Collateral - Movie Review

Collateral Review

Collateral is a movie from twelve years ago by Michael Mann and an excellent script by Stuart Beattie. It stars Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx and showcases LA like a painting.

Collateral is a crime drama/thriller about a cab driver named Max (played by Jamie Foxx) who is seasoned with his directional skills in LA territory. An unsuspecting Max has a hitman named Vincent (played by Tom Cruise) in the back of his cab, paying Max a large sum of money to ensure that he takes him to five different locations and waits for him. Once Max learns that Vincent is a hitman, Vincent takes him as a hostage and threatens to kill him if he does not drive him to all his stops, or in reality, all five of Vincent's targets. This movie had a few thrilling moments, but in between these is some well-constructed dialogue. The screenplay is great, and I love the relationship between Max and Vincent. Most of the movie is them trying to make conversation in the taxi, usually by ridiculing each other for missed opportunities or no regard for consequences of actions. There is a lot of great character building in these scenes in the cab, where we learn more about these two men while they try to figure each other out at the same time. I also really liked to see Tom Cruise as the villain, after all being in heroic roles for the majority of his career.

Michael Mann makes this film look gorgeous, with stunning shots of the LA skyline, and somehow essentially recreates LA to look extremely colorful and beautiful. There was a lot of nice colors in this movie, like pale greens and washy blues. What impressed me with Collateral was how the film slowly winds up tension between these two characters. With each conversation they have, they start to resent each other more and more, and the final act of this movie was extremely well handled. The ending to this film was perfect, and the resolution made sense. That being said, I didn't have that many problems with the movie, but one thing I would have liked to see would be the splendid action scenes or intense moments spread throughout the film more. The last thirty minutes of this movie are extremely fast paced, but they should have had more of these incredibly good scenes.

While the pacing of this film is done well, they still could have added a few more action scenes to keep the audience interested. The dialogue in this film is smart, so the movie never dulls or feels boring. This movie was wild and unpredictable, and it had a genius concept for a movie.

+ Great Character building                                             

+ Gorgeous setting and camerawork

+ Some well directed intense moments

+ Character interaction and dialogue well written

10/10

Zoolander - Movie Review

Zoolander Review

In spite of the new Zoolander movie having not that many great things said about it, I thought I would talk about the older one.

So this movie is about a male model named Derek Zoolander (played by Ben Stiller) who one day decides that there has to be more to life than looking good. He gets an offer from a fashion designer named Mugatu, to be the face of a new line of clothing that is supposed to represent poverty. This new clothing line is all a front made by Mugatu so that he can trick Derek into being brainwashed to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia when he comes to America to see the new line of clothing. Granted, it is an awfully clever and original premise for a movie. This movie was nothing even remotely groundbreaking, but it is pretty entertaining. Ben Stiller is really good in this movie, and Owen Wilson was okay. There's also that girl from Dodgeball, Christine Taylor. I wasn't impressed with much in this film. It's Ben Stiller, so expect a lot of stupid comedy, but in a way also a cleverly-stupid comedy. In a good way, like the way that Dumb and Dumber is cleverly-stupid, even though Dumb and Dumber did it better.

As for moviemaking, this movie is pretty bland. No fancy angles or camerawork, which is fair enough considering it is a comedy. The acting sufficed, and Ben Stiller's character is hilarious. What I didn't like about this movie is that some of the characters weren't all that necessary, or interesting. Christine Taylor's character wasn't that interesting, and it felt a little too similar to Dodgeball, both of which being Ben Stiller movies. Will Ferrel's character Mugatu was funny but wasn't a compelling antagonist. I would say that most every character is underdeveloped, irrelevant or uninteresting except Hansel (Owen Wilson's character) and Derek Zoolander. What this film did right are the jokes pretty much always landed, and they were ingenious. The pacing is excellent, and the movie is a light-hearted one. There is a certain silliness to this movie where you can tell that a lot of people probably had a lot of fun on set.

Since the movie came around in theaters about 2-3 weeks after 9/11, I can understand if people weren't in the mood or mindset for something this offbeat and silly. I do have to give credit to the originality of this movie for the premise. It is a pretty genius concept for a movie, for what plotline there is. It was hard to think of any specific joke that didn't land. Ben Stiller is really good at striking a balance between intelligent comedy, cleverly-stupid comedy, and tongue in cheek humor. The majority of this movie does feel like one big skit, where the plotline is only necessary for setting up jokes. In the end, this movie is a fun time, and it's very enjoyable, even if not a lot of thought was obviously put into many of the characters.

+ hysterical                                    - Most characters dull

+ Original premise                                    - Story not always cohesive

+ Derek Zoolander is a genius character 

+ Good pacing

6.7/10

Deadpool - Movie Review

Deadpool Review

So I saw Deadpool this weekend, and I had a great time with it. I have been excited for this movie for around six months, and I pretty much got everything I wanted out of it, though it has considerably more faults than other Marvel movies.

Deadpool is about a man named Wade Wilson who gets cancer and runs away from his girlfriend Vanessa looking for a cure. He then is tricked by Francis, the antagonist, who tells him that he will heal him when instead he intends to make him into an undefeatable mercenary. After put through numerous rounds of torture, Wade gains the ability to heal from any wound, making him virtually invincible. The comic book character of Deadpool is a pretty unique one, and the R rating helped separate this movie from other superhero movies. Deadpool would classify as a superhero movie since it's Marvel after all, but Deadpool is no hero and is often making a couple of wisecracks before and after killing his victims. I feel pretty indecisive about my feelings for Deadpool since I had so much fun with it while it did have a couple of recognizable errors.

What I had a huge expectation for in this movie was how true it stayed to the character of Deadpool, and I wasn't let down at all. Ryan Reynolds brings the best possible performance he can to this movie and his passion for Deadpool is visible in the movie. I feel like Ryan Reynolds is going to be almost inseparable from Deadpool from this point on, and I mean in the way that Robert Downy Jr is almost inseparable from Iron Man, and Heath Ledger is almost inseparable to The Joker. And yes, I really did just compare Heath Ledger's performance to Ryan Reynolds. Heath Ledger put a new twist on an already much-loved character with a lot of personality in the comics and gave the best possible performance he could have for the character. That's exactly what Ryan Reynolds does in Deadpool. I don't think there are that many people out there who could have played Deadpool off so well. I mean, everything from his delivery of jokes to his fourth wall breaks, to his insanity. There were a couple of other characters too, but I couldn't find myself caring about too many of them. I liked T.J. Miller in this movie, I liked Vanessa played by Morena Baccarin. But I didn't ever really care about Colossus or Negasonic teenage warhead, the only two X-Men in this movie. I mean, they were cool on screen and all, but were only in around 3 or 4 scenes in the movie, and were only relevant to the story towards the end of the movie. The opening credits jokingly reveal all the clichés that are about to unfold in the movie, like how the villain is British, and how it's directed by an overpaid tool. The villain in this movie was Ajax, played by Ed Skrein. His gimmick was that he couldn't feel pain, but couldn't heal like Deadpool. There wasn't really any backstory or anything given to us to be invested in for this villain, and he could be played by anybody. All of these clichés were a little more forgivable since the studio acknowledges it themselves at the start of the movie. Of course, they could have spent more time developing the villain if they really wanted to, but Deadpool's character was the star and evidently the first priority. That being said, I don't really need to restate everything the movie tells you it's going to be, and I'm at least glad the studio acknowledged it and didn't try to hide it.

The comedy in Deadpool is pretty on fleek.  And it's not all fart jokes, some of it is clever too. Ryan Reynolds even said himself in an interview that Deadpool 'has a pop culture joke cannon in his brain with unlimited ammunition.' If you've read any of the comics, then you would probably know everything there is to expect from Deadpool's character. The movie has a lot of gags, references, crude jokes, even more crude sex scenes and an abundance of 4th wall breaks. If you already like Deadpool now, you will probably love his portrayal in this movie. The script is really well written too, with only a couple of hiccups. Admittedly, some jokes just didn't land, and some were not timed well, and some were followed up by an actual smart joke that a lot of people may sadly have missed because people are too busy laughing at the previous joke right before it. Besides some of these mishaps, the movie is amusing, and these mishaps weren't too often, and the dialogue had an enormous amount of jokes to make up for some of the jokes that may not have landed. I laughed a lot in the movie, which was what I wanted out of a Deadpool movie. Deadpool's sense of humor feels like it's been ripped right out of the pages of the comics. I thought the comedy in this movie delivered well, for the most part, seeing as how most everything Deadpool said was a punchline or leading up to a later joke. The humor always seems to tie in well, and it never feels forced, which is something I was glad about.

One thing I was disappointed in was the lack of creative deaths in the action scenes. Deadpool is very much a badass in this movie, but I expected more creative deaths like in the comics. The writers for this movie, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, also worked on Zombieland, which had creative deaths in it too. There were a couple of creative deaths, but I had hoped for more. Aside from not many creative deaths, the action in this movie is well done and entertaining. It's shot well, and Deadpool's style of fighting is somewhat badass, and ninja like as well as comedic, using a lot of banter during these scenes. The action is clear, and there're not many jump cuts. The action is also really violent, and Fox went all out on this. There is dismemberment, decapitation, gut entrails and brains can be seen splatting when Deadpool gets a headshot. I loved to see this much profane, crude, over the top nonsense in a Marvel movie, and it was refreshing. I only wish there was more action because it was fun when it was on screen. There were only two big fight scenes in the movie, and I wanted just a little more. Overall the action was very enjoyable.

The soundtrack in this movie was really good. There was some original music and some actual songs. I liked the Hip-Hop/rock feel to the soundtrack, and I feel like it suited Deadpool's ghetto personality. Tom Holkenborg who did one of the songs in the soundtrack actually did parts of the soundtrack for Mad Max: Fury Road and Black Mass, and I like what he did with the soundtrack. Usually, Marvel movies are over 2 hours long, and I was surprised to see the film end around the 1 hour and 40-minute mark. When the movie ended, I really wanted to see more. It feels like the movie got cut short a little bit, and was almost ... incomplete. The action and the comedy was working really well for the movie. If it was, say, a half hour longer, that would be plenty of time that could be used to further advance the plot and show some of the less seen characters, as well as add a little more action. One thing the movie was doing brilliantly was sometimes having the comedy revolve around the violence and vice versa, which is exactly what I wanted in a Deadpool movie, and they could have done so much more with that if the movie was longer. I was also disappointed to see that the big action scene at the end was only with katanas. There had been some good shootout scenes before, and I was expecting a lot of gunplay at the final action scene since Deadpool gets all ready by loading a huge duffel bag filled with guns, and then forgets it. I wanted to see a little more shootout scenes, with a bit more gunplay.

Other than not having as much action as I had hoped, and not having enough creative and wacky deaths in the action, I enjoyed Deadpool for what it was trying to be. The movie didn't want to be taken seriously, and clearly didn't take itself seriously. This is probably the only Marvel that I would say could be a little longer. There wasn't any fancy camerawork, most of the shots didn't have that much variety to them, but at least they got the shots. Deadpool was essentially made because of the internet. If the fans didn't beg for more after the test footage was released around two years ago, then this movie would never have been made. I feel like this is the first time Fox made a movie specifically for the fans. I mean, Fox has a lot of great X-Men movies, but those were made to the directors style. This movie feels like it was made entirely for the audience, which did make it a lot of fun to watch. Deadpool has a few more faults than other funny Marvel movies like Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy, which both had more variety to the cinematography, with Ant-Man being more vertical and being more about scale, and Guardians of the Galaxy about being good looking and showing it off with a lot more impressive camerawork. Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy did have a little bit more though put into it as far as the development of characters. One thing that those two movies weren't, was an extremely violent hard R-rated movie, that didn't feel restricted at all by the rating. I hope this movie serves as an excellent example of a superhero movie that can be R-rated and still stay faithful to source material and more importantly to the studio, make a good profit. Deadpool had it's hiccups and faults but is definitely not going to stop me from buying it on Blu-Ray when it releases and seeing it in the theaters again.

+ Action is violent/unrestricted                           - Not much room for character development

+ Comedy is clever and funny                             - Could have more action scenes

+ Violence/comedy work with each other           - Should have longer run time

+ Does justice to Deadpool as a character           - Needed more creative deaths

6.8/10

John Wick - Movie Review

John Wick Review

John Wick is a movie that came out in theaters around a year and a half ago and surprised me. It stars Keanu Reeves, and I think this may be his best movie since The Matrix.

John Wick is about an ex-hitman who comes out of retirement after the son of the leader of a Russian mob group (Viggo) kills his dog and steals his car. That's pretty much it. It's a simplistic premise, but the plot does have a little more meaning to it. John Wick tells a really good revenge story, and I loved the world it created. There's a hotel in the movie called 'The Continental', which is a hotel exclusive to hitmen and criminals and mobsters and assassins. This film could easily be turned in to a franchise, since the world John Wick created feels like there's still a lot more to discover. The acting in this movie was really great, with the actor from Game of Thrones Alfie Allen playing Viggo's son, and the mob boss Viggo being played by Michael Nyqvist. John Wick is pretty dark, and I like how the director Chad Stahelski implemented this feeling with things from the weather being dark and cloudy, or night time, or raining to the attire. The attire was taken well in to account, and everyone seen in the movie is usually wearing dark clothing, with black suits and black outfits. The sound editing and soundtrack were good too. The music was like a dark emo rock, and also partially electronic. There was some Marilyn Manson in the sound track, that really suited the neo-noir feel.

Now, this movie wasn't groundbreaking, but it did surprise me with how well it was directed, using techniques for filmmaking that I thought were pretty much gone in cinema. There were two main things that impressed me: the action choreography and the camera lighting. The choreography in this movie was swift and stylish, it was a lot of fun to behold as the action scenes play out. Rather than relying on a bunch of lazily edited jump cuts for an action scene, Chad Stahelski wanted the action to be genuine, with a lot of physical work from actors fighting. Keanu Reeves doesn't speak much, but he has a very physical role. Keanu Reeves has worked on some action movies like The Matrix and Speed, and he obviously has a respect for stunt work and choreographed fight scenes. He apparently had to take a couple months work of martial arts training for this movie. Not going to lie, Keanu was pretty badass in this film. There's excellent hand-to-hand combat scenes, and a couple shootout scenes. Keanu is in the action 90% of the time I'd say, with the exception of a couple of stunts. John Wick would be swiftly taking out these guards and mercenaries with 2 shots to the head, double tapping all of them. All of these fight scenes are orchestrated very well, and the shots are well planned out. The character comes off as experienced, but rusty enough to make the fight scenes interesting. A great shot in the movie that I liked is when someone is seemingly going to say their last words, when John Wick abruptly kills him. John Wick just wants revenge exacted, he doesn't savor the moments. 

The lighting in this movie is used well too. It was a very dark movie, in regards to the premise and the tone, but they had a lot of seemingly dark settings painted with various colors. In John Wick's home, they had a calm and washed out blue, for a peaceful setting. In the Russian mob house, they had an oppressive orange that made the environment feel more agitated and hostile. In a car shop, which was strung between the crime world and the peaceful world, was a lime green tinge. In a nightclub there was a dark violet and blue color, for energy with extreme electronic music blaring. I loved to see all these things in this movie, and how the calming colors and oppressive colors were used accordingly to their setting.

I have a few flaws with the film, one being that there is some motivation, but I feel like there should be more. There is motivation for this character's darker side to being set in motion, but I feel like more tragic events needed to happen like the movie could have taken it one step further and done something even more violent. John Wick is a likable character, and you do want to see him succeed in this movie, but his character never really evolves from the start of the film to the end of the movie. You learn the darker side of him, but his character never really sways, and he never has any character dilemmas. I thought the villain Viggo was great, even though there aren't any protagonists or antagonists in this movie. All the characters were grounded, they just didn't ever have a chance to develop.

Overall, John Wick is a lot of fun, and it's good to see these old school action movie fight scenes return and some film making techniques return. I liked how the tone was implemented well, and hopefully, there can be a little more room for character development in the sequel.

+ Good colors/lighting                      - Not much character evolution

+ Dark tone set well                          - Needs more character motivation

+ Great choreographed action

7.5/10

Batman: Arkham City - Game Review

Batman: Arkham City Review

I've already done a review on the disappointing sequel to this game, so I thought I would do a review of the best game of the franchise. Released five years ago, and still one of my favorites.

See, Batman: Arkham Knight made me forget a lot of the things that made the Arkham games great, which was so heartbreaking that I had to replay this game. This game isn't perfect, but it sure is close to it. So Batman: Arkham City is the 2nd game in the franchise, almost directly after the events of Arkham Asylum, the 2nd best game in the franchise, followed by a minor and major disappointment, credit to WB Games Montreal and Rocksteady, who decided to hire different screenwriters for Arkham Knight. In this game, a section of Gotham City has been cut off and made into its own city for criminals to roam around freely in. A mysterious man named Hugo Strange has set up Arkham City, and promptly arrests Bruce Wayne [spoiler alert: that's Batman] for making a speech about how dangerous the sectioned off 'Arkham City' is. Hugo Strange wields a private army called 'TYGER', and uses them as the security for the prison city. He then announces after a little while that he will initiate this 'Protocol 10', and the majority of the rest of the game is finding out what that is, and stopping people who eventually get in Batman's way.

I can't stress this enough; There is some great voice acting from the talents of Kevin Conroy (Batman) and Mark Hamill (The Joker). The Joker plays a pretty significant role in the story, though he isn't in the main spotlight, and room is made for plenty of other interesting villains and characters. There are a few familiar voices in this game such as Troy Baker (Two-Face) and Nolan North (The Penguin) that I also liked to hear. Though some of these aren't in the game as long as others, they all feel like they have a part to play in this game. As to make sure not to cram too many characters and villains in the main story, there are a few that can be discovered by playing some fun and exciting side missions.

The story in this game is pretty outstanding, in the way that it's presented to you, and the way that tells a clear story with a character that you can't necessarily relate to so much, but one that you can identify with. Along the exceptionally fast paced story, new answers to previously asked questions, arrive swiftly with more questions. This keeps everything fast and focused, and there always feels like there's a clear objective in mind. A lot of games are obstructed from this by making the narrative too linear, and not giving any breathing room to explore the game. Thankfully, Batman: Arkham City doesn't suffer from this. Side missions will intermittently pop up, and there's a bunch of Riddler trophy collectibles scattered everywhere, that will sometimes require puzzle solving. It never felt like I was going from point A to B, simply because the plot/story demanded it. Arkham Asylum was more about having a claustrophobic environment, which worked really well in the way that it ensured a focused narrative. Arkham City provides a much larger, more open space while still incorporating a tightly focused narrative; one of the reasons I prefer this game out of the two. This game isn't predictable, and nothing feels out of place because of that. Every element of the story fits in like pieces in a bulkier puzzle. The story also has a few fantastic plot twists towards the end, which I loved. They were all so unexpected, but made sense when I worked them out in my head. Most story arcs or plot twists in games feel way too easy to see coming because they are hinted at and foreshadowed too frequently, but Arkham City struck a balance with the right clues to give.

The story showcases Batman at his most vulnerable, as the previous game did. This time, Batman is vulnerable for a different reason, and it feels way more severe in this game than it did in Arkham Asylum. This really helped me feel less powerful and not invincible, keeping Batman on edge the entire game. Drawing inspiration from The Dark Knight, Arkham Asylum was a game that had a darker and grittier story, and it's predecessor does no less. In this game, it really feels like Batman is being pushed to his limitations, by events in the game or by other villains. His willpower is put to question by villains. He is targeted physically and psychologically, and it actually provides a good reason to fight for him. Now, there's not any gore or dismemberment, but there is suggestive violence from dialogue and scenes in the game. It could be a villain describing how they killed someone, or something similar. I loved all the character interactions between Batman and all the other villains, namely The Joker. Batman and Joker are opposing forces and personalities, and it's really entertaining to see them try to work each other out. All the characters served a purpose, as they usually stand in the way of an objective Batman already has, and so ends up having to deal with them. Batman doesn't have any time for these villains, and they're more of an inconvenience to him, which is how the story jumps to many different villains so fluidly. This doesn't mean that their menace is sacrificed for how long they are in the game because these villains can sometimes be tough to take down. The story likes to focus mostly on The Joker and Hugo Strange though. One minor thing is that the interactions with some of the characters can sometimes be a little goofy when one of the characters drops a cliché one liner but the game was serious that it needed to be. The story helped immerse me in the game, with cinematic cutscenes that made it feel more like an interactive experience rather than a game.

The gameplay and the story go hand in hand with each other and is meshed together so precisely that it blew me away. New concepts or areas of the story incorporated gameplay seamlessly, so that the game never felt choppy or out of place. There's basically 3 different types of gameplay styles in Arkham City: Stealth, combat and just roaming around. The Predator stealth sections of the game have great level design, giving you different options for ways to put Batman's huge array of gadgets. The level design gives a lot of freedom for how you approach these areas, which gives you more ways to be tactical about the stealth. There are opportunities to put your gadgets to use, but not an over abundance of them to make me feel overpowered. This really made me feel like I was Batman, which was so cool. As the game progresses, new things are added to these areas like different types of enemies, so it never feels rinse-and-repeat. Sometimes, the A.I. for thugs in these sections seem a little too predictable and easy, even on the hardest difficulty. The thugs have a lot of patterns that can be recognized easily after a while. The A.I. wasn't bad enough to ruin the Predator modes for me, they only made it less challenging than it could have been.

The freeflow combat from Arkham Asylum is much improved upon in Arkham City. It's probably the best I've seen in a game, aside from Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. the freeflow combat is essentially Batman beating up thugs, with one button to strike and one to counter. There are a couple of times where the game hiccuped for me, and the controls don't respond for a moment in the combat. These were not that frequent, and this only happened around 2-3 times for me, possibly because I was playing on the PC with a controller. Other than that, the combat is remarkably fluid and smooth. Every animation flows like water, and in reward for a successful hit you receive a nice, meaty strike sound effect. The first time I saw the combat, my jaw dropped. The way Batman leaps and twirls and flips around the thugs while beating them senselessly to a pulp is much fun. There are many different variations to how you fight too; the combat can be as layered and complicated, or as simplistic as you want it to be. You have the option to use Batman's different gadgets in the freeflow combat, without losing the momentum with quickfire buttons.

Roaming around the city is great too, as you can glide around using Batman's cape all you like around Arkham City. The gliding mechanics in Asylum were okay, and you didn't really have much to do with them. The gliding mechanics are much improved upon in Arkham City, and it is essential to traversing the map to your next objective. Arkham City sets a tone by the style of the game as well, as it is always dark outside, and a lot of dark colors are used to set the grim tone in place. Scattered around the city is groups of thugs waiting to be beaten up by Batman, and you can start random fights with these thugs and trigger freeflow combat. There are a lot of these groups of thugs that you can go in to freeflow combat with, but there wasn't really any Predator areas where you could use stealth. If the developers really wanted to, they could have made some tweaks to the layout of the city to make some areas suitable for stealth sections. Most all of the predator encounters in this game are indoors, and I would have liked to see some outdoor environments that allowed for stealth. On top if all this, there were some pretty great boss battles in this game. They were all pretty unique, as some integrated stealth elements and others combat elements. A lot of these boss battles were the most challenging part of the game, and I loved them all. They were hard, but I felt like I was dying the right amount of times so that it wasn't frustrating. One of the best boss battles was with Mr. Freeze, and it all revolved around stealth, using different gadgets and takedowns. The catch was that you couldn't use the same tactic twice, which made it super hard. It was so creative that I think it's actually one of my favorite boss battles I've encountered in a game.

Aside from the main types of gameplay I discussed, there will occasionally be something new. One cool thing that returns from Arkham Asylum is the 'Detective mode', that allowed you to scan crime scenes for evidence, or see exoskeletons of other people through walls, which is very useful in the Predator sections. This detective mode helped encompass me with the character of Batman,by showing a more critical and tactical thinking Batman, immersing me so that I could feel like a detective. The detective mode will sometimes have you follow blood trails, trace trajectories of bullets and other shenanigans. This felt necessary to the character of Batman, and these little areas with the detective mode were usually to advance the plot, so they did a good job with that.

The musical score in this game was really good, with a lot of gothic opera singing in the background. The music is heavily focused on the string section and chorus, and would sometimes have heavy percussion parts with dramatic and large sounds from the timpani and the bass drum. The score varied for the combat, stealth and just roaming around the city. The gothic music had a theme that was dark and not very joyous but was also energetic. The music suited the setting and the character of Batman, being very downbeat, but quick and swift. It was really epic music in dramatic moments. The graphics are pretty good, with really detailed and cinematic cutscenes, and a really detailed city. When I entered a new area, or when I was gliding around the city there were occasional texture pops, and out of place colors. It always takes half a second for the colors and textures to render, and there were some areas where the textures would sometimes fail to load properly, and you would have to turn the camera rotation around and then look back at the area for it to load. Also, when you knock out a thug in the game, their body becomes a ragdoll and will sometimes bug out, glitching out through walls and other surfaces. Aside from a few city design choices and predictable A.I. at points, the graphical issues were one of the only noticeable problems I had.

Batman: Arkham City is a fantastic game overall, one of my all time favorite games to say the least. It takes everything that Batman: Arkham Asylum did right, and improved upon it for the most part. This game is built upon incredible story telling through amazing characters, which coheses with the gameplay fluidly and at a fast pace. This game is probably the best superhero game to date, and I hope that WB Montreal makes another sequel to make up for the lacking Batman: Arkham Knight. WB Montreal has the Batman: Arkham franchise in their hands, and can do whatever they want with it, so I'm really hoping for something from them that can reach, or maybe even exceed the bar this game has set.

+ Batman identifiable and vulnerable                      - City design can be improved slightly
+ Great villains/characters                                       - Sometimes predictable A.I.
+ Story telling is amazing                                        - bugs and texture glitches semi-frequent
+ Super fun combat and stealth 

9.7/10

The Dark Knight - Movie Review

The Dark Knight Review

So I just watched The Dark Knight again for the 3rd or so time. I can't say that watching it again and again once more changed any opinions that I already had, but in fact reassured them. Christopher Nolan is able to prove once again with movies like Inception and this that he is one of the best active directors working today.

The Dark Knight is all about Batman, and is technically classified as a superhero movie. Make no mistake though, this movie brings out elements that make the movie more enjoyable even if you know nothing about Batman. Essentially, this movie is about Batman trying to rid Gotham city of crime, and finally finds a man named Harvey Dent (played by Aaron Eckhart) that he wants to pass the justice dealing too after partnering up temporarily to investigate the Joker and his attacks on Gotham. This movie is mostly about Batman's struggles dealing with The Joker taking reign over the underworld mob while at the same time keeping Harvey Dent close so he can try to turn him in to a hero for Gotham with a face. This movie is very dark, and sets a new bar for superhero movies, and just movies in general. First of all, the performances were all great in this movie. Christian Bale was a stubborn and intriguing character, and Gary Oldman played James Gordon well. The best performance in the entire movie, and what made the movie as good as it was, was Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker, but I'll get to that later.

I was wowed by how Christopher Nolan completely altered a genre of movie forever with this one movie. I feel like The Dark Knight is one of those movies that can appeal to people that have no interest in anything superhero related, because this movie sort of transcends genres between a superhero movie and a crime/thriller/drama movie. In this film, Christopher Nolan makes every small detail in the movie matter with his really creative story telling. The pacing in this movie is very fast, but it still never feels rushed and gives you some time to understand characters and their motivations, so that there's actually some substance and meaning to the plot. I also have to give credit to the amazing practical effects used in this film. Every time Nolan had a chance to use a practical effect rather than CGI, he took it. There was only one or two instances that were obviously CGI, as they would be too dangerous to be a practical effect. It's good to know that Nolan is dedicated to making the movie as genuine as possible by using real effects.

Batman Begins was more of an origin story than anything, and I'm glad they saved his arch nemesis for the 2nd installment. The Joker. The pinnacle of this movie was any scene involving Heath Ledger. I just couldn't get enough of his character. He by far knocked it out of the park, and as far as I'm concerned gave the best performance of the entire movie. His dedication to the role is what really sold the character. He had apparently locked himself in a hotel room for 30 days to prepare for his role. Everything about him is deliberate, his posture, his talk and the way he pauses dramatically, the way he licks his lips every couple of seconds frantically and occasionally gives himself facial tics, giving him an even more demented look. Besides his look, everything else he does in the movie is deliberate, and how he delivers his dialogue and performs for certain scenes. What I love the most about the Joker is how he is presented in the movie. You see, The Joker is meant to be a timeless villain that could act the same way in any given time or place. In this movie, we get a slightly more modernized Joker. Not too modern, like the awful looking Jared Leto with tattoos all over his body and silver plated teeth. This Joker feels like an urban Joker, only updated slightly. Props to the makeup artists, because the scars on the Joker's face make him that much cooler. They didn't really delve in to the backstory at all of the Joker, which is fine because he is meant to be perceived as a mysterious figure. Christopher Nolan was apparently very lenient with the script for Ledger, and a lot of great moments in the movie were improvisations. The Joker's personality is also so interesting. His character is obviously psychotic, but he always gives his viewpoint and reasoning and justification for his crimes. He acts like a non-crazy person would doing extremely crazy things, which made his performance scarily realistic. He also provided a lot of quotable lines and interesting social commentaries that made the fictional world more believable. This was honestly one of the best performances I've seen in a movie, period.

One thing that I really don't see in any other superhero movies that I really enjoyed in this one was a lot of intense scenes. There were a lot of edge-of-seat moments, and I was surprised how many of those moments were in the movie. The score by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard was also great. In a lot of great action scenes the music would really add to the experience. The sound editing in the movie was also great, some of the intense scenes kept rising in pitch until it became a shrill screech that made these scenes even more gripping. There weren't really any too complicated fight scenes, but they were still entertaining for the most part. They do sometimes feel as though Batman is untouchable and there's not enough sense of danger. For example, (a tiny spoiler but nothing big) in one scene at the beginning of the movie, Batman fights a couple of ferocious dogs, and they bite through his armor. He then complains about it to his butler, and his suit gets upgraded and whatever. Then near the end Batman encounters more dogs, and you can't really expect anything else besides Batman to win the fight, since they literally tell you in the movie that his new suit can't be bitten through by dogs, so it kind of ruins any chance of feeling worried for Batman.

The build up in the movie was great, but the ending didn't end when I thought it would. It looked as though it was about to wrap up on a climactic note, but then there was this inconvenient plot hole that the story needed to cover before the movie ended, so there was an extra ten minutes of the movie that kind of seeped the adrenaline out of the climax, so that the ending wouldn't be as impactful as it would if they ended it earlier and managed to slip in the plot hole before the climax. I did like how the movie ended with a satisfactory ending, that didn't obviously set up a sequel, which kind of irks me in most superhero movies.

Overall, amazing performances, with an even more outstanding performance from Heath Ledger. Heath Ledger's performance was one to which I can't really compare to. Definitely one of the better and less cliché superhero movies, and possibly the best.

+ The Joker                                        - Ending could have been cleaned up a little bit

+ Great practical effects                    - Fight scenes needed more sense of danger

+All acting great

9.1/10