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azza882010
Reviews
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (2007)
Good...but bad
2010 and the PS3 still doesn't have any really great exclusive apps.
Killzone, Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, MGS 4 & Resistance are probably the main ones.
out of that bunch though, uncharted is undoubtedly the worst.
The main dude Nathan Drake is about as likable as a bag of rusty nails, a sort of uber obnoxious mix between john mcclane and indiana jones only with the good bits left out. He and this stereotypical headstrong reporter girl seem to be trying to go for a fool's gold style romance - take the "gold" out of that statement and you've got what actually occurs in the game.
It starts off fairly well with a pirate shoot out on a big boat, if you're observant you'll notice these pirates must be coated in lead or otherwise invincible as they don't seem to kick the bucket when you unload a few rounds directly into their skulls.....hmmm.
anyway, after that there's bit of swinging around in the jungle, nice meaty leaping and grappling on ledges, looks a bit like an HD tomb raider, graphics are OK but the big lush environments seem to come at the expense of texture, like a master artist has drawn the outlines and then a child has come along and done the inside with crayons.
Then the shooting starts up again and you realise that Drake and his Sidekick can't possible be the stars of this game, no no no, it must be the Mercenaries you're pitted against, after a brief intro to the bad guy (you know he's bad because he's got an English accent....) you start to realise that these brave heroic men can - in no particular order - teleport from cyberspace appear behind you even if you've already cleared the path, take a full round of ak47 bullets to the midriff but still charge at you, dodge bullets altogether simply by slowly ducking and shifting slightly to the left or right, never ever miss a shot not even if drake is behind a wall, put together tactical plans so complex that within seconds of you ducking out to recover your health you've got 3 of them surrounding you in a circle and filling drakes empty head with hot lead (rhymes!) but the smartest move in the master soldier repertoire is the technique of ammo swallowing: you never actually see it in game but it's obvious that every enemy must munch at least 75% of their anti-drake pellets because when you're rutting around in the mud for some full metal jackets with which to hopefully fend off the endless hordes of super-hyper-mega-men for a few more moments so you can get to the next checkpoint you can only ever find about 12 at a time, yet while these punks were still live and kicking were in no shortage of lead.
So basically you've got the platforming of ratchet & clank, a character that's as annoying as raiden from mgs, an enemy that's as abundant as the chimera of resistance but has the resilience and combat smarts of the helghast. of course....this is just coincidence, so although it seems that uncharted is a mongrel mix of the ps3's best it is actually it's own independent sack of monkey poo.
Saying that, it's not too bad, the story might interest you if you've got any love for treasure hunting but if anything the shooting will put you off. So if you can forgive the clunky shooting, the fact you appear to be facing an army of terminators and perhaps find a place in your heart for the human Marmite jar that is Nathan Drake then you'll probably really like this game, if not then leave it in the shop.
The Inbetweeners (2008)
Yet to meet someone who dislikes this!
If your mother ever told you that swearing is not big or clever then you ought to sit her down and make her watch the inbetweeners.
the 10/10 isn't because this is brilliantly written or because the characters ring true or because i'm English and this is too...it's 10 because this show is about nothing, no touching sentiments, no clever insights into modern life just a really funny sitcom.
It's way too sweary and crude for the more dainty among you, but for everyone else it's just non stop laughs, it's ludicrous that almost every spoken line is something hilarious or the situation is so awkward you can't help but laugh at them as they strike out with yet another "bird".
At only 6 episodes a season and only 20 mins a go we would expect it to be pretty explosive but still with that in mind...even the grown ups in this are funny!!! the main character Will is everything you would hate in a classmate, and so much more, pretentious, faux-gentlemanly, snobby, whiny and just a first class pr1ck to be fair.
the rest of his buddies shape up a bit better though, the dense Neil, who never really gets a line other than to say something jaw-droppingly stupid.
Jay, sex maniax and serial bull-sh1tter.
Simon, the moral benchmark and apparently most attractive of the group.
the Car is a great touch, the fit bird who sort of fancies will is a great touch, the parents are bl00dy brilliant and the almost insane lengths these nutters will go to to get sh@gged is worthy of a medal.
well worth a watch, if you find it cheap.
Seinfeld (1989)
Everything you could want in a sitcom
What can you say about Seinfeld that hasn't already been said?
Genius, groundbreaking, brilliant, hilarious, superb - each of those sum it up quite well, but they're heavy words to describe a sitcom.
George's character to Jerry in a resteraunt scene - "you can't not be funny!", jerry to george "well i'm not being funny now" george ".......you sort of are", Elaine's character to Jerry "Jerry, you can't NOT be funny!"
Indeed he can't!
The rotting carcus that is the Seinfeld legacy had long been picked clean by Warner Bros and Paramount for there own 90's spawned sitcoms, 2 big ones, both begin with "F", before i started watching it - So if you watch this in the 00's as I did and then think that you've seen all the humour before....well you have, but THIS was the original and the best.
The remarkable thing about Seinfeld is the fact that it can be both rewarding to newcomers and die hard fans alike, there's plenty of in-jokes that span the entire 9 seasons but there's enough stand alone humour and likability in the characters so that every episode is funny in some way or another.
Jerry Seinfeld, surreally, plays himself, a stand-up comic living in new york although his success and lifestyle are toned down so as to accommodate the programme's setting.
Jerry and his brilliantly cast and written friends, George (Jason Alexander), Kramer (Michael Richards) & Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) don't do a great deal......this is after all a "show about nothing".....but within about 5 minutes into the second episode you'll wonder how "doing stuff" could ever be as funny as watching these people sit around talking about whether they're obligated to order coffee instead of something else just because a place they're in is called a coffee shop.
Not that Sein' runs short on things for the characters to get rapped up in, it's unique not in that all the characters do is talk but in it's way that it's the characters that make the settings rather than the other way around (cheers revolving mainly around the bar for example, norm's heavy drinking being comical etc etc). So Jerry goes about his day to day life and discusses with his friends the various peculiar happenings that are usually things we all encounter in our own lives albeit in the show these things are blown out of all proportion and treated like crucial evidence that the world is out to get the characters as individuals particularly george, not so much kramer.
it's Jerry and George's friendship that is the usual focus of the plot lines for the first couple of seasons, it's rare to see the other characters together without Jerry with them. However all of the characters bring something to the table, Kramer is possibly the show's biggest hook, he's insane and brilliantly portrayed by Michael Richards, an innocent naive man-child who always tries to do the right by his friends but ends up being an incredible annoyance then gets genuinely flabbergasted when his "favours" turn round and bite him in the 5ss *see the episode where he pores cement mix into a laundry machine to get revenge for Jerry.
In my opinion the show could have done without Elaine, i don't think it would have been too boyish without her and as for female viewers needing to relate to a character...well that's not what this was really about...cos the characters are mental. She gets the least funny lines and can be incredibly mean to George, so i'm not a huge fan but I suppose being the worst of the best isn't too bad...if you really think about it.
George (partly based on Larry David, of 'Curb) is the show's funniest character by far, he gets the best catchphrases, the best scenes, the best relationships and by far is the best at getting himself into embarrassing situations because of the string of lies he tells....quality character and a quality actor.
Jerry's character is the only "normal" one of the bunch, he's the focal point of everything and he doesn't mind mixing fantasy with reality...parodying his real-life appearances on the tonight show and starting each episode with a brief clip of him doing stand-up and so on....it's a joy to watch Seinfeld act as you can sometimes just TELL he's dying to burst out laughing at some of the lines, a genuinely nice fella and one of the funniest people on the planet.
i'd recommend seinfeld to anyone, but don't watch the pilot first....it's not very good!
Gears of War 2 (2008)
The Ultimate 360 Game And The Defining Current-Gen Shoot-Em-Up
The first glimpse of a killer-app that most of us got from the current generation of consoles was the first Gears of War, a shooter set on an alien planet now inhabited by humans that are battling a subterranean alien species called the Locust, not doing too well either!
The concept of the series is "cover, shoot n run", you duck to cover when the locust pop up, shoot em as quick as you can (cos if you don't get them they WILL get you, get you BIG STYLE) and then run to the next cover to shoot again before the chunky gorilla's can flank you.
1st gears was good, it had good graphics, particularly towards the end, but the entire thing was quite narrow when you think back on it, you had corridor blasting and the occasional shoot-out in a courtyard but other than that the games mechanic was all about the gameplay rather than the graphics (beautiful at the time) or the WOW moment set-pieces, it's a meaty game no doubt but one that's been bettered in every single way by it's sequel.
More beauty, More freedom, More set-pieces, more weapons, more varied environments, increased fluidity in combat, better character development and as for the overall plot in comparison to the original, well forget about it! This game actually gives you an idea of what state the locust attacks have left humanity in, it's almost as if this should have been the first game, sure the orig' had that cutscene where humans blow up their own abandoned cities so the Locust can't steal their dressing gowns and cigars (what else could they get from library's and stately homes??? Seemingly that's all the humans built on Sera!!) anyway like i say, the game shows you some pretty f'ed up civvy's dying of a fatal illness called "rustlung" that's caused by that imulsion stuff vaporising from the heat of the bomb you personally blew up in the first game...yes that's right, the series' main character is now responsible for roughly as much human death and suffering as any given locust general...but back to the start, so the first level is a hospital for rustlung suffers that gets invaded by the 'cust before you and you're squad give them a molten lead smackdown.
Then it's off to the country where you ride big tractor platforms, HUGE set-piece follows, hundreds of locust, lots of shooting, lots of excellent vista's, lots of sadness as certain characters do or don't make it....
Then you're underground, i normally groan when a game makes you go underground when the surface seems so much nicer (fallout 3????) but in GOW2 not only does it make sense, it actually suits the game better. The things you see down there not only show how horrible the Locust really are but it also gives them an incredible layer of mystery, they have their own chapels and Gothic style cities teeming with life, all underneath the surface.
There's some funky and useful wildlife down there too, can't find cover? drag that big rocky worm over here and we'll let the lil' fella soak up the bullets. Easy!!!
The game would be incredibly grim and almost Killzone-esquire in it's seriousness were it not for the art direction and character design, although truly an adult's game there is lots of vibrant colour splashed around the environments and the characters always diffuse quiet situations with witty observations.
This game costs about £11 now, if you got a 360 you should got Gears of War 2, cos if you don't got Gears.....you don't got nothing.
Frasier (1993)
Simply outstanding.
Small Spoiler!
I like Frasier, i always have and it's always annoyed me that people won't give it a chance because they think it's high-brow and pretentious.
First of all the entire concept of the show is based on a long-standing character out of Cheers, i'm sure everyone would agree that even Friends could seem snobby compared to such an every-man sitcom so how can it be so that Frasier is only for "intellectual" people?
so with that in mind let me dispel some misconceptions about Frasier:
It is not snobby or difficult to get into, if you see a random episode with Niles and Frasier talking psychobabble in Armani suits while sipping latte's in a posh coffee shop then i can see why you'd think that. But Frasier is a sitcom that rewards commitment, I've had friends who've hated frasier even though they've only seen little bits, i've sat them down and shown them a few choice episodes and they've completely fallen in love with it and borrowed the DVD's. But back to the coffee suppin' snobs, the recurrent theme of the programme is how utterly ridiculous Niles and Frasier actually are, they live ludicrous lifestyles where they consider themselves to be better than everyone else because they appreciate the "finer things" in life. Were it not for the excellent writing and brilliant actors then these 2 would be detestable human beings, but as it is you see them as a source of pity rather than arrogant idiots, they were heavily bullied at school and have both had ridiculously trying marriages with women who made them feel inadequate, not to mention the fact the brothers are insanely competetive with each other.
The whole premise of the show isn't 2 people discussing Freud's theories in a coffee shop, Frasier's down to earth ex-policeman father martin got shot and is now unable to live on his own, he and his dog and his hideous green chair have to move in with Frasier, this is the tempo for the first few seasons, frasier and martin and martin's English healthcare worker Daphne Moon.
Frasier usually being the aggressor in arguments and constantly being the one who's unreasonable, all the while doling out advice on tolerance and forgiveness at his job at a radio station (the show's longest recurring theme, Frasier being someone who believes himself to be very self aware but in actual fact he's a massive hipocrite) all the while usually being mocked by his free wheeling producer Roz Doyle who thinks that Frasier has no fun.
The comedy comes thick and fast at home too with Martin and Daphne pointing out Frasier's ludicrous habits and pretentous tendencies while they all try to get along under the same roof.
then there's the 7 series long run of Niles being in love with Daphne and her being miraculously unaware even though his behaviour around her is incredibly goofy and/or flirtatious.
It is true that Frasier and Niles pull every little problem to pieces with intense over-analysis, but far from being boring this just emphasizes the fact that these 2 couldn't possibly exist outside of their perfect little worlds.
Not once does the programme take itself too seriously, it's often incredibly touching when Martin and Frasier connect over something as they are 2 radically different people that occasionally ponder if they are even blood related because fraiser and niles are nothing like him but much more like their dead mother, but you are never led to believe that Frasier and Martin don't love each other and Frasier often tells his father that he respects him more than anyone else he's ever met and that his father's integrity has made him the man he is today.
as the seasons go on you see Niles and Frasier trying to better theirselves and be less pretentious, everything from fatherhood to relationships gets a look-in through all 11 seasons and Frasier's capacity to sabotage his own relationships is surely second to none.
to sum it up i'd say that Frasier is, funny, touching, clever and rewarding, but if you don't understand the premise then you will not enjoy it.
Scrubs (2001)
Better than Friends
Season 1 SPOILERS!!!! I saw the advert for this years ago and thought it looked completely ridiculous, then one day i spotted the 1st season boxset on sale so i decided to give it a try and i'm very glad i did.
it starts off like a comedy version of E.R., with Zach Braff's John Dorian mirroring Noah While's Dr Carter, however after the first few episodes it becomes evident that the only similarity the 2 programme's share is being set in a hospital, that's literally it, so if you made the mistake of thinking this was an E.R. copycat then don't worry, it's not.
The characters are all excellently developed, John Dorian J.D. the nerdy intern looking for life lessons all over the place, his jock-like surgeon roommate chris turk who's friendship with JD is often quite touching, the there's the latina nurse who ends up dating turk, dr cox the hilariously mean attending physician who's always happy to put JD in his place but hates owning up to being his mentor, Bob Kelso the reputedly evil but really just misunderstood chief of medicine who is constantly at odds with Cox, the frankly huge collection of second/third tier characters that exist purely to say something genuinely funny every time they're in scene.
Now the thing with Scrubs is that even though all episodes are set at the hospital they never become samey as each one is varied, in one episode you have JD lusting after his fellow intern Elliot Reid and in another you see Cox's best friend turning up at the hospital with a seemingly innocent injury that reveals itself to be a life threatening illness then onto JD inadvertently disrespecting the menacing janitor by presuming he's upset because his mop has gone missing.
every episode is something unique.
the interesting thing about scrubs is that although J.D. is the main character he is not often seen as the "hero" of the show, rather the one who makes mistakes both in his job and his personal life after which he needs one of his friends to help him out, you get the impression that if he had to survive on his own he'd probrably just stand rooted to any given spot with pee trickling down his legs, needy does not even begin to describe this character, saying that his heart is always in the right place and he is known to always make the right decision and do the honest thing.
in the 1st season he's a great character that you can empathise with as he struggles through relationships and work trouble, however in the later seasons the character practically turns into a girly man-child, doing doodlings of flowery unicorns and making stupid remarks left right and centre, all the while constantly asserting that he will grow up and be more mature. To this end you can't help but feel that if he spent less time thinking about himself and more time thinking about the people he cares about and the patients in his charge then half of his problems would go away.
so with JD you sort of feel the character, instead of developing, just hits the 12 year old maturity roof and then travels sideways for 9 seasons, it would be unfair to say this about his medical skill though as you do see him come into his own as a professional, but then that's not what this particular show is supposed to be about and if ever one of his colleagues betters him at anything he flies off the handle and sulks until one of his (surely be now) tired friends gives him a pep talk.
in earnest JD is at best the glue that holds the rest of the characters together, interacting through him and coming together to help him and so on, so perhaps it was intentionally written for him to be irksome in order that the other characters would have more interaction with each other as a consequence.
i would recommend scrubs to anyone as i think that mostly the characters in it are top notch and the laughs come thick and fast.
*also, although i dislike JD's character it is in no way a reflection on Zach Braff, i've seen him in interviews and think he's a very level headed individual, plus he definitely called time on his character at the right moment rather than staying on for the money. good on him.
Solomon Kane (2009)
Good acting but a bit too long
Slight SPOILER!!!!!
If you liked the video game Dante's Inferno then the plot of this will definitely grip you.
it was tough to find this film, it received limited release in my town and the only showings it got were at 10 at night or later I think this film was based on a comic book, not that you would ever know it. Solomon Kane is a great character, an utter bad-ass that the plot makes you believe can take on 15 men unarmed and emerge without a scratch.
implausible yes but when you consider Kane was trained as a captain in the navy (or something) and the people he's fighting are just burly farmers from Devon, it doesn't seem all that ridiculous.
the movie starts off with a bang, kane and his boys are massacaring some apparently godless heathens somewhere in the caribbean, in Kane's first scene he has all the swagger of a merciless superman on steroids riding high on a sugar rush, dispatching savage after savage and then facing some sort of demon that wants his soul because he's been a very naughty boy.
to not reveal too much solomon ends up back in dreary old england (VERY dreary) and our man has resolved to a life of peace and talking with a hilarious Devonshire twang.
we find out he's the heir to some sort of lordship and he ran out on his family cos his brother was an even more ruthless g1t than solo himself.
thus starts the quest for redemption, pitting kane up against a religious pete poselthwaite who's decided the best thing for he and his unarmed family is to ride around an English countryside swarming with bandits picking up badly beaten strangers and offering them rides to America.
the plot drags a little up to this point but when Kane is forced to break his vow of peace things really start to heat up, the combat isn't terribly flash and there's no dizzying camera angles when the fists are flying, which i think is a great touch in this post-matrix cinema world.
James Purefoy is brilliant as Kane, he's a mix between LOTR's Aragorn and 300's King Leonidas.
at 2 hours long it seems quite lengthy for an action film that doesn't hide the fact it's out there for it's fights rather than it's thoughts.
well worth a watch but you'll need patience for the first 30 minutes, shame more people won't see it.
Bolt (2008)
Charming tale about the loyalty of man's best friend.
We've been CGI spoiled lately i think, Wall-E with it's touching love story and climate change undertones then Ratatouillie with it's charming characters...
i think this has made us lose focus on traditional animated films, after all if toy story was released right now what kind of critical reception would it get???? fact is, an animated film shouldn't have to say something about us as a society and it shouldn't have to have something for adults (shrek), it should sometimes just be what it is, a darn good yarn.
Bolt is not from Disney Pixar by the way, so don't expect dizzying brilliance from it cos although it is good it's not up to the legendary studio's standards.
John Travolta voices the lead character who believes himself to be a super-powered dog charged with protecting his owner - Penny, Miley Cyrus.
Through misfortune Bolt ends up at the other side of the country, as he believes himself to have superpowers he thinks that the "green eyed man" (villain in the TV show Bolt stars in) is responsible for his predicament and immediately sets off to rescue Penny.
Encountering a cat that thinks he's insane and a fat hamster that is just as deluded as Bolt, together the 3 travel across the country and face various challenges and life lessons together.
The soundtrack is great and the animation superb.
this is well worth a watch but not if you're expecting it to be more than it is.
Kick-Ass (2010)
Ace movie, poor ad campaign
First of all i'm starting this review off with the idea that no film, whether it's independent and artsy or all action and gory, is perfect.
So with that in mind i'll write my review of Kick-Ass, it's a great film that was let down spectacularly by it's marketing campaign, now i live in the UK and while i can't comment on anywhere else in the world i can say that the advertising campaign in my city made this movie look like 'virtua fighter kids vs the care bears on acid', lots of garish flashy images of teenagers in daft outfits.
i recently read that this film fell way short of it's financial targets, i'm convinced this is because of the god-awful ad campaign.
anyway....the film gripped me straight away, aaron johnson is a very likable character and while his friends seem like SUPERBAD rejects (more on that later), it's hard not to instantly empathise with him.
after about 20 minutes you get the idea that the flavour of this film is more to make you think about your own morality when it comes to helping others rather than watching nerdy kids running around in pyjamas.
After Kick-ass' first proper fight you can really get behind the character and against all logic....actually start to think that this story is plausible.
about an hour in you get to meet the true stars of the movie (as the critics say), big daddy and hit girl, lots of controversy over HG's use of the C-word, while if you read this it will seem gimmicky it's actually quite reasonable conduct for a character that spends her evenings cleaning up street trash.
saying that i found her character to be a bit of an annoying know-it-all, also christopher mints-plasse seems to have been thrown in as red mist for no discernible reason other than to ride the coat tails of the current cr*p that passes as comedy at the cinema.
Nicholas Cage is excellent as Big Daddy and his character gets the most emotional scene in the film, Mark Strong makes for a menacing gangster and Johnson's on-screen squeeze gets quite a few good comedy moments.
this film actually does quite well in the character development department, especially considering that this is part of the comic book genre.
the soundtrack is great and the plot never drags, at 2 and a bit hours long it's certainly more than most people would bargain for.
well worth a giving a go, even if the case artwork/posters don't seem to do it for you.