Well it’s been a while sense I’ve
done anything here on Illusive One’s Reviews for a number of reasons. This is mainly because there really hasn’t
been anything that I’ve really wanted to write about over the past month and to
be perfectly honest, their still isn’t as I’ve been and still am distracted
with other things. So I decided to do
this post entitled Brief Thoughts On…to give brief thoughts on various things
that I’ve seen, done or played over the past few months that I didn’t do any
kind of post for one reason or another.
So read on and let me know what you think of these things and sorry for
being gone for so long.
Films
Unfortunately since the release of The Dark Knight Rises their really
haven’t been to many films that have come out in theaters that I’ve had much
interest in seeing. The one exception to
this has been The Expendables 2 which
was probably the most fun I’ve had watching a film all summer as it had great
action scenes, a great sense of humor, great character interaction and
storyline that was surprisingly solid for the genera. The only problems that I had with it was that
Chuck Norris and Jet Li were underused, the cinematography was distractingly
grainy and unfocused at certain points and the character played by Liam
Hemsworth was poorly written and acted and just annoyed the crap out of
me. But still, I really enjoyed it and
the reason that I didn’t write a full review on it was because I was helping
Korsgaard doing his video review of it and he more or less said all that was
needed to be said. Take a look at it and
tell me what you think.
Seriously
though, go see this film. It is a ton of
fun.
I also rewatched The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers and I have to say that TDKR was a lot better on a second
viewing. Once I got past the facts that
Batman is in little of the film, that it
simply wasn’t as good as its predecessor, and the drag of the second act, (much
easier on a second viewing), it was a lot easier to focus on the film itself as
what it is as opposed to what it could have been. The plot, while a bit bloated, is again still
a lot better than 90% of what is out there in the genera and the way they
characterize Bruce Wayne and how they play up the man vs. mask conflict is
probably the best they have ever done in a comic book film and is incredibly
tense and full of great suspense. From a
technical standpoint the film probably has the best special effects that I’ve
seen this year, along with great cinematography and direction and tense, well-choreographed
action scenes with an incredibly well used score and I was really able to enjoy
these things a lot more on a second viewing.
Granted, I still think that the film could have been a lot better and my
previous review still stands but it is a film that was better for me on a
second viewing.
The
Avengers, however, didn’t fare as well.
Whereas the good things came out for TDKR
on a second viewing The Avengers’
problems came out more on a second viewing.
The most glaring issue was the plot and characterization and how bare
boned they are, especially in comparison to The
Dark Knight Trilogy, the Bryan Singer X-Men
films and the Spider-Man films, (both Sam Rami and rebooted films). This has been a reoccurring problem with the
entire Avengers franchise but here
it’s even worse for me given the critical praise of the film and the fact that
it has plot holes and things that the writers pulled right out of there asses
that rival Prometheus in head
scratching moments. And unlike TDKR the film really doesn’t have a well-used
score or cinematography to back it up and many of the composite shots where the
actors are acting in front of a green screen look really crappy. But keep in mind that this is just hot air
due to the film’s popularity and my hatred of the franchise and it’ll probably
cool down after a while. But like TDKR my previous review still stands and
I do understand why so many people liked it.
It’s a fun summer blockbuster with great action, above average special
effects, (for the most part), very good acting, had a great sense of humor and
more than deserved the money that it made Just don’t expect me to share your feelings
on it.
I also got the chance to watch The Gray starring Liam Neeson which
turned out to be an incredibly depressing film that layered on soul crushing
plot point after soul crushing plot point.
Liam Neeson gave what was, in my opinion, probably the best performance
of his career and I really hope that the academy will at least give him a
nomination for his performance here. I
also took a look at Chronicle which
turned out to be an extremely entertaining and well-made film and it’s one of
those lower budget films that can totally back and hope that everyone involved
in its makings has a great carrier. I
can say the exact same thing for Cabin in
the Woods. Unfortunately I can’t
reveal too much of what happens for spoiler purposes but it is an extremely
entertaining film and one of the more obscure films of the year that I highly
recommend watching at least once. I also
had the chance to see Snow White and the
Huntsman and I surprisingly enjoyed it for various reasons. But did they really expect us to Kristen
Stewart was better looking than Charlize Theron? Yea…I don’t think so.
Films that did not fare with me so
well with me however included the 1981 film Excalibur
that had shoddy acting, un-compelling characters who will often disappear and
die off camera and a very weak plot that tried to tell a big story but ultimately
failed to give it any real meat and in truth, the only thing worth noting about
this film is that it contained early roles for Liam Neeson and Patrick
Stewart. Avoid it if you get the chance
because it is not worth your time.
Another god-awful film I had the displeasure of seeing was The Wicker Tree which somehow managed to
be worse than the 2006 remake of The
Wicker Man and I honestly did not know that was possible. There was also Wrath of the Titans which, outside of a few moments, failed to
impress me and I just felt like I had wasted my time after watching it. But by far the worst film that I had the
displeasure of seeing was Battleship. In a nut shell, the acting, dialog,
characters, special effects and plot were all beyond terrible and I really
don’t wish to bring back the memory of this by thinking about why it was so
terrible. If you want to see a complete
review of why this film was so goddamn awful read Korsgaard’s review of it
because he can do it more justice then I can.
Let it suffice to say, however, that it is easily the worst film I have
seen all year and has quickly ranked up there with one of my most hated films
of all time. Seriously, it was BAD!
T.V.
Shows
Now, I don’t do to many things on
T.V. series because there is usually WAY too much to cover so I’m just going to
give you some brief thoughts on the latest seasons of certain series that I’ve
watched recently and of the complete series that I finished watching this
year. The one that left the biggest
impression on me was Battlestar Galactica
and what a great series that was. It had
really good special effects for a show series, really good acting and characterization
and fantastic storylines and subplots that addressed all kinds of issues
ranging from politics, racism and basic human rights. And it had a lot of kick-ass fighting. That always helps to. The most glaring problem with the series is,
as any fan of the series know, is the ending.
I won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t seen it but let me just
say that it makes the original ending to Mass
Effect 3 look like Toy Story 3 in
comparison. Seriously! It is that bad and I found myself constantly
hoping that the last act of the final episode was some kind of dying dream or
something and it remains the finale that I hate above all other finales.
The
Newsroom was a very good series, with good writing that managed to
incorporate personal drama, comedy that comes from it, along with addressing
issues that do plague not only the world but the world of the news and how it’s
been slowly selling out in order to attract more views for advertisement money
and I honestly don’t think that this is something that is not addressed enough
in any form. Needless to say, I really
enjoyed it and unless you’re a right wing nut, you probably will to. The latest season of Breaking Bad, while still good, just doesn’t seem to be as
compelling as previous seasons and it seems like the series is on its last
leg. Hell
on Wheels on the other hand, seems to be getting better and I can’t wait to
see what happens next in the series.
Batman Beyond
likewise was a lot better then I remembered and like its predecessor, knew how
to bring in the more human elements that come with these kinds of stories. It’s only real fault is that it’s villains
just weren’t nearly as interested, sympathetic or compelling as those of the
other D.C. Universe series and can
sadly take away from the experience if you let it. Justice
League, on the other hand, isn’t as good as I remembered it, as three big
things kind of hindered my enjoyment of it.
The first was that the episodes were almost always two parters which
almost always ensured a lot of padding for the episodes which bored the crap
out of me. The second, sadly, was
Batman. While he is undoubtedly the best
hero character in the Timmverse, in this series he came off as being really awkward
and out of place among all these other heroes who’s powers were borderline
dietic. The final problem was that if
focused a little too much on John Stewart and Hawkgirl and this romantic
subplot they had going on between the two.
While I that this was done well, it ended up dominating the entire show,
making the two of them the main characters as opposed to the ensemble series
you would expect from a show like this. Justice League: Unlimited, however, was
fantastic with great storylines, characterization, and action that frequently
addressed the rolls and potentially uncontrollable powers of superheroes and
somehow actually managed to be more mature then anything the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come out
with, (I know this seems like I’m taking pot shots at The Avengers but I am being very serious on this. It really treats you a lot more like an adult
then those films ever do). While I think
that it went a little downhill in the second half it still was a great series
and one that I cannot recommend enough if you’re a D.C. fan.
Videogames
For as much as I love video games, I
haven’t been playing to many new ones lately, as their really haven’t been to
many worth noting that have been released or good enough for me to finish or
recent enough to do a review on. With Star War: The Old Republic, the
storylines and characters are really good but it has too much of the grind and
dullness that other MMOs like World of
Warcraft have and my playing of it has been off and on. Kingdom
of Amalur: Reckoning didn’t really catch my interest and Dragon’s Dogma was just one of the most repetitive
pieces of crap I have ever played despite some fast, slick and epic combat
gameplay. The enhanced edition of Witcher 2 was a lot of fun but I had a
hard time getting into it, mainly because I had a hard time getting invested in
the story and characters as I hadn’t played the first game before this
one. Max
Payne 3 was an awesome game with really fun gameplay and a great
protagonist. The only problem I had with
it was that the main story just didn’t do it for me and felt kind of like the
plot of a half assed action movie. The
only other games of note are the recent Transformers
games, which are pretty good, especially for the licensed game genera, which is
usually infamously bad. Hopefully as
October rolls around I’ll get back to my usual videogame reviewing self but for
now this is all I have.
Comics
Just
about everything that I have been reading in this department has been The New
52 and most of my previous opinions have stayed the same. The only one that I can really think of where
my opinion has radically changed is Superman
and Men of War as those lines
have easily gone from Browse to Read. Superman, to put it simply, has gotten a
lot better and with Men of War I read
over the secondary storylines which I failed to do the first time which made
the series a whole lot better.
But then we have Young Justice, which I failed to review
in previous months. Why? Well, over the past year, as you no doubt
have noticed, my interest in this blog has kind of diminished, but that’s actually
not the main reason. You see, I did read
over all of the lines in that section and none of them really stuck out and I
didn’t have much to say about them. But
sense I have an obligation to say something, here are some brief thoughts on
them. Teen Titans is good with good
storylines and compelling characters that actually act more mature and
believable then The Justice League,
(make of that what you will), and some cool crossovers with Superboy and Legion Lost. But it is
flawed with a lot of issues with the dialog and only just in my Read section. Static
Shock is the definition of ok, as it doesn’t really bring anything that we
haven’t seen before but nothing that I would consider bad, and there were
definitely other titles that they should have axed before this one. I say give it a Browse. Hawk
and Dove….Rob Liefeld drew it and wrote the last four issues. Do I really need to say anything more?
Blue
Beetle I think is very good as the conflict between the Scarab and the
protagonist is a good one and the characters are very compelling. I have heard complaints that it sucks when
compared to the original run of the character but coming from a new comer to
the series I say give it a Read. As far
as Legion and Legion Lost goes, I really don’t have much to say as it really
didn’t leave much of an impression on me.
I say Browse them both but be prepared for a bit of a learning curve.
And that’s it for this article. Hopefully this will be the start of me
getting back into blogging and over the next few months I’ll probably be back
up to speed. For the more immediate
future, Korsgaard and I have another video planned out for Dredd 3D which will be up on Monday at the earliest and Wednesday
at the latest so be on the lookout for that.
I also plan on doing a text review of that as well as one of The Master and possibly the prequel
comic for Dredd 3D so be on the
lookout for that. In the meantime, it’s
great to be back. So until next time
this is The Illusive One signing off. 