Not tron, but still awesome

If you've cared enough to read past my review-in-a-title, then I congratulate you, dear sir or madam.

I want to make this perfectly clear to anyone who hasn't seen this movie yet: this movie is not TRON.  It's got a lot of the same things in common (and technically counts as a sequel) but it might as well be a completely different movie.  It has a different feel, and probably the only emotion that will come from fans of the old  movie will be fanboy rage.

Now that I've established that, this movie is awesome.  It's an 80s style sci-fi movie with an excellent soundtrack.  It also rips off movies left and right in a way that rivals World of Warcraft.  In this movie I noticed elements of:

-Batman
-Star Wars
-5th element
-David bowie

And that's just a few off the top of my head.  There are quite a few moments that had me and my brother laughing, but I hesitate to call them unintentionally hilarious.  The more I think about them, there's no way it's unintentional.

If you want a good 80s style sci-fi flick that you can just sit back and enjoy, this is a movie for you.

The other Guys

Ah, Marky Mark.  Not only have you been my nickname for as long as I can remember, but you somehow make a good action star.

I don't really understand it, either, since he doesn't seem to be the type when you look at him. I've really liked him in everything I've seen him in, though, from The Italian Job to Max Payne.  Will Farrell also does a good performance in this movie, showing us once again that he can act more than one role.

I honestly can't think of a better match up than Mary Mark and Will Farrell (or Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne "Not The Rock" Johnson as the super-cops for that matter) considering the roles they played.
The Other Guys is everything it looks like and more: a(n almost) straight-faced parody of a crime drama, crossed with 80's action movie.  The effects were obvious at times and there was a wealth of needless explosions.  Needless to say, I loved it.  Not nearly as good as Scott Pilgrim, mind you, and may yet be one-upped with RED, but still well worth the watch.

An epic of epic epicness.

What am i supposed to say about a movie that was written and directed by the same guy that did Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead?  About a movie that has plenty of elements from anime (ranging from over-the-top slapstick action to laser shooting finger guns to the "what the heck just happened" feeling) as well as the video game elements that make me love Press Start (including actual video game music)  as well as humor and wit that reminds me of Monty Python (well, going too much into that would spoil the fun, wouldn't it)?

Well, I can say this: this movie is awesome.  It has lines that I'll be quoting for a long time.  It has references so cleverly hidden that I probably will still miss some of them a second time through.  It has fantastic visuals, clever writing, and a quality that makes me feel like it would be just as awesome without all the snazzy big budget special effects.

See this movie.  I highly recommend it, though I do caution that it is well deserving of the PG-13 rating.

The Last Airbender

Yay, another movie!

 They couldn't call it Avatar, since James Cameron's movie took the name

I feel I should first say that I've never seen the Anime, (yes, I know it was animated in the west.  It's still an Anime) and that was completely on purpose.  You see, I've noticed something over the years, I think I'll call it the rule of remakes: Whatever the movie is based off of will nearly always be better than the movie.  For this reason, I decided early on that, having never watched the show, I would wait and watch the movie first, letting myself judge it for what it is, and not compare it to the source material.

Unfortunately, I think that this movie suffers from Dragonball: Evolution syndrome; it isn't the anime, therefore the fans will hate it regardless.  No matter how accurate it is, no matter how good the casting, acting, script, etc. Things will be left out.  Their favorite character won't get enough screen time, their voice will be off, etc.   No, there will be no pleasing the rabid fans, so disregard them (if you are a rabid fan, disregard this review) and go see it. 


Yes, that's right, I defy the internet (you can expect more of that, I refuse to be a habitual cynic) and actually like this movie.  It's fun, it's M. Night Shamallamaman, it's well worth a Saturday afternoon matinée.  It was everything I expected;  not as good as Prince of Persia or Iron Man, but up there with G.I. Joe and Dragonball Evolution. Although I wouldn't recommend seeing it in 3D. (really, I wouldn't recommend paying extra to see any movie in 3D)

On the Farwin Scale of Movies: I'd definitely see it again, and I want to watch the Anime now.

But why should you care what I thought?  You know if you want to see it or not.  So go see for yourself (or not) and make your own decision.

Prince of Persia: The sands of time

I'm back! And I've brought a movie review with me! And I've got to say, I'm thoroughly impressed.



Your eyes do not deceive you, reader, a video game movie that Isn't completely horrendous.  It exists! (although I guess it helps that it was produced by the guy who did the unofficial Monkey Island Movie, rather than Uwe Boll)

Perhaps I have the same advantage as I did with the sixth Harry Potter movie, where I had been removed from the source material long enough that I could simply enjoy the movie for what it was. Or perhaps it's just because I haven played the video game. (I've played the Two Thrones, though)

And it was fun!  lighthearted, but still able to be serious.  Jake Gyllenhaal actually pulled off the prince, not only in looks, but somewhat in personality, as well.  There was lots of parkour, action, and humor, just as it should be.

I'm not one to put scores to the movies I watch, but I enjoyed Prince of Persia much more than Sherlock Holmes, the last movie I saw in the theaters.  Mind you, that one was really good too.

Final Fantasy 13 bombs! Hardcore Shocked!

I, for one, am not.

I've been predicting this for months, since back at the end of January when it was number one release week in Japan and then started a rapid decline as the month wore on. I mean, a Final Fantasy selling bad in Japan? That was a really bad sign, and should have been obvious for a lot of people.

But of course, it's 'not doing that bad', and 'had a strong release' (whatever that means.) It 'of course can't compete with Mario' or the other 'casual games' on the Wii. The 'Xbox 360 release sure helped it', though.

I guess it's just something to do with the so-called 'demographics.'

I could tell from the trailers that it wasn't going to be very good. I haven't really enjoyed Final Fantasy since Squaresoft merged with Enix and the result spat out androgynous emos with increasingly convoluted storylines.

But wait, it's Final Fantasy, so it can't suck. It's HD, so it can't suck. 'Weaker' games like the Conduit suck. (because it's on the Wii, so therefore it's shovelware.) It had a lot of hype, so it can't suck. What these people think while saying the above is I spent $60 on this game, so it can't suck! I'll play it for over 40 hours just to prove to myself that it doesn't suck! I'll lose my status as biggest troll if I admit that I didn't actually like a massively hyped game!

How do I know what they're thinking? Because I was once one of them. I spent years trying to delude myself that the Zelda series didn't suck. I tried so hard to accept Twilight Princess as a game that didn't suck. I tried to convince myself that Phantom Hourglass was worth the purchase. It went so far that when they put a friggin' TRAIN in a Zelda game, I still bought it. I convinced myself that the train would be 'fun' and might be a 'new experience.' Or, my favorite self-delusion, 'It might have a train, but it will still be Zelda.' I'm going to have to save all that for a proper review, though.

One can only take so much crap before he decides it's time to take a shower. I never finished the game, and I doubt I ever will. I wonder when the breaking point will be for these people.

When will fans of these New Final Fantasies figure out that these games are crap? When will the 'Hardcore' crowd figure out that the so-called 'shovelware' is the stuff they're buying? 'But it has such good graphics, how can it be bad?' I recall a Mythbusters episode where they proved that it is, indeed possible to polish a turd.

A game cannot tell you that it is awesome, and be awesome. Hype and viral marketing cannot make a mediocre game awesome. Fancy graphics and 'epic' cinematics do not a good game make. The game, itself, has to be the one to convince me that it is awesome. It can't show me that it's awesome. It can't tell me that it's awesome. What does a game have to do? Convinve me that I'm awesome.

To revise a phrase, then. You can polish a turd, but it's still a turd.

Press Start

Now that I've had some time to think about the movie and watch it a couple more times, I think I'm able to write a review.

So, Press Start.


I think one of this movie's greatest strength is that it actually tells a story rather than being a random spoofing of everything and everything without any real point, which you get in Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans, and their ilk. You heard it here; Press Start has better writing that the Scary Movie sequels.

The story revolves around Zack Nimbus, the Anime-haired protagonist who is recruited by Sam (a space suit wearing, er, NOT bounty hunter) and Lin-Ku, (a homicidal Ninja who used to compete in tournaments where single punches would result in buckets of blood. You know the one.) and with the help of a little annoying yellow sprite named Zippy, sets off to counter the forces of Count Nefarious Vile, whose evil empire threatens Zack's little suburban town of, er, suburbia.

I'd like to take a minute and talk about Count Vile, who is the most original character in the movie. Rather than being based on some evil overlord, he's actually more of a business manager and would rather sit and talk with his friend Vlad over the phone and leave the management to his assistant, Johnson.

The movie's other greatest strength is that the actors are actually actors. Not to say that there's any big name A-list actors, (their biggest names are Carlos and Dan Pesina, who played Raiden and Johnny Cage, respectively, in the early Mortal Kombat games) but the people they got are actually capable of acting, which is more than you can say about most of the movies like this.

It's actually good, in that low-budget sort of way. It's one of those where the low budget actually kind of works for it. Not in the Ed Wood so-bad-it's-good sort of way; it knows what it is and has no illusions about being "good." Really it's more like Turkish Rambo: They know they don't have the high budgets, but they work with it and have fun anyway. This should come as no surprise, since Dark Maze (who made the movie) is responsible for the American release of Turkish Rambo.

I would definitely recommend this movie. If you're not sure you want to spend the money to see it, check out the Press Start Adventures which you can find here. Season 1 serves as a sort of prequel to the movie, while the following seasons are a follow-up.

It has arrived!

I hold in my hands what is indeed the greatest movie since Dragonball: Evolution. (I'll get to that one later. Just suffice it to say, I was never a fan of Dragonball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT, etc. etc. etc., so I could sit back an enjoy the movie for the sheer awesomeness that it is.)

Where do I even begin to review this movie? It's so packed full of nods and references to every video game in existence from Mortal Kombat to Ghosts and Goblins that I couldn't even begin to describe them all. And I don't really want to. This is a movie that has to be seen.

So what can I say other than to buy it yourself and bask in it's glory. Best $12.99 I've ever spent, I can assure you of that.