When I talk about modern gaming bringing the creativity and overall fun of gaming down, I usually state Halo, Call of Duty and God of War, as well as their legions of bad clones, as examples as to why gaming is currently sucking. But they have NOTHING on Heavy Rain in this regard. Heavy Rain is a display of almost everything that’s wrong about modern gaming. I took my time (9 months…) about getting it as a rental because I knew from the start I wouldn’t like it. But I wasn’t expecting it to be THIS bad considering how it has been getting positive reviews… But wow… This is BAD. WTF is wrong with everybody?

Read on and see how Quantic Dream’s attempt at trying to make gaming evolve fails!

Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: SCEA
Date of Release: February 23rd 2010
Platforms: Playstation 3

Genre: Movie
Rated M for Mature

What is good about this game
Presentation
Technically, the game is really nice. The character models are very detailed and nearly realistic. The environments and rain effects are great as well. Most animations are fairly good as well, and facial features and animations are generally fairly believable. Not perfect, but it’s fairly nice if you like video games to look realistic rather than fun.

On the audio side of thing. While the music goes the modern gaming route of being boring and unmemorable, the rest of the audio design is really good. The sound effects are perfect, the voice actors, other than a few lines, are top-notch and deliver fairly believable performances… Not much to complain about on that end.

Ideas
The game has a few interesting ideas. I like that you have multiple choices in some segments, some that influence certain things in the ending. Having characters dying but still have the game go on is a great idea too, it makes you look at the narrative in a different way, like “what if Ethan didn’t die, would the story have progressed in a similar fashion?”, and that makes various concepts in this game really damn interesting.

What sucks about the game
The basic gameplay is horrible
But, no matter how interesting certain ideas are in a game, there is one thing that can bring the whole experience down: gameplay. If the gameplay in any video game sucks, no matter how interesting the story is, or how pretty/realistic the graphics are, the game will simply not be good. And sadly that’s the case with this game. This is essentially a QTE game. QTEs aren’t just a gameplay element here, they ARE the gameplay, as a whole. And I’m getting tired of getting into this, but QTEs suck. Always have, always will. And games concentrating on this just aren’t good. Have you replayed Dragon’s Lair recently? It’s really not that good. The animations are nice, and, for the time (1983 in arcades), the gameplay was innovative and very interesting to people since there was nothing of the sort (especially with the graphics compared to everything else on the market). But this type of gameplay isn’t fit for modern games where you can do so much more. The actual QTEs are fairly annoying and frequently hard to see, especially the ones where you have to hold multiple buttons at once (up to 5 which is very uncomfortable), and a lot of the time the game thinks you’re not pressing a button where you actually are. It’s a broken mess really.

The controls are horrible
You wouldn’t think the controls would be bad in a QTE game, but this is crazy. It’s nearly unplayable. The QTEs themselves are okay, despite not being fun whatsoever. The problem is everything else. Trying to choose dialogue choices sucks since they appear around the character, sometimes behind them, and reading them all isn’t always easy, especially when they’re shaking like crazy (happens rather frequently). Walking is the worst thing ever, I have no idea how they got something so simple wrong. The characters’ movements are slow and sloppy, and changing direction is a chore. Rather than just moving in the direction you point the left analog stick towards, you have to hold the R2 button to walk forward, and then you can change directions with the left analog stick… which barely ever works, especially if the camera angle changes, where your character will just go batshit insane. And trying to interact with anything is sort of a QTE, where you have to move the right analog stick in a certain way, and it’s not precise, nor is it fun or engaging.

The story isn’t interesting (there will be very minor spoilers, I won’t reveal anything, just talk about the killer’s motivations vaquely)
For a game that’s all about the story (since it’s clearly not about the gameplay), the story here is very boring. Well, the actual main plot isn’t too bad, and trying to find out who the origami killer is has some mystery to it. There’s a lot of red herrings and the reveal as to who the killer is… is surprising the first time through.

But otherwise… All the characters are barely one-dimensional, the character interactions are unrealistic and just not believable, the writing is terrible (I could predict almost literally every line in the game, it’s that bad), it’s cliche, and the origami killer is even worse of a vilain than Jigsaw. Seriously, when the vilain is revealed and his motivations are told… it’s seriously the stupid. He frankly doesn’t have a much of a motivation, it’s just someone killing people for the lulz. The origami killer is, plain and simple, an old man who has grown spiteful of his drunken father for not coming to save his life when he was a kid, and is killing children because of that. It makes no sense and it’s stupid.

The reason I spoke of Jigsaw earlier is that the origami killer is very similar to him. A bit before the halfway point of the game, it takes a bit of a Saw-ish turn in some segments. In addition to killing the children with a sort of time limit (which is retarded since it relies on the fact that it’s raining, which COULD possibly unexpectedly stop… so that’s a pretty stupid method), his parents have to go through progressively dangerous traps and risk life and limb to get hints as to where the children is (you wonder why the police are investigating just the death of the kids, but not the death/disappearance of some of the parents…). Overall, the story just isn’t interesting.

So much filler
A big part as to why the story isn’t interesting is that there’s so much filler. Why would I want to go through a guy’s morning routine (shower, drinking orange juice, working, watching TV), or  playing with kids, or taking care of a baby, or tons of other pointless segments that do nothing to advance the story? There’s so much pointless things you can and HAVE to do, most “chapters” in the game are entirely pointless. If they removed most of the filler/useless moments, the games might be 5-7 hours shorter, but it would also be a hell of a lot more interesting.

The different endings aren’t that interesting
Which characters live or die do change a few events in the end. Whether Shaun lives or dies, or even who saves him, and what the characters do afterwards… but that’s about it. The epilogue changes, with different scenes depending on what happened for each character, but the actual plot remains the same. The identity of the killer doesn’t change (which would have been really interesting to have a different culprit depending on how the rest of the game unveiled… but this game is all about squandered potential so of course such a feature isn’t there), and it gives very little reason to replay the game unless you’re a trophy whore.

Overall
This isn’t a game. It’s a movie. A bad movie. A 10 hour long bad movie.

I get it. This is an experiment in hopes of putting together movies and games into one seamless experience. But that’s not what we really got, and I’d argue that it’s not an experiement worth doing (games and movies should be seperate media). You have bad basic gameplay, horrible controls, a rather boring and bland story (which had the potential to be good, just without a proper team writing/directing it), lame characters…. This game, other than the technical aspect which is just stunning, has no redeeming factors whatsoever. A few good ideas doesn’t mean they’re executed well. I get that it’s an experiment, but it should have remained an experiment. It’s not evolving gameplay, it’s devolving it to something bad. The only things I can find that people can actually like about this is the graphical quality, and Madison’s boobs, none of which are good reasons to praise a game.

Some people called MGS4 a movie rather than a game, but there’s a huge different. While MGS4 went a bit overboard on the cutscenes, it had solid gameplay to complement the storytelling. Heavy Rain doesn’t even have gameplay.

This is definitely the worst game I’ve played this year, and probably one of the worst games I’ve ever played. And yes, I have played E.T (have 2 copies of it), Superman 64 (only have one copy of that one) and Shaq Fu (have it for both Genesis and SNES), and they’re better than this.

Pros and Cons
Pros
- The story might possibly interest you… (yeah, I’m really grasping at straws for this one)
- Looks good

Cons
- QTEs as the base gameplay is a bad idea
- Controls are bad
- The story isn’t really good
- Way too long (10 hours for a bad movie… why?)
- Way too much filler
- No replay value despite the slightly different endings

The Save Factor
Well, considering it’s a movie, and a really bad one at that, I’ll evaluate it as such… 2$ is the Save Factor on this one, if you’re REALLY desperate for a bad movie.

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Well I just came back from seeing Scott Pilgrim vs the World. And… well, I was originally planning on having one big super-post reviewing the whole of Scott Pilgrim, including the movie, the game, and the comic. But after seeing the movie, I realized I had a lot more to say about it than I was originally expecting. As such, I’ll review the game and movie separately (and will not bother with reviewing the awesome comic series).

Just a quick look at how I got into Scott Pilgrim: I never heard about it, at all, until I saw the first trailer for the movie. And I thought it looked awesome. And then I found out it was actually based on a comic book, so I went and read it, though I waited a while before doing so, so I ended up reading the comic, multiple times, back in June (and the final volume, multiple times, the day it came out). Loved every second of it so I set my expectations for the movie pretty high. And than add the fact that it’s being made by Edgar Wright… yeah, I was really damn hyped.

So read on and see what I liked and didn’t like about the movie!

(NOTE: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS, BUT I’LL TRY TO NOT SPOIL TOO MUCH)

The visuals
I’m generally very picky when it comes to special effects in a movie. Basically, nothing in the last 10 years really wowed me. The CG and green screen effects just don’t mesh very well a lot of the time, and the CG is usually very obvious and not really well done enough to be believable. Scott Pilgrim, on the other hand, very much wowed me. Other than that one “fight” against the Twins, everything in here looked great. That’s what a comic book movie should look like! There’s things flashing everywhere, words for sound effects all the time, and everything fits in seamlessly. Really, that whole “words popping up for sound effects” thing is so well integrated in the Scott Pilgrim world that it never gets old. Every single effect is believable in its own fucked up way. While lots of modern movies just make me think “well that’s obvious CG”, this one made me think “oh shit that looked awesome”. The visuals alone really got me immersed into the movie, and that’s more than I can say about most modern films.

And the editing is masterful at times. The transitions from one scene to another really feel comic book-ish, and some parts are just so awesomely edited, like one part in the third fight REALLY surprised me. And there’s actual use of comic book panels used for backstory which was really cool.

The casting/The characters
Well, there’s some good and some bad to talk about here. Let’s start with the good.

Michael Cera… Who honestly thought he’d nail Scott Pilgrim (not literally)? I haven’t seen much of his movies (Superbad, Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist), but I did see that he seemed to be stuck in one character style and not much more, and, after reading the comics, I really thought that Cera wouldn’t be able to portrait Scott properly. Sure, he had Scott’s “loser” side down okay in his other roles, but his dumb/oblivious/strangely funny side? I was expecting a bit of fail here. And I’m happy to be proven wrong. Cera’s performance is just plain good. He’s very believable in the role, and I don’t think many other actors could have done it as well as he did. He didn’t deliver his performance in the same way that I was expecting Scott to be (AKA a bit more over-the-top), but the way he did it was great for sure.

A lot of the other characters were really good too. Ramona wasn’t as fun as in the comics, but I still feel that the performance was really nice and still true to the original. Knives was great too, though kinda over-acted at some parts. Kim was perfect, they might as well just have taken her straight out of the comic. Wallace was almost half as awesome as he is in the comic, which is saying a lot. And the first 3 exes are quite faithful to their originals as well (though Todd really only looked awesome when he was using is Vegan powers, his attitude was faithful to his comic book incarnation). And I guess Roxy was okay too. Looks-wise she was great, personality-wise she was very similar, but her role, as a whole, was very much downplayed. All of those characters are really fun to look at and mostly true to their comic book versions in regards to both looks and personality.

But I have one, big, bulging problem with the characters. The script leaves NO place for side characters. At all. That drummer girl with the bionic arm that’s in The Clash at Demonhead? Well you see her ONCE in the movie, playing drums. Envy was pretty much completely ruined: partly because the actress didn’t look like her and partly because she was essentially useless to the plot. Which really sucks since Envy is such an important character in the comics. Then there’s some characters that are removed altogether, like Lisa, Mr Chau, Joseph, and quite a few more. Even Crash and the Boys were removed from the equation after the first big fight, despite them originally being super important in the third fight. One of the comic’s strengths is that it has such a powerful supporting cast, helping us explore the main characters a lot better, and here it’s basically all ignored. Even Kim, who is one of my favorite characters in the comic, just doesn’t end up doing much other than playing drums (despite being perfect in the role, she really adds nothing to the story). The casting itself isn’t bad at all, other than for Envy, but all the characters other than Scott, Ramona and Knives just don’t get lots of screen time, or important dialogue.

Faithfulness to the comic
The first half of the movie will have fans of the comics go CRAZY! Sure, there’s some minor changes here and there, and a lot of scenes are tweaked or just plain skipped (the whole fight against Lucas Lee is kinda different but it keeps the same basic idea as the comic and the guy playing Lucas is just awesome in the role). Really, the first half of the movie is awesome, and, if the movie had kept on going like this for the second half, this probably would have been one of the best movies in at least the last 10 years.

The movie starts derailing from the comic during the fight with Todd Ingram. Not before, not after, DURING. It still goes through most of the same events for that fight, but in one big shot rather than being separated in multiple encounters, and the fight between Ramona and Envy is removed. That adds something really weird not too long after: Envy’s “weak point” is actually given to Roxy for some reason. Weird.

Afterwards, the writing takes things that happen in the comic in completely weird directions. One change in the plot is that Scott’s band is in a Battle of the Bands thing. The Twins are completely different from their comic book incarnation. Here, rather than being badass super-intelligent robot makers who resort to kidnapping to fight Scott, they’re just 2 DJs who fight with sound… giving us the lamest battle in the movie, where their sound becomes 2 dragons (lolreference), and The Sex Bob-ombs have their music becoming a yeti or something. I didn’t get it and it made no sense. The Twins were a major turning point in the comic, while here they were just a side-attraction. The part with Roxy was incredibly short too. You had a short intro to her before the fight with Todd, and then, right after the fight with Todd, her part in the story was resolved, without any of the fun scenes from the comic.

And the ending is completely changed from the comic. But I have no problem with taht actually. It adds a lot of really fun elements and a lot of really weird things, but it’s enjoyable. Yeah, while the high point of the movie was well passed by then, the ending is still really damn fun. Cool fights, cool effects, fun plot points added in there. And a few really funny jokes. Yeah, I didn’t expect the ending to be like in the comic, considering the movie was made long before the final volume came out, and this was a pretty satisfactory way to end it. Solid ending!

I already mentioned that no importance is given to side-characters, which sucks, but then there’s the fact that so many of the themes present in the comic, such as the difficulties of growing up and dealing with reality/coping with past actions, are completely ignored. And as such a lot of important scenes from the comics are ignored. And a lot of the back story wasn’t explored whatsoever. They never talk about why Envy breaking up with Scott was so bad for him, for example. It feels like the movie isn’t as “deep” as the comics were.

And really, why the whole “battle of the bands” thing? I don’t get it.

Overall
This is definitely a very fun movie. The first half is just brilliant. Afterwards though, the movie feels incredibly rushed.

Honestly, I feel like it should have been a bit longer (like, an extra 40 minutes), to be a bit more faithful to the comics, or maybe even just to give more time to the supporting cast to be useful. The other thing they could have done is split the movie in 2. That could have enabled to make 2 awesome movies rather than one movie that starts out badass and sort of starts wavering halfway through. 2 movies would have made it a lot easier to more properly follow the comics and could have spent more time exploring the themes from the comics. It really felt like they were pressed for time/money for the second half. So, while it still LOOKS really good and is still really fun to watch at that point, the story-telling takes a nosedive from the first half (just to get back up again, though not as good as the first half, for the finale).

I understand that the movie can’t be 100% accurate to the comics, especially considering how much content there is in there, but some of the changes are just a bit too drastic. I mean, the first 2 fights and the events leading to them are almost identical to the comic, even including completely useless parts like Scott learning the bass for the battle music in Final Fantasy 2, but then the second half just rushes through the battles against Roxy and the Twins, skipping through at a horrifyingly fast rate and skipping most scenes completely, which was a shame.

But it’s still a really fun movie. Good cast, awesome special effects, great comedy almost all the way through, lots of really fun references (and there’s one reference NO ONE expected and it was damn funny because of how spontaneous and random it was) and, despite not being entirely faithful to the source material, still conveys the overall story of the comics quite well (though in a very rushed manner).

Video game/comic book fans should check it out, there’s a lot there to love for them. Fans of the comic series should obviously check it out too, but don’t expect it to be as good and deep as the comic.

Pros and Cons
Pros
- Awesome special effects
- Very good acting
- Great action
- Very funny
- Looking for references is fun
- Despite the huge change from the comic, the climax of the film is very fun

Cons
- The second half of the movie feels rushed
- A lot was changed from the comic that could have remained unchanged
- Some of the themes explored in the comics aren’t touched upon at all in the movie
- The supporting cast is shoved aside to concentrate more on Scott and Ramona, which isn’t a TERRIBLE thing, but still kinda bad considering how great the supporting cast is in the comics
- Why did they ruin Envy Adams? WHY?

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This is a movie I was quite excited about for 2 reasons. First, it’s Alice in Wonderland. And I LOVED the original animated film by Disney, which still lives up to this day. Second reason is that it’s made by Tim Burton, a man who made wonderful movies like Ed Wood and The Nightmare Before Christmas, amongst others(like the beetlejuice cartoons).

Another tiny draw was the fact that the movie was presented in 3D. I didn’t watch Avatar in 3D, so I was quite interested in seeing if the new 3D technology was worth all the hype it was getting.

So read on and see what I thought of the movie, and what I thought of the 3D technology used in it!
(Note: I did not see the movie in Imax, just the “Disney Digital 3D” version of it)

The 3D Technology!
Before I actually talk about Alice in Wonderland, let’s skim over my impressions on the 3D technology used in the movie.
I was one of the skeptical people. A big part of that is that I ALREADY watched “3D” movies a long time ago. Using those Blue and Red glasses that frankly sucked ass. Yeah, they sometimes worked okay, but you had to be viewing from the right angle and the right distance, and the effect was rarely very good. All it was ever used for really was making things jump out at you to scare you. Even the few times I saw “3D” using different technology, it was again just used to make things jump at you. And I thought that the return of the “3D” fad was just gonna be more of that.

Well, I’ll be happy to say that I was wrong. Alice in Wonderland uses the RealD 3D glasses. The basic idea of this new “3D” tech is pretty much the same as the Blue and Red 3D glasses. The screen displays multiple images, and each lens on the glasses blocks out one of the images, somehow creating the illusion of 3D(yay for over-simplifying!). Here though you don’t have different-colored images, instead (I think) being images with different polarities, which makes it look a lot better.

The actual effect… is surprisingly good. Instead of just having things jump out at you, here it does a lot more than that. It actually adds a level of depth to the picture that any other “3D” tech has never really done before (in my experience). The feeling of depth is a lot more natural than just looking at a flat screen. It’s actually a bit hard to explain, but I’ll just say it looks very nice.

My problem is that I was REALLY close to the screen, and on the lowest level in the theater(so I had to look up for the whole movie… my neck hurts now), so I THINK that the effect wasn’t as good as it would have been if I had been placed better in the theater, and sometimes I caught a glimpse of the “extra” images used for the “3D” effect. But overall though, it looked quite nice.

So yeah… I’m not that skeptical about the return of the “3D” fad anymore. BUT I’ll also say that this will never become something that will make or break my movie-going experience. While the visuals are sort of enhanced by the “3D” effect, you’re still seeing the exact same movie as someone who goes to see it in “2D”, and it won’t affect my overall enjoyment of a film. To make a parallel to video games (we are a gaming site after all), games having super-advanced visuals don’t make the games more enjoyable. Games with 8-bit NES graphics are just as enjoyable as the latest epic 3D game on the PS3 or Xbox 360. The same can be said about movies. Seeing them in “3D” won’t make them any better than seeing them in “2D”.

So on the the movie, Alice in Wonderland
The Visuals
The visuals, as to be expected from Tim Burton and an Alice in Wonderland film, are really cool. There’s this weird mix between CG and real people, though most of it is CG, and most people are wearing really excessive make-up, or have some kind of weird visual effect that makes them look CG. But somehow everything worked. The mix of CG and real characters, in mostly CG settings, worked really well. They definitely did their best so that, visually, the film would look perfect, and nothing looks out of place.

The settings were very Wonderland-esque,  but a lot darker than in the original film. It takes place quite a while after the original, so the Red Queen’s dominion hit Underland hard, and the fear of her and the Jabberwocky definitely shows in the visuals. There’s a lot of really cool things to look at, like the river of blood surrounding the Red Queen’s castle, filled with the floating heads of the people she had beheaded, or the weird-looking woods, and many other locales that are really nice-looking. Overall, the movie definitely looks like Alice in Wonderland should look like, and it makes sense with the story that it looks a lot darker.

One minor complaint that I have is that the “3D” effect isn’t perfect here. There’s some scenes where it was great, but I feel that the trailers before the movie started had it a lot better… but then again it might just be because of where I was placed in the theater.

The Characters
The characters aren’t too bad.
Alice acts similarly to the original. She kind of just accepts everything she sees as it is, though here for most of the movie it’s because she believes it’s all a dream. She’s quite well acted and she fits in perfectly with the world around her. She’s also a bit on the crazy side, which I think is quite cool.

The Mad Hatter is a lot more important here than in the last movie, having just about as much screen time as Alice. I find that he’s not exactly as interesting as his old incarnation, acting a bit less crazy than before, despite seeming a lot more insane… If that makes any kind of sense. He’s still a fun character to watch, and Depp’s acting is definitely quite nice here and makes the character believable.

One that kinda disappointed me was the Cheshire Cat. I mean, visually he was really cool, and that teleportation power of his was as awesome as always, and he has that diabolical smile that made him awesome before. But the way he talks and the things he says and the way he acts… aren’t nearly as interesting and fun as in the 1951 film. Maybe it was to fit better with the darker tone of the film or something… But I definitely liked his original incarnation more.

The Queens were okay. The Red Queen(why she’s not called the Queen of Hearts anymore I don’t know) looks really weird, with that gigantic head of hers, but she’s a relatively threatening vilain… Though I feel she kind of lacks conviction when she says her usual “off with their heads”. The coolest part about her is probably her army of Card Warriors. At first I thought they looked a bit stupid, but their look quickly grew on me and I ended up thinking they looked cool, really contrasting with their wacky look in the 1951 film. The White Queen is okay… Her make-up looks a bit stupid, and she’s a relatively shallow character, but the way she moves around and talks is really fun, making her an enjoyable character.

The Jabberwocky… was a bit disappointing. He looked rather cool, despite just being a cliché dragon. But I have a small question here… why did he need to be voiced by Christopher Lee? I mean, yeah, Christopher Lee is awesome, but why get him as a voice in a movie when the character he voices says about 10 words? What a complete waste of ressources … Anyways… The thing with the Jabbberwocky is that we see him for about 5 minutes, during the movie’s climax. There’s next to no build-up(he’s mentioned from time to time, and you know Alice will have to fight him, but that’s about it), so when you see him there’s really no impact, and he doesn’t feel as threatening as he should be.

The rest of the cast was pretty interesting, though not incredibly important. Each character had a unique personality, and everyone was out of their minds, which fits the Alice in Wonderland world nicely.

The Story
This is actually a sequel to the 1951 animated film, which quite surprised me. I mean, I knew that it was a sequel beforehand, but I only actually realized it was a sequel near the end of the film, when there’s a flashback with remade scenes from the original…
So the story… it takes place some time after the original, probably around 10-15 years after. Alice is now a grown adult in her early 20s, who is being set up for marriage. While the man she is set up with is popping the question, she is distracted by a rabbit wearing strange clothes, and decides to follow it rather than answering to the marriage proposal. She, of course, ends up in Underland (AKA Wonderland). Many things that happened in the original happen her here, like her figuring out how to enter the door to Underland using the potion and cake to change her size, and meeting that caterpillar who is always smoking, amongst other things. Here she meets up with a bunch of weirdos, who are saying it might be her destiny to fight the Jabberwocky using the Vorpal Sword (hey, you can’t slay a Jabberwocky if the sword isn’t Vorpal, right?) and save Underland… If she’s the “right” Alice that they are waiting for. That leads Alice to the Mad Hatter who decides to help her on her quest (even if she thinks she’s not the right Alice). She meets up with various weird characters and creatures on the way to her final goal.

I’ll stop right there before getting in spoiler territory… Anyways, the story is rather enjoyable, even if it falls short in multiple aspects. The pacing is a bit weird, though it never goes too slow, and the climax sort of happens out of nowhere. And the ending is incredibly predictable from the start. But the dialogue is very well-written and quite fun to listen to, and there’s a few interesting key moments. The visuals and dialogues really draw you in too. The story is not great, but it’s worth watching.

Overall
I’ll say that, other than a few cool visual effects and such, this doesn’t feel much like a Tim Burton film… But it shows that Tim Burton can direct different kinds of movies than what he is known for.

Anyways… I thought that it was a pretty fun film, and an okay sequel to the original Disney animated movie. The story isn’t incredible, but it’s good enough to make you want to watch the movie through to the end. It’s still quite wacky and strange like the original animated film, and uses similar humor, but I think it feels dumbed down a bit… though that might just be because they reuse most of the wacky things from the original.

The dialogues are nice, the visuals are splendid, the cast is enjoyable, and the story is average. Oh, and the music by Danny Elfman is pretty good too. Fans of the original should find something to like in the film. People who are somehow new to Alice in Wonderland will probably like it too. There are several downfalls, like the lack of build-up for the final vilain, and the story not being nearly as good as it could be, but it’s a really fun movie nonetheless. Not exactly as good as the 1951 classic, but it’s worth checking out, “3D” or not.

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Well, I could just say “O_O” and be done with it for this mini-review, but that wouldn’t do the film justice. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect but I did hear lots of great reviews on this, so I went in there knowing it would probably be okay. But I was wrong… it was GREAT.

So let’s go just a little bit more in detail and talk about one of the weirdest people in the world of cinema!

Read on! (Yeah, I know this movie is 15 years old, but I just saw it for the first time and I thought I should share my thoughts with everyone)

Who was Ed Wood and why should I care?
Ah, Edward D Wood Jr. He was kinda like the Uwe Boll of his time, except less of a douchebag, and funnier… And his movies were so bad they were funny, while Uwe Boll… just sucks.
His most renown film is “Plan 9 from Outer Space”, which is considered one the worst films ever. He was a director/writer/producer/actor that never shot retakes, wrote completely weird scripts that made no sense and had total disregard to the negative criticism and didn’t care if there were errors in his movies, like actors making the sets wobble by hitting them, or bad special effects(Octopus fight!)… stuff like that. He was also well known for having famous Dracula actor Bela Lugosi in his movies. His career eventually(well, not very long after Plan 9 pretty much) degenerated into making lame softcore porn-horror films, like Orgy of the Dead.

Needless to say, he was a weirdo, and no good at his job at all, but at the same time he had a love for what he did, and movies in general. And this is what this movie is all about. And I’m sure he was a big influence in the industry as well, still having a fanbase up to this day. There’s even talk of a remake of Plan 9 from Outer Space (though it just looks like a random zombie flick according to the trailer)…. OH by the way he was a transvestite.

“I thought you were a fag.”
“No, I’m just a transvestite!”

What about the movie?
The movie is directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp. We’re off to a good start. Also, the movie was filmed fully in black and white.

The movie details part of the life of Ed Wood. It shows how he met Bela Lugosi (marvelously played by Martin Landau), how his first movie, “Glen or Glenda”, came into being, the various complications of “Bride of the Monster” (previously named “Bride of the Atom” but changed to have more appeal), the death of Bela Lugosi, and finally the big thing: The production of “Plan 9 from Outer Space”.

The events are told partly factually, though some things are changed, some things are exaggerated, and some things a. The characters are marvelous. Not only do they look exactly like their real world counterparts Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, Lisa Marie as Vampira and Jeffrey Jones as Criswell are particularly convincing. Johnny Depp as Ed Wood looks a bit different from pictures I’ve seen, though he looks exactly the same when he wears women’s clothing. And all of them act more or less accordingly to their real life counterparts. The casting was fantastic to say the least, and there isn’t one character that really feels out of place.
Some events were skipped, some of his productions weren’t shown in the movie, like Jail Bait (before Bride of the Monster). Some other minor elements were changed, like the scene where the final filming of Lugosi is done. But I think the movie goes through most of the important parts of his career.

It was a bit unreal to hear Bela Lugosi swearing all the time, and I don’t know if he was like that when he was alive, but I think it adds realism to the character. We see the end of his life and his last filmed moments, his addiction to morphine and his detox period. He was definitely well portrayed and Martin Landau’s performance couldn’t have been better.

But the one who steals the show is definitely Johnny Depp as Ed Wood. Every time he’s on the screen, it’s marvelous. The way he moves, the expressions on his face at all times, how he looks in women’s clothing, and his overall acting…. it was perfect. When he said something you really believed it, and HE really believed it as well. The way he said “Cut! This was perfect” no matter how bad the scene he was filming was awesome. I’ll say that this is easily my favorite Johnny Depp performance.

I haven’t actually seen any of Ed Wood’s movies, but I saw multiple scenes of most of the more popular ones, and most of the scenes I saw before were shown here, but remade with the new actors, and all of them were perfectly redone. They couldn’t have honored Ed Wood’s pictures any better than they did here.

Overall
This movie is incredible. The acting, the portrayal of everyone in Ed Wood’s life up to Plan 9, the actors looking almost exactly like their real-life counterparts, the story, the comedy, the drama, the very few romantic moments… Everything was perfect. And there’s never a dull moment. I’m having trouble finding anything really bad about the movie. Some might complain that some events were changed or completely omitted, but I find that the parts that were removed weren’t incredibly important either. Oh, and the ending was a bit lame. There was no closure really. They showed a bit of the Plan 9 world premiere, and then showed everyone going out of the theater, and then… just showed every character, with a small text saying what happened to them later on in their lives. I was just expecting more of an ending.

For anyone interested in film-making, this is a must watch. Otherwise, I think it’s still worth checking out.

Ed Wood: He might have been the worst director of all time, but he was passionate about his work, and this is what this movie really wanted to show: That he was, despite his flaws, a fascinating person.

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Well it was leaked on the internet, and refusing to give money to the idiots who, as all DB fans predicted, destroyed the franchise, I checked it out online, on a site that have it streaming. Well… surprisingly I sat through it all, so here are my impressions of it. (Hint: They’re not positive)(Tip: Don’t watch it, even if your life depends on it)

Story(spoilers, but honestly who cares?)
I’ll be honest, I stopped really paying attention to the story about halfway through. But here’s the gist of it: Picollo got released from his seal SOMEHOW (they never explain it) after 2000 years when he almost destroyed the planet, aided by Oozaru (monkey-like creature… you know, what Goku, Gohan and Vegeta all become? well that’s nothing like it!). Now he’s looking for the dragon balls to destroy the world once again.

In his search for the balls he goes to Goku’s house, where his grandpa, Gohan (yes, his grandpa was named Gohan in the manga and anime), has hidden one of the balls and given it to Goku. On that particular evening Goku left with it, so Picollo couldn’t have it, so he used the force to destroy the house after injuring Gohan (who died after giving a little speech to Goku). So now Goku, after a lame scene with Bulma, joins with her and tries to find the Dragon Balls and stop Picollo’s plan. But of course that fails. Eventually, after a series of completely random events that don’t really make sense, Picollo has them all, Roshi (yeah, they met him along the way) tries sealing him again but fails and dies. Goku becomes the Oozaru because he was apparently gonna “revive” when Goku reached 18 years old and saw the eclipse (instead of the full moon). He takes control of his body again, shoots a kamehameha to kill Picollo, asks Shenron to revive Roshi and the movie ends stupidly after Goku and Chi Chi (yeah, she was there before but never did anything important… just like all the other characters) kiss and start fighting.

The story is pathetic. It makes no sense, doesn’t explain anything, and it just makes up stuff instead of actually using the source material. The reason I wasn’t paying attention anymore was because it wasn’t making sense.

Not for Dragonball fans
Well they screwed up all the characters.

Goku’s a teenager(and emo teenager at that) instead of a kid, he goes to school, he doesn’t live in the wild, he’s a fucking  jerk and his history is screwed up. Apparently he’s an Oozaru(and NOT a saiyan for some reason) who tried destroying the world 2000 years prior to the events here, but he sealed himself in a kid’s body after some time(don’t ask, I have no idea what’s going on either) and is supposed to come out at Goku’s 18th birthday. None of this makes any sense. Oh, and he can fly… a bit… Despite only being able to do it freely in when fighting Picollo in the tournament after his training with Kami.

Grandpa Gohan is still alive, which is already weird, but I was fine with that. But he was just a horrible character with no personality.

Chi Chi’s the hot girl in school, and she secretly likes fighting… Well that’s completely random… But… Where’s the fucking Ox King? Why did they just completely change her personality? Because they could, that’s why.

Roshi’s a pervert (yeah, they managed to keep that aspect of him somehow). But otherwise… he just does nothing and is nothing like his anime/manga incarnation. No turtle shell, no flying nimbus, no flying turtle, no Kame House… Blah…

Yamcha…. Well, he’s a bandit! Like in the anime/manga! Yay! But no Puar, no personality, all his comedic aspect is gone, and he seemingly can’t fight. And his actor isn’t taking this seriously at all.

Picollo is a namek. And everyone(well, Roshi, Gohan and the guy who played Winston in the Ghostbusters movies at least) seemingly knows that… Despite anime/manga Picollo not knowing that himself. They screwed up his history too, and like all badly written villains his motives and such make no sense. And there’s a girl who can shapeshift working with him… And he can spawn creatures from his blood (well…he CAN “lay eggs” in the anime/manga(he does so to spawn the DBZ Picollo before dying), but not just spawn random creatures (who can apparently only be killed by getting thrown into lava)).

And, as you could read above, the story has nothing to do with the original material either. Dragon Ball fans will find nothing enjoyable here. It doesn’t have any of that “Dragon Ball” feel to it. And no Krillin is fail (but my theory is that Krillin refused to be in the movie because he knew it was gonna suck so bad, so I’m happy not to see him here…kinda). Oh, and the characters can use the force… using Ki… stupid, I know.

Not for other people either
And non-Dragon Ball fans have even less of a reason to watch the movie. The acting is awful, the story will make even less sense, the special effects are stupidly bad, and it’s, overall, not a good movie. The filmmakers here definitely didn’t give any effort at all to make a good movie. Neither did the actors. Neither did anyone involved in the process.

The film sucked
But at least the agony was relatively short. But that doesn’t excuse ANYTHING about this movie. The acting was laughable(wait, was there actually any acting at all?), the action scenes, other than the first one (which is pretty lame anyways) are boring, it doesn’t respect the source AT ALL and it’s just plain painful to watch. The makers obviously didn’t care either about making a good movie, or making something that was similar to the source material. I actually can’t understand why they felt like making this movie in the first place. For the fun of destroying peoples’ childhoods? I dunno >_>
But, considering all the awfulness of this movie, it still managed to be better than Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li… Not by much, but still a bit…

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Damn, how long did I wait for this movie? It was around my second year of college, so at least 3 years ago, probably close to 4 years by now. Needless to say, I was constantly doubting this movie would actually come out beyond random screenings at places far from here. But at total random I check out the video store’s release list and lo and behold, I see My Name Is Bruce. So it’s actually coming out? Really?

As excited as I was, I had to wait a bit to watch it, because I wanted to see it with friends. But finally, no more than 20 minutes ago, I watched it.

Was it worth the wait? Read on! (don’t worry, really short review, with a few screenshots at the end)

Story

A kid (who is a MAJOR Bruce Campbell fan) goes in a graveyard with his friends, and releases a powerful Chinese demon (A god of war and bean curd), who vows to kill everyone who is related by blood to the kid. This takes place in southern USA, so of course that means EVERYONE IN THE VILLAGE (a village called Gold Lick) is blood related.
On his side, Bruce is feeling down, being depressed that he doesn’t feel the magic of making movies anymore and his personal life is sucking ass. Yeah, it’s really Bruce, not a character.
This all changes though, when the people of Gold Lick kidnap him and tell him a demon is attacking them, and that he’d be the one to save them all. Because of something his agent said the day before, he believes this is all a stunt and just “plays along” for a while, thinking everyone there is an actor, but he eventually realizes the truth.

The story is entertaining. It has that B movie quality to it, and it leads to a bunch of fun situations.

The rest of the stuff
The special effects are good. Gotta love B movie special effects. They always seem a lot more real than CG. Sometimes they look cheap, but that’s just because they’re supposed to. Not the best effects in Bruce’s history, but some good stuff nonetheless.

The comedy is awesome. Bruce is a badass bad-mouthing dude who loves referencing his old movies, and the rest of the characters, though (mostly) not that funny themselves, help Bruce’s comedy a lot. May it be random references to his old movies or just random little jokes and recurring jokes, the comedy here is really entertaining.

The deaths are sadly a bit cheap. Mostly beheadings that all look the same (or at least are handled similarily). The best death though is Ted Raimi’s (when he’s playing that painter guy), really funny. A few other funny deaths, but nothing REALLY great.

Overall
Overall, well it was worth the long wait. The comedy was great, the effects were okay, the story was entertaining enough, and it features Bruce Campbell’s chin, who did a pretty good job here.
If you’re a Bruce Campbell fan, this is a MUST WATCH. Otherwise, well the comedy might be good enough for just about anybody, though non-fans might just not understand a lot of it.

Pictures
Yeah, I’ll insert a few screenshots.

The God of War and Bean Curd in all his foggy glory!

Bruce gets pwnd by a quarter and a baseball bat

"Don't you speak engrrrish?!?!?!?!?!" What a useless character that was...

Bruce getting some MILF ass

Bruce and his band of Southern minions, about to fight the demon!

Didn't he learn to use a shotgun in the Evil Dead movies? Don't let a girl teach you man!

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The new look Leon and Claire, back in action.

 

Resident Evil Degeneration is Capcom’s answer to the Hollywood smash hit take on the survival horror franchise that has revolutionised the genre time and time again. Instead of Alice and her telekinetic powers, we see a pre-Resident Evil 4 Leon team up with an old friend to combat a new outbreak. Is this film the true film adaptation of Resident Evil? Or is it as lifeless as a zombie? Read on to find out…

Note: Beware of a few spoilers.

The film’s premise is quite a simple one. In a post-Raccoon City Incident world, Umbrella have fallen and new companies are vying for it’s position as the leading pharmaceutical corporation in the world – with WilPharma leading the charge, so to speak, with the promise that they have taken extra precautions to prevent a similar catastrophe to Umbrella. There’s also some news regarding the usual terrorist stuff thrown in there for good measure. The story begins properly when a viral outbreak occurs at an unnamed Airport in mid-Western America, which just so happens to be where Claire Redfield has arrived. As things take their turn, the virus spreads out as zombies start eating more people within the Airport. Before long, the Special Response Team comes to the Airport and cordon it off to prevent the spread of the infection. With them, by order of the President himself, is Leon Kennedy. Graphically, everyone in the film looks spectacular – the zombies are very well designed, with a great variety and plenty of detail in regards to disfigurements, and the main cast are extremely well done. Leon looks drastically different to how he does in Resident Evil 4, with far more detail in his face and composure, even though he has the same voice actor and the same attire. It’s not so hard to believe he has the most attention to detail in terms of design, given how popular Leon is and how much of screentime he has. Claire is similarly detailed, her attire being quite different to what we remember her wearing back in RE2, with a more detailed body overall. The only problem I have with how the characters look in the film is that some of them look too fake – almost as if the guys at Capcom were trying to hard to get a realistic appearance for some characters.

The plot of the film moves along very nicely, being far better paced and interesting than the Hollywood counterparts, with some nice twists and turns throughout and some cliché scenes line the lot to give a very good and very full feel overall. The connection various characters have are surprising, to be honest, with Leon and Claire’s relationship not actually taking centre stage for much of the film. The script is very solid, even if it does change how certain characters behave, with very few corny lines in it at all and the voice actors all deliver their roles perfectly – fans of Crispin Freeman should keep an ear out for his role as Frederic Downing, an important yet small role in the film. In stark contrast to the wonderfully played out vocals, one of the film’s biggest issues seems to be motion capture – surprising, given how the credits place a lot of emphasis on the work that had been done. While for the most part the characters move about quite well, there are certain scenes where they either walk worse than the zombies do or they move in a strangely detached way. It can really break the mood at times. Thankfully, that’s where the music comes into play. A collection of gentle tunes line the majority of the film, offering the kind of soundtrack that really does complement the film well. When the action picks up, so does the music. In place of the relaxed tunes are stronger, more vibrant ones. Tetsuya Takahashi wrote all of the music in the film, proving how outstanding he is at composing. The action sequences in this film are definitely the highlights, showing us why Leon and Claire survived Raccoon City through their use. Leon, for example, easily dispatches of all the zombies he comes across with single shots to the head. Used as a mechanic to underscore just how professional and badass Leon is, are the two SRT soldiers who are armed with better guns yet kill far less zombies – spending more time spreading fire than anything else. In another scene, we’re shown how skilled Claire is with a gun, when she deftly takes care of a trio of zombies while also protecting a survivor from harm.

Overall, Resident Evil Degeneration is what fans of the series have been looking for. It’s a great representation of the franchise with better set pieces and battles than their Hollywood counterpart. I’d highly suggest this to any fan of the series as well as anyone who would like to watch a good zombie flick. While this won’t beat out films like Dawn of the Dead, it does its job very well and delivers on its promise.

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Video game movies tend to suck ass. There are a few exceptions of course, but overall, for some reason movie makers can’t do any good when it comes to making video game movies.
But can you really go wrong with a movie with hot japanese girls in bikinis/schoolgirl outfits killing zombies with katanas that also parodies everything anime/zombie flick/action movie? The answer is no, you can’t go wrong with that. And that is really all Onechanbara is about.
 
Story (possibly slight spoilers)
Based on a game series by the same name(originally part of the Simple 200 series by D3 publisher), Onechanbara has a relatively simple premise. A crazy scientist from D3 corporation was conducting experiments to bring people back to life. Of course, that caused a huge zombie outbreak throughout the world. People who survived the outbreak are struggling to survive and trying not to become zombies themselves.
Enter Aya,  bikini-clad hot japanese girl out to find her sister, Saki, who is working for the evil scientist ho caused the outbreak and, after the outbreak, didn’t stop conducting his experiments. Aya has been, for a couple years, just randomly wandering around japan with some fat guy, killing every zombie in sight.
One night when fighting a bunch of zombies they come across some leater-clad girl with a shootgun that knows where to find Saki, so they head out towards the enemy’s… castle? Yeah, sure looks like it. Anyways, they head out over there, and along the way you hear about each character’s heart wretching past. Basically it all involves one of their loved ones getting killed or kidnapped by the evil professor/Saki.
The story isn’t incredible, but it works well and the characters, as cliche as they are, aren’t exactly that bad either(though the fat dude is pretty damn useless). Overall, entertaining story, it’s enough to keep the movie going and the emotional moments aren’t too bad. Not a bad story, but don’t expect anything incredible.

Action scenes
Now THIS is where this movie is great(well, other than the japanese schoolgirls/bikini girls). The action scenes are basically a big parody of anime and action movie action scenes, and wow they pulled that off really well. Just about everything in there parodies something. You get the anime-style “teleport dash”, auras covering characters/weapons, characters moving incredibly fast and being able to stop bullets and such. Realy, the action scenes really carry the movie on their own. Fast paced, exciting, and just really cool visually.

Zombie scenes
I did say it was a parody before, and the “zombie scenes” are just funny. They actually aren’t really scary and just exploit a bunch of zombie flick cliches. They keep popping out of nowhere, there’s body part getting ripped off, zombies just randomly eating people on the side of buildings… The visual effects really have a B-movie feel to them, and frankly i like that. They give more… realistic visuals sometimes than just badass CG. And if the effect is badly pulled off, at least you get a good laugh out of it.

Pictures
Of course I took a few screen captures.
Sorry for the low quality, but the video file i managed to find didn’t look that great either.

First appearance of Aya

Facing off against a few zombies. They're gonna get pwnd.

WTF is that?

Oh, they were clashing after powering up... wait what?

More super powers... I dare you to try stopping a bullet with a katana like that.Â

OVERALL
So is this a good movie? Well, yes, it is.  But you have to go at it with an open mind. You have to either have little to no expectations on this, or know that it’s just a big parody.
The visual effects are nice, the B-movie feel really helps, the action scenes are fun, the story, although really simple, is quite good, the whole parodying everything zombie/action/anime flick thing is really fun, and if you like anime you’ll have a blast out of the final battle. 
Bottom line: You like sexy japanese girls wearing bikinis or schoolgirl outfit? Check this movie out now. And if you want a good laugh and some nice thrill out of the fights too. Not a bad movie, and an example that movies based on video games can actually be good.

Other bottom line: I can’t wait for the Wii release of Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers in early 2009.(as well as an Xbox360 version… if i have a 360 by then)

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During their Fall Press Conference today, Nintendo have – as expected – announced a new version of the Nintendo DS. Called the Nintendo DSi, it eschews the GBA slot (boo!) in favour of a slight downsizing (it’s a little thinner) and a range of improvements. The handheld’s screens have been enlarged, and will now be 17% bigger (at 3.25 inches) than those found on the DS Lite. As for the rumoured additions, both have proven to be correct, with “audio enhancements” made to the handheld, while it will also now include a .3 megapixel (640×480) camera. And that’s just the start of it.

The DSi also features an SD memory card slot, making it possible to take pictures with the DSi and then view them on the Nintendo Wii. The DSi features a built-in browser, and it’s possible to download games and keep them on the DSi.

For digital delivery purchases, there is a DSi Shop, from which users can download DSiWare from. Pricing categories for the DSiWare are: Free, 200 points, 500 points and “Premium” or 800 points. Customers will get 1000 free points to spend at the DSi Shop that are good until March 2010.

The DSi will be released in Japan on November 1. It will retail for ï¿¥18,900 (USD$180), and will be available in two colours, white and black.

Reports Kotaku.

Screenshot – and some other news in the full page

So here’s what it looks like:

The new DS model, will you buy one?

Personally, I’m still at the original boring grey model, huge ass DS.  It didn’t get much use in the last few months, and I see it as a Phoenix Wright machine mostly. I know there’s a lot of good games, but I can only have so many RPG games unfinished before starting new ones.

Now for more sour news, I suggest you take some antioxidants before watching, you might actually feel sick from this one. A Dragonball movie trailer as been leaked, and boy is it awful.  I mean, I’m not surprised, but this deserves /facepalm times 100.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1620698&w=425&h=350&fv=]

You can’t say I didn’t warned ya! *goes back to throw up in the toilet*

Now more seriously, making a Dragon Ball movie is an AUTO-fail deal. I mean, either they would have made it with a lot of CG to look like the real characters with funky hair, and look ridiculous for outsiders, or either they do what they just did.  Which, isn’t much Dragon Ball anymore.

Great job guys! You just ruined the series that inspired so many other series afterward, in the WORST way possible.

——-

update: Freshly-in, more news reported from Kotaku’s coverage of today’s Nintendo’s conference.  A new Punch-out game for the Wii. It’s been almost 15 years since a Punch-Out game was released. I think this calls for celebrations!

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