Deathrace

It’s strange the movies you decide to check out once you have a service like Netflix. I guess not having to pay the $10 or more for a DVD has its advantage. Recently, I received the new Deathrace movie that came out in theaters last year sometime. It had Jason Statham, from the Transporter movies, in it, so I figured it had to be decent.

Before I’d even watched it, though, a guy at work, who’s more than twice my age, told me about the original film, Deathrace 2000, which had come out way back in 1975. It had starred Sylvester Stallone, and had been nothing more than a gorefest. Basically, the idea was for the racers to kill as many pedestrians as they could during a race.

However, Deathrace has a little more class–and much more validity. What if reality TV producers could do anything they wanted? What if every prison in America was run by corporate interests? Well, you’d get something like what this movie portrays, I’m sure. Think Super Mario Kart without all the cute–machine guns instead of turtle shells. That’s Deathrace.

In order to pay for their incarceration, the corporation that runs Terminal Island–one of the largest prisons in the country where only the worst of the worst are sent–has created a reality TV show involving some of their highest profile prisoners. It’s basically a race to the…death. If an inmate survives three races, he gets to go home–leave the prison behind. That is except…the evil warden doesn’t want ANYONE to leave…alive. That might hurt the ratings.

All in all, Deathrace is a fun watch. It has plenty of action, and the bad guy–or, should I say, gal?–is believable, as is the hero. I’ve killed a couple of hours before in worse ways–with worse movies. No Country for Old Men. Please, shoot ME with that air gun.

Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet is a Tron meets Underworld meets The Matrix sort of film. However, unlike the latter two mentioned, it doesn’t have near enough depth–nor does it have any reason-based methodology–behind its story, which gets frustrating really quick. The story just goes on with no explanation about anything in it. About as much as you’ll understand is that there’s a virus that was created by the government in the hopes of creating super soldiers–that old chestnut–and, instead, it caused an infection that turned half the population into vampires–sort of, which is where I get the Underworld underpinning.

In fact, like Underworld, the lead character is a woman–Violet, or just “V” for short. The Ultra part comes from her vampire-like powers, though, these “powers” aren’t really in evidence, except that she’s deadly accurate with a gun…and sword. You get that. However, what you won’t get is why her clothes and the lenses of her glasses change color seemingly at random. You won’t understand until later into the film that people have the ability to conceal weapons at whim. You’ll know what I mean when you see it.

Visually, I think Ultraviolet harkins back to Tron. I mean, sure, it has all nicely rendered computer graphics. But, the feel of it is very, very Tron-like. And the physics in this world, well, they’re like they are in The Matrix–completely unrealistic, if not more so.

I wish I could say more about Ultraviolet. But, spare yourself the trouble. Go watch Underworld or The Matrix or, hell, even Tron–they’re a lot better.

Cloverfield

I’d heard good and bad about this movie. But, with Netflix, I thought, what the hey. So, I put it in the queue with some hope I wouldn’t be let down. I mean, after all, Cloverfield was written and produced by J.J. Abrams and his Bad Robot production company–the ones behind the hit TV shows Alias and LOST, which are two of my favorites. So, I had a right to be hopeful, right?

Well, the reviewers (both positive and negative in their comments) hadn’t missed a beat, because Cloverfield is everything they said–and more. Being a fan of Abrams’ work I wasn’t disappointed. However, I wasn’t fully satisfied, either. Cloverfield, for what it’s worth, is more of a high-concept piece. Yet, with that said, there is a story here.

Cloverfield is, yes, at it’s core, a monster flick–in the same vein as Godzilla or King Kong. Monster wreaking havoc in big city, check. Group of survivors trying to get away from said monster, check. Hot babes and death, check. So, that’s all there.

The high-concept part of it, of course, is how the story is told. In this modern YouTube culture we live in today, well, it was only a matter of time…Cloverfield is from a camcorder’s point of view. Yep, you heard right. One of the main characters in the movie is documenting what’s going on with a home video camera.

It’s like “watching it through a soda straw”, as one of the producers at Bad Robot put it on one of the DVD’s behind-the-scenes featurettes. And I guess that’s the best way to explain it. Essentially that’s what you get. It’s as if you had logged onto YouTube and sat down to watch a home-made movie. Is this bad?

It really depends how you look at it. I, for one, really enjoyed it. I was surprised. I thought this style would hurt my eyes, or be really confusing. But, it turned out to work really well, I think. True enough, though, if you suffer from motionsickness, you probably would get sick. It’s not as bad as Blair Witch. But, there are some herky-jerky moments of footage that do invoke slight feelings of vertigo.

Honestly, my only true beaf with the film: It’s too short and the monster’s not involved enough. The monster actually has no value to the story–other than creating havoc that our survivors must escape if they’re to live. And, here’s the kicker: Nobody lives. None of our survivors, anyway. They all die! Also, Cloverfield seems to just get going when the credits roll. It’s a real shame, because I’d like to know more. Where did the monster come from? What happened to New York city? Was the monster finally killed? We’ll never know, because the writers didn’t take us that far.

Cloverfield’s best parts are really the sense of frenzied panic, the loss and the utter desperation the actors bring to it–the realism that’s there is striking–and the visual effects are well-executed–to the point where things blend together seamlessly, like they should.

Once you get past Cloverfield’s faults, you’ll begin to appreciate it more. While not perfect, Cloverfield is far from a terrible movie. For high-concept film-making, it’s pretty damn good. If you like action-suspense, I’d recommend checking it out.

You’ve Been Erased

Every now and then there’s that particular movie that makes you go “wow”. I just finished watching Eraser. Now, I’ve never seen it before, obviously, and I know it came out way back in 1997, but, well, that doesn’t matter, because it’s more awesome than some of the more recent action flicks I’ve seen, such as Transporter 3, which I was thoroughly disappointed with.

Eraser…hmm…might just be Arnold’s best work. Everything from the final–or what appears to be the final–showdown between hero and villain to the witty one liners and the fast pace, man this movie has it all. And I don’t normally say that. In fact, the pace of Eraser is almost perfect. It has the lulls where needed and when the action hits…it hits, and it feels original, too–or, at least, fresh twists on old action flick chestnuts. I think one of my favorite scenes is where the mafia guys use a front-end loader’s shovel to deflect bullets–yes, it’s been done before, but the surprise was when the three of them popped up out of the shovel and mowed the bad guys down with some withering fire. That was completely unexpected. Another scene that stood out was in the vacation house. Arnold stabbing a bad guy through a door with a knife. That was inventive for sure. Then, there was the SecurityTek facility where he was attacked by three guys coming out of an elevator. Luckily, he’d already popped one and used him for a human shield that the others shot into. But, what was just brilliant, was when Arnold’s character pulled the pins on two grenades attached to the guy’s vest. When he kicked the guy into the elevator…I was like, “Damn right.”

OK. OK. I’ll calm down now. Yeah, lots of testosterone going on there. Anyway. The writers and producers of Eraser (along with Arnold and all the other excellent actors in this film; including, yes, Venesa Williams) did an excellent job creating, what I think is, a timeless action movie. If you’ve never seen it, well, you should–that is, if you love action movies as much as I do.

Rockin’ Crossword Clue

Sometimes to kill a little time I’ll do the daily crossword puzzle on Yahoo! Well, today I was just beginning it when I came across a clue I wasn’t exactly expecting:

Cool, huh?

Ensemble Studios…R.I.P.

I had heard about Microsoft laying off several thousand people, but never did I think it’d ever involve anything to do with video gaming–particularly Ensemble Studios. Those who’ve known me for many years will understand that this is a big deal to me. Why? Because, Ensemble’s games got me through some tough times. In fact, there was a time I lived, breathed, ate and played nothing but Age of Empires. Of course, those days are far distant to me, now. Yet, then I hear about Microsoft closing down Ensemble.

At first, I just couldn’t believe it. “What about Halo Wars?” I asked myself. That should have kept ES open, right? Well, apparently, they’re done with the development on it. So, MS seems to have thought they didn’t need them any more. Hmm…typical Microsoft. And I could understand if MS was in a tough financial situation. But, they aren’t! They’re not bleeding cash. They’re not in dire straights like the auto industry. No. They just didn’t make what they had told analysts they would. Therefore, we have greed to blame again. We’re good for that in America.

Greed. Greed. The big “g”-word. It’s disgusting, really. Anyway. I wish everybody at Ensemble Studios the best of luck. God knows they’ll probably need it in this crazy job market we’re in, which, again, is all because of greed.

I’ve put an “in memory of” pageholder up at Throughtheages.com. Eventually, the idea is to make it a sort of memorial with pictures and editorials about the Studios and the great games they produced. Of course, that’ll be an unfolding process, much like everything I do.

Ogre Found Netflix…Oh my!

I made a bad discovery the other day: Netflix. I mean, it’s extremely addicting. And I’m not talking about the Netflix through the mail, though that’s not a bad deal either. I’m talking about the Netflix now available through the Xbox 360. The “Watch Instantly” titles, while usually not the latest releases (though I have found a few), is well-worth the $8.99 a month, I think. However, I’m just doing the free two week trial for now, but chances are I’ll end up getting it.

Now, there are only 12,000 titles (versus the 100,000 mail-to-you titles) on the “Watch Instantly” feature, but what I do like is that you can place as many titles as you want in your queue. And you can watch one, pause it, and then go check out another–you don’t have to watch them in the order in which you selected them! Also, you can watch the movies on any Netflix-enabled device, which is kind of cool if you’re at, say, the airport and your flight’s been delayed, as long as there’s a Wi-Fi connection, you can watch the movies on your laptop at no extra charge. By now, I’m probably sounding like a commercial for these guys. Anyway. There are, of course, some negatives. 1st: the titles for “Watch Instantly”, like I said, are much more limited (a lot of older movies). 2nd: you can only add movies to your queue through the Netflix website, not via the Xbox 360’s interface. 3rd: it’s point-to-point, meaning that if your access to the Internet goes down, your movie stops until you reestablish a connection. But, there is a plus side to the p2p, that being you don’t clog up your Xbox’s hard drive.

Of course, with all this said, you do still get DVDs by mail. But, I found out you can only receive one at a time–unless you want to pay more money (and even then you can only get up to three at a time). But, with 100,000 titles…It’s not a bad option, either. Oh, and, while I was looking around, I noticed that you can get Blu-Ray discs, though I’m not sure if there’s an extra charge involved or not.

Anyway. I’ve been checking out a lot of the older movies so far through the p2p deal. I wouldn’t have even tried Netflix had they not had the two-week free trial. I even discovered this morning there are television shows available for watching over the Net. And those are anything from classics to much more recent stuff. Weeds, for example, is even on there. So, all in all, it’s a pretty good service. The picture quality is about that of DVD. Though, I do believe there are some HD titles available as well. I do have one pet peeve, though, to complain about: Many of the titles are in 4:6 and not 16:9. You can set the screen to go to full screen, but some of the picture gets cut off. Still, it’s not a bad deal over all.

The Mummy Returns, Again

I just watched the newest Mummy movie tonight (Tomb of the Dragon Emperor). I’ve got to say I was actually surprised by how cool it looked. The CGI was beautiful, seamless for the most part, and quite believable. Now, with that said, there are a few things I was very much disappointed with.

First off, gone is Rachel Weisz from the first two movies. She’s been supplanted by a different actress, who, in my opinion, does not work all that well for the part. I’m not saying her acting abilities are terrible–I’m just saying she’s not the same. I can understand Weisz’s reasoning, though, for not wanting to be in this movie–sure is a long from ancient Egypt to ancient China, isn’t it?

Of course, mummies did exist, and were purposely created, in ancient China. So, that part’s not up for debate. But, what is, is the fact that Evelyn’s character has really nothing to do with anything but Egypt, which means it makes it very unbeliveable she’d know anything about ancient Chinese texts, for example. Oops. But, she does in Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Hmm…How’d that happen? Who knows. It was never explained.

As for the O’Connells’ son, Alex, he’s lost his English accent entirely. What? Yeah. Now he sounds just like his daddy–American. That was something that totally messed up his character, in my opinion. Ugh! Also, he’s heavily entrenched in China, which is an odd place for him to be, considering his upbringing.

Then, there’s the mummy. Yes, it’s true that the 1st emperor of China was preserved (as history tells us) and that he has his very own pyramid. And, of course, there’s the matter of his terra cotta army, which truly does exist. I think the writers of this Mummy film, though, were just a tad late in adapting this particular bit of Chinese mythology to their story. Many other films and books (and even video games) have beaten them to the punch. Sort of reminds me of the latest Indiana Jones flim in that regard.

I’m not saying Tomb of the Dragon Emperor doesn’t deserve any praise. I think the action is intense and the story moves quickly with forward direction. There’s hardly ever a lull. But, honestly, there’s nothing truly new here. I’ve got to say I could take or leave this movie, as there’s nothing really memorable, nothing that stands out. But, I’ll let you be the judge of that.