Monday, June 21, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
E3 2010: Ubisoft
Ubisoft started out all the way back in 1986, as a small French game developer producing mostly unknown titles. Today, they have managed to become one of the top independent developers out there, with such big name franchises from back in the day like Rayman and Myst, as well as more current blockbuster titles like Farcry, the Tom Clancy games (Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon), and Assassin's Creed.
And yet, they chose to start their show with a very impressive arcade shooter using Kinect that combined visuals and music unknown since Rez. They just send the guy out on stage, and with his back turned to us and wearing white gloves he leads us through a demo of this very trippy game. It ends, reveals itself as Child of Eden, and the creator of Rez and Lumines playing it. Looks like the perfect game to play on an acid trip. Or ecstasy.
Then we get to our host for the show, none other than Joel McHale from Community and The Soup. Apparently he hosted last year as well, so he should at least bring some added fun to the show, right? While McHale does have many great quips throughout the show, he unfortunately looked woefully unprepared for most of it, stumbling his way through the teleprompter and looking more awkward than anything. Like a fan of gaming who knew nothing about the behind the scenes of gaming being thrust on stage and told to be funny. Oh well.
They quickly recover from his awkward intro with an awesome looking trailer for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, followed by an even more awesome demo. One would think that in the year that has passed since AC2, they could'nt have done much with development. The demo quickly proves that thought completely wrong. While the graphics still look a little shaky, all of a sudden Ezio is dodging cannonballs, riding horseback through the crumbling street, shooting cannons back at his attackers, and stabbing, shooting, and throwing axes at enemies in what looks like a much needed improvement to combat. In short, it looks nothing less than amazing.
Now, I've never understood the appeal of skateboarding games, but anyone who does and enjoy them a lot will probably enjoy Shaun White Skateboarding, which looks like it's bringing something new to the genre with transforming environments and the ability to change the direction of rails you're on. It at least is trying to be different, which I applaud, but otherwise it looks like any other last generation Tony Hawk game.
Then poor Joel McHale gets completely surprised, confused and gets even more awkward when a bunch of people start playing laser tag in the audience. And that's the game. Portable laser tag. Basically you run it on a PC or console, which will then keep track of hits. You can also scan in ammo packs to the gun as well as checkpoints, and you can set up targets to fire at. Looks like a lot of fun, but of course, it's laser tag, so how could it not be?
Ubisoft's focus on getting gamers up off the couch and feeling more healthy becomes apparent as they bring out the video game equivalent of something known as biofeedback. This is a system where a sensor tracks something like blood pressure or breathing, and then gives you something to focus on to try and optimize it. If you've seen the Star Wars force trainer, it's the same concept. But this one focuses solely on reducing stress. It's also highly portable, allowing you to plug it into any computer and, as the designer said, "level up" anywhere anytime.
More sports titles for Kinect. These ones at least don't look like blatant Wii ripoffs. They also look like they have no value whatsoever.
Then comes the rather incredible Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. They showed this off during the Microsoft conference, and didn't really show anything new, but even so the tech they're showing off looks to make full use of Kinect. At all times you see a kind of infrared version of the girl demoing it that looks to follow her movement almost 1:1. At first she was doing simple exercises with a trainer, and if she wasn't doing them right, it would give her immediate feedback by, for example, showing her a line on her body where she should be lifting her knees to. She also did some kickboxing by punching blocks that appeared in spaces next to her, and did some zen yoga where Kinect tracked her skeleton to make sure she was doing it right. I'm not that into fitness, but I still see the very high appeal of this. Be sure that when this comes out, all those WiiFit owners will be kicking themselves.
Raving Rabbids in Time. Nuff said.
Almost every gaming pro coming into E3 was raving about Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. This was my first look at it, and I can see why. Skillfully combining stealth, firefights, squad-based planning, and futuristic tech, Ghost Recon looks to be a wonderful experience for anyone who is a fan of the series or of tactical shooters in general.
Next up is Driver: San Francisco, which returns to the roots of the series, namely 70s style car chases. Yet it also introduces quite a change to the system known as "Shift" in which you can literally shift between cars because the main character is in a coma....screw the reason. The point is it's a cool twist and adds a whole new element to racing, especially since it will be available in multiplayer, and can encompass the entire city when upgraded, which looks HUGE.
Finally the CEO of Ubisoft shows up and reveals some very interesting titles. It all starts off with a trailer for Project Dust, which looks to be a beautifully artistic title, possibly some kind of RTS. Keep an eye on this one. Unfortunately our dear French CEO's accent is quite thick and his english quite poor, so it's hard to tell exactly what he's showing off, but from what I could gather it appears to be a set of tools for developers to release new content quite easily online. The firs title to be created from it? A new Rayman, which looks SPECTACULAR. The really spectacular thing about it, however, was that only 5 people worked on it. It looked more polished and put together than many games that have had thousands of people and thousands upon thousands of dollars thrown at them.
To further support developers, he declared a new platform from maniaplanet, which I had never heard of but which apparently has the largest PC racing community in the world, which will allow anyone to build their own FPS, racer, or RPG using simple tools. Essentially, it looks to be a less Sackboy influenced Little Big Planet 2 for the PC. While no actual content was shown, I certainly like the idea, so we'll just have to wait and see where it goes.
And for the big finale....a Michael Jackson dancing game, showcased only by a bunch of dancers performing to "Beat It". Take from that what you will.
Overall Ubisoft's conference was kind of a mixed bag, with the awkward comedy stylings of Joel McHale, some odd games, and some awesome games. One thing's for sure though: there's quite a bit of creativity coming from Ubisoft, and I have no doubt that if there's anyone who can figure out how to best use Kinect, it'll be them.
Then comes the rather incredible Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. They showed this off during the Microsoft conference, and didn't really show anything new, but even so the tech they're showing off looks to make full use of Kinect. At all times you see a kind of infrared version of the girl demoing it that looks to follow her movement almost 1:1. At first she was doing simple exercises with a trainer, and if she wasn't doing them right, it would give her immediate feedback by, for example, showing her a line on her body where she should be lifting her knees to. She also did some kickboxing by punching blocks that appeared in spaces next to her, and did some zen yoga where Kinect tracked her skeleton to make sure she was doing it right. I'm not that into fitness, but I still see the very high appeal of this. Be sure that when this comes out, all those WiiFit owners will be kicking themselves.
Raving Rabbids in Time. Nuff said.
Almost every gaming pro coming into E3 was raving about Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. This was my first look at it, and I can see why. Skillfully combining stealth, firefights, squad-based planning, and futuristic tech, Ghost Recon looks to be a wonderful experience for anyone who is a fan of the series or of tactical shooters in general.
Next up is Driver: San Francisco, which returns to the roots of the series, namely 70s style car chases. Yet it also introduces quite a change to the system known as "Shift" in which you can literally shift between cars because the main character is in a coma....screw the reason. The point is it's a cool twist and adds a whole new element to racing, especially since it will be available in multiplayer, and can encompass the entire city when upgraded, which looks HUGE.
Finally the CEO of Ubisoft shows up and reveals some very interesting titles. It all starts off with a trailer for Project Dust, which looks to be a beautifully artistic title, possibly some kind of RTS. Keep an eye on this one. Unfortunately our dear French CEO's accent is quite thick and his english quite poor, so it's hard to tell exactly what he's showing off, but from what I could gather it appears to be a set of tools for developers to release new content quite easily online. The firs title to be created from it? A new Rayman, which looks SPECTACULAR. The really spectacular thing about it, however, was that only 5 people worked on it. It looked more polished and put together than many games that have had thousands of people and thousands upon thousands of dollars thrown at them.
To further support developers, he declared a new platform from maniaplanet, which I had never heard of but which apparently has the largest PC racing community in the world, which will allow anyone to build their own FPS, racer, or RPG using simple tools. Essentially, it looks to be a less Sackboy influenced Little Big Planet 2 for the PC. While no actual content was shown, I certainly like the idea, so we'll just have to wait and see where it goes.
And for the big finale....a Michael Jackson dancing game, showcased only by a bunch of dancers performing to "Beat It". Take from that what you will.
Overall Ubisoft's conference was kind of a mixed bag, with the awkward comedy stylings of Joel McHale, some odd games, and some awesome games. One thing's for sure though: there's quite a bit of creativity coming from Ubisoft, and I have no doubt that if there's anyone who can figure out how to best use Kinect, it'll be them.
Friday, June 18, 2010
E3 2010: EA
EA has long been derided as the giant behemoth of the industry, choking out all competition and consuming smaller more independent gaming developers for breakfast. To override this, EA has started a program known as EA Partners, in which various studios can come to EA and have EA do all the marketing while they get to keep their own ideas and licensing intact. It's produced some great titles so far, along with EA themselves stepping up their game.
So to start the conference they brought out a demo of the new Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. While the gameplay was wholly unimpressive, pitting one player as a cop crashing into the other player as a racer until they wrecked, basically. Despite that, the graphics were PRETTY. I won't be getting it, but I will be getting...
DEAD SPACE 2. OH GOD. The first game I reviewed on this blog was Dead Space, which I gave a well deserved 10/10. I've been keeping up with the hype for the sequel, and was a bit nervous about some of it, but all of that was put to rest when they brought out the demo. Isaac has been relocated to the giant space city known as The Sprawl, which boasts wide open areas instead of the cramped hallways we're used to. Some might think that would take away from the tension. To those people, the developers throw a giant friggin Tripod who keeps trying to stab you to death with it's tongue. Defeat that? A HORDE OF DEMON BABIES TRYING TO CLAW YOUR FACE OFF. Throw in a couple classic necromorphs who are then decimated by the new javelin gun that pins them to the wall, stomping on some corpses, a BEAUTIFUL view of the Sprawl, and a kickass sequence of a ship blowing open the glass window, decompressing the area, forcing you to rip open a panel and drop down a hole, only to come face to face with a GIANT MASS OF DEATH...and there's no game I'm more excited for.
Now, I've never played any of the Medal of Honor titles, so I didn't really care when they first announced they were going to show it. I was intrigued, however, when they brought out 24 players to do a live demo on stage. Then...I just laughed. And kept laughing. They kept talking about this game as the "most authentic" war experience and that they wanted to stay true to the soldiers and what they're currently facing in Afghanistan. Fine by me. So the demo starts, and they show that almost everything you do allows you to rack up points, which flash on the screen when you get them. These points allow you to, say, drop a Tomahawk missile on someone. It was one of the most unauthentic things I've ever seen. It looked like a typical hyped up war video game. It looked like Call of Duty. I honestly saw no difference.
After that, a bunch of titles that really didn't look that entertaining for me: a new MMA franchise, EA Sports Active 2, and Madden 11.
While all of these were quite uninteresting presentations, it could've been just to lower our defenses for the incredible looking Crysis 2. The demo was hard hitting and quite graphically impressive, though interestingly enough it looked quite tame in comparison to...
Bulletstorm. For those who haven't heard about this game, get educated. Cliff, from Gears of War, was also involved in this completely over the top action shooter where you get points for killing enemies in more and more ridiculously creative and destructive ways, each of which has an amusing name. Not only are you provided with appropriately devastating weapons but the environment itself provides some excellent opportunities with man-eating plants and the like. On top of all this, the graphics easily stood up to Crysis 2. I hadn't heard much about Bulletstorm before this, but I'll be sure to keep an eye on it now as it approaches launch.
Finally, they ended with a very pretty trailer for the new Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic. While no gameplay was shown, the trailer itself was enough to get people riled up and excited. Thankfully, more gameplay was shown later on G4 with a hands on demo, and it looks to live up to the hype.
So overall, EA has some really cool games coming out and they did a great job of showcasing them. Now we just have to wait until next year to get our hands on most of them.
While all of these were quite uninteresting presentations, it could've been just to lower our defenses for the incredible looking Crysis 2. The demo was hard hitting and quite graphically impressive, though interestingly enough it looked quite tame in comparison to...
Bulletstorm. For those who haven't heard about this game, get educated. Cliff, from Gears of War, was also involved in this completely over the top action shooter where you get points for killing enemies in more and more ridiculously creative and destructive ways, each of which has an amusing name. Not only are you provided with appropriately devastating weapons but the environment itself provides some excellent opportunities with man-eating plants and the like. On top of all this, the graphics easily stood up to Crysis 2. I hadn't heard much about Bulletstorm before this, but I'll be sure to keep an eye on it now as it approaches launch.
Finally, they ended with a very pretty trailer for the new Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic. While no gameplay was shown, the trailer itself was enough to get people riled up and excited. Thankfully, more gameplay was shown later on G4 with a hands on demo, and it looks to live up to the hype.
So overall, EA has some really cool games coming out and they did a great job of showcasing them. Now we just have to wait until next year to get our hands on most of them.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
E3 2010: Microsoft
I have been watching WAY too much E3 coverage lately, so I wanted to get my own thoughts down on each conference before I completely forget everything due to information overload. As E3 progresses, I shall continue to update. But starting from the beginning we have...
Microsoft
Technically, I should be an Xbox fanboy. I'm a college age white male who likes shooters and action-packed games. By all accounts I should own an Xbox 360. But I don't, mostly because of the sticking point of their faulty systems. I don't want to have to recycle a console at least once every year because it wasn't built right. So, no Xbox...yet.
Microsoft started off the show with Call of Duty: Black Ops. I've only ever played the first Modern Warfare, which I loved, and as such I can't really say what looks improved from previous outings. However, first impression is that the graphics look great, raining fire from above in an attack helicopter while screaming villagers run away from you looks appropriately intense, and otherwise it looks like any other Call of Duty title.
Next up, Kojima's first Metal Gear game for Xbox, Metal Gear Rising, in which you literally take up the sword of Raiden and cut...shit...up. If you ever wanted Kill Bill the video game, here it is. Only a trailer was shown, but boy what a trailer. You hack and slash your way through enemies, literally severing each one in half with each swipe. You can also enter a kind of bullet time mode in which you can line up your slices to dissect individual parts of enemies. It looks ridiculous, but also ridiculously fun.
Then they brought out Cliff and showed off the 4 person co-op of Gears of War 3. I played the first one, wasn't too impressed, but still had fun with it. This demo left my jaw firmly on the floor. The action was very intense, with all sorts of new enemies popping up, some who would morph into alien versions of tentacle rape if you left them alone for too long. It all ended with them having to run back to their base while the giant laser in the sky came down around them trying to hit a giant baddie who bullets bounced off of. They made it inside, it hit...and did nothing. So already the gameplay looks top-notch, but on top of that the visuals were stunning. This was easily one the highlight of the conference.
Trailer for Fable 3. Nothing new, looks kinda blah to me.
Then they step out and reveal a partnership with Crytek, makers of Crysis, for "Codename: Kingdoms" which has a very vague live action trailer. Just have to wait and see on this one.
Rounding out the big exclusive names, they showed off gameplay footage of Halo: Reach, which is said to be the very last Halo game. Yeah right. I remember when they said that about Halo 3. 3 games later and I doubt their cash cow is going to stop anytime soon. In any case, the graphics look better, but honestly I wasn't impressed. I played Halo 3, and it looks like the same exact game just a little prettier. Oh, and there's space combat. No doubt true Halo fans will rush out and make this the highest selling game ever though, despite any flaws.
Then they rolled out a looot of stuff about Kinect, formely known as Project Natal.
Some highlights:
-Sign in is as easy as waving at your Xbox
-Voice recognition realizes the Star Trek fantasy of saying "Computer...do this" but this time it's things like "Xbox...Netflix" to automatically sign in to Netflix or "Xbox...replay" to replay the last roughly 30 seconds
-Easy video chat with anyone on Xbox Live AND Windows Messenger
-Third party support for Kinect, especially the fitness game from Ubisoft, looks great (including a lightsaber game that looks based off the Clone Wars animated series) and most could only be achieved on Kinect
-ESPN thousands of live games from every sport except...no mention of NFL
Some disappointments
-Wii Sports...I mean...Kinect Sports
-Mario Kart...I mean...Joyride
-every other launch game from Microsoft copying something from Wii
-really bad acting and EXTREMELY obvious pre-choreographed showcases, leaving doubts as to the true authenticity of some of what they were showing
To wrap up, Kinect looks to be a really cool way of interacting with media, though third parties seem to have a much better grasp of that then Microsoft themselves. The ability to use voice commands looks like the feature to beat for me, along with its ability to sense your entire body, opening up possibilities for learning body-intensive things like fitness routines, martial arts, and even how to dance (all of which were showcased). But with such crappy launch titles that so blatantly rip off the Wii (especially when you're playing with avatars that are basically Miis) I would recommend delaying purchase on this until they spice it up with some good offerings.
Then to top off the show they unveiled the PS3. Technically it's their revamped Xbox 360 but...come on. It's got a black, sleek design. It's finally got built in Wi-Fi. The hard drive is 250gb. It's a lot quieter. Only thing is, it doesn't have blu-ray. Also, no mention of their overheating problems, which, if you're trying to convert people to buy your new peripheral along with a newly designed system needs to be addressed. Personally...I'll wait.
Overall, a good conference with lots of interesting things to show, but nothing too exciting either. Kinect still has a long way to go before it's going to be worth buying (for an as yet undisclosed price though most people are putting it at $150).
Mirror's Edge
Welcome to Parkour 101. In this class you may expect to learn about ridiculous jumps, adrenaline inducing speed, advanced melee combat, and death. Lots and lots about death.
Mirror's Edge takes the simple premise of sticking you in the shoes of a parkour runner in a near future cityscape and amps it up to make you feel like a true badass. You play as Faith, one of an elite group of agents known as "Runners" who roam the city's rooftops relaying data and important packets to clients while escaping the eyes of the authoritarian police. One day, Faith gets a message over the coms that her sister, a policewoman ironically, is in some big trouble. After a daring run along the rooftops to find her, you discover her sitting by the body of a revolutionary mayoral candidate, claiming she didn't do it and was set up. Seconds later and cops (aka "Blues") are swarming the place trying to hunt you down while your sister stays behind to distract them. After that, it's a chase to discover the true killer and their purpose before your sister ends up dead too.
Honestly, it's a weak plot. They set it up, throw in some "twists" that really either don't make much sense or are so obvious you wonder why it's a twist, and end with a very odd set up for a sequel. Thankfully, the plot takes enough of a back seat to the main game that you won't care about its apparent lack of depth.
Where Mirror's Edge absolutely excels is in its speed. When things are flowing, and you're stringing together wall jumps, slides, climbing, and soaring through the air to catch a ladder, the adrenaline gets pumping and there's quite literally nothing like it that I've ever played. It's when it slows down that things start to get less interesting, or rather, a bit more messy. For some ungodly reason the developers of this game decided that as a freerunner with little more than some sweat pants and a tank top on it was a good idea to pit you against legions of police and SWAT teams that are increasingly harder to kill with better and better weapons for knocking you back to a checkpoint. Not only that, but they decided that as this weakling runner your best way to defeat them isn't to find the best route around them, instead it's to plow through them with melee attacks, disarming them, and using their own weapons against them. AND when you pick up a weapon, you actually become more encumbered and lose agility and speed. I would be absolutely fine with this game if it actually took its core runner mechanics seriously and gave me the option of blurring past opponents, but instead every couple levels I was literally forced to kill every single enemy before I could advance. This becomes especially difficult (read: impossible on NORMAL) if you try to go for the "don't shoot anyone" trophy, especially since your melee moves are sometimes hard to connect, and if you want to disarm later enemies it's necessary to use your bullet-time view to slow things down enough to press your "disarm" button at the right time, which, sadly enough, can only be recharged through running.
So let's say you end up in a common situation in Mirror's Edge, where you're faced with roughly 6 enemies to deal with. You expend your runner's vision to disarm and disable the first baddie, and empty that gun to take down two more guys. If you've survived up to this point (which can be very hard to do) the only option you're left with now is to either grab a dropped gun and try to take down the rest, or survive the onslaught of bullet fire and melee someone to death while avoiding getting knocked back, which usually does enough damage and takes enough time to recover from that if it happens, you're dead. For me, it's one thing if I die 20 times trying to find the best route through the rooftops or stringing together the right moves to make a difficult jump, it's quite another if I die 20 times going through the exact same fight over and over again because one enemy pushed me while another shot at me. It's stupid, it's out of place, and it takes away from...
The complete majesty of the running. When starting out you're given a helpful tool known as "runner vision", which paints useful points as red among the starkly white landscape. These essentially help you get a feel for where it's safe to jump off from or where you can climb to get to that very high roof. As such, it makes things speedy, exhilarating, and free-flowing, allowing you to almost effortlessly traverse the city scape (though not without a fair share of falling to your death, accompanied by a sickening "splat"). These beginning sections are where the game really shines, when you don't lose momentum. It allows you to see just how great this game could've been (and how great the sequel, learning from these mistakes, could be). However, as you progress, the runner vision is more and more gradually taken away until you're left with things only showing red when you're literally on top of them, or not showing at all. While this forces you to take everything you've seen and learned and apply it, which I certainly appreciate, it also takes away the smoothness of the game until basically you're just running on trial and error to see how best to handle a level. This is especially problematic concerning that there are a couple ways to approach each section, and checkpoints will often set you somewhere completely different from where you had gone before you died.
This is all, of course, not to mention the amazing visuals. The art and color styles are very cool to travel through, though the cinematics weirdly enough look much worse than the actual game with their clunky, oddly proportioned characters. It was a relief to see the final little cutscene as an in-game moment, since it looked like what the rest of the cutscenes should have been.
So to recap: visuals good, combat bad, running good, but awesome when it's easy. It's well worth your time if you own a PS3 and find it in a bargain bin, but more for the glimpse of what the sequel will hopefully be like than for the single player campaign. There are also time trials, which boil down Mirror's Edge to its running component, that I haven't tried yet, but which I'm sure are much more fun than getting mowed down by assault rifles repeatedly.
Mirror's Edge gets a 7/10.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Iron Man 2
Back in 2008, Jon Favreau surprised the world by coming out with his first big budget action movie, Iron Man. An even bigger surprise was that it was really good. Despite a lackluster plot and very few action scenes, Robert Downey Jr. finding the role he was born to play was just too much fun to watch and propelled what would've been a mediocre action flick into blockbuster gold. So, 2 years later and here we are at the inevitable sequel. Does it live up to its predecessor?
Honestly, I don't even know where to begin with this movie since there are several ways to review it. By comparing it to the first film, it is easily an improvement. Yet by comparing it to other superhero movies, it, like the original, falls a little short of being great. YET, at the same time it does so much more than other superhero movies have done and fairly effectively tries to break the mold of what a superhero movie should be.
Let me get the easy part out of the way. Robert Downey Jr. is once again fantastic and embodies Tony Stark in a way few others could. We also get to see more of Stark's darker, more drunken, side which makes Downey's performance all the better. We also get the wonderful Don Cheadle in for Terrence Howard as James Rhodes, and thank goodness for that. Besides the ham-handed obligatory intro for the audience where Downey says something along the lines of "I didn't expect to see you here," and Cheadle responds "Yeah, I get it, I'm a new actor, but I'm here now so deal with it," his Rhodes is much more expressive and likable. We also get the sneering Mickey Rourke as Vanko, whose Russian accent, cool attitude, and pure villainy is a joy to watch. Sam Rockwell appears as the evil businessman Justin Hammer, and boy does he ham it up. Some might say it's to excess, but honestly I think it worked for his character. Gweneth Paltrow is back as Pepper Potts, Stark's no nonsense assistant, with a much bigger role this time around and much more lively banter.
As for Scarlett Johansson...while I know nothing of the Black Widow character (the name of which isn't even said in the movie), Johansson just doesn't seem right for the part. Yes, she's sexy, and she gets a lot of mileage out of that leather suit, but in terms of acting prowess she's just not up to snuff with everyone else. Her character is seemingly supposed to be very stuffy and cold, but it all just seems forced.
In case the lengthy descriptions of the actors didn't tip you off, this is what sets Iron Man 2 apart from other superhero movies. It focuses on character interaction and development more than it does on action and plot progression.
As such, it really should be thankful to those actors. Because while I applaud it for breaking the mold, it unfortunately also makes the action scenes that are there seem underdone and out of place. Also, while this movie thankfully has more than one plot, each one never seems to get enough time to be fully drawn out and invested in, leaving us bouncing from one thing to another. There's Vanko's plot which is miserably underused, Hammer's plot which seems to be there only to provide motivation for the final big battle, the SHIELD/Avengers throw in with far too little of Samuel L. Jackson doing what he does best, Stark's dealing with his reactor poisoning him (with one of the most incomprehensible solutions ever presented in a movie), Rhodes' quick and dirty transformation into War Machine, and then just the plot of Stark being Stark and Iron Man and what that entails. Each one, with just a little more development, could've been great. But crammed into the same movie together with limited time to explore them turned it, in terms of plot, into a little worse than your standard superhero flick and on par with a standard no-thought summer blockbuster.
Overall, Iron Man 2 is an improvement over the original, but still falls short in several areas. Nonetheless, it's still a wonderful actor's showcase wrapped in the packaging of a fun mindless action flick.
Iron Man 2 gets an 8/10.
Honestly, I don't even know where to begin with this movie since there are several ways to review it. By comparing it to the first film, it is easily an improvement. Yet by comparing it to other superhero movies, it, like the original, falls a little short of being great. YET, at the same time it does so much more than other superhero movies have done and fairly effectively tries to break the mold of what a superhero movie should be.
Let me get the easy part out of the way. Robert Downey Jr. is once again fantastic and embodies Tony Stark in a way few others could. We also get to see more of Stark's darker, more drunken, side which makes Downey's performance all the better. We also get the wonderful Don Cheadle in for Terrence Howard as James Rhodes, and thank goodness for that. Besides the ham-handed obligatory intro for the audience where Downey says something along the lines of "I didn't expect to see you here," and Cheadle responds "Yeah, I get it, I'm a new actor, but I'm here now so deal with it," his Rhodes is much more expressive and likable. We also get the sneering Mickey Rourke as Vanko, whose Russian accent, cool attitude, and pure villainy is a joy to watch. Sam Rockwell appears as the evil businessman Justin Hammer, and boy does he ham it up. Some might say it's to excess, but honestly I think it worked for his character. Gweneth Paltrow is back as Pepper Potts, Stark's no nonsense assistant, with a much bigger role this time around and much more lively banter.
As for Scarlett Johansson...while I know nothing of the Black Widow character (the name of which isn't even said in the movie), Johansson just doesn't seem right for the part. Yes, she's sexy, and she gets a lot of mileage out of that leather suit, but in terms of acting prowess she's just not up to snuff with everyone else. Her character is seemingly supposed to be very stuffy and cold, but it all just seems forced.
In case the lengthy descriptions of the actors didn't tip you off, this is what sets Iron Man 2 apart from other superhero movies. It focuses on character interaction and development more than it does on action and plot progression.
As such, it really should be thankful to those actors. Because while I applaud it for breaking the mold, it unfortunately also makes the action scenes that are there seem underdone and out of place. Also, while this movie thankfully has more than one plot, each one never seems to get enough time to be fully drawn out and invested in, leaving us bouncing from one thing to another. There's Vanko's plot which is miserably underused, Hammer's plot which seems to be there only to provide motivation for the final big battle, the SHIELD/Avengers throw in with far too little of Samuel L. Jackson doing what he does best, Stark's dealing with his reactor poisoning him (with one of the most incomprehensible solutions ever presented in a movie), Rhodes' quick and dirty transformation into War Machine, and then just the plot of Stark being Stark and Iron Man and what that entails. Each one, with just a little more development, could've been great. But crammed into the same movie together with limited time to explore them turned it, in terms of plot, into a little worse than your standard superhero flick and on par with a standard no-thought summer blockbuster.
Overall, Iron Man 2 is an improvement over the original, but still falls short in several areas. Nonetheless, it's still a wonderful actor's showcase wrapped in the packaging of a fun mindless action flick.
Iron Man 2 gets an 8/10.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Henry V (2010)
Henry V is easily one of my most favorite Shakespeare plays. It has comedy, drama, some unforgettable speeches, a bit of romance, and also happens to be the most apologetic play Shakespeare wrote with the chorus constantly asking for forgiveness from the audience for trying to portray so magnificent a tale in such a small space. Stephanie Shine, the artistic director at Seattle Shakespeare, begins the play brilliantly as she, after telling everyone to turn off their cellphones, reminds us of all the wonderful things this play has to offer, and then launching into the prologue herself. "O for a Muse of fire..."
However, it's possible she did this because everything from that point on requires us to try and remember that this play can actually be good.
First off, the time period. Director Russ Banham has unceremoniously dropped Henry V into the 1960s. Why unceremoniously? Simply because there is no point. There is no ounce of effort made to reconcile the fact that everyone is supposed to be English, Welsh or French yet is dressed as an American. No one cared to try and make the field of Agincourt seem like it has importance in the 1960s. Guns are called swords, or, in the most ridiculous attempt to cover up an outdated Shakespearean joke, a horse. In the end it all just seems like an excuse to use the wonderful costumes which accurately portrayed the period despite us never being told when it's supposed to take place.
Second, the direction. Dis. Joint. Ed. Sloppy. Call it what you will, Russ Banham didn't know what he wanted to do with this play. The tagline put on this play was "Ain't war grand?", but the only message I came out of it with was "War happens." We start off with a wonderfully sung "It's The End of the World" that goes on for a bit too long, followed by Ely and the archbishop of Canterbury meeting in this nightclub and talking secretly like conspirators while really they're talking about how awesome the king is now he likes the church and has forsaken his boyish past. At least, in the original script. Either much was cut from this adaptation, or I just lost focus so many times because I was being given nothing to care about that the words just blended together. The Archbishop then passes the time during his meeting with Henry by passing out different colored folders to everyone while talking about why Henry should rightfully be king of France. Everyone, including the audience, is rightfully bored. Then the comic relief comes in! Hooray!....right? Sadly instead of a scene where these bozos chase each other around and threaten to kill each other over a woman (magnificently played by the cross-dressing Jerrick Hoffer) in a quite hilarious way, Banham instead tries to focus on the seriousness of it all and makes the infighting look quite real instead of an almost slapstick jostling among friends. By the time word comes in that Falstaff is sick, I had no idea how I was supposed to feel about it. When the scene ended with everyone leaving and Bardolph shrugging his shoulders like "Oh well! Those silly guys!" I was done. Needless to say the direction remained bad throughout, especially the tasteless and unnecessary slideshow at the end of the play showcasing gruesome images from various wars. "Hooray! Henry V won France and wooed the girl! Unfortunately, he leaves it to his infant son who loses everything and makes England suffer for it. And now, some pictures of why war is bad. The end."
Finally, the actors. While a certain amount of blame can be put on Banham for not putting together a cohesive play, the rest of the blame lays with the actors for bringing almost no passion to anything they did. When you end up with a Three Stooges-like Nym, a hard nosed no nonsense Pistol, a reasonable and friendly Bardolph, and a wailing shrieking Hostess all doing their own thing the blame lies solely with the director for not creating a more cohesive unit. But when the Boy, played by my good friend Patrick Lennon, gives more sadness and authenticity to the death of Falstaff than all the other fools combined...that's a problem with the actors. The only notable exceptions are Tim Hyland's energetic and hilarious Fluellen, Jerrick Hoffer's amazing turn as the Hostess and Alice (the princess of France's handmaiden), Alexandra Tavares as the witty and highly expressive Princess, and the exceedingly well thought out character arcs of the French ambassador Montjoy and hapless Boy given us by Patrick Lennon. Richard Sloniker also does his best as the foolish Dauphin, providing what should be the silly boyish counter to the grown up Henry, but his performance is simply too out of place without that balance.
What about the titular character? I had the honor of working with Evan Whitfield on Three Days of Rain at the Bathhouse Theater, where he gave an amazingly moving performance. As Henry V, however, there is no other way to describe his performance than flat. The Henry V as described to us through the play is a rousing figure who has done a complete 180 from youthful frivolity to inspiring kingliness. With the simple determination to invade France he is able to rouse all of England to war. He is a religious man come from a youth full of sins. But Whitfield's Henry is a far cry from this man. Instead we see him as rather calm, politic, with a darkness to him that he tries to hide (aka when he threatens to kill the women and children of Agincourt). People keep talking about how he's religious, and he keeps giving all the credit to God, but it comes across unearnest and forced. It's almost like he's trying to portray a mixture of Obama and Bush. A man who says some wonderfully inspiring things, but can't connect to any of what he's saying. His most famous speech ("Once more unto the breech dear friends") starts off very low energy, like he's just arrived on the battlefield and is greeting the troops instead of trying to rally them to head back to the front line to drive off the insurmountable odds against them. He stays at roughly that level throughout the entire speech until he inexplicably builds to an angry shout for the last 2 lines. His second famous, about Saint Crispian's day, has no heart to it and sounds more like he's telling his men "Don't worry about it. We're cool. People are going to remember this day because we'll win." No passion, no drive.
That just about describes every other performance not mentioned. No passion. No drive. Everyone is just saying their lines because they have to say them. Knowing how good several of these actors are from other plays (including previous Seattle Shakes' performances), it pained me that so many of them were so blah. I can only hope they try to restage this in the future in the hands of a better director who can instill some passion into what normally is a highly passionate play.
Henry V (2010) gets a 4/10.
However, it's possible she did this because everything from that point on requires us to try and remember that this play can actually be good.
First off, the time period. Director Russ Banham has unceremoniously dropped Henry V into the 1960s. Why unceremoniously? Simply because there is no point. There is no ounce of effort made to reconcile the fact that everyone is supposed to be English, Welsh or French yet is dressed as an American. No one cared to try and make the field of Agincourt seem like it has importance in the 1960s. Guns are called swords, or, in the most ridiculous attempt to cover up an outdated Shakespearean joke, a horse. In the end it all just seems like an excuse to use the wonderful costumes which accurately portrayed the period despite us never being told when it's supposed to take place.
Second, the direction. Dis. Joint. Ed. Sloppy. Call it what you will, Russ Banham didn't know what he wanted to do with this play. The tagline put on this play was "Ain't war grand?", but the only message I came out of it with was "War happens." We start off with a wonderfully sung "It's The End of the World" that goes on for a bit too long, followed by Ely and the archbishop of Canterbury meeting in this nightclub and talking secretly like conspirators while really they're talking about how awesome the king is now he likes the church and has forsaken his boyish past. At least, in the original script. Either much was cut from this adaptation, or I just lost focus so many times because I was being given nothing to care about that the words just blended together. The Archbishop then passes the time during his meeting with Henry by passing out different colored folders to everyone while talking about why Henry should rightfully be king of France. Everyone, including the audience, is rightfully bored. Then the comic relief comes in! Hooray!....right? Sadly instead of a scene where these bozos chase each other around and threaten to kill each other over a woman (magnificently played by the cross-dressing Jerrick Hoffer) in a quite hilarious way, Banham instead tries to focus on the seriousness of it all and makes the infighting look quite real instead of an almost slapstick jostling among friends. By the time word comes in that Falstaff is sick, I had no idea how I was supposed to feel about it. When the scene ended with everyone leaving and Bardolph shrugging his shoulders like "Oh well! Those silly guys!" I was done. Needless to say the direction remained bad throughout, especially the tasteless and unnecessary slideshow at the end of the play showcasing gruesome images from various wars. "Hooray! Henry V won France and wooed the girl! Unfortunately, he leaves it to his infant son who loses everything and makes England suffer for it. And now, some pictures of why war is bad. The end."
Finally, the actors. While a certain amount of blame can be put on Banham for not putting together a cohesive play, the rest of the blame lays with the actors for bringing almost no passion to anything they did. When you end up with a Three Stooges-like Nym, a hard nosed no nonsense Pistol, a reasonable and friendly Bardolph, and a wailing shrieking Hostess all doing their own thing the blame lies solely with the director for not creating a more cohesive unit. But when the Boy, played by my good friend Patrick Lennon, gives more sadness and authenticity to the death of Falstaff than all the other fools combined...that's a problem with the actors. The only notable exceptions are Tim Hyland's energetic and hilarious Fluellen, Jerrick Hoffer's amazing turn as the Hostess and Alice (the princess of France's handmaiden), Alexandra Tavares as the witty and highly expressive Princess, and the exceedingly well thought out character arcs of the French ambassador Montjoy and hapless Boy given us by Patrick Lennon. Richard Sloniker also does his best as the foolish Dauphin, providing what should be the silly boyish counter to the grown up Henry, but his performance is simply too out of place without that balance.
What about the titular character? I had the honor of working with Evan Whitfield on Three Days of Rain at the Bathhouse Theater, where he gave an amazingly moving performance. As Henry V, however, there is no other way to describe his performance than flat. The Henry V as described to us through the play is a rousing figure who has done a complete 180 from youthful frivolity to inspiring kingliness. With the simple determination to invade France he is able to rouse all of England to war. He is a religious man come from a youth full of sins. But Whitfield's Henry is a far cry from this man. Instead we see him as rather calm, politic, with a darkness to him that he tries to hide (aka when he threatens to kill the women and children of Agincourt). People keep talking about how he's religious, and he keeps giving all the credit to God, but it comes across unearnest and forced. It's almost like he's trying to portray a mixture of Obama and Bush. A man who says some wonderfully inspiring things, but can't connect to any of what he's saying. His most famous speech ("Once more unto the breech dear friends") starts off very low energy, like he's just arrived on the battlefield and is greeting the troops instead of trying to rally them to head back to the front line to drive off the insurmountable odds against them. He stays at roughly that level throughout the entire speech until he inexplicably builds to an angry shout for the last 2 lines. His second famous, about Saint Crispian's day, has no heart to it and sounds more like he's telling his men "Don't worry about it. We're cool. People are going to remember this day because we'll win." No passion, no drive.
That just about describes every other performance not mentioned. No passion. No drive. Everyone is just saying their lines because they have to say them. Knowing how good several of these actors are from other plays (including previous Seattle Shakes' performances), it pained me that so many of them were so blah. I can only hope they try to restage this in the future in the hands of a better director who can instill some passion into what normally is a highly passionate play.
Henry V (2010) gets a 4/10.
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