still on it, with rust rippling along the walls and paint peeling as you rush to get off it before it sinks.

It seems these days that every FPS is a little bit ashamed to be a simple, fun, mindless shooter, whether it's promoting the story elements (Halo), trying to make the game more open-world (last year's Wolfenstein), or adding largely unnecessary RPG elements (Bioshock). It's this last one that Singularity falls for the most, with weapon, character and TMD upgrades/powers available as you progress. Outside of Bioshock, the game that Singularity obviously most wants to be like (and, frankly, does a pretty good job), this has never really been well applied (indeed, you could argue that even Bioshock's RPG elements were largely unnecessary), and Singularity is no exception. Although it doesn't really get in the way of the game, none of the upgrades are particularly vital or game-changing: all it means in practice is that you're more likely to stick with the first weapons you get (which I did until I found the ludicrously large [SPOILER]gun) because you've upgraded them.

Though the game all takes place in and around the Katorga 12 facility, there is actually a nice difference to most of the levels, with a couple of memorable but nicely-balanced boss battles included as you progress. For all the clichéd locations and uninspired weapons (pretty much the same standard weapons you got way back in DOOM, but hey, if it ain't broke...), there's enough variety between the gameplay styles, the story elements and the TMD novelty to keep you interested as the action moves along at a healthy pace.

What Raven have produced in Singularity, without the pomp or fanfare of some higher-profile titles, is that rare gem: a solid, dependable, and above all fun shooter, which gives you enough new things to pique the interest, but never dips into taking itself too seriously. In all honesty, I enjoyed this game a lot more than I did either Bioshock game. If you're after a modern twist on classic gameplay, delivered by safe if slightly predictable hands, then you can do a lot worse than check out Singularity.

Alex

Toy Story 3 Review

2010-07-23T16:35:00.000+01:00

The Summer Blockbuster that everyone will love

15 years ago (has it really been that long?) the original Toy Story came out to universal acclaim, and changed the world of kids films forever. Hand-drawn animation was out, and CGI took over to the extent that almost every successful childrens film between then and now has been computer generated. Though there's more competition in this space than there was back then, still nobody holds a candle to Pixar in terms of storytelling, and sales.

Since then, Pixar have enjoyed a string of very successful films, with no real misses, even though some may not have performed as well as this, their flagship series. 2006's Cars was probably the least well received of these, though personally I feel that it was still a solid and entertaining effort. For a single studio to rack up hit after hit in this way is not just unusual, it's unprecedented. For it to be a Disney-controlled studio is downright unbelievable, and I'm sure it's this phenomenal success rate that means Pixar are largely left alone by the house of mouse to do their own thing; I seriously doubt any other Disney franchise that had made so much money would be allowed to go 11 years (since the fantastic Toy Story 2, a film which joins that elite group of sequels to match, or even outshine, their original) before producing another one.

Which brings us to this, the third and final film in the series. The toys owner, Andy, is all grown up and going away to college, and Woody, Buzz and the rest of the gang have not been played with (that is not supposed to sound dirty) in a long time. Eventually the toys are accidentally donated to a daycare centre, which seems like a dream come true at first, but is soon revealed to be far from ideal. Without spoilers, the story is actually largely the same as the second film; toy(s) leave their current situation for one they initially fear, then decide will be better, which is then revealed to not be as good as they thought, and they all have to try and get back home. It's a brave decision to go with something so similar to the previous film, but it's to Pixar's credit that they resisted the urge to 'mix things up' by adding twists and complexity to a plot that really doesn't need them. They manage to keep things fresh by introducing new characters, all of whom fit perfectly within the world, of which the greatest is Barbie's love interest, Ken (played to hilarious perfection by Michael Keaton), and the action rattles along at a pace quick enough to keep even the most demanding child interested.

One thing that did worry me when I first heard about this film is that it is presented in 3D. There's been a lot of debate about whether or not 3D is just a marketing gimmick to get people back into cinemas, whilst simultaneously cutting down on piracy by making the presentation unfilmable by camcorder (it is) or a bold new direction for cinema, enhancing the viewing experience for the paying public and providing the next step forward in immersive video entertainment (it is not). But Pixar being Pixar, of course, they are not one to let gimmicks get in the way of the story, which leads to the odd situation that Toy Story 3 either has the best or worst implementation of this technology that I have seen so far. On the one hand, it is used so subtly, to enhance the depth of the film without the kind of 'look at me' 3D effects present in, say, Avatar, that serve only to pull the viewer out of the film, that you could say this is exactly how 3D should be used. On the other hand, you could say that if you aren't being constantly reminded how 3D everything is, why not just watch it in 2D? This is, of course, a fundamental problem with the technology, rather than the film though.

Toy Story 3 can be defined both by what Pixar have done that no other company does, and also what they have chosen not to do. The film features no big musical numbers, no clichéd schmaltzy ending or unnecessary twists on the formula, no 'stunt casting' of popular or comical-sounding voice talent, and no talking down to children. What it does include is brilliant and genuinely beautiful animation, clever writing, some fantastic slapstick sequences and real emotion. It is only Pixar who can get away with things like having one of the main characters speak in a subtitled foreign language for 10 minutes, or an honest and moving portrayal of mortality; these are things we are told you should never even consider putting into a kids film, but they make it work, and it's all the better for it.

Overall, Toy Story 3 isn't the best in the series: that still goes to the second one in my opinion, and the emotional impact of the film's central message (that kids grow up, and fast) will be a little less impactful if you don't have any, but it's still going to be far superior to any animated (and most live action) films you'll see this year. It's fun, funny and has genuine heart, with character and story firmly at its core, balancing emotional heft and universally-appealing comedy. Well worth it.

Recommended Viewing: The Emperor's New Groove

Alex

Inception Review

2010-07-19T21:23:00.001+01:00

In the eyes of many people, especially film nerds, and especially especially my erstwhile cohort on this site, Jim, Christopher Nolan can do no wrong, and it's hard to argue (2002's lukewarm remake Insomnia notwithstanding): from his first appearance in the mainstream 10 years ago with Memento, he has written and directed some of the most successful films of the decade, both critically and financially. It's thanks to him that the Batman franchise has been guided from its troubling teen years, where it got its ear pierced and started wearing some questionable plotlines, into a more rounded and grounded adult with a nice career and a responsible car and some designer suits. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Another notable aspect of Nolan's ascendency has been the talented actors he has worked with along the way, many of whom return to work with the director on other projects. There's an old saying that you can tell the measure of a man by the company he keeps, and it must be said that when you include Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Tom Wilkinson and Gary Oldman in your circle of friends, chances are you're a pretty good guy to be around. It's hard to imagine any other director getting Messrs. Caine and Oldman to sign on for not one but two (so far) 'superhero' movies, and it's to his credit.

To say, then, that the recently-released Inception has a lot to live up to, is to put it mildly. Eschewing all of the big names he has worked with in the past (aside from Caine, appearing in a brief cameo), Nolan has assembled another absolute dream cast for his latest self-penned opus. Leonardo diCaprio leads as Cobb, a man with the ability to navigate peoples dreams, which ordinarily he uses to perform industrial espionage for a high fee. Joining him in this enterprise is Arthur, played by the ever-competent Joseph Gordon-Levitt (formerly of 3^rd Rock from the Sun, though to think of him as a sitcom actor is to sell him very short: check out 2004's Brick {Dir. Rian Johnson} for an excellent example of what he can do). Whilst trying to steal some secrets from the mind of Ken Watanabe's (previously from Batman Begins) energy tycoon, Saito, he is caught but impresses enough for Saito to hire him not to extract information from a business rival, but to plant an idea in his head (the Inception of the title), a considerably more difficult exercise that requires Cobb to put together a larger team.

This starts with an 'Architect'- someone who crafts the dreamworld that the infiltrators and the target all share, in this case promising young student Ariadne, introduced by Michael Caine (as Cobb's inexplicably English father/university lecturer) and ably played by Ellen Page. Page is most famous for her lead role in indie sensation Juno {2007, Dir. Jason Reitman}, but in my opinion her skills were best showcased in 2005's chilling psychological thriller, Hard Candy {Dir. David Slade, who also directed the recent Twilight: Eclipse, though the two are poles apart in terms of theme and tone}. This world has to be detailed and complex like a maze, to stop the dreamer's subconscious 'projections' (the people populating the dream) rooting out the interlopers and killing them in the dream, which wakes them up in the real world. Along the way, Ariadne discovers that Cobb can no longer craft the fantastical and sometimes paradoxical dreamworlds himself, due to some pretty serious personal demons concerning his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard), who turns up with increasing frequency to frustrate or attack the team in the dreamscape.

In order to convince their target, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy, star of 28 Days Later {2002, Dir. Danny Boyle} and previously Scarecrow in Nolan's Batman Begins, 2002) the son of a large energy company boss, that he wants to break up his father's empire after he dies, he will need to take him into a dream within a dream within another dream (just go with it), and that means two more people for the team: Dileep Rao as Yusuf, a chemist specialising in ridiculously-specific sedatives, and Tom Hardy as Eames, a man who can appear to be other people in the dreamworld.

Just as I have spent a healthy chunk of this review describing the basic premise and characters of Inception, the film itself spends most of its first hour doing the same thing. It does start to get a bit worrying that it takes so long to explain everything in such detail, but Nolan guides this introduction expertly, never letting the exposition dip into being patronising or tedious, and later on you'll be glad they took the time to explain all the quirks of the process, especially when they start redefining or breaking all the rules they previously mentioned.

Once the team is assembled, it's time to step up the action, drug their target on a transcontinental flight, and enter the dream state together. At each level of the dream, time passes slower, and, contrary to what they said earlier, if you die in this dream, you don't wake up, but instead go to limbo, where decades can pass in real-world minutes. From the moment the team (including Saito, who wants to oversee the operation he's paying so much for, and Ariadne, who is there to watch out for Mal) enter the dream, the drama and urgency build and there really isn't any let up in the tension for the rest of the film, which is really as much as I can say about the plot without spoilers.

Let's move on then to the visuals of Inception, which are absolutely stunning. The dreamworld involves some incredible sights; buildings folding in on each other, visual paradoxes and fantastical vistas, of which the absolute standout is a brilliant sequence in a hotel. The CGI is expertly and seamlessly handled, and of peerless quality, which really helps preserve the suspension of disbelief that they took such pains to weave in the first act.

Judging by Nolan's pedigree, I was not expecting less than solid performances from the cast, and they do not disappoint. I personally have a difficult time thinking of Leonardo diCaprio as an adult, despite the patchy stubble he now sports in all his films to show how 'grown up' he is, and though pairing him alongside the similarly babyfaced Gordon-Levitt doesn't really help with this, it's a minor point; overall he's a solid lead and inhabits the character of Cobb well. Gordon-Levitt carries off Arthur effortlessly, and I'm not sure if this is testament to his talents, or because it's exactly the type of character in which he excels; smart, confident, but also subtle. Ellen Page is coming into her own as an actress, and Ariadne is the perfect stepping stone on her way to leading lady. Marion Cotillard also deserves special mention for her powerful and affecting portrayal as Cobb's wife, Mal, whose performance sticks in the mind despite the sparsity with which her character appears.

The standout performance of Inception, though, is the fantastic Tom Hardy, who steals every single scene he's in as the instantly likeable rogue, Eames. What we see on screen in his character is a fascinating example of what a Nolan-directed Bond film would look like (steady on Jim), with Hardy's suave charm and effortless style taking Eames believably from comedian to conman to action hero as the film goes on. What we see here could well be the role that really launches him into Hollywood, and I look forward to seeing what he does next.

With Memento, Nolan established himself not just as a director but also as a writer, and Inception is the natural evolution of his craft, both in complexity and intelligence. He has assembled a peerless cast, and though the story could be summarised as the clever offspring of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Matrix, that hardly does it justice. This is the smartest, most original screenplay you will see this year, and though sometimes it can be a little difficult to follow, the pace of the second and third acts means you are never left long enough to dwell on some of the potential plot holes to let them derail the ride. This is a film that can be hard work at times, and one that you probably need to see several times to understand, but it's also such an exciting and smart thriller that you will want to come back to it again and again. Just maybe not straight away.

Alex

Predators Review

2010-07-17T11:44:00.001+01:00

Below is my review of Predators. But what if you don’t like reading? Well, gee – the internet must be a pretty tough place! Fear not graphophobe, Jaded Media is here for you; behold: the first Jaded Media podcast, where Alex and I review Predators without all these pesky words. And what if you’re a graphophobe and a phonophobe? Erm…. what are your feelings on mime?

All the big money in film, these days, is in franchises. Take a look at last year’s world wide grosses; 8 of the top 15 grossing movies are either direct sequels or prequels, (with two more just outside the top 15) and that’s not even counting Star Trek {2009, Dir. J J Abrams}. Sherlock Holmes and The Hangover both made enough to green light follow-on movies and a Monsters Vs. Aliens 2 announcement can’t be too far away. Obviously, sequels are nothing new, but more recently, film makers have taken to creating movies within existing universes that either reboot a franchise completely (think Batman Begins{2005, Dir. Christopher Nolan}, Casino Royale {2008, Dir. Martin Campbell}, or the previously mentioned Star Trek) or are inserted somewhere into an existing canon, invalidating some but not all of the previous films (Superman Returns {2006, Dir. Bryan Singer}, for example, is written as if Supermans 3 and 4 never happened). One of the big summer releases this year also attempts this narrative juggling – Predators.

Pre-release information places Predators as a direct sequel to Predator {1987, Dir. John McTiernan}. Gone from the timeline are Predator 2 {1990, Dir. Stephen Hopkins} and the AvP movies {Dir. Paul W.S. Anderson / Colin and Greg Strause}. So, in this new story, Gary Busey and his army of dry-ice wielding CIA agents never existed. And Lance Henriksen never found a pyramid under the North Pole. Instead, we are reintroduced to the world of the Predators via Adrien Brody, cast here somewhat oddly as a hardened, disenchanted mercenary called Royce. The film opens with Royce unconscious and in free fall. Fortunately, his parachute automatically opens and he lands, fairly heavily, in a dense jungle. Dusting himself off, Royce starts to investigate and soon meets a number of other individuals in the same situation – all awoke in free fall, with no idea how they got there. They decide to band together and so we learn that each person in the group appears to be either a solider of some note or a criminal with a violent history: the lone exception being Topher Grace’s Edwin, who is a doctor. They soon work out that this jungle is not on Earth and that the group has been specially chosen. But why and by whom…….?

BY PREDATORS WHO WHANT TO HUNT AND KILL YOU! Jeeeze. The opening half hour is tedious in the extreme. Royce and his dysfunctional band wander from clearing to clearing finding very little and making no real discoveries, while everyone in the audience yawns or checks their mobiles. While the Predator is an unknown to the cast, it really isn’t to the rest of us. If you’re going to try to build tension when the audience already know what’s coming, you’ve really got your work cut out. In the rare occasions that works, in a film like Aliens {1986, Dir. James Cameron} for example, its because the core group of characters are interesting enough to spend time with. If done effectively, the slow build up can introduce the characters and their motivations before all the screaming starts. But here, each member of the group is a simple stereotype that really doesn’t need any explanation. And everyone, with the exception of the aforementioned Edwin, is portrayed as the strong silent, loner type who say almost nothing. At one point, Danny Trejo asks “does this looks like a team orientated group of individuals to you?” –he might as well have added “interesting” and “chatty”.

Things start to pick up when the group are finally attacked, first by an undefined creature, then finally by the Predators themselves. Once the gunfire erupts, the film finds its footing with a strong sequence of confident, well staged action scenes. Each character is given a fitting showdown, which often do far more to explain their motivations than anything in the opening. And there’s none of the PG nonsense of AvP - when spine-ripping is required, its delivered in all its glory. Predators is at its best during these sequences, a particular highlight being a Human vs Predator sword fight in the final act. Its slow, meditated pace contrasts wonderfully with the fast paced action that surrounds it.

The director Nimród Antal and his team should be applauded for managing to give the Predator both weight and presence. Its impossible to avoid the fact that a Predator is just a man in a big suit, that’s simply a limitation of the 80’s design. But effective use of camera angles, that frame the beasts from a low view point, and solid sound design work together to restore something of their original menace. John Debney’s score is another strong area, reusing sections from Alan Silvestri’s Predator original. I’d forgotten just how ironic the original score was from Predator – it might not be Terminator memorable, but it’s not far off and its return was a welcome nod to the franchise's history.

This movie knows what it wants to be – a simple, entertaining action movie: and it largely succeeds. Despite my reservations about the opening, the remainder of the film is a strong return to form. There’s nothing overly surprising about how the story plays out, or which characters don’t make it, but then so what? It was never designed to reinvent the wheel; this film's primary job is to re-start the franchise, to rebuild interest in the Predator mythology and make us genuinely interested to see a new set of sequels. By that standard, despite its failings, consider Predators a successful re-launch.

Jim

Crackdown 2 Review

2010-07-13T21:01:00.000+01:00

Back in 2007, Realtime Worlds launched their first game as an exclusive title for the Xbox 360. Several things were notable about the much-hyped Crackdown, not least of which was the claim that it was 'from the creator of Grand Theft Auto'. Now in its strictest sense, this is true. David Jones, who 'conceived' Crackdown (note the vaguery of that term), was a founding member of DMA Design. DMA Design (Fun fact- the DMA in DMA Design stands for 'Doesn't Mean Anything'), including David Jones, produced the first and second (top-down, 2D) Grand Theft Auto games, and later went on to rename itself Rockstar Games and produce the even more successful 3D sequels GTA 3 et al., though this was after Mr. Jones himself had moved on to new pastures.

However, if you look at his back catalogue, the man definitely has form when it comes to producing high-quality games; he's been involved in varying degrees with such classics as Lemmings and Shadow of the Beast, and even the proto-GTA title Body Harvest for the N64.

It wasn't a complete surprise, then, that the game was well received and sold very solidly, no doubt helped by the inclusion with the game of an invitation to the Halo 3 multiplayer beta, which was unavailable anywhere else. The concept was fun and appealing, though a little derivative of GTA as one might expect - if you're going to copy something, you might as well copy the best-selling videogame franchise of all time, especially if you had a hand in its creation.

The original Crackdown saw you take on the role of one of Pacific City's resident Peacekeeper Agents, a sort of cross between Judge Dredd and Spider-Man, leaping around the city, climbing tall buildings and taking down the three local streetgangs with over-the-top weapons, street signs used as clubs and cars used as bowling balls, among other things. It was no GTA in terms of scope or freedom, but it was something a bit original, entertaining and overall a lot of fun to play.

The sequel, in a move that raises a red flag before we even begin, was not developed by Realtime Worlds, but rather a new company containing some of the people who previously worked on Crackdown (and some others), called Ruffian Games. They have preserved the most fundamental principles of the original game but unfortunately that seems to be out of laziness rather than reverence for the established canon: Crackdown 2 is one of the most disappointing, sloppily-executed games I have played in recent memory, and there are an absolute litany of errors and annoyances that make it a miserable, uninspired and dated experience.

For starters, the story of Crackdown 2 is thinner than a supermodel with a stomach upset. Rather than the three distinctly-styled gangs of the first game, there are only two groups of enemies in Crackdown 2: a terrorist cell, called Cell (wow, imaginitive - I wonder how long it took them to come up with that name), and some mutated zombie-like freaks, called The Freaks (once again, a lot of thought obviously went into it). As to why these two groups exist, we are never told. Well, you can pick up audio logs scattered throughout the city that will explain more of the background behind them, but with the incessant, irritating, and often needlessly belittling chatter of the game's narrator, the last thing you will want to do is listen to more rambling, canned audio. Basically, they both want to kill you, all the time (though the Freaks only come out at night).

You again play a Peacekeeper for The Agency, with the choice of four separate and equally unrelatable character faces to choose from, which is completely irrelevant since as soon as you reach the second tier of abilities (which you will need to do pretty early on), your head is totally covered in a full-face metal helmet. But don't worry, you have a wide choice of colours to choose from so you can customise your armour, and give it that personal touch. And by wide choice, I mean blue or a choice of three different shades of grey. Unfortunately that is actually quite a bit more variety than you will see in the rest of the game.

The main story missions of the game revolve around reactivating beacons that Cell have disabled. This involves fighting off a few of them, and then, in an inspired and entertaining mini-game, STANDING STILL ON A PLATFORM FOR 30 SECONDS. Seriously, that's the best they could come up with. There are 27 of these, and, barring a few very small variations/extra annoyances, they're all the same. Every three you reactivate allows you to detonate a light-bomb in a Freak lair to kill off a bunch of these mutated but more-annoying-than-harmful jerks. You'll never guess how you set off these beacons. Give up? That's right: MORE STANDING AROUND, this time for about 2 minutes, while hordes of Freaks try to attack you and the beacon. Are you excited about the game yet? No? How about if this sandbox city was pretty much completely empty except for thousands of jerks who constantly try to kill you?

Supposedly/conveniently, because of the Freaks, there are hardly any normal civilians left in Pacific City, which means the streets are mostly empty of cars and people, but also intact buildings, character, or frankly anything to look at, do or interact with of any interest whatsoever. It seems that the developers have just taken the city from Crackdown one, and used the old 'there was a natural disaster' excuse so they could just tear bits off it and avoid having to create anything new, with the added bonus that they don't need to model or animate all those different pedestrians, NPCs, or any AI that isn't a mindless zombie (Freaks) or a constantly-attacking Soldier (Cell).

And when I say constantly-attacking, I do not mean 'when they see you they will attack'. I mean that from pretty much the very second you set foot in Pacific City, you will hear the woodpecker tapping of gunfire from the Cell agents thudding into your body as tracers flash across your field of vision, and this will never, ever let up until you have destroyed all the Cell strongholds, at which point the streets will instead be completely empty.

Though not strictly necessary for the story, destroying these Cell strongholds is pretty much the only other thing to do in this entire game, so you'll probably end up doing quite a few just to feel like you got your money's worth. This involves calling in support from the Agency (the inspired naming choices continue), then being told that actually the crack commando team will only land AFTER you have murdered every single Cell agent in the vicinity. On your own. Whilst they all shoot you. All the time. Oh, and wait for the later strongholds, where they have rocket launchers, and you discover that the stunned animation your character goes through when hit with a rocket is about 1/5th of a second shorter than it takes for them to reload and shoot you again, forcing you into a short and annoying loop of near-paralysis, usually before a quick and pointless death.

All this is only made more annoying by the fact that your weapon's auto-aim will constantly latch onto the wrong thing, such as a car in the background, or worse, an explosive barrel that is far too close to you to end well, rather than the person shooting you point-blank in the face. But at least you can call in backup from all those other agents to help you out, right? No? Nothing? Great. Oh, and good luck trying to get anywhere in this game – you are unable to set waypoints on your map, so finding your way around the city is an(other) exercise in frustration.

The other thing you are forced to do in order to progress is to gather various 'orbs' scattered around the city, in order to improve your various attributes, especially agility, enough to be able to reach the later beacons. These are distributed in deliberately difficult-to-reach areas, and you will need to collect literally hundreds of them to be able to complete later missions. This kind of needless padding is the worst sort of gameplay gimmick - forcing the player onto a massive and pointless fetch quest via tedious jumping puzzles rather than rewarding actual play or even time spent in-game before allowing them to complete story missions. In a move that should be criminal, some orbs can only be accessed in multiplayer. That's right, in order to get the full value out of the game, they force you to buy two copies. This is like only being able to access the special features on a DVD if you play separate copies of it on your TV and your PC at the same time.

In summary, Crackdown 2 is like Crackdown 1, but with all the fun removed, all the novelty crushed and all the personality destroyed. There is nothing original here, and it represents a poor or dated imitation of all of its influences – it is about the size but has nowhere near the variety of GTA's Vice City, the bulding-climbing (and car-throwing, infected mutant killing) but not the fluidity of Prototype, the graphical look (and RPG-type elements) but not the style of Borderlands, the attitude but not the polish of Saint's Row 2, and the orb-collecting but not the natural progression to make this not infuriating of Crackdown 1. Any of these alternatives are each more enjoyable than Crackdown 2, and most are available at such a price you could probably get at least two of them for the price of this digital disaster (Prototype and Saint's Row 2 being my personal recommendations).

Alex

Jaded Media Launches Film Reviews Podcast!

2010-07-11T16:58:00.002+01:00

Jaded Media has just put the finishing touches to our first podcast, covering some up and coming films and a review/discussion of the newly-released Predators film. Hopefully it will soon be available on iTunes, but you can get it right now by following this link here.

It's our first time trying something like this so please feel free to let us know what you think in the comments. We're hoping to produce a similar thing about once a month, so look for the next one around the second week of August!

EDIT- for those of you having problems with the volume, please download again using the link above- new louder version now available. Now also without sound going wrong at the end of the file.

Transformers: War for Cybertron Review

2010-07-08T22:21:00.004+01:00

I think we can all agree that without any bias, the 80s was the greatest decade to grow up in. Admittedly, I wasn't really at much of an age to appreciate the finest year in cinema history, 1984- birthyear of Gremlins, Ghostbusters, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Beverley Hills Cop, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Karate Kid, The Neverending Story, Police Academy, Romancing the Stone, Splash, The Terminator and This is Spinal Tap (yes, all in the same year, seriously- can you even imagine a year like that coming along again?), but I was still witness to my share of amazing moments growing up.

Among these was another thing from 1984 that Orwell failed to mention, when some bright spark at Hasbro had a 'Reese's Peanutbutter Cups' moment and got his vehicles stuck in another guy's robots, and a legend was born in The Transformers toy line, a line so iconic that my word processing software auto-completes the word 'Transformers' after just the letters 'Tra' (complete with the 's'!). If I had to rank the greatest discoveries of my childhood, they would be up there with Lego, which would be about the only other toy to be launched in the 80s that has been in (near-)continuous production (though admittedly in varying quality- Beastmasters anyone? Weak) since its inception.

The 80s was also the very early days of affordable home computing, and with it computer gaming. I had a Commodore 64 growing up, and it didn't take long for the appeal of Transformers to cross over into the digital entertainment realm, with the first (awesome) game surfacing in 1986. It looked like this:

That red and brown blob standing on a blue pipe is you. And if you are five, that is AWESOME

It was great. Incredibly simple (they only had 64kb of memory to play with, after all – probably less than this page uses), the most entertaining thing was transforming between robot and vehicle modes, which gave you basically no advantage in-game and was made up of about five frames of animation, but was enough to convey that elusive sense of being that most childishly amazing of entities, a ROBOT THAT TURNS INTO A TRUCK. Sold.

In the same year we also saw the release of the only Transformers film to have ever been released (fuck you Michael Bay), the animated Transformers: The Movie, dealing with the Autobots trying to stop the evil Unicron (like Marvel Comics' Galactus, only slightly less retarded-looking) devouring their home planet of Cybertron. It included a prestigious list of voice talents for something that was essentially an 84 minute toy advert, including Eric Idle, Leonard Nimoy, Judd Nelson, Casey Casem (the original Shaggy in Scooby Doo), the legendary Frank Welker (think every animated show ever) and Peter Cullen (the soul of Optimus Prime), and even Orson Welles in his last performance as Unicron, the planet eater.

Sadly there was a long wait (including a pretty shitty PS2 effort from Atari) until another Transformers game came along, and even more sadly, it was tied into the 2007 turdfest Transformers film (I've officially never heard of it). A third-person shooter effort, it was actually ok, but not great – for me it failed to live up to the history, the excitement, the feeling of what Transformers should be. Maybe that's always going to be the curse of translating a toy line into other media – so many will have their own experiences and imagination around how they related to the toys, you're going to be on the back foot trying to put that on the screen, whether movie or monitor. The sequel game also went the way of many movie tie-ins, i.e. straight into the bargain bin.

Freed from the shackles of a movie licence, High Moon Studios (developers of the largely ignored but promising Bourne Conspiracy and Darkwatch games) have set their game on the Transformers homeworld of Cybertron, chronicling the events that led to the Autobot and Decepticon exodus that eventually led to their arrival on Earth, neatly sidestepping the baggage that comes with the last two (non-existant) movies and showing a 'prequel' side of the story that might be unknown to all those whippersnappers who have only known Bay's twisted perversion of the robotic truth.

This gives them a little bit of artistic licence to 're-imagine' the characters too: usually this is a term that is as welcome to an established canon as the term 'complications' are to a medical operation, but High Moon have managed to tread the fine line between respect for the history and a far more entertaining artistic vision than the (non-existant, remember) recent movies ever did, creating different, interesting, and yet at the same time familiar versions of the classic Transformers from both sides: fan favourites Ratchet, Starscream, Ironhide, Barricade and more are represented.

Of course, being freed from the restrictions of a movie licence also means they are deprived of the built-in audience that such a game would attract. Generally, this means that the developers have to put more effort into the gameplay than they would otherwise, and on this score the game doesn't disappoint. In a lot of the missions, the gameplay most closely resembles the first Gears of War, as a run-and-gun shooter against hordes of largely-identical enemies. This is also mixed up with flying missions that stop things getting too repetitive, and well thought-out boss fights to combine into a highly enjoyable 8-hour experience, which you can play co-operatively with a friend if you have one available.

The 10 missions are split equally between Decepticons and Autobots, and this 'two-sided' approach is a nice touch, where they have managed to resist the urge to 'humanise' the bad guys, and instead give you the chance to play as the relentlessly pantomime-evil Decepticons, or the noble Autobots and switch between the two campaigns whenever you like. In addition, you always have the choice to play as one of three characters for each mission, which adds a nice variety and an element of personalisation to the proceedings.

There's obviously also a lot of reverence for the original toys and cartoons here, and the level of personality injected into these inorganic protagonists is commendable and really draws you into the experience. Not only does the irreplaceable Peter Cullen return as the voice of Optimus Prime, but as you progress through the levels, the three characters will banter amongst themselves, with a surprisingly high quality of voice acting, and the odd joke or nod to history, such as when one Autobot utters the universal greeting ('Bah weep gragnah weep nini bong') to some Cybertronian slugs, which caused a small explosion in the nerd centre of my brain.

In addition to the slightly short main campaign, there's also very standard online horde and deathmatch multiplayer modes, with a reasonable amount of character/power customisation, but neither are much to write home about, though I can imagine with the right group of friends they could be quite entertaining.

Overall, this game is everything that the recent movies failed to be: an exciting, fun and excellently-produced experience that respects the past history of the franchise but also puts a new spin on it for the modern gaming generation. Yes it's short, but it's a very solid and enjoyable 8-10 hours of gameplay that you will happily trot out when friends come over. Highly recommended.

Alex

DayBreakers Review

2010-07-06T20:06:00.000+01:00

Daybreakers opens with a simple yet evocative sequence. A young girl is seen writing a short note, then walking out of her house to watch the sunrise. While watching the girl, the camera cuts back and forth to snippets of the letter she’s just written: sick of being a teenager, wanting to grow up, can’t live like this any more. The girl is a vampire, and after who knows how many years, has finally had enough. The sun breaks over the horizon, and the girl bursts in flames. It’s a classic vampire sequence: the immortal that wishes for death. But to see it at the start of the movie instead of the end, and coupled with the baggage that an adolescent’s suicide bid contains, is a powerful opening message – there’s something a bit different about this film.

At its heart, Daybreakers contains a classic “Twilight Zone/Outer Limits” style What-If premise: What if the world was run by Vampires? The opening hints at a vampiric plague which transformed almost the entire population of the earth many years ago. The world is now one of darkness, of businesses running only during the night, of coffee stands selling drinks with 20% blood guaranteed. Early on, we meet Edward Dalton – chief haematologist for the vast conglomerate Bromley Marks – a leading blood supply company. The overpopulation of vampires has led to a shortage of humans, so Edward is working on an artificial blood substitute. And time is running out; estimates claim that blood supplies will run out by the end of the current month. And worse still, in this mythology, a vampire starved of blood turns into a rabid bat-like creature that will feed on anything it finds – animals, other vampires, even itself.

Edward’s investigations into the blood substitute are thrown into disarray when he meets a small group of human survivors, amongst whom is man who claims to be called Elvis. Elvis is special – he used to be a vampire, but is now human again. How this transformation occurred is the key original idea in Daybreakers. Creating something new in a vampire film is almost impossible – every angle seems to have been covered in the past. But the idea behind the transformation method is certainly something I’ve not seen before and drives an interesting sequence where Edward investigates and eventually reproduces the methodology. Once the discovery is made, and proved repeatable, however, Daybreakers falls back into a standard “good man rebels against the system he worked for, then tries to bring it down” tale. The plot creaks through the usual stepping stones and double-crosses, but by this time the early promise is gone. Like so many films that start with a simple yet fantastical premise, Daybreakers seems to run out of steam in the home stretch as it struggles to payoff the early promise.

Visually, the film owes a fairly large debt to the Underworld trilogy (Dir. Len Wiseman/Patrick Tatopoulos), with its washed out, blue-filtered hue, and vast array of black, sharply-cut suits. This contrasts well, however with the daytime sequences – bright, almost blindingly lit. The contrast between the world of many (Night) and the world of few (Daytime) is pronounced and effective. Performances are uniformly good, although no-one is really working outside their comfort zone. Ethan Hawke is asked to play the moody lead Edward, unsure of himself or his future – no real stretch there. Willem Dafoe plays the mysterious Elvis, and is as watchable as always, although his southern US twang is a little hit and miss. Sam Neil is great fun as the lead baddy, relishing the chance to ham things up. The rest of the cast is solid in limited roles; with one standout being Isabel Lucas, who is effecting as Neil’s daughter, caught in the crossfire between humans and vampires.

The directors Michael and Peter Spierig first appeared on the radar with 2003’s Undead – a zombie gorefest in the mould of Evil Dead or early Peter Jackson (the brilliant Brain Dead, known as Dead Alive in the US). Daybreakers is an interesting next step – clearly a more mature work, but still firmly in the genre and not afraid to throw some splatter onto the screen. Some of the effects in the film are classic Jackson – head explosions, onlookers covered in gloopy blood. The aforementioned opening, however seems to give an indication that the pair are keen to evolve as filmmakers beyond their entertaining but shallow previous film. One bizarrely beautiful sequence in the final third of the film occurs when a group of the rabid bat creatures are executed. It is a surprisingly poignant moment, somewhat at odds with the lacklustre plot motions going on around it.

It is also worth noting that Undead contained a unique take on the Zombie film, with another original and unexpected explanation for the events that occur. Perhaps it will become the Spierig brothers trademark – subtle but clever riffs on standard mythologies. There’s a lot about DayBreakers that is formulaic – been there, done that: the style and look of the film references many past movies - The bat creatures clearly owe a debt to the Reapers of Blade 2 (2002, Dir. Guillermo del Toro). And the plot beats could be taken out of any number of genre stories. And yet, there are just enough new ideas, just enough inventive and interesting characters and, yes, just enough gloop and gore to make Daybreakers a fine piece of genre filmmaking. Taken as a whole, despite the disappointing final act, it’s a worthy entry into the overloaded vampire movie canon.

JIM

Naughty Bear Review

2010-06-29T08:28:00.000+01:00

There have been a few video games over the years that have tried to blend the idea of cartoonish childrens topics with a more 'adult' oriented gameplay style (for example the good but largely ignored Fur Fighters, or the bad and mercifully ignored Fairytale Fights). You can see the appeal of this approach from a commercial point of view; you still grab the kiddie market, since the box art looks cute and fluffy and the adults who buy the games for them don't notice/care that the subject matter is ultimately more grown up than they might otherwise allow, and you get the adult market too by including ridiculously over-the-top violence and vulgarity.

In reality of course this usually means the worst of both worlds- the graphics are childish and the gameplay is juvenile, teenage at best, since they need to avoid approaching the mature or even teenage ratings on the games themselves, lest they alienate the children (or more accurately the parents who buy them the games) altogether. The only company that can reliably and consistently straddle these two areas is Nintendo, but of course that doesn't stop a lot of others from trying and failing.

Into this ignoble tradition steps Naughty Bear, the latest game from developers Artificial Mind & Movement. I'll forgive you if that was met with a 'who?'. Looking through their back catalogue raises a few red flags to say the least. Mostly they have a bunch of Cartoon-based shovelware properties (Ed, Edd & Eddy, Kim Possible, Monster House, Happy Feet) and portable conversions of popular games (Dante's Inferno PSP, My Sims Racing – yes, really), all firmly aimed at the childrens market. It's not dificult to see where a lot of pent up anger about having to create endless cute and wholesame games for young children came from, that might lead to a game like this.

Usually this sort of development history points to a company living project to project, bidding for whatever work they can get, likely to be a reasonably high turnover of staff and a 'first job' for a lot of developers looking to cut their teeth before moving on to bigger and better things, or the burnout zone for bitter, out of date developers who 'could have been a contender' but never quite made it to the big time. They broke out slightly last year with their own IP, the 3rd-person action shooter Wet, published by Bethesda Softworks (the Elder Scrolls series, Fallout 3). No doubt this was supposed to be their big break, which makes it all the more unfortunate that it was an utterly shitty ripoff of the much maligned Stranglehold (actually fun, and available very cheap these days).

All that aside, Naughty Bear is also their own IP, though published under the decidedly more budget 505 Games label (think the sort of games that you find in Morrison's for £10), so it too might be considered the great hope of the company to break into the top tier of games developers. Oh dear.

The paper-thin story is that Naughty Bear has not been invited to another bear's birthday party, so has decided it's time to smash up the bear village, and scare the other bears until they go so insane and kill themselves, or do the job himself with a bloodless but suitably gruesome (and cliché) set of hand to hand weapons. That's pretty much it. If that sounds like a fun game, congratulations: you are retarded. Or ten years old.

The central idea behind the game gets old almost immediately, and sees you running around a tiny sandbox of bear houses during a party/election/other near-identical situation, scaring the other bears and sabotaging their houses for 'hilarious' situation-specific scares/kills with a seriously limited range of cheap motion capture reactions. You're encouraged to set these traps and wait for the bears to come and fix whatever you have put wrong, at which point you spring out and scare/murder them.

By the nature of his name, Naughty Bear is supposed to be the naughty one. However, since a game where your enemies can't fight back might be the only thing less interesting than the game as it currently stands, all of the bears you encounter will whip out their own machetes/guns/baseball bats/axes and reply to Naughty's attempts at scaring them with a swift whack on the head. Since you earn more points for scaring the bears with your 'fearsome' boo! Than actually just hacking the stuffing out of them, Naughty Bear actually ends up being the least violent one of the lot.

There's a fundamental dichotomy within the gameplay that ultimately proves its undoing; as you play, your score multiplier ticks down between scares/attacks, but the big points only come from setting sabotage traps and waiting, sometimes minutes, for a passing bear to give a shit about them. So you're either running around mindlessly hacking at brightly-coloured teddy bears and screaming 'Boo!' at them (not even as fun as it sounds), gaining tiny amounts of points, or setting traps and waiting in the undergrowth (where you can't be seen, for some reason) for bears to wander by, when you get more points but a slower multiplier.

Just like Split/Second before it, faced with a game with a single, flimsy central concept, they have put in arbitrary 'special modes' to mix things up a bit, such as levels where you can't hit anyone (just the situation-specific attacks), or levels where you can only win by driving the bears insane with your scary shouting. Yes, that's right: in order to deliver variety, the developers actually make you do almost exactly the same level several times, but each time give you less of a game to play with. They are so tedious I can't even be bothered to write about them any more.

Everything within the game smacks of cheap development. The textures and graphics would not look out of place in a PS2 (or more likely Gamecube) game, the gameplay is tedious and incredibly repetitive: you have to complete a lot of levels in order to earn enough trophies that unlock later levels, possibly several times if you didn't score well enough. In response to this, there are several alternate outfits (everything from a hat to a full Freddy Kruger outfit) that enhance your abilities in barely-perceptible ways, which are supposed to keep you interested. It does not. This game is a miserable turd with no redeeming features unless you have anger management issues and are a bit simple.

Honestly, I can't even say that the central concept behind Naughty Bear is a good one- if you want a 3rd-person hack 'em up, there are plenty to choose from that are all better than this regardless of which platform(s) you own, from God of War to Manhunt via Mad World or No More Heroes. If you want a kids game then there's everything from Little Big Planet to Banjo Kazooie, Little King's Story to Super Mario Galaxy 2 (though you might have to help the younger ones there). I really can't imagine the Venn diagram of customers that Naughty Bear will appeal to, and I certainly don't ever want to meet anyone who fits there.

Avoid this game like the plague, just as I will be avoiding the shop assistant in Game who recommended it to me with a straight face since they didn't have any copies of Transformers: Battle for Cybertron.

Alex

Split Second Review

2010-06-25T19:36:00.001+01:00

Recently Disney and Black Rock Studios (previous collaborators on Pure, an entertaining but ultimately forgettable mix of 1080 Snowboarding and Mario Kart on quad bikes) released a new arcade racer with a unique gimmick; players have the ability to trigger 'Power Plays' along the track to explode cars, collapse buildings or drop exploding barrels in the path of your enemies.

If this sounds a bit similar to Burnout, well, it is: just not as good. In fact if you've ever played any of the Burnout games (the best of which was Burnout 3 Takedown), you will quickly find yourself missing things inherent to that series, like boost, the ability to force other cars to crash or even the ability for other cars to crash by hitting your wreck. To be honest I can't see why they didn't include these features in Split Second, as they would fit perfectly and any one of them would have improved the playing experience.

The Power Plays are a nice idea in principal but it wears thin pretty quickly and serious cracks start to appear; to trigger attacks you need to be close enough to see opponents, but too close and you get killed too. Also it's pretty random if you actually hit them, and the only thing you can do is learn the timings and positions of the various power plays and try to catch people just right (though if you happen to be in the same postcode as an attack yourself the screen goes grey and you begin swerving uncontrollably, and you're usually more likely to blow yourself up than your opponents). Unfortunately this rather random nature of the Power Plays makes them feel quite unfulfilling, lacking the satisfaction of a skilful Burnout takedown or even a Mario Kart shell attack.

You generate Power Play points mostly by drifting around corners. Fortunately you'll be doing a lot of this, since there is no specific drift button, distinct from 'slow down'. Braking drifts, lifting off the accelerator and then going back to it drifts, just yanking the controller round a corner often drifts too, whether you want it to or not. And unlike most race games, where drifting allows you to take corners without losing speed, in Split/Second your opponents will often race past you while you're doing this, and with the lack of any boost capability, once you're behind you can't really catch up without storing up Power Plays and hoping you get a glimpse of your opponents on the horizon long enough to hit the 'fuck you' button.

Should you actually reach first place (usually by luck much more than judgement), you have nothing to do but wait for people to try and take you out, at which point you will likely rejoin in near last place, especially if it's your last lap. Of course, your opponents don't actually need to use the environmental weapons to beat you, since a serious case of 'slower car boost' (or Mario Kart Cheating Computer Bastard Syndrome, as it's technically known) will often see them storm past you in the final corners and cruise to unassailable victory.

It really seems like Black Rock ran out of ideas when creating the game- they only appear to have designed about five different levels and really hoped you wouldn't notice; in fact they're so indistinguishable from one another that the intro cinematics make a point of telling you what's different in each 'episode' of the game, which is fortunate because I certainly wouldn't be able to tell you otherwise. Half the time you're not even racing against other cars, as every other event is a tedious 'special' event where you evade helicopter missiles or dodge trucks shedding explosive barrels (why is it always barrels?) for points, which is about as interesing as it sounds.

The triggering of the Power Plays is so random that occasionally the game takes the control of this away from you to show you how to do things properly, forcing you to complete a lap while it shows off all the explosions and set pieces that you're supposed to be able to do in game (but are unlikely to ever manage with the same timing). I'm sure it's possible to learn the tracks, the cars and the Power Play locations so that you can skilfully cause havoc and cruise to an easy win, but the game is so arbitrary and repetitive, why would anyone bother? Even (/especially) if you get good at this game, none of your friends are going to want to play you at it.

At the end of the day, as a single 'concept' game Split Second spreads itself too thinly to be worth it. But at its core there's still that kernel of a compelling idea, so not all hope is lost for a sequel, but here's what they need to do to make it a success:

Include boost

Include the ability to shove opponents into crashes

Include an aiming mechanism, either skill (e.g. right stick 'lock on' enemies) or timing-based (indicate when a power play will be guaranteed to connect)

Design some more levels, with a bit more interesting scenery

Ditch the shitty alternative modes (except eliminator)

I know it sounds like I want them to copy Burnout, but that's because they should. Burnout was awesome, and since Criterion seem to have forgotten what made Burnout fun in the first place in recent versions, it's perfectly ok for someone else to step up.

Alex

Heavy Rain Review

2010-06-23T09:32:00.001+01:00

At E3 2005, Sony released a number of game play videos designed to show case the power of the PlayStation 3. It was later revealed that many of these were “target renders” – many were not running on actual PS3 hardware. The most infamous of these was the first footage from Guerrilla Games’ Killzone2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko9xC6TMdiw). It garnered such levels of praise, derision and controversy that the game was never able to live it down, despite the fact that when it finally arrived, the finished product actually came remarkably close to matching that E3 promise. The following year, a smaller, lower-key piece of footage was released at E3 by Sony that, with hindsight, has proved to be a much greater exaggeration of the finished game it claimed to represent. The name of the footage was “The Casting” and it was designed to promote Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain.

The Casting was, and still is, a stunning piece (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEtSi9a8oNI – Warning: occasional strong language). It opens as a young actress enters a blank room, answers a couple of simple questions from the off screen director and then starts a reading. The room transforms into a dark small kitchen of some dingy apartment, where the actress tells a haunting tail of love, betrayal, revenge and murder. Everything reverts back to the blank room, where the girl leaves, and the director’s briefly discuss if they will hire her. The technology on show is certainly eye catching, if deep in the uncanny valley. But far more impressive, to me, was the writing and acting. The story has real power in its simplicity and is told beautifully, with real emotion, allowing the viewer to connect and even feel for the virtual presence in front of them. Sadly, the finished game seems to have mislaid all these key strengths.

Heavy Rain’s story is totally unconnected to The Casting. It concerns the exploits of the “Origami Killer” (a terrible nickname for a serial killer – I physically winced every time a character mentions the name) who has terrorised an unnamed American city. Every autumn, the (ugh) Origami Killer kidnaps a young boy who is found dead several days later, having been drowned in rain water, clutching a piece of Origami. The actions of the Origami Killer draw in four seemingly unconnected characters: Ethan Mars - effectively the lead of the story, who’s son is kidnapped by the murderer; Norman Jayden - an FBI agent assigned to help the most inept local police force since Gotham PD, circa 1960; Scott Shelby - a private investigator hired by the families to find clues that the aforementioned police force happily ignore and Madison Paige , a…er…well, I think she’s a journalist, but this is never really explained.

The player gets to take each character through the story, supposedly affecting the flow of events by the choices they make. In a somewhat brave move, it is possible to kill any one the four player controlled characters and the game will continue, the story will “adapt” – a bold design, and something highly unusual in the world of videogames. As with Fahrenheit (the previous game from Quantic Dream), players interact with what is basically an advanced point and click adventure (think Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Sam and Max et al.) by following on-screen prompts – push up to open a door, tilt the control to swerve a car, etc. It’s more immersive that it sounds, particularly in action sequences where timing is crucial, or moments of stress when the on screen prompts are made harder to read or require the player to hold down several buttons at the same time.

Given this minimalist level of interaction, story and player choice are key to Heavy Rain, and are, unfortunately, its two weakest elements. The story is atrocious, full of clichés (the violent cop who wants to beat up every suspect he meets, the use of ‘Saw’-style challenges), amazing coincidences and plot twists that M Night Shyamalan would reject as being too far fetched (none of which I can mention here, for obvious reasons). None of the characters are believable human beings, which makes it so difficult to empathise with them. Worst of all is the killer; whose “superhuman” powers, pop-psychology motivations and ability to stage manage an entire city wouldn’t be out of place in a Scooby Doo episode. Almost as disappointing is the illusion of choice within the game – there are literally hundreds of things you can or can’t do in some of the early scenes but these really have no effect on anything beyond this. The big, story-changing moments are either reaction based (which is not a choice, but a challenge of skill) or totally unconnected to an action you may or may not take; for example agreeing to a single kiss automatically leads to a full blown sex sequence that cannot be stopped – I’m no legal expert, but I think that might be rape.

On the plus side, the technology on show is stunning, containing some of the best facial animation yet seen in any console game – the other key difference from that ‘faked’ E3 footage being that the graphics engine has taken huge steps forward in the intervening years. If not clear of the uncanny valley, it is certainly on the upward slope. The city is suitably bleak, suggesting both great art direction and the technological clout to carry out that vision. There’s an argument that this could be the best-looking console game yet released, but that’s such a subjective award. Personally, I prefer the colour and vibrancy of Uncharted 2, as they are such rare commodities in modern video gaming, but it’s a close run thing.

When Heavy Rain works, when all the pieces fall into place, there’s nothing in video gaming so far quite like it. In the high points of the game, if you can forget about the cliché you’re running through, and just go with the moment; it might connect with you, even move you, but you’ve got to block out so much to get there and make so many excuses for the game. I can’t blame you if you can’t get past the awful story or the ludicrous character arcs and just laugh along at the events unfolding before your eyes. Whereas The Casting told a simple, relatable tale with a sympathetic, moving narrator, Heavy Rain tells a melodramatic and at times nonsensical story, populated by some of the worst genre clichés imaginable. There’s a time and a place for genre melodrama, don’t get me wrong, but the pre-release advertising suggested something more real, more grounded. Everything that The Casting promised, Heavy Rain fails to deliver.

JIM

Prince Of Persia – The Sands of Time (Movie) Review

2010-06-18T08:22:00.002+01:00

A common complaint of Hollywood movies is that there is no originality. Every blockbuster is either based on a book, an older film, a television show, a toy or a video game. No new stories are ever told; just the same old clichés are thrown out again and again. But familiarity doesn’t always breed contempt. Sometimes, sitting in that big dark cinema, as you watch the hero save the girl and conquer the evildoers, there’s something deeply reassuring in seeing the same old tropes rolled out and given a fresh lick of CGI. And it’s exactly that feeling that is invoked when watching Prince of Persia – The Sands of Time, the new all action blockbuster from the production behemoth that is Jerry Bruckheimer (Officially; the film is actually directed by Mike Newell). There’s nothing new here whatsoever, but in this case that’s not a bad thing.

The plot of the film takes the key elements of the game (check out Alex’s review/retrospective on PoP - http://jadedmedia.blogspot.com/2010/05/prince-of-persia-forgotten-sands-review.html plug! plug!) then weaves its own story. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Prince Dastan, adopted son to the King of Persia. While out conquering the known world, on behalf of the aforementioned king, Dastan, his adopted brothers and the army of Gondor…. sorry Persia, invade the city of Alamut, on the pretence of looking for weapons of mass destruction. No, really. Unsurprisingly, there are none to be found; instead they discover a sacred dagger with some fancy carvings on and Gemma Arterton. Not a bad days work, I’d say. But the Persian King disagrees, ordering a search of the city to try to uncover these supposed weapons. However, before the UN search team can arrive, the King is murdered, Dastan is blamed, and so begins a rather lose remake of The Fugitive {1993 Dir. Andrew Davis}, with Jake Gyllenhaal, running from city to city, shouting “I didn’t kill my father” at anyone who will listen and displaying the kind of acrobatics that Harrison Ford, his stuntmen or even that dummy they threw down the waterfall couldn’t dream of attempting. Oh, and the dagger can turn back time – but I assume you probably guessed/knew that by now.

The finished film is a bizarre mix of performances. The majority of the smaller parts seem think they are in Kingdom of Heaven {2005 Dir. Ridley Scott}, making some large scale serious sand and swords epic. Someone obviously forgot to tell Alfred Molina however, as his crooked ostrich racing tsar (Again – No, Really) steals every scene he wanders into. Ben Kingsley is cast as the King’s brother, with a plot arc so predicable, he might as well have it tattooed across his forehead, but there’s nothing wrong with that in this kind of film. Gemma Arterton appears to be reprising her role from Clash of the Titans {2010 Dir. Louis Leterrier}. In fact, they might have just taken footage directly from Titans and added her in post production, so closely does her role follow that previous sandy blockbuster. Given his first action-man leading role, Jake Gyllenhaal acquits himself fairly well. He has certainly put the hours in the gym, building himself up to suitably herculean proportions and handles the standard running, jumping and fighting that’s required of him. However, he has no chemistry whatsoever with Arterton, which only lends further credence to my of post-production actress addition.

The free –running and platformin jumping of the games is well represented in the film, although it tends to suffer somewhat from close-ups and fast cuts which take away from the supposed mastery on show. We’ve been trained to assume that if a film uses these techniques, it’s because the actor cannot perform the actual movements required, but their face must be visible in every shot. A shame, as I personally am always happy to accept seeing a stunt person rather than the lead, so long as the actual stunt captures my attention. Anyone hoping to see any sequences here that are on a par with the opening chase in Casino Royale {2006 Dir. Martin Campbell} will be disappointed.

The use of the dagger is fairly predictable and somewhat disappointing. In the game, it was a critical element to solving puzzles – you try to make a jump, fail, re-wind time, and then try something different. I would have loved to see Dastan do this a few times in the movie, as he grew more confident in his abilities, and hence tried even more outlandish acrobatics, safe in the knowledge he could save himself. Sadly, the film chooses to portray him as a super-human acrobat from the get-go, with no real use for the time warping abilities given to him. In the opening fight, before he even finds the dagger, Dastan flings himself off a high perch, rope in hand and swings backwards through a window. Who needs the power of time, when you already have complete mastery over gravity?

Despite, or perhaps because of, all these flaws, Prince of Persia remains a good, old-fashioned Hollywood action romp. Every punch is delivered with the sound of an explosion, every sword clash with a crash of thunder. It’s a Saturday morning cartoon of a movie where only bad guys get hurt and everyone important lives happily ever after. The meshing of so many disparate elements just about hangs together, and like all the best Hollywood nonsense, it never slows down enough to give you time to start wondering about its increasingly convoluted plot (although even I had to ask at one point “Snow? WTF?”). It is total ‘leave your brain’ at the door entertainment, despite the frankly insulting attempt to reference the

Iraq

war, and all the better for it. Just don’t go in hoping for anything original.

JIM

Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review

2010-06-15T21:57:00.001+01:00

In the beginning, there was Super Mario Bros. on the NES, and it was good. Well, actually there were quite a few appearances by Mario (or Jumpman, as he was originally known) before then, but this was the real breakthrough game for him and his palette-swapped brother, Luigi. Instantly popular, the game spawned two sequels (one of which was not really a Mario game originally, but had him and the other characters pasted in to make it more popular- it worked, but the game was not great), ending with the system-straining Super Mario Bros. 3. As the SNES came along in 1994, Super Mario World was released as a launch game, and often included with the console. 96 levels large (if you found all of them) it was an epic feat of platform gaming, challenging yet accessible, and remains in my humble opinion one of the classic great games of all time.

After a few sequels on the SNES that experimented with slightly tweaked formats (e.g. Mario and Yoshi), he was ready for a move to the third dimension with the incredibly well received Super Mario 64, unsurprisingly on the N64. This game was hailed as a masterpiece and once again defined not just the platform genre but key elements of 3D gaming (such as the dynamic camera system) for years to come. Personally I was not a big fan of the game, but I am deeply in the minority here.

It was a long wait for the next Mario game, with no sequel on the N64. The next time the Italian plumber was seen (in his 'official' capacity anyway) was Super Mario Sunshine on the Gamecube, which was very well received but in my opinion a pretty uninspiring game that does not stand up to the test of time anywhere near as much as the other titles.

With the advent of the Wii, Nintendo had already thrown out most of the tropes and standards that we had previously associated with videogames, or at least turned them on their head. Super Mario Galaxy, released in 2007, had big shoes to fill. And fill them it did, once again redefining platform gaming and silencing a lot of naysayers who suggested that the Wii could only handle simple games, which, while accessible, lacked any sort of depth or lasting appeal. SMG was an absolute masterpiece, crammed full of every classic platform game theme, each given a new twist. It was expansive, entertaining, accessible and a lot of fun to play for kids and adults alike.

If Super Mario Galaxy 2 had just been more of the same, a lot of people would have been very pleased. In fact they have taken everything that made the first game great, tweaked and refined and polished it to a high sheen. It is one of greatest platform games I have ever played, only rivalled by its predecessor. I also hate it with a deep and smouldering rage unmatched by any game I have played in recent memory. I'm complex like that.

To start with the good side (and there's a lot of it), the level design in the game is nothing short of inspired. It could be that the success of previous Super Mario games put everyone else in the platforming business out of a job, so they all ended up working at Nintendo. That would certainly explain how they have managed to seamlessly combine the greatest elements of all that has gone before into a single package. Every time you think you have seen it all, the developers throw a new twist into the mix. Levels where the gravity switches at timed intervals, levels that fold like a popup book from 2D into 3D, levels where you flip from one axis to another, 3D platform sections, 2D platform sections, (simple) puzzles, time-slowing, lateral-thinking, vehicles (Yoshi), races, time-challenges, secrets and more. And every single one of them is executed perfectly.

There are new and familiar powerups, none of which feel shoehorned in or repeats of previous ones, and the presence of Yoshi (your friendly dinosaur steed) is a fresh addition that adds another dimension to the gameplay. You can also plays as Luigi on some levels (though this is, in almost all situations, a terrible idea, as we'll see later).

One of the few criticisms I had of the original SMG was the lack of variety in the boss battles, with you often facing the same style of enemy, if not exactly the same one, on multiple occasions. This has been addressed in the sequel, with a great and inventive selection of bosses to face, each seeming new to the franchise but fitting perfectly within the aesthetic, and with a nice variety of attacks and techniques required to dispatch them.

So what's to dislike about this game? Well, for one thing, it is ridiculously hard, even early on. The complexity and combination of actions required to get through some of the sections (not even necessarily boss sections) can be incredibly challenging. Either kids these days are a lot more adept than I was, or there is no way on Earth that anyone younger than a teenager will get far in this game before they throw their Wiimote through their TV (having already chewed through the wrist strap in annoyance).

Also, you will not finish this game easily. In the first SMG, you could get to the end with a minimal number of stars (or levels completed). In the sequel, you will need nearly every one available in order to progress, including some obtained by completing challenge levels that are very tight on their time limits.

One thing that they have persisted with from SMG is the lives system. There is absolutely no need to limit the gaming experience in such an arbitrary way any more. Since the system auto-saves after every level, and the number of continues is infinite, the only thing that limited lives contributes is a mild annoyance when a particularly difficult or awkward section defeats you and you have to navigate to and start that particular level again. Not a major issue, but a needless anachronism in this setting.

But all these are just minor niggles when compared with the brilliance of the game itself. The real, unforgivable irritant for me is the controls. When you attempt to move in the game, Mario will 'spin his wheels' a second before beginning to move, and when attempting to stop, will slide to a languid halt. This is even more pronounced when using Luigi, hence why it is more often than not an exercise in frustration to do so (especially on ice levels). You will find frequently that he will not move in the expected direction, not perform the appropriate action (for example actions such as 'skate forward on ice' and 'spin attack enemy' are both done in exactly the same way, which can lead to accidentally launching yourself off the edge of a level all too easily), jump in the wrong direction or with the wrong intensity, or simply by virtue of the injured animation spinning you off into oblivion, end up dying from a minor collision. Some of these problems are caused by the limited options of the Wii controller, but often they are also the result of unnecessary or unintuitive implementation of 2D controls in a 3D space, which could have been handled better.

In the final analysis, if you own a Wii, you owe it to yourself to get this game. It is the absolute pinnacle of platforming gaming, combining all the best parts of all that has gone before (admittedly mostly from previous Mario games, but also other platform classics like Banjo Kazooie) with new, expanded and ingenious elements added. But if you end up throwing your Wiimote on the floor and stamping it into the carpet in frustration, taking out the disc and smashing it into a million pieces in a vow never to play it again, I won't blame you.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Review

2010-06-14T09:46:00.001+01:00

It’s nice to see the US is not the only country that automatically turns best-selling books into movies. Or is it bad to see that the habits of the American film industry are infiltrating other countries? Either way, the UK recently saw the release of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or to give its original title Män som hatar kvinnor (Men who hate Women). Finally released here, around 18 months after its European debut, this Swedish thriller is an adaption of the first book in the best selling trilogy Millennium, by the reporter and author Stieg Larsson. Larsson died before any of his books were published so never saw the successes of his series – the books have become best-sellers across the world and won many major awards. Three films have already been completed, but the

(and US) are only just catching up. Without any surprise, a US remake has been announced, but for now, lets concentrate on what has, historically, always been the superior film – the foreign language original.

Mikael Blomkvist is an investigative reporter (allegedly somewhat autobiographical of Larsson) who loses a major libel case against a famous businessman. Sentenced to a short period in jail, Mikael resigns from his post at a magazine, so as not to implicate them in the scandal. While awaiting the start of his sentence, he is contacted by the mysterious aristocrat Henrik Vanger who asks him to investigate the disappearance and likely murder of his niece 40 years ago from the family island retreat. This amounts to the classical “locked room” scenario: How did someone get onto the island without being seen, kill the girl, remove all trace of the body and get out again. So far, so Agatha Christie/Colin Dexter/insert generic crime author.

What sets The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo apart is the 2^nd lead – assigned initially to investigate Mikael’s suitability to investigate the case, and later drawn into the actual case itself. Where as Mikael is a generic slovenly, middle-aged journalist, Lisbeth Salander is a wiry, punk computer hacker with anti-social tendencies and a history of abuse and violence. Oh, and Bi-Sexual. Mustn’t forget that. Fair to say, while perhaps attempting to tick every unconventional box available, Larsson has certainly created an original character. So we have a crime thriller, buddy movie – He’s a reporter, She’s a punk, together they fight crime? Basically yes. After some initial distrust, both work together to investigate the central mystery which, naturally, results in uncovering some family skeletons and a car chase.

It is this slightly bizarre mix of the mundane tropes and the pure shock tactic that runs throughout the film. The opening sequences cover Mikael’s slow introduction to the case, inter-cut with Lisbeth getting attacked and abused by both local gangs and her assigned guardian. The guardian’s 2nd attack and Lisbeth’s revenge are particularly disturbing and harrowing sequences of violence, which wouldn’t look out of place in the worst examples of torture-porn. Like such films, they appear to exist only to shock – following the revenge sequence, the guardian character disappears from the film completely and the events have no connection whatsoever in the core case. I’m told that this encounter is critical to later events in trilogy and if so, perhaps with hindsight they may have some merit. But in its standalone form, they simply exist to sicken. I can not imagine the publicity if a Tarantino film contained such unjustifiable sequences!

Somehow, against all odds, Noomi Rapace (the actress charged with bringing the caricature of Lisbeth to life) is fantastic. Always on edge, coiled ready to spring into violence, she steals the film away. A lesser actress would be full of ticks, trying to sell every moment, but Rapace is able to keep still and let her world-weary eyes do the talking. Her performances makes the earlier violent scenes even more pointless (if that’s possible) – she clearly has the skill to suggest far worse horrors with a simple phrase and a look than anything the extended abuse sequences can muster. Michael Nyqvist is given little to do as Mikael Blomkvist, but plays a suitably bland canvas to his more interesting fellow detective. An assortment of respectable actors fill out the extended Vanger family, helped primarily by the fact that most or all will probably be unknown to English speaking audiences, but none managed to stand out, given the generic “red herring” type roles required of them.

The director Niels Arden Oplev paints a beautiful bleak picture of the world of the Vangers and clearly has an eye for a stunning landscape. Sadly neither he nor the two credited screen writers seem to understand the pace requirements of film, resulting in a slow ambling middle section as discoveries are made and secrets revealed. The film has that inescapable feeling of a “book being filmed” rather than adapted – no plot step, no matter how minor, is missed. Perfect for a leisurely read over several weeks, flabby and slow for what should be a 100 minute movie (run time is listed at 152 mins).

The US remake is currently planned with David Fincher as director. He of Se7en fame seems well suited to such bleak material. At the time of writing, Daniel Craig is rumoured close to wining the role of Mikael Blomkvist. The actor who brought life into Bond will surely find something to enliven this role, but it will be a forlorn task unless serious work is done to keep the core narrative central and quicken the pace – something, despite their many weakness, US remakes can be strong at. Could “The Girl with the Yankee Tattoo” finally be the first US remake to surpass it foreign language parent? It doesn’t have far to reach, but, as with the original’s only saving grace, it will all hinge on the casting of Lisbeth Salander.

JIM

Bad Lieutenant Port of Call: New Orleans Review

2010-06-07T09:04:00.001+01:00

What to make of the latest film from acclaimed director, career wacko and air rifle attack survivor (seriously - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXqc8TQ15w ) Werner Herzog? The man has a history of doing the crazy – for example, he wrote and starred in the classic “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe” – made after Werner lost a bet. So when it was announced that Werner would enter the “remake/reimagining” business, by creating his own version of the early nineties shocker Bad Lieutenant, it sounds like a perfect match of man and material – didn’t it?

Now, Jaded Media is a site about opinions, so here’s one – the original Bad Lieutenant (1992, Director Abel Ferrara) is a terrible film. Drowning in Catholic symbolism, Harvey Keitel staggers across New York, from one scene of depravity to another. Each sequence attempts to one-up the previous one, but fails to achieve anything other than deep tedium. Unable to exhibit any emotions other than slightly grumpy or slightly confused, Keitel never managed to build interest in either his plight or the world around him. By the time old Harvey ends up in a church, hands spread in ‘Christ like’ forgiveness, is anyone still awake?

So, now we have the remake, with additional subscript “Port of Call – New Orleans”; which immediately signals something different. Say ‘New Orleans’ to someone and the first word to enter their mind is Katrina. Rightly so, given the devastation wrought both by the natural disaster itself, and the resulting response, or lack of it by the American Government. No film can now be made in New Orleans without reference (intended or otherwise) to this disaster, and the new Bad Lieutenant makes no attempt to shy away from this, opening the movie right in the middle of the catastrophe.

Werner claims never to have seen the original Bad Lieutenant (lucky sod), and it shows. Almost nothing has been transferred to the update. The Bad Lieutenant of Werner’s movie is Terence McDonagh. First introduced as a sergeant, Terence and his partner find a prisoner trapped in his cell, as the rising waters threaten to drown him. Terence jumps in to save him, but in the process, irreparably damages his back. The event results in both his promotion to Lieutenant, and a permanent prescription to pain killers. Cut to one year later, and Terrence, already taking cocaine in addition to more legal pain relief drugs, is called to investigate the murder of a Senegalese family. The resulting investigation provides the backdrop to Terrence’s inevitable downward spiral, as his addictions grow, his actions become more outlandish and his grasp of sanity starts to slip. The role of Terrence is, obviously, critical to the film – he’s literally in every scene. But, fortunately, Werner has an ace up his sleeve – one Nicolas Kim Coppola.

Nic Cage (as he is better known) is on a roll at the moment. His performance in Kick Ass would have been the major talking point of the movie, had a certain Hit Girl not blown everyone else off screen (and not just because of the tabloid-baiting swearing). And here, Nic is in his element. Sporting a Richard 3^rd style hunch, and a powerful screen presence, he commands attention at all times. No one working in Hollywood right now is able to match his over the top, crazed grandstanding - it compares favourable with Nineties Pacino (see Heat, The Devils Advocate, Any Given Sunday) for bug eyed , 100% pure ham. And here it fits perfectly. Cage manages the difficult feat of measuring his performance through the film. Starting (relatively) controlled and low key, it escalates beautifully until he’s screaming at dead bodies because “their soul is still dancing”.

Surrounding Cage is an interesting and highly variable cast. Eva Mendes (looking stunning, given little to do), Val Kilmer (looking fat, given little to do) and Brad Dourif (looking weird, given little to do) all provide ample support in limited screen time. It also great to see “The Craft” alumnus Fairuza Balk can still get work. Unfortunately, the lead gangster and prime suspect is played by the rapper Xzibit. Putting rappers in movies is never a good idea; at best you’ll get a one note performance as is the case here, or in Three Kings (with Ice Cube). At worst, you get Snoop Dogg. Having said all that, I suspect Werner is playing a little game with us here. Putting someone as completely uncharismatic as Xzibit on screen next to the raving Nic Cage certainly gives quite the contrast.

But ultimately, what is Werner trying to say? Why has he chosen to make this film? Is this a simple morality play about the danger of drugs? Hardly; they look kinda fun. Is it the classic fable of a good man brought down by his own weaknesses? Terrence’s Good Samaritan act is certainly the catalyst of all his troubles. Perhaps Werner is trying to say something about the city of New Orleans and its potential future. Terrence is crippled by the events of Katrina. He never physically recovers, slipping further and further into a spiral of drugs and violence. Even after some of the miraculous third act events that turn his life around, he is still in a mess and will never truly be whole again. Is this Werner’s key thesis?

Or maybe It’s just crazy to try to make sense of Werner’s World? A world I’m more than happy to spend 2 hours in.

Fun little game – now we have two Bad Lieutenants, lets make a franchise;

What other potential Bad Lieutenants features are out there?

- Port of Call: London, directed by Guy Ritchie?

- Port of Call: Gondor, directed by Peter Jackson?

- Port of Call: Mos Eisley….

Play along at home (or in the comments section)

JIM

Welcome Jim!

2010-06-07T09:02:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone,

Please join me in welcoming Jim Lee to Jaded Media as a guest contributer. Jim will be contributing film and PS3 reviews from time to time, as well as some top secret things we have planned for the coming months. His first review will be up in just a second, with hopefully more to come soon.

Darksiders Review

2010-06-04T20:54:00.001+01:00

I know Darksiders has been out for a while now, but it seems to have been overlooked by a lot of people and you can currently get it super cheap (sub £15 at play.com right now), so I thought I'd give it a bit of attention.

Recently I mentioned how Alan Wake shamelessly ripped off other games and media in crafting its experience, but I could forgive it because it did it well. Darksiders takes this concept one step further, by stealing ideas from some of the most successful games of recent years and bundling them all up in a stylish and slightly gratuitous 3rd-person brawler.

Simply expressed, the gameplay is a cross between God of War and Zelda (any of them after A Link to the Past, since they're all the same game these days), starring you as War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (yes, they even stole ideas from the bible), slashing, stabbing, shooting, boomeranging, time-slowing, hookshotting and portal-slinging your way through the legions of Heaven and Hell in order to stop an endtimes clerical error that led to humanity being wiped out and naughty demons running amok. If that sounds incredibly derivative, well it is. This game puts Alan Wake to shame in terms of the number of things it rips off (and I do mean rips off, not 'inspired by' or 'influenced by' but lifts shamelessly). Fortunately, it's also brilliant fun.

Even though the Heaven/Hell battle theme, as well as everything else in this game, is rather clichéd, it is really well executed, both in terms of graphics and gameplay. This could be because the game is based on a comic, which, in an inverse 'movies based on videogames' logic, seems to feed it with a fleshed out and rich universe of distinct character designs, locations and progression.

Your main weapon is the obligatory enormous sword, in this case called 'Chaoseater'- an example of something that is fine in comics but sounds faintly ridiculous in games, and you can pull off comically over-the-top visceral combos with simple one or two button combinations, which blend ease of use and flexibility perfectly for both casual and more serious gamers. Aside from some forced 'arena' style sections that feel a bit like needless padding, the fighting manages to stay fresh and entertaining, including nicely trickier but intuitive boss battles.

Even the sheer volume of add-on weaponry you pick up manages not to clutter the playing experience, but rather keep the experience interesting as you progress through the various different areas, removing hearts from boss guardians to feed to a demon so he'll help you get to the tower where the arch demon who screwed you over and started this whole mess is holed up. Oh right, did I not mention that? Yeah, since you showed up to ref the apocalypse early, the powers that be stripped you of your powers and your only chance to get them back is to kill the demon who's really responsible for the whole thing, which involves making deals with lesser demons, fighting Norse Gods, angels, giant bat things and more.

You might think that this many different things crammed into one game (and I have barely mentioned half of them) would either mean it's really muddled or very short, but probably the biggest surprise in this game is that it manages to maintain a clear and interesting path and narrative for a healthy chunk of time, without slipping into being repetitive or tedious.

It's by no means the most original game in the world (in fact, it may well be the least original game in the world), but it's well executed, stupid fun that stays that way way beyond £15 worth of playing time. So go buy it.

Alan Wake Review

2010-06-03T18:16:00.001+01:00

Recently a new 'psychological action thriller' was released exclusively onto the 360, made by Scandinavian developer Remedy and published by Microsoft Game Studios. Usually any platform-specific title such as this will bring crowing fanboys out of the woodwork, claiming how it clearly demonstrates the superiority of the console in question (see the ridiculous over-hyping of Heavy Rain on the PS3). Just as often, the title will turn out be an average game with a couple of unique twists, but ultimately nothing special (once again, Heavy Rain).

Alan Wake follows the story of the titular character, a writer with a serious case of writer's block, going on holiday with his wife, only to find that there are sinister forces lurking in the dark, which kidnap her and plunge him into a desperate struggle to understand what is going on, and set things right, battling townsfolk possessed by the sinister shadows along the way.

It's clear from the off that the developers are very proud of the story they have put together, and it's equally clear that they think namechecking the things they're ripping off means that we won't hold it against them. Considering it's taken them eight years to develop the game, you'd think they might have come up with a story a bit more original than a shameless mashup of Twin Peaks and Stephen King, with a little bit of Lost thrown in for good measure. This isn't to say it's bad- in fact, for a video game it's one of the more interesting premises I've seen in quite a while, but then story in a video game is like a dog that can do tricks- it's novel, it enhances the overall package, but if underneath all that the dog is retarded, you won't take it home.

'Story-led' games often sacrifice gameplay for actually paying decent writers, but fortunately in Alan Wake, the story is backed up by some similarly novel, if similarly hybrid, gameplay. Most of the time you will be wandering through dark and eerie forest, using your flashlight to 'burn off' the demonic cloud protecting the possessed townsfolk, and then dealing with them in a more traditional way. It's like a cross between Resident Evil 4/5, Alone in the Dark and Luigi's Mansion, and it works well.

Atmosphere is the real strong point of Alan Wake, and it's clear that a lot of time has been put into getting the spookiness of the forest just right, and I must say it's done perfectly. There are creepy parts, jump scares and a sustained menace to the play environment that does its Twin Peaks roots proud.

It's a shame then that the game occasionally ruins this by shoehorning in ridiculous advertising. I can understand- the game has been in development for eight years, so by my calculation if everyone with a 360 bought this game twice, Remedy still probably wouldn't make their money back. If sticking Verizon billboards all over the place, dropping hundreds of packets of Energizer brand Lithium batteries around the game world and giving the player an achievement FOR WATCHING ADS FOR THESE PRODUCTS ON AN IN-GAME TV allows them to stay open, I'll let it slide.

The really unforgiveable thing about Alan Wake is the terrible character models and lip synching. I'm not someone who prizes graphics over gameplay, but so much of the game world is so beautifully executed, it's really jarring to come across character models that look like half-melted mannequins, whose mouths move about as convincingly. Even the main character looks bizarre, as if the writers wanted him to look like Stephen King (middle aged, mid-length greying hair, leather elbow patches), then the marketing guys decided that gamers wouldn't be able to relate to that, so they turned the tweed jacket into a hoodie (but kept the leather elbow patches) and added a wisecracking (i.e. annoying) sidekick.

Though not the longest game in the world, clocking in at about six to eight hours, this is an example where the length of the experience perfectly matches the content. The game is divided into chapters, with a brief précis of the events up to that point before each one (Lost, for those of you playing 'Ripoff Bingo'). It's another needless novelty, but since there are only six of them, it doesn't happen often enough to be annoying. The same could be said of the core gameplay mechanics, which work well with the pace and length of the game, but would probably get old if it went on much longer, especially considering you can finish the whole game with little more than your flashlight, the first weapon you get and the odd flare.

So it's derivative (but of good source material), it's short (but the perfect length for the story), the gameplay is formulaic (but novel, and well executed), and the characters look awful (but...no, I got nothing). I would normally say it's one to rent rather than to buy, but come on, those guys at Remedy REALLY need the money; you won't see a better story or atmosphere in a game for quite some time, even if it is all stolen from someone else.

Red Dead Redemption Review

2010-05-29T16:29:00.002+01:00

Everybody knows Rockstar Games. Seriously, everybody. Thanks to the Grand Theft Auto series, The Sun newspaper knows Rockstar Games. The American Supreme Court knows Rockstar Games. This is a company so influential in modern video gaming that they convinced millions, millions mind you, that not only was it a good idea to buy a table tennis game, but that the game itself was also not a complete pile of donkey testicles. They could polish a turd (case in point, GTA: San Andreas) and sell it at a profit.

So when I say that Rockstar's 2004 3rd-person western-themed shooter Red Dead Revolver was not very successful, I am of course talking in comparative terms. Western games have long been a strange anomaly in the world of video games, in that there has never really been one that has been any good. This in itself is not rare: there has never been, for example, a track sport event game that has been any good (no, Track and Field was not good). What's odd is that almost every other movie genre has translated well to video games- sci-fi, horror, thriller, epic, even romantic comedy (if you're Japanese, and liberal with the interpretation), but not Westerns. On paper they tick all the right boxes for setting a game there- guns, lawlessness, adventure, sex, gambling, wacky prospectors, frontier stories of isolation, desperation and heroism, and yet they never make for good gaming experiences: Call of Juarez, GUN, Blood, Dead Man's Hand, Desperadoes, the list goes on.

If there was ever going to be a decent Western game produced, only one developer has the muscle (and the arrogance) to attempt it, and thus we have Red Dead Redemption, or GTA: Wild West as it might as well be known.

You play John Marston, a former criminal now working for the government tracking down the gang he used to work with in order to bring them to justice so you can go back to your quiet life of living on a farm with your wife and child, where you have presumably been for the last 6 years not being in a video game. Supposedly everything you do in the game is in order to get closer to catching or killing your former gang buddies, but in reality this is just a thin excuse to let you bugger about in the old west doing odd jobs for various folk and trying your hardest to make as many species of wild animal extinct as possible, which is fine by me.

I might tip my hand here, but the first few hours of this game are some of the most engaging fun I have had in a game in quite some time. Learning how the controls work doesn't take long (although shooting from a moving horse is clumsily implemented), and the story moves along at a healthy pace, with a good mix between cutscenes and in-game dialogue keeping things interesting.

Since this is a western, you'll be riding around a lot on your horse, so it's fortunate that this has been quite well handled. Aside from a requirement to hold down the A button to keep pace with another rider (why can't this be a toggle?), you only need to jab at A to speed your horse up every now and then, which I think just manages to stay on the side of involving rather than irritating.

As for the missions, well you don't have the range of choice offered by a GTA game. Here you'll usually have a choice of two possible 'story' missions to pursue at any one time, usually at opposite ends of the playing area. The missions themselves are more diverse than GTA though, including cattle herding, horse wrangling, train protecting and more. It was nice to see some thought put into these, but they are all very easy to complete - it is unlikely you will need to restart many.

Aside from story missions, there are three main things to do in RDR; play minigames, do a job or carry out a mission for a stranger you happen to stumble across.

The minigames are mostly gambling themed, with Poker, Liar's Dice and Blackjack available, but also horseshoe throwing too (which sucks).

The jobs are things like night watchman in a town, following the guard dog to catch thieves and troublemakers, or breaking in wild horses at a ranch. Both are fine, but you'll only really do them every now and then for a bit of a change.

As you ride around the countryside, you may encounter strangers who will give you missions as well, which are usually a bit more interesting than the minigames or jobs (though some are still tedious fetch quests), but you will also come across random events happening, such as someone being robbed or needing your help to catch criminals. These are a nice idea in principal but in practice can be one of the most annoying parts of the game: often you cannot tell who is the enemy and who you should be helping, and by the time you have figured it out, you've been killed. Far too often I have hit LT to unholster my weapon, only to realise that for some reason it is set to the wrong weapon, and I end up literally bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Although you can save anywhere on your travels, these encounters are random in nature, so unless you stop every couple of minutes to set up camp and save, you will likely end up transported back to your last save, a good 10 minute ride away. The 'save anywhere' and fast travel features help with this, but they're addressing the symptom, not the cause.

In contrast to the new Prince of Persia game, I think the biggest issue I have with RDR is that it feels padded. After the first five or six hours, everything feels like it is just treading water, and you're being run from one end of the countryside to another for no reason other than to kill time (the same reason you'll sit for 30 minutes playing poker). The sandbox style doesn't help in this case- sandboxes are great when there are lots of things to see and do round every corner, where you can make up your own games within the game world (surely everybody played 'how long can I avoid the police while running people over' in GTA?) but, try as they might with the random encounters and wilderness challenges, you can't do that here. It's pretty, it's expansive and it's interesting, but only for a few hours, and I can't help but feel it would have been a better game with a little more focus and a little less freedom.

Overall, is it a good game? Yes. It's better than GTA 4 and the first few hours are a lot of fun. It peters out a bit after that, but still well worth a look.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Review

2010-05-29T14:26:00.004+01:00

There was a new Prince of Persia game out recently, and this gives me the opportunity to wax nostalgic a little about past PoP games good and bad. We'll get to the review, but first, if you'll indulge me, let's travel back in time a little (see what I did there?) and look at how we arrived at this point.

If you don't know the story here, way back in 1989, a guy called Jordan Mechner made a game called Prince of Persia. It was a side-scrolling platform game, which involved you, as the suitably garbed Arabian-Nights style Prince, avoiding traps by precise jumping, and fighting guys with a big curvy sword. It was really hard, and you only had one hour to finish the whole game (starting from scratch each time). That was pretty much it. The most remarkable thing about PoP was the animation. Bear in mind this was back in the heyday of the Amiga, where there was no such thing as motion capture or even 3D graphics games (in anything but the most rudimentary sense). PoP's protagonist had many more frames of animation than his contemporaries (think Sonic et al.) due to being rotoscoped, and so comparatively moved in such a lifelike way, that it blew my tiny mind at the time. A couple of sequels followed, as well as a few spiritual successors such as Flashback and Fade to Black, and then all went quiet.

Then, around 2003, Ubisoft released a new game called Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. It was one of (if not the) first games to use a fluid free-running style game mechanic, and remains one of the few to do this really well, neither slowing you down (I'm looking at you, The Saboteur) or making it feel like you were just pushing the same button marked 'do something awesome' regardless of the circumstance (shown most in the 2008 PoP reboot). The finest achievement of this game was to put you in a room with one (and only one) possible solution, involving swinging off bars and running up walls, and make you feel smart for figuring it out. It felt fun, fast and the writing, story and general Arabian aesthetic really stood out. As if that wasn't enough, the game contained the perfect game mechanic to solve the annoyance this sort of 'leap of faith' gameplay can sometimes inspire; a magical dagger that allowed you to reverse time, plucking the Prince out of that pit of spikes you accidentally leapt into, knitting his spine back together on the way. This time control mechanic has been absolutely done to death since, but never better (with the possible exception of Braid). It wasn't all good- the combat was terrible, repetitive and tedious, but not enough to stop this being a fantastic game. It was so good, I finished it twice, searching out every hidden extra along the way.

On the back of SoT's success, a trilogy was proudly announced, and the next installment, PoP: Warrior Within followed shortly after. Having had such great success with the subtle characterisation, arabian theme and time-manipulating acrobatics of the first game, Ubisoft naturally chose to focus the second game all around the shoddy combat sections, switch out the eastern music for angsty nu-metal style toss, dumb down all the characters and make the protagonist into a generic badass devoid of any sort of personality. In the spirit of 'a picture tells a thousand words', here's the cover art for PoP:SoT-

Domes, character mid-jump, colour, sunset in the background, reflection of enigmatic and sinister bad guy in the blade of a traditional scimitar. Holy shit, if I buy this game I fully intend to be leaping off walls brandishing a huge sword and fighting spooky evil dudes to a middle-eastern backdrop! Awesome!

And here's the cover for the sequel:

Sneer, no movement, crappy tribal arm tattoo, almost no colour (unless you count black, the colour of emo boy here's pain), a blurry, nondescript background, and, because you have to have more of everything in a sequel, two ridiculous-looking swords. If I buy this game, I will play a big angry dude who glowers at people and has two swords.

Unfortunately, even this blasphemy proved popular enough to churn out one more poor-quality sequel, where they tried to satisfy fans of SoT and WW and succeeded in doing neither. Never ones to let a franchise die, Ubisoft released another Prince of Persia (this time no subtitle) in 2008, ignoring all the story that had gone before and starting again. A reasonable effort, and certainly above the earlier sequels in terms of aesthetic (cel-shaded, colourful), but as mentioned earlier, the mechanics were so simplified as to make the act of running along the ceiling, leaping to and swinging off a flagpole, then jumping wall to wall up a 30ft building actually seem boring. Playing this game felt like the prince wanted to dance for you, but you had to keep poking the B button to give him the confidence to continue. In addition to this, the dialogue was full of smart-arse 'jokes' and wisecracking that, when coupled with some of the world's worst voice acting (no mean feat in the notoriously bad world of videogame voice acting). The game sold ok, but there were no sequels this time. Ubisoft had one more trick up their sleeve though.

And so we come, at last, to the new Prince of Persia. Or possibly the old Prince of Persia, depending on your point of view. This time, instead of palming development off on some inexperienced team to churn out a sequel (as Ubisoft seem to do quite a lot), they have persuaded the original team from PoP:SoT to come back and develop this latest instalment, and it really shows. No doubt some of the original team have moved on, but the spirit of SoT has definitely survived through to this version, aptly titled The Forgotten Sands.

The story takes place after the original SoT game (but before the sequels), with the prince visiting his brother Malik's palace, just as it is under attack. Facing a mighty invading force, and not doing too well, Malik decides to unleash his secret weapon, Solomon's Army, despite not knowing exactly what it is. Well, as it turns out, it is not a good thing, and pretty soon, not only have the invading army retreated, but everyone else has been turned to sand or killed. Sort of a pyrrhic victory, you might say.

It's up to the prince to reunite the seal containing the army, one half of which he has, and the other half his brother holds. Unfortunately, his brother is reluctant to give it up, so the prince must fight his way through (literally) thousands of sand soldiers to get it back, with the help of Razia, a Djinn who grants him special powers to help him achieve this, including the obligatory time control, but also a selection of element-based upgrades along the way.

From the off, this game does a whole lot of things right. The character design is colourful without seeming ridiculous, the levels are rooted in an arabian aesthetic, and the story and voice work is involving and well executed, without ever getting in the way.

Level design is a return to the original SoT balance between challenging and logical- there are rarely any moments where you're unsure how to proceed, and the emphasis has once again been placed on the experience of getting from A to B, rather than it being an annoying set of timed button presses between fights.

Wisely, time control has almost been pushed into the background as a game mechanic, with the developers realising that this alone is not enough to sell the game any more. Your time slots, representing the amount of 'do overs' you get if you screw up, can now also be sacrificed to activate combat powerups such as stone armour, which are achieved by collecting XP from fallen foes and investing in a simple upgrade tree, an unnecessary addition perhaps, but one that doesn't get in the way of the gameplay.

The greatest gameplay addition in the new PoP is the ability to control water. For the first time the prince can hold the left bumper to freeze water in place as it cascades from the many broken pipes around the castle and use it like a pole or column to swing or climb on, or leave it flowing to pass straight through, a technique that quickly becomes vital as the game goes on until, near the end of the game, this requires some pleasantly-challengingly timing to get right. It's this addition that really brings back the 'aha!' factor from the first game; just as before there's only one way to get where you need to go, but it feels satisfying to figure out the combination of freeze/jump/unfreeze to get you there.

Unfortunately, with the return of everything good from SoT, we also have the unwelcome return of tedious, one button combat, which is never really alleviated by the addition of the elemental powerups. This time round, in what I am sure was somebody's idea of an impressive addition, you will fight 30+ enemies on screen at the same time. There are a sum total of perhaps 10 different types, of which 90% will be either identical standard sand soldiers or identical slightly bigger sand soldiers. These enemies all have a ridiculously slow attack time, raising their sword above their head and then waiting about five seconds for you to get out of the way before swinging it down. This is not to say you will not get hit- just that it will happen more as a consequence of trying to take on 15 enemies at once than a failing in 1 on 1 combat. You will, in fact, get hit a lot, but rarely if ever will you face a horde capable of actually killing you as long as you keep dodging. Perhaps its because of this that the combat always seems like it's getting in the way of the adventure, and I can't see anyone actually enjoying this part of the game- it feels like something that has been forced into the experience (for understandable, if disappointingly commercial reasons) rather than something the developers wanted to do.

As if to highlight this, and perhaps make the point that, aside from maybe a boss battle here or there, you really don't need combat in a PoP game, there are often sections (usually at the start of a new area) where you face only the automated traps of the castle itself, which are both more entertaining, more challenging and more interesting than any of the combat sections in the game. A very bold move for the next game would be to remove the enemy combat altogether, or pare it down to a few one on one (or one on five at most) scuffles where you could concentrate on environmental effects or a more involved fighting system, rather than repetitive button mashing against a constant stream of cookie cutter bad guys, but I digress.

The new PoP is not a long game either. My first playthrough clocked in at about 7 hours, and I wasn't rushing through particularly. In terms of what they do with that time, I didn't feel short changed, but at £40 it's something to bear in mind. You can choose to play through again, preserving your purchased upgrades from the first time (you won't earn enough XP to get them all on your first go). Unfortunately, because the only benefits you carry through are the combat upgrades (i.e. my least favourite part of the game), there's no real reason for me to rush back for another go. Perhaps if there were things like different weapons to collect that might change the core experience on subsequent playthroughs, or areas that could only be reached by a certain ability acquired later in the game, or even a 'hard' difficulty setting, it would be worth it, but as it stands I don't think the novelty of going through the game dressed as Ezio from Assassin's Creed 2 (which you can only unlock with a Ubisfot Uplay account anyway) is going to be enough to make me go back.

So that's my review of PoP: TFS. Worth a purchase, either now if you're flush or when it comes down in price if you're not, or definitely worth a rental. Characters, gameplay and story are back centre stage where they belong, combat still sucks but not enough to ruin it, and it's a little bit short. This is a franchise that is now firmly back on track; fans of the first PoP: Sands of Time game will not be disappointed, and fans of the later PoP games have no taste and can fuck off.

Jaded Media is born!

2010-05-29T11:45:00.001+01:00

Hello anyone who might be interested. On the back of a suggestion made by my good friend and filmmaking partner J-P many months ago, I thought I'd start a blog talking about movies I have seen, or games that I have played recently. I know there are a lot of people chipping in their two cents on these topics all over the internet, but lately I have found there have been some big releases in both worlds where my opinion has not matched that of most reviews I have read.

I can't promise I'll review everything, and on the games front I'll probably stick to xBox 360 or occasional Wii games (because I don't have a PS3 - if anyone wants to step up and do these, you're more than welcome), but I can promise I'll be honest. You might not agree with me all the time, but that's ok too - personally I think that the majority of reviews these days are barely contained adverts anyway (certainly on the gaming side), so it's more about letting you know what it's like, giving you my opinion, then letting you make up your own mind.

You might ask yourself what makes me qualified to do this? Well, nothing really. I have seen a lot of movies (at one point I had more than 750 in my collection, though it has now been pared down for space considerations), and I have played a lot of videogames in my time, on everything from the Atari 2600 right up to the latest machines, including some interesting diversions along the way, such as having my own 6-button Streetfighter 2 arcade machine (RIP).

Hopefully you'll find the reviews interesting, useful or funny, and if people read them, then I'll try to keep doing them. Please feel free to let me know what you think in the comments after each post.