Reviews – Page 6 – Blue Ink Alchemy

Tag: Reviews (page 6 of 36)

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Hunt for Red October

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I’m aware that some of you may have been born around or after, say, 1995. That terms like ‘Soviet Union’ and ‘Cold War’ are entries on Wikipedia or chapters in a history book rather than memories of an ominous time. I’m not sure if public school still conduct ‘weather drills’, but when I was young we were herded into the hallways and taught to sit against the wall with our heads between our knees. We didn’t know for certain – well, some of us didn’t – but in later years it became clear that nuclear war was the most likely disaster for which we should be prepared. Doomsday weapons lurked in the imaginations of many writers of fiction, and it was Tom Clancy who showed us what a responsible person would do with such a weapon, in The Hunt For Red October.

The weapon is the largest ballistic missile submarine ever built, the Soviet Typhoon-class. The Red October is the newest of that line, equipped with a new propulsion system that renders it silent. Let me repeat that: it’s a submarine roughly the size of a World War 2 aircraft carrier armed with hundreds of nuclear warheads to be showered on a major metropolitan center, and nobody would see it coming. Taking her out on her maiden voyage is Captain Marko Ramius, a haunted man with years of experience, a loyal crew and a fresh grudge to nurse. When he takes Red October away from her planned course, everybody assumes the worst. Everybody, that is, except for a slightly nerdy CIA analyst specialized in fighting sailors like Ramius: Doctor Jack Ryan.

Tom Clancy wrote the book in ’84, and this film adaptation came to us in 1990. Most of the narrative remains intact, and the characters behave as described. A few were cut along with a couple superfluous sub-plots, but you wouldn’t know it given the pace and tension of this fim. It moves smoothly, delivers memorable characters and goes to some interesting places, a journey unhindered by the minutae of submarine warfare.

Trust me, there is nothing “minute” about a Typhoon-class submarine.

Oh, there’s plenty of warfare to be had. Hunts through underwater canyons, games of chicken deep underwater with torpedoes, sabotage and intrigue; everything you need to make a good submarine war film is here. The film wisely dispenses with some of the technical details, however, which Clancy used to make his novel nice and thick. By using these volumes of text as a reference and information for visual stylization rather than as a means to directly inform the audience of the goings-on, director John McTiernan makes pehaps the nerdiest form of modern warfare an exciting thing to watch.

This is the same John McTiernan, after all, who brought us the seminal action movie Die Hard. He shows his skill and diversity in Red October, directing a taut Cold War thriller with the same adeptness and wisdom as he does a run-and-gun action flick. He gives the characters time to breathe and grow, then contracts the scene into a tight, tense atmosphere perfectly. The score of Basil Poulidorus and the presence of actors like Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill, Stellan Skarsgaard and the late Robert Jordan deepen and empower the experience, coming together to make a great thriller. He also executes a very clever transition from subtitles to spoken English, helping underscore a message the film conveys which I’ll touch upon in a moment.

“Sean, you’re not even going to try and do an accent, are you?”
“I’m Sean Connery, Sam. I don’t need to do an accent.”

Red October does have a few rough patches here and there. The speaking members of Red October’s crew don’t necessarily pull off convincing Russian accents. Sean Connery in particular clearly remains a Scotsman even when he’s speaking Russian. This doesn’t take that much away from his performance, other than perhaps a little good-natured chuckling at the fact that he’s not even bothering with an accent. The plot isn’t necessarily all that complex, relying less upon screenplay slight-of-hand and more upon smart dialogue and canny scene construction to keep the audience interested. And it’s highly likely you won’t just be interested. I’ve seen this movie several times, and re-watching it recently still had me on the edge of my seat in some scenes despite me knowing the outcome.

It’s doubtful that The Hunt For Red October would be made today the way it was in 1990. While it might still have a good plot and good characters, there was an atmosphere to it in the early 90s that was undeniable, that lent additional weight to its message and meaning. In the course of the film, the message comes across that Americans and Russians, despite an ocean of both seawater and cultural disparity between them, are not so different. In the days when the Soviet Union was barely staying together and the Berlin Wall was coming down, it was important for Americans to not just be given this message but also to embrace it, to help those in Russia seeking a new way of life stay on their feet as the regime that had caused so much suspicion and oppression began to crumble around them. Both the Americans and the Soviets had so many other things to which they could have applied their energies, rather than spending it on pointless arguments, hyperbolic hate and decades-long dick-measuring contests. Thank the Maker we’re so much more enlightened in this day and age, eh?

This photo is nowhere near as impressive as the actual shot in the scene this is taken from.

Sarcastic soapboxing aside, I think this is definitely a film worth your time. It belongs on your Netflix queue if you enjoy a gripping thriller, Sean Connery or Sam Neill in snappy black uniforms, some very nerdy in-jokes, great use of several tropes or submarine warfare. It works on a lot of levels, builds atmosphere extremely well and remembers that levity and touching moments are just as important as explosions and military jargon. Even if just for hisorical study and reference, I highly recommend The Hunt for Red October. And no, it’s not just because I have half the lines memorized.

It’s not my fault some of them are so damn memorable.

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.

Game Review: Portal 2 (single-player)

May 3, 2011 / BlueInkAlchemist / 2 Comments

Oh.

It’s you.

It’s been a long time. How have you been?

I’ve been really busy being dead. You know? After you murdered me?

I didn’t feel I could open a review of Portal 2‘s single player campaign any other way. When the original game was released as a supplemtary portion of Valve Software’s Orange Box, nobody expected it would become the phenomenon of a video gaming generation. Everybody loved it, even critics notoriously hard to please. When a sequel was announced, fans were jubilant at the prospect but also feared it. Would it be a game every bit as bold as the original, or would it just be more of the same, sacrificing innovation for name recognition in the infamous tradition of Bioshock 2?

Let it not be said that Valve does not innovate. Sure, some of the levels in Portal 2 have a familiarity to them for fans of the first game. But things have definitely changed. One of Valve’s programmers said that Portal was the test bed while Portal 2 would be an actual game. It certainly feels that way. Portal 2 has a lot of depth to it, both figuratively and literally.

The figurative depth comes in the aforementioned innovations. There are deadly lasers (“Thermal Discouragement Beams”), bouncy things (“Aerial Faith Plates” and “Repulsion Gel”) and new types of cubes. Some of these changes don’t alter the nature of play all that much, while others make for some truly interesting puzzles. More than once I found myself standing in a test chamber wishing I had just a little repulsion gel to work with. Instead, I had to figure out how to replicate the gel’s use or solve the puzzle a different way. And any addition that allows a player to think more critically is a good one.

As for the literal depth… well, that brings me to the subject of the campaign’s story, which I will not spoil here. Let me see if I can sum up the bullet points without giving anything away. You will learn more about Aperture Science’s history and philosophy. You will learn more about how Chell changed things in the first game. You will discover a rather chilling secret about the Enrichment Center. And you will, in fact, be reunited with GLaDOS, but not necessarily in the way you may expect.

I find myself wanting to play the single player campaign again. Other than knowing I missed an achievement or two, I feel there are story points I might have missed, would like clarified or simply wish to experience again. I laughed a lot, I found myself thinking about the ramifications of what I was seeing or hearing, and I was touched, disturbed and (naturally) frustrated. When things reached the end, I was sitting back and smiling, not because I’d finished a video game, but because the ending showed me what it means to have your antagonist be more than just a final boss. I need to stop myself before I give any further spoilers.

Play the game, find out for yourself.

Stuff I Liked: The new gimmicks, gizmos and gels introduced. The spit-shine put on the environments, characters, sounds and other design elements. The fact that the story felt coherent, well-plotted and constantly building.
Stuff I Didn’t Like: It went on sale not long after my download. I could have used that money.
Stuff I Loved: Every single voice actor. The excellent use of incidental music. The characterization of GLaDOS, Wheatley and others. The religious turret. The way it left me wanting more. The way it made me laugh. The way it didn’t let me down.

Bottom Line: If you haven’t already picked the game up, even if you’re strapped for cash, find a way to add Portal 2 to your collection. Yes, the campaign is short, but the story is so good, the puzzles sufficiently challenging and the gameplay so much fun that you won’t mind the briefness of a game that still has the good taste not to wear out its welcome.

Final Note: I will cover the co-op campaign seperately once I find someone willing to plow through it with me. You can find my Steam ID under Stalking Methods.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Judge Dredd

April 29, 2011 / BlueInkAlchemist / 1 Comment

(apologies to Mr. Poledouris whose name I horribly mispronounce.)
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There’s a part of me that’s glad I didn’t get into writing for comic books. More than likely, I’d have had to cut my teeth on an established title, continuing a storyline that’s been running for months if not years. And if I wanted to spread my wings a little, get a bit creative with character beats or backstory exploration? Whoo, boy. That would invite the ire and derision of a group I know well enough to fear for I once counted myself among them: the comic book fanboy. It’s the penchant for exaggeration, lionization of established canon and somewhat skewed expectations that caused such a group to call Judge Dredd nothing less than a cinematic aberration conjured from the depths of their sweatiest nightmares. It isn’t that bad. Then again, it isn’t all that great, either.

In the wake of nuclear near-annihilation, the survivors of humanity with anything resembling wealth or influence huddled together in titanic Mega-Cities, leaving the have-nots in a barren wasteland called the Cursed Earth. Humanity stifles and chafes in close quarters, so law and order collapsed as people fought for every scrap they could get their hands on. This lead to the rise of the Judges, imposing and implacable members of an elite order who served as both police, officers of the court and executioners of the lawless. The most famous, most feared and most implacable of them is Judge Dredd. He doesn’t just serve the Law – he IS the Law.

So much for the premise, taken from the pages of the 2000 AD comics in which Dredd was the biggest star. A British mag with a dark sense of humor and a penchant for violence, 2000 AD wasn’t interested in making their characters shining beacons of heroism or even nice guys. Judge Dredd hunted the bad guys, and when he found them he tended to make the Punisher look like a reasonable, well-balanced fellow. He didn’t smile, or take off his helmet, or give the bad guys much of a chance to try and beg for mercy. As you can imagine, he was pretty popular, which is why they tried to make a movie about him.

“Admit it, you just wanted to do something like Demolition Man again.”

Of course, this was before writers and directors really started to get comic book movies right, so the film adaptation of Judge Dredd plays more like a video game than it does a gritty, post-apocalyptic exploration of a rather extreme version of law enforcement. The humor isn’t dark or ironic but mostly superficial and one-note. In fact, “superficial” is a great adjective for this flick. On the surface, the names, costumes, weaponry and locations are those from the comics, but the attempt to include as much cool stuff from the funny pages as possible results in what would charitably be considered a tangled, nearly incoherent and badly paced mess. It’s pretty clear that we’re not working with high concept art here, nor are we being terribly loyal to the source material. By now I’m sure at least one Dredd fan is wishing I hadn’t brought up the memory of this movie in the first place and is about to knock on my door in their replica Judge costume to tell me how I violated the Law.

While the writing is a hot mess and the direction’s pretty turgid, the movie isn’t without merit. Sly Stallone in the title role gives Dredd a practiced stoic distance that erodes as circumstances remove him from the daily routine of shooting block war perpetrators in the face. Max von Sydow and Jurgen Prochnow take the opportunity to have a little fun with their Chief Justice characters, which I suspect is something you have to do when you need to slog through something like this. Armand Assante, however, takes the prize as the actor who took the most bites of the scenery. His portrayal of the ‘perfect criminal’ Rico is delivered with such malicious mayhem and over-the-top physicality that you almost forget how badly this plot rolls over the premise. It pushes Judge Dredd very close to the line of “so bad its good.”

“You mean I can’t just act like a schmuck the entire time? But… that’s hard…”

A rousing score from Basil Poledouris makes this movie sound a lot more grandiose than it really is. Diane Lane gives us a relatively strong female lead who feels like a visitor from a better film, while the ‘Angel family’ in the Cursed Earth takes the flick into the realm of the weird for a moment and are quickly forgotten. I would be remiss, however, if I did not give Judge Dredd what I feel is the greatest compliment I have for it. This film, for all its flaws and blatant disregard for source material loyalty, characterization, plausibility and good taste, is the one time I have not completely loathed Rob Schneider.

And any film that can do that, I feel, is worth at least a cursory glance on your Netflix queue. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a good movie. However, unless you’re one of the aforementioned Judge Dredd fans about to burn my house down, I’d say it may just entertain, even if you just laugh your ass off at how much these veterans of the silver screen ham it up. It may not be the best comic-book action-adventure ever made, but as long as X-Men: Origins: Wolverine is out there, you could do a hell of a lot worse than Judge Dredd.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Blazing Saddles

April 22, 2011 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

{Audio returns next week.}

Hatred is, unfortunately, nothing new. There are people even today who have built their lives, fortunes and reputations around rhetoric that perpetuates ignorance and blind intolerance. From the Spanish Inquisition to the Nazis, the Crusades to Mao’s Great Leap Forward, sooner or later somebody somewhere is going to react in a violent and ugly fashion to somebody who’s different. It falls to those of us with tolerance, love for our fellow man and enough wherewithal to keep the things that actually matter in mind to combat this fear and hatred any way we can – even if it’s just by taking the piss out of those cretins. Hence, Blazing Saddles.

The year is 1874. The location, an unnamed territory of the American West. The attorney general of the territory, Hedley Lamarr (no relation to the similarly named actress of the 70s), wants to cultivate the land with railways to earn himself even more wealth than he already has. Standing in the way of his railroad is the quaint frontier town of Rock Ridge. When their old sheriff is murdered in an attack by Lamarr’s goons, they wire the governor for a new one. In his effort to drive out the people, Lamarr conscripts a man named Bart. Bart, incidentally, is black.

At its best, comedy is a way of holding a mirror up to the more absurd aspects of modern life, calling attention to stupid things we take for granted or as the status quo through way of parody or satire. For a long time, the western was seen as perhaps the manliest of the movie genres, with rough and tumble two-fisted fighting men gunning their way to victory. Nearly every single one was white. Moreover, this was a time when minorities were just beginning to come into their civil rights, yet still had to deal with a great deal of hatred, pre-conceived notions and harsh epithets. Enter legendary comedic film-maker, biting satirist and prominent Jewish-American Mel Brooks. It takes perhaps a particular kind of genius or insanity to look at the litany of Western cinema up until this point, and say “You know what? Why don’t we have a black guy in the lead role?” You can guess how some people reacted.

This is a point covered in the movie, and in fact directly addressed in an exchange between Bart, played quite well by Cleavon Little, and the always memorable Gene Wilder as Jim the Waco Kid. I won’t spoil the line, as it’s one of many great ones in the flick, but suffice it to say Jim hits the nail directly on its racist head. The very notion of the black leading man with a white sidekick can be amusing enough to consider on its own, but with these two actors the combination’s dynamite. They have great chemistry which only makes the punchlines funnier.

Considering the amount of comedic firepower Brooks had at his disposal it’s no wonder Blazing Saddles is thought of by many as his best work. Harvey Korman adds the perfect mix of presence and insanity to Hedley Lamarr, the townsfolk of Rock Ridge are great and Madeline Kahn nearly stops the show as Bavarian bombshell Lily von Shtupp. Not because she’s devastatingly sexy, though she is in her prime here – it’s because she is, like so many other things in the movie, pointing out something just a tad absurd. Like stopping in the middle of a rustic narrative to have a good-looking woman do a song and dance routine. It’s out of place in most serious films; but here, with Lily sounding more like a dying badger than a breathless lady of the evening, it’s just funny. It takes talent to sing; it takes real talent to deliberately sing this badly.

If Blazing Saddles has a flaw it doesn’t manifest itself until halfway through the third act. A sprawling, rolling fistfight for the fate of Rock Ridge spills out of the town – and into a neighboring movie studio. What follows is one of the most complete evaporations of the fourth wall I think I’ve ever seen. Chaos is unleashed upon Warner Brothers studios even going as far as the famous Grauman’s Chinese theatre in Hollywood. It’s known that Brooks was sat down by studio executives before the film was released and given a list of changes they wanted him to make, toning down the racist language and otherwise de-fanging all of the humor. Brooks, who had final say in the cut of the film, diligently took notes at this meeting, and when it was concluded, threw his notes in the garbage. This sudden shift at the end of Blazing Saddles could be Brooks taking a shot at the excesses, expectations and general idiocy he saw in the studio system. Or he could just have trouble ending his movies.

Either way, Blazing Saddles is hysterical from beginning to end. A tightly-written script assisted by Richard Pryor (excepting perhaps that last bit) is packed with humor ranging from the aforementioned epithets to what some consider the very first cinematic fart joke. This stands with his History of the World Part 1 and Young Frankenstein as some of the funniest parodies ever made. So powerful was the imagery, humor and outright Western silliness of Blazing Saddles that it was many, many years before another serious Western was made in Hollywood. For all these reasons and more, it’s a movie that belongs on your Netflix queue. If you ever look around the world at crimes perpetuated for the sake of hate based on the color of a victim’s skin, their gender or the people with whom they fall in love, I suggest you watch Blazing Saddles. Not only will you find yourself laughing, you’ll be reminded that people who act, think and speak based on such hatreds have ignorance and ignorance alone on their side. Mel’s filmmaking, jokes and excellent cast will show you just how short-sighted, misinformed, brutish and downright stupid those morons are. And there’s a pretty great pie fight at the end, complete with Adolf Hitler.

Don’t ask. Just watch the flick.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Shutter Island

April 15, 2011 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

{No audio this week, still adjusting to the new work schedule.}

I’m sure that most of the people reading this review have at least one dog-eared copy of a paperback novel lying around somewhere. Let me ask you something: why have you read that book more than once? I’m willing to hazard a guess. Even though you know how the story ends, the telling of the story is still a worthwhile and entertaining experience. That, in a nutshell, is how I would describe Shutter Island.

Set in the mid-50s, the eponymous island is home to an asylum for the criminally insane. One of the inmates has escaped and there’s a gigantic hurricane bearing down on Boston. Enter US Marshall Teddy Daniels and new partner Chuck Aule, arriving on the island just before the storm. As much as their primary purpose is to find the missing crazy woman, Daniels is also looking for something, or someone, else. And on this island, it seems like everybody has something to hide, including Teddy himself.

Now, it’s a year on from when this movie came out, and it’s highly likely you’ve at least seen a trailer, or gotten the twist ending spoiled for you. No, I’m not going to spoil it here, but even if you have figured out how this one is going to end, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch it. Like that beloved paperback, Shutter Island is less about telling a new story and more about telling a good one. And cinematic storytellers don’t come much better than Martin Scorsese.

Some of these visuals are just stunning.

It’s no secret Scorsese has an eye for talent. He’s worked with editor Thelma Schoonmaker since Raging Bull. He made eight films with Robert DeNiro, including the aforementioned Raging Bull which DeNiro convinced Scorsese to do for reasons that may have saved the director’s life. And here, in Shutter Island, we have his fourth collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio. Once again, Scorsese gives Leo an opportunity to show his chops as a wise-cracking tough guy, an emotionally scarred and troubled man, an intelligent detective and even a veteran. Pulling off these disparate beats while keeping the character consistent and compelling is no mean feat, but DiCaprio inhabits his role perfectly.

In addition to this strong lead, Shutter Island features a fantastic supporting cast of character actors. While Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley and Michelle Williams do a great deal of the heavy lifting in this tale, there are some small or even one-scene performances that stick out in one’s mind, speaking to the power of these actors in their roles. Ted Levine, Jackie Earl Haley and Elias Kostas do such a fantastic job nailing their characters down in just a handful of lines – or, in Kostas’ case, about two lines and some very effective leering – that they’re likely to be remembered long after the credits roll.

Forgive me, it’s Sir Ben Kingsley.

All of this great acting is framed in the extremely atmospheric setting of Shutter Island itself. Between the old Civil War construction, the archaic equipment and the period dress of the 1950s, the film takes on a noir detective feeling that works as a great, concrete counterpoint to the psychological horror that is the crux of the narrative. As much as Daniels begins to question and cling to his sanity, so does the audience attempt to hold onto the mystery as it was introduced, even as a new mystery slowly emerges to take its place. Granted, some viewers will have seen the ‘new’ mystery coming from the beginning, but as I said before, this is a yarn more concerned with telling the tale well than the tale being told.

In that aspect, the only real flaw that can be pointed out in Shutter Island is the nature of the plot that makes the twist at the end, in some measure, predictable. For a movie that seems to be aiming to be equal parts Inception and old carnival spook house (a comparison that wouldn’t have made sense when the movie came out), the lack of screenplay contrivance can seem incongruous, like it’s too straight-forward in the telling. The film, however, plays this weakness as a strength, making the plot just about the least important thing about it. The talent, artistry, atmosphere and characters completely overwhelm the plot and construct a very good storytelling experience. It belongs on your Netflix queue if you’re a fan of any of these actors, detective stories right at home in a Lovecraft anthology, old-fashioned head-screwy horror or, it goes without saying, Martin Scorsese. The man’s proven over and over that his talent for telling stories through film is peerless, and Shutter Island is no exception.

Tag: Reviews (page 6 of 36)

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Hunt for Red October

Game Review: Portal 2 (single-player)

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Judge Dredd

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Blazing Saddles

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Shutter Island

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