The Visit - Movie Review

The Visit Review

 

The Visit is the latest movie from M. Night Shyamalan. Now, if The Visit was a horror/comedy like Scary movie, I would give it a 10/10. But... it's not.

The Visit is a fairly simplistic movie about these kids visiting their creepy grandparents for the first time in Pennsylvania. I had a great time with this movie, don't get me wrong. But that is an entirely different story from being well made. The Visit, with its advertisements plastered all over Google and YouTube, is entirely marketed as a horror movie. For an hour and 45 minute movie, I was only truly scared about 5. If I'm being modest. And that was only towards the end of the movie. The other 100 minutes are utterly hilarious.

This movie is absurd, but it works. I'm never really a fan of the whole 'found footage' shebang, but it makes more sense in this movie than other movies. The entire time I was watching this movie, I couldn't stop thinking about the tonal confliction. There were funny parts where I wasn't sure if I was meant to be scared or not. It's like going to a restaurant and ordering a medium rare steak, but getting a medium steak. I mean, it could very well taste good but it's not what you ordered. This movie was probably made with a razor thin budget, so it is going to make a few bucks no matter what. The entire cast mainly consists of two child actors and two elder actors, which is a ballsy move for any movie. I didn't have too many problems with them, they all did their part and convinced me of their role.

However, the 13 year old boy actor further enhanced the tonal confliction in this movie all the time. In a creepy moment, he would often drop a one-liner and ruin the moment by making it sort of funny. I can tell that the boy is meant to be used as comic relief, but there are way too many times he 'relieves' the audience. The movie isn't scary enough for him to be adding all these funny comments anyway. The 15 year old girl actress sounded like Thelma from Scooby Doo, or the annoying girl from The Magic School Bus who's tagline is "According to my research...". Whenever she talked she sounded like a know it all, which did get annoying by the end of the movie. I will give credit to the climax of the movie, the only part that was genuinely creepy. There was even a plot twist that I was so not expecting. Mainly due to the fact that the movie had already from the start lowered the bar in terms of plot development.

Overall, I did have a blast with this movie. I also had a good time watching Robocroc and Sharktopus 2. To sum it up, The Visit did display the characters thoughts and feelings well, It just didn't give the audience the emotions they were probably intended to feel.

+ Hilarious!                                  - Tonal confliction

+ Good plot twist/climax             - Plot needed to pick up pace

+ Realistic premise is creepy

6.9/10





Infamous: Second Son - Game Review

Infamous: Second Son Review

Infamous: Second Son was one of the launching titles for the PlayStation 4, and I still have yet to review it. In all honesty, if I could sum this game up in one sentence it would be: I've seen better, and I've seen worse. If I had to sum it up in one word it would be repetitive. If I had to sum it up in two words it would be missed opportunity.

The biggest problem with Infamous: Second Son is all the attention given to the gameplay mechanics and little to no attention given to the story. The narrative is all over the place in this game. There's only a couple of characters in the story, and not one of them intrigued me. We have the main character Delsin, a punk graffiti artist who's snarky and sarcastic all the time. You have Reggie, his older brother who is a cop. Along the journey you will meet Augustine the antagonist. Then Fetch, a former drug addict. And then Eugene, the antisocial videogame nerd. The actual ground premise is pretty original, I'll give it that. In this world, there are a handful of people called bio-terrorists, and each of them have the ability to control a different form of matter, like concrete or smoke. Delsin somehow gains smoke powers and is questioned by Augustine, head of the D.U.P. (they're the bad guys). Delsin refuses to talk, and Augustine sends concrete shards in to every person Delsin cares about. The rest of the story is Delsin trying to find a way to save his friends.

The thing that kind of bugged me for the entire duration of the game was that I was always on the fence with how I felt about Delsin. He was funny when he was sarcastic but most of the time he was being a douchebag and was annoying to play as. The game didn't really give you any motivation to fight for Delsin's cause. All the other characters seem a little too cliché and vanilla for my liking, and I never really shared any emotions with them or had any pity for them. A big part of the game was choosing paths for the story. You can choose to be evil or choose to be a hero. A couple of times during the story you will be given a choice to take the evil path or heroic path. These paths give or deduct points based on what side you have done the most of so far [heros doing evil things deduct points, heros doing good things earn points, vice versa]. Other than giving/deducting points, these are pretty pointless to the outcome of the story. The next few missions are only slightly different than it would be if you had chosen the other path and the ending stays the same. You would think that with all these different choices and paths you can take, you would be given an ending specifically based off of every choice you make, but that never happens. There are only two alternate endings, and they are only based on whether you have more evil points or whether you have more heroic points. What's more, one of the two endings is horrible depending on which ending you have. Each different path doesn't really give you any unique upgrades or abilities, they're all pretty similar.

Apart from the fact that the different choices you make affects the enjoyability of the ending, the gameplay mechanics are pretty solid. When you are traversing around the fairly big city of Seattle, smoke powers are very annoying. You gain other powers throughout the game, to make traversal easier, but scaling up building pressing the jump button over and over again is so aggravating. In this big city there are a lot of citizens. These citizens have the worst A.I. I have seen in a while. It's ten times worse than the combat A.I. The combat A.I. is decent enough and serves a challenge, but it isn't entirely perfect.

Fighting enemies with all these unique powers is so much fun. When you are fighting enemies, you can shoot dodge and melee in a city with a lot of buildings. The landscape of the city does make for some fun battles at times. There are lot's of different enemies and the controls are never that complicated. While the combat is pretty decent, all the boss battles feel lackluster. There's nothing innovative about them, they're usually too easy but take a long time and just drag on.  The graphics in this game are amazing, and all the particle effects on screen at once look beautiful. Too bad they can't make the realistic looking character models feel life like. This game feels like it has been rushed. There is a lot of repetition in this game, especially in the side missions. A lot of the side missions feel too similar to each other and uncreative.

+ Amazing graphics       - Terrible/OK A.I.
+ Good combat               - Characters are transparent and vanilla
                                        - Plot underdeveloped
   6.4/10                  - Side missions all too similar
                                       - unnecessary  path choosing mechanic

The Gift - Movie Review

The Gift Review

The Gift is a movie about a couple moving back to the husbands home town and getting stalked by the husbands former classmate. In a nutshell. Now, I love when movies or games can take a simplistic or odd (or both) idea and make it work brilliantly. And that's exactly what The Gift does.

So the movie starts with the couple moving in to their new house ( a general rule it seems for horror/thrillers). While out shopping, they run in to Gordo, the husband's old classmate and things go downhill from there. Gordo tries to force their friendship and when they don't reciprocate the main conflict arises. It's hard to go into depth with this movie without spoiling it, since the story is so essential. First off, let me start with the acting. Joel Edgerton is the writer and director for this movie, whilst playing the ever so creepy Gordo. He nails being the socially awkward, twitchy guy that everyone dreads running in to. Jason Bateman plays the husband, in probably his first ever serious role and does a great job of it. It's always cool to see comedy actors or action stars experiment with new genres and doing their roles justice on the first attempt. In fact, the acting all around is fantastic in this movie.

I love the way the movie is shot and the undertone to it as well. The house the couple moves in to is a fairly large flat, with a LOT of windows and glass walls. It gives it the sense of no privacy whatsoever. And it's always uncomfortable to see people, even if it's just a movie, pry in to other people's lives and ask intrusive questions to the point where it's eerie. Now, The Gift is a psychological thriller. If you watch all the Paranormal Activity movies to get pumped for this one, it won't have the same elements that make it scary or suspenseful. The premise is so simple, that if anyone tried hard enough, the events in this movie could actually happen to you, yet it still works. Granted, the pace of this movie isn't always fast or even moderately fast. There are some pointless scenes in the movie, possibly to add more screen time, but the story never loses it's grip on you.

All the lead characters are interesting so you never feel bored, even if the movie isn't going as fast as you would like it to. The story is full of secrets and twists and turns so that once your set on a theory or belief, most of the time it whisks you away from it. This movie personally also had some of the best suspense I've ever felt. It was so atmospheric and I couldn't help grinning in the theater when my stomach knotted up. There isn't any thematic music that keeps on playing over and over ( a la Jaws) but the sound effects are great. Every small noise is magnified when everything is dead silent, like a creaky door, and it all works perfectly. There is no slashing or stabbing to anticipate at anytime. Gordo is unpredictable which kind of fuels the creepiness factor and makes it more interesting. The suspense is more about one strange man taking ahold of a couple and ruining their lives making them paranoid.

Joel Edgerton must be a mastermind, because he somehow incorporated the feeling one has when they feel like someone's watching them in to this movie. That was probably the most enjoyable aspect of the movie for me. Throughout the entire movie there is this sinking gut feeling that things are not going to end well and the build up is incredible. Gordo is unpredictable, so there's really no guessing as to what he's going to do. The build up for the movie is great, however the actual reveal is not so great. It's just not all completely there and underdeveloped. There isn't much of a resolution either, the twist ending is left up to your interpretation. Sometimes that can be frustrating with movies, and sometimes it's fun to peel the layers away and digest it for a while. I ended up deciding that the ending was good, just underdeveloped and I liked digesting this movie and pondering about it.

-Underdeveloped end          + Incredible suspense

-Slow paced at times           + Superb acting

                                             + Great story with twists and turns

                                             + Simple and realistic premise

8.3/10

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation - Movie Review

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation Review

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is the 5th Mission Impossible Movie. This movie has a lot to live up to, considering the success of Mission Impossible 3 and 4. Mission Impossible 4 lacked a good villain that was convincing and brutal, like Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance in the third movie. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation has a good villain, which is... good. The quiet yet intimidating Sean Harris delivered his lines in a creepy almost Alan Rickman way, which I liked a lot.

The plot follows Tom Cruise trying to take down an anti-IMF, a terrorist group led by Sean Harris called the Syndicate. The story is pretty gripping at times, and the dialogue is delivered extremely well. That's not say that the dialogue is great at all times. There were a couple laughable one-liners, but other seemingly cheesy lines sounded fine when Tom Cruise said them. The supporting cast is great, and there are a couple funny moments with them. It's a shame, since you don't really get to see much of the supporting cast throughout the movie. Simon Pegg probably has the most screen time apart from Tom Cruise. Jeremy Renner is kind of at the sidelines, and is not really as interesting as he was in the 4th movie.

There is a lot of action though in this movie, and a LOT of intense moments that I loved the Mission Impossible series for. I won't spoil them, but there are moments that make you clutch the seat. There is a teeny bit of suspension of disbelief required in these moments, but Tom Cruise plays it off so well. There is a little bit of Character development, but not as much as I'd like. The first Mission Impossible had the most character development, since it didn't really have to worry about the supporting cast as much. The movie brings in some unneeded cast members, like the black guy from Mission Impossible 3. All he did was add a couple of extra seconds to the running time. Maybe if they cut down the cast then it would be a lot easier to focus on the characters people want to see.

The action in this movie is still great, with the occasional car chase and such. The cool thing about this is there are 4 movies like this one already, yet they still manage to shake it up and it still works! Some sub plots were unnecessary, but for every unnecessary sub plot there was a heart pounding intense action scene.

+ Great action and suspense                              - Supporting cast not all needed

+ Tom Cruise delivers dialogue well               - Not enough character development  

8/10

Ant-Man - Movie Review

Ant-Man Review

Ant-Man is the last movie of Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it's going out with a bang. Ant-Man delivers the same thrills that we got from The Avengers, with a little more humor. Paul Rudd immediately convinces the audience that he is the perfect casting choice, and is probably the most relatable superhero I've seen.

 Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) comes right out of prison at the start of the movie, and is motivated to start becoming part of his daughters life. His hilarious criminal roommates try to persuade him to go back to crime, but he doesn't budge. Finally, he does, and it turns out that Hank Pym, the creator of the Pym particle and the Ant-Man suit has set the task up for him, to give him a chance to prove himself. He then dons the suit, after taking it for a test and then trains to take down the main bad guy, Darren Cross. Darren Cross is trying to figure out how to replicate the Pym particle, and ends up going crazy in the midst of doing so. Once he finally figures out how to replicate it, he becomes the Yellowjacket. His motivations for doing this are pretty unclear, and he makes for a pretty transparent villain that's not fleshed out enough. When Ant-Man shrinks down to ant size, it makes the entire world around him colossal, and the CGI makes it look like this entirely different world.

The dialogue in Ant-Man is by far the funniest in any Marvel movie to date, and the script fits Paul Rudd perfectly. The action is very clever and unique, with Ant-Man shrinking and then growing back to full size in swift movements to take his enemies down, which was really entertaining to watch. There is also a couple of nods and references to other Marvel movies, which is always fun.

Ant-Man is action packed, and pretty loosely scripted, but it's one of the more fun superhero movies. It's nice and refreshing to have a solo superhero movie fresh off of the Avengers, that is nearly as thrilling.

8.4/10

Batman: Arkham Knight - Game Review

Batman: Arkham Knight Review

Batman: Arkham Knight is the final installment in the Batman: Arkham series, one of my favorite game series ever. Batman is back for the last time to save Gotham from Scarecrow covering all of Gotham City in a huge fear gas cloud. I thought that I had already seen that plotline similar in Batman Begins, so that was something that sort of bothered me. This game has been delayed so many times. So many, that I wonder if the only reason was to build up more hype. But, does Batman: Arkham Knight live up to the hype? The short answer, absolutely NOT. 

I'm not entirely sure, but I'm pretty sure that Rocksteady had the same screenwriters for Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, but different writers for Batman: Arkham Knight. This is mostly where Arkham Knight let me down. As you progress through the story, you don't really see any of the any of the evolution to the characters or plot that you did in Asylum and City. Asylum and City were amazing examples of games that had excellent gameplay and exploration of the map, while still maintaining focus and a tightly scripted plot. Batman: Arkham Knight suffers from a narrative that is way too loose. Much like Arkham Origins, Arkham Knight carries the burden of shoving so many characters and villains into one game, and pushing them into side missions that have no relevance to the story. I came into this game expecting to see how all the villains would tie in with Scarecrow and The Arkham Knight, who are the main villains in the game.

Another big thing that let me down were the characters. They were the second biggest disappointment in regards to the other games. In Arkham Asylum and City, the main villains and Batman himself are so life-like and well acted, and the script just enhanced the voice actors talents. In this game, the script just doesn't do that for me and doesn't have that same feel. Kevin Conroy (Batman), Johnathan Banks (Commissioner Gordon) and John Noble (Scarecrow) all stole the show at once and suited their corresponding characters perfectly. It's just that there's nothing all that new brought to the table for them. The Scarecrow is an awesome villain and isn't seen enough. The Arkham Knight is a whiny brat who has a grudge against Batman for whatever reason and is seen TOO much. The Arkham Knight never felt menacing or scary at all, he just seemed like an annoyance to Batman that needed to be taken care of.

There are a couple [meaning exactly 2] of new things introduced to the plot that I had not really seen before, which I enjoyed a lot. The Arkham Knight's real identity is a mystery, but all you know is that he has a big grudge against Batman. Trying to piece his identity together with everything he says, trying to look for hints to his past and personality when he talks to Batman was so much fun. But then, around halfway through the game, they start throwing not-so-subtle clues and hints to his identity, just in case there were people out there who didn't have any clue up to that point. It made it all too easy to guess his identity, and when his identity was revealed to me it was no surprise at all. Rocksteady had the perfect opportunity to surprise us with this plotline and ruined it for me. Another thing that was new is the psychological trauma that Batman goes through the entire game. Batman has hallucinations and sees things that aren't there, but are much scaled down than the Scarecrow's nightmare stages in Arkham Asylum, but hallucinations nonetheless. This made Batman a more vulnerable and interesting protagonist, as you get to see his greatest fears and play them out for him. But that was the peak of the story for me, along with the end. There's not enough twists and turns that dramatically change the end goal or plot like in Arkham City, which was  a major step backward.

Playing as Batman is a whole different story. New things have been added and tweaked in the combat and stealth to add more variety. The freeflow combat in Arkham Knight is the best in the entire series, with a bunch of cool new moves and animations. However, the stealth has been tweaked too much. All these new gadgets that are introduced to you make stealth too easy. One of the biggest problems with the stealth was the newest fear multi-takedown, which then allow you to take out multiple people at once, making it unchallenging. Arkham City had much more challenge to the stealth, giving you fewer opportunities to put your gadgets to use. The stealth sections/areas are also way too big and open, whereas Arkham Asylum was all about being in a confined space with your enemies, and the claustrophobia involved in that. In addition to this, there are no boss battles! Awesome boss battles from Asylum and City are not present in this game, and the only thing close to being called boss battles are involved with the batmobile.

I didn't have hopes that high for the batmobile, so it wasn't as much of a disappointment as the underdeveloped plot. Granted, it does handle very well and is pretty fun to drive, but if you want to explore the huge open city of Gotham, you're better off gliding over rooftops, as it is MUCH faster. The batmobile was used in every single way I hoped it wouldn't. Rocksteady obviously wanted to show it off as much as possible, so they gave the batmobile a tank mode. What then follows is hours of tank battles, where you fight other tank drones in repetitive and boring fashion. I was hoping for awesome villains being fleshed out in this game, and instead, I'm left with tons of insanely tedious batmobile missions, which include, batmobile car chases, tank battles, batmobile PLATFORMING (Yes, I'm serious) and racetracks the Riddler made for you. Later in the game, they introduce tank stealth missions to you. As if the list wasn't bad enough. The tank stealth missions are incredibly boring and annoying, so much so that they make you want to scream. You know, maybe I wouldn't care so much if it didn't absorb over half the actual gameplay. So now I guess the core gameplay of Batman: Arkham is the batmobile. And the batmobile sucks, by the way. What a bitter way to end a great trilogy, with the coolest vehicle in the DC universe.

The exploration is pretty good though. Riddler is at it again, scattering around a bunch of trophies for you to collect, and rage inducing, god awful underground batmobile racetracks. I want to find the person who thought that would be a good idea and give him a good smack on the face. Seriously, Riddler racetracks don't really count as riddles. The Riddler trophies though, are not as fun as they once used to be, as most of them don't require puzzle solving and are just hidden, while some require the batmobile to solve. The side missions are great though. I loved seeing all the villains, even though I was under the impression they would play bigger roles than just being in side missions. I loved solving mysteries and scanning dead bodies for clues and all that kind of stuff. To unlock the full ending to the game, you actually have to complete all the side missions and collect all of the Riddler trophies. I already had completed all the side missions, and I didn't think that gliding around, looking for the 200+ Riddler trophies was worth my time, so I ended up just watching it on YouTube.

Overall, Batman: Arkham Knight was more disappointing than I ever wanted it to be. I had enormous expectations for this game. I thought it was so not cool to make the batmobile the core gameplay, and force it into every single aspect of the game. If only they just toned down the batmobile and put a little more thought into the script, this could have been the best Batman: Arkham game.

+ Biggest game yet with most content                 - Not enough twists and turns

+ Great variety added to combat/stealth              - No boss battles!

                                                                             - Stealth is too easy

                                                                             -Not enough evolution to characters/plot

                                                                              - Batmobile crammed into EVERYTHING

6.7/10                             



The Last of Us Remastered - Game Review

The Last of Us Remastered Review

The Last of Us Remastered is a port of the original PS3 exclusive to the PS4. Nothing too outstanding was added to the re-release, which is absolutely fine. Nothing needed to be added anyway. The last of us is the perfect example of what every great story-driven action game should be. Everything is executed with so much thought behind it, to create the most immersive experience you can get.  

The Last of Us hooks and reels you in with it's well scripted plot, and all-star voice cast. No other game has made me care so much about these characters I hardly even know. The amazing graphics (probably the best on console games to date) and motion capture bring out the raw emotions in the protagonists. You go on an emotional journey with Joel, as he travels the post-apocalyptic U.S. with a disgruntled and curious teenager named Ellie. They gradually bond, even though they have almost alternate personalities. The protagonists are so interesting, and there's so much to learn about them, which actually gives you some motivation to keep them alive.

You will have two main enemies in this game, humans and infected zombie-like mutant humans. To fight these enemies you will pick up weapons throughout the course of the game, which in turn will let you upgrade them by scavenging for supplies. You can craft things with supplies too, in a fairly basic crafting system. Scavenging for supplies feels so rewarding, and sometimes supplies will be thinly spread throughout the map, forcing you to make choices on what you craft and what you don't. The level design is also phenomenal, and everything placed in the map works so well with the combat and stealth to make it feel organic.

This game can get pretty intense at times, and the tension that builds up makes it feel so atmospheric. There can be large stealth sections with infected humans that makes your stomach knot into a ball. There's actually a unique twist on the stealth, which was a great idea. Some of the infected (Clickers) use echolocation to see around them. So you have to be quiet around them, even if they can't see you. They could comically walk right past you if you didn't move. You usually have the option to go stealthily or guns ablaze. Sometimes combat will be forced unexpectedly on you and catch you off guard. Some of the best moments of the game wait, and when everything seems calm they spring it on you. The combat works very well and the controls are extremely responsive. Unlike Call of Duty, where ammunition is infinite, you will be forced to use your bullets wisely. The stealth is the way to go if your low on bullets, and mastering stealth is so satisfying. Something that can occasionally bring the combat/stealth down is the buggy and very stupid A.I. Sometimes reactions from the A.I. were bad enough to make me laugh. Sometimes enemies can be caught in endless loops of running around in circles until you do something like throw a brick to cut it off. These occasions definitely get rid of the immersion that the Last of Us tries so hard to build. Thankfully these were only limited and they didn't hinder my experience.

Another unimpressive aspect was the multiplayer. It was kind of unnecessary in a very heavily story driven game. It works well and all, but it has nothing unique to it and feels kind of crammed in there.

The Last of Us is everything I want from an action game and more. It gives you a reason to fight and leaves you with satisfying gameplay with some pretty intense and hectic moments. This is a pretty short review, but I have nothing that negative to say about this game, and if I gave away any more of the story I would probably spoil it. This is one of the best games out there.

-Buggy A.I.                                       +Core Gameplay fantastic
-Multiplayer's nothing special           + Satisfying on every level
                                                           + Great story and characters
9.8/10