Film and Videogames. Two incredibly similar mediums that you think would be inter-changeable. Oddly enough, however, the best games and movies are those that stay as far away from each over as possible.

I’m not going to be like Rodger Ebert and pretend I’m an expert on video games, because although I know the history quite well and have a basic knowledge of all the classics – I’m not very good at games and I don’t own a lot of them. But I’m not going to be like Mark Kermode and many other film critics who just turn their noses up to games, assuming they’re just a fad (mostly because these people do not get this new art form the same way people don’t get computers). I remember my first game being Lemmings on the PC back in the late 90’s – back when games were still on floppy-disc, (although at this point CD was about halfway through replacing it). It was 1999 when I was given my first console: a Playstation 1, and I remember plugging it in and being blown away by the 3D graphics. My second Playstation game was Croc: Legend of the Gobos, which is still one of my favourite games and in my opinion one of the best platformers ever made. In fact, nearly all my favourite games are on the PS1, probably because of biased nostalgia. Now it’s all about shooting people in the head, although there are far more 7+ rated games than the media thinks – but I can safely say that the 3D platforming genre is pretty much dead (apart from the mind-bending Portal and the trippy Mario Galaxy – both of which prove that there is still life in the genre).

The epiphany that videogames and movies will never co-exist came when I watched an interview with Gus Van Sant. Gus Van Sant remains a director I simultaneously hate and admire. I hate him because he has made two of the worst movies ever made: Gerry and the infuriatingly pointless shot-for-shot Psycho remake. But I admire him because – like James Cameron, Tim Burton, and George Lucas – he’s actually made some good movies too. In this interview he discussed both of these abominations to celluloid and said that the idea of Gerry was inspired by a videogame. He said that he played Lara Croft and found the best part to be the anticipation as you walk through an empty hallway wondering what’s to follow. So he took this concept and made an entire movie that features almost nothing but two men walking mutely though an empty desert. Yes, it’s even more dull and pretentious than it sounds.

I understand the logic behind this idea. In the outstanding game Shadow of the Colossus, a large portion of the game is spent riding to the next Colossus (breathtakingly large beats made of stone and fur). The only enemies in the game are the Colossi, and there are sixteen of them: meaning the entire thing is just sixteen boss battles. It sounds like a boring game, but Shadow of the Colossus is actually one of the best games for the PS2; and this method of gameplay works for two reasons:

1. The landscape is both beautiful and eerie. There is no music during the riding sections (apart from a few haunting chords when you reach an impressive part), meaning it’s just footsteps and ambience. This works surprisingly well as you feel the isolation and seep into an almost hypnotic state. This is the feeling I assume Gerry was attempting to re-create.
2. The battles with the Colossi are epic. The very first Colossus feels like a final game boss, and I was very excited when I realised that there are fifteen more of these battles to go. Finding the Colossus, looking at the thing up and down as it slowly walks towards you – as you wonder how on earth you’re supposed to topple this mountain-sized monster – is well worth the walking. It’s the equivalent of walking to your nearest shop and buying something you’ve wanted for years.

Of course, the downsides are that the game is a little too short and the riding can get a bit dull, particularly since it’s easy to get lost. But, that’s absolutely fine because it’s you who are riding this excellently rendered landscape. You are the protagonist, which is the greatest appeal of any RPG/FPS/Action game. This is the main reason why Gerry’s inspiration falls flat: because you’re not playing the two men walking in the desert. The phase “it’s like watching someone else play a game” is overused, but I’m applying it here. Even if you were playing Matt Damon, it would still be the worst game ever because there is nothing on the other side. It’s watching someone else play Shadow of the Colossus without the Colossi!

I was invigorated further when I found out they were planning to make a film adaptation of Shadow of the Colossus. I am going to crush your excitement by telling you that this is a terrible idea. Yes, there is a plot behind the riding and boss battles; but it’s basically ‘Your girlfriend is dead and you can only bring her back to life by defeating 16 giant monsters– as you do”. It’s not much of a step-up from Double Dragon, which had the epic plot: “Your girlfriend has been punched in the stomach and kidnapped”, or Super Mario Bros. with the coming-of-age magnum opus: “You’re a plumber and you need to rescue a Princess from a giant dragon-turtle-thing”. And yes; both of these retro games somehow got made into movies…and they both were awful.

The only way you can make these plots into feature length narratives is to completely change it. In the recent Prince of Persia, the entire plot was changed because, whilst the original Sands of Time was much more advanced plot wise than some of my retro examples; it just wouldn’t have worked since most of the game is working through a palace room-by-room (which probably makes it the world’s largest building). Contrary to popular belief – Tron is actually not a videogame movie. The game was actually release simultaneously with the movie; but the movie works because it’s delving into what goes on inside a game. Literally.

Take Mortal Kombat. It’s not Shakespeare, but its wonderfully cheesy fun.  That movie worked because it took the basic premise of the game and put its middle finger up to the rest – creating a decent(ish) action movie with some fun dialogue (like The Avengers only not as overhyped/overrated). Of course, fans of the game were annoyed because they believed it was disloyal to the game and changed too much. Yes, because a game where the whole appeal of it is ripping a person’s spinal cord is clearly a work of narrative genius that deserves no alteration whatsoever.

Herein lies the problem of converting video games into movies – video games are WAY more different to movies than people think. A game is about the gameplay, which seems obvious but Hollywood producers seem to have completely forgotten this; along with many game developers. The next time you play a game, try and imagine what the game would be like without the actual gameplay. You’ll probably think “well, nothing would be there”. EXACTLY!! THAT’S THE KEY PROBLEM WITH ADAPTATIONS OF VIDEOGAMES!!

The sad fact is that videogame plots will never rival film or literary plots. That doesn’t mean film or literature is superior to games, but it means people need to stop trying to make their games like movies. An excellent example would be Heavy Rain, which is the worst idea in the history of gaming. Let’s take those annoying as hell ‘interactive’ cutscenes where you have to press buttons at the right point and watch as the character does things you wish you could control yourself– and make an entire game out of that crap! I’ve tried playing Heavy Rain round a friends, and all the time I was just waiting for the moment when the screen would change and I could actually control the character fully.

In a videogame, you have gameplay – and the gameplay is the most important part of the whole thing. Cutscenes are skippable and usually I forget what happened in them because a game obviously takes much longer to complete than a movie. All we care about is the gameplay, and when we have to stop the game to watch some boring cutscene we immediately lose interest. Videogame plots are usually fragmented this way, with a bit of plot being revealed and the game saying “OK, now fight your way through the building and we’ll tell you what happens next”. The problem is that the game is trying to be like a movie, but of course you need gameplay, so they have to literally stop the plot and find some way to shoehorn in some element which the player can control. In such an interactive medium, this is a terrible way to make a game.

Part of the reason why I love Croc so much is because there is hardly any plot – which is great because it means it’s unobtrusive. There is a (skippable) intro basically saying “The gobbos have been kidnapped by this big ogre-thing and so you need to find the gobbos and defeat him”. That’s it. There are a few mute cutscenes when you meet a boss, but other than that you’re just jumping your way through the excellently designed levels enjoying some of the best 3D platforming ever. Less is more when it comes to videogame plots.

I played a two week free trial of World of Warcraft a few years back, and I got to Level 18. Throughout this I did not see a single line of exposition; the entire ‘plot’ was just self-contained quests, and there are more quests than there are players in the world of war and craft. And, I liked this aspect. The community was kind of dick-ish, and I couldn’t shake off the aura of sadness the game emits, but I enjoyed these two weeks because you really did feel like you were earning a living in this vast world.

I also really liked Portal. Who doesn’t? And the joy of that was that it relied on voice over, not cutscenes – not to mention the plot was just “You have woken up with no idea who you are or why you have got here. Good luck!” which is a good thing. The voice over is excellently scripted and of course the gameplay is the most original anyone has ever seen since Mario decided to go 3D.

My conclusion is obvious, but again: so many people overlook this. You play a game – you watch a movie. When you watch you are critically viewing, when you are playing you are interacting. To make a movie like a game is to alienate the audience, to make a game like a movie is to completely defeat the object of a game. One of the greatest graphic novelists, Alan Moore, said that he tries all he can to distance comics from movies otherwise comics will just look like still movies and will be an inferior medium. It’s exactly the same thing with games. I doubt any game designers will read this, but if by any chance they do: Please try and make games stand as their own art form. By just borrowing from other mediums you are making games inferior, and justifying the opinion of snobs who think games are just a fad.

Director:

Starring: Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor, Kristin Scott Thomas, Amr Waked

Rating:

OK, I was dragged kicking and screaming to see this; but I did my usual exercise of clearing all my pre-conceptions. Its the visual equivalent of easy listening music: its simple – sometimes annoyingly so.  Its well produced. Its a mildly pleasant experience that satisfies the masses. At times it does makes you care. At times it verges on something that might make it unique, but refuses to expand on this because it’ll become too ‘edgy’. And, whether you liked the experience or not: its easily forgettable.

Director

Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson  etc etc

Rating:

This is one of the few times when I’ve walked into a movie expecting it to be dumb, entertaining action and being disappointed to find out that I was correct.

When I expressed this opinion to my peers, one of them decided to shun me: calling me “a pretentious asshole” and refusing to listen to any more of my arguments. If you are unable to take an opinion then I suggest you just leave a comment regarding how far my head is up my rectum and go to another website that says exactly what you want to hear.

I love a lot of cheesy 80’s action movies. I love campy fantasy epics. My favourite movies include Die Hard, Hot Fuzz, and Batman: The Movie. We all have an inner snob that occasionally rears its well groomed bespectacled head and uses fancy phrases,  posh filmic terms, and words the normal human needs a dictionary to understand. I am fully aware of the terms ‘guilty pleasure’, ‘mindless fun’, and ‘check your brain at the door’.  But….I’m very sorry to say that this movie disappointed me.

Let’s start at the beginning: The Avengers has been hyped since 2008, and has had five films building up to this gigantic event that studio executives and fan boys claim to be the greatest motion picture ever created. This is the moment when I become a complete snob and direct everyone to Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Casablanca, and all the other usual suspects.

I quickly grew tired of all the build up to this movie, as the Hollywood over-hype usually does. But, I walked into my 3D showing (I tried for 2D because this was a post-conversion and I didn’t care about IMAX since it wasn’t even filmed in that format and I’m not a fan of just stretching the picture and demanding double the standard ticket price) trying as hard as I could to erase all pre-conceptions and all my doubts. I never go into a movie wanting to hate it, and I sat down wanting some nice Wednesday night entertainment.

When I came out of the movie, I had already formed my opinion and all I had to do was work out the final star-rating. It was just as testosterone fuelled as I expected, just as mindless as I expected…..but not nearly as entertaining as I expected.

Yes, the humour was excellent. The ensemble cast of larger-than-life heroes is so iconic and filled with personality that the characters practically write themselves. The people behind this movie understand both the fans and the heroes – and ensure no character is sidelined or ruined. I particularly like how they re-introduced The Hulk and built up nicely to when he finally becomes angry, hyping him as the unstoppable beast (although they do make him a bit too Werewolf-like in how he cannot tell who’s good and who’s bad – even though at the end he’s like “HULK SUDDENLY KNOW WHO HE’S SUPPOSED TO FIGHT!!” which confused me but didn’t bother me). It’s a very loyal movie, and merely watching these personalties talking and interacting with one-another was just as entertaining as the action scenes.

The effects are some of the best I have seen in a Blockbuster, although everything still looks sleek and…well….fake. There are one or two shots of buildings being destroyed that would’ve looked better with models – and I know a few people wanted real actors to play the CGI Skeletors; although I’ve seen Masters of the Universe and I know how bad real Skeletors look. But, there are several shots that are memorable and mind-blowing. Its cool and its all done right. I loved how it actually had a three act structure, with the big set piece being saved until the final act – compared to Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich and all their knock-offs who spend half an hour explaining why all this crap is happening and then have the rest of the movie as one overlong climax that tries so hard to entertain yet becomes nonsensical and (believe it or not) dull. The Avengers didn’t have this, and I admire the movie for not lowering itself to its fellow summer blockbusters.

This all being said….I didn’t care. Why? Because there was absolutely no tension. There was all this stuff blowing up in our faces, all of these panicked citizens running away, the fate of humanity rested in the hands of these four supermen….and I didn’t give a crap. I was sweating when I saw both The Dark Knight and X-Men: First Class because there was tension and stakes. We want the heroes to pull through but we’re terrified that they might not. In The Avengers, we’re just waiting for them to win.

You know in adverts for cinema where you see shots of the audience enjoying the movie and there all sat with their eyes pressed to the screen, their asses on the edge of their seats, their hands at the point of ripping out the fabric …..none of that here. And from looking around the audience, I didn’t feel any emotion. It was your typical ‘sit down, shut up, eat your popcorn and enjoy the fireworks like a good boy’ audience. They laughed at the right parts, but there were no gasps or sighs or held breaths. This was present in The Dark Knight, in X-Men: First Class, and even in the Spiderman films.

There are two main reasons why there was no tension. Firstly: the villains sucked. The threat that intends to wipe out humanity – that’s SO powerful and deadly that they need FOUR superheroes to stop them….and we see them for 3 minutes; not including the final battle where they don’t say anything. Heck, the first time we see the mothership is when it’s blown up. We hear the monologue of the leader of the CGI Skeletors once, and then we see him for one minute talking to Loki in the first act. He’s gone after that! We never see the ultimate puppet master! It’s clear that Loki’s just following orders. Where did he come from? Why does he want to take over the world? Who cares! It’s not like we’ve been hyping this crap up for FOUR YEARS!!

How am I supposed to take him seriously when his helmets THAT big!?

Oh and there is Loki. To be fair, he actually has a good motivation: he wants to take over his brother and reclaim his dignity. It’s a shame he never shows this dignity because I was never threatened by this guy. Loki is supposed to be a trickster. He’s the equivalent of an evil Snape, or a better spoken human version of Gollum. In Norse mythology Loki once escaped losing a bet saying that, if he lost, he would be beheaded. He escaped by simply stating that the deal did not mention is neck and therefore he couldn’t be beheaded because they said nothing about severing his neck – only his head. THAT’S Loki. He’s not a badass with a ridiculous helmet – which is odd because in Thor they nailed Loki’s character as a sly bastard. The minute you establish Loki as a powerful threat, things start to fall apart. There is a scene where he gathers a crowd together and does his best General Zod impression; asking them all to KNNNNEEEEELLLLL!!! One guy refuses to kneel, so Loki prepares to kill him as an example. But, Captain America swoops in out of literally no-where (where the hell did he come from!? He can’t fly…) and saves him. Honestly, Loki should have killed him, as this whole event just served to strip Loki of his credibility as a villain further. Also, Captain America compares Loki to a Nazi – which all us writers know is the laziest way to make a person look evil.

The second reason why there is no tension is that everyone is invincible. The heroes all emerge from life-threatening circumstances without a scratch. Only Iron Man is ever placed into a life-threatening situation, and he’s the only one who deserves to emerge from these conflicts unharmed and cocky because he’s played by Robert Downey jr who is always awesome. I really wanted one of the major characters to die, or at least be near-fatally wounded because it would actually mean this situation is worth teaming all these superheroes up for! Samuel L Jackson spends the first half of this movie harping on about how dangerous this threat is, but when the smoke clears and the superheroes just dust themselves off and return to their normal lives I thought “Really? They trash a few blocks of a city and get their asses handed to them by six people. Is that REALLY so deadly?”

There is actually a scene where Loki stabs Thor with a knife. Loki then runs off and I think “Great! He’s wounded! Tension at last!”…but then Thor just pulls the knife out, looks at it, then tosses it to one side as if to say “Hmmm, this wound that will never affect me again is pointless. Another!” In fact, the wound doesn’t even leave a mark. Thor does not get a single bloodstain in this battle, and neither do the rest of them! The heroes are all way too powerful and the villains are far too weak. You can have the satisfaction of superheroes smashing stuff up whilst also building tension too! Making the heroes appear slightly more vulnerable without completely stripping their dignity is possible! The climax of this movie is the equivalent of playing the final boss battle using a cheat code. There is the dull satisfaction of beating the boss to a pulp, but there is absolutely no adrenaline that comes with the risk of dying.

Heck, they even try at one point to build tension when its revealed that Loki wants to turn The Avengers against each-over. They have a brief argument, The Hulk transforms (which is actually an awesome scene), and then they get back together again. Whilst I’m glad they didn’t drag this plot-point out, they actually spend quite a bit of time with Loki in prison (when has a villain who actually gets captured been terrifying….aside from Hannibal Lector….or The Joker) as the characters try to figure out what his plan is – and this build-up is in the end just wasted screen time. Also: Loki, you idiot! The worst thing you can do when trying to turn the superheroes against each over is ATTACK THEM – because then they are forced to work together! Loki was doing a great job just letting them all sit there in silence, slowly building up their hatred for each over – the same way reality TV works. OK, I get it; that was Loki’s mistake. All villains have to make mistakes or else they wouldn’t lose….but then why didn’t they address this?! In Star Wars Episode VI, Luke says “You’ve failed your highness”, which is a powerful scene because he’s standing up to this intimidating figure of darkness. Star Wars this movie is not…

OK, I only put this picture here because its hilarious.

Perhaps the biggest insult is that the most hyped movie in recent memory, the film that’s had five films of build-up and four years in the making….AND IT ENDS ON SEQUEL BAIT!! I get why they want more sequels – this movie is undoubtedly going to earn a crapload of money and if I was a capitalist studio executive I too would want to spread this thing out for as long as possible. But they hyped this up to be such a phenomenal event! Again: five movies, four years!! This was marketed as a once in a lifetime, fate-of-the-world-will-be-decided-movie! But it just feels like all the other movies – build up to something else…

I know what your going to say: “Oh…but its fun. Its cheesy fun. Just sit down and stop thinking!” Uh, no. If I don’t think about the movie then I am being passive: I am just letting the experience wash over me without leaving any impact. And its not fun. I was expecting this movie to revel in its glorious over-the-top testosterone-ness, but instead it plays it far too straight. At first I was excited by this decision, but as the movie went on the seriousness only highlighted the flaws. I might have ignored the painfully derivative plot or the annoying lack of tension if I knew the movie wasn’t taking itself too seriously, but its actually trying to make us care – which fails because of the script flaws. It reminds me of The Expendables, which annoyed me in the same way since I was expecting it to bask in its over-the-top glory, but aside from that one scene with Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the same room as each-over; it took itself far too seriously.  However, at least The Avengers is better shot and better scripted despite having similar faults of a poor plot, poor villains, no tension, and not knowing if its supposed to be serious or not.

This is not ‘the best superhero movie ever made’. This is not the best movie of 2012. It’s only slightly better than the other movies building up to it, and my disappointment comes from the fact that this movie could have been something incredible but it simply isn’t. Even when I lowered expectations they were still not met. The biggest success of this movie is that it makes me look forward to The Dark Knight Rises: because that film will contain ten times the talent of this all-too-typical Blockbuster affair.

Director: Joss Wedon

Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Evans

Rating: 

Contains minor spoilers.

In my couple-of-months old review of Captain America: The First Avenger — which I found to be a sour disappointment — I said it wouldn’t surprise me if the ultra-hyped Marvel’s The Avengers were to be yetanother blunder, the superhero genre being pretty much worn out. Well, while it hardly brings anything new to the table as per expected, it was epic enough to entertain the hell out of me for all of the 142 minutes, and that’s more than I was bargaining for.

The movie opens with the malignant demi-god Loki (Tom Hiddleston) — Avenger Thor’s brother — managing to finally reach planet Earth with plans of world domination. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), leader of the government organisation S.H.I.E.L.D, now needs to assemble a team of extraordinary people to make sure Loki’s plans aren’t actualized. The only problem is that it’s hard for a Norse God, a supersoldier, a giant green monster, and a millionair in a high-tech suit to co-exist.

Look, I had a lot of fun with it, but as much as I wanted to find it as mindblowingly awesome as everyone else seems to, there’s some issues I just couldn’t ignore. I’m specifically talking about the humourous moments the film was sporadically littered with, which were more often than not misplaced or completely ill-fitting of the atmosphere. It wouldn’t have bugged me so much if said jokes didn’t directly hurt the film; to exemplify: The joke at the end where Hulk dryly smashes around Loki after he delivers a boisterous monologue about how ultimately great he is — while it had me laughing — sort of ruined this great villain for me. I mean, we’re dealing with an evil demi-God executing his diabolical plan to become planet Earth’s dictator; you just can’t make fun of him like that and still want the audience to take him seriously. It’s a shame, because aside from that, the entire climax was so, so good.

And sure, the screenwriters skillfully succeeded in giving every Avenger enough attention without any of them fading into the background as they stand next to the charismatic Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and the powerful Thor (Chris Hemsworth). But that doesn’t change the fact that some of them just aren’t very engrossing. Captain America (Chris Evans) bored me just as much as he did in his own movie (and again, it’s not the actor, just the part), Hawkeye — who I admittedly don’t know all that much about — didn’t have much of a personality, despite the fact that he’s played by Jeremy Renner, and Black Widow… well, she certainly looks the part, but something tells me an actress like Scarlett Johansson doesn’t feel quite at home in a major superhero blockbuster like this.

However, looking back at The Avengers as a whole, most of these laments pale into insignificance; it’s very much gratifying to finally see the film so many people have been anticipating for years now. I went out the theatre thinking I was going to give it 3.5 out of 5, but considering that now — the day after — I already want to see it again, a solid 4 seems like a more just rating.

Director:

Starring: Steve Wiebe, Billy Mitchell, Walter Day, Brian Kuh

Rating:

Behold – the most awesomely pathetic….thing ever devised!

King Of Kong is a documentary about classic arcade gaming. Sound boring? Well, specifically, its about two men battling with each-0ver to try and break a world record: the highest score on Donkey Kong (the arcade version). Its the ultimate David vs Goliath story, with a touch of Rocky in case the whole thing isn’t hilariously overblown enough. It even plays ‘Eye of the Tiger’ as our protagonist prepares to enter the tournament. I was  expecting him to punch meat and drink raw eggs.

At the very beginning, old school gamers clearly state that “its more than just a game” and explain why, whilst completely shredding their dignity in the process. However, there are many moments when I yelled at the screen “ITS. A. GAME! Donate to charity! Write a book! Make a movie! Paint a picture! Just contribute SOMETHING to society!!”

The most memorable part of the whole thing, and the reason why you should open a new tab and buy this movie straight away, is because it features a man who’s ego is so gigantic, who’s so unbelievably cocky, who’s such an asshole, who’s personality is so larger than life and unreal – it is comedic gold.

Oh yes, we’re talking about Hot-Sauce salesman Billy Mitchell. Haven’t heard of him? Then you dont deserve to even look at his picture! This is a man who believes he is more controversial than the abortion debate, and who became the first man to do a perfect run of Pacman – getting to the final stage with no lives lost.

“I’ve pointed out to Steve that he’s the person he is today because he came under the wrath of Bill Mitchell”

“…but competitive gaming, when you wanna attach your name to a world-record, when you want your name written into history, you have to pay the price!”

“No matter what I say, it draws controversy. It’s sort of like the abortion issue”

“Work is for people who can’t play video games”

“My initials are U.S.A”

“I gotta try losing sometime”

And it goes on and on and on. Whilst I admire the guy for managing to casually break the world record every time he’s been challenged (and apparently his hot-sauce is exquisite) – dude…your not a rock star! You haven’t cured cancer! You’ve beaten a world record for an 80′s Arcade Game! Congratulations – you’ve somehow received recognition for  something that doesn’t deserve recognition. I think the ultimate proof of just how far this man’s head is embedded up his rectum is when he last beat the world record and then immediately quit. He said “Some say I’m being cocky. Some say I’m being lazy. I say, I’m being Billy Mitchell”. No, its because your being cocky. Oh, and his record was almost instantly beaten again. Oops! Maybe you should have kept playing!!

I would do what any normal person would do when faced with a guy like this: mock him for his lack of testicles and his perfectly intact virginity. However, he’s somehow managed to get himself an attractive wife. I have absolutely no idea how he pulled her, but if I ask him directly he would probably say “its because I’m Billy Mitchell!”

So Billy Mitchell is also straight out of Rocky. Now, enter Steve Weibe – who practically IS Rocky. He’s our protagonist, and the only likeable person in the movie simply because him and his family are normal. He’s not a bespectacled stereotype of the typical nerd, and he’s not an asshole.

Oh yeah, the biggest problem with this movie is that the only gamers we meet are part of Billy Mitchells gang, meaning they are all just as insufferable; but also just as hilarious. Its a terrible representation of the classic gaming audience because I know for a fact there are some ordinary people who enter gaming tournaments because its fun and not because they think the fate of the universe will be decided. Its not even like The Wizard where the final head-to-head battle is so overblown its glorious – here its just hilariously sad. My favourite non-Billy Mitchell asshole in this movie is the most pathetic of them; who walks around informing everyone in the arcade that “there is a Donkey Kong death-screen coming up”, as though Elvis Presley had just walked into the room. He is also responsible for the funniest moment of the movie – when with the saddest expression humanly possible on his face he tells the camera “Steve Weibe has gotten the highest score ever on this arcade machine”, and I swear the camera cuts away just before he completely breaks down in tears.

But Steve has a job as a Science teacher and has a family who loves him (whilst we barely see Billy’s wife, and when we do he’s just holding her hand and dragging her around as if to say “See: I’m NOT a virgin!!”). Steve is actually contributing something to society outside of this pointless but cathartic game-thing. He gets along well with everyone, and when faced with all of Billy’s assholes is friendly and humble. Obviously there is some editing going on to make Steve much more three-dimensional than everyone else – there are a lot of interviews with Steve’s family and friends…perhaps too many…but Steve is our anchor to reality that we clutch onto throughout this overblown madness. You cant help but cheer him on, just like underdogs like Rocky or the protagonist to every sports movie ever made.

If you like feeling better about your sad virginal life by watching a movie about people with even more sadder lives, I’ve found the perfect film  for you. If not, then this is still hilarious.

Director: Bobcat Goldthwait

Stars: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr, Mackenzie Brooke Smith

Rating: 

No, I’m not morally outraged. I’m not even from America. It’s just not a very good movie. I feel like I should settle this first because this is one of those films that will put you in the category it satires if you dislike it. Well, I’m not, and I don’t really care.

You could call God Bless America a bad version of James Gunn’s SUPER. It’s about a middle aged man called Frank (Joel Murray) who when finding out he’s got brain cancer decides to kill those he despises: Overly spoiled 16 year-olds and asshole politicians. He soon unites forces with a 16 year-old girl, Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr) who shares a similar view on the world.

The biggest problem is that it just feels really, really contrived. I’m specifically talking about the relationship between Frank and Roxy, which I didn’t buy at all. It’s unspontaneous and forced. She just happens to decide going after a man who killed a teenage girl because she hated her? And somehow she had an idea about his motives and now wants to casually murder people with him? And she just coincidentially finds him in the random motel room he was staying in? And he, mr. morality, is just okay with all of this and they become best buds? The list of incredulities goes on and on; there’s a severe lack of logic here for which you need too much of suspension of disbelief.

It would have been a lot better if they left the girl out entirely, but there’s also the character of Frank on itself that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. First of all, he kills too many people for a guy who wants everybody to be nice. He keeps saying he only wants to kill those who deserve to die, but then murders a security guard he knows nothing about and a mentally inferior person for wanting to be on television. Yes, this is the guy who preaches that we shouldn’t prey on the weak, and yet, he’s supposed to be the voice of reason? Not to mention that he’s depicted enjoying the murder of his victims; half of his actions don’t coincide with the way he’s portrayed or the beliefs he expresses.

That’s why I call it a bad version of SUPER. SUPER was self-aware because it acknowledges the fact that the characters are basically deluded psychopaths and it doesn’t make any moral judgements. That’s what makes it so good; God Bless America doesn’t realize how often contradictive it is and it wants you to fully support the paradoxical Frank.

The film delivers some just commentary, but that’s about it. To be perfectly clear: I didn’t at all have a problem with Frank and Roxy murdering the people in itself because this is still just a movie, but the way it’s handled is fairly nonsensical. It had potential, but most of it went down the drain, as did the impact that was meant to be delivered.

Director:

Starring: Franco Nero, Woody Strode, William Berger, Donald O’Brien

Rating:

Even serious fans of Spaghetti Westerns cannot deny that, aside from anything by Sergio Leone, there are very, very few Spaghetti Westerns that can be deemed must see classics – although those select few are masterpieces of grindhouse cinema. This isn’t really one of them.

Keoma stars Django himself: Franco Nero – an icon of the Western genre up there with Clint Eastwood. Like Django, he plays the titular Keoma; and this time they actually fix his voice. In Django, Nero was dubbed by an unfitting, slightly high pitched American – in Keoma however, Nero speaks with a slight Italian accent which suits the appearance of the character much better….until you find out Keoma is a half native American (Indian if you want to be un-PC). If the boot fits…

It also features that cool bald African-American guy at the beginning of Once Upon a Time in The West who drinks out of his hat. He plays a drunk banjo player who ultimately helps Keoma. The ‘N’ word get thrown around a lot, which is fine considering the movie is set at a time where racism was considered normal for everyone. Both him and Keoma are the victim of prejudice, although this theme isn’t explored as much.

No; the main plot of the movie is about plague victims being moved into isolated camps and left to die there. This kind of makes sense and considering that the victims will die anywhere in the world no matter what; I don’t get why the people behind this scheme are so transparently evil. But I understand that the reason why everyone else is so opposed to the camps is because the powers behind them are refusing to cure them – despite the fact that the plague is very easily curable according to the doctor. In fact, the pregnant victim who Keoma ends up falling in love with (her character is pretty useless by the way) and saving is cured by…I don’t know, her illness just fades away into the forgotten memories of the screenwriter. And Keoma never gets the plague – and it’s never established that the town is full of plague victims despite the fact that when medicine comes they suddenly need it all. And if the townspeople are indeed plagued…why aren’t they in the camp; since the owners of the camp visit the town often.

That’s one of the few flaws with the movie. But the biggest problem with this movie? The music. Oh god, that music!! You know in Once Upon a Time in The West where the soundtrack is made out of three songs: the Harmonica theme, that beautiful female opera theme, and that stupid zany tune – and it’s just repeated again and again and again and again and again throughout the entire movie (although at least the Harmonica theme has several different versions). Well, imagine that – only with one song.

Yep, one song. To be somewhat fair, the lyrics change throughout. But, it’s the exact same slow, dreary acoustic guitar that Ennio Morricone could compose in five seconds. There are two singers: the most annoying warbling high pitched Latino ‘singer’ I have ever heard, and the most annoying male low pitched Texan country ‘singer’ I have ever heard. Maybe it’s just because I hate dreary country ballads (aside from Johnny Cash – because he’s impossible to hate), but for me this is absolute torture. We first hear it during the opening credits, and I thought “well that was a terrible theme tune. But at least that’s all we’ll hear of it…right?” But no, every time there is no dialogue we hear the same wavering  “KKKKEEEEEOOOOOOMMMMMMAAAAA”. Ecstasy of Gold (one of the finest tunes in movie history) this is not…

And I hate the lyrics. It just seems so weird having a woman singing directly to Keoma – who is a badass. It was OK with Django, because that theme tune is awesome and is only heard during the opening and closing credits. However, with Keoma, every five seconds we need that horrid female singer to say how poor and unfortunate Keoma is, whilst the male rags on about country clichés such as Jesus, Satan and souls (it’s not nearly as deep or interesting as it sounds).Their basically describing the emotions being conveyed onscreen, which is ridiculous since we know what emotions are being displayed because WE HAVE FUCKING EYES!!!

The worst part is that the lyrics actually spoil scenes. At one point, that horrid female singer shrieks her guts out saying “now you mourn your pa” before his father dies!! And his father’s death is supposed to be a surprise! Seriously: Fuck this music.

The rest of the flaws are very minor. There is this weird old woman who follows Keoma around in the distance all the time (damn! She moves fast considering how much Keoma charges round on horseback!). She does absolutely nothing and in the end has absolutely no purpose. But, she doesn’t appear as much as the music….

Also, the film tries to be arty by having stuff like a scene of somebody riding a horse that’s inter-cut with a conversation that person has before actually setting off on their horse. It’s not as confusing as it sounds, but the way it flicks back and forth just feels amateurish; kind of like how Easy Rider tries to be ‘arty’ by having that weird transition between scenes that’s impossible to describe unless you’ve seen the movie.

Aside from that, it’s basically a pretty cool Spaghetti Western ruined by terrible Spaghetti Western music. Its cinematography is outstanding, at times verging on Leone’s brilliance – but there isnt really anything noteworthy aside from that. If you’re a fan of this kind of movie, and you have a much higher tolerance for the same music being repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again – then you’ll probably enjoy it. Pack earplugs just in case though…

Director:

Starring: Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken

Rating:

Many believe the original Batman Quadrilogy runs like this: Great, Good, Bad, Awful. However, I personally believe it goes like this: Great, Pretty Bad, Bad, OH GOD KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!

Yes, I dont like Batman Returns. And I’m going to tell you why….

Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman sits as one of the best portrayals of the superhero-who-isn’t-technically-super along with The Dark Knight and the entire Animated series (although I’ve only seen seasons  and 2 – because 3 and 4 have not been released in the UK. Grrr). It perfectly captures Batman’s character as Gotham’s badass hero whom is in reality a shy and troubled aristocrat. Tragedy and heroism are in perfect balance.

So, of course – this movie completely ruins that.

Firstly…Batman is hardly in this movie. I dont mean like the infamous King Kong re-make where we dont actually see King Kong until 50 minutes into the movie. No; we see Batman for the first time about 20 minutes in, but then he just sort of pops in and out again whenever he’s needed. Batman is basically a side-character. I wouldn’t mind this, except….ITS CALLED BATMAN RETURNS!!! Actually, the title fits; because every single time Batman/Bruce Wayne shows up I exclaim “Oh yeah, I forgot this was a Batman movie!”

And when Batman is in the movie, he’s no better than the villains. He too secludes himself in a Gothic setting; and he too kills. Whilst I’ve never really cared about Batman’s ‘Code of Honour’, Batman is NOT like the villains. In fact, Batman – despite being a badass – is the essence of good. The villains are the essence of evil – or they are at least evil in the main. Yes, these lines do cross several times in life – but with Superheroes the hero is always ultimately good, and the villains ultimately evil. Villains can easily show heroic traits, but in the end they are still the bad guys. Its like Darth Vader: in the end he redeems himself, but he’s still the antagonist. The problem is that Tim Burton has actually said “Batman is just as fucked up at the villains”…AND HE’S NOT!! He’s called The Dark Knight because he is a Knight; a chivalrous saviour who fights the never-ending battle to rid Gotham of crime. Yes, he’s also edgy and no-nonsense; but that’s where the ‘Dark’ part comes from. Put simply: Batman is nothing like any of the supervillians he fights. Yes, he might identify with Catwoman – but their NOT. THE. SAME!!

The common complaint about Batman Forever and….the other sequel that shall not be named – is that the screenwriters pile in as many sub-plots and villains as they can. Honestly, I believe this problem starts with this movie. In the original Batman, we had The Joker and Batman. They each had their own story to tell, but its only two storylines. Less is more – which is a phrase I was repeating all throughout Batman Returns as Burton hopelessly attempts to juggles The Penguin, Catwoman, Max Schrek, and Batman simultaneously (notice how I said Batman last). And they were originally going to bring Robin into this too…

The second half of the movie is better; as The Penguin and Max’s storyline merges, as does Catwoman and Batman’s, but that’s still two separate story lines struggling for screen time during the climax, whilst in the original Batman and The Joker’s storyline had successfully merged into one narrative. .  And its clearly The Penguin in the limelight, which only makes it more obvious how uninteresting his character is. He’s basically a Joker wannabe – only much more stupid. He’s a man who was raised by Penguins! I can believe Apes or Aliens raising a human child….but Penguins?! And as if this character could not be more hilariously stupid: He rides a giant rubber duck. Ooooh, scary!

Unlike The Joker, who maintains a perfect balance of humour and terror – the Penguin is neither. He’s not scary, he’s not funny, and he’s not sympathetic. He just exists.  Maybe Tim Burton thinks he is sympathetic…but Tim Burton isn’t normal. Oh, and speaking of Burton; I hate the design of this movie. There has clearly been a lot of effort and creativity put into the visuals, but it just doesn’t fit Batman. I loved the Brazil-inspired visuals of the first movie, but this is The Nightmare Before Christmas live action.

This movie has somewhat of a cult following. And I understand why some people might like it – because its completely different to all the other Batman movies. Its villain centred, like a long episode of the Batman Animated Series. My problem is that there was actually an episode of the Animated series that is all about the Penguin. And The Penguin is actually likeable and interesting – unlike this movie. But its just my opinion…

(PS: I’m already extremely nervous about The Dark Knight Rises. I think its a terrible idea to even attempt trying to follow up The Dark Knight – which is like trying to do a sequel  to Citizen Kane.  Also, whilst the character of Bane looks really cool – between his extremely muffled droans and Batman’s throat cancer vocals I doubt I’m going to understand a single word of dialogue)

Director: Andrew Stanton

Stars: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe

Rating: 

John Carter is about an outlaw from the Wild West who when stumbling upon an evil Martian gets involuntarily teleported to the planet Mars, or as its inhabitants call it: Barsoom. There he meets weird, green aliens, fights giant four-armed apes with blue blood, falls in love with a cool Martian chick, and befriends a fat, loveable, dog-like creature that moves incredibly fast.

Yes, it’s as awesome as it sounds.

First of all, this really is a spectacle you need need to catch on the big screen. I’m generally not into blockbusters this big on CGI, but this one really succeeds in sucking you into the fictional world of Mars with the medium. I’m not certain if the 3D helped with that; I barely noticed I was wearing the glasses. Whether or not that’s a good thing, I don’t know either.

The movie is a bit sporadically paced and slow in the beginning, but once it gets going, it really gets going. The awesome action scenes with John Carter leaping feet into the air while fighting Martian barbarians are bound to pin you to your seat. Even the generic love interest genuinely works, which is really hard to pull of considering the fact that we’re talking about an interplanetary relationship here.

John Carter is one of the most fun theatre experiences I’ve had in recent times. Please, go see it. I’m dying for a sequel.