I'm a big fan of Sofia Coppola. I even enjoyed the more criticized Marie Antionette. So when I finished watching Somewhere, knowing next to nothing about it when I started except that it was a Focus feature, which I almost universally enjoy, and that it was supposed to be good, I was shocked to see her name come up as the director. Why? Because Somewhere is about as slow, uninteresting, and pretentious as a movie can be. Apparently many considered it a work of art, which I could agree with, as all art is subjective and some can find volumes of meaning where others see just a solid black block. Unfortunately, I fall into the latter category this time.
The basic story follows relatively successful actor Johnny Marco as he...well...does very little. He drives his expensive car, he goes to press conferences, he sits around and looks at the wall, and he bangs any readily available girl (of which there's always at least one). A small twist comes in when his ex-wife tells him she's leaving for a while and so he needs to take care of their daughter for a while and make sure she gets to summer camp. Meanwhile he has an awards show in Italy he has to attend, and so he brings her along. You might think this means there's a story here about redemption, about finding himself, about the bonding of father and daughter. It's somewhere in there (pun intended), but it's so lost among the dreariness and overly long shots that beg the audience to find meaning in them despite their emptiness that nothing makes an impact. And maybe that's the point, maybe we're all supposed to feel a complete lack of emotion just as Johnny does, but personally I found the whole thing more tedious and boring than soul-searching or thought-provoking.
The only good part of this movie was the fascinating look at the role of his daughter, played with surprising depth and expression by Elle Fanning. At once she seems completely oblivious to the life her father lives, but then the moment changes and we see just how concerned she is for him. She also delicately treads the line between living in the luxury surrounding her and trying to be normal as one. One of the most poignant parts of the movie comes when she phones room service to bring her the ingredients for a meal that she then makes for him. It doesn't sound like much, but the way the movie shows the ease with which she lives with this contrast is stunning.
So yes, there are some interesting moments, mostly revolving around the daughter, and the movie certainly has some points to make and things to say. It's just all drowned out by the absurdly slow pace and pretentiously artistic loooooong shots.
Somewhere gets a 4/10.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Crysis 2
What better way to celebrate FINALLY getting a new, awesome graphics card than to tackle the graphical powerhouse that is Crysis 2? The original Crysis was a major benchmark when it first came out, making only the best and most expensive systems able to play it at max settings, and Crysis 2 looked to do no less. So I installed the new card, booted things up, and went....
"Oooooooooooooooooooooo, preeeeeeeeeeeetty."
For those unfamiliar, the original Crysis put you in the shoes of Nomad, part of a team of soldiers equipped with nanosuits sent to a tropical island to stop the North Koreans from taking hold. Your nanosuit offered you boosted powers depending on the mode you selected: strength, speed, armor, or stealth. However, each mode drained your suit's power supply which, if it got to 0, would leave you without powers until it recharged. And with that, much like its spiritual predecessor FarCry, you're left to explore a fairly open world, dealing with North Koreans and the mysterious alien menace that popped up there as well.
Crysis 2 picks up a while after the first game, where the aliens are invading everywhere, spreading a deadly plague. This time around you take the role of Alcatraz, an ordinary marine sent as part of a team via submarine into New York to find Dr. Gould as he may have info on how to defeat the aliens. But things go wrong quick, the sub is destroyed, and soon you're hauling yourself to shore to find a guy in a nanosuit taking down the dropship that destroyed your sub. We soon learn that this is Prophet, the leader of the team from the first game. Having been infected with the virus, Prophet gives his suit to you and kills himself so that the suit bonds to you completely. However, it turns out that other people were looking for Prophet as well and don't realize you're not him, including Dr. Gould. After an encounter with the new and improved aliens on your way to Gould, the suit starts reacting to the alien genetics and starts synthesizing a cure to the plague. From there it's a long long road through hundreds of aliens and military forces that want the suit reclaimed, buying time until the suit can process the DNA and release a counteragent that could not only help cure the plague, but defeat the aliens as well. Personally, I don't expect much story in my FPS, so the barebones one they put in here which mainly consists of "DO THIS THING BEFORE SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS!" might put others off, but I found it entertaining.
Gameplay is a bit different this time around, in a good way. Instead of having 4 separate modes, speed and strength are integrated into things like running, jumping, and kicking cars, while armor and stealth still get their own toggled mode along with an infrared "nanovision". The open world is also gone in favor of more directed, mission-oriented gameplay, but the areas you're given are nonetheless still quite large, and never feel limiting. You're also once again given plenty of weapons to play with, each with slight modifications like scopes and grenade launchers.
So here's the thing. Crysis 2 is by far a much more enjoyable game than the first. The loss of the open world is actually a big benefit, as the action is much more fluid, the set pieces are all the bigger, and the story gets a big boost as well. And for most of the game, I was happily firing away at everything that moved while admiring the variety of environments they were able to achieve (considering you never leave New York) and generally basking in the glow of some very impressive graphics and gameplay. But the problem doesn't come in any of the parts, it comes in that eventually Crysis 2 runs out of steam in terms of enemy variety and mission type. Much like my problem with Resistance, Crysis seems to hope that for an ending, a lack of enemy variety will be made up for by simply throwing a lot of them at you. It's disappointing to realize at the end that the final battle you just had was very similar to and not much harder than previous battles with the exact same enemies.
Still, in every other department Crysis 2 shines. The gameplay is dynamic and fluid, with repeated playthroughs of sections (due to death) playing out differently enough each time to keep things interesting. On top of that, depending on your playstyle, you can focus suit upgrades on armor, stealth or strength which varies up the experience even more. My personal style of hit-and-run stealth was perfectly complemented and made battles tactical and very fun. The environments are astonishingly different and make it feel like an open world even though it's not. Oh, and did I mention that it's gorgeous. All this together makes Crysis 2 one of the best FPSs I've played.
Crysis 2 gets a 9/10.
"Oooooooooooooooooooooo, preeeeeeeeeeeetty."
For those unfamiliar, the original Crysis put you in the shoes of Nomad, part of a team of soldiers equipped with nanosuits sent to a tropical island to stop the North Koreans from taking hold. Your nanosuit offered you boosted powers depending on the mode you selected: strength, speed, armor, or stealth. However, each mode drained your suit's power supply which, if it got to 0, would leave you without powers until it recharged. And with that, much like its spiritual predecessor FarCry, you're left to explore a fairly open world, dealing with North Koreans and the mysterious alien menace that popped up there as well.
Crysis 2 picks up a while after the first game, where the aliens are invading everywhere, spreading a deadly plague. This time around you take the role of Alcatraz, an ordinary marine sent as part of a team via submarine into New York to find Dr. Gould as he may have info on how to defeat the aliens. But things go wrong quick, the sub is destroyed, and soon you're hauling yourself to shore to find a guy in a nanosuit taking down the dropship that destroyed your sub. We soon learn that this is Prophet, the leader of the team from the first game. Having been infected with the virus, Prophet gives his suit to you and kills himself so that the suit bonds to you completely. However, it turns out that other people were looking for Prophet as well and don't realize you're not him, including Dr. Gould. After an encounter with the new and improved aliens on your way to Gould, the suit starts reacting to the alien genetics and starts synthesizing a cure to the plague. From there it's a long long road through hundreds of aliens and military forces that want the suit reclaimed, buying time until the suit can process the DNA and release a counteragent that could not only help cure the plague, but defeat the aliens as well. Personally, I don't expect much story in my FPS, so the barebones one they put in here which mainly consists of "DO THIS THING BEFORE SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS!" might put others off, but I found it entertaining.
Gameplay is a bit different this time around, in a good way. Instead of having 4 separate modes, speed and strength are integrated into things like running, jumping, and kicking cars, while armor and stealth still get their own toggled mode along with an infrared "nanovision". The open world is also gone in favor of more directed, mission-oriented gameplay, but the areas you're given are nonetheless still quite large, and never feel limiting. You're also once again given plenty of weapons to play with, each with slight modifications like scopes and grenade launchers.
So here's the thing. Crysis 2 is by far a much more enjoyable game than the first. The loss of the open world is actually a big benefit, as the action is much more fluid, the set pieces are all the bigger, and the story gets a big boost as well. And for most of the game, I was happily firing away at everything that moved while admiring the variety of environments they were able to achieve (considering you never leave New York) and generally basking in the glow of some very impressive graphics and gameplay. But the problem doesn't come in any of the parts, it comes in that eventually Crysis 2 runs out of steam in terms of enemy variety and mission type. Much like my problem with Resistance, Crysis seems to hope that for an ending, a lack of enemy variety will be made up for by simply throwing a lot of them at you. It's disappointing to realize at the end that the final battle you just had was very similar to and not much harder than previous battles with the exact same enemies.
Still, in every other department Crysis 2 shines. The gameplay is dynamic and fluid, with repeated playthroughs of sections (due to death) playing out differently enough each time to keep things interesting. On top of that, depending on your playstyle, you can focus suit upgrades on armor, stealth or strength which varies up the experience even more. My personal style of hit-and-run stealth was perfectly complemented and made battles tactical and very fun. The environments are astonishingly different and make it feel like an open world even though it's not. Oh, and did I mention that it's gorgeous. All this together makes Crysis 2 one of the best FPSs I've played.
Crysis 2 gets a 9/10.
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