Mass Effect: First Impressions

As is most likely evidenced by my TDKR review, I'm not one to give into hype.  Sure, I check the web daily for news and such (do yourself a favor and check out toplessrobot.com, my nerd news site of choice) and get excited for upcoming releases (again: ASS.  CREED.  III.), but generally I try to avoid getting too invested in any one thing.  Entertainment should be entertainment--nothing more.  But even I have my limits. So when I tell you that I resisted the hype of Bioware's sci-fi epic Mass Effect franchise for 5 years, I just want to make clear exactly what that means.

A little back story: I'm a unequivocal nerd (SPOILERS!) and one of my favorite nerd outlets, aside from toplessrobot (which is entirely safe for work, by the way), is a podcast from a couple of journalists down in south Florida called Chaos Theater.  They wax about stuff they enjoy, and are generally right on the money (thanks for introducing me to Dresden, but not so much for The Wheel of Time), and their most recent episode was on Mass Effect.  Sure I had heard about it (how could anyone not miss the sheer idiocy of the Mass Effect 3 ending "controversy"), but never had had any real interest.  But they liked it, and I generally trust them, so last night I fired up the first game in the series.

So I've put about 4 hours into this game, and I am flabbergasted.  Flabbergasted at how the subsequent games in the series can improve on this one.  Because this game, right here, is a work of video game art.

Okay sure, the writing (especially for the baddies) can be ultra-Hollywood at times, and the music is a bit of an acquired taste, and textures certainly don't look as crisp as recent releases, but all of that is outweighed by the sheer depth of the dialog, the satisfying combat and most of all the engaging and endlessly interesting characters.  Including, surprisingly, my own.

Oftentimes RPG characters are bland, and I would presume this is to allow the player to project themselves onto the character (here's looking at you, Skyrim), but this is so not the case with ME.  The player character (Lt. Commander Shepard) is fully voiced in both genders (though go with the female--her voice, Jennifer Hale's, is a gem of voice acting).  And the VAs are not simply voicing one character either--your decisions, whether to be a Paragon (boy scout) or Renegade (dickwad) or anything in between result in branching dialog paths that really make this game play out like a TV show, and in a good way.

(As a side note, one of the writers for Mass Effect 3 said that she wished there were a way to remove the playing portions of the game and merely experience it as something akin to a movie or TV show or novel.  And with a story as strong as this, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea.)

But that is not to say the gameplay isn't any good either.  I LOVE 3rd person action games; they very may well be my favorite genre (behind aerial shooters by a smidge, maybe), and Mass Effect is a top-notch one.  For all that people complain about awkward menu systems, you get used to them.  Aiming should be floaty (have you even ever fired a gun before?).  While I realize it's not for everyone, ME's combat is right up my alley.

I do miss a dialog skip option, and admittedly I haven't tried the nearly universally-panned exploration missions yet, but so far, I am quite digging Mass Effect and looking forward to 2 and 3 more than a bit.  This is a masterpiece so far, probably the best RPG I've ever played.

And I'm only 4 hours in.

Holy shit, Batman! (SPOILERS)

This movie is so fuckin' stupid.

Okay, maybe that's being a little harsh.  But only a little.  Because for all it's triumphs, for every outstanding performance or cinematically perfect shot or wonderfully well-done practical effect, The Dark Knight Rises still has a plot that could've come from the Adam West TV show.

I'll start at the worst offender--the nuclear bomb.  A NUCLEAR BOMB.  The single most cliched, overdone, laziest story element ever included in cinema, right behind not looking at an explosion.  It's the one thing I hated in The Avengers, despite the fact that it at least fits in the more cartoony MCU than the "grounded" Nolan Batman films.  In all honesty, the microwave emitter from Batman Begins was more believable than this silliness.  At least Nolan had the good sense to not go with the ultra cliche of Batman blowing up in the nuke's explosion to save Gotham.  When I saw the Bat flying out over the harbor with the bomb in tow, I almost walked out of the theater.  And don't even get me started on the "concrete laced with explosives" absurdity.

Another knock against this movie has to be Bane.  Yes, Bane.  Surprisingly, he earns this movie's silly voice award, beating out an increasingly gravely Christian Bale.  He was played too theatrically by Tom Hardy--this is not to say it was a bad performance, just too out of line with the personality of the character.  And don't get me wrong; Nolan's Batman movies have made a name for themselves by re-imagining the classic DC characters.  But Bane was one place where they made a misstep.  Hardy's Bane is a pompous ass, so self-righteous and fake that he just comes off as silly.  And although that self-assured conqueror was his mask to the people of Gotham, he took it too far, he overacted too much.  This is the Bane we should've had:



Self-assured and threatening, right?  Oh, what could have been...

And when we do see the real Bane, and are made the sympathize with him, well, it just totally and entirely nerfs his character.  By making him nothing more than a pawn to Talia (who, surprisingly, isn't wasted), all his cocksure boasting is rendered utterly toothless.  He has no power beyond what Talia gives him, and even though he makes to kill Batman contrary to her orders at the very end, he still just seems ultimately broken as a character.

But this movie wasn't all bad--in fact, it mostly wasn't.  And as much as the plot and main baddie were underwhelming, I still enjoyed TDKR.  The number one reason?  Two words: Selina.  Kyle.

Anne Hathaway's Catwoman easily stole the show here (and no, not because of her figure, you perv).  Her Catwoman exemplified everything that made the Nolan films great--taking a new direction with classic characters and ideas while still maintaining roots in those original stories.  She was brutal, she was feisty, she was arrogant--the perfect Selina Kyle.  I could rave and rave and rave about her performance, and like Ledger's Joker, has now de-facto ownership of the role.  She was that pitch-perfect, and I think would do well by a solo film or two.

Another plus for this film was the emphasis on Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon.  He was always a strong presence in the first two films, and this movie only benefits from his expanded role.  He behaves exactly like he should under the extreme(ly silly) situation Gotham is in, but still brings a very human weight to a role that could have fallen flat with just about anyone else

Just a few more thoughts: kudos to Nolan for including the most humor of any of this Batman movies (or any of his movies, for that matter) in The Dark Knight Rises.  It is one of the reasons that the Marvel films are so accessible, and it's nice to see someone finally realize that a Batman story doesn't have to be depressing ALL the time.  And, as always, my highest praise to him for using as many practical effect/model/extras as is physically possible.  In an industry plagued by the summer CGI smorgasbord, TDKR stands out as a beacon of what effort in filmmaking equates to.  Well done.

And as for the story, well, the last 5 minutes saved it.  Nolan masterfully crafted an end to his saga that was both filling and intelligent, and honestly one that I didn't see coming.  It's as if he made to acknowledge our speculations, tease us with how stupid they were, and present an actual ending that made sense.

So, in the end, is The Dark Knight Rises the greatest movie of all time?  No.  The greatest comic book movie of all time?  No.  The greatest Batman movie of all time?  No.  But does that make it bad?  Certainly not.  Just fuckin' stupid.

Hello and Supercrapafuckarificexpalabullshit.

Hey there true believers!

The name's Will, another nerd breaking out into the big wide nerd world.  And plus, it's an exciting time to be a fan(atic), with the Marvel Phase 2 movies announced (seeing The Winter Soldier subtitle filled me with pure orgasmic joy.  Pure.), a gaggle of great video games on the way (ASS. CREED. III.) and TV as good as it's been in a while (Game of Thrones is a masterpiece of midget sex, violence, and nudity.  Also other people do those things too).

So let's jump right in: Chris Nolan's last Bat-flick opens on Friday (got my ticket!), and with hype levels rivaling The Avengers, expectations are high.  The Dark Knight was the only movie I had seen more than once in the theaters (before, oddly enough, The Avengers) and I was a big fan of the film as a piece of cinema...but not as a comic book movie.  Sure, it was engaging, riveting even, and Heath Ledger's Joker still stands, to me, as one of the greatest film villain performances of all time.  I've seen Burton's '89 Batman movie, and it would be a joke (no pun intended (no pun intended)) to compare the two.  But really, that's all the movie did for me.  The story was strong, the supporting cast was excellent, but Bale's Batman was just, frankly, wooden and boring, which is one of the reasons I dislike Batman Begins so very very much, aside from its patchwork plot and revolting batsuit (yes those things DO matter, thank you very much).

And according to early reviews, The Dark Knight Rises may suffer similar problems--a plot that's meandering at best and incomprehensible at worst.  Now don't get me wrong--stories often aren't a knock against my enjoyment of a movie, but on a film series that relies so much on the storytelling, this is a killing blow.

I'm also concerned with the sheer number of characters in this movie: Joseph Gordon Levitt as the new maybe Batman/Robin/Nightwing and we're adding (potentially) three new villains: Bane, Catwoman and Cotillard's Miranda Tate (read: Talia Al'Ghul).  Hhmmm...if I remember correctly, a certain Schumacher film had three villains, one of which was also Bane....





But somehow, I still am looking forward to this film.  Nolan is one of my favorite directors, and his Batmen have been really, really good, but still fatally flawed.  It seems a forgone conclusion that we're going to get none of the snappy pacing and economical filming style we get from the Marvel movies (two of the main reasons I LOVE THEM), with TDKR clocking in at butt-numbing 2 3/4 hours (ugh).

Well, I suppose all will be revealed on Friday, and I'll have a review up sooner rather than later.  But I guess it's saying something that I'm going to see The Avengers again on Saturday.