Alone in the Dark 2
Welcome back! I thought I’d be waiting until the Tekken movie came out to be starting vol.2 of my video game movie review series but alas the internet gods have smiled upon me and led me to a copy of Alone in the Dark 2. Now for those of you who have read my reviews before thank you and welcome back. For those of you who are new each review follows a simple format. Introduction, quick plot summary, review, the how I would do it section where I describe briefly how I would change the movie to make it better and finally the ratings which are broken down into the following categories
• Overall. My overall score for the movie out of 10
• Acting. How well the actors did their job including if they matched the characters persona from the game.
• Plot. How much the plot of the movie resembles a plot from the game(s)
• Content. How much stuff from the game is in the movie including weapons, characters, outfits and other familiar things from the game.
This will be the only review with this long of an introduction if you’re curious and want to read my other reviews you can search through the blogs here or go to my site http://vidgamemoviereview.blogspot.com/ so with that shameful plug out of the way let’s get on to the review.
Well I said that Far Cry was the last Uwe Boll movie so by now your probably shouting liar as loud as you can at your computer screen while your mother/ neighbor yells at you to shut up. Well to you I say hold your god damn horses this movie was only produced by Boll it was written and directed by two other schmucks. Will that coupled with a whole new cast help the sequel surpass its predecessor read on to find out.
Alone in the Dark 2 follows the main character from the games and previous film Edward Carnby as he helps a group of people hunt and kill an evil witch. Along the way Edward gets infected with a witch’s curse and has to find out how to break the spell before him and his friends are all killed.
Ok so for this review since the movie has so very little to do with the game we are going to play how does it compare? Where we compare the sequel to the original movie and see how it stacks up. So to get it out of the way the only thing from the game in this movie is Edward and the fact that the plot focuses on paranormal activity.
This brings us to our first comparison. Whereas Boll’s movie had multiple characters, monsters and plot elements from the game the sequel had only the main character. And they even cast him incorrectly as in the games and first movie Edward is a white guy in the sequel they hired an Asian actor.
Now I have no problem with changing the race of a character like when they made kingpin black in the daredevil movie but to change the race in between movies is crazy. Also the sequel seems to completely disregard the events of the first one. At the end of the first one New York had been completely overrun with the monsters and everyone was either eaten or evacuated but at the start of this movie everyone’s walking around happy go lucky not a care in the world.
Now let’s discuss the action. In the first movie there was a few wire fight moves and one bullet time scene the rest was generic shootouts and explosions witch made for a generic but entertaining movie. The sequel however as far as action is concerned consists of shouting and firing tracer rounds at a mist where the bullets do nothing and believe it or not is pretty boring.
How about monsters surely a witch with supernatural powers was cooler then a bunch of lizard like monsters and Spiderman like zombies. Well you would be wrong. In the first movie there was two enemy types the first where super strong and agile humans infected with some sort of spinal symbiote the second where giant black lizard type things that ate everything in its path silly as they may be at least you knew what they where and what hurt them in the context of the movie.
In the sequel they constantly refer to the one monster that there is as a witch. But the monster itself acts more like a ghost as most of the time it appears as mist and can also posses people. And as far as hurting it the humans shoot at it the whole movie and that does nothing there is one point where they turn on UV lights witch does nothing but confuse me as I’ve never heard of ultra violet hurting ghosts or witches.
So monsters action and plot all three are better in Boll’s movie but the writing has to be better right? I mean Boll is an idiot who knows nothing of video games. Unfortunately you’re wrong again. A lot of people complain about the long text intro in the first one but at least it gives you info about the monsters that make the movie a little easier to follow. In the sequel they don’t really explain anything.
The dialog is about the same for both but for as many plot holes that are in the first one the second one has twice as many. There is a scene in the second one where Edward is infected with a curse and the stereotypical large muscle bound shoot first guy is watching over him one second and the next just so the movie can show us a useless scene he’s gone and conveniently left behind his shotgun. Then as Edward heads downstairs the afore mentioned muscle head is suddenly not on the porch.
And finally the acting well I’ve never seen the problem with Christian Slater so besides the writing I thought the acting in the first movie was bearable. In this movie we have 3 decent actors 2 of which die. The first is Rick Yune who has been in the fast and the furious, a bond villain in die another day, an assassin in a straight to DVD action flick and will be the main character in the upcoming epic ninja assassin.
The second is Danny Trejo who was in both Desperado and once upon a time in Mexico and plenty of other movies as supporting and main cast. And the third is Zach Ward who is mainly known for his role on the sitcom Titus but has also been in 2 other Boll movies.
All three of these actors have shown great acting ability and unfortunately the writing simply does not allow them to show off. They have Edward played by Rick Yune as a street wise tuff guy and it’s just silly. Zach Ward plays a drug hustler who is infected with the witch’s curse and frankly has the best lines. And Danny Trejo has like two lines then is killed which is a waste.
Lance Henriksen is also in the movie and you may be surprised but if you browse the new release wall as much as I do you can see how many straight to DVD b-sci-fi and horror movies he’s been in.
How would I do it? Well frankly I wouldn’t have made a sequel but if I had to I would have picked up with the plot from the first one and explained what happened to the monsters and everyone else.
Well that about wraps it up overall this movie is a piece of crap that I think even
Uwe Boll should be ashamed to have his name attached to and just goes to show you that there is something worse than having Boll make a video game movie.
Overall I give the movie 2 out of 10 Asian Carnbys. There is almost nothing enjoyable about this movie and honestly not even worth watching for free.
The acting gets 3 out of 10. With 3 decent actors on the cast they could have had so much more but they were written very badly.
The plot gets 2 out of 10. Besides it being about paranormal activity there is nothing to link it to a game.
The content gets 1 out of 10. Only thing from the game was Edward and a flash light.
Ok well that does it for the first entry in Vol.2 of my review series. I’m still eagerly awaiting Tekken and recently I saw some production Photos from the Prince of Persia movie and it looks promising.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Street Fighter: The Legend if Chun-LI movie review
Street Fighter
The Legend of Chun-Li
So 15 years after the original live action street fighter they decided to give it another shot. This time however instead of trying to cram as many characters into the movie they decided to focus on one specific character and try to get a bit more back story into the movie. How did it work? Read on to find out.
The plot focuses on Chun-Li a girl whose father was taken when she was a little girl who grows up and decides to fight for the people who are being treated unfairly. Along her journey she is trained by a martial arts master has run-ins with Interpol, street gangs and more.
Where to begin? Well ill start by saying I like the choice of actors and actresses I’m a big fan of Smallville and have liked Kristin Kreuk for awhile plus she is half Chinese just like the movies intrepatation of Chun-Li. The guy that played Bison also is a good actor although for some reason the movie felt they had to make him Scottish. Robin Shu was great as Gen although at points I found it hard to detach myself from the fact he also played Liu Kang in the mortal Kombat movie.
Michael Clark Duncan was a perfect choice for Balrog and played the part well. As far as Vega goes I can’t really comment there was no real acting per say. I’m not sure Vega had any lines except maybe a few one word sentences or classic comments like “my face”. What really upset me about Vega is that in both the anime movie and the anime series of street fighter Vega becomes obsessed with Chun-Li and beating her and smelling her hair for some reason. Now Vega does get a chunk of her hair at one point but I thought that Chun-Li beat him way to quick and the movie missed a great opportunity.
A character I could have done without was the addition of Charlie Nash. Now I like Charlie in the game but the movie completely ruins him instead of making him a badass member of the air force he becomes a wise cracking half retarded member of Interpol and just like Arnold in batman and robin most of his lines consist of one liners or innuendos. His female counterpart is no better and they feel more like comic relief then anything and if they just made Charlie a new character instead of trying to fit another game character in it would have been less upsetting.
Now what’s a movie based on a fighting game without fights and specials moves? Nothing so let’s talk about that. The fight chorography was decent not the worst thing certainly nowhere near Jet-Li caliber fight scenes but they where entertaining enough although sadly the most entertaining was at the beginning of the movie when Chun-Li's father was fighting off Bison's thugs. And how about special moves well Chun-Li uses the spinning bird kick which is heavily foreshadowed early on when her father gives her a spinning bird necklace.
What confuses me is how they handled Bison's powers and let me explain a little. In the game Bison has the ability to control what he calls psycho energy allowing him to levitate teleport and charge his fists and feet with energy making his attacks stronger and sometimes he mixes the two like in his psycho crusher special move where he flies across the screen spinning with his hands charged with psycho energy.
I bring this up because Chun-Li also has an energy attack in the game it’s a slow moving version of the Hado-Ken or a bigger ball of energy that is stationary in her hands called the Kikouken and Kikousho respectively. In the movie gen teaches her a projectile energy attack witch works well however they completely ignore Bison’s energy abilities witch confuses me. Why would they show Chun-Li’s energy attack but not Bison’s?
They did not completely ignore Bison's ability usually when he shows up in a room people react as if he just appeared and there is always a gust of wind witch I believe is meant to represent his teleport ability and later when he is fighting gen and Chun-Li whenever he delivers a really strong kick or punch a whoosh sound effect can be heard witch I believe is meant to represent the psycho energy.
Now while his powers may be obscurely represented and his origin is kind of jumbled they did get his attitude correct when his assistant gives up information to Chun-Li the next scene bison is punching what seems like a heavy bag but it turns out to be his assistant who he just finished punching to death.
Chun-Li has her hair in the twin buns a few times as a throwback to fans and her famous dress makes a quick appearance gen dresses like he does in the game Balrog doesn’t have boxing gloves but that makes sense because he’s not boxing anyone. Vega has his trade mark claw and mask but bison dresses as a business man but that also makes sense because that’s what he is and this is an origin story.
One thing that confuses me a bit is they seem to kill off Bison Chun-Li hits him with an energy blast then twists his head all the way around and that’s the last we see of him but then right before the credits gen shows Chun-Li a flyer for a street fighter competition and he hints bison has set it up then tells her he’s going to Japan to recruit Ryu which is neat. Now I’m all for fake deaths like when a bad guy falls off a cliff then the next movie it turns out he didn’t die but I’m not sure how anyone could recover from having their head twisted around but it’s a movie so I suppose we will see.
The producers have said that if this movie does well enough they will follow up with a Ryu and ken movie and we all know that’s what we really want to see. And with the set up for an actual tournament I believe if they do make a Ryu and ken movie we may actually see planed fights in a tournament style which has yet to be done in either street fighter movie.
So let’s see we have got the characters, the actors, the costumes and the special moves covered what’s left oh yeah the story. Well what can I say the basic plots of Chun-Li's back story are there with bison killing her father. She isn’t in Interpol in this one but she does help them out so maybe in future movies. Besides that it’s just a reason for the fights to happen and I think Bison’s back story could have used a bit more work.
How would I do it? Well honestly id change bison to be a bit more like his game counterpart and at one point I would have had Chun-Li use some sort of rapid kick maneuver to represent her lightning kick witch I think is a bit more famous then her spinning bird kick which she did use in the movie.
Overall the action is decent I have heard some people say that the original is more enjoyable and I suppose that’s true in a campy sort of way where as the original movie was funny in its campiness the new ones campy parts are not so funny just annoying however it is a more serious street fighter movie and I think captures the feel of the games a bit better.
Overall I give Chun-Li 6 out of 10 Kikoukens. The action was pretty good and focusing on one main character rather than many was a good move but I still think that they should have done a Ryu and ken movie first.
The acting gets 3 out of 10. Chun-Li, Gen, and Bison where the only real decent acting jobs here Chris Kline and Moon Bloodgood had horrible horrible dialog and where not needed at all for this movie.
The content gets 6 out of 10. There was a good amount of characters without there being an over abundance most of which acted like their game counter parts and there was a decent amount of special moves.
The plot gets 4 out of 10. Chun-Li's story was ok but the other major character Bison they completely ruined making him Scottish but raised in Thailand I mean even the instruction manual says he’s Thai but oh well at least his attitude was correct.
Ok well that’s it it’s been months and months but we have reached the end of vol.1. Vol.2 will start with Tekken in October and end with the last video game movie of 2010. And 2010 will be a big year for video game movies we have prince of Persia, king of fighters, Blood Rayne 3 (ugh), clock tower, possibly a new mortal Kombat and a new resident evil I believe Tekken is the last of this year.
Vol.2 will also mark the start of in theater reviews which means I will be trying to see all of these in the theater and review them immediately instead of DVD now I can’t promise I will be able to make it to all of them but I will do my best. In between Tekken and the start of the 2010 movies I have planned to write a review on Uwe Boll himself so that will be fun and maybe another top ten list.
The Legend of Chun-Li
So 15 years after the original live action street fighter they decided to give it another shot. This time however instead of trying to cram as many characters into the movie they decided to focus on one specific character and try to get a bit more back story into the movie. How did it work? Read on to find out.
The plot focuses on Chun-Li a girl whose father was taken when she was a little girl who grows up and decides to fight for the people who are being treated unfairly. Along her journey she is trained by a martial arts master has run-ins with Interpol, street gangs and more.
Where to begin? Well ill start by saying I like the choice of actors and actresses I’m a big fan of Smallville and have liked Kristin Kreuk for awhile plus she is half Chinese just like the movies intrepatation of Chun-Li. The guy that played Bison also is a good actor although for some reason the movie felt they had to make him Scottish. Robin Shu was great as Gen although at points I found it hard to detach myself from the fact he also played Liu Kang in the mortal Kombat movie.
Michael Clark Duncan was a perfect choice for Balrog and played the part well. As far as Vega goes I can’t really comment there was no real acting per say. I’m not sure Vega had any lines except maybe a few one word sentences or classic comments like “my face”. What really upset me about Vega is that in both the anime movie and the anime series of street fighter Vega becomes obsessed with Chun-Li and beating her and smelling her hair for some reason. Now Vega does get a chunk of her hair at one point but I thought that Chun-Li beat him way to quick and the movie missed a great opportunity.
A character I could have done without was the addition of Charlie Nash. Now I like Charlie in the game but the movie completely ruins him instead of making him a badass member of the air force he becomes a wise cracking half retarded member of Interpol and just like Arnold in batman and robin most of his lines consist of one liners or innuendos. His female counterpart is no better and they feel more like comic relief then anything and if they just made Charlie a new character instead of trying to fit another game character in it would have been less upsetting.
Now what’s a movie based on a fighting game without fights and specials moves? Nothing so let’s talk about that. The fight chorography was decent not the worst thing certainly nowhere near Jet-Li caliber fight scenes but they where entertaining enough although sadly the most entertaining was at the beginning of the movie when Chun-Li's father was fighting off Bison's thugs. And how about special moves well Chun-Li uses the spinning bird kick which is heavily foreshadowed early on when her father gives her a spinning bird necklace.
What confuses me is how they handled Bison's powers and let me explain a little. In the game Bison has the ability to control what he calls psycho energy allowing him to levitate teleport and charge his fists and feet with energy making his attacks stronger and sometimes he mixes the two like in his psycho crusher special move where he flies across the screen spinning with his hands charged with psycho energy.
I bring this up because Chun-Li also has an energy attack in the game it’s a slow moving version of the Hado-Ken or a bigger ball of energy that is stationary in her hands called the Kikouken and Kikousho respectively. In the movie gen teaches her a projectile energy attack witch works well however they completely ignore Bison’s energy abilities witch confuses me. Why would they show Chun-Li’s energy attack but not Bison’s?
They did not completely ignore Bison's ability usually when he shows up in a room people react as if he just appeared and there is always a gust of wind witch I believe is meant to represent his teleport ability and later when he is fighting gen and Chun-Li whenever he delivers a really strong kick or punch a whoosh sound effect can be heard witch I believe is meant to represent the psycho energy.
Now while his powers may be obscurely represented and his origin is kind of jumbled they did get his attitude correct when his assistant gives up information to Chun-Li the next scene bison is punching what seems like a heavy bag but it turns out to be his assistant who he just finished punching to death.
Chun-Li has her hair in the twin buns a few times as a throwback to fans and her famous dress makes a quick appearance gen dresses like he does in the game Balrog doesn’t have boxing gloves but that makes sense because he’s not boxing anyone. Vega has his trade mark claw and mask but bison dresses as a business man but that also makes sense because that’s what he is and this is an origin story.
One thing that confuses me a bit is they seem to kill off Bison Chun-Li hits him with an energy blast then twists his head all the way around and that’s the last we see of him but then right before the credits gen shows Chun-Li a flyer for a street fighter competition and he hints bison has set it up then tells her he’s going to Japan to recruit Ryu which is neat. Now I’m all for fake deaths like when a bad guy falls off a cliff then the next movie it turns out he didn’t die but I’m not sure how anyone could recover from having their head twisted around but it’s a movie so I suppose we will see.
The producers have said that if this movie does well enough they will follow up with a Ryu and ken movie and we all know that’s what we really want to see. And with the set up for an actual tournament I believe if they do make a Ryu and ken movie we may actually see planed fights in a tournament style which has yet to be done in either street fighter movie.
So let’s see we have got the characters, the actors, the costumes and the special moves covered what’s left oh yeah the story. Well what can I say the basic plots of Chun-Li's back story are there with bison killing her father. She isn’t in Interpol in this one but she does help them out so maybe in future movies. Besides that it’s just a reason for the fights to happen and I think Bison’s back story could have used a bit more work.
How would I do it? Well honestly id change bison to be a bit more like his game counterpart and at one point I would have had Chun-Li use some sort of rapid kick maneuver to represent her lightning kick witch I think is a bit more famous then her spinning bird kick which she did use in the movie.
Overall the action is decent I have heard some people say that the original is more enjoyable and I suppose that’s true in a campy sort of way where as the original movie was funny in its campiness the new ones campy parts are not so funny just annoying however it is a more serious street fighter movie and I think captures the feel of the games a bit better.
Overall I give Chun-Li 6 out of 10 Kikoukens. The action was pretty good and focusing on one main character rather than many was a good move but I still think that they should have done a Ryu and ken movie first.
The acting gets 3 out of 10. Chun-Li, Gen, and Bison where the only real decent acting jobs here Chris Kline and Moon Bloodgood had horrible horrible dialog and where not needed at all for this movie.
The content gets 6 out of 10. There was a good amount of characters without there being an over abundance most of which acted like their game counter parts and there was a decent amount of special moves.
The plot gets 4 out of 10. Chun-Li's story was ok but the other major character Bison they completely ruined making him Scottish but raised in Thailand I mean even the instruction manual says he’s Thai but oh well at least his attitude was correct.
Ok well that’s it it’s been months and months but we have reached the end of vol.1. Vol.2 will start with Tekken in October and end with the last video game movie of 2010. And 2010 will be a big year for video game movies we have prince of Persia, king of fighters, Blood Rayne 3 (ugh), clock tower, possibly a new mortal Kombat and a new resident evil I believe Tekken is the last of this year.
Vol.2 will also mark the start of in theater reviews which means I will be trying to see all of these in the theater and review them immediately instead of DVD now I can’t promise I will be able to make it to all of them but I will do my best. In between Tekken and the start of the 2010 movies I have planned to write a review on Uwe Boll himself so that will be fun and maybe another top ten list.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Max Payne review
Max Payne
Ok well we are out of Uwe Boll movies so whose turn is it now to make a video game movie. That’s right you guessed it Marky Mark. Ok maybe he’s only the actor playing our hero but if I had said John Moore (the director) you would have said huh? Anyway pretty big budget, big name actors we will see what happens.
Max Payne is about a cop whose family is murdered Max then moves to cold case department where no information about his family’s death leads him to take on a huge corporation.
So it seems as far as the fans are concerned this movie is split down the middle they either love or hate it I liked it a lot and thought it wasn’t bad. What’s funny is the president of 3d realms who are the production studio behind the game said he hated the movie then when it started making money said he loved it can’t deny the power of money.
So any way let’s run down the list of things that made Max Payne a great game.
1. Intresting dark plot with an old school noir feel to it.
2. Dynamic game play that maid bullet time a staple of game play in many games to come.
3. Well acted and developed characters.
Now how many of these transferred over to the movie? The plot is almost the same they changed a few characters back stories around including max’s but it’s still dark and still just as messed up as the game and the few changes don’t really do anything to hurt the plot in my opinion.
The movies certainly doesn’t revolutionize anything as far as camera work goes but they did use a super fast, 10,000 frames per second camera to film the one bullet time sequence in the movie and that worked really well. And that’s one thing I do like is the fact that while bullet time is prominent in the game using it that much in the movie would not be a good idea so they had one scene as a tribute to the game and it worked very well.
The actors may not have been the best but I don’t have any gripes ever since the big hit I’ve liked Mark Whalberg as an actor and I think he did a good job Mila Kunis felt a bit out of place as an assassin as I’m used to her being in comedy roles but was convincing enough or me.
Now how much does the plot follow the game? Well it hits on the important parts. Max’s family getting killed, his old partner dyeing and him being framed for it, his wife’s company being responsible for the drug and his family’s death and of course the most important part max’s leather jacket.
I do feel as if the noir part of the movie was kind of like an afterthought. In the game max narrates to himself the whole time in the movie he talks to himself at the beginning and that’s about it I think it would have been a bit better with more of max narrating to himself.
With the exception of the two mob families all the major characters where there max, Jack Lupino, B.B., Alex Balder, Mona Sax, Jim Bravura and of course plenty of random thugs who get shot up.
The action scenes are also done well and capture the franticness of when max is surrounded in the game. And the ending sequence feels like a video game with a new set of bad guys popping out around every corner.
A lot of people complained about the valkyrie's saying Max Payne never had demons or monsters but the valkyrie’s are clearly hallucinations from taking valkyr and are symbolic of Max's struggles against his own inner demons much like the nightmare stages from the game especially at the end when max basically tells the valkyrie’s to piss off he’s not done yet.
Overall Max Payne is definitely one of the better video game movies out there fans with an open mind and non fans of the game can enjoy the movie and unless you’re one of the people that hate mark Whalberg then you should be able to enjoy it too.
How would I do it? I would have focused a bit more on making It a noir movie with more narration from max like in the game and maybe just maybe one extra bullet time scene but I’m a sucker for bullet time.
Overall I give Max Payne 8 out of 10 bottles of painkillers. The action was done well they avoided overusing bullet time and they were able to touch the major points of the plot.
The acting gets 7 out of 10. As I said before unless you hate mark Whalberg or Marky Mark as some call him there should be no real gripe here beau bridges was great as the bad guy and ill even admit Ludicrous wasn’t bad and I hate when singers try to act I mean have you seen the sequel to john carpenter’s vampires Bon Jovi killing vampires ech.
The content gets 8 out of 10. We had plenty of gunplay. We got max’s signature dive and we got one hell of a cool bullet time sequence as well as a good chunk of game characters.
The plot gets 7 out of 10. It touched on the main points like max’s families death his partner being killed and his and Mona's relationship the only things it was missing was him being undercover in the mob and him getting guns from the Russians.
So that’s it sorry it’s not as long as normal but oh well. Next time we dig into street fighter the legend of Chun-Li. Will this revamp of the franchise be any good? Will we get hilarious quotes we can use like “for me it was Tuesday.” Or “of course!!!” who knows by find out next time as I wrap up what I will refer to as Vol. 1 of video game movie reviews.
Ok well we are out of Uwe Boll movies so whose turn is it now to make a video game movie. That’s right you guessed it Marky Mark. Ok maybe he’s only the actor playing our hero but if I had said John Moore (the director) you would have said huh? Anyway pretty big budget, big name actors we will see what happens.
Max Payne is about a cop whose family is murdered Max then moves to cold case department where no information about his family’s death leads him to take on a huge corporation.
So it seems as far as the fans are concerned this movie is split down the middle they either love or hate it I liked it a lot and thought it wasn’t bad. What’s funny is the president of 3d realms who are the production studio behind the game said he hated the movie then when it started making money said he loved it can’t deny the power of money.
So any way let’s run down the list of things that made Max Payne a great game.
1. Intresting dark plot with an old school noir feel to it.
2. Dynamic game play that maid bullet time a staple of game play in many games to come.
3. Well acted and developed characters.
Now how many of these transferred over to the movie? The plot is almost the same they changed a few characters back stories around including max’s but it’s still dark and still just as messed up as the game and the few changes don’t really do anything to hurt the plot in my opinion.
The movies certainly doesn’t revolutionize anything as far as camera work goes but they did use a super fast, 10,000 frames per second camera to film the one bullet time sequence in the movie and that worked really well. And that’s one thing I do like is the fact that while bullet time is prominent in the game using it that much in the movie would not be a good idea so they had one scene as a tribute to the game and it worked very well.
The actors may not have been the best but I don’t have any gripes ever since the big hit I’ve liked Mark Whalberg as an actor and I think he did a good job Mila Kunis felt a bit out of place as an assassin as I’m used to her being in comedy roles but was convincing enough or me.
Now how much does the plot follow the game? Well it hits on the important parts. Max’s family getting killed, his old partner dyeing and him being framed for it, his wife’s company being responsible for the drug and his family’s death and of course the most important part max’s leather jacket.
I do feel as if the noir part of the movie was kind of like an afterthought. In the game max narrates to himself the whole time in the movie he talks to himself at the beginning and that’s about it I think it would have been a bit better with more of max narrating to himself.
With the exception of the two mob families all the major characters where there max, Jack Lupino, B.B., Alex Balder, Mona Sax, Jim Bravura and of course plenty of random thugs who get shot up.
The action scenes are also done well and capture the franticness of when max is surrounded in the game. And the ending sequence feels like a video game with a new set of bad guys popping out around every corner.
A lot of people complained about the valkyrie's saying Max Payne never had demons or monsters but the valkyrie’s are clearly hallucinations from taking valkyr and are symbolic of Max's struggles against his own inner demons much like the nightmare stages from the game especially at the end when max basically tells the valkyrie’s to piss off he’s not done yet.
Overall Max Payne is definitely one of the better video game movies out there fans with an open mind and non fans of the game can enjoy the movie and unless you’re one of the people that hate mark Whalberg then you should be able to enjoy it too.
How would I do it? I would have focused a bit more on making It a noir movie with more narration from max like in the game and maybe just maybe one extra bullet time scene but I’m a sucker for bullet time.
Overall I give Max Payne 8 out of 10 bottles of painkillers. The action was done well they avoided overusing bullet time and they were able to touch the major points of the plot.
The acting gets 7 out of 10. As I said before unless you hate mark Whalberg or Marky Mark as some call him there should be no real gripe here beau bridges was great as the bad guy and ill even admit Ludicrous wasn’t bad and I hate when singers try to act I mean have you seen the sequel to john carpenter’s vampires Bon Jovi killing vampires ech.
The content gets 8 out of 10. We had plenty of gunplay. We got max’s signature dive and we got one hell of a cool bullet time sequence as well as a good chunk of game characters.
The plot gets 7 out of 10. It touched on the main points like max’s families death his partner being killed and his and Mona's relationship the only things it was missing was him being undercover in the mob and him getting guns from the Russians.
So that’s it sorry it’s not as long as normal but oh well. Next time we dig into street fighter the legend of Chun-Li. Will this revamp of the franchise be any good? Will we get hilarious quotes we can use like “for me it was Tuesday.” Or “of course!!!” who knows by find out next time as I wrap up what I will refer to as Vol. 1 of video game movie reviews.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Far Cry
Far Cry
Well it has been a long hard road and I thank you for sticking with me but we are finally here at the last Uwe Boll movie until Blood Rayne 3 gets released god help us on that day. Anyway let’s hope Boll learned from how great he made Postal and Far Cry isn’t as bad as everything else he has done.
Far Cry is about an ex Special Forces member named Jack Carver who is now working as a boat guide. He is escorting a journalist to an island when his boat is blown up Jack then proceeds to fight alongside the journalist to find out what is going on the island. During his stay he fights soldiers and genetically enhanced soldiers with super strength and speed.
Ok well apparently Boll was able to get the rights to this movie before the game was even released so it’s kind of funny it was the last movie to get made did he learn anything from all his video game adaptations well lets dig in and find out.
Now to be fair I’m not even sure if this movie has been released on DVD yet. I downloaded it from a torrent site but I was tired of waiting. According to IMDB the movie was released in Germany but as of yet I’m not sure it has come out here in the U.S.
Anyway the movie and the game start almost exactly the same with jack’s boat being destroyed. Jack, Val, and Krieger are all from the game but the plot is a little less then accurate. In the game Krieger is doing experiments on primates in the movie its humans and in the game Val works for the C.I.A. but in the movie she is a journalist. And this is all there really is from the game but to be fair the game didn’t have much more plot then this anyway.
Now while this movie was way better then everything Boll has done so far with the exception of Postal nothing can ever top Postal. The movie has a hard time deciding what it wants to be at points it’s a horror movie at others a comedy and still others is action. The horror as we can all figure out is Bolls favorite genre and is executed badly it’s cheesy and not scary at all.
The action on the other hand is pretty good. Jack uses Parkour techniques at times to move around the different interiors and it ends up being cool enough and executed well enough to be entertaining. The other action is generic but also entertaining shoot outs, perfect accuracy from the hero, explosions those sorts of things.
The super soldiers are also done pretty good there’s one soldier who breaks his programming and fights the others and the way Boll shoots the super speed parts isn’t bad and over all the action sequences are enjoyable not the best ever but not the worst it’s like watching an old school Arnold movie, as long as you don’t mind seeing the same shit you’ve seen time and time again its watchable.
The comedy is done ok not as good as the action not as bad as the horror. There are a few scenes that are funny like jack trying to explain to Val how to use a grenade while jack is driving a truck and soldiers are shooting at him or when the food delivery guy is arguing with jack and begging him to save his life. It is filled with one liners some good, or at least as good as a one liner can be, some horribly bad.
Overall id say the movie is at least worth renting if it ever makes it over here the action is generic but entertaining enough the acting is ok and the plot is as close to a Far Cry movie as we are going to get.
Honestly I think if people picked games that where a bit more plot heavy instead of games that are popular to make into movies we would get better movies based from our games. Far Cry the game was great because it had stellar graphics, amazing amounts of freedom for its time, and good enemy AI none of that translates well into a movie. When Far Cry first came out you never heard anyone say “oh my god you have to play far cry the story is amazing”. Allow me to give you more examples. Mario bros, great fun as a game, no real plot, horrible movie, silent hill standard survivor horror game play, deep involving plot, great movie.
How would I do it? Well honestly I wouldn’t do anything I don’t think Far Cry should have been made into a movie and what Uwe did is as good as anyone else would have done. Sure if it was a big Hollywood movie we probably would have gotten Hugh Jackman as jack carver but that doesn’t change the fact that the game isn’t good material for a movie.
Overall I give the movie 5 out of 10 super soldiers. The action was entertaining enough to make this a rental whenever it gets released.
The acting gets 4 out of 10. Not to horrible but nowhere near good enough for anyone to care.
The plot gets 6 out of 10. There’s really not much game plot anyway and this gets the main points but like the Xbox version it changes a few things fans may not like.
The content gets 7 out of 10. It has guns vehicles an island and enemies from the game not much more you can expect from a movie based on an fps.
Ok that concludes the Uwe Boll movies yay now other people are free to make horrible video game movies. Up next is Max Payne then Chun-Li I know I have been behind my goal is to pump those 2 out as fast as possible because Tekken hits theaters soon and I’d like to do a review as soon as I see it.
Well it has been a long hard road and I thank you for sticking with me but we are finally here at the last Uwe Boll movie until Blood Rayne 3 gets released god help us on that day. Anyway let’s hope Boll learned from how great he made Postal and Far Cry isn’t as bad as everything else he has done.
Far Cry is about an ex Special Forces member named Jack Carver who is now working as a boat guide. He is escorting a journalist to an island when his boat is blown up Jack then proceeds to fight alongside the journalist to find out what is going on the island. During his stay he fights soldiers and genetically enhanced soldiers with super strength and speed.
Ok well apparently Boll was able to get the rights to this movie before the game was even released so it’s kind of funny it was the last movie to get made did he learn anything from all his video game adaptations well lets dig in and find out.
Now to be fair I’m not even sure if this movie has been released on DVD yet. I downloaded it from a torrent site but I was tired of waiting. According to IMDB the movie was released in Germany but as of yet I’m not sure it has come out here in the U.S.
Anyway the movie and the game start almost exactly the same with jack’s boat being destroyed. Jack, Val, and Krieger are all from the game but the plot is a little less then accurate. In the game Krieger is doing experiments on primates in the movie its humans and in the game Val works for the C.I.A. but in the movie she is a journalist. And this is all there really is from the game but to be fair the game didn’t have much more plot then this anyway.
Now while this movie was way better then everything Boll has done so far with the exception of Postal nothing can ever top Postal. The movie has a hard time deciding what it wants to be at points it’s a horror movie at others a comedy and still others is action. The horror as we can all figure out is Bolls favorite genre and is executed badly it’s cheesy and not scary at all.
The action on the other hand is pretty good. Jack uses Parkour techniques at times to move around the different interiors and it ends up being cool enough and executed well enough to be entertaining. The other action is generic but also entertaining shoot outs, perfect accuracy from the hero, explosions those sorts of things.
The super soldiers are also done pretty good there’s one soldier who breaks his programming and fights the others and the way Boll shoots the super speed parts isn’t bad and over all the action sequences are enjoyable not the best ever but not the worst it’s like watching an old school Arnold movie, as long as you don’t mind seeing the same shit you’ve seen time and time again its watchable.
The comedy is done ok not as good as the action not as bad as the horror. There are a few scenes that are funny like jack trying to explain to Val how to use a grenade while jack is driving a truck and soldiers are shooting at him or when the food delivery guy is arguing with jack and begging him to save his life. It is filled with one liners some good, or at least as good as a one liner can be, some horribly bad.
Overall id say the movie is at least worth renting if it ever makes it over here the action is generic but entertaining enough the acting is ok and the plot is as close to a Far Cry movie as we are going to get.
Honestly I think if people picked games that where a bit more plot heavy instead of games that are popular to make into movies we would get better movies based from our games. Far Cry the game was great because it had stellar graphics, amazing amounts of freedom for its time, and good enemy AI none of that translates well into a movie. When Far Cry first came out you never heard anyone say “oh my god you have to play far cry the story is amazing”. Allow me to give you more examples. Mario bros, great fun as a game, no real plot, horrible movie, silent hill standard survivor horror game play, deep involving plot, great movie.
How would I do it? Well honestly I wouldn’t do anything I don’t think Far Cry should have been made into a movie and what Uwe did is as good as anyone else would have done. Sure if it was a big Hollywood movie we probably would have gotten Hugh Jackman as jack carver but that doesn’t change the fact that the game isn’t good material for a movie.
Overall I give the movie 5 out of 10 super soldiers. The action was entertaining enough to make this a rental whenever it gets released.
The acting gets 4 out of 10. Not to horrible but nowhere near good enough for anyone to care.
The plot gets 6 out of 10. There’s really not much game plot anyway and this gets the main points but like the Xbox version it changes a few things fans may not like.
The content gets 7 out of 10. It has guns vehicles an island and enemies from the game not much more you can expect from a movie based on an fps.
Ok that concludes the Uwe Boll movies yay now other people are free to make horrible video game movies. Up next is Max Payne then Chun-Li I know I have been behind my goal is to pump those 2 out as fast as possible because Tekken hits theaters soon and I’d like to do a review as soon as I see it.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Postal
Postal
So here we are back at Boll. But wait!!! This one’s different. Not only is this a good Boll movie but it is, in my opinion, at the time of writing this thee best video game movie of all time. I know you’re probably saying bullshit but I swear to you. If this review doesn’t convince you then please go rent the movie I promise you will enjoy it. Anyway enough out of me onto the review.
Postal is about a guy whose life is shit. His wife’s cheating on him his neighbors are assholes and he can’t seem to catch a break then well like the title suggests he goes postal and him and his uncle come up with a plan to get rich however during the course of the movie the postal guy has to deal with the police, terrorists, red necks and a religious cult.
Ok so first off let me say this. Postal was made to offend everyone and I do mean everyone. From the president to Osama bin Laden no one is safe in this movie. The movie parody’s red necks, religious fanatics, terrorists, big corporations, bush, news reporters, kids shows, baristas, midgets, and Uwe Boll even makes fun of himself.
Now to give you just an idea about how offensive this movie is I will describe the opening scene for you. We open on two Middle Eastern men discussing how proud they are to die for Allah. However they hit a snag when they find out Osama promised them different amounts of virgins when they get to heaven. So after a minute or two of arguing they call Osama to confirm the amount of virgins. At the end of the phone call they decide the amount of virgins isn’t enough to die over and want to turn the plane around and go to the Bahamas. At this point the passengers break into the cockpit and start to wrestle control of the plane away from the terrorists. The camera then zooms out to a window washer as we see the plane crash into the building the window washer is on and it’s apparent now that it’s the twin towers.
Now if you aren’t offended by that opening then chances are you will enjoy the rest of the movie and there’s plenty movie to enjoy and plenty of laughs to be had but I think that’s enough of me raving about the movie let’s get down to the gritty details.
Like the game Postal is very violent. There is a shootout at the unemployment office, a hilariously named little Germany amusement park, a trailer park and a terrorist compound that used to be the base of a religious cult. There’s also a stabbing of a beggar, hundreds of children die, a midget gets raped by 1000 monkeys, and a suicide bomber blows up a religious nut on a street corner among other things.
As far as likenesses to the game there’s plenty. First off the main character is named postal dude just like in the game also the local convenience store is a hide out for a terrorist cell. There’s a religious cult which is actually just a money scam run by the postal dudes Uncle Dave who is played by Dave Foley. The people making the movie tried to get Gary Coleman to reprise his role from the game but unfortunately he was unavailable but they did get Vern Troyer (mini me form the Austin powers movies) to play himself.
There was a great scene that takes place at an amusement park called little Germany where Uwe Boll makes fun of himself. In the scene Boll is being interviewed because he’s the owner of little Germany and there is a line where he’s asked how he funds his movies and his response is “well many people believe my movies are funded by Nazi gold and well, it’s true” then later Vince Desiderio the creator of the Postal game disguised as a Krotchy doll shoots Uwe Boll in the testicles and blames him for making a crappy movie from his game. As Boll is dyeing he declares “I hate video games” then falls over dead.
The similarities don’t stop there either like I mentioned above Krotchy dolls are a major focus point. The dude’s wife is nagging and cheating on him his dog is also named champ like in the game. At one point the dude uses a live cat as a silencer however unlike in the game the cat lives. And last but not least the end of the movie like the game ends with the apocalypse.
Now the acting is fantastic especially in the case of the actors playing Bush and Bin Laden. I mean it’s a comedy movie so don’t expect jaw dropping dramatic performances but everyone delivers there lines with perfect timing and both Dave Foley who was on kids in the hall for a long time and Zach Ward who was on Titus are veteran comedic actors and it shows. I may be a little bias as I have always been a fan of Zach ward and was super excited he was the postal dude and to be honest I think he looks like the postal dude with the exception of the red hair.
The plot is not a direct retelling of the events from postal or postal 2 but it has the attitude and feel of the games most of this I attribute to the fact that Desiderio was involved with the script and production of the game witch again simply proves my point that if video game companies where more involved with the movies based or three games we would get better quality video game adaptations.
There will be no how I would do it section in this review as I think this movie is perfect the way it is.
Overall the movie is a perfect example of a good adaptation. It has the characters and the attitude and feeling of the game it’s based on there’s all kinds of little things like the cat silencer for the fans to pick up on and if you’re not a completely stuck up person then you can enjoy the incredibly offensive humor.
Overall I give postal 10 out of 10 dead Gary Coleman’s. The movie like I said above is just about perfect in terms of a video game adaptation incorporating lots of stuff from the game including the overall attitude.
The acting gets 9 out of 10. It’s almost perfect timing on all the lines and the writing is so good that even the crappy actors, IE the hot girls, come off as funny.
The plot gets 9 out of 10. It’s not a perfect translation but it is enough like the game that nobody should care and it was good enough that the creator of the game himself allowed it to be made.
The content gets 10 out of 10. Just about every single character or type of character from the game is in the movie.
Well we are now 1 movie away from finishing of the Boll movies and that movie is Far Cry I’m also downloading a copy of alone in the dark 2 however this is simply being produced by Boll he is not writing or directing like the rest of his movies so I’m not counting it as his. After Far Cry is Max Payne followed by the new street fighter both of which I plan to have done in less than a month because in august Tekken comes out and the creators have made a public statement that they are committed to making the best fighting game adaptation yet and promise it will be nothing like the street fighter movies or the Mortal Kombat movies.
So here we are back at Boll. But wait!!! This one’s different. Not only is this a good Boll movie but it is, in my opinion, at the time of writing this thee best video game movie of all time. I know you’re probably saying bullshit but I swear to you. If this review doesn’t convince you then please go rent the movie I promise you will enjoy it. Anyway enough out of me onto the review.
Postal is about a guy whose life is shit. His wife’s cheating on him his neighbors are assholes and he can’t seem to catch a break then well like the title suggests he goes postal and him and his uncle come up with a plan to get rich however during the course of the movie the postal guy has to deal with the police, terrorists, red necks and a religious cult.
Ok so first off let me say this. Postal was made to offend everyone and I do mean everyone. From the president to Osama bin Laden no one is safe in this movie. The movie parody’s red necks, religious fanatics, terrorists, big corporations, bush, news reporters, kids shows, baristas, midgets, and Uwe Boll even makes fun of himself.
Now to give you just an idea about how offensive this movie is I will describe the opening scene for you. We open on two Middle Eastern men discussing how proud they are to die for Allah. However they hit a snag when they find out Osama promised them different amounts of virgins when they get to heaven. So after a minute or two of arguing they call Osama to confirm the amount of virgins. At the end of the phone call they decide the amount of virgins isn’t enough to die over and want to turn the plane around and go to the Bahamas. At this point the passengers break into the cockpit and start to wrestle control of the plane away from the terrorists. The camera then zooms out to a window washer as we see the plane crash into the building the window washer is on and it’s apparent now that it’s the twin towers.
Now if you aren’t offended by that opening then chances are you will enjoy the rest of the movie and there’s plenty movie to enjoy and plenty of laughs to be had but I think that’s enough of me raving about the movie let’s get down to the gritty details.
Like the game Postal is very violent. There is a shootout at the unemployment office, a hilariously named little Germany amusement park, a trailer park and a terrorist compound that used to be the base of a religious cult. There’s also a stabbing of a beggar, hundreds of children die, a midget gets raped by 1000 monkeys, and a suicide bomber blows up a religious nut on a street corner among other things.
As far as likenesses to the game there’s plenty. First off the main character is named postal dude just like in the game also the local convenience store is a hide out for a terrorist cell. There’s a religious cult which is actually just a money scam run by the postal dudes Uncle Dave who is played by Dave Foley. The people making the movie tried to get Gary Coleman to reprise his role from the game but unfortunately he was unavailable but they did get Vern Troyer (mini me form the Austin powers movies) to play himself.
There was a great scene that takes place at an amusement park called little Germany where Uwe Boll makes fun of himself. In the scene Boll is being interviewed because he’s the owner of little Germany and there is a line where he’s asked how he funds his movies and his response is “well many people believe my movies are funded by Nazi gold and well, it’s true” then later Vince Desiderio the creator of the Postal game disguised as a Krotchy doll shoots Uwe Boll in the testicles and blames him for making a crappy movie from his game. As Boll is dyeing he declares “I hate video games” then falls over dead.
The similarities don’t stop there either like I mentioned above Krotchy dolls are a major focus point. The dude’s wife is nagging and cheating on him his dog is also named champ like in the game. At one point the dude uses a live cat as a silencer however unlike in the game the cat lives. And last but not least the end of the movie like the game ends with the apocalypse.
Now the acting is fantastic especially in the case of the actors playing Bush and Bin Laden. I mean it’s a comedy movie so don’t expect jaw dropping dramatic performances but everyone delivers there lines with perfect timing and both Dave Foley who was on kids in the hall for a long time and Zach Ward who was on Titus are veteran comedic actors and it shows. I may be a little bias as I have always been a fan of Zach ward and was super excited he was the postal dude and to be honest I think he looks like the postal dude with the exception of the red hair.
The plot is not a direct retelling of the events from postal or postal 2 but it has the attitude and feel of the games most of this I attribute to the fact that Desiderio was involved with the script and production of the game witch again simply proves my point that if video game companies where more involved with the movies based or three games we would get better quality video game adaptations.
There will be no how I would do it section in this review as I think this movie is perfect the way it is.
Overall the movie is a perfect example of a good adaptation. It has the characters and the attitude and feeling of the game it’s based on there’s all kinds of little things like the cat silencer for the fans to pick up on and if you’re not a completely stuck up person then you can enjoy the incredibly offensive humor.
Overall I give postal 10 out of 10 dead Gary Coleman’s. The movie like I said above is just about perfect in terms of a video game adaptation incorporating lots of stuff from the game including the overall attitude.
The acting gets 9 out of 10. It’s almost perfect timing on all the lines and the writing is so good that even the crappy actors, IE the hot girls, come off as funny.
The plot gets 9 out of 10. It’s not a perfect translation but it is enough like the game that nobody should care and it was good enough that the creator of the game himself allowed it to be made.
The content gets 10 out of 10. Just about every single character or type of character from the game is in the movie.
Well we are now 1 movie away from finishing of the Boll movies and that movie is Far Cry I’m also downloading a copy of alone in the dark 2 however this is simply being produced by Boll he is not writing or directing like the rest of his movies so I’m not counting it as his. After Far Cry is Max Payne followed by the new street fighter both of which I plan to have done in less than a month because in august Tekken comes out and the creators have made a public statement that they are committed to making the best fighting game adaptation yet and promise it will be nothing like the street fighter movies or the Mortal Kombat movies.
In the name of the King A Dungeon Siege Tale
In the name of the King
A Dungeon Siege Tale
He’s back!!! That’s right your favorite director is back with another masterpiece. Oh wait I’m not reviewing a good movie? I’m still doing movies based on videogames? CRAP!!!! That means it’s another Uwe Boll movie doesn’t it? Ok well this movie had a big budget and actors people know so it’s got to be good right? Right?
Dungeon siege is about a simple farmer named farmer whose wife and son are kidnapped when a race of monsters called Krugs attack the kingdom of Ehb. Farmer fights them off rescuing a few people along the way and later joins the king’s army to help fight an evil wizard.
Ok so this time around Boll gets a big budget and what’s he do with it? Hires one of the more popular action stars at the time (Statham) hires a sometimes b sometimes a list actor (Ron Pearlman) and hires 2 ex superstar actors (Reynolds and Liotta) add in one CG and special effects fight scene and a whole two armies rushing at Each other and you get dungeon siege.
Let’s get this straight right off the bat I don’t blame the actors I blame the casting director or whoever is responsible for hiring the actors and choosing their roles. It seems boll just wanted as many big names as possible to try to get people to come see this movie. I mean Burt Reynolds and ray Liotta are good actors but to cast them in medieval/fantasy roles like this is just silly and produced only laughter from me.
Statham is great as always especially since this is a purely action role and that is certainly where he excels. Thank god ray Liotta was the bad guy anything and it probably would have been completely unwatchable. It was hard enough hearing him shout threats about magic. Reynolds isn’t a bad actor but again I just don’t think a medieval role was right for him.
It’s not just the incorrectly cast actors either most of the dialog is just silly even for a fantasy movie. But there are a few things the movie does right. The action is well shot and until the last fight scene is pretty good. In the last scene the movie forgets it’s a fantasy movie and thinks it’s the matrix, With Statham flipping all over the place in an unfitting display of wire-fu.
The other thing the movie does right is the content and story compared to the game and that’s double surprising considering it’s a Boll movie. The story is almost identical to the one in the game and they even went as far as to name the main character farmer witch I think is great. The Krug are from the game and look and act like the digital counterparts as well the kingdom is named correctly as well as the town of stone bridge. Statham even collects party members along the way.
A lot of critics complained about the action being very similar to lord of the rings but I think that’s a bull shit complaint. 300, troy, kingdom of heaven, king Arthur, and Alexander all have army on army action scenes and there were plenty of movies before lord of the rings to have them as well I think this complaint was simply made for the sake of complaining and is another reason I hate professional critics.
And last but not certainly not least Boll again gets the music right. This time going with power metal bands like blind guardian, and Hammerfall. The soundtrack is certainly a treat if you are a fan of power metal and I would suggest it if you’re not but curious as to what good metal sounds like.
So those are certainly the only pro besides the fact that I think Leelee Sobieski is hot. But wait!!! There’s plenty more cons. The story itself while most of it stems from the game is predictable and boring because of the out of place actors it’s hard to care about anyone when the king is poisoned I laughed I couldn’t help it.
I did happen to run into a higher up from gas powered games while working at Comp USA (their offices where incredibly close as where Microsoft’s.) and he told me he was the one of the ones who sold the rights to Boll. I asked him why he would do that and his reply was money. And this leads me to another point.
Videogame movies would not be bad if the companies behind the original game where involved in the production a little more and possibly set certain stipulations ahead of time. More often then not a company collects its cash and could care less how fans of the game feel about how shitty and raped our games get I have two examples for you. The first is silent hill Konami was involved with the making of this movie from start to finish and it turned out great and should have been pleasing to any fan of the game unless they are a fan boy/fan girl who are never satisfied with anything. The second is Max Payne now this is certainly not the worst video game movie in fact I liked it a lot but the coo of remedy entertainment said he hated the Max Payne movie and wasn’t satisfied with it until it started making money then he loved it.
Anyway back to the movie at hand I believe we are at the how I would do it section. And if you haven’t already guessed the biggest thing for me would be casting Statham and Pearlman where fine in my opinion but Liotta and Reynolds definitely not. I would have ditched the matrixesque fight scene in the end for a more traditional one on one possibly giving farmer a few spells considering every class in the game has them that way it could be spell vs. spell sort of thing.
Overall the movie blows, one or two decent performances do nothing to save this movie and the action while entertaining at times is just as bland as the dialog the music is great and there’s lots of stuff from the games but it was almost doomed from the start with Boll at the helm. The good news is after this Boll said he would never again work with a big budget so thank god for small miracles.
Over all the movie gets 5 out of 10 poisoned kings. It does have a lot from the games but out of place actors and passable action pull this one into the mud.
The acting gets 3 out of 10 only two performances where any good and the rest where laughable passable or downright bad.
The plot gets 6 out of 10 most of it was straight from the game with a few minor changes.
The content gets 7 out of 10 a good chunk of classes and races where included as well as locations and monster design and the Krug even said “Krug” like in the game.
Ok another one done and quickly this time mostly because I’m eager to review the next movie on my list witch if you read my top ten best and worst video game movies you would know it is by far the best video game movie ever made and here’s the real kicker it’s another Boll movie. That’s right up next is postal and boy oh boy it is a duzy then on to far cry to wrap up the Boll movies then Max Payne and as soon as Chun-Li comes out ill take care of that one which will complete the catching up and then I’ll be able to review movies as they hit theaters as long as I’m able to see them.
A Dungeon Siege Tale
He’s back!!! That’s right your favorite director is back with another masterpiece. Oh wait I’m not reviewing a good movie? I’m still doing movies based on videogames? CRAP!!!! That means it’s another Uwe Boll movie doesn’t it? Ok well this movie had a big budget and actors people know so it’s got to be good right? Right?
Dungeon siege is about a simple farmer named farmer whose wife and son are kidnapped when a race of monsters called Krugs attack the kingdom of Ehb. Farmer fights them off rescuing a few people along the way and later joins the king’s army to help fight an evil wizard.
Ok so this time around Boll gets a big budget and what’s he do with it? Hires one of the more popular action stars at the time (Statham) hires a sometimes b sometimes a list actor (Ron Pearlman) and hires 2 ex superstar actors (Reynolds and Liotta) add in one CG and special effects fight scene and a whole two armies rushing at Each other and you get dungeon siege.
Let’s get this straight right off the bat I don’t blame the actors I blame the casting director or whoever is responsible for hiring the actors and choosing their roles. It seems boll just wanted as many big names as possible to try to get people to come see this movie. I mean Burt Reynolds and ray Liotta are good actors but to cast them in medieval/fantasy roles like this is just silly and produced only laughter from me.
Statham is great as always especially since this is a purely action role and that is certainly where he excels. Thank god ray Liotta was the bad guy anything and it probably would have been completely unwatchable. It was hard enough hearing him shout threats about magic. Reynolds isn’t a bad actor but again I just don’t think a medieval role was right for him.
It’s not just the incorrectly cast actors either most of the dialog is just silly even for a fantasy movie. But there are a few things the movie does right. The action is well shot and until the last fight scene is pretty good. In the last scene the movie forgets it’s a fantasy movie and thinks it’s the matrix, With Statham flipping all over the place in an unfitting display of wire-fu.
The other thing the movie does right is the content and story compared to the game and that’s double surprising considering it’s a Boll movie. The story is almost identical to the one in the game and they even went as far as to name the main character farmer witch I think is great. The Krug are from the game and look and act like the digital counterparts as well the kingdom is named correctly as well as the town of stone bridge. Statham even collects party members along the way.
A lot of critics complained about the action being very similar to lord of the rings but I think that’s a bull shit complaint. 300, troy, kingdom of heaven, king Arthur, and Alexander all have army on army action scenes and there were plenty of movies before lord of the rings to have them as well I think this complaint was simply made for the sake of complaining and is another reason I hate professional critics.
And last but not certainly not least Boll again gets the music right. This time going with power metal bands like blind guardian, and Hammerfall. The soundtrack is certainly a treat if you are a fan of power metal and I would suggest it if you’re not but curious as to what good metal sounds like.
So those are certainly the only pro besides the fact that I think Leelee Sobieski is hot. But wait!!! There’s plenty more cons. The story itself while most of it stems from the game is predictable and boring because of the out of place actors it’s hard to care about anyone when the king is poisoned I laughed I couldn’t help it.
I did happen to run into a higher up from gas powered games while working at Comp USA (their offices where incredibly close as where Microsoft’s.) and he told me he was the one of the ones who sold the rights to Boll. I asked him why he would do that and his reply was money. And this leads me to another point.
Videogame movies would not be bad if the companies behind the original game where involved in the production a little more and possibly set certain stipulations ahead of time. More often then not a company collects its cash and could care less how fans of the game feel about how shitty and raped our games get I have two examples for you. The first is silent hill Konami was involved with the making of this movie from start to finish and it turned out great and should have been pleasing to any fan of the game unless they are a fan boy/fan girl who are never satisfied with anything. The second is Max Payne now this is certainly not the worst video game movie in fact I liked it a lot but the coo of remedy entertainment said he hated the Max Payne movie and wasn’t satisfied with it until it started making money then he loved it.
Anyway back to the movie at hand I believe we are at the how I would do it section. And if you haven’t already guessed the biggest thing for me would be casting Statham and Pearlman where fine in my opinion but Liotta and Reynolds definitely not. I would have ditched the matrixesque fight scene in the end for a more traditional one on one possibly giving farmer a few spells considering every class in the game has them that way it could be spell vs. spell sort of thing.
Overall the movie blows, one or two decent performances do nothing to save this movie and the action while entertaining at times is just as bland as the dialog the music is great and there’s lots of stuff from the games but it was almost doomed from the start with Boll at the helm. The good news is after this Boll said he would never again work with a big budget so thank god for small miracles.
Over all the movie gets 5 out of 10 poisoned kings. It does have a lot from the games but out of place actors and passable action pull this one into the mud.
The acting gets 3 out of 10 only two performances where any good and the rest where laughable passable or downright bad.
The plot gets 6 out of 10 most of it was straight from the game with a few minor changes.
The content gets 7 out of 10 a good chunk of classes and races where included as well as locations and monster design and the Krug even said “Krug” like in the game.
Ok another one done and quickly this time mostly because I’m eager to review the next movie on my list witch if you read my top ten best and worst video game movies you would know it is by far the best video game movie ever made and here’s the real kicker it’s another Boll movie. That’s right up next is postal and boy oh boy it is a duzy then on to far cry to wrap up the Boll movies then Max Payne and as soon as Chun-Li comes out ill take care of that one which will complete the catching up and then I’ll be able to review movies as they hit theaters as long as I’m able to see them.
confessions of a media pirate
Confessions of a Media Pirate
So the other day I was surfing around IMDB and found a thread that was discussing pirating aka illegal downloading and the morality of it. Well I am a media pirate. I download movies music video games TV shows and I also copy any movie I rent and enjoy. But what comes next may surprise you. I am not here to defend myself or pirating in general I’m here to let everyone know that me and anyone else who downloads for free is a thief plain and simple.
Pirating has been around for a long time now its older then everyone thinks with one of the very first uses of the term going all the way back to 1703 where a book written by Daniel Defoe was being printed over and over again without him receiving anything for it. Before 1999 pirating was limited to computer savvy people who would use things like Usenet and IRC. Non computer savvy people could find bootleg movies and tapes at flea markets. Then in 99 Napster was created and suddenly getting a hold of pirated material was easier than ever. Napster was eventually shut down but other peer to peer or P2P networks and programs took its place followed shortly by Bit Torrent and its indexing sites.
I have read and listened to numerous arguments for piracy and frankly they are all bullshit. People say it’s there right to listen to the music or see the movie and this is simply crazy. You have no right to use other peoples work whether it be a movie or music unless you have permission from the creators or you pay the money to do so.
Another argument I hear a lot is that the downloader wouldn’t have bought the movie or CD anyway so getting it for free is not hurting anyone. Again this is bullshit it is an excuse to moralize something you know is wrong. If you were not going to see the movie or listen to the CD why download it in the first place? Last but not least the other argument is movie studios/record labels/software companies all have plenty of money and are not hurt financially by the downloader.
This last one pisses me off the most because yes the CEO of a company or the music exec or the actors or directors usually have plenty of money and aren’t going to be hurt by a download. However the guy who sweeps the floor, the lighting guys, the dishwashers, the guys that get yelled at by Christian bale and other low level employees probably don’t have plenty of money and will end up being hurt by your actions.
Then we have the people who say they wanted to sample something before buying it and maybe in 99 that would have been valid but now ten years later there are plenty of legal ways to sample things. You can rent a movie for 5 bucks you can listen to free music via legal sites like Songza. Programs like Veoh and websites like Hulu allow you to see free legal TV and movies.
By now a lot of you are probably calling me a hypocrite and laughing amongst your selves about how stupid I am for bashing pirates when I am one myself but that’s where you’re wrong. I’m not bashing pirates I’m bashing pirates that try and defend what they do morally. 99% of the time downloading stuff from the net is illegal and stealing.
There are a few exceptions where P2P and file sharing networks can be used for good. The first is open source software and free to distribute media. Like 2 years ago Radiohead put its entire album out for free or for you to pay as much as you thought the album was worth. Movies like download this movie and CD's like steal this album are being promoted for you to download or pirate and even if the artist didn’t intend for the media to be pirated if you name your CD steal this album you deserve the consequences.
One other way downloading is morally right and legally is with fan subs of anime. A fan sub is when a group of people take an anime that is only in Japan or another Asian country and add their own subtitles to it. This is the rare example of when torrents and other file sharing tools help an industry. Most fan subing groups will not sub a series any longer if the series has been licensed in America and will then encourage the fans to buy the DVDs and most will. This way of doing things introduces shows to fans and increases fan base thus increasing sales for the actual product.
And if this is how it actually worked with movies and music then file sharing would be great if it was actually possible to see something before it was out and all it did was make people want to buy it more than it would work well but it doesn’t the cold hard truth is pirating is stealing I do it and if you download without paying you do it too.
I’m a pirater and I’m a thief and all I have to say is I hope the FBI never checks my house.
So the other day I was surfing around IMDB and found a thread that was discussing pirating aka illegal downloading and the morality of it. Well I am a media pirate. I download movies music video games TV shows and I also copy any movie I rent and enjoy. But what comes next may surprise you. I am not here to defend myself or pirating in general I’m here to let everyone know that me and anyone else who downloads for free is a thief plain and simple.
Pirating has been around for a long time now its older then everyone thinks with one of the very first uses of the term going all the way back to 1703 where a book written by Daniel Defoe was being printed over and over again without him receiving anything for it. Before 1999 pirating was limited to computer savvy people who would use things like Usenet and IRC. Non computer savvy people could find bootleg movies and tapes at flea markets. Then in 99 Napster was created and suddenly getting a hold of pirated material was easier than ever. Napster was eventually shut down but other peer to peer or P2P networks and programs took its place followed shortly by Bit Torrent and its indexing sites.
I have read and listened to numerous arguments for piracy and frankly they are all bullshit. People say it’s there right to listen to the music or see the movie and this is simply crazy. You have no right to use other peoples work whether it be a movie or music unless you have permission from the creators or you pay the money to do so.
Another argument I hear a lot is that the downloader wouldn’t have bought the movie or CD anyway so getting it for free is not hurting anyone. Again this is bullshit it is an excuse to moralize something you know is wrong. If you were not going to see the movie or listen to the CD why download it in the first place? Last but not least the other argument is movie studios/record labels/software companies all have plenty of money and are not hurt financially by the downloader.
This last one pisses me off the most because yes the CEO of a company or the music exec or the actors or directors usually have plenty of money and aren’t going to be hurt by a download. However the guy who sweeps the floor, the lighting guys, the dishwashers, the guys that get yelled at by Christian bale and other low level employees probably don’t have plenty of money and will end up being hurt by your actions.
Then we have the people who say they wanted to sample something before buying it and maybe in 99 that would have been valid but now ten years later there are plenty of legal ways to sample things. You can rent a movie for 5 bucks you can listen to free music via legal sites like Songza. Programs like Veoh and websites like Hulu allow you to see free legal TV and movies.
By now a lot of you are probably calling me a hypocrite and laughing amongst your selves about how stupid I am for bashing pirates when I am one myself but that’s where you’re wrong. I’m not bashing pirates I’m bashing pirates that try and defend what they do morally. 99% of the time downloading stuff from the net is illegal and stealing.
There are a few exceptions where P2P and file sharing networks can be used for good. The first is open source software and free to distribute media. Like 2 years ago Radiohead put its entire album out for free or for you to pay as much as you thought the album was worth. Movies like download this movie and CD's like steal this album are being promoted for you to download or pirate and even if the artist didn’t intend for the media to be pirated if you name your CD steal this album you deserve the consequences.
One other way downloading is morally right and legally is with fan subs of anime. A fan sub is when a group of people take an anime that is only in Japan or another Asian country and add their own subtitles to it. This is the rare example of when torrents and other file sharing tools help an industry. Most fan subing groups will not sub a series any longer if the series has been licensed in America and will then encourage the fans to buy the DVDs and most will. This way of doing things introduces shows to fans and increases fan base thus increasing sales for the actual product.
And if this is how it actually worked with movies and music then file sharing would be great if it was actually possible to see something before it was out and all it did was make people want to buy it more than it would work well but it doesn’t the cold hard truth is pirating is stealing I do it and if you download without paying you do it too.
I’m a pirater and I’m a thief and all I have to say is I hope the FBI never checks my house.
Monday, June 1, 2009
HITMAN movie review
HITMAN
How good can a game about being the best assassin on the planet translate into a movie? Will Luc Besson being a producer help this movie pass the hurdle that so many other video game movies have failed to in the past? Well read on to find out.
Hitman is about an assassin named agent 47 who works for the “agency” and is considered the best assassin in the world who never misses a target. His latest assignment has him killing the Russian president but something goes wrong and 47 is now being chased by his own agency as well as the cops and has to find out who is setting him up before they kill him.
Ok so I haven’t played every single Hitman I played most of the second one on ps2. And from what I’ve found out 47 is a clone in the games and has increased strength and agility in the movie they dump the clone thing and have the agency take in orphans and train them to be assassins.
What I remember from the game is the many different ways you could get to and kill your target. There where disguises, poison, piano wire and of course 47s dual pistols. Now while in the movie 47 does impersonate a person in one scene its more guns blazing action then sneaky spy stuff. However the movie does do a good job of showing off 47’s intelligence and other skills as an assassin.
The action scenes where good they weren’t too over the top and fit within the story nicely unlike other movies where the action seems to be there just to be there. 47, Diana, the agency and agent smith are all from the games. But in the games agent smith is a bumbling fool who keeps getting himself caught while in the movie he is a very competent CIA agent.
Throughout the movie 47 has his signature outfit and pistols. The barcode tattoo is present. His insignia is everywhere and he genuinely acts like 47.
I believe that the movie was able to capture 47’s neutral attitude not caring one way or the other if someone has to die for his mission even a bystander but like just about every other assassin movie it suffers from sudden emotionitis. Sudden emotionitis is when a movie character that at first is shown as ruthless or uncaring about anyone ends up uncharacteristically caring for someone more than they should. The professional, Bangkok dangerous, chronicles of Riddick and the Bourne identity are a few, this doesn’t make them bad movies it’s just a trend that seems to show up a lot.
There is a deleted scene in the DVD that shows the female lead being killed while 47 watches as opposed to the original where 47 protects her from another Hitman. Apparently some of the original scenes hinted at 47 being a clone but it was changed at the last minute and some scenes where reshot.
The acting was pretty good Timothy Olyphant was good as 47 keeping a calm tone even when threatening to kill just like in the game and it was nice to see a bald main character who isn’t Vin Diesel or Jason Statham.
The plot could be a Hitman type plot as far as killing the president and finding out who set him up but the movie dumps 47’s background for the one invented for the film.
Overall this is definitely one of the better video game movies out there the acting and action are great and entertaining and it does a decent job of capturing some of the main themes from the game.
Overall I give the movie 7 out of 10 AMT Hardballers. The action and acting was good the director did a nice job with the scenes and it was an all around decent movie.
The acting gets 7 out of 10. No award winning performances here but decent job all around.
The plot gets 5 out of 10. Like I said not a direct Hitman plot but could very well be however it loses points for dumping the clone story line.
The content gets 6 out of 10. Most major players are here. Hitman's classic outfit is present as are his guns and insignia.
Ok well that wraps up this short and sweet review next we have a bad good bad sequence of boll movies and no the good is not a typo then Max Payne. And somewhere in there will be my review of Boll himself. Then sometime soon I will review Chun Li and in august Tekken hits theaters.
How good can a game about being the best assassin on the planet translate into a movie? Will Luc Besson being a producer help this movie pass the hurdle that so many other video game movies have failed to in the past? Well read on to find out.
Hitman is about an assassin named agent 47 who works for the “agency” and is considered the best assassin in the world who never misses a target. His latest assignment has him killing the Russian president but something goes wrong and 47 is now being chased by his own agency as well as the cops and has to find out who is setting him up before they kill him.
Ok so I haven’t played every single Hitman I played most of the second one on ps2. And from what I’ve found out 47 is a clone in the games and has increased strength and agility in the movie they dump the clone thing and have the agency take in orphans and train them to be assassins.
What I remember from the game is the many different ways you could get to and kill your target. There where disguises, poison, piano wire and of course 47s dual pistols. Now while in the movie 47 does impersonate a person in one scene its more guns blazing action then sneaky spy stuff. However the movie does do a good job of showing off 47’s intelligence and other skills as an assassin.
The action scenes where good they weren’t too over the top and fit within the story nicely unlike other movies where the action seems to be there just to be there. 47, Diana, the agency and agent smith are all from the games. But in the games agent smith is a bumbling fool who keeps getting himself caught while in the movie he is a very competent CIA agent.
Throughout the movie 47 has his signature outfit and pistols. The barcode tattoo is present. His insignia is everywhere and he genuinely acts like 47.
I believe that the movie was able to capture 47’s neutral attitude not caring one way or the other if someone has to die for his mission even a bystander but like just about every other assassin movie it suffers from sudden emotionitis. Sudden emotionitis is when a movie character that at first is shown as ruthless or uncaring about anyone ends up uncharacteristically caring for someone more than they should. The professional, Bangkok dangerous, chronicles of Riddick and the Bourne identity are a few, this doesn’t make them bad movies it’s just a trend that seems to show up a lot.
There is a deleted scene in the DVD that shows the female lead being killed while 47 watches as opposed to the original where 47 protects her from another Hitman. Apparently some of the original scenes hinted at 47 being a clone but it was changed at the last minute and some scenes where reshot.
The acting was pretty good Timothy Olyphant was good as 47 keeping a calm tone even when threatening to kill just like in the game and it was nice to see a bald main character who isn’t Vin Diesel or Jason Statham.
The plot could be a Hitman type plot as far as killing the president and finding out who set him up but the movie dumps 47’s background for the one invented for the film.
Overall this is definitely one of the better video game movies out there the acting and action are great and entertaining and it does a decent job of capturing some of the main themes from the game.
Overall I give the movie 7 out of 10 AMT Hardballers. The action and acting was good the director did a nice job with the scenes and it was an all around decent movie.
The acting gets 7 out of 10. No award winning performances here but decent job all around.
The plot gets 5 out of 10. Like I said not a direct Hitman plot but could very well be however it loses points for dumping the clone story line.
The content gets 6 out of 10. Most major players are here. Hitman's classic outfit is present as are his guns and insignia.
Ok well that wraps up this short and sweet review next we have a bad good bad sequence of boll movies and no the good is not a typo then Max Payne. And somewhere in there will be my review of Boll himself. Then sometime soon I will review Chun Li and in august Tekken hits theaters.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Resident Evil Extinction
Resident Evil: Extinction
Ok well hear it is the third and supposedly final resident evil movie well I’m eager to get this series out of the way so let’s get right down to it.
Ok so at the end of the last movie raccoon city was destroyed by a nuclear missile so what adventures will our characters get into in the mountains is it possible they will visit the facility from code veronica. Nope we jump ahead 5 years to a zombie infested wasteland with a quick intro by Alice explaining that the t-virus has infested a good percent of the population.
So where do I begin well first let’s talk about the plot progression. We go from an ending that copies the third game to the start of a story not present in the game at all. In the first movie we got a sort of side story to the first game in the second movie we had a story that imitated the second and third game but now in the third movie we leave all that behind and get a new story that the games haven’t reached yet and that also fails to utilize 2 characters from the game.
The first of these characters to be used incorrectly is Claire Redfield. At first in the games she is simply looking for her brother then later becomes a very strong willed capable fighter when faced with danger. In the movie they don’t cover any of her back story and now she is leading a convoy that hunts for survivors. The convoy may be something that Claire would have done but honestly she doesn’t do much else sure she fights a few zombies but I honestly don’t think the movie captures her personality very well and this version of Claire could have easily replaced with an original character.
The second character that was not utilized very well is Wesker. In the games he’s a great villain after escaping death in the first game by injecting himself with a version of the t-virus that gives him super strength and agility much like Alice's powers in the movies. If they had covered a tiny bit of his back story he would have made a great opponent for Alice with their abilities being very similar the ending battle would have been great and probably something similar to the fights in code veronica. Instead they let him be a strictly behind the scenes bad guy who is high atop umbrellas ranks.
Now honestly I think the movie handled the tyrant monster pretty good. In the games tyrants are constantly changing and developing new abilities so it makes since that this tyrant would have similar abilities to Alice so the fight would be interesting.
The action sequences are entertaining and pretty good. However more so then the second one this movie has even less horror aspects to it. At least in the second one while they are in the church and school there are moments of suspense and surprises but here there’s really nothing there’s one scene where a zombie comes out of a closet but other than that 2 second jump scare there’s nothing. Even when our heroes are being rushed by a hoard of zombies you don’t fear for them at all.
I think the main reason for this is how powerful they made Alice she is super strong she’s faster than normal people more agility and has psychic abilities. Which is another thing at the end of the second movie Alice’s powers have developed quite a bit but in this one which is 5 years later they are just starting to develop subconsciously it just doesn’t make since to me.
The ending of the movie does set us up for a sequel but there’s 2 things wrong with this one there has been multiple occasions where its stated that this was the last movie and 2 if they continue this plot line it won’t just be one Alice it would be an army of them and Alice is already strong enough having hundreds of her seems stupid.
Besides Claire, Wesker, and tyrant there’s nothing else from the games like the first one this is an original story which would have been fine if it was supposed to be after the games but the fact that they made it go in the direction it did does not help the series at all.
How would I do it? Well If I was going to simply alter this plot I would have made Wesker the main bad guy. If I was going to do my own movie I would have tried to do the story from code veronica which would have used both Claire and Wesker in better roles.
Over all the movie has decent and entertaining action sequences but fails to deliver in anything else and I’m glad it’s the final in the series so we don’t have to deal with the mutilation of the resident evil franchise anymore.
Overall the movie gets 4 out of 10 zombie crows. Entertaining action and pretty good CGI is the only redeeming factor for this movie other than that it’s really not worth watching.
The acting gets 6 out of 10. Like I said it’s not horrible just nothing too special.
The plot gets 2 out of 10. It took the franchise to a time and place it hasn’t hit yet and unfortunately the story just doesn’t deliver.
The content gets 4 out of 10. I really liked tyrant and it was nice they tried to include Wesker and Claire but the way they used these famous characters was poorly executed.
Ok well I’m glad I was able to get this one done as quickly as promised in my last review. Up next is Hitman then three Bolls in a row. I will try to pace myself with these as I do not wish to explode anyone’s head. However once I finish these that will conclude the Boll movies and I will be able to start writing my review of Boll himself.
And after that its only 2 more movies until I’m caught up and I have 4 months to do all this in as in august the Tekken movie comes out and I’d like to review it as soon as I see it. I hope the DVD for Chun-Li is out by then because I’d like to re-watch it before I review it.
Ok well hear it is the third and supposedly final resident evil movie well I’m eager to get this series out of the way so let’s get right down to it.
Ok so at the end of the last movie raccoon city was destroyed by a nuclear missile so what adventures will our characters get into in the mountains is it possible they will visit the facility from code veronica. Nope we jump ahead 5 years to a zombie infested wasteland with a quick intro by Alice explaining that the t-virus has infested a good percent of the population.
So where do I begin well first let’s talk about the plot progression. We go from an ending that copies the third game to the start of a story not present in the game at all. In the first movie we got a sort of side story to the first game in the second movie we had a story that imitated the second and third game but now in the third movie we leave all that behind and get a new story that the games haven’t reached yet and that also fails to utilize 2 characters from the game.
The first of these characters to be used incorrectly is Claire Redfield. At first in the games she is simply looking for her brother then later becomes a very strong willed capable fighter when faced with danger. In the movie they don’t cover any of her back story and now she is leading a convoy that hunts for survivors. The convoy may be something that Claire would have done but honestly she doesn’t do much else sure she fights a few zombies but I honestly don’t think the movie captures her personality very well and this version of Claire could have easily replaced with an original character.
The second character that was not utilized very well is Wesker. In the games he’s a great villain after escaping death in the first game by injecting himself with a version of the t-virus that gives him super strength and agility much like Alice's powers in the movies. If they had covered a tiny bit of his back story he would have made a great opponent for Alice with their abilities being very similar the ending battle would have been great and probably something similar to the fights in code veronica. Instead they let him be a strictly behind the scenes bad guy who is high atop umbrellas ranks.
Now honestly I think the movie handled the tyrant monster pretty good. In the games tyrants are constantly changing and developing new abilities so it makes since that this tyrant would have similar abilities to Alice so the fight would be interesting.
The action sequences are entertaining and pretty good. However more so then the second one this movie has even less horror aspects to it. At least in the second one while they are in the church and school there are moments of suspense and surprises but here there’s really nothing there’s one scene where a zombie comes out of a closet but other than that 2 second jump scare there’s nothing. Even when our heroes are being rushed by a hoard of zombies you don’t fear for them at all.
I think the main reason for this is how powerful they made Alice she is super strong she’s faster than normal people more agility and has psychic abilities. Which is another thing at the end of the second movie Alice’s powers have developed quite a bit but in this one which is 5 years later they are just starting to develop subconsciously it just doesn’t make since to me.
The ending of the movie does set us up for a sequel but there’s 2 things wrong with this one there has been multiple occasions where its stated that this was the last movie and 2 if they continue this plot line it won’t just be one Alice it would be an army of them and Alice is already strong enough having hundreds of her seems stupid.
Besides Claire, Wesker, and tyrant there’s nothing else from the games like the first one this is an original story which would have been fine if it was supposed to be after the games but the fact that they made it go in the direction it did does not help the series at all.
How would I do it? Well If I was going to simply alter this plot I would have made Wesker the main bad guy. If I was going to do my own movie I would have tried to do the story from code veronica which would have used both Claire and Wesker in better roles.
Over all the movie has decent and entertaining action sequences but fails to deliver in anything else and I’m glad it’s the final in the series so we don’t have to deal with the mutilation of the resident evil franchise anymore.
Overall the movie gets 4 out of 10 zombie crows. Entertaining action and pretty good CGI is the only redeeming factor for this movie other than that it’s really not worth watching.
The acting gets 6 out of 10. Like I said it’s not horrible just nothing too special.
The plot gets 2 out of 10. It took the franchise to a time and place it hasn’t hit yet and unfortunately the story just doesn’t deliver.
The content gets 4 out of 10. I really liked tyrant and it was nice they tried to include Wesker and Claire but the way they used these famous characters was poorly executed.
Ok well I’m glad I was able to get this one done as quickly as promised in my last review. Up next is Hitman then three Bolls in a row. I will try to pace myself with these as I do not wish to explode anyone’s head. However once I finish these that will conclude the Boll movies and I will be able to start writing my review of Boll himself.
And after that its only 2 more movies until I’m caught up and I have 4 months to do all this in as in august the Tekken movie comes out and I’d like to review it as soon as I see it. I hope the DVD for Chun-Li is out by then because I’d like to re-watch it before I review it.
BloodRayne2 movie review
BloodRayne 2: Deliverance
Ok so about a year after the first BloodRayne we get its straight to DVD sequel. This time Rayne is taking out vampire cowboys in the Wild West can a new actress and new setting save this series or will it be just as pointless as the first. Well read on to find out but I think you know the answer.
BloodRayne 2 takes place in a small town during the Wild West time era. This time Rayne has to take on a vampiric Billy the kid who is rounding up cowboys and turning them into vampires and children for some reason or other.
Well BloodRayne 2 does absolutely nothing to help this series at all the new actress is simply there for her looks where as at least Kristina Loken had martial arts and fighting experience. The best part about the first movie, the gore is absent in this one.
Again the movie is not based on either of the game stories and again shows Rayne's past which is fine. I actually liked this story better then the first as far as writing goes because it doesn’t change the facts about Rayne’s life it’s just an adventure she had during her long life.
Zach Ward is decent as the vampire Billy the kid but I’m a bit partial to him ever since the sitcom Titus. The new Rayne is bland as well as the supporting actors and actresses. The movie isn’t paced well at all and has even less action sequences then the first and like the first it fails to capture Rayne’s true powers.
There’s a scene where Billy is holding a weight or something above a child’s head and threatening to release it. Rayne should have been able to use her speed to slice Billy and catch the rope I mean in the game she can dodge bullets. She does catch the rope but it is with a great deal of effort.
Other than that there’s not much more to say the movie is just a continuation of the crappy Uwe Boll movies and is even worse than the first one as it’s missing the only good parts from the first one.
Overall the movie fails harder than the first to deliver a good BloodRayne story or even a good b vampire movie the lost boys 2 is a much better straight to DVD vampire sequel.
How would I do it? I would dump the Wild West and like the first one id actually put her in ww2. I have heard there is going to be a third one that finally gets to the stories of the games but we will have to wait and see.
Overall I give the movie this movie gets 2 out of 10 Dhampir blades. It’s just as bad as the first if not worse
The acting gets 2 out of 10. I like Zach Ward but that’s about all only good thing is him being in this movie probably helped him get the role as the postal dude.
The plot gets 1 out of 10. It’s just a side Rayne story and has no bearing or plot elements from the game.
The content gets 1 out of 10. Nothing but Rayne is from the games.
Ok so that’s out of the way a quick short one for a crappy movie up next is the last resident evil then Hitman then back to boll with his first big budget film and as soon as I save and post this I’m going to start on the resident evil review so expect them within hours of each other.
Ok so about a year after the first BloodRayne we get its straight to DVD sequel. This time Rayne is taking out vampire cowboys in the Wild West can a new actress and new setting save this series or will it be just as pointless as the first. Well read on to find out but I think you know the answer.
BloodRayne 2 takes place in a small town during the Wild West time era. This time Rayne has to take on a vampiric Billy the kid who is rounding up cowboys and turning them into vampires and children for some reason or other.
Well BloodRayne 2 does absolutely nothing to help this series at all the new actress is simply there for her looks where as at least Kristina Loken had martial arts and fighting experience. The best part about the first movie, the gore is absent in this one.
Again the movie is not based on either of the game stories and again shows Rayne's past which is fine. I actually liked this story better then the first as far as writing goes because it doesn’t change the facts about Rayne’s life it’s just an adventure she had during her long life.
Zach Ward is decent as the vampire Billy the kid but I’m a bit partial to him ever since the sitcom Titus. The new Rayne is bland as well as the supporting actors and actresses. The movie isn’t paced well at all and has even less action sequences then the first and like the first it fails to capture Rayne’s true powers.
There’s a scene where Billy is holding a weight or something above a child’s head and threatening to release it. Rayne should have been able to use her speed to slice Billy and catch the rope I mean in the game she can dodge bullets. She does catch the rope but it is with a great deal of effort.
Other than that there’s not much more to say the movie is just a continuation of the crappy Uwe Boll movies and is even worse than the first one as it’s missing the only good parts from the first one.
Overall the movie fails harder than the first to deliver a good BloodRayne story or even a good b vampire movie the lost boys 2 is a much better straight to DVD vampire sequel.
How would I do it? I would dump the Wild West and like the first one id actually put her in ww2. I have heard there is going to be a third one that finally gets to the stories of the games but we will have to wait and see.
Overall I give the movie this movie gets 2 out of 10 Dhampir blades. It’s just as bad as the first if not worse
The acting gets 2 out of 10. I like Zach Ward but that’s about all only good thing is him being in this movie probably helped him get the role as the postal dude.
The plot gets 1 out of 10. It’s just a side Rayne story and has no bearing or plot elements from the game.
The content gets 1 out of 10. Nothing but Rayne is from the games.
Ok so that’s out of the way a quick short one for a crappy movie up next is the last resident evil then Hitman then back to boll with his first big budget film and as soon as I save and post this I’m going to start on the resident evil review so expect them within hours of each other.
Monday, April 6, 2009
top ten movie sequels
Top 10
Movie sequels that where better then the original
Ok so in this list we are tackling part 2’s that where better then the part ones as always these are my opinions and if you disagree I’m sorry but make your own list.
10. Matrix reloaded. Now I know I’m going to get a lot of flak for this one. A good majority of the people I talked to loved the first one but hated the second. But the list isn’t based on sales numbers or anyone else opinion. Why do I think it’s better than part 1? The action scenes are longer and mixes the gun play as well as the martial arts scenes the story reveals a lot more about the one and is a lot deeper than good vs. evil and the smith vs. neo scene is one of my all time favorite fight scenes.
9. The incredible hulk 2008. Now I’m not sure if this is meant to be a sequel or if it’s a reboot or what but it is the second hulk film in the new generation of super hero movies so I think it counts. The acting is a lot better the story is more like the comic the hulk is more like the hulk and iron man is in it you can’t get much better than that. Also the movie is paced better and they even let Lou Ferrigno does the grunting and growling for the hulk.
8. Clerks 2. Some of you may agree some may not but clerks 2 was raunchier then the first and was absolutely every bit just as funny. The amount of time between movies does nothing to hurt the film. The interaction between Dante and Randall is absolutely great and seeing jay and silent bob back in their roles as supporting characters fits them well yet again plus who could hate a movie with a donkey show in it.
7. Superman 2. The second superman movie is better than the first for a few different reasons. For starters it’s the only superman movie where superman fights a super villain form the comic besides Lex and not only is it one villain but 3 and for an older movie the flying super human fights, while not a huge big drawn out cg effect like the matrix revolutions, are pretty good and he uses a cellophane s as a weapon that’s freaking cool.
6. Indiana Jones and the temple of doom. I’ve always liked temple of doom better then raiders I don’t know if it’s the fact that I was a young boy and this movie was full of gross out scenes including the bare hand removal of a guy’s heart. And short round is great as the comic relief albeit slightly annoying at times.
5. Aliens. More Ripley, more aliens, and more action are the main reasons this sequel to alien make it onto the list plus we get the “leave her alone you bitch” line while Ripley destroys the queen using the lifting mech thing.
4. Predator 2. Yes I know Danny Glover is no Arnold but honestly what’s so special about a Special Forces solider beating a monster he’s trained and buff and ready to kill. But Danny Glover's character is an older plain old cop and he still beats the predator. Not only that but this movie is the one that first introduces us to the fact that the predators have fought the aliens before and we get to see more about the predator technology and more predator equals better movie.
Ok these last 3 are big ones and depending on what kind of movie you are a fan of you may completely agree or totally disagree but in either case here are the top 3 sequels that are better than the originals.
3. Terminater 2: judgment day. The first one was great but with the second one we get 2 cyborgs not just one we get to see Arnold as the good guy and we get some very cool CGI effects with the t-1000. This is also the first time we get to see how much Sarah cares about john and this movie establishes her bad ass status that we have all come to know and love.
2. Star Wars episode 5 the empire strikes back. This is one that a lot of people agree on we get to see Yoda for the first time. The love between Han and Leia grows and Luke matures more into a man. And last but very certainly not least we get one of the greatest twists in cinema history when Vader reveals he is Luke's father.
1. Batman: The Dark Knight. Batman begins was the restart the franchise needed to dig itself out of the whole that batman and robin dug itself into comic and movie fans alike enjoyed this new origin story of batman. It was darker and with the explanation of most of Batman's technology we got some answers we may have had for a while but skip ahead a few years and everything is better and bigger. We get more gadgets we get to see the mental struggle between batman and Bruce Wayne and of course we get one of the most disturbingly wonderful performances from Heath Ledger as the joker and in my opinion the best joker of all time. Everything in this movie is well executed although a few of the lines are cheesy. Everything in the dark knight tops everything from batman begins in every way and that’s why it’s my pick for number 1 sequel.
Ok I hope you enjoyed that list I know some will agree and some will disagree but it’s my opinion like anyone’s else’s top ten list. I would love any comments and will respond to them all.
Movie sequels that where better then the original
Ok so in this list we are tackling part 2’s that where better then the part ones as always these are my opinions and if you disagree I’m sorry but make your own list.
10. Matrix reloaded. Now I know I’m going to get a lot of flak for this one. A good majority of the people I talked to loved the first one but hated the second. But the list isn’t based on sales numbers or anyone else opinion. Why do I think it’s better than part 1? The action scenes are longer and mixes the gun play as well as the martial arts scenes the story reveals a lot more about the one and is a lot deeper than good vs. evil and the smith vs. neo scene is one of my all time favorite fight scenes.
9. The incredible hulk 2008. Now I’m not sure if this is meant to be a sequel or if it’s a reboot or what but it is the second hulk film in the new generation of super hero movies so I think it counts. The acting is a lot better the story is more like the comic the hulk is more like the hulk and iron man is in it you can’t get much better than that. Also the movie is paced better and they even let Lou Ferrigno does the grunting and growling for the hulk.
8. Clerks 2. Some of you may agree some may not but clerks 2 was raunchier then the first and was absolutely every bit just as funny. The amount of time between movies does nothing to hurt the film. The interaction between Dante and Randall is absolutely great and seeing jay and silent bob back in their roles as supporting characters fits them well yet again plus who could hate a movie with a donkey show in it.
7. Superman 2. The second superman movie is better than the first for a few different reasons. For starters it’s the only superman movie where superman fights a super villain form the comic besides Lex and not only is it one villain but 3 and for an older movie the flying super human fights, while not a huge big drawn out cg effect like the matrix revolutions, are pretty good and he uses a cellophane s as a weapon that’s freaking cool.
6. Indiana Jones and the temple of doom. I’ve always liked temple of doom better then raiders I don’t know if it’s the fact that I was a young boy and this movie was full of gross out scenes including the bare hand removal of a guy’s heart. And short round is great as the comic relief albeit slightly annoying at times.
5. Aliens. More Ripley, more aliens, and more action are the main reasons this sequel to alien make it onto the list plus we get the “leave her alone you bitch” line while Ripley destroys the queen using the lifting mech thing.
4. Predator 2. Yes I know Danny Glover is no Arnold but honestly what’s so special about a Special Forces solider beating a monster he’s trained and buff and ready to kill. But Danny Glover's character is an older plain old cop and he still beats the predator. Not only that but this movie is the one that first introduces us to the fact that the predators have fought the aliens before and we get to see more about the predator technology and more predator equals better movie.
Ok these last 3 are big ones and depending on what kind of movie you are a fan of you may completely agree or totally disagree but in either case here are the top 3 sequels that are better than the originals.
3. Terminater 2: judgment day. The first one was great but with the second one we get 2 cyborgs not just one we get to see Arnold as the good guy and we get some very cool CGI effects with the t-1000. This is also the first time we get to see how much Sarah cares about john and this movie establishes her bad ass status that we have all come to know and love.
2. Star Wars episode 5 the empire strikes back. This is one that a lot of people agree on we get to see Yoda for the first time. The love between Han and Leia grows and Luke matures more into a man. And last but very certainly not least we get one of the greatest twists in cinema history when Vader reveals he is Luke's father.
1. Batman: The Dark Knight. Batman begins was the restart the franchise needed to dig itself out of the whole that batman and robin dug itself into comic and movie fans alike enjoyed this new origin story of batman. It was darker and with the explanation of most of Batman's technology we got some answers we may have had for a while but skip ahead a few years and everything is better and bigger. We get more gadgets we get to see the mental struggle between batman and Bruce Wayne and of course we get one of the most disturbingly wonderful performances from Heath Ledger as the joker and in my opinion the best joker of all time. Everything in this movie is well executed although a few of the lines are cheesy. Everything in the dark knight tops everything from batman begins in every way and that’s why it’s my pick for number 1 sequel.
Ok I hope you enjoyed that list I know some will agree and some will disagree but it’s my opinion like anyone’s else’s top ten list. I would love any comments and will respond to them all.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Dead or Alive movie review
D.O.A.
Ok so at this point we have a mortal kombat movie and a street fighter movie so the next logical step is the dead or alive series. Will this series do any better than its fighting game adaptation brothers? As always read on to find out.
D.O.A. or Dead or Alive is about a tournament of the world’s greatest fighters hosted by Victor Donovan. Over the course of a few days the fighters compete in single KO elimination contest. Towards the end the final 4 find out Donovan has other motives and the fighters have to compete against him. There are a few sub plots going on as well. Christie and max are trying to find a vault full of money. And Kasumi is trying to find her brother while avoiding Ayane who is after her.
Ok so D.O.A. is the third movie based on a fighting game and personally I think it’s the best out of all 3 in the next few years we will get a Tekken movie and an art of fighting movie so time will tell if it holds its place. Now you’re probably wondering why I like this one best so let me get into it.
First off it’s the plot. Now it doesn’t follow the games exactly it gets the main gist correct. Instead of a huge corporation trying to make the ultimate weapon its one man trying to compile all the fighter's data to make a program which is essentially the same goal.
Other things that are nicely done are a lot of little things such as the health bars when Donovan is watching the first round fights the computer voice saying “ready, fight!” Which is from the game. There’s a scene where 4 of the female fighters play volleyball while Zach, another fighter, does the commentary and this is a fan service reference to dead or alive Xtreme beach volleyball. What’s good about this scene is they do not just focus on the fan service there an action scene that cuts in and out of the volleyball scene.
Another thing that’s cool is the amount of characters. Now unlike in MK2 they decided to focus on only a few characters and just write the others off as fighters in the tournament instead of trying to make them intricate to the plot and most of which are defeated and therefore sent home early in the movie.
That’s another thing the fighters are mostly in traditional out fits from the games and easily recognizable by fans and most are introduced by name at least weather it’s the health bar or contest bracket or during the scanning scene. However the characters are not all done well there’s a few tradeoffs I’m not to fond off.
First Zach’s personality is dead on but except during the warm up montage he doesn’t do any Muay Thai moves, which is his fighting style from the game. The Kasumi Hayate and Ayane relationship is correct but they grossly overuse the word Shinobi in the wrong context. In the movie they use shinobi to describe a rouge ninja the real use of shinobi is just another word for ninja.
Donovan’s character is mostly correct with a few minor details changed. In the game he is head of DOAtech in the movie he’s head of the D.O.A. tournament. In the game he hires Ayane in the movie he does not. In the game and the movie he is responsible for Helena's mother’s death.
And of course there’s Christie in the game she is a ruthless assassin but in the movie they make her out to be a fun spirited thief only mentioning her assassin status in text.
The acting is only ok some of the banter is funny such as bass walking in on Tina in situations that make it look as if she is a lesbian to him. Also it was kind of neat how a real wrestler (Kevin Nash) played bass who in the game is also a wrestler.
Now what’s a movie based on a fighting game without fighting so let’s talk about that. The fights are very well choreographed witch is no surprise as the director is Corey Yuen who has directed some other very good martial arts films including so close, the enforcer, and the first transporter. One of my favorite scenes is when Hayabusa is fighting the guards on his way up the stairs it’s so brutal and fast paced.
There are also some well placed comedic sound effects like when Leon pumps his arms they make gun cocking sounds and during Tina and Zach’s fight when they hit each other tiny explosive noises can be heard.
Over all the movie is a pretty good kung-fu flick and does well as a video game movie it has recognizable characters as well as a plot similar to the games while only changing a few minor details but not deviating to far from the objective of the plot.
How would I do it? Well besides the character changes I mentioned I would pretty much leave it alone.
Over all the movie gets 8 out of 10 Shinobis. The movie succeeds where other video game movies fail including recognizable characters and a ton of tiny little things from the game and it’s always the little things isn’t it?
The acting gets 6 out of 10. It was horrible but most of the actors just phoned it in and there was a bit of over acting.
The plot gets 7 out of 10. The end objective is the same as the game and most details are the same but they also change a few characters a bit towards the bad side.
And the content gets 8 out of 10. Lots of characters lots of little things from the games and it’s the first fighting game movie to sneak health bars in there.
Ok that’s done next up we get back to the crap fest that is Uwe Boll with Bloodrayne 2 a straight to DVD pile of vampire turd. I have obtained a laptop recently so I will be able to complete these reviews faster now. After Bloodrayne 2 we finish up the resident evil series then on to Hitman followed by 2 boll movies in a row. See you next time.
Ok so at this point we have a mortal kombat movie and a street fighter movie so the next logical step is the dead or alive series. Will this series do any better than its fighting game adaptation brothers? As always read on to find out.
D.O.A. or Dead or Alive is about a tournament of the world’s greatest fighters hosted by Victor Donovan. Over the course of a few days the fighters compete in single KO elimination contest. Towards the end the final 4 find out Donovan has other motives and the fighters have to compete against him. There are a few sub plots going on as well. Christie and max are trying to find a vault full of money. And Kasumi is trying to find her brother while avoiding Ayane who is after her.
Ok so D.O.A. is the third movie based on a fighting game and personally I think it’s the best out of all 3 in the next few years we will get a Tekken movie and an art of fighting movie so time will tell if it holds its place. Now you’re probably wondering why I like this one best so let me get into it.
First off it’s the plot. Now it doesn’t follow the games exactly it gets the main gist correct. Instead of a huge corporation trying to make the ultimate weapon its one man trying to compile all the fighter's data to make a program which is essentially the same goal.
Other things that are nicely done are a lot of little things such as the health bars when Donovan is watching the first round fights the computer voice saying “ready, fight!” Which is from the game. There’s a scene where 4 of the female fighters play volleyball while Zach, another fighter, does the commentary and this is a fan service reference to dead or alive Xtreme beach volleyball. What’s good about this scene is they do not just focus on the fan service there an action scene that cuts in and out of the volleyball scene.
Another thing that’s cool is the amount of characters. Now unlike in MK2 they decided to focus on only a few characters and just write the others off as fighters in the tournament instead of trying to make them intricate to the plot and most of which are defeated and therefore sent home early in the movie.
That’s another thing the fighters are mostly in traditional out fits from the games and easily recognizable by fans and most are introduced by name at least weather it’s the health bar or contest bracket or during the scanning scene. However the characters are not all done well there’s a few tradeoffs I’m not to fond off.
First Zach’s personality is dead on but except during the warm up montage he doesn’t do any Muay Thai moves, which is his fighting style from the game. The Kasumi Hayate and Ayane relationship is correct but they grossly overuse the word Shinobi in the wrong context. In the movie they use shinobi to describe a rouge ninja the real use of shinobi is just another word for ninja.
Donovan’s character is mostly correct with a few minor details changed. In the game he is head of DOAtech in the movie he’s head of the D.O.A. tournament. In the game he hires Ayane in the movie he does not. In the game and the movie he is responsible for Helena's mother’s death.
And of course there’s Christie in the game she is a ruthless assassin but in the movie they make her out to be a fun spirited thief only mentioning her assassin status in text.
The acting is only ok some of the banter is funny such as bass walking in on Tina in situations that make it look as if she is a lesbian to him. Also it was kind of neat how a real wrestler (Kevin Nash) played bass who in the game is also a wrestler.
Now what’s a movie based on a fighting game without fighting so let’s talk about that. The fights are very well choreographed witch is no surprise as the director is Corey Yuen who has directed some other very good martial arts films including so close, the enforcer, and the first transporter. One of my favorite scenes is when Hayabusa is fighting the guards on his way up the stairs it’s so brutal and fast paced.
There are also some well placed comedic sound effects like when Leon pumps his arms they make gun cocking sounds and during Tina and Zach’s fight when they hit each other tiny explosive noises can be heard.
Over all the movie is a pretty good kung-fu flick and does well as a video game movie it has recognizable characters as well as a plot similar to the games while only changing a few minor details but not deviating to far from the objective of the plot.
How would I do it? Well besides the character changes I mentioned I would pretty much leave it alone.
Over all the movie gets 8 out of 10 Shinobis. The movie succeeds where other video game movies fail including recognizable characters and a ton of tiny little things from the game and it’s always the little things isn’t it?
The acting gets 6 out of 10. It was horrible but most of the actors just phoned it in and there was a bit of over acting.
The plot gets 7 out of 10. The end objective is the same as the game and most details are the same but they also change a few characters a bit towards the bad side.
And the content gets 8 out of 10. Lots of characters lots of little things from the games and it’s the first fighting game movie to sneak health bars in there.
Ok that’s done next up we get back to the crap fest that is Uwe Boll with Bloodrayne 2 a straight to DVD pile of vampire turd. I have obtained a laptop recently so I will be able to complete these reviews faster now. After Bloodrayne 2 we finish up the resident evil series then on to Hitman followed by 2 boll movies in a row. See you next time.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
pros and cons of cgi
CGI in movies
The Pros and Cons
Hello this article is going to be about how CGI both helps and hurts movies today. But before I begin I’d like to say I’m not an expert, I’m not a film student nor am I involved in the making of movies in anyway, I am simply a fan of movies I watch a lot I own over 700 and I’m old enough to remember when CGI broke into the mainstream. So what follows is simply my opinion coupled with a bit of personal experience and some research so I hope you enjoy.
Before I get to the meat of this article I’d like to give u some history on CGI a very brief history. First off CGI stands for computer generated imagery and first appeared in 3d in a movie called Future world where a face and hand where animated. Star wars also used wireframe CGI for the scene with the death star hologram and the targeting computer.
The first movie to use mostly CGI was Tron. In Tron the hover tanks, the light cycles and of course Bit the floating polyhedron where all CGI. Two years later a movie called the last star fighter came out which also used heavy amounts of CGI. Both movies where failures although both have a cult following now and Disney is working on a sequel to Tron.
The failure of these movies caused directors to shy away from CGI unless using it for objects that were supposed to look computer created. That is until of course a movie called the abyss came out and won an award for best special effects for industrial light and magic which has been involved in some of the biggest movies to date.
The next big movie to successfully use CGI was terminator 2 where all the t-1000 morphing effects where done in CGI. This was followed by Jurassic park where all the dinosaurs where done in CGI. Then in 95 we got the first fully computer generated film Toy Story witch unlike Tron did incredibly well at the box office.
Movies continued to use variations of CGI effects then around 1999 – 2000 CGI became the primary application of special effects. So now that you have a brief history on the use of CGI in movies I’d like to go right into how it can help a movie and how it can hurt a movie.
The first major benefit of CGI is that it’s a lot cheaper than physical special effects and can be produced with relative ease, this also unfortunately is also its biggest downfall. Because it’s so cheap a lot more independent films with horribly cheap and bad looking CGI have hit the rental and store shelves.
Now I have absolutely nothing against independent films most original ideas come from them and they can be wonderful. What I do have a problem with are these movie companies that make these b-movie rip offs of popular movies and I believe it’s because CGI is so easy and cheap to produce that they can make these movies in abundance.
One company specifically, the asylum, is notorious for this making such horrible rip offs as alien vs. hunter (alien vs. predator), the day the earth stopped (the day the earth stood still), I am omega (I am legend) and the list goes on just IMDB there name and you will see what I’m talking about.
CGI when used to enhance already present physical special effects is great. Also when used to stylize some scenes or inanimate objects is also good and works well. For example in the first matrix CGI was used to create the bullets and bullet effects for the famous bullet dodging scene however Keanu reeves was actually being held up by wires and photographed this is a good use of CGI. Now in the matrix reloaded during the neo vs. lots of smith fights there’s a part where neo kicks one smith then jumps off of him and kicks a smith behind him neo is made in CGI at this point which seems unnecessary and kind of ruins the moment.
It’s my belief that unless the whole movie is done in CGI that humans should never be produced in whole using CGI it just looks to fake. Inanimate objects such as bullets and cars and such things look decent enough that it doesn’t ruin the movie if they are done in CGI for action scenes.
In a movie like transformers it is only because of CGI that the movie was possible and the animators worked painstakingly on the robots. They had so much detail it took 24 hours to animate 1 second of movement. However this amount of care is not always used and can make production crews lazy.
A good example of this is in 2 fast 2 furious when the cars are drag racing the camera switches to a CGI view of the car’s tires side by side. They could have easily mounted a camera and gotten a much cooler shot of the real cars.
One of the most famous over and more often then not unnecessary uses of CGI was the special editions of the original star wars trilogy. I loved being able to see these movies in theaters since I wasn’t born when they originally where. But all the additions are mostly unnecessary. There’s dancing creatures that do nothing for the story as well as other small things. There is however one great scene between Jaba and Han that was originally cut and added to the special editions. This scene is a good use of CGI.
Other bad uses include the scene in spider man where peter is jumping from roof to roof for the first time. The roof tops are CGI and so is peter until he leaps and his face is real close to the camera. Harry potters Quidich matches are mostly CGI and the characters look fake during them. I could go on forever listing bad uses of CGI but I digress.
It’s not only action movies that have gotten lazy and use CGI horror movies witch traditionally have a history of really cool special effects done by hand through either puppets or animatronics have gone the CGI route and are now even using CGI for blood. I think that with horror movies it should be half and half. One of the more recent horror movies I watched used fake blood and CGI combined nicely. The CGI was used for stylized shot like an eyeball flying at the camera in slow motion. (The movie was midnight meat train).
Usually combos like this work out well but when CGI is relied upon to heavily it takes away from the movie and end up disconnecting u as a viewer. CGI is making huge leaps towards being able to produce a life like human. If u want to see what I mean go to YouTube and watch the “Emily” video the entire video is a tech demo for a technology called image metrics. It is my belief that if this technology is developed further then obviously CGI effects would be a thing of the past.
So those are my feelings on the bad uses of CGI so how about we switch to a more positive view and talk about good uses. First there’s the stuff I already mentioned, bullet time, transformers and the scene with Han and Jaba. There is also the artistic uses of CGI which are used to show a view of something that would normally be unattainable the eye scene I mentioned in midnight meat train is one example.
CGI is also safer then physical effects as no one has ever been killed by a computer image before with CGI u can surround your actor in shattering glass without worrying about him/her getting cut. Fire, explosions, projectiles, bullets and energy effects are all things that I feel have benefited from CGI.
Ok I feel as if I may be rambling now so to sum it all up CGI is good for inanimate objects and partial human parts as well as getting angles not easily obtained with a regular camera. On the other hand CGI is bad when trying to recreate a full on human body in a live action movie and replacing physical effects that are already known how to do.
The Pros and Cons
Hello this article is going to be about how CGI both helps and hurts movies today. But before I begin I’d like to say I’m not an expert, I’m not a film student nor am I involved in the making of movies in anyway, I am simply a fan of movies I watch a lot I own over 700 and I’m old enough to remember when CGI broke into the mainstream. So what follows is simply my opinion coupled with a bit of personal experience and some research so I hope you enjoy.
Before I get to the meat of this article I’d like to give u some history on CGI a very brief history. First off CGI stands for computer generated imagery and first appeared in 3d in a movie called Future world where a face and hand where animated. Star wars also used wireframe CGI for the scene with the death star hologram and the targeting computer.
The first movie to use mostly CGI was Tron. In Tron the hover tanks, the light cycles and of course Bit the floating polyhedron where all CGI. Two years later a movie called the last star fighter came out which also used heavy amounts of CGI. Both movies where failures although both have a cult following now and Disney is working on a sequel to Tron.
The failure of these movies caused directors to shy away from CGI unless using it for objects that were supposed to look computer created. That is until of course a movie called the abyss came out and won an award for best special effects for industrial light and magic which has been involved in some of the biggest movies to date.
The next big movie to successfully use CGI was terminator 2 where all the t-1000 morphing effects where done in CGI. This was followed by Jurassic park where all the dinosaurs where done in CGI. Then in 95 we got the first fully computer generated film Toy Story witch unlike Tron did incredibly well at the box office.
Movies continued to use variations of CGI effects then around 1999 – 2000 CGI became the primary application of special effects. So now that you have a brief history on the use of CGI in movies I’d like to go right into how it can help a movie and how it can hurt a movie.
The first major benefit of CGI is that it’s a lot cheaper than physical special effects and can be produced with relative ease, this also unfortunately is also its biggest downfall. Because it’s so cheap a lot more independent films with horribly cheap and bad looking CGI have hit the rental and store shelves.
Now I have absolutely nothing against independent films most original ideas come from them and they can be wonderful. What I do have a problem with are these movie companies that make these b-movie rip offs of popular movies and I believe it’s because CGI is so easy and cheap to produce that they can make these movies in abundance.
One company specifically, the asylum, is notorious for this making such horrible rip offs as alien vs. hunter (alien vs. predator), the day the earth stopped (the day the earth stood still), I am omega (I am legend) and the list goes on just IMDB there name and you will see what I’m talking about.
CGI when used to enhance already present physical special effects is great. Also when used to stylize some scenes or inanimate objects is also good and works well. For example in the first matrix CGI was used to create the bullets and bullet effects for the famous bullet dodging scene however Keanu reeves was actually being held up by wires and photographed this is a good use of CGI. Now in the matrix reloaded during the neo vs. lots of smith fights there’s a part where neo kicks one smith then jumps off of him and kicks a smith behind him neo is made in CGI at this point which seems unnecessary and kind of ruins the moment.
It’s my belief that unless the whole movie is done in CGI that humans should never be produced in whole using CGI it just looks to fake. Inanimate objects such as bullets and cars and such things look decent enough that it doesn’t ruin the movie if they are done in CGI for action scenes.
In a movie like transformers it is only because of CGI that the movie was possible and the animators worked painstakingly on the robots. They had so much detail it took 24 hours to animate 1 second of movement. However this amount of care is not always used and can make production crews lazy.
A good example of this is in 2 fast 2 furious when the cars are drag racing the camera switches to a CGI view of the car’s tires side by side. They could have easily mounted a camera and gotten a much cooler shot of the real cars.
One of the most famous over and more often then not unnecessary uses of CGI was the special editions of the original star wars trilogy. I loved being able to see these movies in theaters since I wasn’t born when they originally where. But all the additions are mostly unnecessary. There’s dancing creatures that do nothing for the story as well as other small things. There is however one great scene between Jaba and Han that was originally cut and added to the special editions. This scene is a good use of CGI.
Other bad uses include the scene in spider man where peter is jumping from roof to roof for the first time. The roof tops are CGI and so is peter until he leaps and his face is real close to the camera. Harry potters Quidich matches are mostly CGI and the characters look fake during them. I could go on forever listing bad uses of CGI but I digress.
It’s not only action movies that have gotten lazy and use CGI horror movies witch traditionally have a history of really cool special effects done by hand through either puppets or animatronics have gone the CGI route and are now even using CGI for blood. I think that with horror movies it should be half and half. One of the more recent horror movies I watched used fake blood and CGI combined nicely. The CGI was used for stylized shot like an eyeball flying at the camera in slow motion. (The movie was midnight meat train).
Usually combos like this work out well but when CGI is relied upon to heavily it takes away from the movie and end up disconnecting u as a viewer. CGI is making huge leaps towards being able to produce a life like human. If u want to see what I mean go to YouTube and watch the “Emily” video the entire video is a tech demo for a technology called image metrics. It is my belief that if this technology is developed further then obviously CGI effects would be a thing of the past.
So those are my feelings on the bad uses of CGI so how about we switch to a more positive view and talk about good uses. First there’s the stuff I already mentioned, bullet time, transformers and the scene with Han and Jaba. There is also the artistic uses of CGI which are used to show a view of something that would normally be unattainable the eye scene I mentioned in midnight meat train is one example.
CGI is also safer then physical effects as no one has ever been killed by a computer image before with CGI u can surround your actor in shattering glass without worrying about him/her getting cut. Fire, explosions, projectiles, bullets and energy effects are all things that I feel have benefited from CGI.
Ok I feel as if I may be rambling now so to sum it all up CGI is good for inanimate objects and partial human parts as well as getting angles not easily obtained with a regular camera. On the other hand CGI is bad when trying to recreate a full on human body in a live action movie and replacing physical effects that are already known how to do.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Silent Hill review
Silent Hill
At this point we have seen movies for the two other most popular survival horror series, resident evil and alone in the dark. While entertaining these two movies where not that close to the games. Will silent hill fair better? Read on to find out.
Silent Hill is about a mom whose daughter talks of a town while sleep walking. The mom then takes her daughter to the town of silent hill where her daughter disappears after a car crash. While searching for her daughter rose comes across deranged religious freaks, a cop, and all sorts of monsters.
Ok so I’d like to start by saying this is by far one of my favorite video game adaptations ever. This is why it was number 2 in my top ten video game movies. But besides me liking it there’s a ton of reasons why this is good while not exactly following a specific game plot.
The first and most important thing that helps make this movie good is the director. While practically unknown at the time having done one really big movie beforehand (brotherhood of the wolf) Chris Gans who has admitted loving video games put about 5 years of effort into securing the rights for a silent hill movie from Konami. He filmed an interview of himself and explained how much he liked the games and what he planned to do for a movie. Konami was so impressed they gave him the rights.
The director is not the only thing that helps this movie out it’s also the fact that Konami and team silent (the team responsible for the games) where involved from start to finish. A lot of game companies don’t do this most of the time they will just sell their rights off and not care about the movie and count their money. Going back to the director there was a lot of stuff he did to make this movie good. He had the sound designer for the games flown to the set several times to help with the music for the movie. He also hooked up a ps2 and played the original game for the cast and crew to show them how he was going to recreate certain camera angles and scenes.
Now about the plot. The film is primarily based on the first game. Several scenes including the miner tied to the fence and the burning children attacking rose are from the first game. The main plot line of searching for her daughter is also the point of the game although in the game it is a father. The female cop and Dahlia are both characters in the game as well as all the monsters and the religious cult. Other notable things from the game are the transfers to the dark world and item collection every time rose picked up a picture I could see it spinning in mid air saying you have found picture #1.
There are however major changes to the plot like the fact that in the game the religious cult worships the devil and wants to bring a demon to life not kill who they think is a demon. Also in the game it’s a father looking for his daughter not a mother. But despite the changes the movie always has the creepy atmosphere of the games. the monsters use a good mix of practical effects and CGI, from what I found out most of the monsters where physically present then touched up with CGI with the exception of the bugs that follow pyramid head and the barb wire at the end witch where all cg.
The ending is another great part when Alyssa is killing off the cultist with barb wire tentacles. This scene was inspired by one of the very first tentacle hentai’s legend of the over fiend. A hentai is basically a porn anime.
The acting was good you can really feel the concern and worry in Rose for Sharon and it slowly turns from emotional to physical as the stuff she goes through to get her daughter back is harder and harder.
The pyramid heads where done well however in the game they appear when someone feels as if they need to be punished for what they have done so I think in the movie they were just there as fan service and it was great fan service. They looked just like the ones from the game and like the other monsters where actual people.
I believe this movie is a prime example of what happens when the film crew and the video game company both care about the movie and source material. The monsters are attracted by light like in the game and electronic devices such as radios and cell phones produce static when monsters are near.
Konami was so happy with the silent hill that they reference it in their newest game and have already green lit and started working on a second film. However the director and writer both got hired to do work on an Onimusha film so they will not be returning but Gans said he would help by consulting so the look and atmosphere of the first movie is present. Witch game the second movie is based on has yet to be officially announced however it’s rumored that the second game will be the inspiration.
How I would do it. This movie was good I honestly have no real improvements I could suggest except maybe a longer run time.
Over all I give the movie a perfect 10 out of 10 pyramid heads. When I saw the preview I got my hopes way up and this movie doesn’t disappoint it’s great for fans of the games as well as plain old horror fans.
The acting gets 9 out of 10 most everybody was on but the female cop was just a bit over the top.
The plot gets 6 out of 10. Why a low score u ask. Well because to be fair this score is supposed to be how much the movie followed the plot to the game and it’s not exactly one of the games plot but do not let this deter you.
The content how ever gets 9 out of 10 the monsters, some characters, music, locations and atmosphere where all there even the camera angels where right from the game
Ok well its done took a bit longer then I thought hope you enjoy it. Next up is dead or alive a.k.a. D.O.A. it’s a movie based off a fighting game so the review should be quick but I am going to play some dead or alive 2 first and rewatch the movie before I sit down to write.
At this point we have seen movies for the two other most popular survival horror series, resident evil and alone in the dark. While entertaining these two movies where not that close to the games. Will silent hill fair better? Read on to find out.
Silent Hill is about a mom whose daughter talks of a town while sleep walking. The mom then takes her daughter to the town of silent hill where her daughter disappears after a car crash. While searching for her daughter rose comes across deranged religious freaks, a cop, and all sorts of monsters.
Ok so I’d like to start by saying this is by far one of my favorite video game adaptations ever. This is why it was number 2 in my top ten video game movies. But besides me liking it there’s a ton of reasons why this is good while not exactly following a specific game plot.
The first and most important thing that helps make this movie good is the director. While practically unknown at the time having done one really big movie beforehand (brotherhood of the wolf) Chris Gans who has admitted loving video games put about 5 years of effort into securing the rights for a silent hill movie from Konami. He filmed an interview of himself and explained how much he liked the games and what he planned to do for a movie. Konami was so impressed they gave him the rights.
The director is not the only thing that helps this movie out it’s also the fact that Konami and team silent (the team responsible for the games) where involved from start to finish. A lot of game companies don’t do this most of the time they will just sell their rights off and not care about the movie and count their money. Going back to the director there was a lot of stuff he did to make this movie good. He had the sound designer for the games flown to the set several times to help with the music for the movie. He also hooked up a ps2 and played the original game for the cast and crew to show them how he was going to recreate certain camera angles and scenes.
Now about the plot. The film is primarily based on the first game. Several scenes including the miner tied to the fence and the burning children attacking rose are from the first game. The main plot line of searching for her daughter is also the point of the game although in the game it is a father. The female cop and Dahlia are both characters in the game as well as all the monsters and the religious cult. Other notable things from the game are the transfers to the dark world and item collection every time rose picked up a picture I could see it spinning in mid air saying you have found picture #1.
There are however major changes to the plot like the fact that in the game the religious cult worships the devil and wants to bring a demon to life not kill who they think is a demon. Also in the game it’s a father looking for his daughter not a mother. But despite the changes the movie always has the creepy atmosphere of the games. the monsters use a good mix of practical effects and CGI, from what I found out most of the monsters where physically present then touched up with CGI with the exception of the bugs that follow pyramid head and the barb wire at the end witch where all cg.
The ending is another great part when Alyssa is killing off the cultist with barb wire tentacles. This scene was inspired by one of the very first tentacle hentai’s legend of the over fiend. A hentai is basically a porn anime.
The acting was good you can really feel the concern and worry in Rose for Sharon and it slowly turns from emotional to physical as the stuff she goes through to get her daughter back is harder and harder.
The pyramid heads where done well however in the game they appear when someone feels as if they need to be punished for what they have done so I think in the movie they were just there as fan service and it was great fan service. They looked just like the ones from the game and like the other monsters where actual people.
I believe this movie is a prime example of what happens when the film crew and the video game company both care about the movie and source material. The monsters are attracted by light like in the game and electronic devices such as radios and cell phones produce static when monsters are near.
Konami was so happy with the silent hill that they reference it in their newest game and have already green lit and started working on a second film. However the director and writer both got hired to do work on an Onimusha film so they will not be returning but Gans said he would help by consulting so the look and atmosphere of the first movie is present. Witch game the second movie is based on has yet to be officially announced however it’s rumored that the second game will be the inspiration.
How I would do it. This movie was good I honestly have no real improvements I could suggest except maybe a longer run time.
Over all I give the movie a perfect 10 out of 10 pyramid heads. When I saw the preview I got my hopes way up and this movie doesn’t disappoint it’s great for fans of the games as well as plain old horror fans.
The acting gets 9 out of 10 most everybody was on but the female cop was just a bit over the top.
The plot gets 6 out of 10. Why a low score u ask. Well because to be fair this score is supposed to be how much the movie followed the plot to the game and it’s not exactly one of the games plot but do not let this deter you.
The content how ever gets 9 out of 10 the monsters, some characters, music, locations and atmosphere where all there even the camera angels where right from the game
Ok well its done took a bit longer then I thought hope you enjoy it. Next up is dead or alive a.k.a. D.O.A. it’s a movie based off a fighting game so the review should be quick but I am going to play some dead or alive 2 first and rewatch the movie before I sit down to write.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
top ten best and worst video game movies
Top Ten
Best and worst video game movies.
Well I’ve decided to take a small break from reviews and give you 2 top ten lists that’s right act now and you will receive 2 top ten lists for the price of one and what’s that price? Well its free ninety free. Anyway for these lists I followed the same rules as my reviews which are live action movies. So without further delay I bring you the top ten best and worst video game movies (in my opinion)
10. Best: resident evil 1. Worst: resident evil 2. The first resident evil while being completely devoid of any game characters at least had the atmosphere of the games while the second one dumped the horror part and went all action and frankly that’s just a bad move when adapting horror video games.
9. Best: Dead or Alive. Worst: Resident evil 3. Dead or alive succeeds with its well choreographed fight scenes and characters that mirror there video game counter parts even down to the fighting styles which is good because it’s based on a fighting game. While resident evil 3 takes the plot way of course and gets rid of the horror part even more so then part 2 if that was even possible not to mention the ne character from the game isn’t even recognizable until she says her name.
8. Best: Mortal Kombat. Worst: Mortal Kombat 2. Here is another set of movies whose theme varies so much between sequels the first mortal kombat was pretty close to plot and had a handful of characters from the game along with pretty good fight scenes. Part 2 on the other hand had way to many characters crammed into it the plot was still pretty close but the fight scenes where hit or miss and some where pointless if only to include another character.
7. Best: Wing Commander. Worst: Dungeon siege. Wing commander has the advantage of being written by the games creator. Now while not everyone likes Freddie prince j rim certain everyone likes Matthew Lillard and he’s great as the supporting role in this movie couple that with awesome space ship dog fights and you get a great movie. And on the other hand give a bad film maker a bigger budget and you get a bigger flop. Dungeon siege was Uwe Bolls first big budget movie and aside from hiring bigger name actors nothing gets better except the amount of cheesiness in it.
6. Best: Lara Croft Tomb Raider. Worst: Double Dragon. Tomb Raider did great capturing the attitudes of the characters and the atmosphere from the games. As well as a story that might as well have been one of the games then it tops itself off with great action sequences. Then you have double dragon a movie with silly home alone like fight scenes and plot that is equally as silly. Mixed with weird villains and a weird post apocalyptic future makes the move plain old silly.
5. Best: Hitman. Worst: Street Fighter. Hitman had well choreographed fights really cool action a plot similar to the game and a fairly decent lead actor. Street fighter had none of these with the exception of Raul Julia as bison (may he rest and piece and damn his kids for making him do this piece of trash as his last movie)
4. Best: Doom. Worst: Blood Rayne 2. Talk about night and day. Doom was well acted well written and had a historic first person action sequence. Plus almost every weapon and monster from the game. BloodRayne 2 had a ridicules plot cheesy special effects no monsters from the game and bad acting.
3. Best: Max Payne. Worst: Super Mario Bros. both of these movies changed the plot from the game they are based on how ever while max Payne had the same basic theme and action similar to the game Mario was a mess of brothers who aren’t brothers and Dennis hopper as a t-rex.
2. Best: silent hill. Worst: BloodRayne. Silent hills production team worked closely with Konami to produce a movie very pleasing to both, fans of the games and average movie goers alike, Doing such things as recreating camera angles and even getting the composer from the games to do the music for the movie. In BloodRayne case the production team took 2 game characters and filmed pointless and badly directed action sequences for an hour and a half. Could you really expect a movie where even the actors themselves admit it was bad to be good? The answer is simple no.
1. Best: Postal. Worst: House of the Dead. I know what you’re saying how can Uwe Boll take up the best and worst number 1 spots? It’s simple postal was in my opinion the best video game movie ever it makes fun of everyone from politicians, terrorists, blacks, Germans, Jews, the handicapped, gays, midgets, and even Uwe Boll himself. Postal doesn’t take itself seriously and is extremely funny and includes scenes and moments from the game. It also keeps with the theme and attitude of the game if you have not seen this movie go watch it then tell me I’m wrong if you can. Then on the other hand we have a movie with nothing to do with the game except zombies and would have been so much better if it was a comedy because everything was just so ridicules and wasn’t even good for a fan of cheesy movies.
Well that concludes this list I liked making 2 top ten's in one I hoped you enjoyed reading it and I’ve already started working on the silent hill review.
Best and worst video game movies.
Well I’ve decided to take a small break from reviews and give you 2 top ten lists that’s right act now and you will receive 2 top ten lists for the price of one and what’s that price? Well its free ninety free. Anyway for these lists I followed the same rules as my reviews which are live action movies. So without further delay I bring you the top ten best and worst video game movies (in my opinion)
10. Best: resident evil 1. Worst: resident evil 2. The first resident evil while being completely devoid of any game characters at least had the atmosphere of the games while the second one dumped the horror part and went all action and frankly that’s just a bad move when adapting horror video games.
9. Best: Dead or Alive. Worst: Resident evil 3. Dead or alive succeeds with its well choreographed fight scenes and characters that mirror there video game counter parts even down to the fighting styles which is good because it’s based on a fighting game. While resident evil 3 takes the plot way of course and gets rid of the horror part even more so then part 2 if that was even possible not to mention the ne character from the game isn’t even recognizable until she says her name.
8. Best: Mortal Kombat. Worst: Mortal Kombat 2. Here is another set of movies whose theme varies so much between sequels the first mortal kombat was pretty close to plot and had a handful of characters from the game along with pretty good fight scenes. Part 2 on the other hand had way to many characters crammed into it the plot was still pretty close but the fight scenes where hit or miss and some where pointless if only to include another character.
7. Best: Wing Commander. Worst: Dungeon siege. Wing commander has the advantage of being written by the games creator. Now while not everyone likes Freddie prince j rim certain everyone likes Matthew Lillard and he’s great as the supporting role in this movie couple that with awesome space ship dog fights and you get a great movie. And on the other hand give a bad film maker a bigger budget and you get a bigger flop. Dungeon siege was Uwe Bolls first big budget movie and aside from hiring bigger name actors nothing gets better except the amount of cheesiness in it.
6. Best: Lara Croft Tomb Raider. Worst: Double Dragon. Tomb Raider did great capturing the attitudes of the characters and the atmosphere from the games. As well as a story that might as well have been one of the games then it tops itself off with great action sequences. Then you have double dragon a movie with silly home alone like fight scenes and plot that is equally as silly. Mixed with weird villains and a weird post apocalyptic future makes the move plain old silly.
5. Best: Hitman. Worst: Street Fighter. Hitman had well choreographed fights really cool action a plot similar to the game and a fairly decent lead actor. Street fighter had none of these with the exception of Raul Julia as bison (may he rest and piece and damn his kids for making him do this piece of trash as his last movie)
4. Best: Doom. Worst: Blood Rayne 2. Talk about night and day. Doom was well acted well written and had a historic first person action sequence. Plus almost every weapon and monster from the game. BloodRayne 2 had a ridicules plot cheesy special effects no monsters from the game and bad acting.
3. Best: Max Payne. Worst: Super Mario Bros. both of these movies changed the plot from the game they are based on how ever while max Payne had the same basic theme and action similar to the game Mario was a mess of brothers who aren’t brothers and Dennis hopper as a t-rex.
2. Best: silent hill. Worst: BloodRayne. Silent hills production team worked closely with Konami to produce a movie very pleasing to both, fans of the games and average movie goers alike, Doing such things as recreating camera angles and even getting the composer from the games to do the music for the movie. In BloodRayne case the production team took 2 game characters and filmed pointless and badly directed action sequences for an hour and a half. Could you really expect a movie where even the actors themselves admit it was bad to be good? The answer is simple no.
1. Best: Postal. Worst: House of the Dead. I know what you’re saying how can Uwe Boll take up the best and worst number 1 spots? It’s simple postal was in my opinion the best video game movie ever it makes fun of everyone from politicians, terrorists, blacks, Germans, Jews, the handicapped, gays, midgets, and even Uwe Boll himself. Postal doesn’t take itself seriously and is extremely funny and includes scenes and moments from the game. It also keeps with the theme and attitude of the game if you have not seen this movie go watch it then tell me I’m wrong if you can. Then on the other hand we have a movie with nothing to do with the game except zombies and would have been so much better if it was a comedy because everything was just so ridicules and wasn’t even good for a fan of cheesy movies.
Well that concludes this list I liked making 2 top ten's in one I hoped you enjoyed reading it and I’ve already started working on the silent hill review.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
BLOODRAYNE
Well after the decent movie that was doom we take a turn for the worse as Boll pulls back in with the blood sucking crapfest known as BloodRayne. Hey wait is that award winning actor Ben Kingsly and b movie favorite Michael Madsen? It is it is this may be good after all you better read on to find out.
BloodRayne is about a half human half vampire girl who is recruited by the brimstone society to help fight her father Kagen who is the king of the vampires.
Well I lied those 2 actors did nothing for this movie what so ever and even Madsen has been quoted as saying that the movie was bad. First off the only real thing the movie got right was the characters names and of course there were only 2 from the game (Rayne and Kagan) other than that this movie is a mess.
After seeing alone in the dark I thought boll could do at least entertaining movies but BloodRayne really let me down the only real entertaining thing was the blood sprays witch where reminiscent of older samurai movies but if I wanted that id watch kill bill or one of the like 20 Zaotoichi movies.
Honestly the blood is the only thing that they got right from the games. They didn’t get the story line right at all and she doesn’t use any of her powers water hurts her of course but no super speed. When I first saw the trailers I said cool we get to see how Rayne got her start but they screwed it up they made it so Rayne wasn’t nearly as cool as her video game counterpart. And big spoiler ahead she kills her father at the end of the movie I mean in part 2 of the games she is still chasing him around in modern times he was not supposed to die.
When she finally gets her swords they look like rubber and extremely fake. The acting is not the worst but the writing is pretty bad and it seems as if everyone was just phoning it in on this one.
Boll surprisingly enough is not 100% responsible for this one the girl who wrote the screen play is definitely to blame and surprisingly enough her other movies are pretty good and often win independent film awards. Her most famous work is American psycho which is a fantastic movie if you haven’t seen it.
But it is my firm belief that Boll messed up BloodRayne the worst because in the game she is killing Nazis and Boll was pissed about that so secretly his plan was to make people hate Rayne to get her back for killing the Nazis which is why they are not in either movie. Oh yeah that’s right he actually made a sequel to this witch surprisingly was better but that’s another review.
There was one other really good thing about this movie and that’s the pointless scene where the movie goes from being a bad action flick to a bad soft-core porn where one of the characters is nailing Rayne in a jail cell. The only point this scene serves is to show us Kristina Loken's breasts.
The action is bland and unexciting at least alone in the dark had explosions and a few camera tricks but BloodRayne has no saving grace for the action even the blood spills don’t make up for how bad it is. This is sad because Loken can do action she can do martial arts if you have ever seen terminator 3 or mortal kombat conquest you know what I’m talking about.
How I would do it. Well if I was going to go with the origin story I would have had her comfort her father but loose but she would have defeated some kind of boss monster and of course the weapons would have looked real and she would have had some of her powers like super speed. Other then that I would just do the story from the first game.
Overall this movie gets 2 out of 10 pointless sex scenes. It was bad real bad. Bad acting, bad action and nothing redeeming about it at all.
The acting gets 2 out of 10. Even Loken's moans where badly acted and Ben Kingsly must be so well off he can just do a movie for the money and not actually have to act.
The plot gets 2 out of 10. Nothing in this movie besides Kagan being Rayne’s father happens in the games or is even hinted at.
And the content gets 1 out of 10 the only things from the game where Rayne, brimstone and Kagan.
Ok well 3 out of 7 boll films down next we get 2 fairly decent video game movies then its back to stinkers with another boll and the last resident evil movie. Also I’m trying to get these done as fast as possible without losing to much quality I’d really like to be caught up as soon as possible there’s only one more video game movie this year and I’d like to be caught up by the time it hits theaters.
Well after the decent movie that was doom we take a turn for the worse as Boll pulls back in with the blood sucking crapfest known as BloodRayne. Hey wait is that award winning actor Ben Kingsly and b movie favorite Michael Madsen? It is it is this may be good after all you better read on to find out.
BloodRayne is about a half human half vampire girl who is recruited by the brimstone society to help fight her father Kagen who is the king of the vampires.
Well I lied those 2 actors did nothing for this movie what so ever and even Madsen has been quoted as saying that the movie was bad. First off the only real thing the movie got right was the characters names and of course there were only 2 from the game (Rayne and Kagan) other than that this movie is a mess.
After seeing alone in the dark I thought boll could do at least entertaining movies but BloodRayne really let me down the only real entertaining thing was the blood sprays witch where reminiscent of older samurai movies but if I wanted that id watch kill bill or one of the like 20 Zaotoichi movies.
Honestly the blood is the only thing that they got right from the games. They didn’t get the story line right at all and she doesn’t use any of her powers water hurts her of course but no super speed. When I first saw the trailers I said cool we get to see how Rayne got her start but they screwed it up they made it so Rayne wasn’t nearly as cool as her video game counterpart. And big spoiler ahead she kills her father at the end of the movie I mean in part 2 of the games she is still chasing him around in modern times he was not supposed to die.
When she finally gets her swords they look like rubber and extremely fake. The acting is not the worst but the writing is pretty bad and it seems as if everyone was just phoning it in on this one.
Boll surprisingly enough is not 100% responsible for this one the girl who wrote the screen play is definitely to blame and surprisingly enough her other movies are pretty good and often win independent film awards. Her most famous work is American psycho which is a fantastic movie if you haven’t seen it.
But it is my firm belief that Boll messed up BloodRayne the worst because in the game she is killing Nazis and Boll was pissed about that so secretly his plan was to make people hate Rayne to get her back for killing the Nazis which is why they are not in either movie. Oh yeah that’s right he actually made a sequel to this witch surprisingly was better but that’s another review.
There was one other really good thing about this movie and that’s the pointless scene where the movie goes from being a bad action flick to a bad soft-core porn where one of the characters is nailing Rayne in a jail cell. The only point this scene serves is to show us Kristina Loken's breasts.
The action is bland and unexciting at least alone in the dark had explosions and a few camera tricks but BloodRayne has no saving grace for the action even the blood spills don’t make up for how bad it is. This is sad because Loken can do action she can do martial arts if you have ever seen terminator 3 or mortal kombat conquest you know what I’m talking about.
How I would do it. Well if I was going to go with the origin story I would have had her comfort her father but loose but she would have defeated some kind of boss monster and of course the weapons would have looked real and she would have had some of her powers like super speed. Other then that I would just do the story from the first game.
Overall this movie gets 2 out of 10 pointless sex scenes. It was bad real bad. Bad acting, bad action and nothing redeeming about it at all.
The acting gets 2 out of 10. Even Loken's moans where badly acted and Ben Kingsly must be so well off he can just do a movie for the money and not actually have to act.
The plot gets 2 out of 10. Nothing in this movie besides Kagan being Rayne’s father happens in the games or is even hinted at.
And the content gets 1 out of 10 the only things from the game where Rayne, brimstone and Kagan.
Ok well 3 out of 7 boll films down next we get 2 fairly decent video game movies then its back to stinkers with another boll and the last resident evil movie. Also I’m trying to get these done as fast as possible without losing to much quality I’d really like to be caught up as soon as possible there’s only one more video game movie this year and I’d like to be caught up by the time it hits theaters.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
DOOM movie review
DOOM
Well after resident evil and alone in the dark taking there whack at survival horror adaptations universal decided to throw there hat in the game with Doom. Doom 3 had been released 1 year prior and had a horror theme mixed with its traditional action and universal decided to take this route for the movie did it pay off? Read on to find out.
Doom is about a group of marines who go to mars to help evacuate a research facility and while there encounter different kinds of monsters who one by one kill the marines until the final confrontation at the end of the film.
Ok to start off doom does a lot right where other video game movies don’t. First it went for an R rating witch aloud for the movie to keep the violent atmosphere of the games. Second they went with almost 100% practical effects for the monsters instead of cheeping out with cg. The actor that they picked to play Grimm looks almost exactly like the face that is your health meter in the original game.
Every enemy type is in the movie zombies from 3, imps, a baron and the pinky demon. Also just about every weapon from the BFG to the chainsaw is present it seems the only guns that are missing are the plasma weapons. The facility is owned by the U.A.C like in the games.
The acting is pretty good besides the rock it’s mostly b actors but I think they all do a good job getting across the different personalities they are supposed to have. Now while it’s not really scary to people used to watching horror movies the tension and suspense are done rather nicely and not until the end do you really ever see the monsters in full lighting.
The biggest complaint I hear from people is that the monsters are the result of an infection not demons from hell. Now while that is technically true there are several references to mars being hell and the monsters being demons. Goat one of the marines refers to mars being hell and so does Grimm. Now while theses are only metaphorical references still they are there.
There are a few quick references to the game such as Samantha asking for a med kit which is the primary method of replenishing your health in the game also the rock refers to the BFG as a big fucking gun which is what the original acronym stood for in the original game. There is a pretty funny line that the rock has where he says “I’m not supposed to die” while being killed.
Now I’d like to talk a little bit about the coolest sequence in any video game movie ever the first person sequence. About 15 mins until the end of the movie Grimm is injected with the virus that mutated everyone else but because he’s good hearted it gives him super strength speed and healing. So anyway right after he wakes up from the injection the movie shifts to first person witch of course is a throwback to the games.
Right at the start Grimm looks in the mirror witch if you’re like me is one of the first things I do when playing a first person shooter. Then its nonstop action as Grimm wonders the halls taking out zombies and imps then at the end he kills a baron then a pinky demon with a chainsaw. Also during this sequence Grimm reloads which is very similar to the reloading sequence in the games and at one point he shoots his reflection witch again is something I always do while playing a first person shooter.
Now at first I didn’t realize it was a baron that he killed and I thought the rock was supposed to be the baron but after realizing he wasn’t it made the movie even more enjoyable for me. The final fight scene between the rock and Grimm is actually pretty good it uses wires to show off the strength of the two men fairly decent and I wasn’t really disappointed with it at all.
The atmosphere is set up nicely the sets are dark and cold like in the games and they help to amplify the creepiness of it all. By using very little cg and mostly practical effects for the monsters and implementing old school horror techniques like showing the monster in the dark or only showing a hand here or leg there it makes them more mysterious until the full body is finally revealed.
Another thing I thought that was done well was the weapon design. Each marine used a different weapon whether it be the shot gun or assault rifle, SMG, minigun or pistol and when each marine first picks up there weapon it announces there handle or nickname. Two of the characters names are a credit to the co-owners of ID software too.
As far as characters from the game there are 2 plus the monsters. Grimm is supposed to be the hero and is even listed in the credits as doom guy and the rocks character has the same name as the Sarge from doom 3 although his attitude is not the same.
The way Sarge tells the marines of the plan is similar to a video game in the way he states the mission objectives witch I thought was pretty cool. The banter between the marines is also funny at times as almost all types of personalities are present including the newbie, the pervert, silent and strong, and wisecracking and once the rock looses it you have the psycho.
How I would do it. Well there’s not much I didn’t like but the few things I would have changed was probably giving the baron more screen time and changed him to be more like the original game with the horns and what not also I probably would have the monsters come from hell and switched the experiments from science to supernatural which would explain the opening to hell.
Ok so now for the scores. Overall I give the movie 8 out of 10 big fucking points. The atmosphere was great and the first person sequence was amazing.
The acting gets 8 out of 10 as well. I thought all the marines did a good job of acting like their personalities where supposed to be.
The plot gets 7 out of 10. It was based more on doom 3 then anything and was pretty close but they changed it from hell to an infection which is why it didn’t get a ten.
And the content gets 9 out of 10. It had a good portion of weapons and monsters from the games as well as a few in references and the hero kind of looked like the face from the original doom especially at the end when he was all beat up.
Ok so we are making good progress I think. One more boll movie and boy howdy is it a stinker then I get to do 2 movies I thoroughly enjoyed silent hill and dead or alive. Will you agree? Maybe. Will they be 2 of the best video game movies ever? Possibly? Find out all this and more next time on video game movie reviews same review time same review channel.
Well after resident evil and alone in the dark taking there whack at survival horror adaptations universal decided to throw there hat in the game with Doom. Doom 3 had been released 1 year prior and had a horror theme mixed with its traditional action and universal decided to take this route for the movie did it pay off? Read on to find out.
Doom is about a group of marines who go to mars to help evacuate a research facility and while there encounter different kinds of monsters who one by one kill the marines until the final confrontation at the end of the film.
Ok to start off doom does a lot right where other video game movies don’t. First it went for an R rating witch aloud for the movie to keep the violent atmosphere of the games. Second they went with almost 100% practical effects for the monsters instead of cheeping out with cg. The actor that they picked to play Grimm looks almost exactly like the face that is your health meter in the original game.
Every enemy type is in the movie zombies from 3, imps, a baron and the pinky demon. Also just about every weapon from the BFG to the chainsaw is present it seems the only guns that are missing are the plasma weapons. The facility is owned by the U.A.C like in the games.
The acting is pretty good besides the rock it’s mostly b actors but I think they all do a good job getting across the different personalities they are supposed to have. Now while it’s not really scary to people used to watching horror movies the tension and suspense are done rather nicely and not until the end do you really ever see the monsters in full lighting.
The biggest complaint I hear from people is that the monsters are the result of an infection not demons from hell. Now while that is technically true there are several references to mars being hell and the monsters being demons. Goat one of the marines refers to mars being hell and so does Grimm. Now while theses are only metaphorical references still they are there.
There are a few quick references to the game such as Samantha asking for a med kit which is the primary method of replenishing your health in the game also the rock refers to the BFG as a big fucking gun which is what the original acronym stood for in the original game. There is a pretty funny line that the rock has where he says “I’m not supposed to die” while being killed.
Now I’d like to talk a little bit about the coolest sequence in any video game movie ever the first person sequence. About 15 mins until the end of the movie Grimm is injected with the virus that mutated everyone else but because he’s good hearted it gives him super strength speed and healing. So anyway right after he wakes up from the injection the movie shifts to first person witch of course is a throwback to the games.
Right at the start Grimm looks in the mirror witch if you’re like me is one of the first things I do when playing a first person shooter. Then its nonstop action as Grimm wonders the halls taking out zombies and imps then at the end he kills a baron then a pinky demon with a chainsaw. Also during this sequence Grimm reloads which is very similar to the reloading sequence in the games and at one point he shoots his reflection witch again is something I always do while playing a first person shooter.
Now at first I didn’t realize it was a baron that he killed and I thought the rock was supposed to be the baron but after realizing he wasn’t it made the movie even more enjoyable for me. The final fight scene between the rock and Grimm is actually pretty good it uses wires to show off the strength of the two men fairly decent and I wasn’t really disappointed with it at all.
The atmosphere is set up nicely the sets are dark and cold like in the games and they help to amplify the creepiness of it all. By using very little cg and mostly practical effects for the monsters and implementing old school horror techniques like showing the monster in the dark or only showing a hand here or leg there it makes them more mysterious until the full body is finally revealed.
Another thing I thought that was done well was the weapon design. Each marine used a different weapon whether it be the shot gun or assault rifle, SMG, minigun or pistol and when each marine first picks up there weapon it announces there handle or nickname. Two of the characters names are a credit to the co-owners of ID software too.
As far as characters from the game there are 2 plus the monsters. Grimm is supposed to be the hero and is even listed in the credits as doom guy and the rocks character has the same name as the Sarge from doom 3 although his attitude is not the same.
The way Sarge tells the marines of the plan is similar to a video game in the way he states the mission objectives witch I thought was pretty cool. The banter between the marines is also funny at times as almost all types of personalities are present including the newbie, the pervert, silent and strong, and wisecracking and once the rock looses it you have the psycho.
How I would do it. Well there’s not much I didn’t like but the few things I would have changed was probably giving the baron more screen time and changed him to be more like the original game with the horns and what not also I probably would have the monsters come from hell and switched the experiments from science to supernatural which would explain the opening to hell.
Ok so now for the scores. Overall I give the movie 8 out of 10 big fucking points. The atmosphere was great and the first person sequence was amazing.
The acting gets 8 out of 10 as well. I thought all the marines did a good job of acting like their personalities where supposed to be.
The plot gets 7 out of 10. It was based more on doom 3 then anything and was pretty close but they changed it from hell to an infection which is why it didn’t get a ten.
And the content gets 9 out of 10. It had a good portion of weapons and monsters from the games as well as a few in references and the hero kind of looked like the face from the original doom especially at the end when he was all beat up.
Ok so we are making good progress I think. One more boll movie and boy howdy is it a stinker then I get to do 2 movies I thoroughly enjoyed silent hill and dead or alive. Will you agree? Maybe. Will they be 2 of the best video game movies ever? Possibly? Find out all this and more next time on video game movie reviews same review time same review channel.
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