So so so its time for a game review, and so I've decided to go for Doom 3, the follow up to the original classic PC shooter, which revolutionised 3D gaming at the time of its release back in 1993. Doom 3 didn't quite have the same impact in terms of its gameplay, but in graphical grounds it broke new ground at the time as it was one of the very first games to use the DirectX 9.0 application program interface (used by Microsoft Windows and other platforms), which saw incredible advances in visuals. But I'll say more about that in a wee while, but first off let's do the usual obligatory style of all my posts, and have a quick gander at the story behind this classic...
The game's setting is in 2145 and it takes place on Mars, which starts with an un-named marine, who arrives at the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) base on the planet. Meanwhile a councilman from Earth, Elliott Swann arrives at the base to meet with Dr Malcolm Bertruger, as there have been complaints about incidents that have taken place on the base. Bertruger's research has involved unnatural experiments with teleportation. Meanwhile the marine meets with Sergeant Kelly, who sends the marine to find a scientist on the base who has gone missing. The marine soon finds the scientist, who tells him about Bertruger's experiments and the dangers involved and that he is trying to send out a message to the UAC base on Earth to warn them about this. However as a result of another teleportation, a shockwave hits the base, and transforms the scientist into a zombie, who the marine kills. The marine is then faced to deal with the rest of the base staff and soldiers, who have mostly been turned into zombies as well.
As the marine makes his way through the base, he also encounters demons of different kinds, coming through portals, which he fends off with his weapons. The marine manages to make his way to a comm system where he receives a message from Kelly telling him to try and send out a distress call to the UAC on Earth. However Swann has other ideas as he tries to prevent anyone from sending out messages to Earth as he believes the situation should be contained on Mars. Based on the player's decision the marine will face the choice of either listening to Kelly, and sending the message or to Swann and not sending the message, which is where the game will go in two slightly different directions. As the marine progresses through the delta labs of the base, he receives a message from Bertruger, who tells him that he is co-operating with the forces from Hell, in order to prepare for the invasion of Earth. From here the marine is forced to continue his battle against the hordes of demons and against Bertruger in his attempts to destroy the Earth, as the fate of the man (and woman) kind lies in his hands.
As a long awaited sequel to Doom II, Doom 3 certainly delivered the goods, as its complete graphical revamp of the series brought it brilliantly up to date. The gameplay of course remains pretty faithful to the original as the marine you simply run around, shooting anything that moves, and picking up key cards to access new rooms, and to access vents and lockers containing ammo and equipment. The game's enhanced lighting techniques also add to the intense atmosphere of the game, as alot of the game is pretty darky lit, it allows for the player to be immersed in its creepy world, as baddies can be all around you and wouldn't even know it, or you don't know it until you hear the groans or screeches. And graphically even by today's standards, Doom 3 is still quite an impressive looking game, and with it being re-released for the Xbox 360, with improved HD graphics, the game looks better than ever before (this is also really as good as the previous PC version didn't support full HD resolution).
And partly what makes Doom 3 work so well as well as in addition to its amazing graphics and its intense and creepy soundtrack, its the baddies themselves, as there is quite a large variety of baddies here, quite a few feature from Doom and Doom II. The classic baddies have been brought back really well starting with the imps, who hurl fireballs at you like they are throwing a baseball, who have a high pitched whine. There are also the cacodemons (who still give me the creeps from the original!) who also fire big fireballs at you (a popular weapon in hell I'd say!) and float around, the hell knights, who are massive and probably the toughest of the enemies in the game. The are also the revenants (walking skeletons with rocket launchers attached) and the mancubus (large blobs with attached flame throwers) who featured in Doom II. Some of the new enemies feature mutated soldiers, who have a long retractable arm that can attack you, large head spiders who can lash out and attack you, and worst of all babies with attached wings that jump out at you, who are without a doubt one of the most horrible baddies in any game!
The games arsenal is also quite impressive as you have pretty much the same array of weapons from the first two games, but they look great graphically and are easy to use. The weapons feature a hand gun, shotgun, machine gun, minigun, plasma rifle, rocket launcher and of course the BFG (and we all know what that stands for!). There is also plenty of ammo strewn throughout the game so you will never normally run out of ammo in a hurry, although the baddies can come thick and fast so there will be times will you might run a bit low on juice.
The game however of course does have some flaws, as for starters the gameplay can tend to get a bit monotonous after a while, and the level design is at times a bit samey. The marine tends to just follow the formulaic pattern of just running about shooting anything in his way, grabbing key cards, pdf files, and CDs to gather information, and not much beyond that. However the intense thick and fast action in the game does help to sort of alleviate this problem, and despite its somewhat repetitive nature it still remains quite compelling to play. There was also an issue with the controls in the original PC version, where you couldn't hold a weapon and the flashlight at the same time, as you had to access one at a time, however this was fixed for the BFG edition, as the player now has the flashlight attached to his shoulder of the marine's outfit, which he can turn on and off and still use his gun at the same time. Another criticism that can be levelled at the game is that most of the baddies can be killed with fair ease, especially some of the ones such as the demon dogs with the robotic legs, which are pretty big in size, yet an imp can still take a few more shots to kill! Naturally the bigger baddies such as the hell knights, and the mancubus are pretty tough to eliminate but quite a few of them can be dispatched with just one or two shots from your shotgun. And finally another flaw that can be levelled at the game is the lack of a map in the inventory screen, as it would be good if it gave you a map of each level, as there are times where you can get lost wandering around the corridors at times, trying to feel your way through the level, which means you are running blind, you can eventually get through the level fine but it can take a while based on what level you are doing. In fact even Doom II had maps for each level, so its bizarre they don't have that in Doom 3!
Despite all that though Doom 3 still remains a thoroughly entertaining, intense and creepy experience, which if you are a fan of the original games, you must give it a go, and despsite the at times reptitive nature of the gameplay, its still alot of fun. And also quickly and worthy of note is the game's soundtrack, which features a suitably creep and atmospheric score as well as some deep low humming sound effects (which will give your surround system a workout!). The title theme of the game is also great, which was by Tweaker (Chris Vrenna, the drummer from Nine Inch Nails) which is basically a metal track with some crunchy riffs and big sounding drums.
So that's it for now, more stuff to follow soon, probably might try to manage another post before the new year, if not I will say a happy new year to you all!
Peace out.
K.
Saturday 29 December 2012
Doctor Who: playing in the snow
Well in regards to the new series it has been simply ages since I have done a post on Doctor Who, and particularly on Matt Smith's era, which has in my opinion been fairly good but at times also a mixed bag. But despite that I have to decided to do a review on the latest Christmas episode of Who, The Snowmen, which features the proper intro of the Doctor's new companion, Clara Oswald (played by the very foxy Jenna-Louise Coleman). So let's have a quick look at a bit of the plot (and just a bit!).
So the story starts in England in 1842, where we see a young boy play in the snow by his own, and he builds a snowman, as he refuses to play with the other children, as he calls them "silly" and he "doesn't need anyone". And all of a sudden the snowman begins to talk back to the boy, repeating what he said. The story then cuts to 50 years later, where the boy is now a man, Dr Simeon, who is the owner of the "Great intelligence institute". Simeon hires men to collects sample of snow, which are placed in a large globe in his laboratory. Simeon then has the men fed to a group of animated carnivorous snowmen. Meanwhile the Doctor, who is also in London at this time, is still mourning the deaths of his former companions Amy and Rory Pond, has parked his TARDIS up in the clouds. The Doctor is accompanied by his allies, Madame Vastra (one of the repitilian race, or Silurians if you like) and her human companion Jenny, and the sontaran officer, Strax, who he sends to check out for anything strange. Vastra and Jenny follow Dr Simeon as they are intruiged for his need of the snow.
While this is happening, a local barmaid, Clara (Jenna) investigates a disturbance outside her local pub, as she sees the Doctor walk past, she stops him and accuses him of making a snowman, which the Doctor looks at and finds the snow to be made of a strange substance which has memory. All of a sudden they are confronted by the animated snowmen, which the Doctor tells Clara to think of as melting water, as they are using her mind to come to life, when she does the snowmen melt. Despite his intruige of the snow, the Doctor refuses to interfere as he goes back into his TARDIS, parked in the sky. However Clara follows him up a staircase leading up to the TARDIS and its not before long that the two of them are linked together in their fight against the snowmen and Simeon.
The Snowmen is an enjoyable story for one of the Christmas Who episodes, which generally tend not to be quite as good as the season episodes. The story itself is also a reflection of the Patrick Troughton era story, the Abominable Snowmen, were the robotic Yeti, were controlled by an artificial intelligence. And the fact that the intelligence is voiced by Sir Ian McKellan is a nice touch, as he grandiose voice is perfect for such a part. As for the story's other aspects, its interesting to see the Doctor once again as a wounded man, after losing Amy and Rory, he no longer wishes to interfere in the affairs of the universe, and is now afraid of travelling with another companion, as he might lose them. The appearance of the snowmen themselves is also quite effective, as they are pretty creepy looking with their sharp teeth.
The introduction of Clara is well handled as she plays a double part of a barmaid and a Governess, who looks after the children of a Captain Latimer at his mansion. Although I have to say that it appears to be a key component of the new companions in the new series, that each one is a like an important link to the universe in some way, as we found with Rose Tyler, Donna Noble and of course Amy Pond. And with Clara it appears that way as well, as we already know that she has died before, as the Doctor had already met her in the Asylum of the Daleks, when she was turned into a dalek. So no doubt her significance will come evident as some point in the next series (or the next part of series 7 should I say!).
Performance wise things are pretty good in the Snowmen, as Richard E Grant plays the part of the icy (no pun intended) villain, Dr Simeon really well, as a cold (another pun!) callous man, who works for the intelligence. Jenna-Louise Coleman is really good as the new companion, Clara (the fact that she is a babe is also good!) and a different companion is a breath of fresh air for the series, after so much of Amy and Rory. Neve McTosh as Madame Vastra is also pretty good and it appears to be a source of amusment to have another homoerotic relationship in the show, as she is partnered with her human companion, Jenny. Dan Starkey as Strax also provides some amusement, as the somewhat scatty Sontaran officer (who is actually the equivalent of a wet nurse for the sontaran race!) who at one point is asked by the Doctor to use a worm to erase Clara's mind of their meeting (as the worm can do this throughout physical contact), but instead he erases his own mind twice! And finally Matt Smith as the Doctor is still excellent in the lead role, and he plays the Doc as a lonely man really well for half the story, before he is reeled back into his life as a galactic troubleshooter. Matt's funniest moment in the story appears when he rubs Strax's head and kisses him and spits out!
So that's it for the Snowmen, as its an entertaining Christmas special, which now sees series 7 at the half-way point, and no doubt its going to be very interesting next year when the Doc and his companion return to the screen.
And that's it for nooow.
So the story starts in England in 1842, where we see a young boy play in the snow by his own, and he builds a snowman, as he refuses to play with the other children, as he calls them "silly" and he "doesn't need anyone". And all of a sudden the snowman begins to talk back to the boy, repeating what he said. The story then cuts to 50 years later, where the boy is now a man, Dr Simeon, who is the owner of the "Great intelligence institute". Simeon hires men to collects sample of snow, which are placed in a large globe in his laboratory. Simeon then has the men fed to a group of animated carnivorous snowmen. Meanwhile the Doctor, who is also in London at this time, is still mourning the deaths of his former companions Amy and Rory Pond, has parked his TARDIS up in the clouds. The Doctor is accompanied by his allies, Madame Vastra (one of the repitilian race, or Silurians if you like) and her human companion Jenny, and the sontaran officer, Strax, who he sends to check out for anything strange. Vastra and Jenny follow Dr Simeon as they are intruiged for his need of the snow.
While this is happening, a local barmaid, Clara (Jenna) investigates a disturbance outside her local pub, as she sees the Doctor walk past, she stops him and accuses him of making a snowman, which the Doctor looks at and finds the snow to be made of a strange substance which has memory. All of a sudden they are confronted by the animated snowmen, which the Doctor tells Clara to think of as melting water, as they are using her mind to come to life, when she does the snowmen melt. Despite his intruige of the snow, the Doctor refuses to interfere as he goes back into his TARDIS, parked in the sky. However Clara follows him up a staircase leading up to the TARDIS and its not before long that the two of them are linked together in their fight against the snowmen and Simeon.
The Snowmen is an enjoyable story for one of the Christmas Who episodes, which generally tend not to be quite as good as the season episodes. The story itself is also a reflection of the Patrick Troughton era story, the Abominable Snowmen, were the robotic Yeti, were controlled by an artificial intelligence. And the fact that the intelligence is voiced by Sir Ian McKellan is a nice touch, as he grandiose voice is perfect for such a part. As for the story's other aspects, its interesting to see the Doctor once again as a wounded man, after losing Amy and Rory, he no longer wishes to interfere in the affairs of the universe, and is now afraid of travelling with another companion, as he might lose them. The appearance of the snowmen themselves is also quite effective, as they are pretty creepy looking with their sharp teeth.
The introduction of Clara is well handled as she plays a double part of a barmaid and a Governess, who looks after the children of a Captain Latimer at his mansion. Although I have to say that it appears to be a key component of the new companions in the new series, that each one is a like an important link to the universe in some way, as we found with Rose Tyler, Donna Noble and of course Amy Pond. And with Clara it appears that way as well, as we already know that she has died before, as the Doctor had already met her in the Asylum of the Daleks, when she was turned into a dalek. So no doubt her significance will come evident as some point in the next series (or the next part of series 7 should I say!).
Performance wise things are pretty good in the Snowmen, as Richard E Grant plays the part of the icy (no pun intended) villain, Dr Simeon really well, as a cold (another pun!) callous man, who works for the intelligence. Jenna-Louise Coleman is really good as the new companion, Clara (the fact that she is a babe is also good!) and a different companion is a breath of fresh air for the series, after so much of Amy and Rory. Neve McTosh as Madame Vastra is also pretty good and it appears to be a source of amusment to have another homoerotic relationship in the show, as she is partnered with her human companion, Jenny. Dan Starkey as Strax also provides some amusement, as the somewhat scatty Sontaran officer (who is actually the equivalent of a wet nurse for the sontaran race!) who at one point is asked by the Doctor to use a worm to erase Clara's mind of their meeting (as the worm can do this throughout physical contact), but instead he erases his own mind twice! And finally Matt Smith as the Doctor is still excellent in the lead role, and he plays the Doc as a lonely man really well for half the story, before he is reeled back into his life as a galactic troubleshooter. Matt's funniest moment in the story appears when he rubs Strax's head and kisses him and spits out!
So that's it for the Snowmen, as its an entertaining Christmas special, which now sees series 7 at the half-way point, and no doubt its going to be very interesting next year when the Doc and his companion return to the screen.
And that's it for nooow.
Thursday 20 December 2012
GTA San Andreas: a relook
OK time fer another post, and yet again I have chosen to look at another GTA game, so this time I have gone for GTA San Andreas, the hugely successful follow up to Vice City, which came out back in 2004. GTA San Andreas once again expanded on the world that we saw in Vice City as it no longer covers one city, it now covers an entire state, so it sees the series take on a much larger scale than before. There are also a number of new features and upgrades in terms of gameplay mechanics but I'll get to them later, first up let's do the usual look at the plot....
So it all begins in Los Santos (based on Los Angeles of course) back in 1992, when Carl "CJ" Johnson (voiced by real life rap-artist Young Maylay) returns back to his home to attend his mother's funeral. CJ goes back home to his neighbourhood where he meets up with his brother, Sweet (Faizon Love), and his gangster friends Ryder (MC Eiht) and Big Smoke (Clifton Powell). Together they go about trying to re-establish themselves as the main gang in Los Santos, and they also hijack shipments of weapons, and starting turf wars with their main rivals, the Ballas and the Vagos. CJ is also along the way also forced to help two corrupt police officers, Tenpenny (Samuel L.Jackson) and Eddie Pulaski (Chris Penn) into doing their dirty work for them. CJ manages however to maintain good relations with his brother and his friends, as well as earning respect in their neighbourhood. But its not long before things start to turn sour again as CJ receives a tip from Caesar Vialpando (Clifton Collins Jr) who is his sister's boyfriend. Caesar meets with CJ secretly under a bridge where they spy on Big Smoke and Ryder coming out garage with a green sabre, the car which was seen during the drive-by hit on CJ's mother. CJ realises then that Sweet, who is going on a gang mission, that he is walking into a trap set up by Tenpenny. CJ arrives too late on the scene to prevent the ambush, and Sweet is injured by a gunshot, and after making a last stand, the police arrive and CJ is arrested, and taken out into the San Andreas countryside by Tenpenny.
Tenpenny wants CJ to assassinate a witness who is a threat to him and his partner Eddie, and with little choice CJ does the hit. CJ soon after is also called up by a stranger called the Truth who was recruited by Tenpenny as well to prepare in discrediting a district attorney. The Truth is an old hippie and marijuana farmer, who naturally pretty spaced out, and sends CJ to do different missions. CJ also is set up to meet one of Caesar's cousins, the crazed Catalina (Cynthia Farrell) who he does some robberies with, and also engages in some rather dirty sex (we hear it rather than see it!). CJ through Caesar also hears about some underground street races out in the country, and he ends up racing against Catalina, and after winning the race, she hands over the deeds to a garage she owns in San Fierro (the equivalent of San Francisco). CJ along with Caesar, and his sister Kendl (voiced by rapper Yo-Yo) and the Truth all travel out to San Fierro, however they find the garage to be empty and deserted, which angers CJ. Kendl manages to persuade CJ to turn it into a business, and he ends up recruiting a couple of mechanics and an electronics whiz in order to do so. As the business starts to turn a profit, CJ also befriends a Triad leader, the blind Wu Zi Mu "Woozie" (James Yaegashi) and does some business with him as well.
Eventually CJ also travels out to Las Venturas (based on Las Vegas) where he meets up with some more business associates. Along the way however he is intercepted by a secret government agent by the name of Mike Toreno, who asks him to do some work for him, and in return he will secure Sweet's release. And to cut a long story short, its not long before CJ eventually makes his way back to Los Santos, where things have gone from bad to badder, where Big Smoke and Ryder rule the roost and has turned the city filled with drug addled gangsters, and its to him to put an end to it once and for all.
There is no question that San Andreas is a great game, its ambitious scale alone makes it a very worthy gaming experience. The transition to not only a new city, but a new state also expands on the game's appeal considerably, as now the main character can travel from place to place over a vast area. The gameplay mechanics have also improved quite a bit as well, as now with the main character, CJ, he can also sorts of things such as learn new differet styles of attacks such as boxing, martial arts as well as dirty street fighting. CJ can also do something about his physical appearance as he can work out at the gym, and either build up his body by lifting weights, or build up stamina and endurance on an exercise bike or a treadmill, and he can even put on weight by eating too much! Apparently there was even a rumour going around that CJ could eat too much and become so overweight that he would eventually keel over and die, but I tried stuffing CJ full of food for ages and it never happened! And unlike the previous main characters such as Claude and Tommy, CJ now has the ability to swim and climb over fences, as well as to crouch while moving. CJ can also even get a new haircut as well as get tatoos, and in addition to the pre-determined outfits you get from Vice City, here CJ can go into cloth stores and chose his own gear, which can also add to his sex appeal (which is shown as bar meter along with his other aspects such as muscle, stamina, fat and weapon skill). CJ can also go out on dates with girls and there is of course a progress metre for that as well, and CJ can pick up different girlfriends in the different locations in the game, all of whom have different tastes for food, bars, events etc.
Again there is a huge variety of missions here as well, with CJ having more than just the option of playing the story missions (which are really varied as it is!) but he can also play minigames such as burgalries, go on trucking missions, take lessons at an advanced driving school, get involved in street races, and also playing pool, arcade games and basketball. Another key factor in the game is also the gang wars, where CJ will have to take over different turfs in the city, owned by other gangs such as the Ballas, which is done by killing a few gang members, which sparks a gang war, after which CJ must survive a wave of attacks from the gangs, after which he takes over the turf. This play a crucial part later on in the game when CJ returns to Los Santos. In addition to this, there are also a large variety of vehicles to use, as in addition to the usual cars, there are bicycles, a combine harvester, a trailer, street sweeper being some of the more novelty type modes of transportation. There is also the inclusion of planes and helicopters as there is a variety of these two, although CJ's necessity to learn to fly prompts one of the game's most frustrating missions, which I will say a bit more about later.
As for the voice acting, again things are top notch, with the rapper Young Maylay putting in an excellent performance as the central character, Carl "CJ Jonhson, who returns to Los Santos after five years and makes a name for himself again. CJ is a pretty likeable character despite all his crimes, most of them are done out of either survival, necessity or being purely manipulated, but as a character he nevers get ahead of himself, and he carries that way till the end. Samuel L. Jackson as you would expect does a great job as the corrupt copy, Tenpenny, who has CJ's nuts in a vice (so to speak!) and forces him to do his dirty work throughout the game. Faizon Love as Sweet, CJ's brother, is also excellent, and he stands as just about one of the only old school gangsters around, as he is sickened by all the drugs that festers his neighbourhood. Clifton Powell is also very good as Big Smoke, as his gruff voice adds well to the character, as Smoke gives off the idea that he is an old school gangster, who is not into pushing drugs, but instead he reveals himself to be just that, as he takes over the gangs in the middle of the game. Clifton Collins Jr is probably however the weak link here as Caesar Vialpando, and while his performance isn't bad, his semi raspy voice does kind annoy me as I sometimes think he just sounds constipated!
There are several noteworthy voice acting roles in the supporting cast, starting with James Woods, who is generally great in anything he does, and he certainly is here as the secret government agent Mike Toreno, who manipulates CJ into doing work for him. Woods has one of my favourite exchanges of dialogue in the game with CJ, as Toreno grabs CJ from behind by the throat and tells him "I could have killed you in nine different ways! Wake up and smell the coffee!" to which CJ replies "You need to lay off the coffee!". Peter Fonda is also very good as the aged hippie, the Truth, who is pretty spaced throughout the whole game, and he also makes some weird prophecies too, and at one point gets CJ to steal an advanced jetpack from a military airbase, which is one of the game's most enjoyable missions. This mission is also very funny because of silly announcements made over the tannoy when CJ invades the base, and we hear a woman over the PA say "anyone who forgets their ID badge on the base, will not be invited to the staff night out!".
Other notable voice actors include Chris Penn, the late brother of Sean Penn, who gives a fine performance as the corrupt cop, Eddie Pulaski, who it reveals always had a thing for CJ's sister, and in his final mission, where CJ stands over Eddie who is dying, CJ asks him "Any last requests?" and Eddie says "Yeah, can I fuck your sister??". On the comeback side of things, we have Danny Dyer who makes another welcome appearance as Kent Paul, the British record producer who get's lost in the desert out in Las Venturas, and Shaun Ryder also makes a brief cameo as the musician, Maccer, who is with Paul as well, and he gets some funny lines as you would expect. Cynthia Farrell also makes a great return the psychotic Catalina (who was one of the main baddies from GTA III) and she get's some of the funniest lines of dialogue and delivers them great, such as "hand over the cash or I'll blow your fucking balls of!!" and "get your ass in here, Carl Jonhson, or I will shove a fucking hand grenade up it!!". Cataline also taunts CJ about his manhood and his ability (or lack of it) to sexually please her throughout their missions, and after they split up she seems to have a hard time dealing with it! And finally William Fichtner also makes a welcome return again too as Ken Rosenburg, the burnt out lawyer from Vice City, who by now just wants to escape his life of crime altogether, and CJ helps him fake his own death.
Soundtrack wise the game while isn't as strong as Vice City was, there are still plenty of great tracks to chose from here, and thers as usual a big variety to chose from, and different genres such as rock, funk, rap, pop, metal, raggae and country. Some of my favourite tracks appear from the radio stations Radio X, in which they play alternative rock from the early 90s, including tracks from bands such as Helmet (again GTA introduce me to them, still one of my favourite bands!) "Unsung", Jane's addiction "Been caughting stealing" , Depeche Mode "Personal Jesus", Faith no more "Midlife crisis", Rage against the machine "Killing in the name of", Ozzy Osbourne "Hellraiser" and Soundgarden "Rusty cage". Some of the rap tracks, which are naturally befitting of the period setting, are pretty good such as on Playback FM, which is hosted by none other than Chuck D of Public Enemy, who even plays a PE track "Rebel without a pause", as well as other tracks such as Kool G Rap & DJ Polo's "Road to the Riches" and Ultramagnetic MCs "Critical beatdown". K-DST, which plays some classic rock is also a really good channel as you get a choice of songs from bands such as Creedence "Green River", Heart "Baracuda", Kiss "Strutter", Foghat "Slow ride", The Who "Eminence front", Boston "Smokin" and even David Bowie "Somebody up there likes me". And another pleasant surprise on the radio channels was the K-Rose channel, which has probably one of the catchiest songs of all time on it, which is Jerry Reed's "Amos Moses". Just class. On the downside the there is only one chat radio show and its not as funny as the previous games radio shows, with the exception of the series recurring DJ, Laszlow, who has a funny interview with one of the in-game characters, the talentless rapper and gangster, OG Loc.
On the flaws of the game, well the main one that could be levelled at it is the graphics, as graphically it is the least good looking of all the GTA games (except I and II of course, its better looking than them!). The character models all look rather basic and poor, and are almost like a throwback to PS1 technology at times, especially considering the chracter models for Vice City, where while not amazing, were good for their time. But this might also atttribute to the sheer graphical scale of the game, as it is a much bigger game in size than probably GTA III and Vice City put together, so perhaps in a way they had to scale down the models. But it does make the game look somewhat crude and primitive at times, especially next to its previous ones, despite that some of the environments still look good, especially the countryside areas and San Fierro. You could also say that during the countryside missions that it feels like it can take an inordinate amount of time for CJ to get anywhere, especially as he travels to meet with Catalina, he has alot of ground to cover from his original save point. One of the ways around this is of course to buy one of the properties as a halfway house between missions, but that depends on how much money you have. The movement also while it is an improvement on Vice City, you also can find at times that CJ gets occassionally stuck or facing the wrong way when he auto-aims his gun at a target, which means you need to target them again.
Another frustrating aspect early on in the game is the lack of money, especially in Los Santos where CJ has to make his way up again in the hood, and for all the missions he does with his homies, they don't even give him much if any money, especially Ryder, who is a real tight git! Its not until the turf wars start to rear their ugly heads, that is when the drug dealers pop up on a every street corner, then you can make money by shooting them, they leave behind about $2000 each time. And its only really when CJ leaves Los Santos, when he meets up with his new associates that he finally starts to make money. Another annoyance in the game is as I mentioned earlier on, the mission where CJ has to learn to fly, on the orders of Mike Toreno, and you have to undergo some training missions on how to take off and lane a plane, fly it through the sky, parachute from it successfully and most frustrating of all, do a bloody barrell roll, which NEVER comes in handy during the actual gameplay! Which brings up one of the game's most infuriating missions, Vertical Bird, where Mike Toreno (once again!) puts CJ on a mission which involves flying a harrier jet, and it is a nightmare to control the jet, and more often that not I ended up crashing it into the ocean!
But despite all that GTA San Andreas is yet another terrific installment in the highly successful series of games, and once more Rockstar provided the public with another really enjoyable and above all addictive game, which will last for hours and hours. The game also again features an excellent story, a pretty good soundtrack and and a great voice cast.
And after that rather exhaustive post, I think I might have another game!
Bye the now.
So it all begins in Los Santos (based on Los Angeles of course) back in 1992, when Carl "CJ" Johnson (voiced by real life rap-artist Young Maylay) returns back to his home to attend his mother's funeral. CJ goes back home to his neighbourhood where he meets up with his brother, Sweet (Faizon Love), and his gangster friends Ryder (MC Eiht) and Big Smoke (Clifton Powell). Together they go about trying to re-establish themselves as the main gang in Los Santos, and they also hijack shipments of weapons, and starting turf wars with their main rivals, the Ballas and the Vagos. CJ is also along the way also forced to help two corrupt police officers, Tenpenny (Samuel L.Jackson) and Eddie Pulaski (Chris Penn) into doing their dirty work for them. CJ manages however to maintain good relations with his brother and his friends, as well as earning respect in their neighbourhood. But its not long before things start to turn sour again as CJ receives a tip from Caesar Vialpando (Clifton Collins Jr) who is his sister's boyfriend. Caesar meets with CJ secretly under a bridge where they spy on Big Smoke and Ryder coming out garage with a green sabre, the car which was seen during the drive-by hit on CJ's mother. CJ realises then that Sweet, who is going on a gang mission, that he is walking into a trap set up by Tenpenny. CJ arrives too late on the scene to prevent the ambush, and Sweet is injured by a gunshot, and after making a last stand, the police arrive and CJ is arrested, and taken out into the San Andreas countryside by Tenpenny.
Tenpenny wants CJ to assassinate a witness who is a threat to him and his partner Eddie, and with little choice CJ does the hit. CJ soon after is also called up by a stranger called the Truth who was recruited by Tenpenny as well to prepare in discrediting a district attorney. The Truth is an old hippie and marijuana farmer, who naturally pretty spaced out, and sends CJ to do different missions. CJ also is set up to meet one of Caesar's cousins, the crazed Catalina (Cynthia Farrell) who he does some robberies with, and also engages in some rather dirty sex (we hear it rather than see it!). CJ through Caesar also hears about some underground street races out in the country, and he ends up racing against Catalina, and after winning the race, she hands over the deeds to a garage she owns in San Fierro (the equivalent of San Francisco). CJ along with Caesar, and his sister Kendl (voiced by rapper Yo-Yo) and the Truth all travel out to San Fierro, however they find the garage to be empty and deserted, which angers CJ. Kendl manages to persuade CJ to turn it into a business, and he ends up recruiting a couple of mechanics and an electronics whiz in order to do so. As the business starts to turn a profit, CJ also befriends a Triad leader, the blind Wu Zi Mu "Woozie" (James Yaegashi) and does some business with him as well.
Eventually CJ also travels out to Las Venturas (based on Las Vegas) where he meets up with some more business associates. Along the way however he is intercepted by a secret government agent by the name of Mike Toreno, who asks him to do some work for him, and in return he will secure Sweet's release. And to cut a long story short, its not long before CJ eventually makes his way back to Los Santos, where things have gone from bad to badder, where Big Smoke and Ryder rule the roost and has turned the city filled with drug addled gangsters, and its to him to put an end to it once and for all.
There is no question that San Andreas is a great game, its ambitious scale alone makes it a very worthy gaming experience. The transition to not only a new city, but a new state also expands on the game's appeal considerably, as now the main character can travel from place to place over a vast area. The gameplay mechanics have also improved quite a bit as well, as now with the main character, CJ, he can also sorts of things such as learn new differet styles of attacks such as boxing, martial arts as well as dirty street fighting. CJ can also do something about his physical appearance as he can work out at the gym, and either build up his body by lifting weights, or build up stamina and endurance on an exercise bike or a treadmill, and he can even put on weight by eating too much! Apparently there was even a rumour going around that CJ could eat too much and become so overweight that he would eventually keel over and die, but I tried stuffing CJ full of food for ages and it never happened! And unlike the previous main characters such as Claude and Tommy, CJ now has the ability to swim and climb over fences, as well as to crouch while moving. CJ can also even get a new haircut as well as get tatoos, and in addition to the pre-determined outfits you get from Vice City, here CJ can go into cloth stores and chose his own gear, which can also add to his sex appeal (which is shown as bar meter along with his other aspects such as muscle, stamina, fat and weapon skill). CJ can also go out on dates with girls and there is of course a progress metre for that as well, and CJ can pick up different girlfriends in the different locations in the game, all of whom have different tastes for food, bars, events etc.
Again there is a huge variety of missions here as well, with CJ having more than just the option of playing the story missions (which are really varied as it is!) but he can also play minigames such as burgalries, go on trucking missions, take lessons at an advanced driving school, get involved in street races, and also playing pool, arcade games and basketball. Another key factor in the game is also the gang wars, where CJ will have to take over different turfs in the city, owned by other gangs such as the Ballas, which is done by killing a few gang members, which sparks a gang war, after which CJ must survive a wave of attacks from the gangs, after which he takes over the turf. This play a crucial part later on in the game when CJ returns to Los Santos. In addition to this, there are also a large variety of vehicles to use, as in addition to the usual cars, there are bicycles, a combine harvester, a trailer, street sweeper being some of the more novelty type modes of transportation. There is also the inclusion of planes and helicopters as there is a variety of these two, although CJ's necessity to learn to fly prompts one of the game's most frustrating missions, which I will say a bit more about later.
As for the voice acting, again things are top notch, with the rapper Young Maylay putting in an excellent performance as the central character, Carl "CJ Jonhson, who returns to Los Santos after five years and makes a name for himself again. CJ is a pretty likeable character despite all his crimes, most of them are done out of either survival, necessity or being purely manipulated, but as a character he nevers get ahead of himself, and he carries that way till the end. Samuel L. Jackson as you would expect does a great job as the corrupt copy, Tenpenny, who has CJ's nuts in a vice (so to speak!) and forces him to do his dirty work throughout the game. Faizon Love as Sweet, CJ's brother, is also excellent, and he stands as just about one of the only old school gangsters around, as he is sickened by all the drugs that festers his neighbourhood. Clifton Powell is also very good as Big Smoke, as his gruff voice adds well to the character, as Smoke gives off the idea that he is an old school gangster, who is not into pushing drugs, but instead he reveals himself to be just that, as he takes over the gangs in the middle of the game. Clifton Collins Jr is probably however the weak link here as Caesar Vialpando, and while his performance isn't bad, his semi raspy voice does kind annoy me as I sometimes think he just sounds constipated!
There are several noteworthy voice acting roles in the supporting cast, starting with James Woods, who is generally great in anything he does, and he certainly is here as the secret government agent Mike Toreno, who manipulates CJ into doing work for him. Woods has one of my favourite exchanges of dialogue in the game with CJ, as Toreno grabs CJ from behind by the throat and tells him "I could have killed you in nine different ways! Wake up and smell the coffee!" to which CJ replies "You need to lay off the coffee!". Peter Fonda is also very good as the aged hippie, the Truth, who is pretty spaced throughout the whole game, and he also makes some weird prophecies too, and at one point gets CJ to steal an advanced jetpack from a military airbase, which is one of the game's most enjoyable missions. This mission is also very funny because of silly announcements made over the tannoy when CJ invades the base, and we hear a woman over the PA say "anyone who forgets their ID badge on the base, will not be invited to the staff night out!".
Other notable voice actors include Chris Penn, the late brother of Sean Penn, who gives a fine performance as the corrupt cop, Eddie Pulaski, who it reveals always had a thing for CJ's sister, and in his final mission, where CJ stands over Eddie who is dying, CJ asks him "Any last requests?" and Eddie says "Yeah, can I fuck your sister??". On the comeback side of things, we have Danny Dyer who makes another welcome appearance as Kent Paul, the British record producer who get's lost in the desert out in Las Venturas, and Shaun Ryder also makes a brief cameo as the musician, Maccer, who is with Paul as well, and he gets some funny lines as you would expect. Cynthia Farrell also makes a great return the psychotic Catalina (who was one of the main baddies from GTA III) and she get's some of the funniest lines of dialogue and delivers them great, such as "hand over the cash or I'll blow your fucking balls of!!" and "get your ass in here, Carl Jonhson, or I will shove a fucking hand grenade up it!!". Cataline also taunts CJ about his manhood and his ability (or lack of it) to sexually please her throughout their missions, and after they split up she seems to have a hard time dealing with it! And finally William Fichtner also makes a welcome return again too as Ken Rosenburg, the burnt out lawyer from Vice City, who by now just wants to escape his life of crime altogether, and CJ helps him fake his own death.
Soundtrack wise the game while isn't as strong as Vice City was, there are still plenty of great tracks to chose from here, and thers as usual a big variety to chose from, and different genres such as rock, funk, rap, pop, metal, raggae and country. Some of my favourite tracks appear from the radio stations Radio X, in which they play alternative rock from the early 90s, including tracks from bands such as Helmet (again GTA introduce me to them, still one of my favourite bands!) "Unsung", Jane's addiction "Been caughting stealing" , Depeche Mode "Personal Jesus", Faith no more "Midlife crisis", Rage against the machine "Killing in the name of", Ozzy Osbourne "Hellraiser" and Soundgarden "Rusty cage". Some of the rap tracks, which are naturally befitting of the period setting, are pretty good such as on Playback FM, which is hosted by none other than Chuck D of Public Enemy, who even plays a PE track "Rebel without a pause", as well as other tracks such as Kool G Rap & DJ Polo's "Road to the Riches" and Ultramagnetic MCs "Critical beatdown". K-DST, which plays some classic rock is also a really good channel as you get a choice of songs from bands such as Creedence "Green River", Heart "Baracuda", Kiss "Strutter", Foghat "Slow ride", The Who "Eminence front", Boston "Smokin" and even David Bowie "Somebody up there likes me". And another pleasant surprise on the radio channels was the K-Rose channel, which has probably one of the catchiest songs of all time on it, which is Jerry Reed's "Amos Moses". Just class. On the downside the there is only one chat radio show and its not as funny as the previous games radio shows, with the exception of the series recurring DJ, Laszlow, who has a funny interview with one of the in-game characters, the talentless rapper and gangster, OG Loc.
On the flaws of the game, well the main one that could be levelled at it is the graphics, as graphically it is the least good looking of all the GTA games (except I and II of course, its better looking than them!). The character models all look rather basic and poor, and are almost like a throwback to PS1 technology at times, especially considering the chracter models for Vice City, where while not amazing, were good for their time. But this might also atttribute to the sheer graphical scale of the game, as it is a much bigger game in size than probably GTA III and Vice City put together, so perhaps in a way they had to scale down the models. But it does make the game look somewhat crude and primitive at times, especially next to its previous ones, despite that some of the environments still look good, especially the countryside areas and San Fierro. You could also say that during the countryside missions that it feels like it can take an inordinate amount of time for CJ to get anywhere, especially as he travels to meet with Catalina, he has alot of ground to cover from his original save point. One of the ways around this is of course to buy one of the properties as a halfway house between missions, but that depends on how much money you have. The movement also while it is an improvement on Vice City, you also can find at times that CJ gets occassionally stuck or facing the wrong way when he auto-aims his gun at a target, which means you need to target them again.
Another frustrating aspect early on in the game is the lack of money, especially in Los Santos where CJ has to make his way up again in the hood, and for all the missions he does with his homies, they don't even give him much if any money, especially Ryder, who is a real tight git! Its not until the turf wars start to rear their ugly heads, that is when the drug dealers pop up on a every street corner, then you can make money by shooting them, they leave behind about $2000 each time. And its only really when CJ leaves Los Santos, when he meets up with his new associates that he finally starts to make money. Another annoyance in the game is as I mentioned earlier on, the mission where CJ has to learn to fly, on the orders of Mike Toreno, and you have to undergo some training missions on how to take off and lane a plane, fly it through the sky, parachute from it successfully and most frustrating of all, do a bloody barrell roll, which NEVER comes in handy during the actual gameplay! Which brings up one of the game's most infuriating missions, Vertical Bird, where Mike Toreno (once again!) puts CJ on a mission which involves flying a harrier jet, and it is a nightmare to control the jet, and more often that not I ended up crashing it into the ocean!
But despite all that GTA San Andreas is yet another terrific installment in the highly successful series of games, and once more Rockstar provided the public with another really enjoyable and above all addictive game, which will last for hours and hours. The game also again features an excellent story, a pretty good soundtrack and and a great voice cast.
And after that rather exhaustive post, I think I might have another game!
Bye the now.
Sunday 9 December 2012
GTA Vice City 10 years on
Well as a little change instead of doing yet another movie review I thought I would have a look at a video game and I will be focusing on the re-release of Grand Theft Auto Vice City, as its now been 10 years since its originally came out for the PS2. I am myself a big fan of the game and was one of the proud owners of Vice City when it first came out on the PS2, as it was back in my college days and I wiled away many idle hours playing GTA, so much so I eventually completed it 100%, which took quite a while I can tell you!
So this post will really focus on the game itself and not so much the re-released version for the IOS Apple and the Android OSs, mainly because as I have a Samsung galaxy 2 android phone, the re-released 10th anniversay version has been postponed due to validation errors when you try to download it, which is a real bummer, as I was looking forward to playing it on its scheduled release date on 6th December last week. And the updated version apparently is more graphically enhanced than the PS2 edition, which no doubt it will be, as obviously the character models were pretty crude and basic looking in comparison to today's games. However the game itself won't have changed much at all, so let's have a look at that instead.
To begin with let's have a look at the plot, as the game is set in 1986 with the main character, Tommy Vercetti (voice by Ray Liotta) having just been released from prison from a 15 year sentence for killing eleven men. Tommy's mob boss, Sonny Forelli (Tom Sizemore) sends him out to Vice City, where he meets up with mob lawyer Ken Rosenberg (William Fichtner) who he does some business with. Sonny sets up some cocaine deals for Tommy to head up, but at one of the deals, there is an ambush and he loses both the money and the cocaine. Tommy after having a heated phone call with Sonny swears he will get his money back and kill whoever was responsible. From this point through Ken, Tommy meets up with another drug dealer, Juan Garcia Cortez (Robert Davi) who helps make some enquiries as to who was behind the ambush, and he also meets with Cortez's daughter, Mercedes. Along the way Tommy also meets a British record producer, Kent Paul (Danny Dyer), a real estate dealer Avery Carrington (Burt Reynolds), and Lance Vance (Philip Michael Thomas) who was the brother of one of the men present at the drug deal who was killed, and Lance is out for revenge.
Tommy and Lance become business partners, and together they discover that the man behind the hit on the cocaine was in fact Ricardo Diaz (Luis Guzman). Lance himself goes to try and take out Diaz, but he fails, leaving Tommy with no choice but to save Lance from being killed. Once Tommy rescues Lance, the two men go to Diaz's mansion and they kill him, after which Tommy takes over Diaz's mansion. After this Tommy's business enterprises expand as he and Lance become the drug kingpins in Vice city, and buys over near bankrupt businesses such as a strip club, a car lot, a night club, a parking lot and a counterfeiting print shop and turns them into successful money spinners. However all is soon not well, as Tommy's hotheaded nature makes him somewhat selfish as he refuses to pay tribute to Sonny, by giving any cut of his earnings to his boss, as well as disobeying his orders. Lance also becomes somewhat paranoid and exhibits signs of insecure and irrational behaviour as he feels left out by Tommy, who belittles him at times. And its not long before Sonny is forced to confront Tommy at his mansion as he sends his men to force him to give up money from his assets, which leads to a final shootout.
GTA Vice City is without a doubt one of the best games from the 2000s, as it takes the impressive and immersive sandbox world of GTA III and expands on it even further. In the Vice City there are several tweaks in gameplay from its predecessor, and there is a larger variety of vehicles such as motorcycles, scooters, helicopters, planes and boats. Movement wise there are also improvements as now Tommy for example can crouch giving his a better vantage point in certain missions when he wants to take cover and snipe his enemies. There is also the nifty inclusion of moves such as where Tommy can leap into an open top car and drive off, which we didn't get before in GTA III. There is also a much larger variety of weapons than previously, as now Tommy has access to pistols, shotguns, sub-machine guns, sniper rifles, assault rifles, and even a chainsaw, as well as melee weapons such as swords, knives, baseball bats and even golf clubs!
Clearly the tone of Vice city borrows heavily from Miami Vice, and there are also traces of Brian De Palma's Scarface in there as well, especially one mission where Tommy chases a man down the street with a chainsaw. The game also features different gangs as well, one of which in particular is a gang of Haitians, which caused some controversy at the time it was released as Haitian groups in Florida accussed the game of having a potentially harmful effect on immigrants. The Haitian groups also accused Rockstar of the depiction of the groups in the game as it appeared to be almost a racist depiciton, based on some of the lines of dialogue that appear in the game, which were later edited out of the game.
However despite all that, its Vice city's overwhelming variety that helps make it such a great game, and there are other areas of variety to be found in there too, such as the large amount of vehicles available in the game with over 100 different choices of vehicle, with everything from a sports car, to motorcycle, to a bus and even a golf caddy car! There is also the inclusion of buying properties and business in the game which makes for a new feature, as buying these can help make Tommy more money in the game, as he will come back and make collections from the property over time. There are also of course side missions, such as taxi fares, driving injured people to hospital in ambulances, extinguish fires using a firetruck, and delivering pizzas! Graphically the game also features quite a few improvements as the environments in Vice city are much bigger in size, and the size of the city is pretty big, and different parts of the city become available as the game progresses.
But you cannot of course forget or relish in the ability to just go bananas in Vice City as well, creating chaos on the streets, and bringing a big wanted level on your ass is undeniably alot of fun. One of the funniest things that can happen in the game also as is when you blow up a car or something, a firetruck soon comes along and sprays its firehose, which quite often will blast Tommy right in the face if he gets in the way and sends him flying which is pertty funny! Although one of the newer features involving the police is they have the ability to lay down spikes on the road to puncture the wheels in your cars. Tommy as a character can also finally make a change of clothes as he can go into clothes stores and change outfit at certain points in the game, although in GTA San Andreas, the main character is given more choice when its comes to clothing.
The only things negative I would say about GTA Vice City is that its graphics, while are far from bad, they do look pretty basic in comparison to today's video games. Another thing is of course the amusing big spinning icons you get for extra health, with the big heart sign, or a spinning icon of a gun, and if you run over the icon you automatically get the upgrade, whether it be more heatlh or ammo. Its a far cry from the more realistic options you get in todays games where you have the option to bandage yourself up or take painkillers. But it does in a way highlight the game's cartoon-esque appeal, and it helps reinforce the fantasy of the game, and we aren't talking about a realistic gritty experience, its just pure fun. And finally one of the other things I didn't like about Vice City is when Tommy falls into the water, he instantly drowns, which I think is a bit unrealistic. This was the same in GTAIII, I mean surely didn't these guys learn how to swim????! Even if they couldn't swim they certainly wouldn't drown instantaneously like they do here! Obviously this was a bone of contention with fans as by the time we got to GTA San Andreas, they finally resolved this issue by giving the main character, CJ, the ability to swim in the ocean, and not only just merely swim, but swim like a champion swimmer at a hundred miles an hour!
As for the voice acting, well the cast on display are top notch, with Ray Liotta delivering an excellent performance as the main character, Tommy Vercetti, the hot tempered mobster, who makes it big in Vice city, and ends up getting himself in hot water. Although it has to be said that Tommy isn't all that likeable, as he comes across more like an arrogant asshole than anything else, so in a way its not surprising the heat he brings on himself. Philip Michael Thomas, who was previously a co-star in Miami Vice, is very good as Lance Vance, of which the name itself makes him a neurotic mess, as he himself states at one point in the game how his brothers and everyone at school used to taunt him about it. Lance later on of course out of feeling paranoid and left out by Tommy's enterprises, ends up betraying him to Sonny, leading to his own demise in the final confrontation between him and Tommy (OK just given it away!!).
Tom Sizemore is great as Sonny Forelli, Tommy's mafia boss, who is similarly hot headed and is resentful at Tommy for being cut out of his businesses as well, which leads to their fallout. William Fichtner is also very good as Ken Rosenberg, who was basically modelled on Sean Penn's character from Carlito's Way, David Kleinfeld, as a neurotic coke addled mob lawyer who does business with Tommy off and on throughout the game. Luis Guzman as the drug overlord, Ricardo Diaz is great as well, and he has several funny moments in the game, one of them being when he is out the front of his mansion shooting at birds with his shotgun, and another where he trashes his TV when he loses a racing bet, and he keeps calling everyone "dickheads!". Diaz's mansion is also based very close on the design of Tony Montana's in Scarface, especially in the climactic gunfights when Tommy takes out Diaz and when he faces off Sonny at the end.
There are also several supporting characters as well which provide plenty of humour and amusement, such as Kent Paul, the annoying Brit record producer, voice by Danny Dyer. Dennis Hooper also makes an amusing cameo as a porn director, Steve Scott, who in the game directs the character, Candy Suxx, voiced by the real-life former porn starlet, Jenna Jamieson. Lee Majors as the gang leader of a group of bikers, Big Mitch Baker, gives a really good account of himself here too, and finally Gary Busey is very funny as the half crazed former Vietnam vet, Phil Cassidy. Interestingly enough Phil Cassidy appears in GTA III, which was set later on in 2001 (the year of its release) where we see that Phil only has one arm, and he claims he lost in Nicaragua. But in Vice city we see that Phil actually lost the arm in an accident when he makes an unstable explosive cocktail called Boomshine, which explodes and takes off his arm with it!
Another prominent feature in Vice City and also one of its strengths is its extensive soundtrack, as there a vast variety of music tracks and what must about a dozen radio stations, featuring different styles of music such as rock, pop, rap, latin, jazz, and electro. Some of the tracks featured include rock/metal from Megadeth, Iron Maiden, David Lee Roth, Ozzy Osbourne, Twisted Sister, Judas Priest and even Slayer. Some pop tracks of the time include artists such as Blondie, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Michael Jackson, The Buggles, INXS, Talk Talk, Go West, A Flock of Seagulls, Kool and the Gang, Kate Bush, Spandau Ballet, and this game also introduced me to one of my favourite ever bands, The Fixx, who never quite made it, which is a great pity as they are great. The game also features a fictional rock band called Love Fist, who are a group of drunken Scottish bisexuals, who are fronted by the singer, Jezz Torrent (great name!) who is voice acted by Kevin McKidd (who is best known as Tommy from Trainspotting).
And just like in GTAIII there are a couple of chat radio stations, both of which are really funny and feature some pretty eccentric interviews. The first station is K-chat, which its host is a real air-headed lass called Amy Sheckenhausen, who either gushes or talks over her interviewees. One of Amy's interviews is a piss take of the late Steve Urwin, as she interviews an over enthusiastic animal lover, Mr Zoo, who is soon revealed to have been involved in a court case, as he got a bit too friendly with a dolphin. And the second is VCPR, Vice City Public Radio, which features a very funny debate show voiced by its fictional presenter, Maurice Chavez, who was once a failed entertainer (he used to be a clown and also tried to make his way into movies unsuccessfully). Some of Maurice's funniest debates, include a naked man who get's a bit too comfortable on the show, and an annoying promotional speaker, who Maurice eventually ends up hitting him in the face with a paperweight. Maurice also has two supervisors who continually put him down on air (probably when he's not listening) as one of them calls him at one point "a useless talentless asshole!". The game is also notable for its funny ads, some of which are very satirical and are worth a listen, as you will get a laugh out of them.
However, as a quick update (as of 16.12.12) I have played the Android version of Vice City, and despite some graphical improvements, unfortunately it has to be said its a pretty frustrating port of the game, as the game keeps freezing during missions, and its near impossible to aim your weapon at times, particular if its a rifle you are using. This is particularly frustrating in the mission Phnom Phem 86, where Tommy and Lance fly over a gang's hideout and Tommy has to shoot them from a chopper, as due to the infuriating skipping of the camera, its really tough to complete, and I kept failing the mission, and at the time of writing this, I STILL cannot complete it! (I might yet though!). So its up to Rockstar to try and resolve these issues with more updates, hopefully they can iron them out, otherwise playing Vice City on the Android system won't be a laugh, and you'd be best sticking to playing it on the PC or a PS2/3.
In spite all that however, GTA Vice City itself is a terrific game 10 years on. It has plenty of missions, provides plenty of laughs, and there is a tremendous amount of variety in its missions, tasks, side missions, as well as the sheer scale of the game, not to mention its terrific voice cast, and excellent soundtrack.
And with that I shall leave it there.
So this post will really focus on the game itself and not so much the re-released version for the IOS Apple and the Android OSs, mainly because as I have a Samsung galaxy 2 android phone, the re-released 10th anniversay version has been postponed due to validation errors when you try to download it, which is a real bummer, as I was looking forward to playing it on its scheduled release date on 6th December last week. And the updated version apparently is more graphically enhanced than the PS2 edition, which no doubt it will be, as obviously the character models were pretty crude and basic looking in comparison to today's games. However the game itself won't have changed much at all, so let's have a look at that instead.
To begin with let's have a look at the plot, as the game is set in 1986 with the main character, Tommy Vercetti (voice by Ray Liotta) having just been released from prison from a 15 year sentence for killing eleven men. Tommy's mob boss, Sonny Forelli (Tom Sizemore) sends him out to Vice City, where he meets up with mob lawyer Ken Rosenberg (William Fichtner) who he does some business with. Sonny sets up some cocaine deals for Tommy to head up, but at one of the deals, there is an ambush and he loses both the money and the cocaine. Tommy after having a heated phone call with Sonny swears he will get his money back and kill whoever was responsible. From this point through Ken, Tommy meets up with another drug dealer, Juan Garcia Cortez (Robert Davi) who helps make some enquiries as to who was behind the ambush, and he also meets with Cortez's daughter, Mercedes. Along the way Tommy also meets a British record producer, Kent Paul (Danny Dyer), a real estate dealer Avery Carrington (Burt Reynolds), and Lance Vance (Philip Michael Thomas) who was the brother of one of the men present at the drug deal who was killed, and Lance is out for revenge.
Tommy and Lance become business partners, and together they discover that the man behind the hit on the cocaine was in fact Ricardo Diaz (Luis Guzman). Lance himself goes to try and take out Diaz, but he fails, leaving Tommy with no choice but to save Lance from being killed. Once Tommy rescues Lance, the two men go to Diaz's mansion and they kill him, after which Tommy takes over Diaz's mansion. After this Tommy's business enterprises expand as he and Lance become the drug kingpins in Vice city, and buys over near bankrupt businesses such as a strip club, a car lot, a night club, a parking lot and a counterfeiting print shop and turns them into successful money spinners. However all is soon not well, as Tommy's hotheaded nature makes him somewhat selfish as he refuses to pay tribute to Sonny, by giving any cut of his earnings to his boss, as well as disobeying his orders. Lance also becomes somewhat paranoid and exhibits signs of insecure and irrational behaviour as he feels left out by Tommy, who belittles him at times. And its not long before Sonny is forced to confront Tommy at his mansion as he sends his men to force him to give up money from his assets, which leads to a final shootout.
GTA Vice City is without a doubt one of the best games from the 2000s, as it takes the impressive and immersive sandbox world of GTA III and expands on it even further. In the Vice City there are several tweaks in gameplay from its predecessor, and there is a larger variety of vehicles such as motorcycles, scooters, helicopters, planes and boats. Movement wise there are also improvements as now Tommy for example can crouch giving his a better vantage point in certain missions when he wants to take cover and snipe his enemies. There is also the nifty inclusion of moves such as where Tommy can leap into an open top car and drive off, which we didn't get before in GTA III. There is also a much larger variety of weapons than previously, as now Tommy has access to pistols, shotguns, sub-machine guns, sniper rifles, assault rifles, and even a chainsaw, as well as melee weapons such as swords, knives, baseball bats and even golf clubs!
Clearly the tone of Vice city borrows heavily from Miami Vice, and there are also traces of Brian De Palma's Scarface in there as well, especially one mission where Tommy chases a man down the street with a chainsaw. The game also features different gangs as well, one of which in particular is a gang of Haitians, which caused some controversy at the time it was released as Haitian groups in Florida accussed the game of having a potentially harmful effect on immigrants. The Haitian groups also accused Rockstar of the depiction of the groups in the game as it appeared to be almost a racist depiciton, based on some of the lines of dialogue that appear in the game, which were later edited out of the game.
However despite all that, its Vice city's overwhelming variety that helps make it such a great game, and there are other areas of variety to be found in there too, such as the large amount of vehicles available in the game with over 100 different choices of vehicle, with everything from a sports car, to motorcycle, to a bus and even a golf caddy car! There is also the inclusion of buying properties and business in the game which makes for a new feature, as buying these can help make Tommy more money in the game, as he will come back and make collections from the property over time. There are also of course side missions, such as taxi fares, driving injured people to hospital in ambulances, extinguish fires using a firetruck, and delivering pizzas! Graphically the game also features quite a few improvements as the environments in Vice city are much bigger in size, and the size of the city is pretty big, and different parts of the city become available as the game progresses.
But you cannot of course forget or relish in the ability to just go bananas in Vice City as well, creating chaos on the streets, and bringing a big wanted level on your ass is undeniably alot of fun. One of the funniest things that can happen in the game also as is when you blow up a car or something, a firetruck soon comes along and sprays its firehose, which quite often will blast Tommy right in the face if he gets in the way and sends him flying which is pertty funny! Although one of the newer features involving the police is they have the ability to lay down spikes on the road to puncture the wheels in your cars. Tommy as a character can also finally make a change of clothes as he can go into clothes stores and change outfit at certain points in the game, although in GTA San Andreas, the main character is given more choice when its comes to clothing.
The only things negative I would say about GTA Vice City is that its graphics, while are far from bad, they do look pretty basic in comparison to today's video games. Another thing is of course the amusing big spinning icons you get for extra health, with the big heart sign, or a spinning icon of a gun, and if you run over the icon you automatically get the upgrade, whether it be more heatlh or ammo. Its a far cry from the more realistic options you get in todays games where you have the option to bandage yourself up or take painkillers. But it does in a way highlight the game's cartoon-esque appeal, and it helps reinforce the fantasy of the game, and we aren't talking about a realistic gritty experience, its just pure fun. And finally one of the other things I didn't like about Vice City is when Tommy falls into the water, he instantly drowns, which I think is a bit unrealistic. This was the same in GTAIII, I mean surely didn't these guys learn how to swim????! Even if they couldn't swim they certainly wouldn't drown instantaneously like they do here! Obviously this was a bone of contention with fans as by the time we got to GTA San Andreas, they finally resolved this issue by giving the main character, CJ, the ability to swim in the ocean, and not only just merely swim, but swim like a champion swimmer at a hundred miles an hour!
As for the voice acting, well the cast on display are top notch, with Ray Liotta delivering an excellent performance as the main character, Tommy Vercetti, the hot tempered mobster, who makes it big in Vice city, and ends up getting himself in hot water. Although it has to be said that Tommy isn't all that likeable, as he comes across more like an arrogant asshole than anything else, so in a way its not surprising the heat he brings on himself. Philip Michael Thomas, who was previously a co-star in Miami Vice, is very good as Lance Vance, of which the name itself makes him a neurotic mess, as he himself states at one point in the game how his brothers and everyone at school used to taunt him about it. Lance later on of course out of feeling paranoid and left out by Tommy's enterprises, ends up betraying him to Sonny, leading to his own demise in the final confrontation between him and Tommy (OK just given it away!!).
Tom Sizemore is great as Sonny Forelli, Tommy's mafia boss, who is similarly hot headed and is resentful at Tommy for being cut out of his businesses as well, which leads to their fallout. William Fichtner is also very good as Ken Rosenberg, who was basically modelled on Sean Penn's character from Carlito's Way, David Kleinfeld, as a neurotic coke addled mob lawyer who does business with Tommy off and on throughout the game. Luis Guzman as the drug overlord, Ricardo Diaz is great as well, and he has several funny moments in the game, one of them being when he is out the front of his mansion shooting at birds with his shotgun, and another where he trashes his TV when he loses a racing bet, and he keeps calling everyone "dickheads!". Diaz's mansion is also based very close on the design of Tony Montana's in Scarface, especially in the climactic gunfights when Tommy takes out Diaz and when he faces off Sonny at the end.
There are also several supporting characters as well which provide plenty of humour and amusement, such as Kent Paul, the annoying Brit record producer, voice by Danny Dyer. Dennis Hooper also makes an amusing cameo as a porn director, Steve Scott, who in the game directs the character, Candy Suxx, voiced by the real-life former porn starlet, Jenna Jamieson. Lee Majors as the gang leader of a group of bikers, Big Mitch Baker, gives a really good account of himself here too, and finally Gary Busey is very funny as the half crazed former Vietnam vet, Phil Cassidy. Interestingly enough Phil Cassidy appears in GTA III, which was set later on in 2001 (the year of its release) where we see that Phil only has one arm, and he claims he lost in Nicaragua. But in Vice city we see that Phil actually lost the arm in an accident when he makes an unstable explosive cocktail called Boomshine, which explodes and takes off his arm with it!
Another prominent feature in Vice City and also one of its strengths is its extensive soundtrack, as there a vast variety of music tracks and what must about a dozen radio stations, featuring different styles of music such as rock, pop, rap, latin, jazz, and electro. Some of the tracks featured include rock/metal from Megadeth, Iron Maiden, David Lee Roth, Ozzy Osbourne, Twisted Sister, Judas Priest and even Slayer. Some pop tracks of the time include artists such as Blondie, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Michael Jackson, The Buggles, INXS, Talk Talk, Go West, A Flock of Seagulls, Kool and the Gang, Kate Bush, Spandau Ballet, and this game also introduced me to one of my favourite ever bands, The Fixx, who never quite made it, which is a great pity as they are great. The game also features a fictional rock band called Love Fist, who are a group of drunken Scottish bisexuals, who are fronted by the singer, Jezz Torrent (great name!) who is voice acted by Kevin McKidd (who is best known as Tommy from Trainspotting).
And just like in GTAIII there are a couple of chat radio stations, both of which are really funny and feature some pretty eccentric interviews. The first station is K-chat, which its host is a real air-headed lass called Amy Sheckenhausen, who either gushes or talks over her interviewees. One of Amy's interviews is a piss take of the late Steve Urwin, as she interviews an over enthusiastic animal lover, Mr Zoo, who is soon revealed to have been involved in a court case, as he got a bit too friendly with a dolphin. And the second is VCPR, Vice City Public Radio, which features a very funny debate show voiced by its fictional presenter, Maurice Chavez, who was once a failed entertainer (he used to be a clown and also tried to make his way into movies unsuccessfully). Some of Maurice's funniest debates, include a naked man who get's a bit too comfortable on the show, and an annoying promotional speaker, who Maurice eventually ends up hitting him in the face with a paperweight. Maurice also has two supervisors who continually put him down on air (probably when he's not listening) as one of them calls him at one point "a useless talentless asshole!". The game is also notable for its funny ads, some of which are very satirical and are worth a listen, as you will get a laugh out of them.
However, as a quick update (as of 16.12.12) I have played the Android version of Vice City, and despite some graphical improvements, unfortunately it has to be said its a pretty frustrating port of the game, as the game keeps freezing during missions, and its near impossible to aim your weapon at times, particular if its a rifle you are using. This is particularly frustrating in the mission Phnom Phem 86, where Tommy and Lance fly over a gang's hideout and Tommy has to shoot them from a chopper, as due to the infuriating skipping of the camera, its really tough to complete, and I kept failing the mission, and at the time of writing this, I STILL cannot complete it! (I might yet though!). So its up to Rockstar to try and resolve these issues with more updates, hopefully they can iron them out, otherwise playing Vice City on the Android system won't be a laugh, and you'd be best sticking to playing it on the PC or a PS2/3.
In spite all that however, GTA Vice City itself is a terrific game 10 years on. It has plenty of missions, provides plenty of laughs, and there is a tremendous amount of variety in its missions, tasks, side missions, as well as the sheer scale of the game, not to mention its terrific voice cast, and excellent soundtrack.
And with that I shall leave it there.
Saturday 8 December 2012
The Rise of the Dark Knight
Right well this is not so much a blag, as this post was taken from this blog, but it was posted earlier in the year, so I thought I would re-post it with some updated stuff in it. So the post is on The Dark Knight Rises, which is Christopher Nolan's final film in his trilogy on the caped crusader, at the time I originally posted it, it was out in the cinema (it looks particularly awesome in the IMAX!) and now at the time of writing this, its now out on Blu-ray, so let's give it a look.
(And as a quick warning: A FEW PLOT SPOILERS LIE AHEAD IN THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS! WELL IN FACT MOST OF THE PLOT!! SO AVOID READING IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT)
So the film begins 8 years after the events of The Dark Knight, and in the opening scene, we see a masked terrorist named Bane (Tom Hardy) who is being held in the custody of the FBI while being transported on a plane. The plane however is intercepted by Bane's men who then kill the agents and Bane captures a Russian nuclear physicist (also onboard the plane), who he takes with him. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne, after Batman has been outcast as a wanted criminal (as he took the rap for the death of Harvey Dent), now lives a reclusive life in his manor, and has left the outside world behind him. Bane however soon infiltrates Gotham city, and manages to lure Comissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) into the sewers, who is following up a lead to an abduction, in the sewers Gordon narrowly escapes, but is shot, and sent to hospital. One of Gordon's men, John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levit) approaches Wayne at his manor, and he admits he knows of his identity as Batman, and pleads that he make his return to Gotham to help the brewing troubles. Wayne soon after starts to set things in motion to make his return as the dark knight, and along the way he get's a little help from the saucy Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a cat burglar, who is an associate of Bane's, who ultimaltey betrays Batman to him. Bane soon captures Batman and beats him (breaking his back in the process!) and then sends him off to a prison, where no man is said to have escaped from (only one child managed to escape the prison, which is rumoured to have been Bane himself). Bane himself turns out to be a member of the League of Shadows, which Wayne himself was trained as, but Bane was banished from the group years ago. In the meantime with Batman out of the way, Bane has full reign to destroy Gotham, with the city's police force trapped underground, and by releasing its criminals from the prisons, and sitting in judgment on the rich, wealthy and the affluent in the city, who are all sentenced to death or exile (which turns out to be the same thing!).
In the meantime Wayne while in the prison, receives help from a prisoner (Tom Conti) to fix his back. After this Wayne trains and builds up his fitness again, and tries his best to escape from the prison, by climbing the inner prison wall (with a rope tied round his waist) he tries to jump to reach a ledge but misses and falls, which he tries again and fails. With the TV footage show in the prison of Gotham being torn apart by Bane's war of terror, Wayne grows more determined to escape, and the former jail doctor, tells Wayne the child who escaped did so by not using a rope, but by climbing out. Wayne tries the climb again, this time without the rope, he escapes successfully and makes his way back to Gotham. Once back in Gotham, Wayne meets up with Selina again and tells her he needs her help to get to Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) who can help him deactivate the city's reactor core, which has now been turned into a bomb, which Bane intends to detonate and destroy the city. Wayne soon dons his cape and makes his entrance as Batman, he saves Gordon from death by exile (walking out on the frozen surface of the river) and Blake, and he frees the police from underground, and tells them to make an assault on Bane's men. And as the police force storm an assault on Bane's men, Batman confronts Bane on the streets of Gotham in their final encounter.
I have to say I really enjoyed the Dark Knight Rises, with Christopher Nolan, once again at the helm (this is to be his last film in the series) you know it was not going to be a letdown. The film picks up the events well from the end of The Dark Knight, by moving forward 8 years, and it makes a nice shift in tone to see Bruce Wayne, as no longer being a show off billionaire in the public eye, but instead becoming a recluse, who feels now that at this point Gotham no longer needs Batman, due to the massive cut down in crime (at the start of the film that is) due to the Dent act (imposed by the late Harvey Dent). The overall tone of the film is also keeping in check with Nolan's previous outings, which is pretty serious most of the time, but he does allow for a few moments of humour here and there.
In terms of the performances things are also pretty good here, and there is a fine cast on display, starting with Christian Bale, who I have to say always has done a better job as Bruce Wayne, than he has as Batman, mainly due to the fact as Batman, I don't really like the way he overuses the husky voice to conceal Wayne's identity. It might be the right thing to do in order to conceal his identity, but it just sounds silly, and I'm surprised he doesn't keep coughing up while he does it! Regardless of that though I always liked Bale's take on Bruce Wayne, in the previous two films he played him as a suave superifical billionaire playboy on the surface, and in this film he's become an emotionally wounded man, who choses to live in hiding, but deep down he still really cares about Gotham, and has a strong moral character, who does all he can to fight the evil in his city. Bale also always plays Wayne with a dry sense of humour and he is always very understated in his delivery, which is one of Bale's main strengths as an actor.
Ann Hathaway is also a very welcome addition to the cast as Catwoman/Selina Kyle, and she plays her perfectly with the right combination of sexiness and toughness, and she conveys her character's moral ambiguities really well, as Catwoman has always been a morally gray character. But as the film progresses we see that Batman starts to get under Catwoman's skin, in order to make her see that there is more to her than just a thief looking after herself, and she provides a welcome change in tone to Batman's rather dreary one note delivery. They also share an amusing moment up on the rooftops where for once someone pulls the vanshing act on Batman, as he turns away and looks back to see that Catwoman has gone, and he says "so that's what that feels like!". Hathaway provides a few amusing moments in the film, one of them being when she is arrested and is taken to prison, and she is escorted through the cells, and one of the prisoners ogles her, and she says "do you want to hold hands" and she grabs the prisoner's hands and twists them as she does a somersault! Although I have to say my favourite scene of her in the film is when she is on the bat bike, and she leans forward and blasts the bike's guns to blow a whole in a wall, and you get a fine view of her very nice bottom in that sexy leather suit! (perv! but its great on Blu-ray with a remote! ultra-perv!).
Tom Hardy does an excellent job as the main baddie, Bane, the big muscly terrorist, and former member of the league of shadows, who wears a specially designed oxygen mask, that keeps pumping gas into his body to relieve the pain he feels, as a result of his time in the unescapable prison. My one criticism though of his performance is the way his voice is treated via the oxygen mask, as some of the time you can't really make out what he's saying, as it sounds literally like he has put his hand over his mouth while he talks! But once you watch the Blu-ray disc you can put on the subtitles to make out what the hell he's saying! ;-) Hardy himself built up his body and added an extra 30 pounds of weight on for the part and it certainly does show, as he makes for an effective and intimidating figure, who is a far cry from the mindless Bane we saw in Batman and Robin. And with his height and size, Bane makes a very dangerous foe with his intelligence and physical strength.
And the first of the last two I'll mention is the lovely Marion Cotillard who is excellent as Miranda Tate, a wealthy investor who becomes romantically involved with Wayne and later reveals a dark secret. Marion was previously cast in Inception (Nolan's previous film), and she continues to do well here. And finally Jospeh Gordon-Levit as John Blake, the young cop who plays his part in trying to save Gotham from Bane, is good and at the end of the film we find out a thing or two about him.
On the regular supporting cast things are as fine as ever, with Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, the man who is behind Wayne's Batman tech gear, and as ever he provides a witty performance like he did in the previous films. Freeman provides one or two moments of humour, one of which is where Bruce meets up with Fox for the first time in years and he says at the end of their meeting "normally at this point you ask me for an unusual request", and Bruce replies "not this time", and Fox says "well let me show you some stuff anyway!". Gary Oldman is once again excellent too as Comissioner Gordon, who over the space of the three films has come a long way from being one of the few good cops in Gotham, to rising to be the comissioner who plays a vital part in fighting the city's crime. And finally Michael Caine does another good turn as Alfred, Wayne's trusted butler, who by this time has grown more and more concerned for his master's fate, which allows Caine to emote a bit more than in the previous films. Of the new cast members perhaps maybe only Matthew Modine is the weak link in the chain as the depity Comissioner Foley, but his performance is by no means bad, its just next to the rest of the cast he isn't quite as strong as the others are in their respective roles.
The film however isn't without its flaws though, for starters the film is a just a bit too long, as it clocks in at 2 hours and 44 minutes, which is just a bit excessive in length, and you feel it could have benefited from a little bit of trimming, however the film never really drags that much, despite the length. I also wasn't particularly impressed with the new Batman outfit, as it looks like a far leaner muscular skeletonal designed suit, and the cape isn't very impressive either as it doesn't cover the Bat's shoulders, and I personally thought the previous outfits in the last two films were way better, but the mask is still cool. And another criticism I can think of is about Bane, as it really isn't explained well at all why he wears the mask, the film hints at during his times in prison he developed a skin disease of some kind, and the doctors operated to save him by creating the mask, although you also see him being assaulted by many prisoners, so maybe he sustained serious head injuries as well. Who knows??? In the comics books of course, the origins of Bane's mask are a bit different, as in prison he is forced to be a test subject for the Batman villain, Hugo Strange, who pumps him full of venomous gas, which Bane later becomes addicted to, hence wearing the mask, and also attributes to his muscular form. Another criticism I have is the relatively short screen time of Batman himself, as you'd be lucky if you end up with more than 20-30 minutes of actual bat screen time, which is disappointing when you think about it, especially as he is the central character! And as Batman there are only really three sequences he appears in, and that's about it, but if you are somewhat adverse to Bale's take on the raspy Batman then maybe that's not such a bad thing! ;-)
But on the bright side, the film is definitely keeping in tone with the rest of Nolan's movies, and never makes a rash departure from that and nor should it really, as it would be a letdown if Nolan decided to make it into a camp pastiche like Joel Schumacher did (and there's no chance of that with a filmmaker of Nolan's calibre!). Also a quick word about Hans Zimmer's score, which for me is easily the best of the scores for Nolan's films, as his score is superb throughout, as its suitably dark and menacing, and has many terrific passsages, particularly the cues used in the fight scenes with Bane and when he escapes from the plane at the beginning.
So that its for my critique on the Dark Knight Rises, which I think overall is a very entertaining, engrossing, solid, albeit lengthy conclusion to Christopher Nolan's contribution to the Batman franchise, and he deserves a great deal of credit in bringing the caped crusader back to the big screen in such a credible fashion. And while it is now out of the cinemas as far as I know, but if it ever re-appears in the big screen then I strongly recommend going to see it in the IMAX cinemas, as I went and saw it the earlier this year in July and it looks spectacular on the big big screen. The film unlike The Dark Knight, has far more IMAX sequences, in fact its safe to say that maybe at least 50% of the film was shot in the IMAX format (actually its 70 minutes worth). The only thing is if you are not use to seeing the films in the IMAX cinema (which I wasn't, as it was my first) then it may take a few minutes to adjust to the sheer enormity of the screen, but its very impressive all the same and well worth it. Its also worth watching on Blu-ray as well of course, and the IMAX scenes look superb in HD, the only thing I'm lacking in watching it is a big massive TV, but hey ho, no matter. :-)
Soooooo after that rather exhaustive post I shall leave it there.
(And as a quick warning: A FEW PLOT SPOILERS LIE AHEAD IN THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS! WELL IN FACT MOST OF THE PLOT!! SO AVOID READING IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT)
So the film begins 8 years after the events of The Dark Knight, and in the opening scene, we see a masked terrorist named Bane (Tom Hardy) who is being held in the custody of the FBI while being transported on a plane. The plane however is intercepted by Bane's men who then kill the agents and Bane captures a Russian nuclear physicist (also onboard the plane), who he takes with him. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne, after Batman has been outcast as a wanted criminal (as he took the rap for the death of Harvey Dent), now lives a reclusive life in his manor, and has left the outside world behind him. Bane however soon infiltrates Gotham city, and manages to lure Comissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) into the sewers, who is following up a lead to an abduction, in the sewers Gordon narrowly escapes, but is shot, and sent to hospital. One of Gordon's men, John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levit) approaches Wayne at his manor, and he admits he knows of his identity as Batman, and pleads that he make his return to Gotham to help the brewing troubles. Wayne soon after starts to set things in motion to make his return as the dark knight, and along the way he get's a little help from the saucy Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), a cat burglar, who is an associate of Bane's, who ultimaltey betrays Batman to him. Bane soon captures Batman and beats him (breaking his back in the process!) and then sends him off to a prison, where no man is said to have escaped from (only one child managed to escape the prison, which is rumoured to have been Bane himself). Bane himself turns out to be a member of the League of Shadows, which Wayne himself was trained as, but Bane was banished from the group years ago. In the meantime with Batman out of the way, Bane has full reign to destroy Gotham, with the city's police force trapped underground, and by releasing its criminals from the prisons, and sitting in judgment on the rich, wealthy and the affluent in the city, who are all sentenced to death or exile (which turns out to be the same thing!).
In the meantime Wayne while in the prison, receives help from a prisoner (Tom Conti) to fix his back. After this Wayne trains and builds up his fitness again, and tries his best to escape from the prison, by climbing the inner prison wall (with a rope tied round his waist) he tries to jump to reach a ledge but misses and falls, which he tries again and fails. With the TV footage show in the prison of Gotham being torn apart by Bane's war of terror, Wayne grows more determined to escape, and the former jail doctor, tells Wayne the child who escaped did so by not using a rope, but by climbing out. Wayne tries the climb again, this time without the rope, he escapes successfully and makes his way back to Gotham. Once back in Gotham, Wayne meets up with Selina again and tells her he needs her help to get to Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) who can help him deactivate the city's reactor core, which has now been turned into a bomb, which Bane intends to detonate and destroy the city. Wayne soon dons his cape and makes his entrance as Batman, he saves Gordon from death by exile (walking out on the frozen surface of the river) and Blake, and he frees the police from underground, and tells them to make an assault on Bane's men. And as the police force storm an assault on Bane's men, Batman confronts Bane on the streets of Gotham in their final encounter.
I have to say I really enjoyed the Dark Knight Rises, with Christopher Nolan, once again at the helm (this is to be his last film in the series) you know it was not going to be a letdown. The film picks up the events well from the end of The Dark Knight, by moving forward 8 years, and it makes a nice shift in tone to see Bruce Wayne, as no longer being a show off billionaire in the public eye, but instead becoming a recluse, who feels now that at this point Gotham no longer needs Batman, due to the massive cut down in crime (at the start of the film that is) due to the Dent act (imposed by the late Harvey Dent). The overall tone of the film is also keeping in check with Nolan's previous outings, which is pretty serious most of the time, but he does allow for a few moments of humour here and there.
In terms of the performances things are also pretty good here, and there is a fine cast on display, starting with Christian Bale, who I have to say always has done a better job as Bruce Wayne, than he has as Batman, mainly due to the fact as Batman, I don't really like the way he overuses the husky voice to conceal Wayne's identity. It might be the right thing to do in order to conceal his identity, but it just sounds silly, and I'm surprised he doesn't keep coughing up while he does it! Regardless of that though I always liked Bale's take on Bruce Wayne, in the previous two films he played him as a suave superifical billionaire playboy on the surface, and in this film he's become an emotionally wounded man, who choses to live in hiding, but deep down he still really cares about Gotham, and has a strong moral character, who does all he can to fight the evil in his city. Bale also always plays Wayne with a dry sense of humour and he is always very understated in his delivery, which is one of Bale's main strengths as an actor.
Ann Hathaway is also a very welcome addition to the cast as Catwoman/Selina Kyle, and she plays her perfectly with the right combination of sexiness and toughness, and she conveys her character's moral ambiguities really well, as Catwoman has always been a morally gray character. But as the film progresses we see that Batman starts to get under Catwoman's skin, in order to make her see that there is more to her than just a thief looking after herself, and she provides a welcome change in tone to Batman's rather dreary one note delivery. They also share an amusing moment up on the rooftops where for once someone pulls the vanshing act on Batman, as he turns away and looks back to see that Catwoman has gone, and he says "so that's what that feels like!". Hathaway provides a few amusing moments in the film, one of them being when she is arrested and is taken to prison, and she is escorted through the cells, and one of the prisoners ogles her, and she says "do you want to hold hands" and she grabs the prisoner's hands and twists them as she does a somersault! Although I have to say my favourite scene of her in the film is when she is on the bat bike, and she leans forward and blasts the bike's guns to blow a whole in a wall, and you get a fine view of her very nice bottom in that sexy leather suit! (perv! but its great on Blu-ray with a remote! ultra-perv!).
Tom Hardy does an excellent job as the main baddie, Bane, the big muscly terrorist, and former member of the league of shadows, who wears a specially designed oxygen mask, that keeps pumping gas into his body to relieve the pain he feels, as a result of his time in the unescapable prison. My one criticism though of his performance is the way his voice is treated via the oxygen mask, as some of the time you can't really make out what he's saying, as it sounds literally like he has put his hand over his mouth while he talks! But once you watch the Blu-ray disc you can put on the subtitles to make out what the hell he's saying! ;-) Hardy himself built up his body and added an extra 30 pounds of weight on for the part and it certainly does show, as he makes for an effective and intimidating figure, who is a far cry from the mindless Bane we saw in Batman and Robin. And with his height and size, Bane makes a very dangerous foe with his intelligence and physical strength.
And the first of the last two I'll mention is the lovely Marion Cotillard who is excellent as Miranda Tate, a wealthy investor who becomes romantically involved with Wayne and later reveals a dark secret. Marion was previously cast in Inception (Nolan's previous film), and she continues to do well here. And finally Jospeh Gordon-Levit as John Blake, the young cop who plays his part in trying to save Gotham from Bane, is good and at the end of the film we find out a thing or two about him.
On the regular supporting cast things are as fine as ever, with Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, the man who is behind Wayne's Batman tech gear, and as ever he provides a witty performance like he did in the previous films. Freeman provides one or two moments of humour, one of which is where Bruce meets up with Fox for the first time in years and he says at the end of their meeting "normally at this point you ask me for an unusual request", and Bruce replies "not this time", and Fox says "well let me show you some stuff anyway!". Gary Oldman is once again excellent too as Comissioner Gordon, who over the space of the three films has come a long way from being one of the few good cops in Gotham, to rising to be the comissioner who plays a vital part in fighting the city's crime. And finally Michael Caine does another good turn as Alfred, Wayne's trusted butler, who by this time has grown more and more concerned for his master's fate, which allows Caine to emote a bit more than in the previous films. Of the new cast members perhaps maybe only Matthew Modine is the weak link in the chain as the depity Comissioner Foley, but his performance is by no means bad, its just next to the rest of the cast he isn't quite as strong as the others are in their respective roles.
The film however isn't without its flaws though, for starters the film is a just a bit too long, as it clocks in at 2 hours and 44 minutes, which is just a bit excessive in length, and you feel it could have benefited from a little bit of trimming, however the film never really drags that much, despite the length. I also wasn't particularly impressed with the new Batman outfit, as it looks like a far leaner muscular skeletonal designed suit, and the cape isn't very impressive either as it doesn't cover the Bat's shoulders, and I personally thought the previous outfits in the last two films were way better, but the mask is still cool. And another criticism I can think of is about Bane, as it really isn't explained well at all why he wears the mask, the film hints at during his times in prison he developed a skin disease of some kind, and the doctors operated to save him by creating the mask, although you also see him being assaulted by many prisoners, so maybe he sustained serious head injuries as well. Who knows??? In the comics books of course, the origins of Bane's mask are a bit different, as in prison he is forced to be a test subject for the Batman villain, Hugo Strange, who pumps him full of venomous gas, which Bane later becomes addicted to, hence wearing the mask, and also attributes to his muscular form. Another criticism I have is the relatively short screen time of Batman himself, as you'd be lucky if you end up with more than 20-30 minutes of actual bat screen time, which is disappointing when you think about it, especially as he is the central character! And as Batman there are only really three sequences he appears in, and that's about it, but if you are somewhat adverse to Bale's take on the raspy Batman then maybe that's not such a bad thing! ;-)
But on the bright side, the film is definitely keeping in tone with the rest of Nolan's movies, and never makes a rash departure from that and nor should it really, as it would be a letdown if Nolan decided to make it into a camp pastiche like Joel Schumacher did (and there's no chance of that with a filmmaker of Nolan's calibre!). Also a quick word about Hans Zimmer's score, which for me is easily the best of the scores for Nolan's films, as his score is superb throughout, as its suitably dark and menacing, and has many terrific passsages, particularly the cues used in the fight scenes with Bane and when he escapes from the plane at the beginning.
So that its for my critique on the Dark Knight Rises, which I think overall is a very entertaining, engrossing, solid, albeit lengthy conclusion to Christopher Nolan's contribution to the Batman franchise, and he deserves a great deal of credit in bringing the caped crusader back to the big screen in such a credible fashion. And while it is now out of the cinemas as far as I know, but if it ever re-appears in the big screen then I strongly recommend going to see it in the IMAX cinemas, as I went and saw it the earlier this year in July and it looks spectacular on the big big screen. The film unlike The Dark Knight, has far more IMAX sequences, in fact its safe to say that maybe at least 50% of the film was shot in the IMAX format (actually its 70 minutes worth). The only thing is if you are not use to seeing the films in the IMAX cinema (which I wasn't, as it was my first) then it may take a few minutes to adjust to the sheer enormity of the screen, but its very impressive all the same and well worth it. Its also worth watching on Blu-ray as well of course, and the IMAX scenes look superb in HD, the only thing I'm lacking in watching it is a big massive TV, but hey ho, no matter. :-)
Soooooo after that rather exhaustive post I shall leave it there.
Sunday 2 December 2012
Change my dear, and it seems not a moment too soon!
OK for anyone who has taken a nosy at this blog will by now well know this is a movie/tv/games review blog which features a varirty of wonderful, witty, thoughtful, incisive and intelligent reviews from myself, or if you like (and more accurately) screeds of waffling pish. Whatever you want to look at it, as long as you enjoy reading it, that's the main thing (even if you don't that's fine!).
But anyway I'm digressing, so back to the reviews, and this time I have chosen another Doctor Who story, Peter Davison's classic swansong, The Caves of Androzani. This story saw the welcome return of the great Robert Holmes to the show, as he wrote one of his last true great stories for the show, so let's have a look at it! (Acutally I think I've already written a post on this story on my other blog, oh well sod it, done it now, so enjoy!).
Right well starting with my usual structure, its time fer a look at the plot, and the story starts on the planet Androzani Minor, where the Doctor and his new young companion, Peri (Nicola Bryant, very nice!) arrive and look around the barren desert they find themselves. The Doctor and Peri follow a series of tracks into a cave, where Peri falls into a sticky ball, resembling a nest, and they soon find themselves surrounded by soldiers when they stumble upon a weapons hold. The Doctor and Peri are then taken to General Chellak (Martin Cochrane) who believes them to be gunrunners. Chellak consults with Morgus (John Normington) who is the leader of a business conglomerate on the planet Androzani Major, who orders him to have the Doctor and Peri executed. However at the time of the execution, the soldiers open fire and the Doctor and Peri, and they are revealed instead to be androids, and the real Doc and Peri have been swapped and taken to Sharez Jek (Christopher Gable) a brilliant but twisted scientist, who wears a mask to conceal his features. Jek controls a souce of a substance called Spectrox, which is of great value to humans, as it has the ability to extend human life. At this point we also discover that Morgus is actually funding both the military expedition to eliminate the androids in the caves, but is also funding the gunrunners to sell guns to Jek to profit from the war. Morgus however is also after the spectrox that Jek as well, but due to Jek's androids, his men are unable to get near it.
Meanwhile the Doctor and Peri who are in Jek's custody, start to show signs of infection from the sticky nest they fell into earlier, and a young soldier, being held captive, Salateen (Robert Glenister) tells them that it was a spectrox nest, and that they don't have long to live, as they will soon die from spectrox toxaemia. Salateen tells them there is a cure as they can acquire bats milk, however the bats have retrieved deep into the caves due to the mining that has been done, so it would next to impossible to get to. It is also soon revealed that Jek has created a perfect replica android of Salateen and has used him to replace the real man, and is acting as Chellak's second in command, and in doing so Jek is able to anticipate Chellak's every move. To complicate matters further, Jek becomes infatuated with Peri and he wants her to stay with him indefinitely at his base. The doctor manages to escape Jek's base however but is soon recaptured by Morgus's gunrunners, lead by Stotz (Maurice Roeves) who take him onboard their ship. Stotz consults with Morgus oevr what to do with the Doctor, but Morgus recognising the Doctor from earlier on, advises him to stay put on the ship in geostationary orbit, while he tries to work out what to do. Morgus himself grows suspicious of the president of Androzani major, fearing that he might be planning to assassinate him, he kills the president and makes his way to Androzani minor to put things right himself. The Doctor however in the meantime manages to free himself onboard the ship and pilots it back to Androzani minor (or rather crashes it!) where he flees, and races back to try and save Peri and himself from Jek, the androids, and from their fate at the hands of spectrox toxiemia.
As a finale for Peter Davison's era in Doctor Who, you could not have hoped for a finer story that The Caves of Androzani. Robert Holmes script is terrific, and its a great story with some well written characters and an interesting and a gripping plot. It also sees Peter Davison's doctor in a really witty humorous light, which in a way it was a great shame that they hadn't written his character like this before. I do remember Peter Davison as the Doctor fondly of course though as he was the one I grew up watching on TV, and he has always been a good doctor in my view, but prior to Androzani his doctor was always a bit haughty toighty and lacking the humour that is on display here in Androzani and its interesting to think just how good it could have been if Holmes had been let into the series before this. Regardless of all that this really is a great story and one of the best of the 1980s era of the show. Holmes was brought back at the insistance of John Nathan Turner's unpaid assistant on the show at the time, Ian Levine, which was a great choice, and it was a pity that Holmes died only a couple of years after this story was made.
Performance wise things are mostly very good here, especially from Christiopher Gable, who delivers an excellent performance as the twisted Sharez Jek, a brilliant scientist, who is both villainous and pitiful, as he lives alone in the caves, and was betrayed by Morgus over a deal they made years previously, which left him physically scarred and deformed. Maurice Roeves is also really good as the gunrunner Stotz, and he get's some of the best moments in the story, especially in the scene where one of his men threatens to become insubordinate and he pushes a cyanide capsule in his mouth and nearly makes him bite down on it, and he finally relents and let him go, and says "next time, it will be for real!". Martin Cochrane also does a fine job as General Chellak, the honorable soldier who looks to hunt out Jek and his androids, who is unaware that his 2nd in command is in fact one of Jek's androids. Robert Glenister also is quite good as Salatine, although he does overdo his wide eyed expression at times, especially when he is being the android version of himself, and apparently he and Peter Davison had to avoid looking at each other in case they laughed (as they previously worked together). The weak link in the chain however is John Normington who is so ridiculously naff and wooden in his performance, that he is at times almost laughable, especially in the moments where he talks to Stotz over a video screen and turns away and talks to himself, as he decides what he has to do next. Normington however does provide one of the funniest lines in the story when he finishes talking to Chellak on the video screen and turns away and says "the spineless cretins!".
As for the regular cast, Peter Davison gives easily his best performance as the Doctor in this story, as I already mentioned, this is how he should have played the Doctor throughout his tenure in the part. In Androzani, here we have Davison's Doctor as a witty, amusing, yet alert and determined Time Lord, who does all he can to try and save himself and Peri from their own fate. Davison also get's some of the best lines in the story, one of them where he explains to Peri at the start of the story why he wears a stick of celery on his lapel, and he says he is allergic to certains gases in the "Praxis" system and the celery turns purple, and that he then eats the celery, "if nothing else its good for my teeth!". Nicola Bryant is not too bad as Peri, and its has to be said she does have a rather fine chest, especially as we see in the scene near the end of the story when she props up the Doctor in the TARDIS just prior to his regeneration, and we get a nice view of her cleavage! However Nicola's American accent for Peri has always been a bit on the shaky side, with traces of her English accent breaking through here and there. One of her other scenes in the story that's good is where Peri is stranded in Jek's base, and he rants and raves about how Morgus has destroyed his life, and he yells at her "do you think I'm mad???!", and she trembles and weakly says "no", he asks her "Do I frighten you????", and she replies, terrified "No".
The story has one or two detractors of course, one of them I've already mentioned, which was John Normington's cheesy performance as Morgus, with the scenes where he turns away and talks to himself, effectively breaking the fourth wall. Especially in the moment where he tells General Chellak to get rid of the Doctor and Peri, believing them to be gunrunners, and he turns away from the screen and saying "and we will all feel alot better!". Another one is of course the magma beast, which is in the caves on Androzani minor, and it turns out to be just another rubber monster, of which we have already seen too many in the show, and this one is just as unconvincing as the last one (whatever that might have been!).
Director wise, Graeme Harper does an excellent job here with Androzani as he previously worked as one of the production staff on several Doctor Who stories before this, and he provides plenty of good pace, action and some suspense as well. And there's no doubt, that Peter Davison's regeneration scene is one of the best in series, where the Doctor's face is shrouded by images of his former companions, Tegan, Nyssa, Adric and Kamelion who all tell him he must live, which is followed by the Master shouting "no Doctor, you must die. DIE DOCTOR, DIE! HA HA HA!", and finally a burst of bright light, after which he regenerates into Colin Baker, and things went downhill right from there. Actually that's an unfair comment as I personally think Colin Baker was not bad as the Doctor, he was just handed some really crap stories, and its a pity he wasn't given a better shot at the series than he had, but that's another story. And finally another noteworthy aspect of the show is also Roger Limb's excellent electronic music score, which is really atmospheric, eerie and effective and is very well suited to the tone of the story, and its a great one to finish off an era with.
Sooooo that's it for my critique on The Caves of Androzani, which is easily one of the best Doctor Who stories of all time, and it was a great end to an era.
And with that I shall say adieu.
But anyway I'm digressing, so back to the reviews, and this time I have chosen another Doctor Who story, Peter Davison's classic swansong, The Caves of Androzani. This story saw the welcome return of the great Robert Holmes to the show, as he wrote one of his last true great stories for the show, so let's have a look at it! (Acutally I think I've already written a post on this story on my other blog, oh well sod it, done it now, so enjoy!).
Right well starting with my usual structure, its time fer a look at the plot, and the story starts on the planet Androzani Minor, where the Doctor and his new young companion, Peri (Nicola Bryant, very nice!) arrive and look around the barren desert they find themselves. The Doctor and Peri follow a series of tracks into a cave, where Peri falls into a sticky ball, resembling a nest, and they soon find themselves surrounded by soldiers when they stumble upon a weapons hold. The Doctor and Peri are then taken to General Chellak (Martin Cochrane) who believes them to be gunrunners. Chellak consults with Morgus (John Normington) who is the leader of a business conglomerate on the planet Androzani Major, who orders him to have the Doctor and Peri executed. However at the time of the execution, the soldiers open fire and the Doctor and Peri, and they are revealed instead to be androids, and the real Doc and Peri have been swapped and taken to Sharez Jek (Christopher Gable) a brilliant but twisted scientist, who wears a mask to conceal his features. Jek controls a souce of a substance called Spectrox, which is of great value to humans, as it has the ability to extend human life. At this point we also discover that Morgus is actually funding both the military expedition to eliminate the androids in the caves, but is also funding the gunrunners to sell guns to Jek to profit from the war. Morgus however is also after the spectrox that Jek as well, but due to Jek's androids, his men are unable to get near it.
Meanwhile the Doctor and Peri who are in Jek's custody, start to show signs of infection from the sticky nest they fell into earlier, and a young soldier, being held captive, Salateen (Robert Glenister) tells them that it was a spectrox nest, and that they don't have long to live, as they will soon die from spectrox toxaemia. Salateen tells them there is a cure as they can acquire bats milk, however the bats have retrieved deep into the caves due to the mining that has been done, so it would next to impossible to get to. It is also soon revealed that Jek has created a perfect replica android of Salateen and has used him to replace the real man, and is acting as Chellak's second in command, and in doing so Jek is able to anticipate Chellak's every move. To complicate matters further, Jek becomes infatuated with Peri and he wants her to stay with him indefinitely at his base. The doctor manages to escape Jek's base however but is soon recaptured by Morgus's gunrunners, lead by Stotz (Maurice Roeves) who take him onboard their ship. Stotz consults with Morgus oevr what to do with the Doctor, but Morgus recognising the Doctor from earlier on, advises him to stay put on the ship in geostationary orbit, while he tries to work out what to do. Morgus himself grows suspicious of the president of Androzani major, fearing that he might be planning to assassinate him, he kills the president and makes his way to Androzani minor to put things right himself. The Doctor however in the meantime manages to free himself onboard the ship and pilots it back to Androzani minor (or rather crashes it!) where he flees, and races back to try and save Peri and himself from Jek, the androids, and from their fate at the hands of spectrox toxiemia.
As a finale for Peter Davison's era in Doctor Who, you could not have hoped for a finer story that The Caves of Androzani. Robert Holmes script is terrific, and its a great story with some well written characters and an interesting and a gripping plot. It also sees Peter Davison's doctor in a really witty humorous light, which in a way it was a great shame that they hadn't written his character like this before. I do remember Peter Davison as the Doctor fondly of course though as he was the one I grew up watching on TV, and he has always been a good doctor in my view, but prior to Androzani his doctor was always a bit haughty toighty and lacking the humour that is on display here in Androzani and its interesting to think just how good it could have been if Holmes had been let into the series before this. Regardless of all that this really is a great story and one of the best of the 1980s era of the show. Holmes was brought back at the insistance of John Nathan Turner's unpaid assistant on the show at the time, Ian Levine, which was a great choice, and it was a pity that Holmes died only a couple of years after this story was made.
Performance wise things are mostly very good here, especially from Christiopher Gable, who delivers an excellent performance as the twisted Sharez Jek, a brilliant scientist, who is both villainous and pitiful, as he lives alone in the caves, and was betrayed by Morgus over a deal they made years previously, which left him physically scarred and deformed. Maurice Roeves is also really good as the gunrunner Stotz, and he get's some of the best moments in the story, especially in the scene where one of his men threatens to become insubordinate and he pushes a cyanide capsule in his mouth and nearly makes him bite down on it, and he finally relents and let him go, and says "next time, it will be for real!". Martin Cochrane also does a fine job as General Chellak, the honorable soldier who looks to hunt out Jek and his androids, who is unaware that his 2nd in command is in fact one of Jek's androids. Robert Glenister also is quite good as Salatine, although he does overdo his wide eyed expression at times, especially when he is being the android version of himself, and apparently he and Peter Davison had to avoid looking at each other in case they laughed (as they previously worked together). The weak link in the chain however is John Normington who is so ridiculously naff and wooden in his performance, that he is at times almost laughable, especially in the moments where he talks to Stotz over a video screen and turns away and talks to himself, as he decides what he has to do next. Normington however does provide one of the funniest lines in the story when he finishes talking to Chellak on the video screen and turns away and says "the spineless cretins!".
As for the regular cast, Peter Davison gives easily his best performance as the Doctor in this story, as I already mentioned, this is how he should have played the Doctor throughout his tenure in the part. In Androzani, here we have Davison's Doctor as a witty, amusing, yet alert and determined Time Lord, who does all he can to try and save himself and Peri from their own fate. Davison also get's some of the best lines in the story, one of them where he explains to Peri at the start of the story why he wears a stick of celery on his lapel, and he says he is allergic to certains gases in the "Praxis" system and the celery turns purple, and that he then eats the celery, "if nothing else its good for my teeth!". Nicola Bryant is not too bad as Peri, and its has to be said she does have a rather fine chest, especially as we see in the scene near the end of the story when she props up the Doctor in the TARDIS just prior to his regeneration, and we get a nice view of her cleavage! However Nicola's American accent for Peri has always been a bit on the shaky side, with traces of her English accent breaking through here and there. One of her other scenes in the story that's good is where Peri is stranded in Jek's base, and he rants and raves about how Morgus has destroyed his life, and he yells at her "do you think I'm mad???!", and she trembles and weakly says "no", he asks her "Do I frighten you????", and she replies, terrified "No".
The story has one or two detractors of course, one of them I've already mentioned, which was John Normington's cheesy performance as Morgus, with the scenes where he turns away and talks to himself, effectively breaking the fourth wall. Especially in the moment where he tells General Chellak to get rid of the Doctor and Peri, believing them to be gunrunners, and he turns away from the screen and saying "and we will all feel alot better!". Another one is of course the magma beast, which is in the caves on Androzani minor, and it turns out to be just another rubber monster, of which we have already seen too many in the show, and this one is just as unconvincing as the last one (whatever that might have been!).
Director wise, Graeme Harper does an excellent job here with Androzani as he previously worked as one of the production staff on several Doctor Who stories before this, and he provides plenty of good pace, action and some suspense as well. And there's no doubt, that Peter Davison's regeneration scene is one of the best in series, where the Doctor's face is shrouded by images of his former companions, Tegan, Nyssa, Adric and Kamelion who all tell him he must live, which is followed by the Master shouting "no Doctor, you must die. DIE DOCTOR, DIE! HA HA HA!", and finally a burst of bright light, after which he regenerates into Colin Baker, and things went downhill right from there. Actually that's an unfair comment as I personally think Colin Baker was not bad as the Doctor, he was just handed some really crap stories, and its a pity he wasn't given a better shot at the series than he had, but that's another story. And finally another noteworthy aspect of the show is also Roger Limb's excellent electronic music score, which is really atmospheric, eerie and effective and is very well suited to the tone of the story, and its a great one to finish off an era with.
Sooooo that's it for my critique on The Caves of Androzani, which is easily one of the best Doctor Who stories of all time, and it was a great end to an era.
And with that I shall say adieu.
Friday 30 November 2012
James Bond: Welcome to Scotland!
OK well its taken me quite a while but I finally managed to get around to seeing Skyfall at the pics, the latest James Bond film, which has garnered alot of critical acclaim from critics and audiences all round the world. So is it actually that good????? Well that's what this post is all about, but anyway on the with cursory stuff first, a bit of plot (don't worry I won't give it all away! Well ok quite a bit maybe! BASICALLY DON'T READ THE NEXT NEW FEW PARAGRAPHS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW!).
The film begins in Istanbul, with James Bond (Daniel Craig) chasing a mercanary named Patrice (Ola Rapace, former husband of Noomi Rapace) who has a hard drive of files containing a list undercover agents placed in terrorist organisations by NATO states. In an ensuing fight, Patrice shoots Bond in the shoulder, and they fight on top of a train, with Bond's counterpart, Eve (Naomie Harris) backing him up from afar, using a rifle, she is ordered by Q (Judi Dench) to take the shot and eliminate Patrice, however she misses and shoots Bond instead, who falls into the water below. Months later and with Bond presumed dead, the ISC chariman Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) puts pressure on M to resign from her post, after the debacale of Bond's alleged death. As M makes her way back to the the MI6 offices, there is a large explosion that takes out the offices, as a result of which alot of employees are killed. M learns that the MI6 servers were hacked and she receievd a taunting message on her computer just seconds before the explosion occurred. Meanwhile, Bond is still alive and living abroad, using his presumed death as good reason to retire, he lives his life sleeping with women and drinking, when all of a sudden at a local bar he sees the headlines of the terrorist attack in London on TV. Bond returns to London and meets with M, who says if he is to be re-instated he must undergo a series of tests to be fit to return to the field. Bond takes the tests and does well in none of them, but regardless M informs him that he has passed.
Bond with the help of using shrapnel from his bullet wound, manages to track Patrice, and follows him to Shanghai, where he plans to assassinate someone. Bond arrives a little too late to prevent the assassination, but then engages Patrice in a fistfight, with Patrice falling over the edge of a high rise building, he falls to his death. Bond then finds a gambling chip from Patrice's equipment, which he uses to trace to a casino in Macau. There Bond meets with a woman, Severine (Bereince Lim Marohle) who was an accomplice in the assassination, and he asks to meet with her employer, however she warns him that he will be killed by men at the casino, but she will help him if he kills her employer. Bond survives the attack at the casino and then later meets Severine on a boat where they soon get down to it (well it is a Bond film!). Bond and Severine arrive on abandoned island off the coast of Macau, where they are captured and Bond soon meets Severine's employer, Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Silva is soon revealed to be a former MI6 agent, who worked under M, but has now turned to cyberterrorism, he taunts Bond into playing a shooting game where Severine is tied up and Silva places a drink on the top of her head, which Bond must shoot off. Bond (being a shaky shot due to his time away from the field) misses and shoots above her, but Silva shoots her dead instead. Bond then quickly fights off Silva's men and before we know MI6 agents arrive to capture Silva (as Bond was given a secret radio chip by Q, which broadcasted his whereabouts to MI6).
Bond returns to London with Silva captured, he is placed in a glass enclosure at the new underground headquarters of MI6. Silva reveals that he once worked for M and she handed him over to the Chinese intelligence, after he hacked his way into their networks. M meanwhile is being called to an inquiry over the mishandling of the events with the stolen hard drive at the start of the film. Silva however soon manages to escape custody at MI6, as he has hacked their systems, allowing his men to get him, he escapes into the subway system, with Bond in pursuit. Silva then proceeds to make his way to the inquiry so he can confront and kill M, in revenge for her actions, but Bond manages to save her just in time. Bond and M then flee from London and travel to Scotland where he goes to his childhood family home, Skyfall, in order to prepare for Silva coming, where they will face him for the last time.
(PLOT STUFF OVER!)
Skyfall is a highly entertaining addition to the Bond series, and with it we can see Daniel Craig's Bond develop even further towards become the suave Bond that we will eventually all recognise. But at this stage, he is still in transition, after his presumed death, Bond does appear to go back to being a drunken self loathing dropout. But its only when he learns of the attacks in London that it forces him to come out of hiding and back into the scene, out of concern for M. And its clear that M is a maternal figure for Bond in the film, as he was an orphan he had no parents to look up to when he grew up. She also protects him from the truth when it came to the tests he underwent in order to get him back into the field, as he failed, but she said he passed by the skin of his teeth. But in the end we all know when it comes to taking down the bad guys, Bond is the right man for the job. However thankfully Bond is no longer quite the cold blooded ruthless killer from the last two films, here we are starting to see him transition slowly into a slightly more humane figure than in Royale and Solace. And its partly that change that helps Skyfall work very well, as Bond needs to eventually evolve and adapt into the character we all know, rather than stay a gritty killing machine like he did previously.
Performance wise its all pretty good here, with Daniel Craig now having easily grown into the role of Bond, he provides a bit more warmth to Bond than before, as we get a bit more of his dry wit and humour. I especially like the scene where he undergoes one of the tests, which is free association with a pscyhologist, who asks him to say the first word that comes into his head when he says a word to him, such as "day..... wasted", and "M..... bitch". Also the scene where he quietly talks with M at the gallery who gives him a new signature enabled Walther PPK, and a small radio chip, he puts them away and says "a gun and a radio, its not exactly Christmas is it?". And by the end of the film we can see he has made the final transition into become the suave, well groomed, and (sort of) sophisticated fella that Bond is. Javier Bardem, who is no stranger to playing villains, plays a chilling one in Raoul Silva, as he comes across as being camp as a row of pink tents at first (practically coming onto Bond in their first scene, where he opens Bond's shirt looks at his wounds) but behind that is a chiling sociopath, with an appetite for mass destruction (and he probably owns a few weapons of them too!) and scary line in cyberterrorism.
Judi Dench makes her final appearance as M in the film and she is as fine as ever in the role, but I think at some point they were right to make the transition to a new M, and she makes a good exit in the part, which ends on a tragic note. Ralph Fiennes is also good as Mallory (who later turns out to be the new M!) playing the part of the pompous beaurocrat to perfection, although it does appear to be something of a cliche in these films, that they are all so posh and toffy nosed. And Naomie Harris is also very good as the famous Eva Moneypenny, and her flirting with Bond provides some of the film's fun moments, and they keep it in tradition as she just about the only girl that Bond never did! ;-) And finally Albert Finney makes an entertaining turn as Kincaid, the gamekeeper of the Skyfall estate, where Bond and M make their last stand against Silva. Finney get's one of the film's best lines, when shoots at some of Silva's men when they attack the house, and he shouts "welcome to Scotland!".
Directionally Sam Mendes does a great job here, as he was easily the best choice of Bond director in quite a while, and he keeps the action zipping along nicely, although perhaps the film could have done with a slight trim, time wise but overall it works well at just under 2 hours and 25 minutes. And its refreshing to see that they have recruited Thomas Newman to do the music score for Skyfall, as after so many years of Dave Arnold at the helm, its about time they changed him, and Newman's score is excellent and well suited to the film.
Flaw wise the film doesn't have too many, although it has to be said while its a very enjoyable film, its not what I'd call a masterpiece, as every Bond film that comes out always gets branded as the best one ever, and this is a pretty good film, but its not what I'd call a classic. And one thing that did bug me a little was clearly the plot line for when they captured Silva, was pinched from the Dark Knight, when the Joker allows himself to be captured and taken to prison. At that point its quite predictable that we know he wants to be captured, so he can be taken to M and he can confront her, but the style in which it was done was fairly similar to the Dark Knight, and you can see it coming when it happens.
So that's it for my Skyfall review, its a very enjoyable Bond film, probably not the greatest of all time, but it sees the series continue on the right track, and we are starting to move towards the James Bond we all recognise.
And that's it for now.
The film begins in Istanbul, with James Bond (Daniel Craig) chasing a mercanary named Patrice (Ola Rapace, former husband of Noomi Rapace) who has a hard drive of files containing a list undercover agents placed in terrorist organisations by NATO states. In an ensuing fight, Patrice shoots Bond in the shoulder, and they fight on top of a train, with Bond's counterpart, Eve (Naomie Harris) backing him up from afar, using a rifle, she is ordered by Q (Judi Dench) to take the shot and eliminate Patrice, however she misses and shoots Bond instead, who falls into the water below. Months later and with Bond presumed dead, the ISC chariman Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) puts pressure on M to resign from her post, after the debacale of Bond's alleged death. As M makes her way back to the the MI6 offices, there is a large explosion that takes out the offices, as a result of which alot of employees are killed. M learns that the MI6 servers were hacked and she receievd a taunting message on her computer just seconds before the explosion occurred. Meanwhile, Bond is still alive and living abroad, using his presumed death as good reason to retire, he lives his life sleeping with women and drinking, when all of a sudden at a local bar he sees the headlines of the terrorist attack in London on TV. Bond returns to London and meets with M, who says if he is to be re-instated he must undergo a series of tests to be fit to return to the field. Bond takes the tests and does well in none of them, but regardless M informs him that he has passed.
Bond with the help of using shrapnel from his bullet wound, manages to track Patrice, and follows him to Shanghai, where he plans to assassinate someone. Bond arrives a little too late to prevent the assassination, but then engages Patrice in a fistfight, with Patrice falling over the edge of a high rise building, he falls to his death. Bond then finds a gambling chip from Patrice's equipment, which he uses to trace to a casino in Macau. There Bond meets with a woman, Severine (Bereince Lim Marohle) who was an accomplice in the assassination, and he asks to meet with her employer, however she warns him that he will be killed by men at the casino, but she will help him if he kills her employer. Bond survives the attack at the casino and then later meets Severine on a boat where they soon get down to it (well it is a Bond film!). Bond and Severine arrive on abandoned island off the coast of Macau, where they are captured and Bond soon meets Severine's employer, Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Silva is soon revealed to be a former MI6 agent, who worked under M, but has now turned to cyberterrorism, he taunts Bond into playing a shooting game where Severine is tied up and Silva places a drink on the top of her head, which Bond must shoot off. Bond (being a shaky shot due to his time away from the field) misses and shoots above her, but Silva shoots her dead instead. Bond then quickly fights off Silva's men and before we know MI6 agents arrive to capture Silva (as Bond was given a secret radio chip by Q, which broadcasted his whereabouts to MI6).
Bond returns to London with Silva captured, he is placed in a glass enclosure at the new underground headquarters of MI6. Silva reveals that he once worked for M and she handed him over to the Chinese intelligence, after he hacked his way into their networks. M meanwhile is being called to an inquiry over the mishandling of the events with the stolen hard drive at the start of the film. Silva however soon manages to escape custody at MI6, as he has hacked their systems, allowing his men to get him, he escapes into the subway system, with Bond in pursuit. Silva then proceeds to make his way to the inquiry so he can confront and kill M, in revenge for her actions, but Bond manages to save her just in time. Bond and M then flee from London and travel to Scotland where he goes to his childhood family home, Skyfall, in order to prepare for Silva coming, where they will face him for the last time.
(PLOT STUFF OVER!)
Skyfall is a highly entertaining addition to the Bond series, and with it we can see Daniel Craig's Bond develop even further towards become the suave Bond that we will eventually all recognise. But at this stage, he is still in transition, after his presumed death, Bond does appear to go back to being a drunken self loathing dropout. But its only when he learns of the attacks in London that it forces him to come out of hiding and back into the scene, out of concern for M. And its clear that M is a maternal figure for Bond in the film, as he was an orphan he had no parents to look up to when he grew up. She also protects him from the truth when it came to the tests he underwent in order to get him back into the field, as he failed, but she said he passed by the skin of his teeth. But in the end we all know when it comes to taking down the bad guys, Bond is the right man for the job. However thankfully Bond is no longer quite the cold blooded ruthless killer from the last two films, here we are starting to see him transition slowly into a slightly more humane figure than in Royale and Solace. And its partly that change that helps Skyfall work very well, as Bond needs to eventually evolve and adapt into the character we all know, rather than stay a gritty killing machine like he did previously.
Performance wise its all pretty good here, with Daniel Craig now having easily grown into the role of Bond, he provides a bit more warmth to Bond than before, as we get a bit more of his dry wit and humour. I especially like the scene where he undergoes one of the tests, which is free association with a pscyhologist, who asks him to say the first word that comes into his head when he says a word to him, such as "day..... wasted", and "M..... bitch". Also the scene where he quietly talks with M at the gallery who gives him a new signature enabled Walther PPK, and a small radio chip, he puts them away and says "a gun and a radio, its not exactly Christmas is it?". And by the end of the film we can see he has made the final transition into become the suave, well groomed, and (sort of) sophisticated fella that Bond is. Javier Bardem, who is no stranger to playing villains, plays a chilling one in Raoul Silva, as he comes across as being camp as a row of pink tents at first (practically coming onto Bond in their first scene, where he opens Bond's shirt looks at his wounds) but behind that is a chiling sociopath, with an appetite for mass destruction (and he probably owns a few weapons of them too!) and scary line in cyberterrorism.
Judi Dench makes her final appearance as M in the film and she is as fine as ever in the role, but I think at some point they were right to make the transition to a new M, and she makes a good exit in the part, which ends on a tragic note. Ralph Fiennes is also good as Mallory (who later turns out to be the new M!) playing the part of the pompous beaurocrat to perfection, although it does appear to be something of a cliche in these films, that they are all so posh and toffy nosed. And Naomie Harris is also very good as the famous Eva Moneypenny, and her flirting with Bond provides some of the film's fun moments, and they keep it in tradition as she just about the only girl that Bond never did! ;-) And finally Albert Finney makes an entertaining turn as Kincaid, the gamekeeper of the Skyfall estate, where Bond and M make their last stand against Silva. Finney get's one of the film's best lines, when shoots at some of Silva's men when they attack the house, and he shouts "welcome to Scotland!".
Directionally Sam Mendes does a great job here, as he was easily the best choice of Bond director in quite a while, and he keeps the action zipping along nicely, although perhaps the film could have done with a slight trim, time wise but overall it works well at just under 2 hours and 25 minutes. And its refreshing to see that they have recruited Thomas Newman to do the music score for Skyfall, as after so many years of Dave Arnold at the helm, its about time they changed him, and Newman's score is excellent and well suited to the film.
Flaw wise the film doesn't have too many, although it has to be said while its a very enjoyable film, its not what I'd call a masterpiece, as every Bond film that comes out always gets branded as the best one ever, and this is a pretty good film, but its not what I'd call a classic. And one thing that did bug me a little was clearly the plot line for when they captured Silva, was pinched from the Dark Knight, when the Joker allows himself to be captured and taken to prison. At that point its quite predictable that we know he wants to be captured, so he can be taken to M and he can confront her, but the style in which it was done was fairly similar to the Dark Knight, and you can see it coming when it happens.
So that's it for my Skyfall review, its a very enjoyable Bond film, probably not the greatest of all time, but it sees the series continue on the right track, and we are starting to move towards the James Bond we all recognise.
And that's it for now.
Wednesday 28 November 2012
Back and to the left
Right its blag time from the other blog, so its yet another movie, and this time its Oliver Stone's acclaimed epic drama JFK.
JFK is a dramatisation of the events that surrounded John F. Kennedy's
assassination that took place on 22 November 1963 in Dallas, Texas and
the aftermath of its investigation. So as usual here is the plot summary:
On the day of the assassination, in New Orleans, District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) is informed by one of his staff Lou Barnes (Jay Sanders). After Kennedy's death is announced officially on television, the suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) is arrested and taken to the station for questioning. Garrison then plans to investigate any suspects and associates of Lee Harvey Oswald's that might be under his jurisdiction in New Orleans, however before he can do that, Oswald is assassinated live on TV by Dallas mob man Jack Ruby (Brian Doyle Murray). Regardless of Oswald's shock assassination, Garrison brings in one of Oswald's alleged known associates, David Ferrie (Joe Pesci) who naturally denies he ever knew Oswald. However Ferrie gives a very shaky account of his activities on the day of the assassination which Garrison quickly disbelieves and has Ferrie detained for more questioning by the FBI, regardless of this though Ferrie is let go, after which Garrison decides not to continue investigating any further.
Three years later in 1966, after sharing a conversation with a senator (played by the late great Walter Matthau) on an airplane, Garrison starts to have serious doubts and suspicions about the events of the assassination and that Oswald was the lone gunman. After more digging around, and reading over the 26 volumes of the official assassination investigation, published by Warren Commission and conducted by chief judge Earl Warren, Garrison decides to re-open the investigation of the crime. With his small team of staff, Garrison questions many different witnesses to the shooting, and potential suspects that may have been connected to the assassination. As Garrison and his team investigate further, a name that keeps popping up is Clay Bertrand, who is later revealed to be Clay Shaw (played by Tommy Lee Jones) a well respected businessman and entrepeneur. However on bringing Shaw in for questioning, Shaw categorically denies any knowledge of Oswald, Ferrie or any one else potentially involved in the conspiracy, as well as denying his Clay Bertrand alias. But soon after their meeting, Garrison's investigation is made public and soon the press and media come down hard on him. Now forced to operate out in the open, Garrison faces tough choices ahead of him in carrying out his investigation, after receiving various death threats, crank calls, and narrowly escaping frame ups to discredit him. Eventually after rigorous investigations, including a discussion with an ex-military figure who simply calls himself "X" (Donald Sutherland) who provides him with important background knowledge to the events surrounding the assassination, Garrison decides to arrest Shaw and prosecute him for his possible involvement in the alleged conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. What follows after this is a lenghty trial sequence where Garrison presents his case for the prosecution of Clay Shaw as well as his speculation on the events on the day of the assassination in Dallas.
JFK is without a doubt a great achievement in its own, as Oliver Stone took a controversial subject and turned into a film that is fascinating, intelligent and gripping. If you look at the events and evidence that are presented in the film, it certainly does a great job at convincing you that there was a possible conspiracy involved. Jim Garrison himself showed tremendous moral courage and character in bringing such a trial to the public eye, as he himself faced great danger in pissing off the government and endangering his own life in the process. But Garrison is never potrayed as anything else other than a very decent man who in reality at first was never really keen on Kennedy at the time, but during his investigation came to admire him for what he stood for and tried to do in the United States.
But whether or not a conspiracy took place in Dallas that day or not, no one really knows, but I do think there was more than enough evidence to point towards one. One of key aspects of the assassination as highlighted in the film was that it seemed highly unlikely that Oswald could have fired 3 shots that from the book depository window, in such a short space of time (5 seconds), and do it with such precision from the distance he was at from the motorcade. And that is where the other riflemen come into the equation and overall it sounds like a far more likely scenario than a lone guman, as the team would be able to place themselves in fixed positions to ensure the assassination would be carried out precisely. Another crucial crux of the film and the case was, there had to be more than just 3 shots, as if for no better reason, there were four known wounds, three to Kennedy (in the throat, back and head) and one to Governor Conally (one in the back). This is where the Warren Commission presented the ridiculous "magic bullet" theory that one bullet accounted for the wounds between Connally and Kennedy. Also based from the facts given from the film, it seems unlikely that if after Oswald committed the crime, that he would be able race down the stairs in about 90 seconds, only to face a police officer who was checking out the building, to ask whom he was, and appear not to be out of breath, which the policeman testified later that Oswald was absolutely not out of breath.
And overall too much evidence points toward the possibility of a conspiracy, with so many witnesses later on dying in mysterious circumstances, or being bribed in order to be kept quiet, the events after the assassination regarding the car also appear strange, as the car is washed and rebuilt before any forensics can be taken. There were also many different documents, interview notes from suspects that were also either torn up or burnt. But the one piece of evidence that does remain however is the film footage, taken by an onlooker Abraham Zapruder, which shows the assassination itself, and gives possible clues of the direction of where the bullets came from. The footage itself is terrible to watch, as it signified the start of several public assassinations (Oswald himself, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy followed), and Garrison himself later subpoenaed the Zapruder film for his trial (the footage itself was later televised for the first time in 1975 on American television). Another key point was surely, if Oswald was even the lone gunman, he would not have acted alone, as he must been acting on behalf of powerful people behind the scenes, in this regard Oswald himself could well have been a sleeper cell, who was set in motion at the key moment, but again this is just a bit of speculation.
But back to the actual film, JFK is without a doubt fascinating to watch, and features so many great performances and cameos from its a big cast. Kevin Costner, while not the best actor in the world, does give a fine performance as the DA Jim Garrison, who takes on the massive task of bringing the JFK assassination to trial, he also shows Garrison as being a man of moral decency, as well as being very strong and stubborn in the face of adversity. Joe Pesci also probably gives the film's best performance as Dave Ferrie, the crazed suspect (replete with a ridiculous wig and eyebrows!) who later admits to his involvement with Oswald, as he shows a mixture of malice and remorse. Tommy Lee Jones gives an excellent performance also as Clay Shaw, and he depicts as a very sly businessman, who is clearly also very manipulative. The other smaller character roles are equally impressive, with fine stuff from Michael Rooker as Bill (one of Garrison's staff), Laurie Metcalf as Susie, another staff member, and of course Jay Sanders as Lou Barnes, who was in reality one of Garrison's key members of staff (although the film depicts Barnes as quitting the investigation, in reality he didn't). Also Kevin Bacon, is excellent as Willie O'Keefe (who in reality was based on one of Garrison's key witnesses, Perry Russo) the gay prostitute who claimed to have known and had sexual relations with Shaw. Donald Sutherland is similarly great as the mysterious "X" who delivers a very lengthy 17 minute dialogue giving Garrison the background info surrounding the events leading up to the assassination. Also there is the superb Jack Lemmon as Jack Martin, who worked for another one of the possible key people behind the assassination, Guy Banister (played by Ed Asner) who died shortly after in 1964. And last but by no means least, there is Gary Oldman as Lee Harvey Oswald. Oldman is great as Oswald, and potrays him as a complex and private man, who remained a mystery even after his death. Gary Oldman also facially resembles Oswald a fair bit, and does an excellent job at reproducing his unusual American accent, which had a tinge of Russian to it.
Overall the film moves at a great pace, but also is on the verge of bombarding you with too much information at times, so it definitely takes a few viewings to get the gist of all the details. The only other thing I would say about the film that probably lets it down slightly is the melodrama of Garrison's home life, as he argues with his wife Elizabeth (Sissy Spacek) who is frustrated by the amount of time he devotes to the case. It is however key to the film as well I guess, as it is important to show how the events of the investigation impacted on Garrison's personal life, and later in reality, his first wife Elizabeth did divorce him. But not to take away from Sissy's performance, as she herself does very well with her role in the film, for her all she wants to do is get her normal life back. Another slight problem with the film, and probably the case in general is there is not much evidence that cold links Shaw to knowing Oswald, as it ultimately is just the word of people who have witnessed seeing Shaw and Oswald together in the past. But it was later revealed in 1978, four years after Shaw's death, by the at the time CIA director, Richard Helms, that Shaw did actually work for the CIA as a contractor (this is added in as insert at the end of the film). And based on the Richard Helms testimony, it proved that Shaw was guilty of perjury. But people of power and persuasion like Shaw, can as it seems get away with murder (or assassination in this case).
However Garrison's trial definitely did raise enough questions about the dubiety of the Warren Commission's conclusions and of the many loose ends that peppered the investigation. And as portrayed in the film, a key moment where Clay Shaw gives away his alias as Bertrand to a police officer after his arrest, the officer in question Aloysius Habighorst's testimony wasn't allowed and was ruled inadmissible by the judge. This in itself seems very peculiar that the testimony wasn't allowed, and as the film almost shows that even the judge and court system was corrupt enough to cover things up. In the end of course, Clay Shaw is acquitted of the charges and found not guilty and allowed to go free, once again to "walk between the rain drops". It also does raise that Clay Shaw could also been as Ferrie in the film states as being "untouchable, with the highest clearance". Whatever way it was, Shaw was also an enigma and in the end he got away, guilty or not.
Soooooooo after that rather exhaustive entry, JFK is definitely one of my favourite films and its great to revisit it once in a while, kind of like a fine wine (don't buy (or watch) it too much in other words). And if you haven't seen it, then it certainly will be an eye opener behind the events one of America's most disgraceful crimes.
So that is that.
On the day of the assassination, in New Orleans, District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) is informed by one of his staff Lou Barnes (Jay Sanders). After Kennedy's death is announced officially on television, the suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) is arrested and taken to the station for questioning. Garrison then plans to investigate any suspects and associates of Lee Harvey Oswald's that might be under his jurisdiction in New Orleans, however before he can do that, Oswald is assassinated live on TV by Dallas mob man Jack Ruby (Brian Doyle Murray). Regardless of Oswald's shock assassination, Garrison brings in one of Oswald's alleged known associates, David Ferrie (Joe Pesci) who naturally denies he ever knew Oswald. However Ferrie gives a very shaky account of his activities on the day of the assassination which Garrison quickly disbelieves and has Ferrie detained for more questioning by the FBI, regardless of this though Ferrie is let go, after which Garrison decides not to continue investigating any further.
Three years later in 1966, after sharing a conversation with a senator (played by the late great Walter Matthau) on an airplane, Garrison starts to have serious doubts and suspicions about the events of the assassination and that Oswald was the lone gunman. After more digging around, and reading over the 26 volumes of the official assassination investigation, published by Warren Commission and conducted by chief judge Earl Warren, Garrison decides to re-open the investigation of the crime. With his small team of staff, Garrison questions many different witnesses to the shooting, and potential suspects that may have been connected to the assassination. As Garrison and his team investigate further, a name that keeps popping up is Clay Bertrand, who is later revealed to be Clay Shaw (played by Tommy Lee Jones) a well respected businessman and entrepeneur. However on bringing Shaw in for questioning, Shaw categorically denies any knowledge of Oswald, Ferrie or any one else potentially involved in the conspiracy, as well as denying his Clay Bertrand alias. But soon after their meeting, Garrison's investigation is made public and soon the press and media come down hard on him. Now forced to operate out in the open, Garrison faces tough choices ahead of him in carrying out his investigation, after receiving various death threats, crank calls, and narrowly escaping frame ups to discredit him. Eventually after rigorous investigations, including a discussion with an ex-military figure who simply calls himself "X" (Donald Sutherland) who provides him with important background knowledge to the events surrounding the assassination, Garrison decides to arrest Shaw and prosecute him for his possible involvement in the alleged conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. What follows after this is a lenghty trial sequence where Garrison presents his case for the prosecution of Clay Shaw as well as his speculation on the events on the day of the assassination in Dallas.
JFK is without a doubt a great achievement in its own, as Oliver Stone took a controversial subject and turned into a film that is fascinating, intelligent and gripping. If you look at the events and evidence that are presented in the film, it certainly does a great job at convincing you that there was a possible conspiracy involved. Jim Garrison himself showed tremendous moral courage and character in bringing such a trial to the public eye, as he himself faced great danger in pissing off the government and endangering his own life in the process. But Garrison is never potrayed as anything else other than a very decent man who in reality at first was never really keen on Kennedy at the time, but during his investigation came to admire him for what he stood for and tried to do in the United States.
But whether or not a conspiracy took place in Dallas that day or not, no one really knows, but I do think there was more than enough evidence to point towards one. One of key aspects of the assassination as highlighted in the film was that it seemed highly unlikely that Oswald could have fired 3 shots that from the book depository window, in such a short space of time (5 seconds), and do it with such precision from the distance he was at from the motorcade. And that is where the other riflemen come into the equation and overall it sounds like a far more likely scenario than a lone guman, as the team would be able to place themselves in fixed positions to ensure the assassination would be carried out precisely. Another crucial crux of the film and the case was, there had to be more than just 3 shots, as if for no better reason, there were four known wounds, three to Kennedy (in the throat, back and head) and one to Governor Conally (one in the back). This is where the Warren Commission presented the ridiculous "magic bullet" theory that one bullet accounted for the wounds between Connally and Kennedy. Also based from the facts given from the film, it seems unlikely that if after Oswald committed the crime, that he would be able race down the stairs in about 90 seconds, only to face a police officer who was checking out the building, to ask whom he was, and appear not to be out of breath, which the policeman testified later that Oswald was absolutely not out of breath.
And overall too much evidence points toward the possibility of a conspiracy, with so many witnesses later on dying in mysterious circumstances, or being bribed in order to be kept quiet, the events after the assassination regarding the car also appear strange, as the car is washed and rebuilt before any forensics can be taken. There were also many different documents, interview notes from suspects that were also either torn up or burnt. But the one piece of evidence that does remain however is the film footage, taken by an onlooker Abraham Zapruder, which shows the assassination itself, and gives possible clues of the direction of where the bullets came from. The footage itself is terrible to watch, as it signified the start of several public assassinations (Oswald himself, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy followed), and Garrison himself later subpoenaed the Zapruder film for his trial (the footage itself was later televised for the first time in 1975 on American television). Another key point was surely, if Oswald was even the lone gunman, he would not have acted alone, as he must been acting on behalf of powerful people behind the scenes, in this regard Oswald himself could well have been a sleeper cell, who was set in motion at the key moment, but again this is just a bit of speculation.
But back to the actual film, JFK is without a doubt fascinating to watch, and features so many great performances and cameos from its a big cast. Kevin Costner, while not the best actor in the world, does give a fine performance as the DA Jim Garrison, who takes on the massive task of bringing the JFK assassination to trial, he also shows Garrison as being a man of moral decency, as well as being very strong and stubborn in the face of adversity. Joe Pesci also probably gives the film's best performance as Dave Ferrie, the crazed suspect (replete with a ridiculous wig and eyebrows!) who later admits to his involvement with Oswald, as he shows a mixture of malice and remorse. Tommy Lee Jones gives an excellent performance also as Clay Shaw, and he depicts as a very sly businessman, who is clearly also very manipulative. The other smaller character roles are equally impressive, with fine stuff from Michael Rooker as Bill (one of Garrison's staff), Laurie Metcalf as Susie, another staff member, and of course Jay Sanders as Lou Barnes, who was in reality one of Garrison's key members of staff (although the film depicts Barnes as quitting the investigation, in reality he didn't). Also Kevin Bacon, is excellent as Willie O'Keefe (who in reality was based on one of Garrison's key witnesses, Perry Russo) the gay prostitute who claimed to have known and had sexual relations with Shaw. Donald Sutherland is similarly great as the mysterious "X" who delivers a very lengthy 17 minute dialogue giving Garrison the background info surrounding the events leading up to the assassination. Also there is the superb Jack Lemmon as Jack Martin, who worked for another one of the possible key people behind the assassination, Guy Banister (played by Ed Asner) who died shortly after in 1964. And last but by no means least, there is Gary Oldman as Lee Harvey Oswald. Oldman is great as Oswald, and potrays him as a complex and private man, who remained a mystery even after his death. Gary Oldman also facially resembles Oswald a fair bit, and does an excellent job at reproducing his unusual American accent, which had a tinge of Russian to it.
Overall the film moves at a great pace, but also is on the verge of bombarding you with too much information at times, so it definitely takes a few viewings to get the gist of all the details. The only other thing I would say about the film that probably lets it down slightly is the melodrama of Garrison's home life, as he argues with his wife Elizabeth (Sissy Spacek) who is frustrated by the amount of time he devotes to the case. It is however key to the film as well I guess, as it is important to show how the events of the investigation impacted on Garrison's personal life, and later in reality, his first wife Elizabeth did divorce him. But not to take away from Sissy's performance, as she herself does very well with her role in the film, for her all she wants to do is get her normal life back. Another slight problem with the film, and probably the case in general is there is not much evidence that cold links Shaw to knowing Oswald, as it ultimately is just the word of people who have witnessed seeing Shaw and Oswald together in the past. But it was later revealed in 1978, four years after Shaw's death, by the at the time CIA director, Richard Helms, that Shaw did actually work for the CIA as a contractor (this is added in as insert at the end of the film). And based on the Richard Helms testimony, it proved that Shaw was guilty of perjury. But people of power and persuasion like Shaw, can as it seems get away with murder (or assassination in this case).
However Garrison's trial definitely did raise enough questions about the dubiety of the Warren Commission's conclusions and of the many loose ends that peppered the investigation. And as portrayed in the film, a key moment where Clay Shaw gives away his alias as Bertrand to a police officer after his arrest, the officer in question Aloysius Habighorst's testimony wasn't allowed and was ruled inadmissible by the judge. This in itself seems very peculiar that the testimony wasn't allowed, and as the film almost shows that even the judge and court system was corrupt enough to cover things up. In the end of course, Clay Shaw is acquitted of the charges and found not guilty and allowed to go free, once again to "walk between the rain drops". It also does raise that Clay Shaw could also been as Ferrie in the film states as being "untouchable, with the highest clearance". Whatever way it was, Shaw was also an enigma and in the end he got away, guilty or not.
Soooooooo after that rather exhaustive entry, JFK is definitely one of my favourite films and its great to revisit it once in a while, kind of like a fine wine (don't buy (or watch) it too much in other words). And if you haven't seen it, then it certainly will be an eye opener behind the events one of America's most disgraceful crimes.
So that is that.
Monday 26 November 2012
Hush hush!
OK blog blagging time again, as this is another post I have salvaged from my tennis blog, back when it was a mish mash of everything. So this my review of the critically acclaimed film, L.A. Confidential, directed by Curtis Hanson back in 1997, which is one of my favourite films. So without further ados here we go....
The film begins on Christmas Eve 1952, where the hot headed, thuggish police officer Wendell "Bud" White (Russell Crowe) stops a violent domestic dispute between a married couple, Bud himself has a thing for not tolerating women beaters. After that, Bud and his partner Dick Stensland (Graham Beckel) go back to the police station, where six Mexican suspects are brought into the station who apparently attacked two of the station's officers. In a vengeful mood, Stensland goes down to the cells and beats up on one of the Mexicans, and before you know the whole place erupts into a riot, with the press labelling the riot as "Bloody Christmas". In the aftermath of the event, Bud refuses to testify against his partner Stensland, and is suspended from duty, meanwhile one of the officers Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) who was witness to the attacks, is more than happy to testify against Stensland the other officers who attacked the Mexicans. At his insistance, in order to play ball, Exley requests that he be made detective lieutenant, something which his late father Preston Exley once held the mantel of. However in snitching against the other officers, Exley soon makes himself very unpopluar with the other officers. But the police captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) re-instates Bud, and uses him in his scheme as one of his muscle men to beat up and intimidate any criminals who try to make a name for themselves in LA.
But the crux of the film comes when Bud's ex-partner Stensland, is found murdered in a coffee shop, the Nite Owl, with some other people, among them was a female associate of the millionaire, Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn). The LA police dept then arranges a full man-hunt to try and catch the killers, and soon find three young black men as prime suspects for killings. On interrogating the men, Exley finds out they actually are holding a young Mexican woman hostage in a house, who has been raped and beaten. On the scene of the crime, Bud sneaks into the house and kills the black man in the house. Later on the young suspects escape the station, but Exley soon tracks them down and kills them, which finally garners him some respect from his fellow officers at the station. But something doesn't sit right with Exley about the negros being the killers, as he investigates further, he receives help from local cop celebrity Sergeant Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) who has a sideline in acting as a technical advisor on the show Badge of Honor, as well providing some hot press collars for local sleazy newspaper journalist Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito). Likewise Bud also thinks something is strange about the suspect negros, and also investigates, meanwhile he dates Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger) who is a movie star look-a-like of Veronica Lake.
Bud after enquiring about the Nite Owl case to one of the forensic staff, finds out one of the victims was a Susan Lefferts (the young girl from earlier in the film, with a bandage on her nose sitting in Patchett's car). Bud goes to Susan's mother's house and inquires about her, and she finds out that Stensland was her boyfriend, on looking around the house, Bud notices a foul smell, which he tracks to under the house, where he finds the remains of Buzz Meeks, Stensland's former partner. Exley soon follows Bud's tail and he too goes to Mrs Lefferts house where he finds the body, which he takes to the pathology lab to get ID'd. Exley working with Vincennes, tails Bud's movements, as they spy on him from Lynn's house, as we see them both together. Shortly after Exley goes to meet Lynn to confront her, believing that Patchett has her seeing Bud, but she denies this and instead seduces Exley, as the pair of them have sex, we see Sid Hudgens outside the window, taking pictures to frame him. Around this time, Vincennes goes to Dudley's house and tells him about an old case involving Dick Stensland and Buzz Meeks (by now his remains have been ID'd by the coroner), when without warning Dudley shoots Vincennes in the heart, he then leans in and asks him "do you have a valediction, boyo?" to which Vincennes quietly gasps "Rollo Tomasi" and then dies (a name that Exley told him earlier, which was a made-up name he gave to the man who killed his father, Preston Exley).
The next day Dudley orders a man hunt for Vincennes's killer, and he enquiries to Exley about the name Rollo Tomasi and if he ever heard Vincennes mention it, which he denies. After Dudley walks off, Exley realises that Dudley was behind it all along. Dudley then goes to the Victory motel, where he interrogates suspects, and braces Sid Hugdens, with Bud present, Sid reveals that he has blackmail in his car, pictures of Lynn having sex with Exley. This enrages Bud who storms out to Sid's car and opens the boot to find the pictures inside, he then races off in his car to confront Lynn, who doesn't deny it, Bud then hits her and runs off to get Exley. Exley at the station has uncovered information showing that Dudley, Stensland and Buzz Meeks go back a long way together, but before he can do anything, Bud enters the room with one of the photos of Exley doing it with Lynn, and the two of them engage in an intense fight. Exley soon after makes Bud see that Dudley was behind the whole thing, and that he deliberately set up Bud, by showing him the photo, as it would tip him over the edge to kill Exley. After this the two men put aside their differences and decide to work together to bring down Dudley and expose the police corruption behind the Nite Owl murders.
L.A. Confidential is without a great film, and one of the best films of the 1990s. Curtis Hanson who after directing some fairly pedestrian thrillers such as The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and The River Wild, arrived as a terrific filmmaker here. The film itself is of course based on the same titled novel by James Elroy, and the book features many more characters and detail which isn't in the film, but what the film presents is surely a great representation of the book. And its the characters in L.A. Confidential that make this film work so well, and if you look at it, there actually isn't a morally decent character in the film, everyone is essentially a sleazeball in one way or another, but they are all something of a dichotomy as well. Exley, may appear to be a stand-up cop with integrity, who refuses to get his hands dirty with planting evidence or beating up suspects, however he does ruthelessly rat on members of the police force, in order to further his own career. Bud on the other hand, appears to be as Exley puts it a "mindless thug" but he does have another side to him, as ultimately he wants to be a detective also working cases, but his temper and violent streak threaten to alienate him from the audience at times, but behind it all is a guy who wants to escape it all. Jack Vincennes is also corrupt character in that he gladly takes money from Sid Hudgens, the local Hush Hush magazine reporter, as he sets up arrests and the suspects get unwanted publicity in Sid's mag, but again behind that, Jack starts to feel guilty about his activities and questions himself as the film goes on.
The film also has several excellent supporting characters, particularly Dudley Smith, as the slight yet intimidating police captain who has another agenda, while he looks after the men under his command, he also ironically has a line in corruption and tampering with evidence as well as police brutality. And Pierce Patchett, the mysterious millionaire, who while he hosts high class sex parties, and makes pornographic films, he has ambitions beyond that to invest in freeway construction. And there's Lynn Bracken, meanwhile she isn't the most interesting character in the film, she is also another one who is wishing to escape from her sleazy lifestyle, as a wannabe film actress, who is engaging in Patchett's sexual enterpises.
Overall the film's performances are great, particularly the three main leads are very strong, with Guy Pearce, who prior to this was in Priscilla, the queen of the desert, as a transvestite and playing Mike from Neighbours, playing the part of the ice cool Exley to perfection, and his best scene is where Dudley asks him if he has heard of a known associate which alarms him but in a way in which he tries not to show it, and in this moment we see Guy give a very subtle reaction with his eyes. Its a very subtle deft moment in his performance. Russell Crowe, is also excellent as the explosive Bud White, two thirds heavy, one third sensitive, and he provides some of the film's highlights with Bud's brutal and volatile behaviour, some of which feature his scene where he faces off against Exley near the end of the film, and another where he dangles the DA Ellis Loewe (Ron Rifkin) out the window of his high up office. Another amusing scene as a result of Bud's violent streak is after he beats in succession Lynn and Exley, after Exley and Bud make amends, Exley goes to visit Lynn at the station, they both carry the scars of their encounters with Bud, and Exley asks "Are you ok?" to which Lynn nods and looks at him and says "Are you ok?".
Kevin Spacey who is usually superb, certainly doesn't let the side down, and provides some great moments as Vincennes, one of his best being when Exley asks him "why did you become a cop?" to which Vincennes looks lost for an answer and quietly says "I don't remember". James Cromwell, also a brilliant actor, before this was in some light hearted fluffy stuff such as Babe, arrived as a great dramatic performer, playing Dudley Smith superbly. David Strathairn similarly is great as Pierce Patchett, and while his role is somewhat smaller, he definitely makes an impression here. Kim Basinger, despite the fact, she was awarded an Oscar for her performance in this film, gives a decent account of herself, but it is hardly spectacular stuff, and not what I would quite call Academy award material. Finally of course, there is Danny DeVito, who actually to be honest plays the film's most irritating character, Sid Hudgens, the sleazy reporter for Hush Hush magazine, mainly because he talks alot of crap for the most part in the film using phrases such as acey duecy (bisexual apparently) which you have no idea what they mean (unless you look them up!). In fact when Hudgens gets his comeuppance you don't really have that much sympathy for him, given all the dirt he has dug up on so many people throughout the film. This pre-empts one of the film's best lines from one of the cops that arrives on the scene of Sid's murder, where he says "some one beat him to death, and stole a bunch of files. Guess he dug up dirt on the wrong guy, we've got it nailed down to a thousand suspects!".
And another great feature of the film is of course the score written by Jerry Goldsmith, one of the all time great composers in American cinema. Goldsmith's score provides the perfect mixture of sleaze, menace and moodiness to capture the time of the film and the events. Strangely enough the score also resembles Goldsmith's score for Chinatown, in fact you could almost swear at times that's what you were listening to if you kept your eyes closed. Overall its a great one.
So L.A. Confidential is a terrific film and if you haven't seen it, go rent it, buy it or wait for it to come on the box and gie yourself a treat and watch one of the best tributes to film noir in recent years.
The film begins on Christmas Eve 1952, where the hot headed, thuggish police officer Wendell "Bud" White (Russell Crowe) stops a violent domestic dispute between a married couple, Bud himself has a thing for not tolerating women beaters. After that, Bud and his partner Dick Stensland (Graham Beckel) go back to the police station, where six Mexican suspects are brought into the station who apparently attacked two of the station's officers. In a vengeful mood, Stensland goes down to the cells and beats up on one of the Mexicans, and before you know the whole place erupts into a riot, with the press labelling the riot as "Bloody Christmas". In the aftermath of the event, Bud refuses to testify against his partner Stensland, and is suspended from duty, meanwhile one of the officers Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) who was witness to the attacks, is more than happy to testify against Stensland the other officers who attacked the Mexicans. At his insistance, in order to play ball, Exley requests that he be made detective lieutenant, something which his late father Preston Exley once held the mantel of. However in snitching against the other officers, Exley soon makes himself very unpopluar with the other officers. But the police captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) re-instates Bud, and uses him in his scheme as one of his muscle men to beat up and intimidate any criminals who try to make a name for themselves in LA.
But the crux of the film comes when Bud's ex-partner Stensland, is found murdered in a coffee shop, the Nite Owl, with some other people, among them was a female associate of the millionaire, Pierce Patchett (David Strathairn). The LA police dept then arranges a full man-hunt to try and catch the killers, and soon find three young black men as prime suspects for killings. On interrogating the men, Exley finds out they actually are holding a young Mexican woman hostage in a house, who has been raped and beaten. On the scene of the crime, Bud sneaks into the house and kills the black man in the house. Later on the young suspects escape the station, but Exley soon tracks them down and kills them, which finally garners him some respect from his fellow officers at the station. But something doesn't sit right with Exley about the negros being the killers, as he investigates further, he receives help from local cop celebrity Sergeant Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) who has a sideline in acting as a technical advisor on the show Badge of Honor, as well providing some hot press collars for local sleazy newspaper journalist Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito). Likewise Bud also thinks something is strange about the suspect negros, and also investigates, meanwhile he dates Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger) who is a movie star look-a-like of Veronica Lake.
Bud after enquiring about the Nite Owl case to one of the forensic staff, finds out one of the victims was a Susan Lefferts (the young girl from earlier in the film, with a bandage on her nose sitting in Patchett's car). Bud goes to Susan's mother's house and inquires about her, and she finds out that Stensland was her boyfriend, on looking around the house, Bud notices a foul smell, which he tracks to under the house, where he finds the remains of Buzz Meeks, Stensland's former partner. Exley soon follows Bud's tail and he too goes to Mrs Lefferts house where he finds the body, which he takes to the pathology lab to get ID'd. Exley working with Vincennes, tails Bud's movements, as they spy on him from Lynn's house, as we see them both together. Shortly after Exley goes to meet Lynn to confront her, believing that Patchett has her seeing Bud, but she denies this and instead seduces Exley, as the pair of them have sex, we see Sid Hudgens outside the window, taking pictures to frame him. Around this time, Vincennes goes to Dudley's house and tells him about an old case involving Dick Stensland and Buzz Meeks (by now his remains have been ID'd by the coroner), when without warning Dudley shoots Vincennes in the heart, he then leans in and asks him "do you have a valediction, boyo?" to which Vincennes quietly gasps "Rollo Tomasi" and then dies (a name that Exley told him earlier, which was a made-up name he gave to the man who killed his father, Preston Exley).
The next day Dudley orders a man hunt for Vincennes's killer, and he enquiries to Exley about the name Rollo Tomasi and if he ever heard Vincennes mention it, which he denies. After Dudley walks off, Exley realises that Dudley was behind it all along. Dudley then goes to the Victory motel, where he interrogates suspects, and braces Sid Hugdens, with Bud present, Sid reveals that he has blackmail in his car, pictures of Lynn having sex with Exley. This enrages Bud who storms out to Sid's car and opens the boot to find the pictures inside, he then races off in his car to confront Lynn, who doesn't deny it, Bud then hits her and runs off to get Exley. Exley at the station has uncovered information showing that Dudley, Stensland and Buzz Meeks go back a long way together, but before he can do anything, Bud enters the room with one of the photos of Exley doing it with Lynn, and the two of them engage in an intense fight. Exley soon after makes Bud see that Dudley was behind the whole thing, and that he deliberately set up Bud, by showing him the photo, as it would tip him over the edge to kill Exley. After this the two men put aside their differences and decide to work together to bring down Dudley and expose the police corruption behind the Nite Owl murders.
L.A. Confidential is without a great film, and one of the best films of the 1990s. Curtis Hanson who after directing some fairly pedestrian thrillers such as The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and The River Wild, arrived as a terrific filmmaker here. The film itself is of course based on the same titled novel by James Elroy, and the book features many more characters and detail which isn't in the film, but what the film presents is surely a great representation of the book. And its the characters in L.A. Confidential that make this film work so well, and if you look at it, there actually isn't a morally decent character in the film, everyone is essentially a sleazeball in one way or another, but they are all something of a dichotomy as well. Exley, may appear to be a stand-up cop with integrity, who refuses to get his hands dirty with planting evidence or beating up suspects, however he does ruthelessly rat on members of the police force, in order to further his own career. Bud on the other hand, appears to be as Exley puts it a "mindless thug" but he does have another side to him, as ultimately he wants to be a detective also working cases, but his temper and violent streak threaten to alienate him from the audience at times, but behind it all is a guy who wants to escape it all. Jack Vincennes is also corrupt character in that he gladly takes money from Sid Hudgens, the local Hush Hush magazine reporter, as he sets up arrests and the suspects get unwanted publicity in Sid's mag, but again behind that, Jack starts to feel guilty about his activities and questions himself as the film goes on.
The film also has several excellent supporting characters, particularly Dudley Smith, as the slight yet intimidating police captain who has another agenda, while he looks after the men under his command, he also ironically has a line in corruption and tampering with evidence as well as police brutality. And Pierce Patchett, the mysterious millionaire, who while he hosts high class sex parties, and makes pornographic films, he has ambitions beyond that to invest in freeway construction. And there's Lynn Bracken, meanwhile she isn't the most interesting character in the film, she is also another one who is wishing to escape from her sleazy lifestyle, as a wannabe film actress, who is engaging in Patchett's sexual enterpises.
Overall the film's performances are great, particularly the three main leads are very strong, with Guy Pearce, who prior to this was in Priscilla, the queen of the desert, as a transvestite and playing Mike from Neighbours, playing the part of the ice cool Exley to perfection, and his best scene is where Dudley asks him if he has heard of a known associate which alarms him but in a way in which he tries not to show it, and in this moment we see Guy give a very subtle reaction with his eyes. Its a very subtle deft moment in his performance. Russell Crowe, is also excellent as the explosive Bud White, two thirds heavy, one third sensitive, and he provides some of the film's highlights with Bud's brutal and volatile behaviour, some of which feature his scene where he faces off against Exley near the end of the film, and another where he dangles the DA Ellis Loewe (Ron Rifkin) out the window of his high up office. Another amusing scene as a result of Bud's violent streak is after he beats in succession Lynn and Exley, after Exley and Bud make amends, Exley goes to visit Lynn at the station, they both carry the scars of their encounters with Bud, and Exley asks "Are you ok?" to which Lynn nods and looks at him and says "Are you ok?".
Kevin Spacey who is usually superb, certainly doesn't let the side down, and provides some great moments as Vincennes, one of his best being when Exley asks him "why did you become a cop?" to which Vincennes looks lost for an answer and quietly says "I don't remember". James Cromwell, also a brilliant actor, before this was in some light hearted fluffy stuff such as Babe, arrived as a great dramatic performer, playing Dudley Smith superbly. David Strathairn similarly is great as Pierce Patchett, and while his role is somewhat smaller, he definitely makes an impression here. Kim Basinger, despite the fact, she was awarded an Oscar for her performance in this film, gives a decent account of herself, but it is hardly spectacular stuff, and not what I would quite call Academy award material. Finally of course, there is Danny DeVito, who actually to be honest plays the film's most irritating character, Sid Hudgens, the sleazy reporter for Hush Hush magazine, mainly because he talks alot of crap for the most part in the film using phrases such as acey duecy (bisexual apparently) which you have no idea what they mean (unless you look them up!). In fact when Hudgens gets his comeuppance you don't really have that much sympathy for him, given all the dirt he has dug up on so many people throughout the film. This pre-empts one of the film's best lines from one of the cops that arrives on the scene of Sid's murder, where he says "some one beat him to death, and stole a bunch of files. Guess he dug up dirt on the wrong guy, we've got it nailed down to a thousand suspects!".
And another great feature of the film is of course the score written by Jerry Goldsmith, one of the all time great composers in American cinema. Goldsmith's score provides the perfect mixture of sleaze, menace and moodiness to capture the time of the film and the events. Strangely enough the score also resembles Goldsmith's score for Chinatown, in fact you could almost swear at times that's what you were listening to if you kept your eyes closed. Overall its a great one.
So L.A. Confidential is a terrific film and if you haven't seen it, go rent it, buy it or wait for it to come on the box and gie yourself a treat and watch one of the best tributes to film noir in recent years.
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