Who better to take on the dead horse that is the Terminator franchise for a bit of a flogging than McG, the director responsible for the stylish but indisputably bad Charlie's Angels and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. Deservedly earning itself a colon in some territories, Terminator Salvation is a tedious examination of what a self-aware military artificial intelligence and a human resistance force absolutely would not do if pitched into battle with one another. Skynet, Michael Ironside and McG all make tactically suicidal decisions at every turn. I bet Christian wishes he'd Baled out when he had the chance.
With countless sweaty nerd hands poised to post baQa' on sci-fi forums around the world, launching the Genesis device into the ailing Star Trek universe wouldn't be an inconsiderable undertaking, even for so reputable a director as J. J. Abrams. Wisely selecting an 'alternate timeline' as a cover for any indiscretions, Abrams presents the development of the iconic James T. Kirk from birth to his first stint in the captain's chair. Inspired casting, excellent acting and stylish camera-work make up for the average plot, inconsistent humour and a slightly awkward Nimoy cameo. Even the nerds had little to complain about.
It's usually a bad sign if a movie has a colon and, regardless of how perfectly Jackman plays the adamantium-enhanced anti-hero, the colon curse is all over this one. XMO:W is a litany of missed opportunities that fails to service existing followers or attract new ones. Heroes and villains that long-time fans look forward to exposing to the uninitiated turn out to be weak reinventions and hardly worth the screen-time. The plot stays reasonably true to its comic forebear but cramming such extensive canon into this short, forgettable and generic action flick clearly doesn't do it justice.
'Elegy' stars Ben Kingsley as an ageing literature professor who seduces one of his beautiful students. Uncertainty and discomfort prevail as we are shown what may be recognisable, sometimes unsavoury, aspects of ourselves or our loved ones. Despite this, the questionable moral foundation of the lead and the intentional cultural distance of his muse restrict emotional attachment to the characters. Dennis Hopper provides some relief, offering crass relationship advice to his beseiged literary chum but the overall experience is a dark and melancholy one. You should see it, but tee up 'Sexy Beast' or 'Without a Clue' to watch afterward.
A trip to see one of Vincent Diesel's motorcentric blockbusters usually promises a healthy injection of car-porn alongside a supporting cast of hot guys and gals. Sadly, along with The, Fast and Furious has lost everything that made its prequels such an unlikely success. Diesel and his good cop/bad cop buddy mumble their way through one implausible scene after another, working to avenge the death of his ugly ex-girlfriend, murdered by a gang of incompetent drug-runners. More The and more Drift may have saved this movie, but it seems that Vin and co. are as bored with the series as we are.
I recently saw a short amateur film in which the characters were played by children's toys. The puppeteers would scarcely attempt to hide their hands as they gripped GI Joe's feet. Wobbling his stiff, plastic body back and forth, they delivered the improvised dialogue and occasionally cut the shot to present their toy stars in one dramatic pose or another.
Not dissimilar, then, to Nicholas Cage's performance in 'Knowing', an action-speckled slow-season release with religious overtones. Nevertheless, some military-grade special effects keep this movie's chin above the bar, just, and keep me from feeling it was a total waste of time.
When I hit up IMDB to see who wrote this episode I was surprised to find that Kring himself was credited. The page has since been updated to show that it was in fact Bryan Fuller who penned 'Cold Snap'.
Ranging from implausible to downright confusing, this week's episode was a mess of disconnected and badly scripted scenes.
The bizarrely incongruous Dexter-style shaving scene with Mr. The Hunter at the top of the show led to an awkward scene with Noah and Angela in a taxi. From there it was all downhill.
Discovering that Micah was 'Rebel' was about the only thing that did make sense in this episode but, when cornered in an underground car park, I would hardly believe that the self-serving Tracy might surrender to save Micah, let alone sacrifice her own life in the process (or did she? *wink*).
The odd Gwen Stefani and Paris dream-scenes were a poor way to send off Daphne. Inconsistent budget allocation left Parkman flying in an 80's pop video whilst Tracy exploded into a billion reflective CG ice shards.
To say this was an off day for Tim Kring would be an understatement. The script was clumsy and spattered with cheap 70's Bond style cliche. I could picture Roger Moore delivering the 'cold snap' line and was surprised there wasn't mention of 'frozen assets' or 'chilling out' or 'a frosty reception' or... I could go on.
It's difficult to fathom where Heroes is going at the moment. Viewing figures are in decline and I don't think this episode will help.
If I was ever wrong about a TV show it would be this one. As the weeks have gone by I've been slowly edging towards the door, expecting a failure of Sarah Connor-strophic proportions. But tonight Joss Whedon revealed some of the magic that has made his other shows so captivating.
If you've been following the series so far you'll know that we've been treated to a barely original premise involving brainwashed 'actives' that are reprogrammed to suit any mission. These missions can be dangerous. They can also be sexy. A disgraced FBI agent, played by Helo from BSG, has been assigned to uncover the secret of the 'Dollhouse', a task on par with detecting the Loch Ness monster, attracting ridicule from his peers.
Despite some standout performances from Echo/Eliza Dushku, the standalone storylines have been weak and/or laced with cliche. This week, however, the overarching plot took centre stage.
And it blew my socks off.
In one week this show has gone from 'meh' to 'must watch'. If you haven't already, I recommend you check it out!
The Halo killer. The Resistance dethroner. The Call of Duty ouster. Some (or maybe just one) of these phrases have been used by the gaming press to prescribe Killzone 2, the latest showcase title on Playstation 3, but does the second zone of killing justify all the hype?
Well, the short answer is mostly yes. Killzone 2 could confidently stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the aforementioned console greats, certainly the best on offer on Sony's platform, but you'd have a job picking it out of a line-up. That said, whilst KZ2 doesn't score highly on originality, it makes up for it in quality. The environments that you'll find yourself battling through are beautifully filthy, the enemies are just the right side of challenging and the weapons are varied and fun to use. That won't assuage the strong feeling of deja-vu, though. One tough-talking, space-buckaroo seems much the same as another these days. Understandable then that folks with access to multiple platforms will expect the controls to behave similarly to that of Messrs. Fenix or Chief. I had no such difficulty, but it's been a while since I last applied space-boot to alien posterior.
The only chance that Killzone 2 has of truly setting itself apart then, is with the story. Sadly, the narrative hints at depth and controversy but actually comes across as superficial. Reading between the lines, and perhaps some of the back story that can be found elsewhere, you might catch glimpses of the true profoundness of the Killzone universe. For the majority of players however, the experience will come across as generic. Direct comparisons with other similar titles are unavoidable and despite favorable outcomes on many counts the last to the buffet table misses out on the cheese-and-pineapple-on-sticks.
Overall I found the single player campaign of Killzone 2 to be an enjoyable experience, if a little short. The graphical and audio quality is excellent and the musical score by Joris de Man is outstanding. The Hellghast's cockney accents were a little odd but it gave them a distinctive character. I'm sure this won't be the last we see of the Killzone universe and I'm definitely looking forward to the next installment.
Remember when the bad-ass Hiro Nakamura froze time on the subway? Or the epic fireball fight between shape-shifting Sylar and battle-scarred Peter towards the end of volume one? Just as we watched Jar-Jar turn our memories against us, we continue to watch, hoping that the Heroes we remember will return and blow our socks off. Sadly, there's no indication of such an event this week. The continuing non-adventures of Claire 'Bear' Bennet pad out an anticlimactic episode where Sylar finally meets his father and lets out a longwinded 'meh' before moving on. Despite a sound verbal butt-kicking from Angela, arguably the high spot of the show, Mr. The Hunter wins his battle with Nathan after the flyin' man let himself be pushed out of a hi-rise window. Even more ridiculous than that was the excruciating tacked-on scene where Hiro 'No-Powers' Nakamura is mistaken for a baby sitter. Presumably the message from Rebel instructing them to 'Save Matt Parkman' prompted the hapless duo to work their way through the phone book rather than do anything that made any sense.
**Correction: There was an address on Rebel's fax. I'm sticking with 'hapless' though, sorry.**
We can only hope that things start coming together again in 'Cold case', airing March 23rd.
So I've spent the first two or three levels shooting my way through war torn Helghan against what sound like clones of Jason Statham wearing the most badly designed military uniform ever conceived. In that time I've come to the conclusion that they should have called this game 'Gears of Duty: Fall of Halo' because if you squint, it's not hard to imagine you're playing any other FPS blockbuster of this generation. That's not to say it's bad, but I haven't been able to escape the feeling that I've seen it all before...
After spooling up the FTL and jumping us right into a mutiny mealstrom a few episodes ago, BSG seems to have settled back into the moderate pace that we're all familiar with. That would be fine except the finale is just a few episodes away. Surely the frantic action and shocking revelations should continue apace until the end?! Apparently not, but that's not to say that performances from the lead characters are waning. Michael Hogan (Saul Tigh), James Callis (Gaius Baltar), Tahmoh Penikett (Karl 'Helo' Agathon) and Edward James Olmos (King Conky-Bonky) all put in some emotional performances as they lament the loss of wives, girlfriends, children and battlestars respectively. I think the twists and turns of recent episodes and the discovery and subsequent abandonment of earth has left the audience as aimless and adrift as the colonial fleet. Let's hope things start to become more focussed next week. Time's running out!
Perhaps the irony of it is Lost on the production team, but the battle to 'get back' seems to have taken a positive turn this week. Focusing on the group that John Locke left behind when he yanked on the Tomb Raider wheel, Sawyer, Jin and the blonde-one-of-dubious-morality entertain us in what is the best episode in recent memory. Flashing backwards and forwards between Locke's disappearance and the day of Jack and co.'s return three years later, we're treated to new insight into the Dharma Initiative and the reason why Jin showed up in a combi wearing DI overalls last week. As Locke's character has retreated into confusion and helplessness and become less likable as result, Sawyer's sense of responsibilty and purpose has grown to the point where he's almost respectable as a human being. His relationship with blondie-whatsername made a cheerful counterpoint to some of the more sinister goings on but I suspect it'll be back to business as usual next week now that whining Jack and the rest of the Oceanic Six have returned.
The fractured third season of Heroes continues with another episode of what feels more like stalling for time rather than travelling through it. Speaking of which, now that the inimitable Hiro Nakamura has lost his powers, it's up to Sylar to carry the quality-can while all the B-grade heroes scurry backwards and forwards to pad out the show.
I'm happy to say that he did so with aplomb this week and almost made up for the vomit inducing teenie romance between the cheerleader and fish-guy. Zachary Quinto seems to be growing another dimension outside of just mean looks and gravelly delivery so it's a shame that he's leaving the rest of the cast trailing behind as his character develops. As soon as his movie career hits its stride I don't expect we'll see much more of him on NBC.
Back to this episode and there were only a handful of WTF moments, chiefly fish-guy's escape from the Bennett household by predictably hiding underwater (thanks for reminding us about his special ability forty-seven times throughout the show Adam/Kay) but then keeping Claire conscious by snogging her. I think that all the empathic stress of watching Claire drown and relief (perhaps) with her subsequent revival would have been far more involving and convincing for the audience than the lame and implausible kiss.
The high spot was learning about Gabriel's past through Sylar's flashbacks, although the accompanying music 'The Chain' by Fleetwood Mac didn't sit quite right for me personally, purely because I'm British and I'll always associate it with Formula One and Murray Walker.
Who better to take on the dead horse that is the Terminator franchise for a bit of a flogging than McG, the director responsible for the stylish but indisputably bad Charlie's Angels and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.
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