Here's the thing. Two Gents is believed by many to be Shakespeare's first play. As such it's fun to watch because you get to see a glimpse of many different themes (and even some lines) that show up in his later plays. However, as his earliest work it also comes with its problems. For example, it happens to have one of the most problematic endings ever crafted. As such, it is rarely performed due simply to the complexity of making the damn thing work. Nonetheless, it seems like every so often an obscure play will poke its head out and lots of people put it on. I've already seen this show performed twice, first at Ashland about 3 years ago, and last year at Central Washington University. Now, Seattle Shakes has taken up the helm to tackle this tumultuous comedy.
First, a quick recap of the story. Valentine and Proteus are bestest buds (and Seattle Shakes makes it clear they may be a little more than that) who live in Verona. Valentine is journeying to Milan to seek his fortune, while Proteus remains behind because he's in love with Julia. A couple weeks later Proteus' father decides Proteus should also travel and get a job, so he sends him to Milan where Valentine has gone. With a tearful departure, Proteus and Julia exchange rings. Upon arriving, Proteus finds Valentine in love with the Duke's amazingly beautiful daughter Silvia. So beautiful that Proteus falls in love with her on the spot, denounces Julia, and swears he will do whatever he can to get her for himself. Hearing from Valentine that he plans to ascend her chamber at night via corded ladder, Proteus reveals the plan to the Duke who has promised her to the ugly Sir Thurio. Valentine is caught, banished, and taken up by a group of bandits outside the city who are also banished gentlemen. Proteus woos Silvia who rejects his advances and constantly tells him to go back to Julia. Back in Verona, Julia decides she will seek Proteus, but since it's dangerous on the road she dresses as a boy. She arrives in Milan to find Proteus expressing his love and Silvia chiding him. Devastated, but still in love, Julia becomes Proteus' servant. Proteus then sends Julia (disguised as Sebastian) with the ring she gave him and tells her to give it to Silvia. She obeys reluctantly, though Silvia rejects the offer and gains favor with Julia. Distraught, Silvia joins with her old friend Sir Eglamour to escape into the forest to find Valentine. Not long after, the Duke discovers that she has fled and runs after her with Thurio and Proteus. Meanwhile the outlaws have captured Silvia, though Eglamour escaped, and are taking her to their leader (Valentine), but before they get to him Proteus shows up with Julia and saves her. Ungrateful, Silvia tries to run away but Proteus essentially tries to rape her before Valentine (who in the text watches for a while...a problem...but in this version showed up out of the blue) intervenes and denounces Proteus saying he'll never trust him again.
This is where things get tricky. Proteus takes about 4-5 lines saying "I'm sorry, and I feel really bad about this" before Valentine FORGIVES HIM. Not only that, but his love and trust for Proteus is so deep that he says everything he owns, INCLUDING SILVIA, he gives to Proteus. Astounded, Julia faints and then reveals herself to Proteus by giving him her ring instead of the ring he gave to her to give to Silvia. He repents to her and promises to marry her. Then the Duke and Thurio show up, having been captured as well, and Thurio lays his claim to Silvia. Valentine threatens his life, and Thurio quickly gives her up. Impressed by this display, the Duke says Valentine can have Silvia, and while he's at it he pardons the outlaws so that they may become gentlemen once more.
Oh, and there are some of the funniest speeches/scenes ever written with the foolish Launce and his dog Crab sprinkled throughout.
And that's the end. I hope you can see why this is problematic. After the attempted rape, Silvia literally doesn't say a word. She is just kind of tossed around as a possession. Julia, meanwhile, at least reveals herself but also is given no say in what happens after that. For some completely weird reason the boys completely control the end of the show and what happens to the girls. Also, Valentine's sudden change is VERY hard to account for character-wise. Even with the subtext (and not so much subtext in this production) that Proteus and Valentine are gay for each other, it still doesn't make much sense. So how did this production handle it?
First off, the play is set in very modern day. Everyone carries around a cellphone (and when they get texts or show photos to each other you can see them on the back screen), the boys wear surfer-like clothing, the girls are in short trendy dresses, the for-no-other-reason-than-to-be-funny almost russian sounding father of Proteus and his servant dress in a leisure suit and track suit respectively. Julia sulks around in pajamas with a copy of Twilight held close. The constantly high Launce wears giant headphones, a loose beanie-type hat, and carries a messenger bag filled with "Scooby snacks" (aka rows of doobies). While at some points the theme just feels too out of place, there are enough funny and quirky moments to excuse them.
A highlight of the show, as always, is the dog. This one is named Russ, and is a delightfully sad looking pitbull with hip dysplasia that makes his back legs not work so well. Of course he stole the show, but thankfully wasn't actually that distracting. It was more his entrances and exits that did it. One particularly good one was when Chris Ensweiler (Launce) was leading him offstage with a treat, which, when Russ saw it, he almost galloped towards it with mouth wide open. It was ADORABLE.
Anyways, where was I. The acting is an odd mash-up, with several wonderful performances (especially from both female leads, Valentine and Launce), some funny but out of place acting (the outlaws), and some just not really great acting (the Duke and Thurio). Seattle Shakes also happens to be one of the major recruiters of Cornish students, who usually have small or even non-speaking parts. However, in this show, Samie Detzer has a wonderfully strong showing as Lucetta, Julia's friend. Proteus unfortunately looked too much like Keanu Reeves and had such an odd posture that it was hard for me to focus on his actual acting, but he too delivered a solid performance.
As for the ending, Seattle Shakes gives us exactly what we all wanted. Instead of happily being passed around and going along with everything the boys are doing, the two are left in pure confusion as everyone else leaves. Realizing they aren't with them, Proteus and Valentine head back to see what happened, after which Julia and Silvia storm off with disgusted looks on their faces, leaving the boys to look confused themselves. It seemed fitting, and it worked well. Unfortunately, as I said before, even with the homosexual subtext (which after the beginning wasn't really touched on) the immediate forgiveness of Proteus still made little sense. Nonetheless it's obvious they did the best with what they were given.
All in all Seattle Shakes' production is easily the best that I've seen, and despite some odd moments and sub-par acting the play still shone and delivered a wonderful adaptation of a troublesome comedy.
Two Gentlemen of Verona gets an 8/10.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
God of War III
Well, this is it folks. The supposedly final installment in the God of War series. The end of Kratos' long long journey to revenge. Does it stack up with it's predecessors? The answer is no. Instead, it sets them on fire, skewers them in the stomach, and rips out their entrails while screaming "I AM THE GOD OF WAR". It even sneers at them a little for good measure.
Make no mistake. God of War III contains more carnage, bloodshed and sneering than the previous two COMBINED. The graphics also happen to be some of the best that have ever been showcased, making the entire experience an HD extravaganza. Even the cutscenes are rendered in game, meaning that instead of getting beautiful cutscenes and then returning to worse graphics while fighting, EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL. OH GOD IT'S SO PRETTY. The designers spent some major time on making everything about this game completely visceral, and it shows. Kratos is finally wonderfully facially expressive, and when he leaps into battle with his war cry you can tell you're playing as the most dangerous man that has ever lived.
Anyways, let's get the seemingly unimportant part of this review out of the way: the story. Seemingly unimportant because, let's face it, you play God of War for the combat. However, the story here is one of the highlights. We start of literally exactly where God of War II left off, on the back of the titan Gaia climbing Olympus to take on Zeus and any other god that gets in the way. You start with the obligatory horde of grunts attacking you as you figure out your moves, but before you can get three words through "This is looking familiar" Poseidon crashes up from the sea and manifests as a giant water horse with CLAWS that looks so freaking impressive you might lose a fair bit of health before you realize you should be attacking and not staring. Wear him down enough and suddenly Gaia moves her hand, meaning THE ENTIRE SURFACE YOU ARE ON BECOMES UPSIDE DOWN. Now you have to fight the damn thing while hanging. Hit it enough and the world shifts again so that you're on a wall. Then back to a flat surface where you finally get the quicktime sequence to kill it. But you don't just kill it. Oh no. That's previous God of Wars. This one? YOU RIP ITS JAW OFF and it slowly turns back into water and falls to the sea. The rest of the battle is one ginormous epic sequence where you deal with the fact that you are a very small person on a giant moving rock that's fighting with a giant water monster, and that none of that matters because Kratos doesn't take shit from anyone. The finale comes when Gaia punches the monster, and you, using the momentum from her fist, crash straight through it and drag the hiding Poseidon with you. Removed from the sea, Poseidon is powerless. So just chop off his head and it's done, right? Again, previous God of Wars. In this, you take the perspective of Poseidon as Kratos proceeds to bash his brains in. At one point he starts crawling for the edge to get to the sea, and an unseen Kratos behind you pulls you back and then PUNCHES HIS THUMBS INTO YOUR EYES.
And that's the first battle.
Just about every five minutes after that you'll be doing something that makes you curse with excitement, glee or anxiety, and 30 seconds after that you'll be asking yourself, "Did that really just happen?"
Of course, soon there's a big twist and you're forced to lose your magic, experience and half your health to start out as a lowly mortal once more. Oh, and you travel into the Underworld. Again. You are given a new set of blades from Athena (yes, she's dead, but not really) and slowly relearn your old moves, along with the long awaited grapple feature whereby you can hook an enemy and reel yourself into them, knocking them back. As you go throughout the game you gain more and more weapons, and in a twist each one has it's own specific magic spell. So instead of switching spells and weapons like in II, you're just switching weapons. This is not a bad thing. Each weapon has its own distinct feel and combat style, and switching between them on the fly is a breeze. For the first time, the trademark blades are not your best weapon. In fact, I didn't use them for most of the game. The other weapons are that much fun. Also, for those like myself who didn't like the combat as much in II thanks to the long and uninterruptibile combos that made it much less strategic, those combos are back, but they are severely reduced in time, meaning combat flows much more easily now and incorporates blocking as much as the original. There are also a few weapons/items (like a fire bow) that run off a separate rechargeable meter that you can throw into fights to make things interesting.
Another new feature is the inclusion of completely dark areas, which you have to illuminate using Helios' head (another of the items). You can charge it to illuminate the immediate area for a short time, or fire a short burst to illuminate specific enemies. This makes the battles in the dark tons of fun, as managing illumination and combat together makes the battles even more tense. Though, it is also fun to just wave your blades around in the dark trying to hit things, using the illumination they give off when you swing to see where your next target is.
The game seems short, but maybe that's just because I really really really wanted it to keep going. Once you beat the game there's a host of behind the scenes videos that are fun to watch, along with the traditional inclusion of alternate costumes, the Challenge of Olympus, and a Very Hard mode. In short, it's got the same amount of stuff to make it as replayable as the previous installments, but is much more replayable thanks to the amazingly epic scope involved and the fact that there's no end to the enjoyment of watching Kratos do what he's best at and doing it in stunning graphical quality.
I think it's quite safe to say that God of War III will stand as one of the greatest games ever made up to this point, and is easily the best in its genre.
God of War III gets a 10/10.
Make no mistake. God of War III contains more carnage, bloodshed and sneering than the previous two COMBINED. The graphics also happen to be some of the best that have ever been showcased, making the entire experience an HD extravaganza. Even the cutscenes are rendered in game, meaning that instead of getting beautiful cutscenes and then returning to worse graphics while fighting, EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL. OH GOD IT'S SO PRETTY. The designers spent some major time on making everything about this game completely visceral, and it shows. Kratos is finally wonderfully facially expressive, and when he leaps into battle with his war cry you can tell you're playing as the most dangerous man that has ever lived.
Anyways, let's get the seemingly unimportant part of this review out of the way: the story. Seemingly unimportant because, let's face it, you play God of War for the combat. However, the story here is one of the highlights. We start of literally exactly where God of War II left off, on the back of the titan Gaia climbing Olympus to take on Zeus and any other god that gets in the way. You start with the obligatory horde of grunts attacking you as you figure out your moves, but before you can get three words through "This is looking familiar" Poseidon crashes up from the sea and manifests as a giant water horse with CLAWS that looks so freaking impressive you might lose a fair bit of health before you realize you should be attacking and not staring. Wear him down enough and suddenly Gaia moves her hand, meaning THE ENTIRE SURFACE YOU ARE ON BECOMES UPSIDE DOWN. Now you have to fight the damn thing while hanging. Hit it enough and the world shifts again so that you're on a wall. Then back to a flat surface where you finally get the quicktime sequence to kill it. But you don't just kill it. Oh no. That's previous God of Wars. This one? YOU RIP ITS JAW OFF and it slowly turns back into water and falls to the sea. The rest of the battle is one ginormous epic sequence where you deal with the fact that you are a very small person on a giant moving rock that's fighting with a giant water monster, and that none of that matters because Kratos doesn't take shit from anyone. The finale comes when Gaia punches the monster, and you, using the momentum from her fist, crash straight through it and drag the hiding Poseidon with you. Removed from the sea, Poseidon is powerless. So just chop off his head and it's done, right? Again, previous God of Wars. In this, you take the perspective of Poseidon as Kratos proceeds to bash his brains in. At one point he starts crawling for the edge to get to the sea, and an unseen Kratos behind you pulls you back and then PUNCHES HIS THUMBS INTO YOUR EYES.
And that's the first battle.
Just about every five minutes after that you'll be doing something that makes you curse with excitement, glee or anxiety, and 30 seconds after that you'll be asking yourself, "Did that really just happen?"
Of course, soon there's a big twist and you're forced to lose your magic, experience and half your health to start out as a lowly mortal once more. Oh, and you travel into the Underworld. Again. You are given a new set of blades from Athena (yes, she's dead, but not really) and slowly relearn your old moves, along with the long awaited grapple feature whereby you can hook an enemy and reel yourself into them, knocking them back. As you go throughout the game you gain more and more weapons, and in a twist each one has it's own specific magic spell. So instead of switching spells and weapons like in II, you're just switching weapons. This is not a bad thing. Each weapon has its own distinct feel and combat style, and switching between them on the fly is a breeze. For the first time, the trademark blades are not your best weapon. In fact, I didn't use them for most of the game. The other weapons are that much fun. Also, for those like myself who didn't like the combat as much in II thanks to the long and uninterruptibile combos that made it much less strategic, those combos are back, but they are severely reduced in time, meaning combat flows much more easily now and incorporates blocking as much as the original. There are also a few weapons/items (like a fire bow) that run off a separate rechargeable meter that you can throw into fights to make things interesting.
Another new feature is the inclusion of completely dark areas, which you have to illuminate using Helios' head (another of the items). You can charge it to illuminate the immediate area for a short time, or fire a short burst to illuminate specific enemies. This makes the battles in the dark tons of fun, as managing illumination and combat together makes the battles even more tense. Though, it is also fun to just wave your blades around in the dark trying to hit things, using the illumination they give off when you swing to see where your next target is.
The game seems short, but maybe that's just because I really really really wanted it to keep going. Once you beat the game there's a host of behind the scenes videos that are fun to watch, along with the traditional inclusion of alternate costumes, the Challenge of Olympus, and a Very Hard mode. In short, it's got the same amount of stuff to make it as replayable as the previous installments, but is much more replayable thanks to the amazingly epic scope involved and the fact that there's no end to the enjoyment of watching Kratos do what he's best at and doing it in stunning graphical quality.
I think it's quite safe to say that God of War III will stand as one of the greatest games ever made up to this point, and is easily the best in its genre.
God of War III gets a 10/10.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Final Fantasy XIII
Water....*pant pant*...water, please...help........
That's about how I felt nearing the end of 50 or so hours (hard to tell cause I accidentally left it running sometimes) playing Final Fantasy XIII. And then, an oasis. I did it. I completed the main story. Yet soon afterwords, the open expanse of desert beckoned me back. But for now, I think I'll sit, have a drink, and celebrate my accomplishment.
Final Fantasy XIII puts you in the feet of, well...everyone. For the first time in any Final Fantasy game (that I've played at least), you don't really take the place of any one main character. Each one has their own very detailed story, and you play as each character for sometimes significant portions of time. Lightning may grace the cover, but this isn't her show. XII came close to this by allowing you to change your main character in and out of battle, but didn't nearly have the thought out plots (or gameplay differential) for each character. Yes, I could play as the bunny woman with a bow, but it didn't differ in the slightest from playing the androgynous "main character" with a bow. In XIII, however, who you play as makes all the difference.
As such, here's a quick rundown on who you'll be playing. Lightning is the emotionally reserved battle ready former soldier, Snow is the tough guy who wants to be everyone's hero, Sazh is actually not the token black guy and gets swept up by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Vanille is the peppy little girl with a hidden backstory, Hope starts as the whiny brat but then becomes the most mature one of them all, and Fang is the cocky tough girl who seems to know more about everything happening than she should.
Learning from the license system mistake in XII where every character melded together and essentially were just copies of each other battle-wise, XIII incorporates possibly the only good feature of X-2: changing roles. Each character starts out with 3 battle roles they specialize in. For example, Lightning is a Commando (melee specialist), Ravager (magic/chaining specialist), and Medic (obvious). The other roles mixed into the bunch are Sentinel (damage taker), Synergist (bestows buffs), and Saboteur (status ailments). While eventually every character CAN take on any of the other roles, in a normal playthrough that WILL NOT happen. The design is really quite ingenious, as you are rewarded with better stats by funneling your CP (crystarium points) into the roles you started with, while the unfamiliar roles carry fewer abilities and status boosters yet cost ridiculously more. On top of that each character has different abilities and stats across the same role. For instance, Hope's synergist focuses more on protection from damage while Sazh's synergist focuses more on boosting your party's attacks. As such there is quite a lot of variety in how to approach each battle, and how you play the game.
Now, as with every Final Fantasy, this one comes with a new battle mechanic. First off, XIII rips the best part of XII and gives you fully visible monsters on the field that you can either fight or avoid. No random battles. And if you do get into a rough battle you can't win? No matter. You start every battle with full HP, and if you lose, you just get plopped back to right before you started the battle. Once you get into a fight, everything is focused on shifting paradigms and staggering enemies. Paradigms are essentially up to 6 different sets of roles that you customize for your characters. Want to go on the offensive? Put up two Commandos and a Ravager. Feeling hurt and need to heal? Switch to two Medics and a Sentinel. Battles are fast and furious, and the situation often changes in a hurry. Thankfully all it takes is a quick tap of the L1 button to bring up the list of paradigms you've customized and select the one you need. Sometimes you can even time it right so that by switching into a paradigm your characters start with full ATB gauges. ATB (active time battle) gauges differ slightly from other titles like VII, where the bar would fill up and then your character would do something. In this case, the gauge has portions, and each portion can be filled with something you want your character to do. You start the game with 2, and so can attack twice each turn. Eventually it'll go all the way up to five, and while it takes more time to fill up, you get to do five different things each turn.
This is important, because each monster has a "stagger" meter along with its HP. By chaining attacks together (especially Ravager attacks), a "chain gauge" fills up under the monsters' HP. When it reaches a certain point, the monster becomes staggered and takes massive damage until the stagger gauge is depleted. Depending on the monster it could even change appearance and/or stats. The way you figure out how best to stagger a monster is the skill Libra, which uses Technical Points (TP) that recharge from attacking and from getting a good rating from a battle (on a scale of 0-5 stars, depending mostly on how long it takes you to beat the monsters).
Essentially all of this means that, like my favorite part of Final Fantasy X, strategy is prized over just pressing "attack" over and over. You can take on a big bad monster, figure out how it needs to be fought, probably die, and then go back at him with a better team and paradigm strategy. Now, this doesn't mean you will be prepared to kill every single monster you come across, especially after the 25 hour mark, but for the most part you won't have to worry about going backwards and facing monsters over and over to get experience (aka grinding).
Now wait a second Zach, you're probably saying. What's this you said about a 25 hour mark?
Well, that's where I get to my least favorite part of this game. For the first 25 hours or so, you will be walking in a straight line. A few curves, a couple side tracks to grab a chest, but for the most part you will be walking forward, battling monsters, walking forward more, battling more monsters, walking forward, cutscene, battle, walk, etc. etc. There are no towns. There are no NPCs. You buy stuff and upgrade your weapons and accessories at the save point. Then, you keep walking. While this certainly makes for streamlined gameplay that just keeps you moving through the MASSIVE story, it can't help but feel like one long grind for the awesomeness past 25 hours. Because once you reach that point, you get to a beautiful place called Gran Pulse.
After seeing nothing but the straight line you must follow on the minimap for 25 hours, you finally get to a point where you can't see a wall in your minimap. You are let loose to explore the grand plains where giant monsters roam, and it...feels...AWESOME. There are various quest givers about who tell you to go kill this baddie over in this area, ripping the Mark hunting system from XII.
However, do not be deceived. This amazing wide open area of Gran Pulse? Only wide open in one area. The rest? Back to the straight lines. I was having fun exploring and doing quests, when I decided I better continue on with the story. A couple hours later and I realize I'm about to leave Gran Pulse for the final battle having never been able to go back to the plains area. Thankfully you are given the chance to go back before you make your way to the final boss, but still. I just wanted to continue a little bit and then do some more quests. To not even be given that option shone all the more brightly just how linear this game is.
That being said, when I went back to Gran Pulse to do some more exploration and quests, I began to realize just how much of its own game this area was. The more I delved, the deeper it went. It soon came to me that I wasn't supposed to keep doing quests and killing monsters and exploring before I continued. Because if I did, I would've been there forever. Instead, Gran Pulse is meant much more as something to do once you've completed the main story. You're given easy access from the boss' chamber to Gran Pulse, so you can go finish the other half of the game that's not main story and then come back and kick ass again.
Overall, this game is a learning experience for Square-Enix. They took practically everything great from their last several games and successfully incorporated it all together. Unfortunately they also take out one of the most essential parts of any JRPG, the non-linearity, which makes this game feel repetitive quite often. However, the story is easily the best of any of the Final Fantasys, and that's saying something from me. The battle system is fun, inventive, and never boring. The main quest, while linear, still does a wonderful job of varying the environments and monsters to at least mostly make you forget you've been going in a straight line for 25+ hours. The voice acting is still a little absurd at times, with every single lip movement translating into some sort of grunt like "Huh" "Ha!" "Mmm" etc. but for the first time I didn't find a single one of them annoying. Even Vanille. The graphics are gorgeous, and even with the blatant "PLEASE BUY THIS ONE AMERICA" inclusion of Leona Lewis, the music fits in well (except for some inexplicable smooth jazz elevator music in one area of Gran Pulse).
This game is not for the casual gamer. However, if you're looking for a long and involving RPG that can satisfy both for the short term story or the long term exploration and stat maxing, this is the game for you.
Final Fantasy XIII gets an 8.5/10.
That's about how I felt nearing the end of 50 or so hours (hard to tell cause I accidentally left it running sometimes) playing Final Fantasy XIII. And then, an oasis. I did it. I completed the main story. Yet soon afterwords, the open expanse of desert beckoned me back. But for now, I think I'll sit, have a drink, and celebrate my accomplishment.
Final Fantasy XIII puts you in the feet of, well...everyone. For the first time in any Final Fantasy game (that I've played at least), you don't really take the place of any one main character. Each one has their own very detailed story, and you play as each character for sometimes significant portions of time. Lightning may grace the cover, but this isn't her show. XII came close to this by allowing you to change your main character in and out of battle, but didn't nearly have the thought out plots (or gameplay differential) for each character. Yes, I could play as the bunny woman with a bow, but it didn't differ in the slightest from playing the androgynous "main character" with a bow. In XIII, however, who you play as makes all the difference.
As such, here's a quick rundown on who you'll be playing. Lightning is the emotionally reserved battle ready former soldier, Snow is the tough guy who wants to be everyone's hero, Sazh is actually not the token black guy and gets swept up by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Vanille is the peppy little girl with a hidden backstory, Hope starts as the whiny brat but then becomes the most mature one of them all, and Fang is the cocky tough girl who seems to know more about everything happening than she should.
Learning from the license system mistake in XII where every character melded together and essentially were just copies of each other battle-wise, XIII incorporates possibly the only good feature of X-2: changing roles. Each character starts out with 3 battle roles they specialize in. For example, Lightning is a Commando (melee specialist), Ravager (magic/chaining specialist), and Medic (obvious). The other roles mixed into the bunch are Sentinel (damage taker), Synergist (bestows buffs), and Saboteur (status ailments). While eventually every character CAN take on any of the other roles, in a normal playthrough that WILL NOT happen. The design is really quite ingenious, as you are rewarded with better stats by funneling your CP (crystarium points) into the roles you started with, while the unfamiliar roles carry fewer abilities and status boosters yet cost ridiculously more. On top of that each character has different abilities and stats across the same role. For instance, Hope's synergist focuses more on protection from damage while Sazh's synergist focuses more on boosting your party's attacks. As such there is quite a lot of variety in how to approach each battle, and how you play the game.
Now, as with every Final Fantasy, this one comes with a new battle mechanic. First off, XIII rips the best part of XII and gives you fully visible monsters on the field that you can either fight or avoid. No random battles. And if you do get into a rough battle you can't win? No matter. You start every battle with full HP, and if you lose, you just get plopped back to right before you started the battle. Once you get into a fight, everything is focused on shifting paradigms and staggering enemies. Paradigms are essentially up to 6 different sets of roles that you customize for your characters. Want to go on the offensive? Put up two Commandos and a Ravager. Feeling hurt and need to heal? Switch to two Medics and a Sentinel. Battles are fast and furious, and the situation often changes in a hurry. Thankfully all it takes is a quick tap of the L1 button to bring up the list of paradigms you've customized and select the one you need. Sometimes you can even time it right so that by switching into a paradigm your characters start with full ATB gauges. ATB (active time battle) gauges differ slightly from other titles like VII, where the bar would fill up and then your character would do something. In this case, the gauge has portions, and each portion can be filled with something you want your character to do. You start the game with 2, and so can attack twice each turn. Eventually it'll go all the way up to five, and while it takes more time to fill up, you get to do five different things each turn.
This is important, because each monster has a "stagger" meter along with its HP. By chaining attacks together (especially Ravager attacks), a "chain gauge" fills up under the monsters' HP. When it reaches a certain point, the monster becomes staggered and takes massive damage until the stagger gauge is depleted. Depending on the monster it could even change appearance and/or stats. The way you figure out how best to stagger a monster is the skill Libra, which uses Technical Points (TP) that recharge from attacking and from getting a good rating from a battle (on a scale of 0-5 stars, depending mostly on how long it takes you to beat the monsters).
Essentially all of this means that, like my favorite part of Final Fantasy X, strategy is prized over just pressing "attack" over and over. You can take on a big bad monster, figure out how it needs to be fought, probably die, and then go back at him with a better team and paradigm strategy. Now, this doesn't mean you will be prepared to kill every single monster you come across, especially after the 25 hour mark, but for the most part you won't have to worry about going backwards and facing monsters over and over to get experience (aka grinding).
Now wait a second Zach, you're probably saying. What's this you said about a 25 hour mark?
Well, that's where I get to my least favorite part of this game. For the first 25 hours or so, you will be walking in a straight line. A few curves, a couple side tracks to grab a chest, but for the most part you will be walking forward, battling monsters, walking forward more, battling more monsters, walking forward, cutscene, battle, walk, etc. etc. There are no towns. There are no NPCs. You buy stuff and upgrade your weapons and accessories at the save point. Then, you keep walking. While this certainly makes for streamlined gameplay that just keeps you moving through the MASSIVE story, it can't help but feel like one long grind for the awesomeness past 25 hours. Because once you reach that point, you get to a beautiful place called Gran Pulse.
After seeing nothing but the straight line you must follow on the minimap for 25 hours, you finally get to a point where you can't see a wall in your minimap. You are let loose to explore the grand plains where giant monsters roam, and it...feels...AWESOME. There are various quest givers about who tell you to go kill this baddie over in this area, ripping the Mark hunting system from XII.
However, do not be deceived. This amazing wide open area of Gran Pulse? Only wide open in one area. The rest? Back to the straight lines. I was having fun exploring and doing quests, when I decided I better continue on with the story. A couple hours later and I realize I'm about to leave Gran Pulse for the final battle having never been able to go back to the plains area. Thankfully you are given the chance to go back before you make your way to the final boss, but still. I just wanted to continue a little bit and then do some more quests. To not even be given that option shone all the more brightly just how linear this game is.
That being said, when I went back to Gran Pulse to do some more exploration and quests, I began to realize just how much of its own game this area was. The more I delved, the deeper it went. It soon came to me that I wasn't supposed to keep doing quests and killing monsters and exploring before I continued. Because if I did, I would've been there forever. Instead, Gran Pulse is meant much more as something to do once you've completed the main story. You're given easy access from the boss' chamber to Gran Pulse, so you can go finish the other half of the game that's not main story and then come back and kick ass again.
Overall, this game is a learning experience for Square-Enix. They took practically everything great from their last several games and successfully incorporated it all together. Unfortunately they also take out one of the most essential parts of any JRPG, the non-linearity, which makes this game feel repetitive quite often. However, the story is easily the best of any of the Final Fantasys, and that's saying something from me. The battle system is fun, inventive, and never boring. The main quest, while linear, still does a wonderful job of varying the environments and monsters to at least mostly make you forget you've been going in a straight line for 25+ hours. The voice acting is still a little absurd at times, with every single lip movement translating into some sort of grunt like "Huh" "Ha!" "Mmm" etc. but for the first time I didn't find a single one of them annoying. Even Vanille. The graphics are gorgeous, and even with the blatant "PLEASE BUY THIS ONE AMERICA" inclusion of Leona Lewis, the music fits in well (except for some inexplicable smooth jazz elevator music in one area of Gran Pulse).
This game is not for the casual gamer. However, if you're looking for a long and involving RPG that can satisfy both for the short term story or the long term exploration and stat maxing, this is the game for you.
Final Fantasy XIII gets an 8.5/10.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
The Time Traveler's Wife
My name is Zach, and I like chick flicks. I realize for the most part that the comedies are terrible and good for only a few chuckles, while the dramas/romances are almost equally bad in their tear-jerker sentimentality and idealism. Nonetheless, I'm a sucker for a sob story, and that's exactly what The Time Traveler's Wife is.
The movie is based around the concept that there's a man named Henry who spontaneously time travels. He fades out of his current time, wakes up naked in a different time and place, and before long travels back to his own time...again naked. Think of it like Terminator, but instead of being a bloodthirsty robot sent to kill John Conner, he's a troubled man with a genetic abnormality. In any case, his time traveling starts when his mother is driving him and gets into an accident. He suddenly fades from the car, and has traveled back two weeks to see his parents reading to him. He then quickly travels back to the present, now outside the car, where he sees the crash and watches his mother (and his other self) die. The adult Henry (Eric Bana) then shows up out of nowhere, explains to his young self what has happened, and then disappears to leave himself to his life.
We then switch to adult Henry's time, where he works at a library. He quickly meets Clare (Rachel McAdams) who seems to intimately know Henry, even though to him they've never met. She explains that in the future he keeps traveling backwards in time and visits her as a little girl, as if drawn there by gravity. She's always been in love with him, and that's obviously just fine with Henry as before you know it they're banging like bunnies and completely in love.
The rest of the movie deals with their relationship and the obvious problems faced by having a sporadic time traveler as a husband. Some very interesting issues of identity are addressed in this movie, about how the person we are when we're younger is really a different person from when we're older. The young Henry is greatly flawed, breaking into stores to find clothes with loner mentality. A guy who's rough around the edges. But the older Henry is much more caring and thoughtful, wise, mature, etc. At least, to the young Clare. There's some great philosophical underpinnings to this story, about destiny, being different people at different times, and which of those people are the right people to be together. The unfortunate thing is that most of that is lost in the mist.
This movie's real problem is that it has a little too much trouble deciding what to focus on. There were several points when it was fairly obvious they were skimming over something important, just to focus more on either the through-line of the plot or to highlight dramatic tension between Clare and Henry. For example, the wonderful Ron Livingston starts out as one of Clare's friends who adds some welcome comedy to the story. He stumbles upon Henry's ability one night...and then disappears for long stretches until needed as the best man at their wedding or as a consummate friend at the end. It just felt like his character had some crucial element to play in the story that was never fleshed out.
And that's really where this movie fell down. The acting was great, as always, from Bana and McAdams, the direction was well done...but the screenplay let them down. It focused too much on little vignettes, and driving the plot through, that the overarching heart of this story leaked away through the spaces in-between. It was by no means bad, but it lacked what it needed to be great.
The Time Traveler's Wife gets a 6.5/10.
The movie is based around the concept that there's a man named Henry who spontaneously time travels. He fades out of his current time, wakes up naked in a different time and place, and before long travels back to his own time...again naked. Think of it like Terminator, but instead of being a bloodthirsty robot sent to kill John Conner, he's a troubled man with a genetic abnormality. In any case, his time traveling starts when his mother is driving him and gets into an accident. He suddenly fades from the car, and has traveled back two weeks to see his parents reading to him. He then quickly travels back to the present, now outside the car, where he sees the crash and watches his mother (and his other self) die. The adult Henry (Eric Bana) then shows up out of nowhere, explains to his young self what has happened, and then disappears to leave himself to his life.
We then switch to adult Henry's time, where he works at a library. He quickly meets Clare (Rachel McAdams) who seems to intimately know Henry, even though to him they've never met. She explains that in the future he keeps traveling backwards in time and visits her as a little girl, as if drawn there by gravity. She's always been in love with him, and that's obviously just fine with Henry as before you know it they're banging like bunnies and completely in love.
The rest of the movie deals with their relationship and the obvious problems faced by having a sporadic time traveler as a husband. Some very interesting issues of identity are addressed in this movie, about how the person we are when we're younger is really a different person from when we're older. The young Henry is greatly flawed, breaking into stores to find clothes with loner mentality. A guy who's rough around the edges. But the older Henry is much more caring and thoughtful, wise, mature, etc. At least, to the young Clare. There's some great philosophical underpinnings to this story, about destiny, being different people at different times, and which of those people are the right people to be together. The unfortunate thing is that most of that is lost in the mist.
This movie's real problem is that it has a little too much trouble deciding what to focus on. There were several points when it was fairly obvious they were skimming over something important, just to focus more on either the through-line of the plot or to highlight dramatic tension between Clare and Henry. For example, the wonderful Ron Livingston starts out as one of Clare's friends who adds some welcome comedy to the story. He stumbles upon Henry's ability one night...and then disappears for long stretches until needed as the best man at their wedding or as a consummate friend at the end. It just felt like his character had some crucial element to play in the story that was never fleshed out.
And that's really where this movie fell down. The acting was great, as always, from Bana and McAdams, the direction was well done...but the screenplay let them down. It focused too much on little vignettes, and driving the plot through, that the overarching heart of this story leaked away through the spaces in-between. It was by no means bad, but it lacked what it needed to be great.
The Time Traveler's Wife gets a 6.5/10.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The DRM War
As an avid player of video games, the controversy over piracy and digital rights management (DRM) always pokes its head into my life from time to time. Over the past decade the companies who make video games have continually been at war with pirates, imposing more and more restrictions on the released, legitimately bought, copies of their game in hopes that they won't be able to work around the restrictions and put it on the internet. EA was a big offender with Spore, which was one of the first to use the concept of "limited installs", which made it so that the game could only be installed a total of 3 times and then went kaput. Your computer crash? Goodbye one install. Virus infect your computer and you have to wipe it? So long install 2. Want to install it on your PC and laptop? Too bad. Instead of having bought a game, you've effectively rented it for full purchase price. The result of this massive middle finger to consumers? Spore was still cracked, with the install limit lifted as well as circumventions around the online verification, and it became the #1 most pirated game ever. People who actually bought the game, however, were left out to dry.
The latest no-no comes from Ubisoft with Assassin's Creed 2. Weeks before release the internet was abuzz with rumors that in order to play the game, you had to be constantly connected to both the internet and Ubisoft's servers. For a single player game with no multiplayer. As far as I can tell this is the first instance where a single player game requires a constant internet connection. But Zach, you might say, what if you don't have an internet connection? Sorry, but you can't play the game. Or what if the servers go down? Well then the game will either pause where you're at until connection is reestablished, or it will quit and when the connection comes back it'll drop you back at the previous checkpoint you reached. If the connection comes back.
And that's the problem right there, because two days ago that's exactly what happened. The servers went down for an entire day, and most people were either completely blocked from playing the game or had to do some major troubleshooting if they were already playing it.
While there currently isn't a crack for the game, you can be assured one will be soon, because that's what hackers do. Sooner or later, if you make a game, it will be hacked. Deal with it. If you're open about it and accept that it will happen, and stop using really stupid DRM that hurts the average consumer but has no effect on the pirates, more people will buy your game. Take Spore. Honestly it was a bit of a disappointment and not that great a game. But by installing such heinous DRM on it, you push people who would normally just buy your game into making a cost/benefit analysis saying "Do I want to pay full price for a game I can only install 3 times, or should I pay nothing for a game that I'll have forever?" People who want to support the publisher are pushed away in favor of trying to stem the unstoppable tide of piracy.
So what to do? STOP USING DRM. COMPLETELY. Instead of punishing all to get to the few (who don't even feel the effect), reward those who do what you want and buy the game in store. Offer an incentive in-store for buying your game. Maybe it comes with a discount on another game or a gift certificate. Amazon has started doing this with pre-orders, and it makes sense. But the publishers need to step up, and take a little hit by including things with non-preorders and saying "sorry for all that DRM nonsense, here's a reason to actually pick up our game from a store instead of throwing it aside".
It all comes down to reinforcement versus punishment. In study after study, positive reinforcement is much more effective than punishment in solidifying behavior. So take note from the psychologists, developers, and try actually rewarding your customers for a change.
The latest no-no comes from Ubisoft with Assassin's Creed 2. Weeks before release the internet was abuzz with rumors that in order to play the game, you had to be constantly connected to both the internet and Ubisoft's servers. For a single player game with no multiplayer. As far as I can tell this is the first instance where a single player game requires a constant internet connection. But Zach, you might say, what if you don't have an internet connection? Sorry, but you can't play the game. Or what if the servers go down? Well then the game will either pause where you're at until connection is reestablished, or it will quit and when the connection comes back it'll drop you back at the previous checkpoint you reached. If the connection comes back.
And that's the problem right there, because two days ago that's exactly what happened. The servers went down for an entire day, and most people were either completely blocked from playing the game or had to do some major troubleshooting if they were already playing it.
While there currently isn't a crack for the game, you can be assured one will be soon, because that's what hackers do. Sooner or later, if you make a game, it will be hacked. Deal with it. If you're open about it and accept that it will happen, and stop using really stupid DRM that hurts the average consumer but has no effect on the pirates, more people will buy your game. Take Spore. Honestly it was a bit of a disappointment and not that great a game. But by installing such heinous DRM on it, you push people who would normally just buy your game into making a cost/benefit analysis saying "Do I want to pay full price for a game I can only install 3 times, or should I pay nothing for a game that I'll have forever?" People who want to support the publisher are pushed away in favor of trying to stem the unstoppable tide of piracy.
So what to do? STOP USING DRM. COMPLETELY. Instead of punishing all to get to the few (who don't even feel the effect), reward those who do what you want and buy the game in store. Offer an incentive in-store for buying your game. Maybe it comes with a discount on another game or a gift certificate. Amazon has started doing this with pre-orders, and it makes sense. But the publishers need to step up, and take a little hit by including things with non-preorders and saying "sorry for all that DRM nonsense, here's a reason to actually pick up our game from a store instead of throwing it aside".
It all comes down to reinforcement versus punishment. In study after study, positive reinforcement is much more effective than punishment in solidifying behavior. So take note from the psychologists, developers, and try actually rewarding your customers for a change.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
As many realize by now, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is not actually Alice in Wonderland. It's the sequel. 13 years after the original trip down the rabbit hole, we now join Alice as a young woman in Victorian times, stuck with the responsibilities of wearing a corset and stockings and marrying a dimwit with digestion issues. An entire party has been planned to see her accept this Lord's marriage proposal, but before she can be thrust into it she begins to see pieces of her dream running about; the same dream that she's been dreaming for 13 years.
Soon enough she's chasing the white rabbit down a hole by the side of a tree, falling and falling past an odd assortment of objects. She lands in the classic room with locked doors everywhere, a key that unlocks a small door she can't fit through, a potion that says "drink me" which makes her very small, and a cake that says "eat me" which makes her very large. So far, it's the classic Alice story. Until, suddenly, you are taken to the view of someone peeping through the small door's keyhole saying "You'd think she'd have remembered all this from the first time," and another saying, "You've got the wrong Alice!"
And honestly, they did get the wrong Alice for this movie. Mia Wasikowska is Burton's typical type of female, completely pale with long blond hair and a constant almost-dead look to her. Unfortunately, in picking his perfect body type for the role he ignored the one component that makes Alice in Wonderland so great: personality. Everyone in Wonderland had a distinct and very quirky but also very imaginative and interesting personality. Unfortunately, very few in Underland carry this quality. Alice is bland and boring, going through the paces but never emotionally invested or expressive about anything. Wasikowska simply didn't carry the spark of curiosity and imagination that Alice should have, and as a result almost everything else fell flat.
It certainly didn't help that in order to focus more on the relationship between Alice and the Mad Hatter (or just to give Depp more screen time), other characters were sacrificed. One would think in Burton's reimagining the Cheshire Cat would be wonderfully creepy and cryptic, but instead he almost seems an afterthought. He shows up, offers to heal her cuts from the Bandersnatch which she refuses, and then leads her to the Mad Hatter. Even voiced by Stephen Fry there's little personality to be had. Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar also does little to help things as he's relegated to a bland part where he tells the future, tells Alice she's not the right Alice, blows smoke in her face, disappears, and then comes back at the end to say "what I really meant is that back then you weren't the Alice you used to be but now you're much more like her. Now excuse me while I become a big ol metaphor for your story by becoming a pupa and then turning into a butterfly." And he does it all with not an ounce of character.
But surely if they spent less time on the minor characters that means the major characters got better treatment right? Wrong. Anne Hathaway channels her inner Mary Poppins as the White Queen with a few odd kicks like alchemy and reacting quite hilariously to bad smells, but still comes across reserved. Helena Bonham-Carter is one of the saving graces of this movie, especially when she first runs into Alice (who tricks her into thinking she's Um from Umbridge) in the garden and takes her to the throne room, but even the trademark paranoia and vindictiveness and constant need for rolling heads one would think she would be so good at portraying simply isn't there. Her apathy towards all things beneath her comes off wonderfully, but her calls for "Off with their heads!" lack the fury they so desperately need.
And then of course there's Burton's muse, Johnny Depp, as the Mad Hatter. One of the centerpieces of the plot, the characters, and the movie itself. A man who, according to Bonham-Carter in recent interviews, was basically given free reign to go as over-the-top as he liked. Instead what we get is a performance without any proper cohesiveness that constantly made me wonder just what kind of character he was trying to portray. Depp's Hatter carries a dual personality that comes out when he's angry and turns his eyes orange like his hair. For some reason he also randomly starts into a Scottish accent, though not just when he's the other personality. At times he's sheepish, and at others he's a stalwart subversive rogue. I understand he's the Mad Hatter and he's not supposed to make much sense, but to have him flip-flop so much in such inconsistent ways just screams poor direction/script/character choice instead of calculated insanity.
This is all not to mention the rather terrible "chosen one" plot they've all been thrown into which at times seems to try and reflect Alice's real-world situation, but once you look at all deeply into it is more just a vehicle to move the story along. When Alice arrives she is shown a scroll that shows her battling the Jabberwocke in full armor with the Vorpal Sword, and it's supposed to happen on a specific hard-to-pronounce-and-spell day. So she's forced into this situation where her future is dictated for her, much like it is in the real world. She then spends the rest of the movie battling between fulfilling her destiny or leaving the people of Underland to suffer. Long story short, she fulfills the prophecy and everything returns to "normal". As in, sorry, but you can't escape your destiny. Then she returns to the real world where she proceeds to turn down her future husband, make some uninspired offhand comments to the real-world counterparts of her enemies in Underland (which for the most part center on what she's learned, until she turns to two gossips and says something along the lines of "You two remind me of two odd boys I met in my dream (namely Tweedledee and Tweedledum)" which is frankly lazy script-writing and conveys absolutely nothing useful), and then proceeds to essentially take back her father's company from his friend who had kept it in trust by saying they should expand trade routes into China, and finally sails off on a boat while a blue butterfly lands on her shoulder.
So to recap, in Underland she learned that she can't escape the destiny imposed on her, and then she goes back to the real world and proceeds to completely change everything with, remarkably, no voiced complaints from anyone.
It just seems so lazily put together that you wonder what Burton was focusing on so much that he let the rest slide so easily. Was it the scenery? The graphics? Because while they were certainly weird they weren't anything special. The castles of the Red Queen and White Queen both highly resembled slightly redone versions of the Disney Castle. Was it the costumes? Because with the amount of times Alice switched dresses it seemed like they were launching a fashion line.
This is one of those kinds of films where every single person going completely over the top will not only not ruin the movie but would in fact improve it. But instead it appears many of them were just tired, reserved, and given a poor script and sloppy direction. And even with all this, I certainly didn't hate the movie. I didn't think it was amazing, but there were enough glimmers of a good movie in there to not dismiss it completely.
Alice in Wonderland (2010) gets a 6/10.
Soon enough she's chasing the white rabbit down a hole by the side of a tree, falling and falling past an odd assortment of objects. She lands in the classic room with locked doors everywhere, a key that unlocks a small door she can't fit through, a potion that says "drink me" which makes her very small, and a cake that says "eat me" which makes her very large. So far, it's the classic Alice story. Until, suddenly, you are taken to the view of someone peeping through the small door's keyhole saying "You'd think she'd have remembered all this from the first time," and another saying, "You've got the wrong Alice!"
And honestly, they did get the wrong Alice for this movie. Mia Wasikowska is Burton's typical type of female, completely pale with long blond hair and a constant almost-dead look to her. Unfortunately, in picking his perfect body type for the role he ignored the one component that makes Alice in Wonderland so great: personality. Everyone in Wonderland had a distinct and very quirky but also very imaginative and interesting personality. Unfortunately, very few in Underland carry this quality. Alice is bland and boring, going through the paces but never emotionally invested or expressive about anything. Wasikowska simply didn't carry the spark of curiosity and imagination that Alice should have, and as a result almost everything else fell flat.
It certainly didn't help that in order to focus more on the relationship between Alice and the Mad Hatter (or just to give Depp more screen time), other characters were sacrificed. One would think in Burton's reimagining the Cheshire Cat would be wonderfully creepy and cryptic, but instead he almost seems an afterthought. He shows up, offers to heal her cuts from the Bandersnatch which she refuses, and then leads her to the Mad Hatter. Even voiced by Stephen Fry there's little personality to be had. Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar also does little to help things as he's relegated to a bland part where he tells the future, tells Alice she's not the right Alice, blows smoke in her face, disappears, and then comes back at the end to say "what I really meant is that back then you weren't the Alice you used to be but now you're much more like her. Now excuse me while I become a big ol metaphor for your story by becoming a pupa and then turning into a butterfly." And he does it all with not an ounce of character.
But surely if they spent less time on the minor characters that means the major characters got better treatment right? Wrong. Anne Hathaway channels her inner Mary Poppins as the White Queen with a few odd kicks like alchemy and reacting quite hilariously to bad smells, but still comes across reserved. Helena Bonham-Carter is one of the saving graces of this movie, especially when she first runs into Alice (who tricks her into thinking she's Um from Umbridge) in the garden and takes her to the throne room, but even the trademark paranoia and vindictiveness and constant need for rolling heads one would think she would be so good at portraying simply isn't there. Her apathy towards all things beneath her comes off wonderfully, but her calls for "Off with their heads!" lack the fury they so desperately need.
And then of course there's Burton's muse, Johnny Depp, as the Mad Hatter. One of the centerpieces of the plot, the characters, and the movie itself. A man who, according to Bonham-Carter in recent interviews, was basically given free reign to go as over-the-top as he liked. Instead what we get is a performance without any proper cohesiveness that constantly made me wonder just what kind of character he was trying to portray. Depp's Hatter carries a dual personality that comes out when he's angry and turns his eyes orange like his hair. For some reason he also randomly starts into a Scottish accent, though not just when he's the other personality. At times he's sheepish, and at others he's a stalwart subversive rogue. I understand he's the Mad Hatter and he's not supposed to make much sense, but to have him flip-flop so much in such inconsistent ways just screams poor direction/script/character choice instead of calculated insanity.
This is all not to mention the rather terrible "chosen one" plot they've all been thrown into which at times seems to try and reflect Alice's real-world situation, but once you look at all deeply into it is more just a vehicle to move the story along. When Alice arrives she is shown a scroll that shows her battling the Jabberwocke in full armor with the Vorpal Sword, and it's supposed to happen on a specific hard-to-pronounce-and-spell day. So she's forced into this situation where her future is dictated for her, much like it is in the real world. She then spends the rest of the movie battling between fulfilling her destiny or leaving the people of Underland to suffer. Long story short, she fulfills the prophecy and everything returns to "normal". As in, sorry, but you can't escape your destiny. Then she returns to the real world where she proceeds to turn down her future husband, make some uninspired offhand comments to the real-world counterparts of her enemies in Underland (which for the most part center on what she's learned, until she turns to two gossips and says something along the lines of "You two remind me of two odd boys I met in my dream (namely Tweedledee and Tweedledum)" which is frankly lazy script-writing and conveys absolutely nothing useful), and then proceeds to essentially take back her father's company from his friend who had kept it in trust by saying they should expand trade routes into China, and finally sails off on a boat while a blue butterfly lands on her shoulder.
So to recap, in Underland she learned that she can't escape the destiny imposed on her, and then she goes back to the real world and proceeds to completely change everything with, remarkably, no voiced complaints from anyone.
It just seems so lazily put together that you wonder what Burton was focusing on so much that he let the rest slide so easily. Was it the scenery? The graphics? Because while they were certainly weird they weren't anything special. The castles of the Red Queen and White Queen both highly resembled slightly redone versions of the Disney Castle. Was it the costumes? Because with the amount of times Alice switched dresses it seemed like they were launching a fashion line.
This is one of those kinds of films where every single person going completely over the top will not only not ruin the movie but would in fact improve it. But instead it appears many of them were just tired, reserved, and given a poor script and sloppy direction. And even with all this, I certainly didn't hate the movie. I didn't think it was amazing, but there were enough glimmers of a good movie in there to not dismiss it completely.
Alice in Wonderland (2010) gets a 6/10.
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