Well, by this time tomorrow, I will be on a plane en route to Connecticut, where I will spend a couple days coinciding with Rosh Hashana. You've got to love it - sitting still in a synagogue all day (and occasionally standing for long stretches) listening to the rabbi and cantor methodically chant Hebrew prayers about guilt and sin. Talk about a happy holiday! Man, we Jews truly are gluttons for punishment sometimes. In any case, I'll be back here in LA Monday night, and hopefully I'll quickly be able to catch up on the important stuff ... you know, like the premieres of The Office and Fringe.
Anyways ...
- I haven't talked all that much here about gaming, but man, I have to give an early shout out to SCRIBBLENAUTS. This new game for the Nintendo DS is plain and simply groundbreaking. I've only played through a handful of levels thus far, but the central conceit is so amazingly original that you can't help but get sucked in. Basically, you guide your character through a series of puzzle-based levels, and help him reach his goal by typing in words - literally just about any object or thing you can think of - and having your ideas materialize right there on screen for your puzzle-solving use. You can create a horse, a cow, a dinosaur, a vampire, a stick, a baseball bat, a ray gun, a black hole, an airplane, a car, a venus fly trap ... anything. Just write the name of the object and marvel as it appears right there on-screen. Need to get a cat out of a tree? You could just create a ladder and climb to get it ... or, you could create a pterodactyl, give it a length of rope, and have it fly to the cat and rescue it. Or why not create a superhero to swoop in and save the cat? Crazy! Sure, the controls are occasionally a bit wonky, but the sheer inventiveness that this game allows for is just mind-boggling. All day, I've been thinking about weird combinations of things to create. A knife-wielding monkey? An army of vampires? A robot with a jetpack? Awesome!
- I'll also give a shout-out to BATMAN: ARKHAM ASYLUM. This is another game that I've barely scratched the surface of at this point, but man, this is the rare licenced game that just bleeds quality. It's been a long wait for a Batman game that truly delivers, and this one may just have been worth the wait. On the PS3, the graphics are dark, moody, and ultra-detailed. Better yet, the voice-acting is absolutely top-notch, with alumni of Batman: The Animated Series reprising their iconic roles. Kevin Conroy is Batman, and Mark Hammil is The Joker. 'Nuff said. Plus, the game actually emphasizes Batman's detective skills and penchant for sneaking around dark alleyways. A lot of puzzle-solving, stealth combat, and environmental interaction is involved in the gameplay, which makes this less a standard brawler and more a combination of games like Metal Gear Solid, Bioshock, and Metroid. I still have a couple of issues with the camera and controls, but the level of storytelling and overall depth here is pretty awesome.
- Speaking of BIOSHOCK, I recently completed that game after months of playing it on and off. I'm not normally a fan of first person shooters, but Bioshock's rep as a game more about atmosphere and storytelling than mindless blasting lured me in. I don't know, I did love the game's incredibly atmospheric level design and storytelling techniques, and rarely have I played a game this immersive. But, the actual gameplay never 100% grabbed me, and I felt like the combat got pretty repetitive after a while. And those freaking security bots - so annoying. I could see myself skipping out on the upcoming Part 2, depending on the reviews. I'm glad I played through the game, but I also didn't quite get the instant-classic vibe that others have. That said, this game would make one hell of a movie if done right. Get to it, guys.
And now for a movie review ... the latest from Focus Features, a computer-animated sci-fi dystopian epic known as 9.
9 Review:
- 9 is a movie that I really wanted to love. And at the very least, it's a movie that I will root for and respect. It's an ambitious CGI adventure NOT from Disney or Dreamworks. What's more, it's an animated movie NOT specifically aimed at kids, although it will likely have strong kid-appeal. Plus, the movie doesn't really look like anything I've seen before. Sure, there are all kinds of artistic influences that came to mind from videogames, comics, and sci-fi movies. But just the fact that it's a CGI movie NOT done in the house style of Pixar or Dreamworks is hugely refreshing. In fact, this movie just flat-out looks cool as hell. And on the whole, 9 is a pretty cool little movie. But unfortunately, the visuals are not really matched by much in the way of story or plot or character. It gives the whole thing the feel of a tech demo rather than a fully fleshed-out movie. It's almost as if you're watching the cut-scenes from a really cool videogame that you never actually get to play, because the story really serves as a very basic skeleton with which to prop up the action. It makes 9 a fun adventure to go on, one that's certainly pleasing to the eye, but it also means that the movie ultimately feels pretty hollow.
The basic premise of 9 is actually really cool. It's a post-apocalyptic story in which mankind has been decimated by technology gone awry, 1950's sci-fi style. In a last-ditch effort to preserve something of the human race before all is lost, the same scientist who created the machines that would later go Judgement Day on humanity conducts one last far-out experiment. He transfers his very soul into nine inanimate ragdolls, each doll containing a different aspect of his being. these patchwork creatures go on to awaken one by one, trying to make sense of the strange and dangerous world they find themselves in, and trying to elude the crazy, insect-like mecha-robots that still roam the scorched-earth wasteland, causing major-league destruction.
It's a pretty ambitious, epic premise that director Shane Acker presents us with. But what's weird is, we have this awesome world with an intriguing backstory, only to find that not all that much actually happens once we enter it. We mostly follow around "9" (each doll has a number corresponding to the order of their creation), the last of the group to awake, as he explores the world, runs afoul of the evil robots, and bonds and/or argues with his fellow stitchpunk beings. It'd be like if The Lord of the Rings plopped us into Middle Earth, but then just told us a story about dwarves bickering with elves and fighting the occasional cave troll ... or something.
The other weird thing is that this movie contains an absolutely stellar voice-cast, and yet ... they never have much in the way of dialogue to sink their teeth into. You've got Elijah Wood as the reluctant hero 9, Jennifer Connelly as the badass warrior 7, Christopher Plummer as the crotchety, self-appointed leader of the group, 1, Martin Landau as 2, John C. Reilly as steadfast sidekick 5, and Crispin Glover as (what else?) the oddball artist, 6. It's an impressive roster, to be sure. But this is one of those movies that's so sparsely written. There's not a ton of dialogue, and when there is, it tends to be recycled cliches from countless other sci-fi and action movies. You half expect someone to mutter "I've got a baaad feeling about this." at any moment.
Again though, this movie thrives on its visuals. There is so much loving detail in every shot, it really is a remarkable movie to just look at and take in. There was clearly A LOT of time and effort put into crafting this dark and fascinating universe. I also loved the segments that paid homage to old sci-fi films and posters and stuff like that. There is some really cool retro-y stuff here that reminded me of things like Bioshock, Sky Captain, etc. And the character design is pretty awesome as well. I loved the subtle visual signatures that distinguish each of the stitchpunk dolls. An the robotic villains are truly creepy and imposing. This is definitely a film that will startle smaller children - this isn't sanitized Disney character design - its dark, bleak, grotesque at times. And this isn't a safe movie either. Characters die. They make really bad decisions. There is some genuine moral ambiguity.
But again, the plotting is relatively clunky and heavy-handed. There are also some quasi spiritual / supernatural elements that seem pretty hamfistedly that get inserted into the story - they don't quite seem to fit with the otherwise science-based universe. There's also not a whole lot of depth here. I would have loved to see the details of the fascinating premise more fully fleshed-out, to really explore the world here and learn more about its backstory. Instead, like I said, there's not a lot of meat here. There is that very videogame-like feeling that you're kind of just along for a visual ride (and a number of the action scenes, dynamic though they are, seem lifted right from various games - platform jumping, anyone?). For the movie's visual uniqueness alone though, I'd say that 9 is definitely worth checking out. It's an original, creative vision, and I would love to see what Shane Acker could do if pared with a quality script that could match his astonishing visual talent.
My Grade: B
- Alright - next stop: Connecticut.
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