Reviews – Page 29 – Blue Ink Alchemy

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Game Review: Mass Effect

_{“Don’t argue with me. You’re the one who killed the last keg, so you’re getting us a new one!”}

In preparation for the upcoming Mass Effect 2, I thought it would be appropriate to see how this new series of sci-fi role-playing games began. As a caveat, I played the first game on the X-Box 360. After playing Dragon Age: Origins (which I also hope to review soon) on the PC I believe I might be getting ME2 via Steam, partially because the PC control scheme seems more suited for RPGs and partially because GameStop no longer takes pre-orders for the Collector’s Edition. Jerks.

The year is 2183. Humanity is, as far as the rest of the galaxy is concerned, a new kid on the block and with their violent and xenophobic history, somewhat unpredictable. They’ve only just discovered the disparate ways of manipulating mass effects, which are phenomena of physics that allow what we understand as physical laws to be bent. On a personal scale, this permits certain adepts known as ‘biotics’ to manifest telekinetic powers, while starships with the proper equipment can interface with ancient mass relays to catapult themselves across the galaxy at speeds exceeding that of light. As humanity struggles to gain more recognition among the established democratic government of the galaxy, based on a space station called the Citadel, Terran officer & player character Commander Shepherd encounters a dire threat to all sentient life.

Stuff I Didn’t Like

_{“I said ONE keg, not THREE! How are we supposed to scale that cliff with all this extra weight?”}

The Mako. I know it’s trendy to rag on the vehicle sections of Mass Effect, and this might sound like me baying along with the rest of the herd. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what went wrong here. It’s an excursion vehicle that allows the crew to cover a lot of ground on a planet’s surface, it’s capable of moving quickly over all sorts of terrain even in defiance of gravity, and it’s reasonably well armed. I think part of the problem is that it’s not terribly well protected, and when you hit the button to make repairs, the ENTIRE vehicle shuts down and sits there idle, just waiting for the Geth to shove rockets up its exhaust pipe. While the Mako sections could be somewhat tolerable if a tad tedious outside of combat, going from one plot point to the next in the thing whilst navigating a gauntlet of Geth had me nearly spiking my 360 controller on more than one occasion. It’s one thing for a game to be difficult, but Braid never made me want to break things and Mass Effect, while overall a good game, is no Braid.
As an aspiring novelist, I appreciate long passages of prose, and knowing that there’s some thought and foundation involved in the universe being created is, to me, both a comfort and an inspiration. That being said, a video game does not need to unceremoniously dump reams of text into my online codex just becase I glanced at a monitor in the course of the game. As fascinating as I find mass driver weapons technology and the concepts behind different forms of interspecies communication, I’m a bit busy trying to save the galaxy or at least salvage something cool from the nearby planet and don’t have the time to read all of this stuff. Save it for a wiki or online database. Unless you want to include a minigame of Shepherd on the toilet.
This is a minor nerd quibble, but the gravity on all of the planets I explored was apparently the same. Shepherd and the team never had trouble walking around the surface of a planet at their normal brisk pace, and the Mako was capable of scaling rock faces regardless of the planet’s location. Footage of astronauts on the moon showed that a reduced amount of gravity can change how humanoids move from A to B while on foot. Given the amount of work (and text) put into things like the red & blue shifting involved with faster than light travel and the particulars of the hand-held weapons systems, I would’ve thought somebody at BioWare would have taken the time to refresh their memories on how space exploration has been going so far.
The lack of a tutorial, the abrupt nature of some combat encounters and the sporadic way in which the game automatically saves means that Mass Effect has something of a steep learning curve. It’s also unapologetic in the occasionally brutal way it’ll kick your ass. Ignore a certain adversary entering the fight or forget to use a particular ability and whammo, Shepherd’s twisting in a grotesque way as the dire and deep ‘Game Over’ music plays. Some of my deaths might have been alleviated in the PC version of the game, given my experience with Dragon Age.
Along with lots of exposition, the game likes to dump scads of weapons modifications into your inventory. The micromanagement of equipment does allow the player to match the weapons of the party to the upcoming threat, but it’s rather tedious at the same time. It also means that whatever modifications you don’t need can be sold or broken down into the goop that repairs the Mako and hacks crates, which goes a ways to solving any money problems you might have.

Stuff I Liked

_{“If anybody makes another crack about Robot Chicken, I will turn this ship around!”}

The SSV Normandy feels like a military vessel. It’s compact and sleek, clearly designed for speed and maneuverability. In comparison to dreadnaughts and other large capital ships, it appears small, almost tiny. I feel this is more appropriate for a game where you are a special ops agent and need to get from place to place quickly, rather than having the Powers That Be say, “Well, you’re the protagonist, so here’s our shiny new flagship that’s 172 decks tall and bristling with firepower. Try not to scratch the paint, now!”
The powers of biotics are well-realized and seem more grounded than the magic powers in some other games. You won’t be shooting lightning from your hands or setting things on fire with your brain, but tossing objects and people around, surrounding yourself with a protective barrier or stunning an oncoming baddie are all possible. The most potentially outrageous power is the creation of tiny black holes, but considering the powers tie into the manipulation of mass and whatnot, it’s not as far-fetched as the whole Force lightning thing.
Despite my annoyance at pausing the game to swap equipment around every few minutes, I like the weapons the party uses. The devices all collapse down to a portable form when not in use, and they’re light enough that everyone can carry a few at once. This means you can visually see a character swapping one weapon for another rather than it magically appearing in their hands. It compensates for the breaking of immersion by the micromanagement bits, and adds a feeling of dynamic action when you tap a single button and watch your character holster their pistol to reach behind their shoulder for the assault rifle.

Stuff I Loved

_{“Kegs are stowed and tapped. Set course for the nearest intragalactic strip club!”}

The galaxy map is one of the best realized aspects of the game. Now, this might only be my opinion since I’ve been a space nerd since I was knee-high to a corn stalk, but seeing things like the Horse Head Nebula displayed in vivid color with different worlds of all kinds to explore kept me very happy for quite a while. I almost forgot about the impending doom of all peaceful life in the galaxy as I sent the Normandy from one system to the next just to poke around and see how many habitable or near-habitable worlds existed. I was reminded of days gone by when I’d play ‘Privateer’ until all hours of the night just taking cargo from one place to another because I wanted to see new systems. I think I’m going to stop on this point, however, because between this and the gravity quibble, I’ve just demonstrated how incredibly dull I am.
As much as it’s fun to give BioWare a rough time over the sheer amount of text they toss at you, the writing that they produce is always good. Mass Effect is no exception. I’ve heard some people complain that the games produced by BioWare are somewhat formulaic. I will admit that but I’d also ask the question of why it’s a bad thing. The last time Coke tried to drastically change their formula, things ended horribly. Applying archtypical characterization to different people in different genres isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker. It’s like killing an established character – it’s all in how you do it. And BioWare has proven they do this quite well.
The conversation system is another key to the success of Mass Effect’s immersion. It’s one thing to hear an NPC give their exposition then choose from a number of responses ranging in tone from “Selfless defender of the downtrodden” to “Dickhead.” It’s another to pick a general mood you want to convey, and have the voice actor convey it for you on command. Not only does it maintain the flow of the story, it allows us to be surprised at Shepherd’s choice of words.
On top of everything else, the game looks fantastic, even on the X-box 360. The expressions of the characters perfectly match the excellent voice work. You get an appropriate sense of scale from the way things are put together and despite being a science fiction game, the ships and structures have a realistic feel to them.

Bottom Line: Since the game hovers around bargain prices in most places and is available on Steam, I say buy it. It’s some of BioWare’s best writing to date, with a compelling story, plenty of content and action… oh, yeah, and sex, too.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The House Bunny

December 26, 2009 / BlueInkAlchemist / 1 Comment

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/house_bunny.mp3]

I’m going to begin with a confession. This is not the sort of movie that finds its way onto my Netflix queue. However, when I find myself at my parents’ house for the holidays, I tend to be more at the mercy of what’s on their big-screen TV. The House Bunny ended up being on during Christmas Eve, and rather than treat it the way I do most modern American comedies – with cynicism and contempt – I thought I’d give it a fair shake. Seemed only fair, since on more than one occasion the ladies were shaking things themselves. The film stars Anna Faris, Colin Hanks, Emma Stone, Kat Dennings, Christopher McDonald, Beverly D’Angelo, Katherine McPhee and Hugh Hefner.

Shelly Darlingson (Faris) is a Playboy bunny. She’s not centerfold-worthy despite being sexy, vivacious and in her twenties. At twenty-seven, however, she’s told she’s too old to be a bunny and gets kicked out of the Playboy Mansion. Downtrodden, she comes across attractive women living together in a sorority, but they kick her out because she’s not a student. Shelly washes up at a sorority of misfit girls, and having learned that older women become house mothers for sorority girls like these, takes it upon herself to transform the house to a mansion all its own, and the girls within to beautiful heart-stoppers that become the talk of the campus.

Despite the somewhat generic university misfits becoming awesome plot, this movie works as a fun little comedy most of the time. If it weren’t for Anna Faris’ honest and well-paced delivery of her lines and the way the others play off of her performance, this concept would utterly fail. The buoyancy she brings to the writing and direction has less to do with her ‘assets’ and more with her experience and sincerity. As honest as Faris and her co-stars are with themselves, they’re also smart enough not to take themselves too seriously. While some of the jokes and gags fall flat, which is an inevitability when you’re dealing with ground that’s been tread before in comedy, the ones that work do so well enough to keep us interested long enough to expect the next one – or is it the T&A? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Again, this isn’t the sort of thing I’d normally watch. Sure, sex is funny. To paraphrase Alan Rickman as the Metatron in Dogma, consider some of the faces people make in the midst of coitus. And mixing the inherent comedy of women that get by on their looks alone with the tried & true formula that worked for Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds and PCU sounds like another one of those chocolate/peanut butter combinations. I honestly believe that Anna Faris, the best and most consistent thing about the Scary Movie series, is the reason this movie works as well as it does. It has good things to say about female empowerment not unlike Miss Congeniality and Legally Blonde – the latter film being borrowed from heavily when Shelly needs to, like, learn stuff. In fact this movie is more a casserole than a Reese’s treat – so many things left over from other movies are mixed together to make this one. But it’s a dessert casserole, sweet and decadent and offering a bit of substance, like a cake that’s more frosting than cake but has just enough cake to still be called a cake. If that makes any sense.

I have another confession. I was secretly hoping this movie would be horrible. I was hoping I’d be able to tear it apart the way a lion tears apart a wildebeest. But there’s just enough in The House Bunny to save it from having its dessicated carcass join the likes of In The Name of the King in the back of my little Internet den. It’s not earth-shattering or breaking any new ground or pushing any envelopes, but it’s not utter dross or completely brainless or heartless either. It takes turns being funny, cute and sexy, and while it never completely hits the mark on any of those turns, it’s not a total miss. There isn’t any real danger to our girls of anything horrible happening, and Shelly changes her mind quite a few times in the film’s third act. In the end, though, while it didn’t make me think at all, it made me laugh at times and that’s the goal of a comedy. You’re really not missing anything if you don’t add The House Bunny to your Netflix queue, but if you like your collegiate comedy wearing a bikini and pink bunny ears, you could do worse. And there’s nothing wrong with seeing Anna Faris in that outfit.

Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.

On The Tube: Fringe

December 24, 2009 / BlueInkAlchemist / 7 Comments

I have fond memories of the days at university when the lights would go out, we’d sit on the couch or floor with our hastily-cooked meals and wait for The X-Files to come on. We drank in the ambiance, the supernatural nature of the weekly problems and the interplay between Mulder and Scully. Not to mention Scully herself. Since the show left the air, there have been some attempts to recapture that sort of eerie and disturbing storytelling magic. Treshold came close but was let down by a small audience, a bad time slot on Sci-Fi Channel (which has since renamed itself SyFy which should tell you something about the chimps running the joint) and a lack of mystery or real suspense. At least they had Carla Gugino, though.

And then Fringe came along.

J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman drew inspiration for their show not only from The X-Files but also The Twilight Zone (remember that one, kids?), the film Altered States and Michael Crichton’s novels, as well as mixing in the procedural atmosphere of Law & Order and the serial nature of Abrams’ previous major success, Lost. Unlike the writers of Threshold, which included Brannon Braga to nobody’s surprise, Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman quickly demonstrated their ability to build suspense, maintain mystery and create dramatic tension between interesting, multi-dimensional characters.

One of the first casting choices they made was John Noble as Dr. Walter Bishop. The thinking, it seems, was something along the lines of “What’s a show about mad science without a mad scientist?” But unlike the dour Dr. Frankenstein or the madcap Emmett Brown, Dr. Bishop has the somewhat doddering charm of an aging but beloved grandparent coupled with a scientific curiosity that supersedes what most people would consider sound ethics. The good doctor has the answers to the causes behind a string of inexplicable and deadly events being investigated by “Fringe Division,” a multi-agency task force. FBI agent Olivia Dunham, played by Anna Torv, is recruited for this top-secret operation following the mysterious death of an airliner full of passengers and mortal wounding of her partner and lover, John Scott. Her investigation leads her to Walter Bishop, who’s been institutionalized for almost two decades. To get him out, she needs to enlist Walter’s son, Peter Bishop. More than just a means to access Walter as both next of kin and a cypher, Peter is a genius in his own right, a master of several languages and has the sort of shady connections that allow Dunham to go just outside the law to get whatever she needs to solve her case. Peter is played by Joshua Jackson, who got the role after impressing Abrams in his audition for James T. Kirk.

The show is fresh and visceral without seeming hackneyed despite it’s inspirations. Characters develop gradually instead of in fits and starts, the science behind the odd events has some rooting in reality and is never a technobabble fix worthy of Star Trek. Unlike Lost, where the plot is obfuscatory at best, the procedural nature of Fringe keeps the events rooted and moving forward in spite of their supernatural aspects. Everything that happens in Fringe feels like it could happen, even when things like teleportation, pyrokinesis and interdimensional travel are introduced. The fact that these things are happening to and around people we actually care about helps make Fringe worth watching, as well.

The first season is available on DVD and the second season is well underway. Thursday nights in January will find me waiting for the innocuous piano music that introduces the show with hints at things like “Dark Matter,” “Suspended Animation” and “Telepathy.” Like those days gone by, I’ll be turning down the lights and wondering what sweet treat Walter’s obsessing over this week. He, after all, very eloquently described the simple appeal of a root beer float:

“It’s heavenly. And earthly, at the same time.”

The same, one might argue, could be said for Fringe itself.

Game Review: Fallout 3

December 21, 2009 / BlueInkAlchemist / 2 Comments

“War. War never changes.”

So begins Bethesda’s near-future apocalyptic RPG, Fallout 3. The story of your character begins quite literally at the beginning, with your birth deep within a Vault-Tec bomb shelter. After the exchange of nuclear fire between the United States and China in a slightly altered time where technology ran far ahead of society – most notably sticking the United States in the idyllic if somewhat paranoid 50s – many people, including your parents apparently, sought shelter in these underground complexes. As you grow, however, choosing your appearance and skills in an extremely immersive prologue, it becomes apparent that things are not what they seem. Eventually, you need to make your way out of the Vault in pursuit of your scientist father, but how you do that and what you’ll say or do when you finally find him is entirely up to you.

Stuff I Didn’t Like

This is a problem that’s probably going to crop up in future games as well as some of the games I play now: DLC. Knowing that ‘Broken Steel,’ ‘The Pitt’ and ‘Operation Anchorage’ among others are available for me to download and promise new content, new equipment and new story elements, I felt like I was missing out because I don’t have enough Microsoft points to get the DLC, nor do I have enough liquid assets to change into Microsoft points. At least I didn’t have NPCs bothering me about it, which is a problem I have with Dragon Age: Origins.
And now there’s the ‘Game of the Year’ edition that includes all of the DLC on the disk. Thanks, guys, but I still don’t have the spare $60 US for another copy of the game.
There can sometimes be a lag between hitting the button to bring up your inventory and actually seeing the screen come up. More than once I saw I was low on health, hit the button to pop some food, drink down some ice-cold Nuka-Cola or inject medicine as the nearby Super Mutant smashed my face in with a fire hydrant. I realize it’s a little more realistic than auto-regenerating health, but we’re also talking about a game with plasma rifles, giant robots and people who survived being turned into quasi-zombies with side effects including most of one’s skin melting off and sounding like one has a nearly terminal case of strep throat.

Stuff I Liked:

This might be an odd opinion, but the V.A.T.S. made the game much more enjoyable for me. This is a RPG, after all, and points in skills as well as Perks make it more likely you’re going to hit something you’re shooting at. People used to frantic relentless bullet-fests like Gears of War or Halo may find V.A.T.S. tedious or ignore it entirely, but for me, it helped me feel like my character was truly expert markswoman thanks to plenty of points in the Small Arms skill and a few of the relevant Perks.
While there’s a bit of an uncanny valley effect with the NPCs, the voice acting and writing is good enough that it doesn’t interfere too much with immersion most of the time.
Speaking of voice acting, there’s some good talent on display, and not just from the likes of Ron Perlman, Malcolm McDowell and Liam Neeson as your dad.
The hostile mutants, from the giant scorpions to vicious creatures evolved from crabs, are genuinely terrifying in their rendering, which points to very good use of the graphics engine.
The lockpicking and hacking systems maintain the flow of the game and don’t break immersion, even if stocking up on those skills make it terribly easy to steal things right under the noses of people you’re supposed to be helping. Then again, if you’re looking for a quick way to gain bad Karma and make more enemies to blast in half in V.A.T.S. mode, the end result of stealing stuff in plain sight is probably pretty hilarious.

Stuff I Loved:

The Capital Wasteland. Unlike some other games out there, the world feels huge and very real in its own way. There’s also the fact that you’re rewarded for exploring the world, both in uncovering new areas with items and NPCs and in an actual reward after completing a certain side-quest. You can fast-travel from one spot to another after you’ve logged its exploration, but getting from one place to another can be a hike, and it’s a hike I ended up enjoying, except for the one where my dog ended up dying after a particularly long trek and I just couldn’t bring myself to repeat it.
From the radio stations to the publications available to the dialog of certain characters, there’s a great deal of well-realized atmosphere in the game. What we see in this post-apocalyptic wasteland is an America trumped up on its own national pride and sense of entitlement, making this game as much a cautionary tale about imperialism and national arrogance as it is a video game where you can blast super mutants with mini-nukes and set your house up as a love nest complete with cola machine.
Speaking of radio stations, I tuned into Galaxy News Radio for most of the game. I liked hearing Three Dog’s perspective on my exploits and there’s some fantastic soundtrack dissonance to be had. I loved hearing cheery 50’s music like “Civilization” or “Jazzy Interlude” playing while I mowed down Raiders or traded blasts with super mutants. It added yet another layer to the already deep atmosphere and made the overall experience that much more enjoyable.
The diversity of weapons available to you is pretty staggering. There’s implements of destruction tailored to a variety of tastes. If you like old-fashioned guns, you have plenty of small arms to choose from, up to the classic Henry rifle that’s downright musical when fired in V.A.T.S. mode. Ray gun aficionados need look no further than the Gatling lasers and plasma rifles. If you want to get up close, you can pick up a Super Sledge. You can even make your own weapons from bits of junk littered all over the Wasteland, from a slingshot-like dart gun to a mine using bottle caps for shrapnel – which seemed a little counter-intuitive given that bottle caps are currency in this nuclear future. It’d be like using jars of pennies in a modern explosive device. My favorite crafted weapon, however, was the Shishkabob, a literal flaming sword. Then again, maybe that’s because I was loaded with good Karma and it fit with me being a paladin.

Bottom Line: Buy this game. The Game of the Year edition might save you some time, money and frustration in the long run. I’d like to find out for myself – we’ll see how good Santa is to me this year.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Snatch.

December 18, 2009 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

[audio:http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/uploads/snatch.mp3]

I’ve stated in some previous reviews that Jason Statham is a badass. I’ve also mentioned him in his work with Guy Ritchie, of which Snatch is the prime example. It’s also arguably Ritchie’s best film to date, often compared to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels the way Pulp Fiction is compared to Reservoir Dogs. But before I start drawing parallels between two directors and lose what few readers & listeners I have, let’s talk about Snatch. The movie, not anything else. The film stars Jason Statham, Benicio Del Toro, Alan Ford, Stephen Graham, Dennis Farina, Rade Serbedzija, Mike Reid, Vinnie Jones, Lennie James, Robbie Gee, Ade and Brad Pitt.

Jason Statham is an underground boxing promoter in London by the name of Turkish. (Take notes, Dr. Boll, as he is not named “Boxer” or “Promoter”.) He and his partner Tommy (Stephen Graham) are trying to get their fighter, Gorgeous George, into the ring for a fair fight with one of the boxers promoted by local kingpin and pig enthusiast Brick Top (Alan Ford). Meanwhile, Frankie Four-Fingers (del Toro) has stolen a gigantic diamond from Antwerp to the delight of his boss Cousin Avi (Farina) and is heading to London to discuss his ill-gotten gains with Doug the Head (Reid). Aware of his arrival is Boris the Blade, aka Boris the Bullet-Dodger (Serbedzija), who taps two guys from a pawn shop to intercept Frankie before he can offload the rock. Brad Pitt is a fast-talking semi-Gypsy bare-knuckle fighter, Jones is a cold-as-ice bounty hunter named Bullet-Tooth Tony and Ade is the world’s largest getaway driver. We never learn the name of the dog.

If you’re not confused yet, I’m impressed. The film juggles these disparate plots while standing on one foot and telling off-color jokes. If you’re easily offended by foul language, particularly the word “fuck,” you probably don’t want to watch this film. Or even be in the next room if it’s playing. The liberal use of “fuck” throughout the film might be explained away by some as a lack of intelligence since smart people find other ways to express themselves, but the adept balancing of the various plots and the three-dimensionality of most of the players indicate that plenty of higher brain functions were being engaged in this film’s creation.

While some movies struggle to cohesively tell one plot from start to finish, Snatch handles quite a few, which begin on separate tracks but slowly begin to weave in and out of each other. As I mentioned, most of the key players are given depth and characterization. Turkish, in particular, shows a gamut of emotions, from grim sarcastic satisfaction to almost palpable desperation. Brick Top is charismatic and even funny while being menacing, especially in a scene towards the middle of the film. The guys from the pawn shop are trying to move a body (I won’t say whose) when Brick Top appears and instructs them on an efficient and organic way to deal with such things: feed the body to pigs. After his informative if somewhat macabre tutorial, he rises from the couch and asks simply, “D’you know what the word ‘nemesis’ means?” Despite the comical tone of most of this film, Alan Ford’s delivery can be downright chilling. We’ve seen how ruthless and unhinged Brick Top can be by this point, so his quiet, understated question has all of the bite and discomfort of a circular saw dismembering a corpse in preparation for a piggy feast.

But as much as I love the characters of Turkish and Brick Top, the film is very nearly stolen entirely by Brad Pitt’s turn as Mickey, the Pikey bare-knuckle scrapper. Pikies are modern-day nomads, living out of caravans as they move from one campsite to another. They speak in an accent that is, in the words of Turkish, “not exactly English and not exactly Irish.” And most of them speak fast. Very fast. It’s part of their plan to pull the wool over the eyes of people with whom they do business, but it has the side effect of being absolutely hilarious. And the way we are introduced to this class of people is the same man who portrayed the dead-eyed reluctant predator in Interview with the Vampire and the gritty, ambitious detective Mills in Se7en. He’s bombastic, energetic, quick-witted and funny, yet also finds time to show a range of emotion from heartbroken rage to cold and calculating. If you don’t think Brad Pitt can act, you should see this movie. Then hit yourself in the face with a cricket bat.

Guy Ritchie’s writing and direction in this film are at their zenith. The jokes are funny, the characters are believable and the stories move along just fast enough to keep us off-balance without being terribly confusing, my condensed recap of the opening act notwithstanding. The action and violence grow organically from the story and setting, rather than appearing out of nowhere. You actually have to think, as the film speeds along, about what is happening to whom as the different plots begin to mix. Even the soundtrack is pitch-perfect, from Massive Attack’s haunting “Angel” to Oasis’ high-energy rocking “Fucking in the Bushes.” We even have great camera angles, fantastic framing and some of Guy Ritchie’s trademark jarring interludes. Pay attention whenever anybody mentions gambling to Frankie Four-Fingers to see what I mean.

Now, as I’ve mentioned, the language might be a little too intense for some people. And the frenetic pace and slightly offbeat nature of both the writing and direction might be a turn-off to others. If these are obstacles to seeing Snatch, however, I consider that a deplorable shame. This is some of the best cinematic storytelling I’ve had the pleasure to watch. The word ‘caper’ doesn’t quite do it justice. It’s smart, funny, gritty, intense and awesome from start to finish. Not one moment or shot is wasted. You may have seen Snatch already if you’re a regular reader or listener of my material. If you don’t own a copy, you should, but if you need convincing, toss it on your Netflix queue. And if you haven’t seen Snatch before, you should not only add it to your queue but bump it right to the top. It’s not just brilliant – it’s fucking brilliant.

Tag: Reviews (page 29 of 36)

Game Review: Mass Effect

Stuff I Didn’t Like

Stuff I Liked

Stuff I Loved

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The House Bunny

On The Tube: Fringe

Game Review: Fallout 3

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Snatch.

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