I have seen Captain America!

And the end-credits scene is the best and worse I've seen ever!

More on this, but not so soon.

#writer'sblock

Read More......

Right, general update:

I've gotten re-addicted to my old LucasArts computer games, and have been replaying the lot like mad.

This means that I haven't been able to work on my reviews for Transformers 3 and Harry Potter 7.2, and why my Green Lantern review took so long to get posted.

My damn writer's block is also back, which means hammering out a bloody review would take an even longer time than usual. Ugh.

Anyway, cliffsnotes, Transformers 3 is less enjoyable than the second, HP7.2 was fairly awesome, though they did away with some minute details from the book and forgot about Wormtail. Will try to bang one out in the next few days.

Read More......

Green Lantern (2011)

[I know what you're thinking: ASAP, my tush.]

I'd looked up Rotten Tomatoes before I went to see this movie, and I was shocked at the very low rating. Since I don't agree with the RT aggregator on some of movies that I like (e.g. The Skeleton Key, Dead Silence, etc.), I was still optimistic that I would enjoy Green Lantern as much as any other superhero movie.

Sadly, no.

The thing about the GL comics is that our hero Hal Jordan is part of the bigger picture, being that the Green Lantern Corps is an intergalactic police force that maintains order in the respective Sectors they're assigned to. The occasional threat-to-the-universe is what makes GL so interesting, because back-up involves all manner of living beings coming and working together to defeat the bad guy.

Plus, most of it happens in space / other planets / galaxies, so that's pretty cool too.

Being the first movie, it rightfully focuses on developing Hal and his relationship with everyone else; unfortunately, for source material with such a wide scope, I found the movie boring. It was a bit slow at the beginning, and though the airplane bit was quite cool to watch, the 15-20 minutes spent to show that Hal was irresponsible could've been used elsewhere.

Like on other characters. As in, those not of this Earth.

[I always thought Kilowog was looked more like a hippo...]

The storyline itself also didn't make much sense.

The main villain is Parallax, a fallen Guardian who tried to master the power of fear and failed, falling to its corrupt yellow light. And yet, the Guardians themselves agree too easily to Sinestro's suggestion that to defeat Parallax (who is heading for Oa to seek revenge), they need to forge a ring that draws on the yellow power of fear. I get that they need to ease a transition to Sinestro's eventual defection from the GL Corp (he sets up his own Corp, where members wear yellow rings and harness fear), but it's a bit disjointed the way they went about it. Not one instance in the movie ever showed that Sinestro had a darker side to him, and the scene where he puts on the yellow ring seems only as fanservice.

[Not that it didn't work.]

The Guardians in the comics, though fallible, are definitely not gullible, and the movie inevitably uses the usual people-in-high-places-make-stupid-mistakes-until-the-hero-talks-sense-into-them formula, which kinda blows. And also brings us to Hal's big speech to the Guardians, shortly before he goes to fight Parallax. What is the friggin' point of having Hal implore the Guardians to not fight fire with fire and help him save his planet, and then having the Guardians say 'no'? There, another 15 minutes down the drain.

Also, two many villains spoileth the movie. Pun intended.

Multiple villains generally don't work unless they are working together, with one leader, or the faceless goons / thugs / redshirts plus the one villain that really matters. Same goes for this movie. Hector Hammond was perfectly capable of being a major villain, seeing that he has a fair amount of screentime and knows the good guys. They're not close friends, but it was implied that they grew up together, and emotional connections between good and evil are always interesting. Instead we have Parallax, who is reduced to a massive intergalactic smoke monster with yellow tinges.

[The real Parallax is the embodiment of fear, and can never be destroyed, only contained.]

Ryan Reynolds can do absolutely no wrong in the Charm and Hero department (or in general), though I felt that he was a bit restrained in this one. Cast was splendid, and Peter Sarsgaard is effectively creepy and tortured as Hammond. The special effects were amazing, and once again I kick myself for not watching yet another movie set on a different plane in 3D. We got to see Oa, the Guardians (basically what I was hoping for), the Green Central Power Battery, and even the Yellow(!), for some reason. It was a bit odd that the power source for fear was within proximity of Oa, but hey, looks awesome.

Unfortunately, all those things didn't save the movie from being just plain 'meh'.

Maybe the movie would've worked if the script wasn't complete in the first place and everyone ad-libbed their way through the film.

Or Robert Downey, Jr.

Read More......