Per Chance, To Dream: The "Inception" Review

If there was a summer movie I had high hopes for, it was this one. A movie about stealing from dreams sounds interesting enough, but when you have Christopher Nolan on helm, especially after The Dark Knight, things can't look better. Sure, Leonardo DiCaprio is the lead in it, but if anything, Shutter Island proved he could act. Well, so did What's Eating Gilbert Grape? but I digress.

So, how does Inception fair in these high hopes? Not well. What starts as an interesting concept ends up being a predictable, hackneyed mess of the "dream within a dream" plot. I will give Mr. Nolan credit, though: I only thought it was predictable because I've studied psychology (and dreams) in both high school and college (had to do two psychology projects for two different classes, both of which stunned the psychology professor), and I remember that "mal" means "bad" in French. That last one's only important due to the fact that one of the characters is a French woman named "Mal." Even Al Pacino's character in The Devil's Advocate wasn't named something like Bob L. ZeBub or something equally ridiculous. I can imagine the French audience watching this movie, and going, "'Mal?' Is he out of his mind? He told us what's going to happen!" What's sad is that that is very true.

In a related event, the plot has more holes than Swiss Cheese. One of which is the totems that the people use to ground themselves in the dream. Joseph Gordon Levitt mentions that if anyone else touches someone's totem, it loses its effectiveness because you'll dream about them with out them being there. He then mentions that DiCaprio's totem (Cobb's), a top, was actually Mal's totem. Anyone with two brain cells can figure this out. If you are thinking what I was at this point, the ending shot confirms it, and renders the movie entirely pointless.

The big draw about the movie is that it's completely ("almost completely") in a dream. That, too, falls on its face. See, in order to get into someone's dream, they need an "architect" to build the dream, but make it as close to the subject's real dreams as possible (while also making it different enough for the group to control). When the subject goes to sleep, he dreams, but the architect creates the dream. And yet, according to the movie, its still his dream. No. No, it's not. It's the architect's dream. The architect is creating everything for the subject to respond to. If the dreamer isn't in any semblance of control of the dream, it is not their dream! It only gets more abstract when it becomes a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream. See, when you have a multilayered dream, it usually gets more and more abstract. The deeper you are into the dream, conversely, the more you don't realize you're dreaming, but the more bizarre the dream is. This is coming from a guy who has Iraq kickbacks that are absolutely bizarre, but feel real.

By this movie's logic, though, when you go deeper into REM, the more realistic the dream becomes, and the more you can control it willingly. If anything, they team shouldn't have been able to control the dreams late in the movie at all. It's merely out of plot convenience that they can, but that would spoil too much. Also, I want to know the logic behind going from one person's dream to another person's to save someone who died in the first person's dream. That didn't make a single bit of sense of how they came up with it.

I can give it this, the characters were portrayed well... most of the time. Ellen Page couldn't really act in this movie if you told her too, sadly. I mean, I didn't take her "evil killer" part seriously in Hard Candy, but she isn't a bad actress. It's a little hard to take her seriously when she's constantly starry-eyed every time Levitt or DiCaprio are in a scene. I think she didn't gawk in one scene... mainly because they weren't in it. The only passable scene she did was when Levitt told her to kiss him to throw off the subjects subconscious. It didn't work, and I have no idea why that was in there in the first place.

Several times in the movie two characters' names change pronunciation. "Saito" (SIE-to)is constantly interchanged with "Sato" (SAE-to), and "Ariadne" is pronounced so many different ways that I couldn't tell you if anyone other than Michael Caine pronounced it right. But, Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon Levitt are actually fun to watch, mainly because they play off each other well. You get the sense that one of them is a cynical joker and the other is a pompous straightman.

If I could sum up Inception in a sentence, it'd be this: Inception is a movie that doesn't live up to the hype, and is barricaded by it's own sense of logic where none shouldn't exist. To sum it up in one word? Disappointing.

I give it 2.5 out of 6 Bickering Freudians.

In Memorium

Peter Fenandez

January 29, 1927-July 16, 2010

I can see his entrance now: "See those pearly gates, Speed Racer (?) you must go through them as fast as you can or they will close and you'll have to wait until they open again which maybe a little while, but more likely not that long but you shouldn't risk it AAHHH!"

Rest in Peace, Mr. Fernandez.

One Ugly... The "Predators" Review

This is a tough one, mainly because I've been anticipating this movie since I saw the trailer with Adrien Brody carrying a chaingun. That, and Topher Grace being in it. Both of these aspects make the movie look horrible. But, its three Predators hunting them. That's awesome. On another planet, too? Even... um... awesomer! So, this movie could be both good and bad. Hey, Brody was pretty good as an Army Captain in The Jacket, and he was awesome in Splice. And Topher Grace... well... um...

So, yeah, Predators, with all its bizarre casting choices. First off, Hollywood needs to stop casting Alice Braga as a young, tough, misunderstood woman. Yes, she's only a year older than me, but she looks like she's in her late thirties, at least. As for the tough thing, she was more questionable than Topher Grace or Adrien Brody. I'm not kidding, she just seemed really, really out of place. It's not because women can't be strong, it's because she never acts like she's strong. This is in part to the writing where they have her crying at one point, and being taken advantage of (her sympathy and emotions, not physically). She's supposed to be tough, though... Sure. I'm not saying tough people can't have emotions. What I'm saying is that tough people shouldn't be this emotional when the situation calls them to be tough. If you're running for your life from a group of aliens that are hellbent on killing you, are you really going to stop and try to save a guy with a broken leg, not knowing him, but knowing that your life depends on leaving him? Yes, we'd all want to save the person, but there are situations (especially in, say, military operations) where it isn't always feasible.

Then you have the tough guy cast as a tough guy. Danny Trejo as a Columbian Drug Kingpin Enforcer. Danny Trejo is awesome in almost everything he's in. Including this, for all of five minutes that he's in it. Something makes up for it, though. Derek Mears, known for playing monsters such as Jason Vorhees and Chameleon from The Hills Have Eyes 2. He's only in this for about five minutes, too, though. At least his fate isn't cheaply done like Trejo's was.

What's interesting is that the big gripe in casting I have was the convict. My gripe is this: he was a bigger waste of time than Topher Grace's character. The only time he fights back is towards the end of the movie. Most of the time he just gripes.

Oddly enough, Brody and Grace were easily the human highlights in this movie. Brody isn't cast as a tough guy, but more of a tactician, and he plays it brilliantly, too. Grace's character... well, I don't want to ruin that. Most of the acting was pretty well done (especially one twist that made me just groan... not from stupidity though), but again, sometimes it comes off as a little off. One character has an invisible friend, and it seems completely out of place for this movie.

If there's something I can say for the story, its this: It's Predator on a different planet. Oh, they hint at some Predator history, such as mentioning the first movie's events, and a civil war, but they're merely mentioned and tossed aside. Why? A Predator civil war could be really interesting. Instead, it leads to the same ending fight that we had before (save for the conclusion), and nothing is made of it. In speaking of that, the ending of that was pretty comical. Not to film makers: physics doesn't work like that, people will fall in the direction they're being hit into. Also, the spoons in hand grenades need to be taken out for the grenade to detonate. Anyone from Basic Training would tell you this.

I can say with certainty that this wasn't a great movie, but its a step above the AVP movies. It's a little better than Predator 2, but it's hard to see that it isn't just the first movie done with different concepts in a similar setting. I'd say don't see it in theaters unless you have a discounted price (like I did today), but do go see it still. And don't expect anything different than the first movie. It's a step in the right direction, but we need something both faithful and new. Just hinting at interesting aspects of this alien race's history and culture isn't enough.

I give it 4.5 out of six skull trophies.

"Jacob's Ladder," "Silent Hill 2," and "Crackdown 2." How do I fit these into a blog?

So, as some of you may have seen on my facebook, we watched Jacob's Ladder last night. This was our second try after a scene put a bad taste in Alexis's mouth. I have to say this: for the hour of build up with him seeing demons and everything, they sure forgot that in the last hour of the movie. Seriously, we went from Jacob seeing demons once every fifteen minutes or so, to it being more like a John Grisham novel where a guy tries to sue the government. And, yes, this is an anti-war movie, namely anti-Vietnam. That would be great if it were made in the '70's. Unfortunately, it was made in 1990.

I think that's part of it for me, though. I wasn't alive for the Vietnam war, so its hard for me to relate to the character. I was, though, in the Iraq War, and can relate to the general feel of what the characters were supposed to be going through, although, very loosely. What it felt like to me was PTSD. What they pinned it on in the movie was Agent Buzz. After all, the government only wanted to drug our soldiers unwillingly to make them better fighters. Sure, they killed each other, but who cares? They're only soldiers, right. Bullshit, movie. I'm sorry, but the government cares more about the people who potentially sacrifice their lives a whole lot more than you give them credit for. Sure, its not perfect, but to say that the government is nothing but a bunch of monsters? Bite me.

A few people have told me that it felt like Silent Hill to them. Maybe. I'd say Silent Hill 2, and that's not a complement. See, Silent Hill 2 and Jacob's Ladder have the same problem: the build up has nothing to do with what's going on, and no one gets that. I'm not going to spoil Jacob's Ladder anymore than I did. But, here's the issue with Silent Hill 2: James gets a letter from his dead wife. He goes to Silent Hill to investigate. He gets attacked by monsters until he remembers that he killed his sick wife. After coming to grips with his guilt, he defeats the monsters.

Simple plot... except for why he forgot he killed his wife. I can somewhat understand going into a town after getting a letter from your dead wife to investigate. But, people make James seem like this horrible person. "He killed his sick, suffering wife! He deserves to be punished!" Here's the big, glaring issue with this: She begged him to kill her to end her suffering. Sure, he'd feel guilty about that, and it may not be right. But the fact is, she was in pain, and she wanted to end it. I may not back his actions of killing her, but going so far as to say that he did it because he was a ruthless bastard? He did it because he loved her. Letting her suffer more would seem more cruel to him. Also, why do most of the monsters represent sexual repression? I've heard, "he hadn't gotten any since his wife was sick." I'm pretty damn sure he had bigger things to worry about than getting laid. Like, you know, his dying wife!

Finally, I'm to the point where I've pretty much given up on Crackdown 2 being a playable game. I will dare to say this: Singularity was actually slightly, very slightly, better than Crackdown 2. Here's why: At least the game is playable. Every time I turn around in Crackdown 2, I get stuck because fifteen guys are shooting rockets at me. As I've said before, for some reason, rockets stop you in mid-step instead of sending you flying. So, when you can't progress in a game because you can't move, how do you expect to play it? Not to mention the unbeatable mission where you need another player, too. Oh, and the fact that the buildings are virtually unclimbable at max agility. The last grip is always just out of reach.

Here's the thing: if you want a free roaming game that you can be a jerk in, play The Saboteur, Red Faction: Guerrilla, or, if you have a PS3, Infamous. Hell, even Red Dead Redemption, which is a fantastic game, but not a jerk game. Or go play the original Crackdown. I'll guarantee that you'll have more fun with those than Crackdown 2.

Summer? SUMMER?! Agent, I'll show YOU "Summer!"

I have to say, as a gamer, I have been severely disappointed by the Summer releases. A grand total of one has blown me away: Transformers: War For Cybertron. "Transformers" without Shia LaDouche and Megan "My Farts Smell Like Milk" Fox? Like the old days. Cool. It's fun? Even better. But, I'll get to that later.

Alan Wake was all right, but more of a Spring release than anything else. Starcraft 2 looks like Starcraft the first... and I still never finished that. Singularity was, too steal a phrase from Alexis, balls-punchingly bad. When Green Day: Rock Band is more interesting and less convoluted than your game, you need to evaluate your story writing prowess. Especially when a game with no story is better than one with one. But, the next paragraph has a phrase I never thought I would utter.

After Alexis bought a game she wanted from a local store (one which will not be named due to the fact that it is still a good store, this was a one time thing), we found out it didn't work due to the disc being scratched up to hell and back. We returned it, and decided to both pitch in and get Crackdown 2 due to the fact that the first was mindless fun. I mean, you blow up gangs, kick people and kill them in one hit, sending them flying into other people to kill them, and due this without regard for anything because you are the Übermensch. It was purely mindless fun. So, how can you screw that up? Easily: You make a sequel. Crackdown 2, while no where near as bad as Singularity, is terrible.

I can attribute it to three things. First: Ruffian Games, when they changed a few things, made other things glitchier. Explosions don't knock you back; they pause you so you can't move or shoot, but you can aim. You can't grab onto ledges 70% of the time. 30% of the time you try to aim at someone two feet in front of you, your agent aims at a car (or a civilian) thirty feet away that was doing nothing to you. People will stare at you and get in your way constantly, which somehow stops you. If an eight foot tall, 300 lbs slab of muscle and armor was running to me, he wouldn't come to a complete halt: he would crush my spine like an eggshell. Apparently, Ruffian Games never had this happen to them. I haven't either, but I can imagine it!

The second issue is the game is terribly repetitive. In the first game, you have assassination missions that lead you to different places. In this one, you have protect an area missions. Protect this area from this badguy for five minutes. Um... sure. Good for the change of pace. Oh... this is the whole game! I might as well have been playing Zombie Apocalypse, a game that is a sixth of the price of this one. This isn't a full game, it's seriously DLC.

The third issue: The game seems to be dead set on making sure you play it with someone else online. At least one "mission" is impossible to do with out another player. If you don't play online (like I do, due to the fact that I've seen douchebags in action on Little Big Planet, as well as other games), you're screwed. I'll get into the character design on Born Into Interpretation, but I'll leave you with this image: one of the agents looks like Dr. House with a giant gun. That should sound awesome... it really isn't.

At least I have movies going for me! Sure, The A-Team was a bigger pile of crap than a Great Dane would leave in a yard, but Splice and Toy Story 3 were the best movies I've seen in theaters since Pan's Labyrinth. And I maybe seeing Predators with Alexis next week. I am now setting my standards to "extra-low!"

In good news, I'm planning on making my old webcomic, Muzzle, come back. It's going to be a complete reboot, but I'll have the same characters. I'd have too... but some new ones will be thrown in. Keeping with the style, I will have one-shot strips, but the full story line strips will be named after song titles or lines. So, keep an eye out!

Updates... And Maybe A Head Fake

Hey, all. I have some updates for you. If this seems a little incoherent, I didn't get much sleep last night due to the excitement of starting a new tabletop game this weekend (a new system as well). That, and my running around. Here let me explain.

This morning, I went to sell a few games, including the crap-tastic game, Singularity. Some of you may have seen Alexis's post on Born To Interpretation about the frustration of that game. I took pictures of some of the dumbass designs in the game, as well as examples of how stupid it thinks the players are. Believe me when I say this: that's not the worst of it.

It's a fairly simple time-travel plot. You play as Renko, a man who invades a Russian Island or Katorga-12 because a Singularity opened up. In the beginning of the game, you save a man named Demichev from falling to his death. This causes a change in history, which involves monsters that can change time. Okay, I can almost buy that, save for the fact that if history changed, we wouldn't know it. But, that's as competent as the plot ever gets. Once you get the time manipulation device (TMD), you go back to before you saved Demichev, and kill him before he kills another scientist, Barisov. So... who the hell did I save in the beginning of the game?

Why, Demichev, of course! See, somehow, he managed to survive being shot in the face and falling through a ten story high window, only to be caught in a fire, and saved by the guy who shot him. All the while, someone keeps telling me not to trust Barisov and Kathryn the Wall Eyed Wonder, going so far as to tell me all four of the game's endings. But that's not where I decided to say, "no more." Not even the exploding ticks that kill me instantly or the "not zombies" that look more fake than Dr. Carnage could get me to stop. What did was going twenty minutes into a level, dying from an exploding tick (at double the default health no less, in one hit), and having to start the level over again because the check point system doesn't work. You're powers don't work 100% of the time, and bosses generate outside the play area forcing you to reload. Alpha Protocol was a more finished game than this, and that was buggier than Joe's Apartment. And, yet, IGN says that it's better than last year's game, Wolfenstein. IGN, consider your credibility lost. Wolfenstein wasn't perfect, sure, but to say that this piece of crap is better? What are you, high?

After that, we went to Bookery (Alexis having never been there before, despite being a nerd... granted she's not from here), and I got myself some old comics. Not unusually, they were all Legends of the Dark Knight. I mainly got these because they were stories I was familiar with, save for one that I got because the cover is both awfully drawn and goes against the set mold. So, I came home with "Venom," "Flyer," "Idols," "Infected," "Legends of the Dark Mite," and the first two parts of "Blades," the one I was really hoping to read (again, as it were because I read that one two years ago). This was due to me being tired and grabbing two copies of part two, catching it, and not realizing that I may have missed part three. Considering that they're a dollar a piece, I'll just head up there and get it some other time. But, damn, that was one of my favorite stories in any comic.

Anyway, the news bit. I'm not stopping completely, but I'm going to slow down on the "Horrid Horror" Reviews. This is mainly because I'm getting burned out on them. I've tried to watch a really good horror movie with Alexis for the past two days, and I was getting bored by it. Granted, I've seen this one several times, but here's the situation. When you watch bad horror movies every week, it makes you realize the bad things in good horror movies all the more. At the same time, starting the design blog with Alexis made me realize something: I like helping people understand what makes good art and design. It's cathartic, and it teaches me a few things as well. Considering my mother is an actual teacher, too... maybe it runs in the family.

So, HHMR isn't going anywhere, but it isn't going to be updated as often. This blog will be used for reviews, though in the meantime, as well as gaming stuff that isn't design oriented (granted, Alexis's "rant" on Singularity isn't really design oriented...) Stay tuned!