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GabeShadow
Reviews
Blade: The Series (2006)
Great show. Prevented the franchise from sinking.
When I first saw various pop-ups about the TV series, I was a bit skeptical in Kirk "Sticky Fingaz" Jones being capable of playing the role of the title character, but after seeing a few episodes, he had some potential, although having a bumpy start. However, after a few episodes more, he did manage to shine and was almost on the same level as Wesley Snipes.
Story: The story takes place some time after Blade Trinity. Blade heads to Detroit to finish the war with the vampires, starting with the House of Cthon (led by Neil Jackson). Other than blade, it also follows the P.O.V. of an Iraq war veteran named Krista Starr (played by Jill Wagner), who just came back home only to find out that her brother was murdered under questionable circumstances. Starr's investigation eventually ends up with her discovery of vampires, and forms an unofficial partnership with Blade. Everything else from that point on starts to formulate on its own.
Among various sub-plots, one of the episodes was dedicated to exploring Blade's unexplained past from the movies.
Acting: The acting was decent, and thankfully, there was no bad spots at all. Other than Sticky having a rough start acting the role for the title character, he really managed to retain the character's "hate everything he sees including himself" attitude that Blade fans know and love.
This is a definite must-see for Blade fans, and would wash out any bad tastes the fans had with the movie sequels.
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood (2005)
Great effort, but could have been better.
Having played both Road To Hill 30 and this game, it was an enjoyable experience, but not without flaws.
Story: 10/10 The story was the reason that made me want to play both games, to see how it was like being in the battles given in the games. In Earned In Blood, the story was told in flashback sequences while Sergeant Joe Hartsock is being interviewed by Colonel S.L.A. Marshall. The first half of the game is devoted to missions that didn't make the cut in Road To Hill 30 while the second half is devoted to the ending at Carentan and beyond that point.
Gameplay: 7/10 The core elements from the first game are there, but the enemies are smarter and will try to counter-flank the player's moves. As for new additions, Hartsock will now be able to get ammo from his squad-mates, provided that he still has weapons belonging to Allied Forces (like the M1 Garand rifle for example). The only con is that the squad-mates are more often than not idiots compared to Road To Hill 30. Squadmates do not take cover when ordered to, and are known to stand in front of the line of fire in general.
Sound 10/10 The voice acting, soundtrack, and effects are superb and fit the atmosphere of the game.
RoboCop 2 (1990)
Jeez, no wonder Frank Miller was disgusted with Hollywood during the 1990s
Normally, sequels make the franchise better, but unfortunately, this is not the case for the Robocop series. In 1987, a movie Robocop was created, which was directed by Paul Verhoven and the writers were Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner. What made Robocop stand out was that it was one of the best sci-fi movies of its time. The story was down-to-earth, and the principal cast was likable.
Now, enter Robocop 2, which gave a number of mixed reviews and both sides had their valid points.
Story: 5/10 (due to the cut material set by Kirshner). This movie chronologically takes place a year after Robocop was placed on active duty. Robocop and Lewis(Peter Weller and Nancy Allen reprising their roles) fight a drug lord (played by Tom Noonan.) who designed the drug "Nuke." The story on-screen felt like there was barely any material the director could come up with. Truth is, Frank Miller had more story material written on paper, but unfortunately, Irvin Kershner made the god-forsaken mistake to cut out bits and pieces of Frank's vision. The only thing left is the over-the-top violence, and "Robocop 2" which is the sad truth.
Both interviews with Peter Weller and Nancy Allen had one thing in common. There were things missing what made the first movie good, such as moments of crucial character development. I was surprised that Weller didn't want to do Robocop 3, and he made a good decision. The sasd fact is that out of the cut material given, they involved Robocop's humanity.
The only way to access those cut material is either a Director's Cut DVD or checking out the comic books. Just watching the movie by itself is reduced to a clichéd "Let's kick ass" movie. Entertaining, yes, but it just suffered a lot.
The subplots making Robocop a complete hippy pacifist, and the Murphy family were badly depicted in the movie. Robocop's pacifist demeanor was laughably bad during both scenes involving children. I don't know how Peter Weller felt when doing that scene, but I felt sorry for the guy agreeing to a scene like this. The Murphy family subplot was resolved *VERY* badly. I felt like throwing up when Robocop was forced to not be himself in front of his wife, and he just stood there like an idiot while watching his wife talk with an OCP-hired lawyer.
Sound: 8/10 The guns sounded like they are supposed to. The music however was a bit too up-beat for some tastes. Robocop was depicted to be a hero who struggles with the way he is in the first movie, but Robocop 2's soundtrack made him look like a freaking action hero from the 1960s version of comic-book-based movies.
Acting and character development: 6/10 (blamed on the cut material again): Weller did a good job with what he did for the movie, but what made him memorable just wasn't there during the sequel. The same thing went for Allen's portrayal of Lewis. The actors weren't to blame for this, but the direction Kirshner wanted for the movie.
Overall: The movie is just average to mediocre. It's a big insult to Robocop fans including myself. I agree with the other reviewers to the fact that it was a rush job, that's all the movie was just so they could get fast cash despite the amount of effort given into the special effects for the battle between both Robocops.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (2004)
Too incomplete to be considered as a sequel. (LucasArts is to blame. Obsidian is innocent)
Obsidian had a lot of excellent things planned prior and during the development of the game. They were planning on creating a story that surpasses the original, well-developed characters that would beat out the cast of Knights Of The Old Republic 1, and a big improvement over its predecessor. Sadly, the game just falls short due to an exorbitant deadline made by LucasArts to sell the game by Christmas of 2004.
Story (10/10 if the game was completed, but unfortunately, this one gets a 5): The game takes place five years after Knights Of The Old Republic 1. You play the role of a Jedi Knight that was a general in the Mandalorian Wars, and were exiled from the Jedi Order just because you followed Darth Revan during the Mandalorian Wars. You are hunted down by the Sith being labeled as "the last Jedi," and you are either pitted to the role of the savior of the Republic or the down-fall of the galaxy. The main focus of the game is to find out what the hell happened to Revan, why exactly you were exiled, and combat the current Sith threat or destroy the Jedi Order. The beginning and middle were strong enough, but the end just sucked monkeys' balls. The story is linear so the actions you took in KOTOR 1 is virtually non-existent due to the fact that the story goes: "No matter what the player did, Revan did this or that."
Republic is 95% destroyed: Check
Revan knew about the True Sith: Check
You're stuck with helping Revan: Check
No matter what you personally want to do, you're stuck in a pre-determined path. Example: Jedi Council dies even if you're light side. You're stuck looking for Revan after killing Kreia.
What's worse than this is that the characters were supposed to have a bigger impact on the story, but Obsidian wasn't able to put it in the game no thanks to the Christmas deadline and it did show when you were playing as Mira on the Light Side game in Malachor V. There are various links on the Internet that provide such evidence.
Gameplay 6/10: Pros: There was very little change in the gameplay so those of you that played KOTOR 1 will feel right at home. The additions that were made were the ability to create your own items, gaining and/or losing influence with party members so they could be either in the light or dark side of the Force, and you could make half of them Jedi Knights. There are lightsaber forms as well.
Cons: Creating the upgrade items (like a hair trigger and stuff like that) for customizable weapons is a pain in the ass especially since you're required to use every single skill. Things don't help that much especially with the randomized items. As for the influence system, you can pretty much be nice to almost everyone and get the maxed out on the Light Side alignment. On top of this, you will also get the feeling of incomplete background story from your allies. It was just too under-developed since the opportunities are limited if you were playing with favorite party members and rarely used the rest of the party members. On top of this, you can't make friends with every party member (therefore, if you want to play Mr./Ms. Light Side, gaining influence with Mandalore, G0-T0, and HK-47 goes right out the window). As for the lightsaber forms, you don't know if you're making a difference at all in the battle and have to rely on statistics for this. For those of you that like to power-lvl, you're S.O.L. in that department. There is very limited wildlife which was blamed more on a programming rush. If you cleared out an entire room of wildlife on a planet like Dxun, that's it. They're not going to respawn. The only way you can power-lvl is to exploit the Infinite Hssiss glitch which may screw up your game badly.
Worst of all, Obsidian never had the chance to beta-test the game and the game has frame-rate problems, a huge number of glitches, which varies from hard-drive to hard-drive (those with the Thompson drives have the worst-case scenarios), and sidequests that are impossible to complete period. Such quests are the Telos Fuel Source, TSF Two Criminals, Dantooine Redemption, etc.
Character development: Atton Rand, Bounty Hunter Mira, assassin droid HK-47, Mandalore, Visas Marr, and Kreia were the only well-developed characters that Obsidian had time to work on. T3-M4 undergoes a personality change, but ends up being an exact clone of R2-D2. Unfortunately, some of the other characters pretty much fall flat on their faces. Handmaiden is too shallow and feels too Gothic, Hanharr is a wookie that whines about his life-debt to Mira, G0-T0 is the cheap version of "The Architect" from the Matrix franchise, Bao-Dur ends up being the big casualty since you barely get any background story from him besides "I just want to repair things, general."
Unfortunately, you don't care about the villains at all in this game. Darth Nihilus is a parasite waiting to get squashed by you, and Darth Sion is a bad guy that just tries too hard to imitate Vin Diesel. The worst thing of all is you don't get to relive your romance sub-plots at all. Again, emphasis is LucasArts is to blame for not giving Obsidian time to develop the characters well.
Sound: 9/10: The voice-acting was great, but I had problems with the soundtrack. The soundtrack just felt too "creepy" to be Star Wars. I only liked the Ebon Hawk music, that's pretty much it.
Verdict: Avoid the game at all costs and sign petitions so that Obsidian might get a second-chance on re-making this game. It may not physically possible now, but it would be nice to dream about it. Unfortunately, LucasArts probably has lost future investments no thanks to this mess.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Contradicts Enter The Matrix's intentions of preluding the movie
I first watched Matrix Reloaded and played Enter The Matrix to understand the full story, expecting for a good ending, and hopefully giving Niobe (Jada Pinkett-Smith) and Ghost (Anthony Wong) much larger parts in the movie.
Let's see where we left off previously:
Matrix Reloaded: Neo (Keanu Reeves) is told by the Architect that the prophecy was a lie and there were five previous versions of the Matrix, but also has to choose one of the two doors. One door to save Zion, and another to save Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss). Neo chooses to save Trinity, and tells Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne)and Link (Harold Perrineau Jr.) about his conversation with the Architect. The Sentinels find their location and blew up the Nebuchadnezzar. Neo manages to destroy the Sentinels with his recently-created powers, but results him going into a coma. Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, and Link were rescued by the crew of the Hammer, a crew led by Roland (David Roberts). Roland explains what had happened recently, including an EMP incident. They found one survivor, who turns out to be Bane (Ian Bliss).
Enter The Matrix: Shortly after destroying the Power Plant, all hell started to break loose, and the player is given glimpses that Bane was actually responsible for the EMP and killing his crewmates. The crew of the Logos get a call from Seraph (Sing Ngai a.k.a. Collin Chou.) Seraph says he brings word from the Oracle and that they must come at once. Niobe volunteers to go to the Oracle and defeats Seraph. Niobe meets the Oracle (with Mary Alice playing the role for the first time) and is not sure if the Oracle is not the Oracle. After Niobe is convinced of the Oracle's new identity, Niobe asks what happened. The Oracle explains to Niobe that the Merovingian became furious after finding out that she decided to help Neo and needed to change her appearance. Niobe asks what happened to Neo. The Oracle tells her that Neo touched the Source and separated his mind from his body (while Neo disabled the Sentinels). Niobe asks if she can free him, and the Oracle told her that Trinity is capable of saving Neo, but will `have to fight her way through hell to do it.' Niobe asks if she could help, and the Oracle replied that is why she called the Logos. She is not sure what is going to happen (namely Smith's on-going rampage in the Matrix). The Oracle said that she cannot see beyond the end. Niobe tries to correct the Oracle only Neo could do that. The Oracle said `I mean we.' She tells Niobe that the path of the one is made by the many and that they all have an important role to play. As Niobe leaves, she gets pursued by dozens of Agent Smiths (Hugo Weaving) and eventually leaves the Matrix. Things get worse as a group of Sentinels found the Logos. Niobe focuses on piloting the Logos away from the Sentinels as far as possible while Ghost focuses on shooting down the Sentinels. The Logos soon hits a dead-end and triggers the EMP, stranding the crew for the time being.
Main story for Revolutions: The crew of the Hammer look at the Matrix screen still trying to search for Niobe and Ghost. As the medic continued to examine Neo and Bane, she started to notice the cuts on Bane's arm, arousing suspicion about him, and the readings of Neo is at a position only possible if he is inside the Matrix. The Hammer gets a call from Seraph. Trinity and Morpheus are told of the situation of what has happened to Neo and they would have to find the Trainman, with Seraph accompanying them. After a few battles, Neo is reunited with everyone else, but visits the Oracle to learn about what he has to do. Moments after exiting the Matrix, the Hammer finds the Logos.
After a long amount of time alone, Neo decides he has to head to Zero-One, the machine city (the same Zero-One from the Animatrix). After some conflicts, Niobe decides to lend the Logos to Neo. Neo and the rest of his allies go their separate ways, with Trinity accompanying him. Niobe, Ghost, Morpheus, Link, Sparks (Lachy Hulme), and the crew of the Hammer attempt to return to Zion. The main objective becomes clear to Neo: ask for peace with the machines while ending Smith's threat in the Matrix, while the Zion Resistance forces tries to protect Zion as much as they can
I had other expectations for the movie, but it turns out that Niobe and Ghost's roles in the movie have once again been minor, but had slightly larger roles (with only Enter The Matrix emphasizing that their tasks are important.). The only action given to the two is getting the crew back to Zion with Niobe as the main pilot while Ghost is one of the gunners (I expected Niobe and Ghost to help Morpheus, Trinity, and Seraph out in the Matrix at least.).
My biggest gripe with the movie is the battle with Agent Smith, although the fight was long and as dramatic as possible, the fight started to rip off the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z anime series. What were Larry and Andy Wachowski thinking when doing the finale of the movie? As for the ending:
(SPOILERS)
The Matrix is NOT destroyed. The Wachowski brothers wanted to create The Matrix Online, a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game and are in the process of creating it along with Ubi Soft.
(end spoilers)
Hopefully, the loose ends will be tied up (for example how is Sati's role important and how big of an impact would she have on both worlds [The Oracle said that if the player met the Oracle as Ghost.]?)
Story review overall: The story is less confusing and slightly tied up the loose ends of Matrix Reloaded, but the con is that they made a few references to Enter The Matrix, and an average movie-goer is not aware of the game so he or she might feel lost in a way (if the audience only sticks with watching the movies alone, they won't get the FULL story.). It is HIGHLY advisable to play Enter The Matrix (or look for the transcript of it at www.gamefaqs.com) and to watch Animatrix to get the full Matrix story (Just watch Kid's Story, both parts of Second Renaissance, and Final Flight Of The Osiris.)
Story disappointments and what COULD HAVE been changed and added:
Changes:
- Have the Hammer find the Logos before Trinity and Morpheus go into the Matrix and have Niobe and Ghost accompany them (well, on the other hand, I guess they really needed a break since they went through a lot of events in Enter The Matrix and Matrix Reloaded)
- Add some more jokes from Sparks (the `Wipe the windshield while you're at it' line is just not enough)?
- Try to show what happened to the crew of the Hammer, and the other gunners (including Ghost)
Additions:
- Tie up the loose ends between Trinity's relationship with Ghost. In Enter The Matrix, the players get the message that Trinity and Ghost were close friends and have a brother-sister relationship, but the video game player finds out that Ghost has feelings for Trinity and starts to fall in love with her (at least a good-bye scene between the two?).
- Try to show what happened to Neo. Was he killed or just plain unconscious? - Is Niobe's relationship with Lock, or Morpheus (the game gave us mixed messages on this.)?
Acting: A minor gripe I had is that Neo barely had emotions almost through-out the whole movie, except:
(Spoilers again)
When Trinity dies on him. The rest of the cast did quite a great job.
Overall: The story just gets a `good' rating.
7 out of 10.
Blade II (2002)
Greatest Action/Horror movie of the 21st Century
When I first saw this movie, I was amazed, but couldn't hear anything, but I bought the DVD. When I saw it again it was all action and the plot was a bit understandable. The plus side is that the Blade movies are A LOT BETTER than the Resident Evil movie. "You do not know WHO YOU'RE F***ING WITH!" Blade
Story: Blade (Snipes) is now in Prague trying to find his partner and mentor Whistler (Kristofferson)(Whistler did shoot himself, but he turned into a vampire.). Teaming up with Scud (Reedus), Blade finally finds Whistler and cures him. However, moments after, two vampires enter their HQ to deliever a message telling Blade the Damaskinos clan needs his help. Blade then makes an unlikely alliance with the Bloodpack (led by Perlman), originally trained to hunt Blade, to eliminate a new threat. Reapers, led by Nomak (Goss) Nosferatu-essque vampires, are capable of feeding of vampires, which turns them into their kind. The same thing applies to humans also. Main strengths are that they're immune to silver and garlic. They are only vunerable to sunlight, and on the sides of their bodies. Now Blade has to go along for the ride.
There is more to the story as it seems, but I don't want to spoil it. In some of the scenes, there were a few emotional scenes and morals like for example, Blade started caring about Nyssa sometime in the movie and Whistler was more of a father figure instead of a drill-sergeant type of character. "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer." Blade
There was some humor in it, but some of it was dirty (no problem with that.). The action scenes were like "Oh S***!" and Blade was more of a bad-ass and seemed like he was enjoying it. The fight scenes were well done and coordinated by Donnie Yen (Bloodpack member Snowman). The Reaper effects were well-done.
Should you buy it or rent it? It depends on your tastes. If you're not into vampire movies (stupid teens meet up with them), then this is something you'll like. If you just don't like vampires in general, don't get it. For people that enjoy action movies, it is a MUST-BUY. Any Resident Evil fans disappointed with the movie, this will cheer you up hopefully.
Personal evaluation: Watching it makes me hyper and confident enough in my karate class which helps me kick a lot of ass.
Rating: 9 and a half/10
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Great War Movie of 2001.
When I first saw this movie, it was very strong. It made me want to buy the DVD so I could understand the movie. Everything in the movie was perfect.
Story: 300,000, and counting Somalis died from starvation. Warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid seized all of the ports and is giving the food to feed his army. The U.S. tried to send food with 200,000 Marines as escorts. Aidid waited until they withdrawed and started again. Now, President Clinton sent in the Rangers, Delta Force, and SOAR to remove Aidid from the region. However, on a mission to capture Aidid's advisors, one Black Hawk helicopter gets shot down by one of the Somali soldiers carrying RPG launchers. While trying to rescue the survivors, another Black Hawk helicopter gets shot down.
CHARACTERS:
As for the characters, they are great and have their own reasons for things. Sergeant Eversmann (Josh Hartnett) is just a drill sergeant in a training camp in Somalia. Lieutenant Beales had a seizure and Captain Steele put Eversmann in charge of Beales's chalk. Eversmann just joined because he wanted to make a difference, "(about the Somalis) It's not that I like them or don't like them. These people have no food, no job, no education. We can do two things: Help them, or watch the country destroy itself on CNN." However, he is in conflict on the field considering it is his first live mission and wants to do everything right.
Grimes (Ewan McGregor) is just a "desk jockey" and coffee maker. "You are actually looking at the guy that believes the commercials 'Be all you can be.' I made coffee during Desert Storm. I was sitting behind a desk while everyone got to fight in Panama." Grimes felt that his talent is being wasted while the rest of the Rangers got to fight in the past missions. When Grimes's wish finally comes true, it becomes a nightmare for him because most of Mogadishu is fighting all of the teams and just wants to stay alive. At least he gets to be successful in one scene.
Hoot is a "tough guy" warhorse, but he has some morals and was kind of like a big brother and a teacher to Eversmann.(Spoiler) "Once that first bullet flies past your head, politics and all that s*** fly out the window," was one of the good points. And at the ending, he tells Eversmann one of his great lines, "When I get home, my friends ask me, 'Hey, Hoot, why do you do this, man? Why, you're some war junkie?' I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's all about the men next to you." He even doesn't want Eversmann to rejoin him because he probably did not want to jeopardize Eversmann's life.
Captain Steele (Jason Issacs) is upset at the Delta Force soldiers because he thinks that they lack discipline (from modifying their weapons and wearing sunglasses) and there is a rivalry between them and the Rangers. "You Delta boys are nothing but a bunch of undisciplined cowboys. Some day, you WILL need my Rangers"
Colonel McKnight (Tom Sizemore) has most of hell on his convoy. They kept getting poor intel on the locations leading to the crash sites. He lost about ten soldiers while struggling on getting the directions. Even after he is back at base, he still wants to go back to the field even when Lt. Colonel Cribbs tells him that Mcknight does not have to go back.
As for Shugart and Gordon (the people that tried to defend Durant), they were very heroic in the line of duty. I was surprised that they received the Medal Of Honor. It was too bad that it was the three of them fighting.
END CHARACTER
This movie shows the very grim reality of modern-day war. On one scene where Yurek gets separated from his team, and gets attacked by a Father and Son Somali team and Yurek leaves through a back window, Yurek slips and the boy shoots the father. It made me feel sorry for them. It also made me feel sorry for the families of the soldiers that died during the mission.
As for the start of the credits starting out as "1000 Somalis and 19 American soldiers got killed, it showed a list of the names of the soldiers that died. A person from another review complained that there were no names of the Somalis that died. To talk back at that person, it is impossible to ID the Somalis that got killed. It is even too dangerous to go there as of that time since there are still a lot of crazy militiamen.
This movie could have gotten an Emmy or Oscar award. The most dramatic scenes in my opinion were the part where Shugart and Gordon are fighting the whole city while defending Durant and the Wolcott's crash site at nighttime to dawn.
Wish they could do a segment like this on a video game.
I give this movie unlimited/10.
Seriously: 10/10
Resident Evil (2002)
Is this Resident Evil? RE fans, avoid this.
***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** At first I thought this movie was going to be good, but it turns out I was wrong. I got disappointed with the fact that this is a prequel to the games. It has created quite a lot of plotholes. First, Umbrella doesn't own everything. In the games, it is just a corporation that does genetic experiments and failed escaped subjects (zombies and dogs)cause danger to the whole public. They have enough money to bribe the officials (chief of police, mayor, etc.).
SPOILERS ON STORY: Matt and his sister, Liz, wanted to expose Umbrella to the public about the T-Virus. Liz contacts Alice and Alice gives her info to steal the virus. However, someone overheard and leaked the virus at the lab and caused gas to go off knocking out some survivors unconcious and suffer from amnesia. Umbrella sends in their soldiers to destroy the Red Queen computer.
END SPOILER
What I was disappointed with is when Kaplan tried to shoot a zombie, he tried to limp her (Are you stupid?). No one even bothered to go for head shots until Red Queen told the characters to do so. The movie was partially good until then.
FINAL SPOILER: After Matt and Alice escape and Alice tries to administer the anti-virus, they get ambushed by Umbrella soldiers. There was mention of the Nemesis Program (Nemesis from RE3.). The ending got stupid when Alice just pries out a shotgun from an RPD squad car.
END SPOILER
I don't blame the actors and actresses in the movie because they did a good job, but I don't think Anderson did a good job on the story and some of the character developments. Since I thought it was going to be the end, it is not.
Anderson is now trying to do a sequel and set it around RE3. He even tries to have Alice meet up with Jill Valentine (RE, RE3. Are you kidding me?). RE fans, just stick with the games. The movie is a big disappointment and messes up the whole storyline.