Movie Review: Despicable Me

Minions! Steve Carell returns to the animated film industry this time as a gentle yet still evil protagonist. After voicing a few characters from movies such as Over the Hedge and Horton Hears a Who, this time around he is cast as Gru, a super-villian who formulates a plan to utilize three small cookie-scout selling girls in order to infiltrate his nemesis's fortress. His plan? To use a shrink ray in order to steal the moon! However, after adopting the three children and living with them for a while, Gru must make a major decision: villainy or parenthood.

Although the only comedic scenes/laughable jokes in most of the comedies I have seen recently are bunched together in the preview so that if you actually buy a ticket you get to sit through the boring parts in-between gags, Despicable Me doesn't have that problem. There are still a few emotional non-comedic scenes and the occasional "they're trying way to hard" joke, however, one word makes up for it all: minions! The oblong yellow one/two-eyed little guys made this movie. Without them and their comedic timing, I wouldn't have been in such a good mood after walking out of the theater. The nonsensicalness of such a creature and the weird yet humorous noises it could make with its mouth kept me and my friends laughing throughout the movie.

I realize that this movie is directed toward a younger audience, however after sitting through it, I felt that people of all ages could appreciate the humor found within this film. All of the middle-aged adults sitting in front of and around me were able to laugh and have a good time with this movie. In fact, if I remember correctly there were only a handful of younger-aged children in the audience (and of course with its wacky style they were very amused).

Even with the filming of Dinner for Schmucks and the ongoing hilarity of The Office, Carell was able to voice a main character in a family comedy while still giving it his all. (The Russian accent of Gru was, as it seemed to me, spot on). So far, Steve Carell has yet to disappoint me whether he appears in person or as a voice-over. Despicable Me is a fun-filled movie that everyone will enjoy, even the older audiences. And trust me....it was far better than the last movie I reviewed. I still want to get that hour and a half out of my mind.

Despicable Me gets a 3.5/5.

Movie Review: The Last Airbender

I don't even wanna talk about it.

Edit: Fine I'll review it....though no one reads this anyway.

I've been posting lately about how I am still unaware of what direction I want to take my blog. Whether it be a compilation of serious posts, a variety of comedic anecdotes, or continue along the video game/movie reviews. However, I feel that if I review this movie that most of you readers would feel I've gone off into a "rant blog" verbally exclaiming my distaste for the world and the society for which I live in. Even though that is not the case, I warn you now it's going to sound as if this movie made me jaded/depressed/hate society. Which, as it turns out, it moderately did. Though my hatred isn't directed toward society as much as it is toward M. Night Shamalamadingdong. (I'll have a few choice words later for him in the post)

This "movie" is the live-action adaptation of a highly acclaimed television series that aired on Nickelodeon a few years back. I'll be honest here, I was a fan of the show. It had developing characters, comedy, a divulging storyline (even though it went off on random tangents at times), and an intriguing yet nostalgic art style. The Last Airbender only focuses on the first book of the series since if they tried to cram all three seasons into one movie it would turn out even worse (if that's possible). Aang (apparently Shyamalan wants to pronounce it Ah-ng), an airbending nomad, befriends two water-tribe villagers and the adventure begins. In a world where the elements are "bendable" or manipulated by humans, only Aang as the Avatar is capable of utilizing all four. In the first installment of the series, Aang realizes that he must learn the remaining three elements if he is to end a war 100 years in the making. And thus the story begins.....

So where did Shyamalan go wrong? First off, he screwed up when he took the job. Seriously when's the last time Shamalamadingdong's produced a half-decent movie? I thought The Village was adequate and the "twist" at the end was different but that came out six years ago and I was only 13 so of course I would think it was interesting. Lady in the Water and The Happening were complete flops as well, so why hand over a series with an enormous fan base to a vividly failing director? His kids. He recently discussed that while his children were watching the show as it aired on TV, he also became hooked on its individuality and style. As a fan of the series, he was able to coax Paramount studios to allow him to direct the adaptation. I myself would just like to know one thing: what did his kids say after seeing this atrocity of a movie? The twist of this movie? It sucked....big time. Though it seems as if he used that twist in his previous movies as well....maybe he's running out of twists.

So here's what I felt he did wrong throughout the movie:

1. Pronunciation. Seriously that part ticked me off. If you're going to make a live adaptation of a cartoon, at least get the character names right. Especially the main character. Who the freak is Ah-ng? And Ee-row? Don't even get me started on Soh-kah. That's just a slap in the face to fans of the show.

2. Plot holes. I know that the ten hours of season 1 had to be condensed down to fit into a movie timeslot, but the lack of important scenes facilitated Shyamalan's failure. Throughout the movie, the trio of Sohkah, Ahng, and Katara only met a minor character by the name of Haru (who is supposed to be a man but rather appeared to be a small asian woman). They didn't even run into Suki or Jet, both of whom play major.....and I mean major roles in the following two seasons. I can understand why they didn't meet Bumi, Ahng's ancient earthbending friend since he was in the show for comedic relief, however, skipping over two main characters in order to include a sub-character like Haru is just plain stupid.

3. Lack of humor. That's what the show was all about! Comedy! Iroh and Sokka were hilarious and sarcastic, and Aang was a happy, spirited avatar. In the movie, everything was serious. Comedic relief was scarce and bland, and all the characters felt as though they were just reciting a middle school play of the show. The deep, emotional personalities from the characters in the cartoon were nowhere to be found in the film adaptation.

4. Acting. Like I said, it seemed as though I was watching a horrible middle school version of the show. Most all of the actors were terrible at their jobs with their poor acting skills. I know that the main cast was supposed to be pre-teen to teen aged children, but other movies have been successful with such a cast. i.e. Harry potter, the Goonies, etc. As far as the issue of race goes, sure the characters in the cartoon appeared Chinese while the characters in the movie were Indian/Caucasian, but I was at least able to get past that.....moderately.

5. Bending. I will give them this, the CGI was extremely well done in some scenes. The flow of water and the ferociousness of fire appeared almost realistic. However, if Shyamalan actually watched the show instead of reading a Cliffnotes for it, he would have noticed that the characters don't dance around for five seconds before any bending actually occurs. If it happened once or twice I wouldn't call him out on this, but every time a character manipulated an element, they had to do a fancy dance as if they were forced to please the Water God before being able to move anything. In that time I just imagined someone staring at the character while they perform yoga or tai chi or whatever, pausing to laugh inside their head, then throw a throwing knife ending the movie. Seriously, I know that the ancient art of Chinese fighting is sacred and all, but I don't think that leaving yourself vulnerable for that long is a good idea. Besides, it just looked silly. Just saying. On another note, when did firebenders require a source of fire for their attacks? I'm pretty sure they could just create it at will......way to stick with the show Shyamalan.

Now comes the only positive statements that I can possibly make about this movie. Near the beginning while Katara and Sohka were talking to their grandmother about Ahng, she mentioned her friend Hama who was taken away by the fire nation. Any fan of the show should know that the group actually meets the character of Hama in the final season of the series. She turns out to be a blood-bender which is creepy, but awesome since she can make a person her human puppet by manipulating the blood in their veins. And I've already stated that the CGI was pretty good in some parts.

Other than those two adequate positive outlooks, the movie was just plain bad. I knew it was going to be horrible before I watched it, however I just wanted to see how much Shyamalan butchered an excellent series. To me, it was worse than I had initially thought. And that's saying something since I had read that it had gotten an 8/100 on rotten tomatoes the day before I saw it.

Overall, if you haven't seen this movie yet, don't. Please don't encourage Shamalamadingdong to direct the next two (if they even make another movie). If anything, and I don't condone this, it's probably on the internet somewhere. Just watch the first five minutes, see how bad it is, then never mention it again. This is the first time in recent memory I literally almost went to the ticketbox and asked to get my money back it was that bad. This is a horrible rendition of the TV cartoon and I'm now almost offended to consider myself a fan of the show. Just stay away from this one at all costs. Now that I've finished ranting, I'm going to go apologize to my friends for having them come with me to see this "movie."

Nice job Shyamalan. A 0.5/5. And those are just pity points.

Nine Months....Psh That's Not A Long Time

Since I haven't posted anything since September of last year....actually I don't really know how to continue that statement. School took up most of my time until Summer began in May and I've never had the urge to get back into blogging until now for some reason. Perhaps it's because I feel like there's no one reading the useless babble that I type every once in a while. But in order to control my sanity over the next few months, as well as to keep up my writing ability, I'll try and post some interesting material over the next few weeks, even if no one reads it. I have been playing/reviewing/getting frustrated by video games since I got home. Fable 2, Mirror's Edge, Gears of War, Mass Effect, and God Of War 3 are all on my "to review" list. But then again I also want to take this blog in directions other than the monotonous overused "video game blog."

Eh, I'll think about it. Oh and by the way......leaving a comment would make me more inclined to continue posting stuff.....that is if you're interested. =]

Man, I've Been Busy!

So like yeah, I've been getting used to college life and stuff. Been kinda busy with all the tests and quizzes...and Student Government...and juggling club so I havn't really gotten the time to post in a looooong time. I know....

Since I don't have a console in my room.....I'm kinda stuck on where to go from here. I could take the adventerous route and start discussions....or I could just mooch off my friends and review games I play in their dorm =]

We'll see what happens okay?

This is just to let you guys know that I understand that I still have a blog haha but I havn't been updating like other people I know. Anyway yeah check back for updates in the coming weeks.

Edit: Make that months. I'm lazy.

Peace.

Dead Space Review

What's this?!?!? Electronic Arts making a decent game that ISN'T a sports game? And you're telling me its a survival horror game? Where the crap did this come from?

Dead Space IS a survival horror game. It IS by Electronic Arts. And it ISN'T that scary. Whoops did I just ruin it? I guess I did.

The game begins with as you crash land on the deck of the USG Ishimura, a mining ship that recently lost all communications. You play as Issac Clarke, assigned to investigate the termination of the ship. As you walk into a room, a quarantine takes effect and all the doors lock. You can only watch as a muntant....thing...pops down out of the ceiling and feasts upon the flesh of your crew.

Oooo that's scary you might say. Dead Space is a game that doesn't scare as much as it's advertised to. Once you see one enemy revive itself from acting dead, you get tired as the set pieces begin to repeat themselves. I found myself looking at a "dead" enemy on the floor thinking.....balls I have no health, two shots left, and there's an enemy about to bite my face off and rape my eye sockets.

The only disturbing feature of the game I found was the variety of ways enemies can disembody your special main character. There's the old fashioned chop my limbs off like I'm the black knight from Monty Python. However, some enemies had horiffic methods to disembowl me. One of which is the squid like thing. Let me just pause here....So I'm playing on Medium mode when the squids arrive. I try shooting them but there's a few of them and they take damage pretty well. Not to mention they're fast as heck. The squids decide to take advantage of my 5% health and jump on my face. In their enjoyment, the squid that was hungriest of all decided to rip my head off. But no he wanted more! He then took it upon himself to stick his long tenticles down into the area where my head used to be, jamming them into my spine and such so that his head was now my head. What made the scene worse was the fact that Issac still had some life in him as he tried desperately to pull the creature off. Yeah that part....was pretty freaky.

The rest of the game is pretty repetitive. In one chapter you have to find a specific type of enemy screwing up the clean air and take care of him. The only problem, there's about 10 of them scattered about an enormous floor of the ship. It seemed to me as if the designers were just trying to lengthen the game to fit it into the 6-8 hour game time slot.

Boss fights are pretty well done though. Especially the one in zero gravity. Zero-G thoughout the game is fairly intuitive and works well for the genre. When you enter a Zero-G zone you have another dimension for enemies to pop out of.

Dead Space is good for a suspenseful night and is best played with the lights out and no ambient noise. It's no Silent Hill 3, but under those circumstances, it can really get the blood pumping. Since I borrowed this game from my friend, I felt I might as well get all of the trophies/achievements for it. It took me a while, Impossible mode was the most annoying, but I perservered. If you play on Easy mode then don't expect any scares at all. Pretty much every enemy dies in one hit its almost laughable.

It's good enough for a rent if you've got an urge for a horror game though I won't suggest buying it since now that I've beaten it on the hardest difficulty I find that there is nothing else I can do in the game. It's not a long lasting game but for the time spent playing it, it's well worth it. Check it out.