No spoilers, honest!

A sequel to one of my favourite movies of the past 5 years was always going to be pretty high on my "Must See" list - the first movie was great fun and just plain entertaining from start to finish.  It was both a terrific movie and a great origin story from which to build up the myth and begin the road towards the Avengers in 2012.  This second one is also very entertaining but doesn't quite hit all the high notes of the original IMHO.

Sequels always seem to have to "one-up" the original, which usually for comic-book movies means cramming in as many bad-guys as possible.  Thankfully that isn't really the case here.  You have Mickey Rourke's Ivan Vanko, aka Whiplash, a man out on a revenge trip following the death of his father who helped Howard Stark (Tony's father) design the reactor which Tony subsequently miniaturised.  Ivan's father dies a drunken failure, and Ivan is out for revenge, leading to a spectacular sequence at Monaco during a motor race.

Also we have a couple of more realistically human antagonists - Justin Hammer (the brilliant Sam Rockwell) who just really wants to be Tony Stark in every way but cannot pull off the playboy act anywhere near as convincingly.  Garry Shandling also turns up as Senator Stern... boy he's really put some weight on!  Cannot say the same for Scarlett Johannsen though... wow, just... wow!  As Tony says, "Can I have one?".

Robert Downey Jr once again steals the show, and I suspect a good portion of the film is improvised dialogue as with the first.  This does mean that it can be a little hard to follow and pick out the wheat from the chaff as RDJ is babbling on to himself a good portion of the time.  It's very funny to watch however, you just have to pay attention and hopefully not have a twat sitting behind you who insists on narrating the film as well...

Finally a word about the special effects - absolutely top-drawer.  The single complaint I had about the second Hulk movie (with Ed Norton) was that I lost interest when the two monsters started throwing cars at each other, it lost me and lost all I had invested in the plot and characters.  No such problem here - the final act is terrific and I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.  Nothing looked stupid or fake, and the action was well directed enough to not cause my eyes to bleed, unlike say the first Transformers movie whose action I just found it impossible to follow.

All in all a great fun action film.  As I said, I didn't quite think it was as good as the first, but that is a high bar to reach again.  It keeps me interested in the upcoming Thor, Captain America and Avengers movies too - particularly now Joss Whedon is getting involved.  Oh, speaking of the upcoming films, you should stay until the end of the credits if you have any interest at all in where this series is going.

8.5 / 10

Tags: awesome, comics, geek, movies, reviews, robots, suoerheroes
Categories: Comics | Geek | Movies | Reviews

I thought I'd focus on a couple of games for a change, as I haven't really touched on gaming here on the blog.  I'm not much of a gamer, I have a good spec PC and a PS3 but don't spend very much time on either in a gaming capacity.  What few games I do play are normally older titles and I take my time with them.  I'm not in the habit of rushing out to the shops on launch day to get something only to finish it later that day.  However, occasionally there are things that pique my interest and convince me to open my wallet for a title as soon as it's available.  Just so happens there are a couple of those this month.

Split/Second
I do like racing games.  I'm not the best at FPS on PC and downright rubbish at them on console - just cannot do the shooting thing with a joypad, but I guess that is down to lack of practice.  Anyway, Burnout has always been a favourite of mine, and this looks like a natural successor.  It's from the developers of a game called "Pure" which I have still to check out.  I played the demo on a friend's 360 the other evening and it seems very promising - it was a bit slow and the handling a little sluggish but I assumed 1) It's a demo and 2) gotta be an early introductory level.  Didn't put me off at all.  Here's some footage:

 

Prince of Persia - The Forgotten Sands
I loved and finished "Sands of Time", really enjoyed but got stuck on "Warrior Within", and own but still haven't played the last eponymous "Prince of Persia" title.  I was a bit put off by the "no death" scenario from that one, but having been assured that it's very good I do want to get around to trying it - I've owned it since January 2009 for pete's sake!  Told you I wasn't an active gamer...  Anyway, this seems more like a return to form - here's a preview.

 

Now, this isn't really my thing but looks cool anyway - Mechwarrior!!!  Big armoured walking tanks blowing the crap out of other big armoured walking tanks.  I remember the original versions and this definitely looks the business compared to those.

 

For all old-school Mechwarrior fans, the free version of Mechwarrior 4 is now available for download, but the site seems to have been flattened by traffic at the moment

 

Tags: games, robots, trailer, want, weapons
Categories: Games | trailers | want

I should prefix this by saying there are a few minor spoilers if you haven't seen the movie, but nothing that will completely come as a surprise or ruin a first viewing.

I held off seeing Avatar until almost a month after it's release for a few reasons.  Main one was I've become much more hype averse over the past 5 years or so, seemingly my brain has caught up to the notion that it's usually in the media's interest to go on and on and on about something even (or sometimes especially) when it's below par.  Secondly, after my original thoughts when the trailer came out I was waiting to see if it did actually fall on it's arse.

It didn't.  Guess that told me, eh?

I'm very, very glad I saw it in IMax 3D.  This is really the way the film is supposed to be seen, and I really cannot knock the design or execution of the effects at all.  It is genuinely mind-blowing at times.  I did have a problem with the 3D at the very start and in the initial sequences in the base, every object seemed to be demanding attention from my eyes and it was quite tricky to follow things at first.  This did change a lot in the forest, and the effects really come to life (excuse the pun) there.  The plant life is astonishing both in design and look, and the 3D really works perfectly.  Best examples are the anenome-like creatures floating around, and the ash falling in the aftermath of the first major battle.  Beautiful.

We are so close now to having digital actors it's untrue - many, many times during the film it seemed that Zoe Saldana's Neytiri was just her wearing prosthetics and makeup, it looked that good.  They've fixed the dead-eye problem too.  I did feel that the other Na'vi weren't quite as good but that is to be expected I suppose as even a $500m movie has to constrain somewhere.  Sigourney Weaver's avatar looked spookily like her but this meant that it looked to me like more of a caricature rather than a believable creature.

Being able to achieve all of these remarkable effects is the very reason James Cameron waited 14 years from original idea to finally being able to realise his vision.  It sure as hell can't have taken 14 years to put the story together - in fact I would love to see the original idea notes for the film from way back then as I would be surprised if it wasn't a massively different plot, certainly not the bundle of old ideas he's put together here.  It seems as if in the past decade spent filming in remote areas and underwater JC has developed a healthy respect for the Earth but also a massive loathing of humankind.  It's fair enough to produce a film dealing with environmental issues and taking a swipe at the blood-for-oil mentality, but it is another to try and pass it off as something original by wrapping it up in (admittedly astonishing) special effects.  It felt at times as if the film was just a big 3D shovel with "Humans Bad, Nature Good" written on it, hitting me in the face.

There are enough posts on the web pulling the plot apart and showing that it's just a rehash of "Pocahontas", "Dances with Wolves", "Fern Gully" and so on, so I'm not going to bother with all that.  I will say I found the story very predictable at every stage - not once did I think "wow, really didn't see that coming", everything from Jake being accepted into the tribe, to getting the girl (and how he did it), to what came thundering out of the forest to finally see off the troops at the end of the battle.  The "Noble Savage" thing has been done to death, but in this the Na'vi were just protrayed as SO GOOD it was untrue - even when it became clear to the main Big Warrior Na'vi that this fake half-breed thing was going to take his bird he didn't do anything about it!  No demands of a fight to the death or anything!  Then when all the tribes (which had only been vaguely mentioned once in passing until then) were visited there was not a hint of any bad-blood between them.  What are the chances of that?  Even if you look at untouched tribes on Earth that's not realistic, they're still animals for pete's sake.  Or is it just me being cynical?  The people who feel suicidal that they can't go and actually live on Pandora would probably disagree with me, I'm sure...

Obviously people go to see films for different reasons, some just want a firework show which they go back to see again and again because it's so pretty, but I like to think back a week, month, year later and think "That film was just great, the character of xxxx was so great", and remembering dialogue or set-pieces.  I've thought almost nothing about Avatar at all over the past week except for today when getting ready to write this.  It's mostly gone from my mind already, which is a real shame for something that is actually an important moment in cinema.

Still, I didn't actually pay for the ticket, and I can't complain about losing 3 hours of my life or anything.  I think people should go and see it, but only in the way it was intended.  I doubt I'll see it again, and definitely won't be getting the Blu-Ray.  That just won't work until we have 3D TV - I'm kind of reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer quits drinking and tries to watch a baseball game while sober, "I never realised how boring this game is...".

Anyway, I'd like to see the following things happen next:

1 - It should clean up the tech awards at the Oscars, but definitely NOT get anywhere near the Best Film award.
2 - JC makes "Battle Angel Alita" next before (or instead of) 2 more Avatar sequels as he has threatened.
3 - Give David Fincher the money and this technology for him to go and take another run at "Rendezvous with Rama".  That story actually deserves the treatment
4 - Keep Michael Bay and Roland Emerich the hell away from this tech, on pain of death.  At least Cameron knows how to direct an action scene.

8/10 in IMax 3D.  5/10 if I'd seen it in 2D or on DVD.

Tags: awesome, fincher, geek, movies, opinion, rant, reviews, robots, sci-fi, space, spoilers, weapons, tech
Categories: Geek | Movies | Opinion | rant | Reviews | Sci-Fi | spoilers | tech

When a massive alien spaceship stops over Johannesburg, South Africa, the occupants have to live somewhere... That somewhere is the slum known as District 9.  The citizens of Johannesburg don't want them there, and after 20 years of trouble turning to rioting it is decided that they should be moved 240km outside the city.

Easier said than done.

Wikus van der Merwe is the civil servant charged with organising the move on District 9, taking a team of other civil servants and armed police officers into D9 to issue eviction notices.  This is all filmed in a documentary style reminiscent of "Cloverfield", but also containing "behind the scenes" comments from people so much like an uncut documentary I suppose.  It's amusing at first but then quickly becomes distubing seeing how the aliens are treated as scum, not even "second class citizens" but as objects of derision and hatred - they are referred to constantly as "prawns", even to their faces. The officers are quick to shoot first and ask questions later.  Wikus is a lively, friendly man but when things start to go wrong all that quickly changes.

I'm not going to go much deeper into the details as that would provide spoilers and you should really avoid them for this film - I'm certainly glad I did.  The movie is continually surprising, even when it treads down paths that for other films might be seen as cliche or obvious ideas, it manages to pull them off.  I found very little to dislike, the pacing is spot on and considering the $30m dollar budget the effects are extraordinary.  I believe that Neill Blomkamp was previously involved in SFX work, so knows exactly what will work on camera and look real in this dirty and gritty environment.  No shiny CGI work here.  The creature effects are very good, only occasionally making you see the aliens as "just CGI" - everything feels real.

The film style does change about a third of the way through, moving from documentary style to a more traditional narrative, but the film is then occasionally spliced with news footage and short snippets of other broadcasts so the style never totally goes away and hence the flim doesn't suddenly feel disjointed.  It all works very well and gives a unique slant to the project.

While not being preachy at all, District 9 manages to deliver a hard-hitting social commentary, obviously stemming from the filmmaker having seen apartheid first-hand in South Africa.  It's a movie that does make you think, and change your mind about things as the film goes on.

Great plaudits must also go to Sharlto Copley who plays Wikus - as a first-time actor he does an amazing job, and is certainly someone to watch.  His portrayal of Wikus is key to the emotional effect of this film, he really makes you first dislike then come to care about Wikus.

All in all, very highly recommended.  I'd give it 9 out of 10, and cannot wait for the DVD release.  There is room at the end for a sequel, but I think I'd prefer this one to stand on its own - I feel the sequel that suggests itself would likely require a much higher budget and with that come inevitable studio interference and demands.

Tags: awesome, geek, movies, reviews, robots, sci-fi, space
Categories: Geek | Movies | Reviews | Sci-Fi

...they do straddle the line between insane and awesome much more easily than any other nation on earth.  It's one reason I love a good Japanese movie, you just never know what you're going to get - except that it's unlikely to be like anything you've seen before.  Even when they do take other ideas, they always go to the Nth degree.  

So without further ado, I give you ROBOGEISHA!!!  (trailer is just a little NSFW)

 

Tags: movies, japan, awesome, trailer, robots, weapons, blood
Categories: Movies