OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN micro review

Back in the 90s (a magical decade of presidential sex scandals, cheesy boy bands and the unexpected resurgence of the 70s) there was a little movie called Air Force One.  It was Die Hard on an airplane starring the President of the United States and he was a total badass; but those were back in the days when our President could get away with banging interns under his desk.  Fast forward to the present day and the President can't even get away with sneaking a smoke on the White House's back patio; things have changed a lot.  Now the president is filling the role of damsel in distress in the new film Olympus Has Fallen.

Pictured:  everybody else falling....

No longer is the President a badass ex military pilot, but a stressed out widower who kinda regrets even becoming president in the first place.  Filling the role of his white knight is disgraced secret service agent Mike Banning, a man who sucks at most aspects of life that don't involve killing terrorists and assembling firearms blindfolded.  As luck would have it, North Korean terrorists have invaded the White House and are holding the President and his staff hostage; cue badass guitar riff as Banning weaponizes the nearest stapler and lunges into battle.

While making a face like this.

Olympus Has Fallen is the epitome of Die Hard clone with a bit of Under Siege sprinkled on top for added flavor.  There was a time when this kind of thing would be frowned upon (like when EVERYONE was making Die Hard clones) but in the current action movie environment when an actual Die Hard sequel can't even live up to the average Die Hard clone, it's downright refreshing.  The premise is absolutely ridiculous, but the movie plays it so straight you can't help but be engaged by the amazing action it produces.  One thing that may have you rolling your eyes a bit is the over the top patriotism.  Now i'm no American apologist (far from it) but this movie has a serious hard on for the American flag; Olympus Has Fallen never wastes an opportunity to flash you it's red, white, and blue like it's drunkenly hitting on you at the bar.....  but that's also half the fun (and a potential drinking game).

Seriously, it's like Girls Gone Wild with the American flag!

Simply put, this movie is ridiculous yet gleefully oblivious to it (making it even more ridiculous).  It's not brain food, and if you find yourself disgusted by your home nation this movie will do nothing but mock you for two hours; but Olympus Has Fallen is a surprisingly entertaining action flick with a great cast and a sense of fun that's lacking from a lot of today's movies (at times, you'd swear this was written 15 years ago).  If you love action movies, cool explosions, and 'MERICA then this is your kind of movie!

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

HITMAN: ABSOLUTION micro review (final)

I've already talked your ear off about how Hitman: Absolution stands on its own, but now it's time to get to the important stuff...  like how it stands up to the rest of the series.  I'm gonna be comparing this one to Hitman 4 (Blood Money).  I really can't speak for the first game (Agent 47) as i never played it, number 2 (Silent Assassin) may have been my introduction but it has not aged gracefully and Hitman 3 (Contracts) somehow made creative assassination so boring that i was forced to drop a piano on it after just 3 levels.  So let's keep moving....

....  You heard me, move it!

Looks aren't everything but damn Absolution is a sexy bitch.  The environments feel truly alive and i dare you not to be at least a little stunned the first time you walk through the Chinatown level.  The environments are densely packed with little details around every corner; the trade off is that they are considerably smaller than Blood Money's.  Since most of the missions are broken up into smaller pieces instead of one big bite, you'll be doing less in smaller environments even if it looks stunning while you're doing it.

Lookin damn good.

As far as freedom is concerned, Absolution is probably the most prudish game in the series.  The previous games would let you choose your weapons, drop you into a biggish environment and say "GO"!  From that point on you were free to do whatever you wanted so long as your target ended up deader than you.  Absolution gets a little carried away adhering to it's story and forces you into escape and infiltration levels (sometimes you don't even get to kill anyone).  The latitude the previous games gave you set the series apart from uptight squares like Splinter Cell (seriously Splinter Cell, you'll make someone very happy someday...  just not me) and now the series is starting to play like every other modern AAA title....

Splinter Cell, it's not you, it's me.....  no wait, it's definitely you.  

Stop expecting me to change my mind, you're boring!

....Which isn't always a bad thing.  Somewhere along the line, Hitman learned about fancy new things like cover systems, over the shoulder gunplay and melee combat just to name a few.  Where previous games felt restrictive and (dare i say) awkward in what 47 was physically capable of, this game feels like you can take on the world.  Sure it's a little overpowering now that you're as deadly as a legendary assassin is supposed to be but the game's (shockingly logical) scoring system helps keep you in check.

And doing stuff like this NEVER gets old.

Last but not least, I need to talk about the ending (don't worry, no spoilers).  Absolution's final level....  kinda sucks; it's just more of the same from the previous 19 levels and while the story comes to a satisfying conclusion, you don't feel the rush a finale should bring.  Blood Money ended with a truly cathartic bloodbath where you finally got to let loose on your nemesis and 20 of his closest, heavily armed friends (at your character's funeral no less).  This violent set piece required you to use all the skills you've honed while playing the game and let you stop being subtle and start getting deadly; by comparison, Absolution's finale just lacks punch.

And if there's one thing 47 should be good at, it's going out with a bang.

Don't get me wrong, Hitman: Absolution is a very good game and I thoroughly enjoyed it....  but it has big shoes to fill (though i'll admit, my inner fanboy may have gotten out of it's cage for a moment).  Absolution is not really an evolution for the series; it doesn't do a whole lot that's innovative or truly push the series forward in any way except narrative.  If anything, it just brings Hitman into the modern era of video games and all that comes along with it, good and bad.  This is definitely worth checking out, but longtime fans will still revere Blood Money as the pinnacle of the series.

HITMAN: ABSOLUTION micro review (part two)

The Hitman franchise has never been story focused; sure it's always had one, but then so does your cup at Chipotle (and it's a tossup as to which one is more developed).  Absolution has taken it upon itself to fix this "problem" by creating gameplay that's driven by its narrative rather than a narrative driven by gameplay.  I'm really torn on this new direction:  on one hand it limits the variety of locales and weapons you get but on the other, it draws you more into the world that 47 inhabits and expands on his character more than any other game in the series.

But it still can't explain situations like this....

Now that 47 is more like an actual person instead of a blank avatar, you genuinely CARE about his journey.  His enemies have also been more developed; they are vile, awful human beings who's total lack of humanity will make you will revel in the punishment you deliver upon them.  Hitman games have always been about discretion, but occasionally you'll have to fight back the urge to cut a bloody swath through these despicable bastards.  One level actually comprises entirely of 47's (and you're) choice of whether or not to kill a defenseless bad guy in the middle of the desert; sure he's scared and unarmed, but you've seen him do awful things to innocent people who were also scared and equally unarmed.

Oh don't mind me guys, I'm just aiming up..  I mean....  

uhhh, fuck it you guys are toast!

Thanks to the story, you no longer get to choose your weapon load out and spend much of the game without 47's iconic black suit/red tie or his trademark silverballer pistols.  Losing the ability to plan your hits right down to the tools seriously hurts the essence of what makes Hitman, Hitman.  On the flipside, as you progress through the story, you start to regain the things that have defined 47 for 4 games now.  The moment when he gets his suit back carries a surprising amount of gravity to the point where i was loathe to part with it again....   until i came across a squirrel costume and HAD to put it on.

C'mon, you'd do it too....  DON'T JUDGE ME!

Story focus in video games is a thing, whether you like it or not.  At this rate, we'll soon see a version of Tetris where the main character (voiced by Sam Worthington) has to stack blocks to protect us from cyber-terrorists.  While Absolution's story is far from offensive, it commits the unforgivable crime of killing one of Hitman's best features.....  and it will pay for its sins!

to be concluded.....

MAXIMUM CONVICTION micro review

This is a tale of two Steves, Austin and Seagal; in the 90s, one was a Hollywood action star and the other was a pro wrestler.  Now they're both trying to make it in the tough world of direct to video action movies and the only Steve they can count on is the other.  This is both the premise for the GREATEST meta sitcom ever conceived and the circumstances that created Maximum Conviction.  I think we would have been much happier with the sitcom.

One Steve is an obsessive neat-freak, the other is a total slob.  

Find out which is which this fall on House of Steves!

Thanks to the Expendables films, movie producers have learned that aging action stars get horribly lonely when in a movie by themselves and the only remedy is another aging action star to keep him company.  This mentality has gotten us such modern classics as Hunt to Kill, One in the Chamber, Tactical Force and The Package.  Now that our hero's self esteem is no longer in jeopardy, they can get to doing what they do best:  kick some Terrorist/Mafia/Evil Scientist/Abusive Boyfriend ass!  Unfortunately, Maximum Conviction helps to prove that no theory is perfect.

Action heroes also enjoy a little creme brulee.

One of the biggest problems with having multiple action stars is having multiple big paychecks for them; this leaves the rest of the production with a whopping $500 to spend (rough estimate based on the actual quality of the film).  So much money was spent putting these action movie titans on screen together (which only actually happens in about 5 shots) that the rest of the movie looks like it was shot guerilla-style in a high school after class ended for the summer.

In the producers' defense, it was probably an inner city school....

All this might be forgivable if the movie was actually entertaining.  The dialogue feels like it was written by a 12 year old, the fight scenes are incomprehensible (Seagal is doubled for most of his), and the overlong gunfights seem to degenerate into guys shooting at each other from cover until either someone accidentally gets hit or I get bored and start daydreaming about better action movies.

Don't pout Seagal!  At least you got paid to suffer through this, the rest of us 

have to make up the time to ourselves.

Ten years ago, the prospect of an Austin/Seagal team up would have been beyond exciting; Austin was at the top of his game in WWE, Seagal actually bothered to do his own fight scenes, and producers still pretended to give a rat's ass about their DTV action movies.  But it's 2013, so we got a cheap, boring cash grab hoping to wring a little bit more money out of the poor fans of these two stars.  Yes, it's free on Netflix....  No, i cannot in good conscience recommend you watch it.  But if they ever do make House of Steves, you should definitely watch that!

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

HITMAN: ABSOLUTION micro review (part 1)

The Hitman series holds a special place in my heart for being the only stealth action series that i actually like, let alone bother to come back to again and again (sorry Splinter Cell, you just don't give me what i need).  Hitman: Absolution is the first REAL next gen game in the series (sorry guys, Blood Money doesn't count) and the gameplay reflects the conventions of modern game design....  for better or for worse.

Suddenly my irrational fear of corn fields feels justified...

Like the previous games in the series, Absolution drops you into living, breathing gaming ecosystems of which you are the dominant predator.  These ecosystems are populated, mostly, by hapless civilians going about their daily lives completely unaware that the bald guy standing next to them is a super assassin on a job.  Unfortunately, the A.I. had a way of going all PSYCHO GIRLFRIEND and start accusing you of shit for no logical reason.  Compared to those nutjobs, the NPCs in this game are downright...  well, logical; technology is a beautiful thing.  This jump in IQ fixes one of the biggest flaws that's plagued the series from day one.

Since the NPCs no longer freak out for no reason....  

it's now your responsibility to give them one.

While modern tech has been kind, modern gaming conventions haven't.  Hitman has always been about (sometimes daunting) freedom; freedom to tackle the assignments however you want so long as your target ends up dead.  But this generation's insistence on handholding and scripted nonsense has somehow infected this game.  While the environments feel more alive than ever (densely populated and offering tons of freedom) the game is far more scripted than before.  Rather than handing you a picture of a guy and saying "kill that dude", the game gives you more specific objectives like "escape" or "infiltrate" or "kill that dude".  Some levels can be completed without even hurting a single person.  You also don't get to choose your own loadout anymore, which is a disappointment.  In previous games, the feeling that came from an unexpectedly creative assassination was exhilarating; sadly that feeling somewhat lacking here.

Agent 47, your assignment is to pick up my dry cleaning and get an order of 

Peking duck whilst avoiding food poisoning.

Like so many other last-gen series being reintroduced on current consoles, Hitman is a mixed bag of what was and what is.  The only question is:  do the improvements mean more to you than the setbacks?

(to be continued)

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

MIAMI CONNECTION micro review

MIAMI CONNECTION micro review: for the second time in my life i've seen an awesomely bad movie, in the theater, with the creator/star in attendance (the first time it was THE ROOM); and once again, the experience was AMAAAAAZING! 

Yeah we know dude, it's amazing!  You can stop screaming now.

Miami Connection is a forgotten 80s ninja movie that was recently excavated by nerds and rereleased to the unsuspecting public. this movie is like an 80s parody that was actually made in the 80s! it's a smorgasbord of ridiculous clothes, hair, acting, and music and every moment of it is bafflingly entertaining. 

If this image needs any explanation, you're clearly in the wrong mindset and need to drink more.

if a movie about a Tae Kwon Do rock band fighting ninjas in Miami, whilst attempting to cope with their shared allergy toward shirts (seriously guys, put on a damn shirt!) does not intrigue you just a little bit, then i feel there is no hope for any of us lol. THIS MOVIE HAS DRINKING GAME WRITTEN ALL OVER IT!!!

DON 2 micro review

i'm really starting to love Bollywood. their action movies have a sense of fun that's been missing from our dreary actioners for over a decade. 

And would it kill Hollywood to throw in a dance number or two???

the titular Don starts the movie as the biggest drug lord in all of Asia who makes the mistake of setting his sights on Europe! this leads to lots of bad guys trying to kill him yet failing in spectacularly explosive fashion! now Don is on a mission of revenge with the distractingly beautiful special agent Roma in hot pursuit! this movie is 2+ hours of reasons why Don is the baddest badass in the world. at first, it's so over the top that it's comical (yet extremely entertaining) but by the end, you're pretty much onboard the Don is awesome train. 

......  I'm sorry, what was i saying?  oh yeah, Don is cool and stuff.....

this movie wisely cherry picks from Hollywood blockbusters like Ocean's 11 and James Bond but does so with so much overzealous enthusiasm that it just oozes entertainment value (just don't take it too seriously). check this one out on Netflix!

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

21 AND OVER micro review

controversy is a strange thing; a movie that you otherwise wouldn't have cared about suddenly becomes relevant without you fully understanding why (looking at you Da Vinci Code). in this case, it's China's meddlesome pro-nationalist censorship that drew my attention to 21 and Over; but now that i've seen it, all i can to say is…… eh not bad. it's got all the important ingredients: likable cast, raunchy humor, vehicular mayhem and a crazy Latina sorority that's out for revenge against our "heroes". but you can never shake the feeling that it was more entertaining when it was called Harold and Kumar, or Sex Drive, or American Pie, or The Hangover.

what makes this movie stand out is how it's being reworked for mainland Chinese audiences. rather than getting a raunchy comedy about old high school friends getting their asian buddy into every kind of drunken disaster imaginable on his 21st birthday, mainland audiences are being treated to the Chinese equivalent of REEFER MADNESS; a cautionary tale about the dangers of going to school in a debaucherous American university and how you should find strength and success in your family and your homeland.

I was going to make a smartass comment about uptight Chinese censors 

but it feels like mocking a fat kid in a 10K race....  just no sport in it....

21 and Over is hardly a bad movie, it's actually quite entertaining but hardly necessary. sadly, it's hard to justify going to a theater for this one….. but rental worthy it is. now if only i can get my dirty American hands on the Chinese version of this film….. now that would be a real party :D

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

BULLET TO THE HEAD micro review

It's hard to believe that Sylvester Stallone is a senior citizen (he just turned 66). Like a fine wine, Sly just seems to be getting better with age (and aging in reverse, he looks younger now than he did in Rocky Balboa 6 years ago!). 

Dramatic reenactment of when Stallone shot Time in it's face.....

Bullet to the Head is his first non-old franchise, non-Expendables starring role since 2002's Avenging Angelo and he totally nails it in a role that fits him like a glove. Growling his way through every line of dialogue, Stallone is pure cinematic intimidation factor and owns every scene he's in (which make up about 80% of the the film). Fairing less well is Sung Kang (Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift) who often struggles through his role as a straight laced cop who's forced to team up with a far more capable partner. 

"Acting in dodgy action movies is a honed skill kid, but don't worry, you'll figure it out someday."

Stallone's made a long and storied career of delivering awkward dialogue and does it like a venerable master; Kang hasn't quite perfected the art of circumventing bad screenwriters and struggles throughout the movie to make heads or tails of the dialogue or his character (in fairness, the role was originally intended for Thomas Jane). The film culminates with an amazing Axe fight with Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa; this climactic battle is more intense and thrilling than all the fights in the Expendables films COMBINED and worth the price of admission on its own. 

...cause swords are for pussies!

Sure the script is pedestrian, and Sung Kang is just awkward at times, but Stallone and Momoa make this film worthy for all action fans. It's more time killer than anything else, but damn what a fun time. FOR ACTION FANS ONLY.

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

ZERO DARK THIRTY micro review

Few movies have caused even half as much controversy as Zero Dark Thirty; how many films in recent memory (or history) have lead to congressional hearings? Let's get this out of the way first: NO, it does not advocate the act of torture (it ends up revealing how ineffective it was in finding Bin Laden), and NO it's not exposing info that would compromise national security. These accusations are generally tossed around by alarmists who've never actually seen the movie. Much like Django Unchained's liberal use of the N-word, ZDT has caught hell for showing us an ugly side of humanity we don't like to acknowledge; in this case, good people forced to do awful things in the name of protecting the innocent. Sure we all know how this story's going to end, but the journey there is one of the most intense I've seen in a long time; it's intense, scary, and intriguing. Is it too soon? Maybe. Is it a breach of national security? NO! Stop asking stupid questions, damnit! 

She'll stop slapping you when you stop asking stupid questions....  Promise!

If you can't get over your reservations about the timeliness, grittiness or controversy surrounding this film then nothing i say here will convince you otherwise. For the rest of you, this is one of the best thrillers in recent memory; why have you not seen it yet? Go check it out!

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (fan film) not so micro review

Some might insist on giving fan films a pass based solely on the fact that they lack the funds and resources of their Hollywood counterparts. But the “little guy” goodwill only extends so far and Blue Core's Sonic fan film suffers from serious script and tonal issues that are hard to overlook. 

Playing like a patchwork of the original Genesis games, the Saturday morning cartoon, and the godawful 2006 Sonic game, this is a film that SEEMS to understand where its audience is coming from, but quickly calls into question if it even knew what made Sonic tick in the first place.  Some of the fanboy shout outs, such as the return of original Sonic voice actor Jaleel White, help to play to a fun sense of nostalgia.  Others, such as the plethora of awkward cameos by the likes of James Rolfe (Angry Video Game Nerd), Craig Skistimas (Screw Attack) and Doug Walker (The Nostalgia Critic) seem like a cynical grab at marquee value that detracts from the film itself.  These gee whiz cameos might have actually worked had the movie's aspirations not been so pretentious….

Despite what you may think, it's surprisingly easy to overthink the 

sociopolitical implications of a cartoon hedgehog fighting for our freedoms....

….  Yes pretentious.  The 90's Saturday morning cartoon may have dabbled with somewhat dark subject matter (enslavement, greed, genocide, forced automation) but it did so with a lighthearted tone that never got too heavy.  Blue Core's film takes itself deadly serious from the moment the film opens with a score that wouldn't sound out of place in The Dark Knight.  The filmmakers were trying to do a serious take on a property that was essentially aimed at children, but in doing so they stripped away most of the charm that made us love the property in the first place.  While Sonic himself does have a few cheesy wisecracks, he's ill equipped to bring levity to the tone of the film and it's only in the film's final moments (when it eschews the realistic world for a tribute to the original Green Hill Zone) that the film starts to feel….  right.

Despite its glaring shortcomings, the Sonic fan film is not without its bright spots.  On a special effects level, this is  a surprisingly slick little production with an interesting aesthetic sensibility.  Sonic is highly detailed and beautifully animated; his fur gives way to individual quills and his design seems like a hybrid of classic era and Dreamcast era Sonic (players of Sonic Generations will be intrigued).  Most of the CGI characters blend pretty well with the human actors and the robots have a tangible, metallic quality that really helps to sell them.

The acting in this film is almost universally bad, with one exception; ROBOTNICK!  This villanous character was easily the best actor in the entire movie and fully commanded it with his screen presence.  Robotnick fully embraced the serious tone and upstages every other character in the film, including Sonic himself.  Whether this is a testament to the actor or a slight against everyone else in the film is up for debate though.

It's hard to give this movie much leeway seeing as how they had more resources to make it than most fan films.  It was shot on professional grade cameras (RED ONE MX), featured Jaleel White (not the biggest star in the world but a SAG actor far outside the grasp of most fan productions), helicopter shots (according to the production blog, this was not stock footage) and you couldn't turn a corner at MAGfest without being bombarded with promotion for this film (while other, arguably superior, projects went neglected).  The "little guy" card isn't exactly in this film's deck, so don't even try to play it.

Cool poster huh?  Now imagine that everywhere you 

turn, you see at least 3 of them.  Still cool?  Didn't think so...

Ultimately, the elements are too disparate to really gel and the film comes off as horribly uneven.  A talking, blue hedgehog with super speed is a difficult sell when played this seriously.  The key reason that fan films are made (aside from being used as "calling cards") is because the fan community is consistently burned every time Hollywood adapts their favorite properties to film; they're filmmakers who don't understand (or even respect) video games.  A film like this, that throws away much of the charm that made us love Sonic in the first place, defeats the purpose.  Had it embraced the innate childishness (and ridiculousness) of a super fast hedgehog and his anthropomorphic friends fighting an evil scientist bent on world domination, it could have been successful.  It almost seems like the creators of this film were as clueless as the suits in the big studios.  We constantly give Hollywood flack for its gritty reboots of classic properties from our youth, why should indie films get a pass?

Currently, the film is free to view online and therefore worth a watch for curiosity's sake more than anything.  As a spec film, it proves that a mature take on Sonic is NOT the right path for the property (remember Shadow the Hedgehog?).   As a fan film, it's far glossier than most; but if George Lucas taught us anything, special effects aren't everything.  There are far better examples of the fan film genre out there, check them out after finishing this one, it's better that way…..

BUNRAKU micro review

it's not often that i'm this conflicted about a movie. on one hand it has some of the most innovative visuals i've ever seen, a great cast, good action scenes and an interesting premise. on the other hand.... IT'S TOO DAMN LONG!!! and the pacing is all over the place. if this had been tightened up by about 30 minutes it could have been great, as it is I find it difficult to sit through some of its (exorbitant) 2hr running time. though i will say, when this movie is good, it's amazing!

Such a good cast, such a cool concept, such a visual spectacle....

how did it end up so damned boring???

it's worth it to check it out on netflix instant view if for nothing else than the amazing visual story telling. just be sure to bring a book for when the movie slows to a crawl every so often lol.