Batman: Arkham City

Have you heard of Batman? He's mighty popular at current, what with Mr Christian 'Gravel-Voice' Bale giving it all that on the big screen. Thankfully, Rocksteady Games have made two titles to date with a much better sounding protagonist. I've played Arkham Asylum, and loved it, and now I've played Arkham City. Look, here:

In the Batmaniverse, Arkham Asylum is akin to an Alcatraz for the criminally insane, and is the setting for the first game in this series. A stonker of a title, go play it. The name Arkham is taken from the H.P. Lovecraft mythos, a town in Massachusetts which features in 12 of his tales. I figure this information will cause a certain friend of mine to explode with cross-over desires. Onwards with the review.

Plot

How am I supposed to brood without the Bat-Umbrella?

This game, Arkham City, is basically Asylum but bigger. The premise of an asylum for dangerous criminals has been expanded to 'city' size (more on that later), and the number of villains doubled. The plot sees Bruce Wayne imprisoned by Dr Hugo Strange, the overseer of Arkham City, for basically no clear reason other than so he can swoop around a dark, Gothic landscape for a bit and be gruff. Once inside The Caped Crusader immediately sets off trying to...no, wait, he has no motivation at this point. Yes, he's been imprisoned by Strange and would probably like to get out, but the first thing he does is rescue Catwoman from Two-Face, I assume so the game can introduce the second playable character. After this, the three major villains (Two-Face, The Penguin and The Joker) present themselves and territories are carved up across the city. In addition to these three Big Villains and their appropriately garbed henchmen armies, there are also several Small Villains running about being a nuisance. This is present in the form of a few side missions that have multiple parts which become available as you progress through the main plot. These missions provide enjoyable sections of the game where you get a chance to play The Detective and not The Cage Fighter. There are also a few recognisable names from about the mythos, like Commissioner Gordon, Oracle and a few TV celebs that crop up to be liabilities during the game as well. All in all, a ton of names well and truly dropped. Now Batman can get on with the task of....nonono, wait!

When will this happen?!

The Riddler. He's back and all, only this time instead of being a series of disembodied recorded taunts with a graffiti problem he's an actual villain in the city. There are riddles to solve by taking thousands of photos of everything you can with your cowl-cam and over 400 trophies to find which range in difficulty from 'look up, use batclaw' to piloting a batarang through a sewer version of the Boota Eve course. In addition to this, the oddly House-resembling Riddler has captured a few medics who were also trapped in Arkham City. When you have found a enough trophies The Riddler challenges you to solve his puzzle houses and save the hostages, the final puzzle house being where you meet and defeat Edward Nigma himself.

Characters

I think I can safely assume that, even if you've not seen The Dark Knight, you're at least aware of the truly wonderful performance that the late Heath Ledger gave in THE LEADING ROLE as The Joker. He was great because he captured the essence of unpredictability and madness of The Joker that is diametric to Batman's logical and calculating methods of detective work, moral code etc. But that was the Nolan franchise, and is thankfully very different and removed from this game. In the Arkham series, The Joker is voiced by Mark "I used to bulls-eye wamp rats back home in my T-16" Hamill and he does a stunning job. His laugh is spot on, and that's one of the most important parts to the character. In general, each Big Villain is very well done, each playing perfectly to the single trait that was the original inspiration for each character. There is a tier system for importance of villain in this game: The Joker and Hugo Strange are at the top, followed by The Penguin, Ra's al Ghul and Two-Face as major obstacles for Batman, below them Mr Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane, Deadshot, Azreal, The Riddler and Hush occupying either passing roles as 'hey look, it's that one!' during missions related to other, bigger villains or as side missions in their own right. Next comes the one-appearance only tier, with Clayface, The Mad Hatter and Solomon Grundy. Finally, at the base of the Pyramid of Screen-time, are all the passing references in riddles etc. In total, I counted over 40 named heroes, villains or general characters. In Asylum, most of these characters were mentioned in passing, their names usually being linked to a riddle or mentioned in dialogue, but in City at least 25 are actually in the game. This is ridiculous. Most barely get any screen-time and those that do are developed to the bare minimum. I would've much rather had The Joker, Two-Face and The Penguin, with the potential for each of them to have a secondary villain or two (Ivy, Bane, Deadshot etc) in their employ.

I CAN develop more than
2 characters in a game!

This would've allowed more than a passing show for each villain other  than The Joker, who's the only one I could really tell you anything about  his motives or plans. It would also enable people who are completely  unfamiliar with any of these villains to enjoy their appearances more.  Granted, each character does have a biography in the pause menu but  this is just a flimsy solution to cover the design choice, in my opinion. 

Combat

So there's a lot of stuff going on. In between the things happening plot-wise Batman is usually punching someone. The combat is lifted directly from Asylum, as one would expect, and works just as well. A slight modification including some end of combo finishers just adds to the fun of taking on 50 henchmen at once. All the gadgets (batarang, batclaw, bat-tazer, bat-splosive, bat-birthday cake) and signature moves can be worked into any combo allowing for illegal levels of fun to be had providing you nail the timing. If you've played Arkham Asylum you'll know that early on B-man can't do jack against guns, and the same is true in City. So, not only do you now have a gadget for silently jamming enemy weapons, causing them to panic when you appear and they can't fire, but at the end of a combo you can leap over to the smug bastard with the assault rifle, shotgun or even stun-stick and rip it out of his hands. That not enough? Don't worry, it isn't, you dismantle it in seconds right before his eyes. The henchman genuinely looks upset. And then you throat-punch him.

The best kind of four-way

Fighting anything larger than henchmen is rare. There are The Abramovici Twins (surgically separated conjoined twins with one arm each, one wields a sickle and the other a hammer (Soviet reference shoryuken) and then maybe two Titan henchmen, previously seen in Asylum. Both are dealt with in similar ways, and are not handled badly, it would just have been nice to see more of them as most boss fights are either 'fight hoard, single punch takes out Big Villian' or 'get swamped by Ra's al Ghul and his multiple guises

For the most part making your way around the city involves avoiding henchmen without guns (very simple due to the sexy flight mechanics) or stealthily taking out those with guns. Still very satisfying to clear an entire room of henchman without any of them noticing.

Visuals

Booting this game brought back a wonderful sight to my eyes, a sight that hasn't been seen since the first Dawn of War. A PC Stress Test. I ran it, and it looked fine. I started the game on Ultra High, everything lagged. It rendered fine, but the game was running at half speed. Tweaking a few key settings down to High solved everything. This game is not beautiful, because that wouldn't fit with the Gothic theme. It is as good looking as it needs to be, and then some, but by no means blew my mind. In fact, it was very similar to Asylum. I feel City was just a case of expanding instead of innovating anything new, so this is to be expected and not criticised. 

I'm Batman

Along that theme comes my first criticism. There are a few internal areas, the GCDP morgue and a few rooms in the subway and steelmill, which are pretty much lifted from Asylum and given a quick re-skin. Whilst I don't begrudge the devs doing this, I feel it's a tad sloppy for a triple A game. My second criticism is an expansion on my first, or lack there of. The game is too small. When you climb certain buildings and look out to the East you can clearly see Arkham Asylum in the distance, and due to perspective it does indeed look small in comparison to City. But when you consider the actual playable size of Asylum, I'll wager it was probably about 60-70% the size of City. This is flat out not big enough for this game. If we can have full sandbox worlds in games like InFamous, GTA, Prototype then why didn't Batman get one? An example to further highlight my irritation: at one point there were Two-Face thugs patrolling the steps of a building chatting about The Penguin and how he sucks...whilst not 25m away across the road there were Penguin thugs saying the same things about Two-Face. The game really needed double the space.

On a lesser note, the score is spot on. A brilliant mix of Nolan-esque soundtrack and original themes.

Longevity

Picture funny, but
not relevant

The game took me 32 hours to finish; that's the main quest, all the side missions and all The Riddler trophies/challenges. Then there's the ton of challenge maps available to be played as Batman or Catwomen, (Nightwing and Robin if you shell out for the DLC) but all they consist of is internal maps used in the main game filled with either a hoard to fight or some guards to takedown. These challenge maps were also present in Asylum, and I ignored them then as well. There is also New Game Plus, which restarts the story but you keep all your upgrades and gadgets, plus change Batman's suit to one of 7 available as DLC. The villains are also leveled to match, to keep the challenge up. This mode is best for trophy hunting as, with all the gadgets unlocked, any Riddler trophy you come across can be claimed then and there (idiocy dependent). There is also a single achievement for finishing the game twice. I HATE this, for two reasons; 1) because it's the cheapest way to extend a game, 'just do it again for a shiny thing,' and 2) because I'm probably going to do it.

Conclusion

A very good game, well worth what I paid for it and certainly an enjoyable way to spend 30+ hours. It is by no means perfect, nothing ever is, but what flaws it has are mostly down to my personal experience and expectations. Recommended to anyone who enjoyed Asylum, fans of comic book characters and stealth games.

Those of you wanting batnips can take a hike.

Surrender to them

Star Trek Online

Guess what? Another MMO went Free-To-Play on Steam at the beginning of February. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to squeeze into a Lycra bodysuit, pin on a comm badge and holster my phaser.

MMOs as a concept, baffle me. Something that I touched on in my DC Universe Online review. The idea of buying a game, and then continuing to buy the ability to play it just doesn't make even a modicum of sense to me. Clearly, I'm in the minority, judging by the sheer gargantuan success of MMOs including World Of Warcraft, EVE, Everquest etc. Therefore I shall be putting my prejudices aside for the time being.

Developed by Cryptic Studios (City of Heroes/Villains), using their Cryptic Engine, Star Trek Online is set during the 25th century - a turbulent time in the Alpha Quadrant, some years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. The Federation and Klingon Empire are at war. Threat from the Romulan Star Empire, the Borg Collective, Hirogen hunters and many other smaller enemy factions are ever-present. Not to mention that the shape-shifting Udine (formerly Species 8472) are larking about impersonating high-ranking members of every faction's military, causing the breakdown of all hopes for a diplomatic solution.

How much? Oh I get it free during the game? Lovely.

It is into this world that you are thrown. As a low ranking Star Fleet officer you are given command of a star-ship, as the Fleet needs every available ship on the front lines. You are issued missions from various NPCs across the map, in standard MMO style. Some missions progress the main story line, which has been divided into handy 'episodes' used to help track your progress through the story and even be replayed at leisure. Other NPCs chuck out the standard, monotonous fetch quests etc that all MMOs have for resource collection/experience farming. These, I ignore. There are also PVP queues that can be accessed from any common area, but owing to the structure of the game (to be discussed later) they're barely worth any attention.

Even this doesn't do it justice.

Pretty standard MMO stuff then. The interesting aspects of Star Trek Online, as with all MMOs, comes from character creation and combat.

Character Creation

The first choice to make is career path. Are you a Spock, McKoy, Kirk or Wesley Crusher? The three paths, Tactical (Red), Engineering (Yellow) and Science (Blue) will be fairly familiar to many MMO players. Tactical focuses on combat buffs and aggressive abilities in order to ramp their DPS, Engineering focuses on support powers such as fabrication of turrets and shield generators, and Science officers provide healing and crowd control abilities. I chose Engineer.

Next, you are asked to choose your Race. Human, Trill, Bajoran, Vulcan, there are many to choose from. You are also presented with the opportunity to create your own entire species, from physical attributes to four specific character perks. I chose this option. I saw no reason to not indulge in every part of customisation, even down to the colour of my character's eyes and nails. Because I can. And that level of customisation, of sculpting an avatar into a being you created and you own, is what I love most about RPG games.

Spines? Yes please, two rows.

With my character styled to out-the-arse levels of detail, I was thrown right into the tutorial (narrated by the wonderful Zachery Quinto I might add) which leads you through a ground combat section, teaching you the basics. More on that later. Upon completion of the tutorial, and a few other sections of story progressing and 'go-here/press-this' mission etc. you are commissioned as a Captain, and given your own ship.

Here's the second level of character creation. There are three classes of ships; Cruisers, which are general warships set up to be balance between speed, damage and survivability, Escorts, smaller and faster than Cruisers, with more fire power but weaker shields, and Science Ships, with high shield strength but weaker hulls, focusing on abilities. Each one of these ship classes reflects the character classes, but does not mean all Science Officers only do well in Science Ships, as your own abilities have little effect on space combat. I picked Escort and stuck with it through the ranks, however it is easy to swap from one class to the other when you receive a free ship token from the Admiral upon reaching rank 10, 20, 30 etc.

Here's mine, she'll do 0.5 past light speed.

A word on the levelling system. It's simple enough to grind, easy enough to level without grinding and great for streamlining your class by choosing different upgrades. By assigning low ranking members of your crew to carry out missions on-board or elsewhere in the sector you can generate resources and XP without even playing the game, as they carry out these missions in real time.

From this point onwards everything is down to you and your character. As I've stated, there are story missions, daily missions and the PVP/PVE arenas to fight in. The stars are the limit.

Space Combat

Holy woah.

Do you remember watching any of the Star Trek series or movies and wishing you could be in the captain's chair, barking orders at your bearded First Officer to 'engage evasive manoeuvre Alpha Epsilon 3 on your mark?' Well, Star Trek Online pretty much has that to a tee. Space combat is great. The encounters are all within fully 3D maps, allowing for everything you could think to do with your Star Ship. Cloaking, tractor beams, evasive manoeuvres, torpedo spreads, tachyon beams, boarding parties, they're all incorporated somehow. I would liken it to Star Trek Legacy, because that's what it is, but with a ton of extra abilities and tactics thrown in to expand the opportunities in each battle. Also, it's Archer free!

Least threatening pirate queen ever.

Two examples of how you can engage in space combat. I am currently Level 32, using a Defiant class (the one from Deep Space 9, also Worf has one. Photo below) which is an Escort rammed to the bulkheads with narrow firing arc/high damage cannons and not a lot else. Generally my tactic is to come at an enemy, usually a Romulan D'Deridex at present, with all power to weapons, forward shields at max and all offensive abilities activated (increased rate of fire, damage, area of effect). When in range a tacyhon beam depletes their facing shields, my cannons hammer down the rest and expose the hull. At this point I activate my tractor beam, to hold them in place and deal light damage over time, as I come about and fire a full spread from my aft torpedo launcher, striking massive damage against their hull.

This is Worf. Worf is displeased.

One of my fellow captains chooses a different, but equally effective approach. He is currently in command of an Excalibur class Cruiser, fore and aft torpedoes, several phaser banks, but not as nimble. Because of the firing arc of phaser banks, there is one specific way to broadside an enemy where both fore and aft banks overlap and can deal near continual punishment to shields. Once his enemy's shields are down, a quick turn and a few torpedo spreads is all it takes to finish them off.

U.S.S. Akkan. Does not play well with others.

Both of these tactics have Star Trek written all over them. I can recall scenes in films and episodes where nearly all of those manoeuvres have been done, which is what makes them all the more satisfying to do in game!

Space combat demonstrates that the three ship classes clearly occupy the same character types as the three Character classes. Escorts are focused damage dealers, Cruisers can take the punishment and manage threat control whilst Science Ships heal allies, cripple enemy movements and bolster allied weapons.

I love this more than Ensign Crusher loves stupid jumpers.

Your space combat abilities come from a wonderful system of Bridge Officers (or BOFFs). Each ship has slots for Tactical, Engineering and Science BOFFs, with each class of ship favouring one over the other two in numbers. My Escort has two tactical, one engineering and one science. These BOFFs are recruited or bought during the game and serve as your bridge crew during space combat. They are also able to accompany you on ground missions by joining your away team. As you progress in rank you increase the number of BOFFs you can have at any time. When completing missions, destroying enemies and achieving certain objectives you earn XP for your own progression but also BOFFXP, which is used to increase the abilities of your BOFFs. Once you have spent a sufficient amount of BOFFXP on an officer, you can choose to spend resources to promote them. When promoted, a BOFF gains access to the next tier of abilities, both space and ground. This added an element of loyalty and a real essence of being a proper Star Fleet crew.

Ground Combat

Ever played Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic 2? Well, ground combat is like that on a quality-free diet. It has limited FPS appeal, awkward ability cooldowns, over-zealous AI that want's you and ONLY YOU dead RIGHT NOW, despite being out numbered 5-to-1 and having all four of my away team shooting the crap out of it. For me, it's mostly a case of "Fine, STO, I will do your 9000th corridor rail shooter-esque away team mission, so long as you let me back into space in the next ten minutes."

Flee! Flee from my poorly-executed combat mechanics!....Or don't.

Sometimes the non-combat ground sections are just awful. For example, I went back in time to stop the Devidians from stealing a meteor (I think...I blew it up, close enough). I met Bones, and he was a dick. The guy made me do the most ridiculous fetch quest. First, I had to find a Barmaid, then she told me to go talk to Bones again. So back I went, across the map, to find him. He then told me I needed to make a Nerve Tonic to calm the Barmaid's nerves so she would tell me what transpired before my away team and I arrived. Back I go to the Barmaid to give her a Nerve Tonic, which I didn't have, and she directs me to the Bar. Here, I am presented with five tiers of choices regarding the composition of said Tonic. Not a clue. Not a bloody clue. So I made one, gave it to the Barmaid, bitch doesn't like honey. Well fuck. Space bees make shit honey, apparently. So back I trotted to Bones who proceeded to tell me everything the Barmaid liked about drinks. And I mean everything. I had to start taking notes to get it all down. Eventually I sort of had an idea of what she would want, so I went back to the Bar to make the drink. Needless to say, she didn't like it. I had to repeat the note-taking exercise four times. I wanted to kill Bones.

Even the Ghost-Busting missions didn't make up for it.

PVP Combat

Don't even bother. The Federation-on-Federation training exercises are barely running, due to lack of interest, and when they are there's always some uber-rank with a plasma mini-gun wasting everyone else. The space combat stuff is basically the same, no one understands how to work as a team so no one survives very long.

The fact that you can't even unlock a Klingon character slot until level 25 means there is about an 80:20 split in players in favour of Federation, which means PVP never, ever gets going.

On the rare occasion that PVE has worked, it's been pretty cool. We hunted a Romulan fleet, lead by a ship similar in design to the Scimitar seen in Star Trek: Nemesis. It didn't resemble it for long:

Kaboom.

Bad Stuff

The game features an in-game shop, the C-Store, where actual money with the Queen on it and everything can be exchanged for C-Credits. These are used to purchase new ships, equipment and even pets to follow you around, something that I absolutely cannot understand people spending money on. This in-game currency worth real money irritates me. It's clearly another way to continue to make money from a product, especially since it's now FTP, and I understand that. However, I'm not paying £15 to find out what the hell is inside every single one of the 56 Cardassian Lockboxes I have sitting in my inventory. It might be driving me insane.

A dog is for life. But apparently not for Sulu.

During peak hours the game has started to become a tad sticky but not unplayable. This is probably due to server strain, and for the first time a few days ago I was asked to wait in a queue before there was room for me to play. It took a full nine days of FTP status for that to happen, about 9 times as long as it took DCUO, thank god. Minor issues really, the servers will calm down after a few weeks.

Good Stuff

There are some great little things that I enjoy about this game. It patches a little bit every loading screen, something which all MMOs may do, but DC Universe Online certainly did not. That bastard made me wait for nearly 20 minutes every time I wanted to play it. However, the game does take forever to load certain maps, most probably due to heavy usage.

Some time and effort has clearly gone into making direct and indirect connections to the various iterations of Star Trek. Admiral Janeway, Ambassador Picard, Spock, Kirk, Sisco they're all in the game somewhere, mostly just by name. I get warm and fuzzy feelings when someone references an episode that I remember. Hell, you can even replicate Feline Supplement 74, the cat food Data gives to Spot. I do love attention to detail like that.

Overall

Yep, nice space combat, ground combat that I can deal with til it goes away coupled with rewarding progression and a highly detailed universe; all good things. Not much to say visually, it's alright on the ground but nothing special, much better in space however. It's an MMO, so longevity is usually a case of money but seeing as it's FTP I don't really see an end to my enjoyment. I'll take breaks, but I feel certain I'll come back to this again in the future.

Go get it, it's free for Kirk's sake!

A Final Point

Y'know Star Wars? The most popular franchise in the history of ever? Well, I'm nearly bored of it. There are so many games based on, admittedly, an excellent universe, that there's very little new ground left to cover. Unless you start making games based upon the colossal amount of fan fictions and other "novellas" based on the lives of the characters, characters children, children's children, pets, accountants etc. and I really don't want another Star Wars Christmas Special fiasco to be frank. Which is why this game appeals to me so much. It's a relatively new universe for me. Yes, I've seen large chunks of TNG and I'm currently re-watching all of Voyager, but I'm in no way saturated with Picardicles, not by a long shot. It's this freshness coupled with highly enjoyable space combat and rewarding gameplay that has stolen over 50 hours from me in the last 15 days. Thoroughly recommend to all MMO fans as well as anyone who's always wanted to play an MMO but morally objects to paying more than once for a game. Also, Star Trek fans of all sorts.

Con Air: A Retrospective.

So it has come to this day, 19th June 2011, when I finally get round to watching Con Air. Let me just say, that my delay should in no way reflect the quality of this film. I'm quite the Cage fanboy, and this film shall now be used as my retort to anyone questioning his film career. Anyone bold enough to utter "Nic Cage is shit, have you seen Ghost Rider?!" near me will be verbally back-handed with "Go now from my sight and watch Con Air," and, depending on availability, physically backhanded with a dvd of Con Air to further prove my point.

So, the first few scenes centre around Cameron Poe, (Cage) a US Ranger just finishing a tour of duty in what is suggested to have been Operation: Desert Storm. The now State-side Poe comes home to see his lovely, pregnant wife Tricia (Monica Potter) who is currently working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. I'm not singing the rest of that. Anywho, a fight ensues between Poe and a few of the local fellas, during which Lethal Weapon Poe manages to kill one of them. Now, the killing blow was a palm hit to the face, to the sound effect of what appeared to be a shotgun. I can't lie, Cage got stacked for this film, but he still does not have shotgun hands. Hollywood, if you're reading, less Rose McGowen with M16 peg-legs, more Cage with Shotty-Fingers.

It turns out the local judge is also aware of Poe's pump-action palms and declares him a dangerous weapon due to his Ranger training, Poe pleads guilty to manslaughter and gets banged up for 7 years. We see a montage (#We're gonna need a montage.....#) of Poe working out, writing to his daughter and learning Origami and Spanish, generally being the ideal prisoner. Eventually his parole comes around and he's released into the custody of the US Marshal service, for transportation which is where the action really begins. Take note, all of the above takes place within roughly 20 minutes of the film, leaving a full 1hr 30 for plenty of Bunnies to be put back into boxes.

The Lawwwwwww (said in my best Stallone drawl) is aptly represented in the most clichéd Chalk and Cheese pairing I think I've ever enjoyed. John Cusack as the young, sharp as a tac Chalk, U.S. Marshal Vince Larkin, and Colm Meaney as his counter part, the always yelling, '67 Chevy Corvette driving, "shoot first and ask questions later" Cheese, Duncan Malloy. The pseudo-rivalry between the two characters throughout the film is very well portrayed, with Larkin always on the ball but never with enough authority to get much done, and Malloy tearing around in Apache helicopters shouting at most of the Mid-Wests law enforcement officers. Throughout the film The Law is completely removed from the situation, which is obviously taking place on the aircraft, which serves to heighten the tension. From the viewer's perspective we can see Poe and Larkin are sort of on the same "side" as it were, and that Malloy is just swinging his over-sized badge around because he's not getting his way. This serves to invite the viewer to very quickly relate to Larkin.

A smattering of mid-range B-list actors coupled with 3 most defiantly A-listers and the usual "Large White Prisoner #1-4" to make up the numbers, gives a stunning cast of convicts. The most interesting of the B-listers being Dave Chappelle as "Pinball," standard serial offending crack addict and general cannon fodder for comic effect, followed closely by M.C. Gainey's character "Swamp Thing." Now, Gainey is more recently known for his excellent role in "Lost" as Tom, early leader of The Others, and here he's just entertaining whenever he's on screen - usually driving or flying something into things.

The A-listers. Malkovich as the head honcho Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom is exceptional, as Malkovich always is, finding the correct balance between quiet and reserved power, and bursts of shear crazy. The ever-rapy "Johnny 23" (Danny Trejo) is a little under-developed but time has clearly been spent elsewhere, not to the films detriment, and seeing Danny Trejo is usually all you need to do - if we let him act too much, stuff goes all Costa Rica (See: Machete) The other A-lister gets his own paragraph:

Steve Buscemi, ohhhhh how I love Steve Buscemi. In every film I have ever witnessed this great man act. Ghost World, Reservoir Dogs, Armageddon, Fargo, Pulp Fiction, The Sopranos, and more recently Boardwalk Empire. Every time he's exceptional, so I don't really think I need to say much more. He's ridiculously convincing as a mass murderer, the quiet, twisted kind, and this comes across in his complete lack of physical acting. He has few lines, and those he does have he delivers in his trademark way - usually with an air of comic relief, but not so much as to detract from the gravitas of his batshit insanity.

The plot is sound, the various characters are well developed at a comparable pace and everything is neatly tied up at the end, job done. But the 3rd act. Wow. Without having to plaster spoiler warnings all over this I'll try and summarise this epic "How To Do An Action Film" collection of scenes.

So, the plane eventually is landed, and the convicts set about attempting to escape again to sunnier shores. At the same time The Law is bearing down on them. Cyrus decides to set a trap for the oncoming National Guard and Police forces. What follows is a very well put together, well shot and entertaining ambush and subsequent shootout. The kind that should be present in most action films, but sadly are replaced by the actor (usually with the largest pay packet) destroying entire divisions of nameless troops, usually with some big explosions and ripping one-liners.

From the ashes of the ambush, a aerial chase develops, between the plane, two Apache helicopters, and Malloy's '67 Chevy Corvette. All of this takes place in the air. Don't ask, watch the film. Eventually this chase culminates in a crash landing across The Strip in Las Vegas, a very well represented sequence for 1997. Thats right, 1997. The year The Phantom Menace came out. Remember that far back? I swear to god I date everything by Lucas Disappointments these days.

Anyway, personal rage aside, another chase ensues, having given up on attempting to fly a place down a highway, M.C. Gainey decides to drive a firetruck through a tunnel, whilst Poe and Cyrus duke it out on the trucks ladder. Now, Cyrus appears to have a quick change of character here, to Captain Ahab. From the realms of the Netherworld he pulls what I can only call a fish-halberd, and begins to harass Poe, who is currently hanging underneath the ladder by one of his gristly, prison-built arms. Eventually, as expected, Poe gets the better of Cyrus and hand cuffs him to the ladder, which is then driven through an overhanging hotel. Job done, I hear you cry, but no. Director Simon West (Tomb Raider, The Mechanic) didn't want to leave anything up to chance. A pneumatic....hydraulic.....nuclear....well its something, and its big and heavy and pounds things into the ground, anyway, it destroys Cyrus' head. Breath a sigh of relief, Mr West, the audience knows he's completely killed to death and died from it to boot.

Overall, if you want the footnotes, this has shot right into my top 5 action movies I've ever seen. Now action movies are not something I generally rate very much, nor watch very much, but this one sure as hell gets my vote. Watch it if you like Cage. Watch it if you like Malkovich. Watch it if you don't like either of them, because after this you will.


Two things, two tiny things, before we wrap this up, that need mentioning about this film. 1) That haircut. I mean, Jesus look at it. It's like someone grafted an alien species onto the back of his head. 2) The theme song; Trisha Yearwood - How Do I Live. Good grief, what a shining example of epic 90s pop music this is. A better time.

Fanboys (2008)

So at first glance this appears to be yet another teen comedy running in the same vein as Superbad, Pineapple Express, Knocked Up and the like (AKA anything with Seth Rogan) HOWEVER it is this, but so much more my friends.

The age old question; who shot first, Greedo or Han? Well in my opinion it was neither. It was Ernest Cline when he wrote this masterpiece of nerd heaven. Its very probable that Star Wars fans the world over were having the same fantasy of seeing Episode I before its release, so much so that MUMS the world over had to regularly clean ominous white stains off Darth Vader bedsheets whilst hoping to god their 22 year old son still living at home had been with an actually girl and not just jacking it over that gold bikini again. SO, the review.

The film's plot is based around a group of 5 friends, all obsessed with Star Wars, and their age old plan to break into the Lucas Ranch, CA and steal a rough copy of Episode I: The Phantom Menace before its official cinema release. The group is made up of: Windows, the classic nerdy looking guy, glasses, skinny, greasy hair, online "life partner." Hutch, the big hairy Rush fan who dresses and acts like Han Solo throughout the film and has one testicle (unlike Harrison Ford, I hasten to add, I can't deal with anymore lawsuits god damnit) Zoe, the typical nerdy girl character, hot beyond belief but none of the guys can see it and a bit of a tomboy. Linus (which i think is a dig at Linux but there we go) an ordinary looking bloke who just so happens to *SPOILER WARNING* have cancer and wont last til the release of Episode I and Eric, the nerd who left it all behind to work for his father selling cars and hasn't spoken to Linus for 3 years.

Once Eric finds out about Linus'....."situation" the plan is put back on and the gang pile into Hutch's van, (kitted out like the Millennium Falcon even down to sound effects and everything very well done in my humble opinion) and head on out to California. Window's life partner says she can provide them with floor plans and other insider information to get them into the Lucas Ranch so they arrange to meet her in Texas. However, Hutch has other ideas and makes a detour to Riverside, Iowa the fabled future birthplace of one James Tiberius Kirk, to basically bash some Trekkies.

In comes the big guns Rogan. Rogan plays 3 separate roles in the film: a Trekkie Admiral, a redneck pimp and an alien. Thank god the film isn't based around him for once i might add. Rogan's input is good. Funny, well timed, balance and all together the RIGHT amount of Rogan, much like in Superbad. Anyways, the long and the short of it is he calls Solo a bitch and Hutch kicks his ass. Nice little segue.

Back on the road the guys get a flat and end up in a gay biker bar stripping for 20 hairy bikers. They are indeed saved by "The Chief" (Danny Trejo, who seems to have been in everything from Con-Air, Stargate Atlantis, Desperate Housewives, Spy Kids, Planet Terror you name it, he's been the Mexican of questionable intentions in it!) "The Chief likes to refer to himself in the third person, it confuses people. Especially bitches" made me larf lotsly. With the wheel fixed the guys roll out to Texas.

Dun dun dun. Hutch is caught speeding by the police (officer played by Joe Lo Truglio from Superbad) and attempts to out run them using his "hyperspace" button (NOx) and the 4 guys end up in jail. Zoe bails them out and joins the quest, but not until Hutch has spread a ham and cheese sandwich over a prison toilet and crapped a stonker right in front of the rest of the guys. Nice. Oh, the judge who acquits them of charges also happens to be Billy Dee Williams (Lando Callrisian) I'm just saying, OK, just saying.........bit of a dude.

Onwards to Texas to meet their contact "Red Leader" who inevitably turns out to be a 10 year old girl, and a fugly one at that. Window's gets beaten up by her uncle (played by My Name Is Earl's Ethan Suplee) who just so happens to be the owner of the biggest nerd forum site, they are forced to offer him exclusive spoilers once they've seen the film and he lets them go, telling them to travel to Trek-Kon in Vegas and ask for "scruffy nerf-herder."

Cameo appearances from Kevin Smith as a pimp for Jason Mewes, a rent boy,and his customer, Zak Knutson, in a truck stop bathroom. That is all.

In Vegas, Hutch and Windows end up fooling around with hookers and then running for their lives, Linus and Eric get into the Trek-Kon and meet "scruffy nerf-herder" who obviously turns out to be none other than William FUCKING Shatner. "I can score anything: I'm William Shatner" Shatner provides the necessary info to get the gang into the Ranch. During the escape from Roach the pimp (Rogan) and Admiral Seasholtz (Rogan) and his full USS Enterprise crew of expendable extras Linus ends up falling out of the van and ends up in hospital. Here comes another of the epic cameos. Carrie "Help Me Obi-Wan Kenobi" Fisher is the attending who treats Linus, an argument ensues and they escape from hospital. But not before Linus snogs Leia. WIN.

The sequences in the Ranch are basically porn for Lucasites. The group manage to get all the way into the vault containing a vast amount original props and costumes from Lucas films, Darth Vader suit, Indie's hat, Solo's blaster etc. Security catches them. Now when I say security I mean FUCKING DARTH MAUL. It is indeed Ray Park the original Maul, several references and a short lightsaber fight later the gang are captured and detained. Lucas decides that they can go, if they prove they are indeed Fanboys. Testing of each character begins based on Star Wars and sex acts. This could have been developed so much more into a major comedic piece in my opinion, it is also obvious that the security chief was written for Rogan but 4 roles is far too much Rogan all over my face, I mean in one movie.

So they don't get to see the movie. Well Linus does but then he dies so it doesn't matter anyway, right? Wrong. Surprisingly for a film of this genre, with these actors, there is quite a bit of emotion plugged into his character and story line and it has been executed well. So the four remaining characters camp out and wait for the movie to open, watch it and thus ends the film.

Overall, entertaining, well written and cast with a ridiculous list of cameos. Peppered with nerdy references and story sections that make this THE nerd comedy of the last few years. The main 5 actors are all relativly unknown with little acting experience or big screen roles and yet all of them handled themselves well, there was no lacking in acting talent for sure. Thoroughly enjoyable film, so long as you know your ewoks from your tribbles.