Movie and Game Reviews

Spore

I spend more time playing video games than I do watching movies, so I'm going to expand this 'blog to include game reviews too.

So....  Spore.  Will Wright excels at writing games that eat time.  (I'll just sit down and play Sim City for a bit...  wait, it's what time?  How the heck have I been playing for 6 hours?)  Spore is another one of those games.

In Spore, you control the evolution (in a very loose sense) of an organism from a cell all the way to a galactic civilization, through a series of stages.  Each stage is actually a fairly simple little game, but your actions in each stage control how the rest of the game progresses.  (You can also skip stages once you've played them the first time, but you miss out on a lot of useful special abilities this way.)

The biggest innovation in the game is the content sharing.  Spore is a single-player game, where you design your own creatures, buildings, and vehices.  For the creatures, buildings, and vehicles you encounter, Spore uses ones designed by Maxis... and downloads content created by other players.  This has been hyped for literally years now, but I still think it's a freaking cool idea.  This way, you get to encounter, enjoy, and destroy content created by others, without worrying about you (or them) losing the fruits of all the time and effort they've put in. 

In the cell stage, you swim around eating things and trying not to be eaten.  Eating things gives you DNA points.  Periodically, you call a mate, and this gives you the chance to move, add, and remove parts, which you obtain by killing other cells, or scavenging, and pay for using the DNA points.  It's a lot like flOw.   You can design your creature for advantage, looks, or just try to get by.  When you complete the stage, you can add legs to your creature (or not, if you really don't want to) and advance to the creature stage.  Depending on what kinds of food you ate, you're either a carnivore, omnivore, or herbivore, and that choice more or less sticks.

The creature stage is more of the same, except instead of eating other creatures, you have the option of trying to make friends with them instead. (Although some creatures are too hostile to befriend).  Either action earns you DNA points and new parts, and you can also find new parts by investigating bones on the ground.  Like in the cell stage, you periodically mate, and add and rearrange parts.  At the end of the creature stage, you get your last chance to edit your species, and move on to the tribal stage.

The tribal stage is a very simple RTS game, where you have to either kill or befriend the other tribes.  It's my least favorite stage of the game - the controls feel a little klunky, and once my tribal village appeared in a point where my tribesman couldn't access their stored food, which made it almost impossible to play.

After the tribal stage, is the civilization stage, which is another simple RTS game.   You have to conquer, buy, or convert all the other nations on your world - which one depends on how you played the tribal stage.  If you take over a city using a different method, you can add that method to your arsenal as well, although it's easier if you stick with a single method.  Once you've taken over all the other cities (a task made much easier if you have the special abilities from the previous stages), and move on to the space stage.

In the space stage, you can explore, colonize, terraform, befriend or attack other races, and trade, both in your empire and with others.  There's some kind of story as well, but I haven't penetrated far into this portion of the game.  Your previous game choices determine what kind of empire you are, which affects how much the other empires like you.

Each stage is very simple, and wouldn't be much of a game alone - but the whole is, in fact, more than the sum of its parts.  There are numerous ways to play the game, and the new content from other players helps to keep the experience fresh as well.

Just be sure to set an alarm if you have something to do the next day.  And I don't mean an alarm to wake you up.  I mean an alarm to let you know it's time to stop playing, before it's suddenly 4AM.

Traitor

There seems to be a feeling that it's tough to make terrorism-related movies these days, although after someone went ahead and released Collateral Damage, and there were no riots, I don't really see the problem.  Luckily, though, Traitor was almost nothing like Collateral Damage.

Traitor follows the exploits of Samir Horn, played by Don Cheadle, an apparently devout Muslim who is either trying to stop a group of terrorists, or has turned and is helping them.  Aside from a climax that I would be willing to bet was rewritten by committee at the last minute (and if it wasn't, whoever DID write it should be very, very very ashamed) the plot is decent, though nothing special, with the sort of twists and deception you'd expect (and possibly anticipate, but I try to put my brain in neutral when I'm watching a movie, and think about it afterwards, it's almost always more fun that way).

I don't feel I know enough about Islam to judge the movie's portrayal of it, but it does at least make an effort to point out that most Muslims are not, in fact, frothing lunatics and/or raving psychotics.  There's a comparison of the KKK to terrorists that made me nod at the time, although again: brain in neutral.  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the whole thing now.

What was above average, however, was the characterization and acting.  Cheadle's character makes mistakes, has doubts, and gets hurt, but Cheadle's actual performance was quite good.  The supporting cast also turned in good performances, although the more minor the parts were, the more cartoony they became - likely someone thought it would be a good idea to exaggerate them lest someone interpret them incorrectly.

Now, I know I already mentioned the climax but it was bad enough that I need to repeat that the climax was, in fact, terrible.  All movies require a certain suspension of disbelief, but I don't like it when the amount of suspending I need to do changes by a ludicrous amount right at the climax of the movie.

It also breaks the lesson of the rest of the movie, which seems to be that terrorism is a messy problem, and is going to have messy solutions.  The lesson of the ending seems to be that when the problem becomes irretrievably messy, something brilliant but impossible will happen to minimize the damage.

It was difficult to decide whether to recommend this movie or not.  On the one hand, it raises some interesting points, and is fun and exciting.  On the other hand, there's the bad climax....  so, in the balance, I have to say, no.  See The Kingdom instead.  It doesn't wimp out and try to put a rosy finish on things at the end.

Die Hard

It can be difficult to explain the appeal of Die Hard to the uninitiated.  One of my sister's High School friends summed it up best: "Nobody bleeds like Brucie."  The real fun is in watching him do more and more improbable things for equally escalating improbable reasons, all of which tick off both the good guys and the bad guys.  This movie made Bruce Willis a star, and would likely have been nothing without him (most actors probably wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face, for one thing.)  It's also the ultimate expression of the 80's action movie, has been copied over and over, and is actually a darn good movie, if you like action and don't mind lots of fake blood.

Like a lot of movies I like, there isn't much plot.  A bunch of armed men take over an office building on Christmas Eve, taking a bunch of top executives hostage.  Their plan isn't exactly what it appears, but probably would have gone off without a hitch if New York Cop Bruce Willis (I mean, John McClane) hadn't been there visiting his estranged wife.  After a lot of running around, shooting, and blowing things up, the good guys win.  If this plot sounds familiar, it doesn't necessarily mean you've seen the movie before.  It's been copied a lot (and not just in the sequels), and was probably copied by this movie in the first place.  However, Die Hard does it best of all the movies of the kind I've seen.

Oddly, Bruce's character is developed a bit in this movie, but in each sequel he appears to revert, so I don't know if it really counts.

Oh, and it's technically a Christmas movie!  There's holiday music, and a Santa costume, and everything.  There are real Christmas movies I like, but not many, so this can be a very useful excuse.

The other thing that makes this movie fun for me is some of the casting connections.  For example, Paul Gleason, who played a clueless principal in The Breakfast Club, plays pretty much exactly the same character as a clueless assistant police chief in Die Hard.  Bruce's (Sorry, I mean John's) buddy in this movie, played by Reginald VelJohnson, a likable but highly unbelievable cop, played a likable but not really believable cop in "Family Matters", although I have to give him credit for playing a different likable but unbelievable cop.  And the techie bad guy, Theo, played by Clarence Gilyard Jr., played good guy Ranger Trivette for years in the dreaded "Walker, Texas Ranger".

It's probably just me, but those kind of connections help to liven up the dull parts of movies or tv shows.  ("Hey, why don't you give him detention NEXT Saturday, too?" or "When are you going to blow the safe, Trivette?")

The Princess Bride

For the inaugural entry of this 'blog, we'll start with the movie that has occupied number 1 in my list of favorite movies for several years now: The Princess Bride.  (The other slots in the list change enough that I haven't bothered to codify them, but that might make for an interesting page someday.)

The movie has, as Peter Falk's kindly Grandfather character says, "Everything."  Great casting, a good story, one-liners that can, in the right company, substitute for conversation, and it holds up well, 21 years later.  (Anyone else feeling old now?)

Casting.  Casting is what turned this movie from a good action-comedy into a great movie.  The part of Fezzik was reportedly written for Andre the Giant, and it's hard to imagine anyone else playing it.  Cary Elwes, who plays an astounding number of roles as a heavy, has always been far better in comedic roles, especially his role as Wesley/The Man in Black.  (And before anyone cries spoiler, I think I already mentioned this movie is 21 years old, yes?  Once a movie is old enough to buy beer there's no more spoiler calling allowed.)  Like Fezzik, I can't imagine anyone other than Mandy Patinkin in the role of (Hello my name is) Inigo Montoya.  The lines would be funny from almost anyone, but I doubt they would have spawned t-shirts from anyone else.  And Robin Wright did a good job as the title character, although unlike the other principles I don't feel like she was indispensible.

Let us not, by any means, forget the minor characters, either.  Fred Savage's grandson character served to make the movie more accessible to children.  ("Is this a kissing book?" "Are you trying to trick me?") Wallace Shawn's laugh as Vizzini was so memorable that I recognized him instantly even in full Ferengi makeup, which makes his face completely unrecognizable.  Chris Sarandon and Christopher Guest as Humperdink and Rugen are hatable villains, and and Billy Crystal in old person makeup is both endearing and annoying in an annoyingly endearing way as Miracle Max.

Characterization.  Movie critics often complain about movies where the main characters are "one-dimensional", or where they don't grow and learn from their experiences.  This is a stupid argument when you're dealing with a movie like this.  It's about the story.  The characters are there to tell it, not to improve their, er, character, which is already fictional in the first place.

Plot.  There isn't actually much plot in this movie either:  girl loses boy, agrees to marry a monster, boy returns and rescues girl from certain death, then loses her again when she tries to save his life, boy saves girl AGAIN, and they ride off into the sunrise.  Oh, and kiss.  It's more about the way the story is told than the story itself - and it's told with flair and humor, and none of the good guys stay dead, which makes it pretty feel-good as well.

One-liners.  Actually almost all of the dialogue in this movie is good, and some of it is downright brilliant.  The time when I could've recited it all with the volume muted is past, but I still remember many of them, and you'll find them cropping up as "pop culture references" quite a lot.

Let me sum up.  I'd explain, but there's too much.  If you haven't seen this movie, you owe it to yourself to correct that mistake, immediately.  Grab a friend or two, get a copy of the DVD, pop some popcorn, and watch it.  Chances are you'll find at least something you like (it has everything, remember), and if you don't, well, I'm not sure you qualify as a human being.