Snow White and the Huntsman (and a little bit of Mirror Mirror)

Okay, I didn’t review Mirror Mirror. I’m not sure why. I really liked that movie, but I couldn’t quite put in to words what I liked about it. It was just campy fun that felt like it was honouring, and satirising, the Disney-style fairy tale films. I guess that’s my review of it. See that film. You might not agree with me, but it’s well worth watching, especially in this age of fairy tale films that are being DARK and EDGY and GRITTY. You know, like what Snow White and the Huntsman was trying to be.

Now, this film I can honestly put into words how I felt about it. A lot of words. But I think one word that mostly sums it up is ‘vacuous’. The film is just so empty and devoid of substance that it doesn’t leave a lasting impression. As I left the cinema I was complaining about certain aspects of the film, but often found myself trying to remember what else I didn’t like because though I didn’t like it I still couldn’t remember what it was.

Snow White and the Huntsman is your basic Snow White story but made all dark because fun isn’t allowed any more. Now we have a ridiculously evil queen (Charlize Theron) and her ridiculously evil brother (Sam Spruell) taking over a kingdom and then locking the vacant princess, Snow White (Kristen Stewart) in the dungeon. Of course, Snow White escapes and is then hunted by Eric, the title’s ‘Huntsman’ (Chris Hemsworth). Of course, Snow White befriends the guy in about a minute because the evil brother just blurts out that he’s going to betray Eric.

This is our main cast for most of the film. What’s that? You want dwarfs in this Snow White film? Ah, no you don’t. They’ll just be some side characters who offer little to the plot or story. In fact, you can pretty much say that about any character, to be honest. There’s some talent in here (Theron and Hemsworth) but they are wasted on an awful script that gives them so few lines and such little time for character development that they don’t really have screen presence. But in a film where no one has much screen presence I suppose they fit in extremely well.

The acting was, at times, pretty good. Hemsworth and Theron do what they can with the script and some of the dwarfs seem to be trying their best to be memorable (spoilers: they aren’t). However, the evil brother is just irritating with his over-acting, whilst Stewart is bland. She’s always bland. I’ve seen her in the Twilight films, Adventureland and this and in all of these she has the same blank expression on her face. Sometimes she’ll try to emote but this is worse than the blandness as moving her facial muscles obviously causes her a lot of visible pain.

The plot was pretty dire, too, and seemed to have little focus. The scenes didn’t have much flow, leaving you wondering how or why the story was at that point. At a few points things made no sense, such as characters coming back from the dead from plot convenience or a quick scene with Theron showing her do nothing whatsoever. Then it just all kind of ended with little resolution to anything (SPOILERS: Snow White stabs her. She dies. Then Snow White becomes the queen. Then she looks around at everyone. THE END!). Personally, I expected some kind of epilogue or speech or something, but there was nothing whatsoever. It just ended like a cheesy 80s action movie.

Don't know what happened here. Strange stuff happens a lot for no reason.

Then we have the thing that could have helped this movie hold itself together: the action. People love action scenes. They are fun. They are even better if we can see what’s going on. Thanks to some pretty bad cinematography I couldn’t keep track of any of the fight sequences, sometimes wondering what part of the setting the camera was focussing on or who was fighting who. One scene had a fight at night with fire lighting the area, but bugger me if I could tell you who was fighting in it or who was on which side. Pull out the camera bit then I may have seen more of it and enjoyed it.

This was upsetting as I could see some pretty good combat going on in there. It looked realistic and it seemed that every hit had an effect on the fight. I just wanted to see these fights. It’s a shame because most of the cinematography and directing was pretty good, showing off some good looking scenery (though it was too focussed on the scenery at some points, rather than focussing on plot and such). It was just when things were happening that it all fell apart visually. 

Keeping with the visuals, actually, I did see a lot of points I thought “That looks like Lord of the Rings”. The mountains, the panning shots of people walking over greenery, stuff like that. It all stank of Lord of the Rings. Then there were the crows, or ravens (the Queen is called Ravenna), that looked strangely like Saruman’s spies. Oh, and then they ripped off that bit in The NeverEnding Story where Artax, the horse, drowns in the Swamps of Sadness. That was just shameful. This film borrowed from a lot more films, resulting in something that was more Avatar than Pulp Fiction. 

This film, however, did have potential to be good. It lost its focus early on and spent too much time on scenes it didn’t need to. Some more characterisation would have been good, especially for the two characters who are IN THE TITLE, and maybe someone could try and get Kristen Stewart to have as many, maybe more, emotions than Nic Cage. At least then she would show some emotion. A tighter, better script would have been nice as well. Weird how a 2 hour long film could do so little...

Battle Royale - A Response

This post is in response to the review of the manga, film and novel versions of Battle Royale, a book I love, a film I think is very good, and a manga I hate. This post is just about my thoughts on the manga, expanding upon the thoughts of the review. You can find the review at Fucking Zombies! Check it out, it's a good blog.

You feel almost exactly the way I did about all three of these. Thought, I have to say I have an uncontrollable hatred of the manga.

See, the manga changed characters too much. As you said, things are over sexualised, but I don't think you've even covered the extent of it. These two sentences come hand in hand as Mitsuko Souka such a massive amount that her entire motivation in the manga is sexual thrills. Which pisses me off. Oh, and having her backstory seemed like a cop out to make her sympathetic, when really she's just a terrible person.

On top of this, the big change with Shuya Nanahara with his "I refuse to kill" atttitude just irritated me as it completely missed the point of the novel (having to kill to survive, even though you don't like it) and would have just caused too many issues throughout the book.

But the biggest betrayal in the manga is probably my favourite storyline in the novel: that of the journey of Hiroki Sugimura. They made him out to be an ultimate badass, when really he was just a normal guy driven by love. On top of that, the fact he doesn't die at the correct time just ruins the importance of his story. His love powers him on, in the novel, but he dies because of the island, but also is able to express his love because of it. Kind of a double edged sword kinda place.

And then he does a Kamehameha. I mean REALLY?! This is meant to be set in REALITY, and not some fucking fantasy world.

There are lots of other issues with the manga besides character change, though. One of the biggest issues I have, as you said, is the art. Yes, everyone is quite 'bishi', but that wasn't really my issue. My issue was that everyone was drawn as a certain category, which, to me, felt like the artist was a lazy bastard. Now to give each one names.

First we have the 'Frog'. This is reserved for your "ugly on the outside, ugly on the inside" types. So many lines on the face, drool and maybe even attempts at being creepily sexual. Kinda reminds me of the snails from Uzumaki.

 After that we have the 'Nutter', which is what I like to call the same face and stance everyone pulls when they go insane. It usually consists of crying, weird eyes and maybe movie in a funny way.

We also have the 'Brute’. He’s basically your large-nosed big guy. The diametric opposite of this is the ‘Kid’, your type who, whilst in the same class as everyone else, seems to be about 10 years younger.

 

We finally have the ‘Hero’, your average main character type, as well as the ‘Woman’, because at least the art can be consistent there.

If you want to see a woman type, look at the original blog.

So yeah, I think that’s all of the characters. It’s only, y’know, been about 3 or 4 years since I read it. This rage sticks.

I do find you are pretty correct on everything, though. I just felt that the horrifying quality of the manga needed to be expanded upon. The novel is one of my favourite books. With this you may think “Well, any changes would piss you off!” No, actually. The film is so different to the book but the film does something good: it tells a competent story and knows where to focus to tell its own story. It captured the essence of the original novel, but does its own thing with it, and that’s only good.

This is a long post for a response (so much so I decided it would serve better as a blog post), but as I said, I felt the manga needed to be vastly expanded upon.

I just hope the video game is better than the manga.

What? This isn't to do with Battle Royale? Dammit!

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Reviewed Platform: PS3

Other Platforms: Xbox 360, PC

WARNING: SPOILERS

I loved Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. It was my favourite game in the series so far, and I theorised that it would probably be the best combination of gameplay, gameplay elements and story that we’d find within the Assassin’s Creed series. If you want to see why just check out my review of it.

When Revelations was coming out I was sceptical. I had kind of had enough of Ezio. He’s cool and everything, but his story was over in Brotherhood. So, I went into Revelations not really sure what to expect story wise, nor was I sure what they would change to make this one stand out.

The answer came to me quickly. They changed very little that mattered. The UI had a complete overhaul and they added bombs. Neither of these things did it for me, the change in UI seeming pointless and the inclusion of bombs just irritating. I went through the entire game without using bombs as they seemed pointless and too much worthless effort as I wanted to get up close and personal or use my crossbow to take dudes out, which I couldn’t as the crossbow is super expensive. On top of this we have a hook-blade, which just seems to defy common sense and biology (I swear using it would cause your wrist to snap off in an instant). 

Oh, and the less said about the stupid Tower Defence mini-game the better.

Everything that was introduced to Brotherhooddidn’t seem to have much of a place in this game. In fact, a lot of things were dropped. For one, horses are no longer in the game. Nor is an interesting city layout, which now just seems sloppily put together (we’re in Constantinople now). Building up a brotherhood just seems purely peripheral now and seems nigh on useless.

Viewpoints are no longer as spectacular as they once were

So yeah, the gameplay was kind of lame. But a lot of the little niggles I had were always there (such as parkour not always working properly). Why was I suddenly noticing these things? I loved the gameplay in all previous games, even the first game. What went wrong? Well, I theorise the problem is that the others had a cohesive and interesting story to hold it all together. You lose this and it all falls apart. And this was my biggest issue with Revelations.

Revelations no longer seemed to tell Ezio’s story. This time it was about the struggles of Constantinople. There’s a Templar presence, of course, but they just seem to want to bring the Byzantines back, rather than do anything seemingly useful. There’s a massive focus on this story that seems to have nothing to do with Ezio. He’ll get involved, but for the most part I can’t see why.

What should have been the focus of the game was the side plot. All these B-side missions that come about involving Ezio gaining his humanity back at such an old age. He gets to know this other Italian, Sofia, and through their bonding he realises that he is getting too old to be an Assassin. He needs to pass on the torch. This coincides with the story of Altaïr, another part of the game that had little focus on it.

Quite clearly some futuristic DVD

See, Altaïr has left these DVDs around and they tell his story bit by bit. But they really don’t, as the story skips around so much we can’t reconnect with him. The story tells of how he has been exiled and how he deals with it, I think. He gets married, has children and attempts to bring down a colossal douchebag who has taken over the Assassins. This would be a good story in its own right, but it falls short so many times.

Here are some problems. Firstly, how did that guy get to take over the Assassin’s? He’s clearly incapable of doing so and an absolute tyrant. Secondly, Altaïr’s son dies and Altaïr goes to ask the tyrant why he ordered his execution. I couldn’t care as I didn’t know he had children as this was suddenly forced upon us. Thirdly, who is this woman? I can only assume it is the woman who pretended to be Robert de Sable in the first game. She was shown to be romantically involved with Altaïr in another game, but this was only shown and not developed. Fourthly, when she dies I can’t care as this is the only time she is in the game. Fifthly, Altaïr can easily kill the guy, but doesn’t.

They completely ruin Altaïr’s story, and I know this is all very picky, but Altaïr is an important character who needed more time focussed upon him for development. Just showing snapshots of his life is pointless as we can’t really connect with him, nor can we cohesively follow his story.

If they were to remake this game then this is what I’d do: have two plots, one with Ezio and Sofia, the other with Altaïr and his life. Focus on both equally. Then you can connect with the characters and feel for them as they go through tough times and attempt to overcome them.

I feel that Ubisoft lost their way with this game, just trying to squeeze out yet another game before Assassin’s Creed III. This could have been handled very well, especially if the story actually revealed a lot, but for a game called Revelationsthere aren’t many revelations. The game just feels rushed, and that’s a shame as it did have potential to be great. The ending was very good, but the game itself wasn’t worth it (apart from the Sofia parts of the game).

For Assassin’s Creed fans this is, of course, an important game to play as it does continue the story, but I can’t help but feel it was completely unnecessary. Non-fans would probably have fun with the game, but for me, who cares a lot about the story and characters, this just didn’t do it.

E3 2012: Thoughts and Feelings – Nintendo

So, we finish the festivities with the people who, arguably, made home console gaming a big thing, revolutionising the world of gaming and bringing the people of the 1980s and 1990s such joy. Then the mid 2000s came and the Wii came out, causing the Nintendo name to lose out on the AAA titles that the Xbox 360 and PS3 held. Oh, how they became the laughing stocks of the gaming community (Haha, get it?! STOCKS! Because their stocks are so low! No? Only me? Oh...).

Well, anyway, they had their conference.

Predictions

Yeah, I haven’t done predictions for any of the others, but I thought that the Nintendo line up is usually so limited that we may as well make a game: can I guess how many of each franchise they will show? This was done prior to the presentation, so I promise I’m not cheating.

Mario: 3

Zelda: 1

Metroid: 0

Kirby: 0

Donkey Kong: 0

Mother 3 Finally Getting A European Release: Please be 1!

So yeah, I basically think all they care about is Mario. That’s all they ever seem to announce at E3...

Wii U

This was, of course, brought up a fair bit. They spent a fair bit of time talking about this, even though they utilised a pre-E3 press release to tell us what it was all about and what the controller is like. They spent 10 minutes talking about it on stage, taking up a sixth of their stage time. Great work there, guys.

Basically, it allows you to play the games on TV and/or the gamepad, also utilising the gamepad as an additional screen (like for mini maps and the likes). Oh, and the Wii U can support TWO gamepads. Great step backwards, guys.

Pikmin 3

I’ve never played Pikmin and can’t really comment on it too much, but from what I’ve seen of previous games Pikmin 3 looks like more of the same. They seems proud of the ability to precisely aim where you lob Pikmin using a Wii controller, but you can also play using a Wii U gamepad. The Wii U gamepad also seems to have a map on it which allows for keeping track of you Pikmin. Also, there seem to be four playable characters. Is this the end for Captain Olimar (they made it sound like it was). If you like Pikmin then you’ll like this, I guess.

New Super Mario Bros. U

It looks like Super Mario Bros. 3. It’s uncanny. Just slap New Super Mario Bros. Wii graphics on it and here you go. This seems to come from the ethos of making a game “like the old Mario games, but better” (they seriously said that). So much for innovation, I guess. It’s just nothing new or exciting, just another Mario game.

Batman: Arkham City – Armored Edition

This one interests me. It looks like your classic Arkham City gameplay but with some added bells and whistles. Now you can use the Wii U gamepad to look around in detective vision when inspecting a crime scene, which looked cool, and setting off specific explosives using the touch screen was interesting. Sadly, controlling a remote control batarang with the gamepad just looked silly.

On top of this a new feature has been added in which Batman’s armour will have a current running through it as he fights, building up until you unleash it, making your attacks stronger. This seems pretty useless as Batman is pretty powerful already, able to dispatch of enemies with easy. More power just seems a bit overkill, really.

Overall, though, I was quite impressed with what was shown with Arkham City. They used the technology well and tried to add to the experience.

Scribblenauts Unlimited

I liked Scribblenauts and Super Scribblenauts looked interesting. However, I couldn’t see what more they could add. I have to say I am pleasantly surprised. Now, with Scribblenauts Unlimited you can actually make new things to bring into the world. Want a dog with wheels? Then you can make the “Auto Mutt” they showed in the trailer. It looks pretty cool. However, I can see this being abused to hell to overcome whatever obstacle is in your way without using real things, which was the fun of Scribblenauts.

Also, there’s a bigger story mode and a big focus on exploration. I quite like the look of this and would like to see what they have done when it comes out.

3rd Party Releases for the Wii U

They announced a few titles, but won’t focus on them. I’m surprised to see a few of these, and I’m interested in how the console handles these games. They are: Darksiders II, Mass Effect 3, Trine 2: Director’s Cut, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Tank! Tank! Tank! (Like Nintendo’s stocks? Oh, I am hilarious!), Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge.

Wii Fit U

It’s the Wii Fit. That’s it. The trailer made it seem like some kind of sex toy. Does this mean We Dare U is coming out?

SiNG

You lost me at “Call Me Maybe”. Fuck that song.

But seriously, it’s just karaoke. Hurray?

"It's-a all about ME!"

New Super Mario Bros. 2

Did you like New Super Mario Bros. Wiibut thought the game didn’t have enough gold coins? Well, here’s the game for you. Apparently it has a lot of coins in it, allowing you to gain a stupid amount of 1ups and completely defeating the fun of getting lots of gold coins. WAY TO GO!

Paper Mario: Sticker Star

It looks like Paper Mario. I’ve seen Paper Mario before. And it’s just more Mario stuff. Nothing different. I hope the next game is something new. Some new sort of IP. Please?

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon

Well, it isn’t Mario itself, but it is his brother. Looks like more Luigi’s Mansion, though.

Have they really run out of ideas and instead just remade games over and over again? Oh, who am I kidding?! Nintendo’s entire marketing strategy is to feed on the nostalgia of its devoted fans it views as money bags on legs.

3rd Party Releases for the 3DS

Some more titles here, just thrown out there with little coverage, mostly because Nintendo doesn’t straight up own them, but rather allows them to be on their platforms. We have: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate (clunky name...), Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, Scribblenauts Unlimited (as discussed earlier) and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.

Lego City: Undercover

Oh, hello. You interest me. An open world crime fighting Lego game with parkour elements? Is this Lego Batman 2: DC Heroes. No, it is Lego City: Undercover! (Lego Batman 2 looks awesome, by the way).

I really like the look of this game and hope it is cross platform (UPDATE: It's not, sadly). It seems funny and has some interesting gameplay elements, such as scanning buildings to look for criminals. It hopefully has a good story to help it along. Definitely one to keep your eye on.

No Flo Rida this time, though

Just Dance 4

Well, seeing as Ubisoft showed none of this at their conference, maybe we can see some unique gameplay here? Well, yes, actually. Now you can mess with your friends using the Wii U gamepad, causing them to dance inappropriate dance moves to “Moves Like Jagger”, another awful song. Yeah, this just doesn’t seem right to me, but the people dancing look so happy they might have been on every drug known to man. Or they had plastic surgery. Who knows?

ZombiU

Hey, Ubisoft showed off more of this as well. Did they just hate their own conference? Of course they did!

It seems like proper zombie stuff: one bite and you are dead. But the Wii U gamepad brings some interesting elements, such as using it as a scanner, inventory, sniping and hacking. You can even make yourself look like a crappy zombie. Gimmicky, but I can see it being a fun experience, maybe even scary!

Nintendo Land

Here is where they left off: with PS Home! It’s a theme park with Nintendo themed attractions. Like PS Home. We have multiplayer focussed ones, like Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest, Animal Crossing: Sweet Day and Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, as well as singleplayer Donkey Kong’s Crash Courseand Takamura’s Ninja Castle. Some of these looked or sounded interesting, but nothing to get excited over. It’s nice to see a more multiplayer focus from Nintendo, as they seemed to ditch that with the Wii, so I guess that’s me recommending it. I think.

Prediction Results

So, I think I got the 3 Mario titles, but if we count the new Luigi’s Mansion then I’m out by one. And if we include the Nintendo Land games then I’m out by two, but I did get the one Zelda title. Sadly, no Mother 3. I think I’m grasping at straws there, but damn it that game looked good all those years ago!

Ending Thoughts

It’s just more Mario. Nintendo being Nintendo. Some of the stuff they’ve done with the hardware seems good, but only with the 3rd party games. A lot better than the Wii, but maybe this is just because there seems to be a possible focus on the hardcore gamers finally. For the most part I didn’t like this presentation as it was bogged down in just advancing the previously established Nintendo brands with no new IPs bar one or two (I think. I’m tired.)