Review

Review – Movie – The Wolverine

I’m feeling a little lost on the logic behind the X-Men movies, just a bit. I mean there’s the original X-men trilogy, then there’s the new timeline X-men, then there’s these Wolverine movies sprinkled in. The Wolverine definitely takes place after X-men 3, since there’s these little flashes of Famke Janssen as Jean Grey and references to X-men 3. What it doesn’t really reference at all is Origins: Wolverine, which is sort of the actual predecessor film. Actually aside from the few almost unneeded references to X3, The Wolverine feels really isolated from the rest of the X-men universe. The setting, all of the other mutants, the villain, it all feels like it exists in a vacuum.

This kind of hurts this movie quite a bit. It’s an interesting setting and story, but there’s this little back of the mind nag that says “Where is everyone else?” There’s no Sabertooth, though technically he died in X1, something that could have been explained away. I mention Sabertooth because he would have been the obvious thread to tie this film a bit to Origins: Wolverine, since he was such a centerpiece of that movie’s plot and character development. Still, there’s also not really any mention of Xavier’s school, or Storm or Rogue or anyone Wolverine has been fighting with for years. Instead we get a little opening bit involving Wolverine getting pissy at some hunters for poisoning a bear. This all felt like a wasted chance to tie this into the bigger picture better. It would have been expensive to drop cameos from everyone in the X-men universe but dropping in a couple of the lesser know (cheaper) actors for a bit at the beginning at the school then having Yukio pick him up from there would have worked much better.

Instead we get hunters and a story in a vacuum despite having all these little bits happening around it.

Aside from that issue, what about the film itself. There’s definitely a different tone to these single character movies than the larger X-men films, The focus is Wolverine, all the way, he’s always present and the whole plot revolves around his burdens and life and what makes him tick. Most of the film takes place in Japan, as Logan is invited by an old friend who is on his death bed, wishing to thank Logan for saving his life many years ago during WW2. There’s a lot of fish out of water element to this story, as the rough and tumble Wolverine navigates through the orderly Japanese landscape.

There’s a lager plot at work however, and Wolverine gets a bit of a taste for life without his healing ability, which makes things complicated during his battles. The fight sequences are probably the best part of this film, and they are numerous. There’s definitely a very Asian cinema style creeping into things here, and not just because of the setting. The camera work and choreography of the fights are all much more stylistic in nature. Wolverine’s feral fighting style definitely shows it’s difference from the much more fluid martial arts methods employed by his opponents. It’s a nice chance of pace in these films really and is handles pretty nicely given the different fighting techniques.

Really the entire movie kind of feels like an excuse to get Wolverine to fight Ninjas.

There’s also the romance sub plot. It seems a bit relevant to mention the plotline of this movie is lifted a bit from a comic plot line, though it involved a few more other X-men, a lot of the surrounding characters are there. Mariko in the comics is one of Wolverine’s sometimes love interests. In fact the comic some of the events of this film are inspired from draw involved the X-men gathering for a wedding between the two. In this movie however, their romance feels, and is, really rushed, especially considering the climax amounts to Wolverine staging a rescue of his captured love. Considering he didn’t even want to come to Japan originally and only planned to stay for a day originally, it seems a little out there that he essentially is willing to run somewhat recklessly into this rescue attempt.

This is compounded more by the really pointless Jean Grey scenes spliced in randomly.

Which also brings up another dodgy bit on the plot side, it’s never really shown well what connects Logan and Yashida Wolverine is just sort of in Japan during Hiroshima, for unclear reasons, saves this one random Japanese soldier from a nuclear blast, for which he is clearly grateful, and then as near as the story tells us, they have not seen each other since. Its understandable Yashida would want to thank Logan one last time before his death, it’s not super clear why Logan should or would care. Not to mention that part of Logan’s character is that he can’t really remember anything from his past, which presumably would include that time he saved some random Japanese guy. I mean he didn’t seem to remember his actual blood brother during the first X-men movie, one whom he fought along side during WW2 if the Origins opening is to be believed, but hey, random Japanese business guy.

So yeah, there’s a lot of off points on the plot, and the film feels like it is completely disconnected from the X-men universe, aside from the one thread that feels like a random after thought. I will give it a good point though, the effects are much better than Origins: Wolverine. The action is also really great with a good Asian style going on with things. One thing I will also add, there could be some redemption with the upcoming Logan film, if it bothers to reference anything in this film. Part of the plot involved taking Logan’s power away and transferring it to another, now we get Logan, with Old Wolverine, maybe he has aged as a side effect of what happened during this film? I’m not sure if they are organized enough on these movies to make the pieces feel like part of the same puzzle unfortunately.

Review – Movie – John Wick (Chapter 1)

Feb 17th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Occasionally a movie comes along that’s just so simplistically perfect in what it’s trying to present. Recently it seems there have been two such movies, and John Wick is one of them. Where so many movies try to make everything a deep metaphor or some sort of social commentary on the world at large, John Wick gives us a straight forward tale of revenge, with hints at a deeper world beyond.

I feel like this layered simplicity is what really makes this film work. That and the top notch action choreography. This movie is loaded with shoot outs and guys getting shot and beat up, but it all works extremely well and flows along very well. Everything is intense and tight and fast, but it manages to keep some level of gritty realism as our hero gets injured and tired and remembers to reload his gun from time to time. The centerpiece moment is the fight in the middle of the film in The Red Circle Club, as John Wick, chases his target through a crowded night club battling henchmen all along the way.

But the action isn’t the meat of this film, and neither is it’s revenge based plot, the meat is the rich criminal underworld created as the film moves along. Specifically, the way John Wick never stops to explain anything to us, but still presents everything in a way that’s clear as to how things work. Take the Golden Coins we see several times in the movie. They are simple gold coins, probably valuable in their own right, but they also seem to represent more than just a coin, favors perhaps. A way of trading trust throughout this world of mobsters and assassins where everyone knows everyone else. John has many of them, and spends several of them in clear logical ways that give us the idea of what they are without hand holding the viewer along.

There is also John Wick himself. John is a retired hitman for some powerful criminal organization. We never get to see John Wick in his “glory days”. Instead, we get the feel of just how much of a bad ass John Wick is by the way other characters react to seeing him “back in action”. The way his old boss has nothing more to say than “oh” when learning that his son has pissed of John Wick. The way his colleagues immediately respect him and treat him highly. Through the vague story of what length John went through to retire and get married in the first place. And of course through how determined and skilled John is at dispatching dozens of grunts along the way despite being “retired” for some years.

It’s this little detail that helps keep the action flowing without stopping to get bogged down in the details while simultaneously not leaving tons of “well what the hell does that mean” moments. It’s a fine line that other similar movies often fail at because they are too vague with the details or too talky about it.

The movie itself may not be quite for everyone, mostly because it’s pretty violent, though it’s also violent in a way that’s not overly gory. Another nice point of this film, it would have been easy to get gratuitous with the violence, with constant blood splatters and whatnot, but the film avoids these cheap gimmicks which just helps push that subtle layer of realism that I mentioned earlier.

The bottom line is, this movie is pretty fantastic, especially if you are at all into action movies with excellent fight choreography.

Review – Gunman Clive (3DS)

Feb 14th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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The Good

Quick classic style gameplay
Interesting and different art style
Game becomes more complex than it initially feels

The Bad

Game can be frustratingly “cheap” in it’s difficulty
Not an overly long game with not a ton of replay value
Some mechanics such as the weapons could be a little more refined

In Depth

Gunman Clive is a game that harkens back to a simpler time of gaming. There isn’t a super deep story going on and the levels are all relatively short. It’s very “arcadish” at it’s core, with it’s time tracking and death tracking, that is to day, the idea is more to beat your high scores, than experience some deep endless story or gameplay. This isn’t a bad thing mind you, and there’s more going on here than it initially seems.

The basic plot is that you are a cowboy in the west and your girlfriend, or wife or whatever has been kidnapped. You chase out, armed with your trusty side arm to rescue her. The basic controls and gameplay remind me a lot of the old Mega Man titles. Not for crazy power ups or level selection, but just the basic jumping and shooting only straight ahead sort of mechanics. The levels themselves are much more classic platform shooter, something akin to a Contra game, especially with the power ups you collect along the way. The game starts out simple enough, there are opposing cowboys to shoot down, sometimes there’s rabbits or birds swopping in. As the plot advances along though it becomes apparent there’s a lot more behind the scenes as you travel through levels with more and more crazy technology and eventually head off into space battling aliens.

The game is divided into several themed “worlds” with 5 or so levels in each world. Each world can be completed in around a minute once you get the hang of things, though chances are you’ll spend longer on each level working it out. Each time you die you simply return to the start of the level to try again, there are no lives here. As the levels advance, things get more and more complex. Enemy cowboys start hiding behind things for example, and later you encounter robot cannons and various environmental hazards such as spikes and electrical beams.

At the end of each world is a huge boss. The bosses are all pretty interesting and varied in their mechanics and design, I particularly liked the giant transforming train robot at the end of the Train world. All in all the difficulty across the board is pretty simple, a lot of the puzzles and traps though fall into the category of trial an error. You play through learning the proper timing of everything until you manage to get through to the end. The most annoying aspects involve the enemies constantly respawning if you slide their spawn location on and off the screen. Also annoying is that sometimes enemies drop new weapons which are worse than the one you have, except you can’t avoid picking up the inferior weapon.

Probably the main gimmick of this title is the neat art style used throughout, The entire game is rendered in this sort of yellow and gray hand drawn motif. It looks pretty cool without being super distracting. Despite it’s simpler art design, there’s a lot of fun complexity going on, especially in the bosses and as the world progresses into the later worlds.

Gunman Clive isn’t a super complex title, but it’s a fun little indie game platformer. It’s not the most replayable game though unless you are into score challenges. There is a “Play as a chicken” mode that unlocks after completing the game though.

S.H. Figuarts – Sailor Mercury

Feb 8th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Sailor Mercury is the second of the team behind Sailor Moon and the second to get a Figuarts. She serves the brains of the outfit as well as the techie of the group. She also has one of the lamest abilities in the history of people with abilities in any medium which involves throwing bubbles at her enemies. Not even cool bubbles like say, Mega Man’s Bubble Man, but lame bubbles.

She does gain some more powers as the series progresses though, themed around water and ice. Plus her usefulness to the team is more than her ability to be less useful in a fight. Sailor Moon tends to just one shot all of the bad guys anyway with her crown.

Sailor Mercury isn’t a straight repaint of Sailor Moon, though not surprisingly, they do share many parts. The basic design and uniform of the Sailor Senshi is pretty much the same across the board. Ami has a different head of course, but she also has different boots and an entirely different set of hands than Usagi.

She also includes her little hand held computer device, in both open and closed models. While it would have been neat to have had one computer with a hinged lid, having the open and closed versions are probably better at this scale for the sake of not losing parts and because the hinge probably would have just ended up being a floppy mess anyway. She also includes an alternative hair bit that includes the visor she sometimes uses. It’s a nice way to help differentiate the design more when standing the Sailor Senshi all in a group.

Otherwise she’s definitely very similar to Sailor Moon. I haven’t had the same problems with loose hands that I had with the Sailor Moon Figuarts however. Also, while the boots are similar in design, I feel like there must have been some minor tweak on Mercury because she also seems like she is easier to stand up without the stand accessory.

Figuarts Sailor Mercury is the logical next step after Sailor Moon and seems to do a good job of improving the little flaws with the design of the first Sailor Senshi.

Review – From Dust (PC, PS3, Xbox360)

Feb 7th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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2011 – Ubisoft – One Player

The Good

Interesting Gimmick where you manipulate the world using literal God Power
Eventually there is a sandbox mode, which is neat.

The Bad

The gimmick is way more limited than it is made out to be and the world tends to “right” itself
The above makes a lot of the levels frustrating since you try to do X but it just sort of fails…
By the time you unlock the Sandbox, you’ll hate the game play.

In Depth

Ok, I tried… I really tried. If possible, I try to complete a game before I do a review of it. This means being late to the game most of the time but it also means I get to experience all that the game has to offer, which is the way it should be. There are exceptions for various reasons, some games don’t have a real ending, some are repetitious enough that it’s clear nothing more is going to be gained by continuing onward.

Others become so frustrating and irritating I just can’t being myself to finish it no matter how hard I want to. From Dust is one of the latter set there. (more…)