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I_am_Lothar
Reviews
Superman Returns (2006)
Not the piece of crap I thought it would be.
Superman Returns. I saw this at a sneak preview today(Tuesday) and was actually pleasantly surprised. I wont ruin anything BIG about the story, but I will say they chose the right person for Superman, but felt Lois was miscast. Kevin Spacey did a great job as Lex Luthor. Despite how much I enjoyed the movie, I have three big problems with the movie.
(this next part contains small but obvious spoilers.) 1. Not enough tragedy. I know its the whole Superman thing. He comes at the nick of time and saves EVERYONE from death. That bit. I don't like death or anything, but come on, even Spiderman and X-men had people dying. Not a lot of people, granted, but enough to show that these super heroes couldn't save everyone.
2. Superman lives. Its not like I want him to die, but its set up in a way in which it screams "HES GONNA DIE!" but at the end he pulls through. Had he bit the dust it would have made for great drama, and a great set-up for the sequel. But alas, he lives, and a huge piece of drama lost in the Hollywood cheese.
3. The end drags on big time. The length of the movie is pretty hefty, but I didn't even realize it was so long up until the last half-hour, because it just dragged on and on. If you don't know what I mean, play metal gear solid 3 and after you beat Boss, you'll see what I mean.
Other then those gripes, this movie was awesome. I wouldn't pay to see it again, but I'm probably gonna rent it when it comes on DVD. Thats all.
8/10.
P.s. Sorry for the MGS3 reference. The end just reminded me of it so much. Thats all.
Silent Hill (2006)
The best horror movie of the year, and best video-game based movie ever.
The ending credits of the movie finally rolled. Everyone is standing from their seats. The theater is relatively silent. Only the usual sounds are heard, but from behind me, the first clearly audible sentence is heard, and is as follows:"I don't get it."
She clearly didn't understand the movie. Me and my friends, however, did. And we also felt a feeling of relief, that finally, a good game-based movie has been released. I felt pain in the beginning. Not because it was boring, no, I thought not one second of the movie was boring, but because I wanted to see the town of Silent Hill. Everything about the movie was perfect, except for some unintentionally funny dialogue. The camera work was nothing short of amazing, the monsters straight from your worst nightmare, and the performances, straight from the heart. I cant make this review much longer without putting spoilers, but I can tell you, this movie will make you feel the pain the main characters feel, and it will only suck you into the movie more. All the negative reviews its been getting from critics is unfair, and they treat this movie not as a horror movie, but as a game movie, and refuse to give it a fair trial because of that fact. But trust me, this movie is great, and to dare say its nothing but a game-movie shows how unwilling some people are to open their arms to changes.
I'm pleased to announce that this movie is the best video-game based movie ever. But thats not surprising. I however, do feel sympathy towards all other game to movie adaptations to come out in the future, because Silent Hill raised the bar to new heights. Not just for video game based movies, though, but for horror movies in general.
Killzone (2004)
A very artful game, but an overall disappointment.
I gotta say, when the game came out, I ignored it completely. I was a huge Halo fan at the time and any game claiming to be a superior I felt should be destined to fail and die a failures death. Christmas of 2005 me and my bro saw it for 20 bucks, so we said "what the hell" split the price, and bought it. God damn was I blown away for a while. I dug that intro where the bad guy gives the speech, it really pumped me up and got me ready for carnage. The first level started. I wasn't impressed. The pre-level cinema looked cheesy with the shaky cam and the voices sound like they weren't even serious. I passed the first level and then I started to see the true beauty. The game took a really artful approach, and it ways I found it superior to Halo, and even Halo 2. I love the grainy filter and the Bleached out, destroyed world look, it made for a really involving atmosphere and makes you think "WTF? this place really got f'ed up", and I REALLY LOVED the animations. The way you reload your gun and climb up and slide down ladders, the way you hop over small ledges. KillZone, in terms of atmosphere and animation, was a truly beautiful work of art. Each battle gave me the feeling that I was really in a war, and I hoped this continued through the rest of the game. It didn't. The game quickly became uninteresting and I simply stopped playing. Its sad too because the game had so much potential. If the sequel keeps with the feeling from the first one, then we may have a masterpiece on our hands.
I give the game a 6 out of 10 as a game. But I give the game a 9 out of 10 as art.