Saturday, November 22, 2008

MK 1 and 2

MORTAL KOMBAT AND MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION
SPECIAL DOUBLE REVIEW

About six months after street fighter we got another movie based on a fighting game Mortal Kombat and 2 years 2 months and 3 days later we got its sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Because this is a double review I’m going to first do the plot of each then the review of each then the scores so let’s get right to it.

The plot of mortal kombat is fairly simple and actually follows the game very closely. Every generation (50 years) a tournament is held if a fighter from out world wins the tournament 10 times then out world can take over earth realm. Rayden the god of thunder is responsible for finding the best warriors to defend earth realm. The ones he chooses are Liu Kang, Johnny cage, and Sonya blade.

The tournament is run by Shang Tsung. To give it a quick sum up the fighters fight teach other and our three heroes defeat their challengers. Sonya fights Kano, Liu Kang fights sub-zero and Johnny cage fights scorpion. After they win their first rounds a 4 armed monster named Goro starts fighting and killing everyone in the tournament. Eventually Johnny cage challenges him Shang Tsung allows this but only on the condition that he is able to challenge anyone at any place.

Johnny agrees and is able to defeat Gorro by nut punching him over a cliff. Shang Tsung then invokes the previous stated stipulation and kidnaps Sonya and takes her to out world. Liu Kang and Johnny Cage follow her to out world there they meet Kitana who tells them the truth about what will happen if they don’t be Shang Tsung. On their way to Shang Tsung's temple they run into reptile a lizard like creature that takes the form of a ninja. Liu Kang defeats him and they move on.

Once at Shang Tsung's temple Liu challenges him to mortal kombat and they fight Liu eventually beats Shang Tsung punching him onto a pit of spikes and saving earth realm. Johnny, Sonya, Liu, Rayden, and Kitana all head back to the shoalin temple to celebrate they are all smiles and cheers until the sky darkens and the emperor of out world attacks them this is where the movie ends and where the second one begins.

As soon as annihilation starts we see shao Kahn enter earth realm and explains that because he has resurrected Sindell who is Kitana's mother the two realms will merge. Johnny cage is pissed and uses his shadow kick to attack Kahn but is killed. Rayden attacks Kahn but is defeated so Rayden helps Sonya, Kitana and Liu escape into a secret underground passage way where he explains that Kahn must be defeated or the realms will merge and that would be bad. Rayden and Sonya head in one direction and Kitana and Liu go another.

Kitana and Liu are attacked by scorpion and saved by sub zero who turns out to be the sub zero from the first movies brother. In the middle of the confusion scorpion kidnaps Kitana and heads to out world. Sub zero lets Liu know that he is not strong enough to fight Kahn yet and must seek out Nightwolf. In the mean time Sonya finds her old partner Jax who has had metal arms graphed to him. They are then attacked by Cyrax and they defeat him.

Liu Kang is by now undergoing Nightwolf's tests which include a fight with jade. Sonya after leaving the base with Jax and blowing up Cyrax are attacked by Mileena Sonya fights Mileena while Jax fights a monster. After that Rayden comes back from talking to the elder gods and is now a human. Eventually everyone meets up after Liu saves Kitana and defeats Baraka’s and heads for out world everyone starts fighting everyone and Rayden looses o Kahn then Liu challenges Kahn and the elder gods make it mortal kombat so that Liu has a chance of winning. Eventually Liu beats Kahn and the realms are restored back to normal.

Ok so now for the reviews starting with mortal kombat. Personally I like both of these movies for different reasons the first MK did ok in the box office and had mix reviews almost everyone agrees that part 2 sucked. The first one had a good amount of characters in it Liu Kang Sonya a cameo by pre op Jax Johnny cage Rayden, Shang Tsung, Gorro and Kano. The second one had at least twice as many.
In the first one there were lots of signature special moves. Liu Kang did his bicicle kick Johnny did his shadow kick and nut punch. Scorpion did his harpoon throw and fire breath fatality sub zero froze some stuff and Shang Tsung transformed.

Compared to street fighter there was a hell of a lot more moves in this movie the only disappointing one was Liu Kang's fireball when he knocks Shang Tsung into the pit like Ryu's Hadouken it was only a flash of light. As for the game story both movies follow the story pretty closely with the added plot that Shang Tsung killed Liu's brother and they never mention Kung Lao as far as I remember but those are minor compared to the grand scope of things.

One of the main complaints fans had about the movie was the lack of blood when the game has so much. Personally I think the director only played the super Nintendo version and didn’t know the blood code but that’s just me. But in all honesty the gore made the games great but was never realistic and just wouldn’t work in the movies. The only way I could really see the blood working is if instead of mass amounts of blood they just had the characters bleed more like if one gets kicked in the face then he bleeds a little instead of no blood but that’s the only idea I have. The first movie also had the famous pit stage personally I would have had Liu uppercut Shang Tsung but the fireball worked too.

In the second movie which is cool because like the new bond flick it starts only a few minutes after the end of the first one there are a lot more signature moves a lot more characters and unfortunately a lot less plot. The fight scenes are great I find them entertaining and its very cool to see live action versions of all the special moves I mean Rayden even yells whatever he yells when he does the flying tackle move and thats funny.

But I think this movie should be an example for when fans of the game demand the movie be as much like he game as possible. The movie had special moves and great action but very little plot just like the game and because of this it wasn’t well received by the general public a few characters where only seen their names never mentioned which would confuse regular movie goers. So to sum it all up number one had a plot that very closely followed the game and was a good interpretation of the game with lots of references and content. The second movie was good solely for the amount of content and action but was sorely lacking plot and more than likely only enjoyed by fans of the games.

Ok so for the first MK over all it gets 7 out of 10 fatalities and the second MK get 5 out of 10

The acting for the first MK gets 6 out of ten with every character keeping with the personality of the games and delivering the lines written pretty good even the one liners. The second MK gets 5 out of ten some of the one liner's here where just silly and with so many characters crammed into one movie it was hard for you to get attached to any of them

The plot for both the first and second MK gets 8 out of 10. These movies stay truer to the source material then most movies out there.

And the content for both movies gets 9 out of 10 the only thing missing where a few more fatalities in my opinion

The side not for this review is form the movies came a live action TV series called mortal kombat conquest and followed Kung Lao after he won the tournament for the first time against Shang Tsung it’s got decent action and falls in the same category as Xena and Hercules if you ever get a chance check it out.

I hope you enjoyed this double review after reading it I think it could be a little better but I would really like to know what you think please give me some feedback so I can get better at these even if its negative. Any way up next is wing commander and is the first video game movie I’ve seen that I’ve never played the game too so it will be interesting

Friday, November 21, 2008

street fighter

STREET FIGHTER
Quick question what do you get when you mix one of the greatest fighting games ever with a horrible movie adaptation? Answer street fighter the motion picture there’s a lot to be said about this horrible piece of coin-op garbage so let’s jump right in.
So the plot of street fighter follows the adventure of UN COL. Guile oh sorry I mean AN COL. guile portrayed by one of the greatest martial artist of our time jean Claude van damn wait did I say greatest oops never mind let’s move on.

Anyway M.Bison has taken over shadow-loo and is demanding money or he’s going to kill some hostages so guile is planning on saving them. Meanwhile ken and Ryu get their kicks by fighting great martial arts challengers oh that’s not right I mean selling nerf guns to terrorists so they can rip them off. Also mean while Chun-Li, E.Honda and Belrog want revenge on bison and his thugs Sagat and Vega because they have all been wronged by him.

So Ryu, Ken, Vega and Sagat all get locked up in guiles prison then escape because guile lets them. Everyone makes it to Bison's hide out where bison lets Ryu and ken join his ranks and where he happens to be keeping Chun-Li. Guile is extra pissed by now because bison has revealed that he is holding Charlie hostage and doing experiments on him. So Guile, Cammy and T.Hawk plan to storm Bison's hide out and while he does bison use's a floating street fighter 2 controller to blow up guiles boat.

And then everyone escapes and starts fighting Ryu fights Vega. Sagat fights Ken. E.Honda fights Zangief and Guile fights Bison while everyone else fights nameless drones. Eventually guile beats M.Bison and everyone is happy yay now let’s get down to the review.

The first problem with this movie is they changed a lot of characters Sagat Vega and Balrog are supposed to be Bison's right hand men. The completely disregarded the rivalry between Sagat and Ryu. Ken didn’t even have blond hair. They got Chun-Li right and Bison’s motives for the most part. Guile was a COL. but not for the right army and Charlie is not Blanka although the explanation in the film of M.Bison making a solider is better than the one in the game for Blanka in my opinion. The fighters do use some of their moves but all of them are very watered down there’s a Hadouken but it ends up just being a flash. Guile uses his flash kick which is actually ok Vega uses his rolling crystal flash which is the move where he rolls forward then stabs. E.Honda does the hundred hand slap without his hands moving as fast in the games. Witch I can accepted because it is actually a real sumo move. Chun-Li kicks bison a few times but is nothing like her signature move. Ken uppercuts Sagat but he just spins there’s no jump so it’s not really the shoryuken at all. Cammy does her head scisors throw and snaps a guy's neck in the process which is pretty cool.

Now with the exception of E.Honda, Chun-Li, Vega, Zangief and Balrog the actors chosen don’t really fit their video game counter parts. Sagat is a skinny gun runner when in the game he is a huge Muay Thai fighter. Guile is not French and jean Claude does nothing to hide his accent in the game guile is an air force COL. and all American. Deejay is a Jamaican kick boxer not comic relief and not even a major player in the street fighter universe so why he’s in the film I don’t know.

Blanka like I stated before is not a soldier and is not Charlie in the game jimmy/Blanka’s plane crashes and he grows up in the jungle and the constant application of plant based camouflage is what causes his screen skin then he becomes the protector of a village. Dhalsim in the game is a yoga master and holy man not a scientist and while the ages may be right because of his yoga the Dhalsim in the game is extremely fit because of his training. Now with bison I’m torn because I love the actor and he was actually the most like his game counterpart with the exception of his physique and he used his most famous move the psycho crusher except he doesn’t spin. As a little fun fact rail Julia only did the movie because his kids asked him to. I can understand not being able to get people that looked just like the video game character because they were so muscular but I mean was blond hair so much to ask for .

Now I’d like to introduce a new feature to my reviews that I’d like to call how I’d do it. It’s where I give a quick synopsis of how I would change the movie to make it better.

First id dump jean Claude and find someone without a French accent to play an American air force col. As for the plot I would show the main fighters competing in street fights like an underground type circuit of fighting. I would show Ryu beating some minor character from the game like Dan. Then ken beating someone and so on until the main good guys were introduced which would be ken Ryu guile and Chun-Li as they are my favorite good guys and it’s my fucking movie. Then we would have bison talking to his generals which would be Sagat Vega and Balrog like it’s supposed to be. Bison would explain his plan thus covering that plot point.

Bison would explain how he’s been keeping an eye on the “street fighter” circuit and wants to recruit our heroes. Of course when confronted our heroes would decline and fights would ensue I would have Ryu be attacked first and he would win I would have him fight Sagat and he would scar his chest with a shoryuken like it’s supposed to be. Sagat would run away and Ryu would head for where ken is. Meanwhile after an exhausting fight with Belrog vs. guile and Vega vs. Chun-Li both heroes would lose and be taken hostage Ryu would show up just in time to save ken defeating Blanka who bison released after Sagat's defeat Ryu would use his dragon kick to win.

During all these fights the characters would use their signature moves they don’t have to be as flashy as in the game as hands being on fire don’t make much since when they do upper cuts but they would have the height on them and Chun-Li’s feet would be cg for when the start moving really fast. Ken and Ryu would then make plans to stop bison from taking over the world along their way to gather info they might have fights with E.Honda maybe Charlie and Dhalsim that would be decided during the script writing.

All throughout the movie bison would make references to the most powerful fighter he’s ever seen but he only gets reveal at the end. So the heroes make it to Bison’s fortress and free Chun-Li and guile bison corners them and they all start fighting bison using his psycho energy to knock them around but eventually all 4 get the upper hand and this is when he unleashes the ultimate fighter Akuma. Akuma busts into the room using a dark Hadouken Ryu would be scared shit less by this display of energy but while guile and Chun-Li fight bison ken and Ryu would fight Akuma the fight would seem to be in favor of Akuma and he would hit ken with a Hadouken this would piss Ryu off so much he would perform the combo everyone would hope for a shoryuken into a dragon kick then as Akuma is falling Ryu would leap into the air and deliver a Hadouken.

Everyone would be happy and the movie would end. Os now that that is done on to the scores

Overall the movie only gets a 3 out of 10 Hadouken's the

The acting gets a 3 out of 10 most of the acting was poo and sometimes you can’t even understand van damn.

The content gets 4 out of 10 it had a lot of characters in it and a street fighter two controller plus most of the signature moves however they were very watered down.

The plot gets 3 out of 10 for the fact that bison and Chun-Li were the only ones acting like there game characters everyone else was changed for the most part.

Another review done and as a side note here like double dragon this movie got a game made about it however it was horrible crap it was photo realistic like mortal kombat but the animations where so choppy and the special moves where stupid I mean why not just play street fighter the game not street fighter the movie the game.
Next up mortal kombat double review.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

double dragon review

Double Dragon
Ok so double dragon where to begin it was the second video game movie to come out in the U.S. and seeing what Mario bros did doesn’t seem to help it at all. The story is pretty simple two brothers who practice martial arts have their guardian killed by an evil mobster who wants to take over a post uber earthquake los angels called new angels. After the earthquake the gangs and cops have come to an agreement where the gangs rule the streets at night and the cops during the day. The evil mobster played by Robert Patrick (t-1000) wants to find both halves of the double dragon medallion so he can rule over new angels. The lee brother’s guardian gives them one half and gangster 1000 has the other half. So of course he goes after the lee brothers. Eventually gangster 1000 unites the gangs and convinces them to come out during the day and help him chase down the lee brothers. After escaping the gangs the lee brothers decide to enlist the help of Marion the leader of a good hearted gang made up of teenagers and children called the power core.

Gangster 1000 tracks them down to the power cores secret base and gets the second half of the medallion unites them and becomes twin dark demon monsters. The lee brothers try but get the crap kicked out of them. Then Marion turns on the generator causing the room to light up witch weakens the demons and allows the lee brothers to beat the demons and recover the medallion they activate it and transform into the double dragon defeating gangster 1000 and thus causing the huge collection of gangs to say oh ok we give up.

Ok now as far as likenesses to the game there are certainly a lot more of them in double dragon then in Mario for one the lee brothers are actually brothers. Granted in the game they are twins and here they are a year apart but twins aren’t that big of a plot point so it’s forgivable. The plot of the game is fairly simple some guy punches a chick in the stomach and the lee brothers go after the ones responsible that kind of plot doesn’t really make for a good movie so I can understand the liberties taken with the plot. In the game the post apocalyptic town is New York here its los angels. In the game the lee brothers are not heir to medallions they are heir to a special fighting style and Billy’s girlfriend being kidnapped is the whole reason they go after the gang not the medallions but with that in mind it’s still pretty similar to the game. And besides all that unless you did any research you would never know anything I just told you.

The girl with the whip Bo abobo when mutated the twins the lee brothers and Marion are all characters and enemies form the game. Koga shuko (gangster 1000) as far as I know is not in the games. The plot was decent as I already said as well as the content but where the movie fails is the writing with constant one liners and the fight directing. The fights are a combo of quick shot maneuvers and silly home alone style stunts. Granted Mark Dacascos is really the only one with any martial arts training but even he isn’t used to his full potential as we have seen in such movies as brother hood of the wolf and only the strong. Ok now for the ratings

Overall I would give the movie a 4 out of 10 arcade controllers.

For the content I give it 6 out of ten. It had a lot of characters and for a movie based on a game where you beat the crap out of people I thought it did pretty good.
The acting was only a 3 out of ten it was just too goofy to be considered good

And for the plot I give it an 8 out of ten they changed a few trivial things but overall it was about the same as the game.

Well that’s another review done a side note for this one is something great did come out of this movie weather you hated it or not. There was a fighting game for neo-geo based on the game and it was freaking great there’s transformations special moves projectile attacks and air combat if you ever get the chance check it out.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Super Mario Bros. review

Super Mario Bros
The year was 1993 video games where quickly becoming mainstream and the super Mario bros movie was being released in May what more could a kid ask for. Well for starters a good live action representation of one of his favorite games ever for starters. The plot to Mario bros is a simple one of two plumbers who find a portal to another dimension where super evolved dinosaurs rule the city. Wait what dinosaurs Mario never had dinosaurs except in super Mario world but even then they weren’t a big part of the plot. So pretty much the story starts out with Mario and Luigi who are plumbers and surprisingly enough not brothers.

So Luigi meets this girl daisy they have a date where Luigi finds out she’s digging for dinosaur bones under the bridge and the local mafia is putting the squeeze on her. She takes Luigi to the dig site where the mafia has broken the pipes in hopes of flooding the site. Mario and Luigi quickly get into the action stopping the flooding but are knocked out. Daisy is kidnapped and the Mario bros wake up to her screaming they follow it into a cave where they enter into a portal that takes them to an alternate dimension created by a meteorite that struck a long long time ago. In this world humans evolved from dinosaurs not monkeys. Here we find out that daisy was kidnapped by two thugs who also happen to be the cousins of the evil ruler kink kopi. It turns out kopi wants to use the stone daisy wears around her neck which she just so happened to drop when being kidnapped to merge the two dimension so he can rule over all of us. So Mario and Luigi make their way around the city having all kinds of mis adventures running into no enemies form the game also collecting no power ups from the game. Eventually they meet the true ruler of this dimension who just happens to be a big ball of fungus. Mario and Luigi break into koopa's fortress free daisy and Mario’s girlfriend who also happened to be kidnapped along with a bunch of other NY girls. Koopa gets really ticked at this and goes after the two plumbers. Himself. They have a battle in the middle of the city after kopi merges the two dimensions together briefly only to be thwarted by Mario. The fight ends with Koopa being turned into slime and the king being returned to his former self.
Now as far as the movie goes it wasn’t very good at all first let me start with the first major issue Mario and Luigi in this movie are not brothers. During his date with daisy Luigi tells her that Mario adopted him which means that they are in this movie anyway father and son. During the movie many enemies from the game are mentioned but none ever make an appearance in their traditional form. The goombas are there but Mario never has to jump on them and instead of being mushroom shaped they are giant bodies with tiny heads. Another big problem is the fact that everyone is dinosaur based when in the game most enemies where turtle based. Also I can’t even fathom why daisy is the girl in this one. By this point in time daisy had only made one appearance and that was on game boy why they didn’t go with peach I have no idea. As far as the acting goes I can’t really blame the actors at least the main ones anyway bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis hopper are all decent actors. For this movie I blame the writers the dialogue was silly the jokes not very funny and the love story kind of misplaced.

There are a lot of references to the game in the movie the cartridges for the jump boots look like bullet bills. The jump boots themselves are a reference to Mario’s jumping abilities or possibly the green stomp boot in mario3. The king being fungus and having to be saved is kind of like in Mario 3 when every king is something else. The flame thrower guns are like the fire flowers. Big bertha is a giant fish enemy in the game. Toad is in the movie for a second but not anything like he is in the game. The bob-omb plays a big part however they ruin that by showing the Reebok logo on its feet iggy is one of kola’s kids in Mario 3. But all the references to the game don’t make up for how different from the game the movie is we only see Mario and Luigi in there classic outfits for a brief period of time and yoshi even makes a quick cameo but is nothing like his game save for his tongue. Overall it’s just bad and like most video game movies if it didn’t have the name of the game in the title no one would bother seeing it at all. Now on to the scores

Over all I would give the movie 3 out of 10 nes controllers.

While there were lots of references to the game and in jokes the content was sorely lacking so it gets 2 out of 10

The acting was ok I’ve always said you can only act as good as the script lets you so for as crappy as the writing was I give the actors a 4 out of ten for a decent effort

And finally as for the plot I have to give it a 2 it had the character names in it and that’s about it.

Well that’s the end of my review I hope you enjoyed it I would really like criticism if you have any constructive things to say please feel free to e-mail me at horriblesanity@aim.com with the subject review ill try and answer all e-mails if you liked it tell me what you did like I’d like to make this a normal post maybe one every week or two covering all video game movies from Mario up to max Payne being the most recent on a side note if anyone wants to take my reiview and make you tube videos using it I wouldent mind getting together to discuss it

intro to me

My name is Jason and I am a big fan of video games and a big fan of movies and like most kids when Mario bros was announced I was excited. A movie based on one of my favorite games what could go wrong. Well as a lot of us have discovered over the years a lot can go wrong. Characters can be changed plots dismantled outfits and costumes are wrong and the list goes on. Most of the time video game movies are designed to get kids who play the game to force their parents to see the movie I will admit in recent time video game movies have gotten bigger budgets bigger actors and ever so slightly more like the games the represent. What I hope to accomplish with these series of posts is to review in text as I don’t have a camera of any kind the video game movies that have been released over the years. Each review should follow the same format a quick synopsis of the plot my review my ratings.

Now while I will comment on the acting and directing of the movie those will not be my main focus. What I will be doing is commenting on how close to the game the movie is what characters its included content from the game and so on. Then at the end of the review I will give my general rating then ratings in each of the following categories. Content: how much stuff from the game is in the movie. Acting: how well the actors portrayed the characters they are supposed to be. Plot: how much of the story resembles a story from the game. And if possible I will include comparison pictures for everyone to look at. Now with all that being said on to my first review.