Indy Part 4: The kingdom of the crystal skull thingy

Ok new I'm onto part four of the Indiana Jones posts and this one is the last in the instalment about the last of the instalment, which is The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull, so let's have a look at it.

The film synopsis will be shorter this time (mainly cos I can't be bothered making it too long!) but it starts with Indy (Ford again) in the late 1950s and his partner George "Mac" McHale who have been kidnapped by Russian soldiers Colonel Dr Irinia Spalko (Cate Blanchett).  They are taken to a warehouse where Indy is forced to find a crate that contains the remains of an extraterrestrial who crashed on Earth ten years earlier near Roswell, New Mexico.  Indy soon finds the crate and the contents are highly magnetic, but then Mac double crosses him, who was bribed by the Soviet soldiers.  Indy manages to escape from the warehouse however using a rocket sled, and ends up in a deserted town, which turns out to be part of a nuclear test site, which just so happens to be about to set off a nuclear detonation.  Indy manages to take cover inside one of the houses, emptying the contents of a fridge (which is lead lined) just in time before the detonation happens.  Indy soon after is taken by the FBI who question him, believing he could be working for the Soviets, which he isn't of course.  Indy then returns to his college, where he is given an long term leave of absence to avoid being fired over the incident.  As Indy boards a train and about to leave, he is approached by a young guy on a motorbike, Henry "Mutt" Williams (Shia LeBeouf) who tells him an old colleague of Indy's, Harold Oxley (John Hurt) was kidnapped after he discovered a crystal skull in Peru.  Mutt also goes on to tell Indy that his mother was kidnapped as well, after this Indy follows up the trail with Mutt and they travel to Peru to discover what lies behind the mystery of the crystall skull, and to try and save Oxley and Mutt's mother. (Well that was short!).

It has to be said that Kingdom of the crystal skull is without doubt the weakest entry in the Indiana Jones adventures, and although it is great to see the intrepid archaeologist back on the big screen after nearly 20 years, the story and pacing let the film down. And the story is definitely the weakest point, as the whole thing with the crystal skulls is really boring, and at least in the previous films you were interested in Indy's quests to find the Ark of the covenant, the Sankara stones and the Holy Grail, but here you just don't really give a shit.  And another one of the film's worst aspects is the anti-climactic ending, where they find a temple with crystal skeletons, and its really puzzling to figure just what the hell happened to Spalko (Cate's character) as she appears to weirdly disappear (apparently she was disintegrated).  And despite some entertaining moments along the way, by the end you just feel "what the hell just happened? and what was it all about???".  In this day and age it seems in Hollywood they delight in making films that confuse the crap out of you.

However, its not an entirely bad film of course and there are some entertaining sequences in it, as well as some enjoyable moments of action, especially the chase in the jungle and the opening scene in the warehouse is also entertaining, and where Indy has to hide quickly in the fridge before the nuclear blast goes off.  The performances are also quite good, especially from Ray Winstone as Mac, Indy's double crossing partner, who later makes out that he was pretending to be a double agent, but then later on reveals that he was just a double crosser, with a good line from Indy "who says??? So what are you, a triple agent???", and Mac says "No I just lied about being a double one!".  Cate Blanchett is also good as the main villain, Dr Spalko, but ultimately her character is not that interesting and she doesn't make for that effective a villain, but she does look good in that black fringe hairdo and blue outfit (with the black gloves).  Shia LeBeouf also makes a decent impression as Mutt (not of one of course), who (PLOT SPOILER!!!!) ultimately turns out to be Indy's son, and he obviously has inherited his father's pluckiness, although it was pretty obvious in a way that he was Indy's son.

As for Harrison Ford well its great to see him back as Indy and he takes up the mantle really well once again, and after making so many films where he has delivered some frankly rather dull performances, its nice to see him get back to doing something fun again.  I also like the line he gives when he is in Peru and he saves Mutt's life from some masked natives who attack them, and Mutt looks confused at him and says "aren't you a teacher???" and Indy says "part time!".  And while I haven't mentioned her in the plot, (ANOTHER SPOILER!!!) Karen Allen makes a reappearance again as Marion Ravenwood, who turns out to be.... wait for it......... Mutt's mum!  Yep it is all rather predictable and even if you haven't seen the film you would probably have figured it all out long before then.  Regardless of that though its nice to see Karen Allen back as well, although she isn't given much to do in this film, and seems to no longer have the youthful pluckiness in her that she once did.  And finally John Hurt makes a baffling appearance as Oxley, and frankly Oxley is the least most interesting character in the film, and not to take away from John Hurt's performance, but frankly I found the way in which he kept talking and bumbling around in such a strange way throughout a bit annoying, as the crystal skulls affected his mind.  Its nothing against Hurt in the film, but I just felt the story was not very well written regardless.

So that's it for my critique on The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it was a rather disappointing entry in the series, but hopefully they might do just yet another one before they finish it off, although that might well be the last one as Harrison isn't getting any younger and is now 70!  So I think doing a fifth one would be a push too far for Harry! Kingdom isn't without its good points of course and it does have some entertaining moments in it, but as a whole it isn't as good as it could have been, and if it is the end then its a shame it should be left that way, as I think the series deserves a better ending.

And that is that for my Indiana Jones posts.

Till then next one, whatever it might be, that's it for now!

Tara.

 

Indy Part 3: He chose poorly!

Right now I'm onto the 3rd part of my Indiana Jones entries and this one is about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the 3rd entry in the Jones adventures, so let's have a closer look at it.

So so so, with my usual plot analysis (yep its the same old tired format on this page, but I like it, I think!) the film begins all the way back in 1912 when Indiana Jones was just a teenager (played by the late River Phoenix).  Indy is on a boy scout trip with his class in Utah, where they break off into pairs look around the mountains.  Indy goes into one of the caves and finds some robbers who are digging for artefacts, and they find a cross that belonged to Coronado, a historic Spanish explorer.  Indy, believing its an important artefact that belongs in a museum, nabs the cross while the robbers aren't looking, and he flees as the robbers chase him.  Indy during the chase, makes his way onto a circus train, and after a close quarters fight with the robbers, he manages to escape with the cross (courtesy of a magic trap door) and runs home.  Once Indy get's back home, the robbers call the local sheriff who comes around and forces him to give the cross back.  The leader of the robbers, who dresses similar to how Indy dresses in the future, is impressed with his grit, and gives him his fedora.  The film the cuts to 1938 where Indy is on a ship fighting to get back the Coronado cross from its acquired owner (the man whom it was given to back in 1912) in admist the fight, the ship is blown up and Indy escapes with the cross.  Indy makes it back to his college in America and gives Marcus (Denholm Elliot) the cross to place in his museum.

As Indy leaves the college he is approached by some men who take him to meet an antiques collector, Walter Donovan, who tells him that he is on a quest to find the holy grail, and that Indy's father, Henry Jones Sr (Sean Connery) who was helping them with their research, has gone missing.  Indy checks out his dad's home, but doesn't find him, but he remembers that he was sent a parcel, delivered to his office, which he opens and finds his dad's diary on the Holy Grail.  Indy then agrees to go to Venice with Marcus to meet up with Henry's Austrian colleague, Dr Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody).  They go to a library where Henry was last seen, and Indy discovers from the clues in his father's diary that the tomb of one of the knights of the holy crusade is buried underneath the library.  Indy and Elsa go underneath the library into the catacombs and eventually find the tomb that Indy spoke of, and inside there is the skeleton remains of the knight, who has a shield, which Indy uses his crayon paper rubbing of the shield (which is only half complete) to complete the shield image.  However as he does this, some men come down into the catacombs and set fire to the water (which is laced with petrolium).  Indy and Elsa managed to escape the catacombs to the surface and are given chase by the men on a speedboat, Indy eventually manages to fight one of them and forces him to answer why they are trying to kill him.  The man, Kazim, tells Indy that he is a member of the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, who are determined to keep the secret of the holy grail safe, Indy also asks if he knows where his father is being held, which the man eventually obliges, telling him that Henry is being held in a castle on the Austrian border.

Indy travels to the castle with Elsa, he manages to get inside and finds Henry (by crashing into his room using his whip to swing in through the windows!) who tells him that he sent his diary back to him so that it wouldn't fall into the Nazis hands, but he is appalled when he realises that Indy brought it with him.  However Indy is taken in by a ruse set by Elsa who appears to be held hostage by a German colonel, Ernst Vogel (Michael Byrne), but its revealed she is working with the Nazis as is Donovan, who are basically there to get the grail diary.  Indy and Henry are soon tied up and left in the castle, while Donovan and Elsa leave.  In an effort to escape the castle, Henry tries to use Indy's lighter to burn through the ropes, but he accidentally drops it, and it sets fire to the floor and soon the whole room.  Indy and Henry eventually escape the castle and are given chase by the Nazis on a motorbike, but they evade them, afterward Henry explains to Indy that they need to get the diary back as it has vital information to help them find the Grail.  Marcus meanwhile, who is hopelessly lost in Turkey, meets up with Sallah (John Ryhs Davies), and he has the grail map, which gives instructions to its location, but the Nazis soon capture Marcus. 

Indy and Henry then go to Berlin to get the diary back, which Indy (dressed as a Nazi officer) takes them Elsa.  As they try to leave Germany in a zeppelin, but they are soon intercepted by the Nazis again, and  Indy and Henry escape in a small plane attached underneath the Zeppelin.  After a dogfight with Nazi planes, Indy and Henry managed to land the plane and thwart the other plane, by Henry shooing a lot of birds with his umbrella, who fly right into the path of plane, causing the pilot to crash it into a mountain.  Soon after Indy and Henry travel to Hatay and rejoin with Sallah, as they go after Marcus, who is being held captive by the Nazis.  Indy again soon gets involved in a fight in the desert with a Nazi convoy, as he takes on the Nazis in a tank (where Marcus is being held), and he rescues Marcus and Henry, and dives off the tank just before it goes over a cliff, killing Vogel.  The men eventually make their final journey to the canyon of the crescent moon, the location of the grail.  Indy, Henry, Marcus and Sallah enter the temple and find Donovan is using volunteers to try and get pass the traps set to reach the grail, but they are all killed.  Indy and the others are soon captured by Donovan's men, and Donovan forces Indy to get the grail, by shooting Henry in the chest.  Indy now must use his father's grail diary in order to traverse the traps ahead of him in order to reach the grail and try and save his dad's life.

The Last Crusade for me is easily the second best film in the Indiana Jones adventures, and after the breakneck pace and the gruesomeness of the Temple of Doom, the Last Crusade thankfully get's back to the tone of Raiders.  Its also great that we are reunited with Marcus and Sallah from Raiders as well, who both help to keep the tone from the original as well.  Last Crusade is also very funny and witty in various scenes, as the screenplay was written by Jeffrey Boam (who wrote the screenplay for Lethal Weapon 2 that same year) there plenty of amusing lines of dialogue throughout.  Its also a nice touch that we also get to see a bit of Indy's past, when we see him in the past as a young teenager, who makes the gutsy decision to steal the Coronado cross and try and escape from the group of robbers who dug it up in the caves.  But one of the things that also helps make Last Crusade work so well is the relationship between Indy and his father, Henry, as Indy grew up, Henry was so emroiled his work over the Holy Grail, that he had little or no time for his son at all.  And there is nice embittered tone from Indy, who clearly is not happy with the memories he had of his father in the past, and always refers to him in a negative light when he talks about him to Marcus, Elsa or anyone else in the film.  But at the same time when he meets up with his dad again, he does still stand to the attention of his dad, when Henry says something, Indy says "Yes, sir!". 

In performance terms there is a lot to appreciate in the Last Crusade, and Sean Connery, as unlikely a choice as he could be for the part of Indy's father, works brilliantly well in the role, despite the fact in reality Connery is only 12 years older than Harrison Ford!  But Connery plays Henry just right, with an almost dismissive sense of authority over Indy, and as a man who is so obssessed with his work, but despite all that they still share a couple of nice moments.  One of them is where he shoos the birds on the beach to force the Nazi plane to crash, and Indy looks at his father as he walks by, he give a smile of admiration and pride for him.  I also like the moment where they are on the zeppelin and Indy says how much he regretted how lonely it was for them both when he grew up, and that Henry was more interested in his work than him, and that they never spoke to each other.  Henry then says "OK, I'm here now, what do you want to talk about??" and Indy looks speechless and laughs saying "I can't think of anything!", and Henry replies "well, what are you complaining about??!".  Connery also get's one of the funniest lines in the film when Indy asks Henry how he knew that Elsa was a Nazi, and Henry replies "she talks in her sleep!".  Harrison Ford also again as Indy is great once more, and by then he had grown so comfortably into the part, and he has several funny moments in the film, one of which is the ridiculous Scottish accent he puts on when he enters the castle to find his dad, pretending to be a Scottish lord.  I also like the line where Indy and Henry are being attacked by the Nazi plane, and it dawns on Henry "these people are trying to kill us!" and Indy yells "I KNOW DAD!", and Henry says "its a new experience for me!", to which Indy replies "it happens to me all the time!".

The supporting cast are also excellent, with Julian Glover putting in a fine performance as the devious collector, Donovan, who's greed to find the Grail overtakes him and in the end it costs him his life, as he drinks from the wrong cup and gruesomely ages to death in front of Indy and Elsa's eyes.  This prompts one of the best lines in the film from the knight who says "he chose.....poorly" after Donovan bites the proverbial dust.  Alison Doody is also good in her role as Elsa Schneider, the conniving scholar working with the Nazis, and she has some nice moments of chemistry with Harrison Ford, especially when they argue just before they lock in a passionate kiss, and she says "how dare you kiss me!" and she kisses him back.  Denholm Elliott also makes another entertaining return as Marcus Brody, except this time rather than coming across as an intelligent capable scholar, he is more made out to be a bumlbing fool.  Or rather its more just that Marcus is simply out of his depth in the situation as he is not a field man like Indy is, and Indy also recalls how Marcus one time got lost in his own museum.  Which pre-empts another funny scene where Indy says before hand to the Nazis that they will never find Marcus, and he can speak a dozen languages, as he can blend in and disappear into any place, and we cut to Marcus who is hopelessly lost in Hatay and he says "can anyone speak English here???".  John Ryhs Davies is also once again very good as Sallah, and he reprises the role nicely, and his funniest moment comes when he is trying to tell a slow witted Marcus to run away from a couple of Nazi officers, as they ask for their papers, and Sallah produces a newspaper "Oh yes papers here, the Egyptian mail, got it this morning!".

Once again technically wise, the Last Crusade looks great as Douglas Slocombe once again provides the cinematography, which looks stunning as ever, with the vistas in Hatay and the opening sequences in Utah.  John Williams again provides another enjoyable score, which has the perfect mixture of fun, drama, suspense to it.  Spielberg also once again does an excellent job with the direction, and he keeps the pace of the film moving quite nicely, although you could possibly argue that there is less action in the film than there should have been.  And also perhaps at times the tone of the film is overtly comical, but I think Spielberg helps keep it just about right enough to keep it in tone with the original in Raiders.  But what Last Crusade has got going for it is that it has toned down the more gruesome aspects of what we had seen in Temple of Doom and from that point of view, its an easier and more fun watch than its predecessor. 

Sooo that's it for the Last Crusade, which is definitely one of my favourites from the series so far, next up is part four, with the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. 

Till the next one that's it for now. 

Indy Part 2: Mola Ram, perpare to meet Kali in hell!!

So now onto the second part of my posts on the Indiana Jones adventures, which will cover Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom.  After the big success of the first film, Temple of doom, was a much anticipated sequel (or prequel really as it turned out) and for the most part it didn't disappoint although at the time of release it wasn't quite as well received as Raiders was.  But anyway more on that later, let's have the usual look at it....

Wellllll, the story begins in 1935 in Shanghai (set a year before Raiders) where Indy (Harrison Ford) encounters Chinese crime boss, Lao Che (Roy Chiao) in a nightclub, where he does a deal for a diamond and to give Lae the ashes of a former Chinese emperor.  However Lao poisons Indy's drink and taunts him with the antitode, and forces him into giving back his diamond, Indy then kills one Lao's sons, and a big fight ensues, where Indy ends up fleeing with an American nightclub singer, Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) by diving out a window, and they both crash into a car driven by Indy's 11 year old sidekick, Short Round (Johnathan Ke Quan) who is outside waiting for them.  They escape the clutches of Lao's men and make it onto a plane and escape as Lao arrives on the scene, but unknown to Indy, the plane is owned by Lao's airline.  Once in the air, the pilots (who work for Lao) quietly jump out the plane using parachutes to leave the plane to crash into the Himalayas.  Indy, Willie and Short Round barely escape death by using a lifeboat they dive out of the plane, and land in the rough waters, but they eventually come to rest in the river of a poor desolate village in India, where they are met by an old Indian man, Shaman.  Shaman takes them into his village, which is run down and the villagers are starving as their crops have dried out, and they are missing a sacred stone, which would bring vitality to their village again, and also their children have been taken away for slave labour to a place called Pankot palace.  The Shaman asks Indy for his help in finding the sacred stone and freeing the children, to which Indy soon agrees to and takes a reluctant Willie, and Short Round with him.

On arriving at Pankot, Indy, Willie and Shorty (to abbreviate!) are given a warm welcome by the Prime Minister of the Maharaja of Pankot, Chattar Lal (Roshan Seth) who invites to a palace banquet.  At the banquet, Indy meets the Maharaja (Raj Singh) who is just a 13 year old boy, and the food at the banquet is a rather bizzare mix of animal feasts such as baby snakes, monkey brains, large beetles and eyeball soup (yeucch!).  After the banquet is over, Indy and Willie start to show a bit of a spark as they share a kiss, but Willie is annoyed by Indy's arrogance and tells him to get out.  Back in his room Indy is nearly killed by a palace guard who tries to garrot him, by Indy manages to kill him with his whip and hang him from a ceiling fan.  Indy races back into Willie's room (who thinks he is back for a bit of lovin!) and checks around it and soon finds a secret passage way that leads into a series of tunnels.  Indy and Shorty check out the passage and find it is covered in bugs, and they end up unwittingly in a trap room, with some spikes coming out ceiling and the roof slowly coming down on them.  Willie reluctantly braving the bug infested passageway, goes in and saves Indy and Short from being squished by releasing a trap door lever the raises the ceiling again, and let's them out.

Indy, Willie and Shorty then progress through undergound tunnels and soon come to a temple, where they see a Thugee cult ceremony take place, lead by the high priest Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) who performs a human sacrifice to the Hindu goddess, Kali, by ripping out the heart of a sacrificia victim, who they cast into a lava pit.  After the sacrifice we see that the cult have three of the five Sankara stones, and once the ceremony is finished, Indy makes his way down and takes the stones, but he and the others are soon captured.  Mola Ram forces Indy to see his view point, which is that he wants to recover all five Sankara stones, so the Thugee cult can rule the world, with the children taken from the village, being used as slave labour to mine for the missing two stones.  As for Willie, she is set to be sacrificed, and Shorty is put down in the mines to work, and Indy is forced to drink the blood of Kali, which puts him in a trance state, where he obeys Mola Ram and follows Kali without question.  Indy still in the trance, seals Willie in the cage to be lowered into the lava pit, and Shorty, who manages to escape the mines, eventually saves Indy, by purging his trance like state, with fire.  After this Indy's conscious is restored and he rescues Willie and fights off the guards, and then sets about freeing the children from the mines, by knocking out the guards, but he ends up in a big fight with one of the head guards (played by Pat Roach).  To make matters worse, the Maharaja, who is also under the influence of Kali, uses a voodoo doll of Indy and a knife to twist in, to wrack Indy in pain.  But Shorty saves the day by fighting off the Maharaja, and restoring him to normal by using fire as well.   After this Indy, Willie and Shorty escape into the mines on a mine cart, only to be given chase by Mola Ram's guards, who they manage to evade.  However Mola Ram has his guards break down the dam in the temple, which floods the tunnels with water, and pretty soon it catches up with Indy and his pals, but they manage to escape outside and climb up to the mountain top, and cross an old ropey bridge, where they encounter Mola Ram for the last time........

The temple of doom is undoubtedly a very entertaining ride, and Steven Spielberg manages to keep the action thick and fast, even more so here than in Raiders.  Although it does have to be said the violence in the film is pretty strong stuff, and there were several scenes that were also censored in the UK cinema release and even on DVD, most notably the scene where Mola Ram rips the heart out of the sacrificial victim and we see him being cast into the pit catching fire, as well as Indy being viciously whipped and beaten up by Mola Ram's main guard.  It is pretty strong stuff for a PG rated film at the time, and it acutally pre-empted the creation of the American censor board's PG-13 certificate (as well as Gremlins did at that time also), the film also since has been released on Blu-ray in the UK and now has a 12 certificate.

But none of this takes away from the sheer fun and entertainment than Temple of Doom offers, and there is plenty of that on display.  There is a good sense of fun throughout the movie, and yeah ok there are one or two annoying scenes, particularly where Short round says some cringeworthy things such as "Holy smoke, Dr Jones! Crash landing!", and "Ok dokey, Dr Jones, hold onto your potatos!".  But at the same time Shorty does have quite a nice relationship with Indy as he is almost like an adopted son to him, and the scene where they play cards together is funny, and we see that they are both cheating.  The scene where Indy, under the influence of Kali, roughy slaps Shorty, who then uses a torch to purge Indy of the evil influence, and they make up after, is nicely played, with Indy hugging him saying "I'm sorry, kid".  Willie however is the classic example of a diva and a damsel in distress who hardly stops screaming throughout the film, and her character can get quite annoying, but she does also provide some nice moments of humour, especially when she's at the banquet, clearly nauseated by the culinary collection of animal delicacies, and she says to Shorty "give me your hat, cos I wanna puke in it!" and her reaction to the chilled monkey brains, as she simply faints and falls off her chair. 

Which brings me to the cast, who are all mostly pretty good, the three leads all actually work really well together.  Harrison Ford is a good as ever in his role as Indy, who plays him with the perfect mix of low key charisma, humour and seriousness, and he get's plenty of good lines, like in the first film, one of my favs is an exterior shot of Pankot palace where we hear Indy inside one of the rooms shout "Shorty, where's my razor????".  And possibly Harrison Ford's funniest moment in the film comes when he is trapped in the spikey room, where he looks through the hole in the wall to Willie and says "Willie, we are going to die!!" with a priceless expression on his face.  Harrison Ford actually worked with a fitness trainer on the film to build up his body for the later scenes where he wears his torn shirt, although during the filming of the scene where the assassin tries to kill him, he herniated his back, which lead to him having to leave the production for a while, as he underwent surgery.  But all that aside Harrison confidently carries on his role as intrepid archaeologist with aplomb (or a plum).  

Ke Quan as Short round while he does well enough, he is a little annoying, especially with his hoky dialogue, but as I already said above, he does have a nice friendship with Indy throughout, and you get the sense that Ke Quan really enjoyed working with Harrison Ford.  Kate Capshaw is actually really entertaining as Willie Scott, as she plays her as a pure diva at first, but as the film progresses she does calm down a bit more and begins to accept her situation, and comes to help both Indy and Shorty when they most need her.  Her scene when they are in the woods camping out and she is screaming as she faces bats, snakes and all sorts of nightlife is funny (if a bit overdone) and the bit where she talks to Indy and she is being continually buffeted by one of the horses, but soon after a snake creeps up on her back, and she grabs it thinking its the horse as she says "I said cut it out!" and she throws snake away!  Her scene with Indy in the palace where their flirt with each other is funny also, as they argue, Indy says he won't come back to her room, and she says "you'll be back here in five minutes!".  After the attempt on Indy's life by the assassin, he races back in a few minutes later with Willie saying "Ohhh, Indy! Be gentle with me, be gentle!".  Kate of course later went on to marry Spielberg, and they have been together ever since and now have six children, how about that???!

Of the supporting cast, surprisingly not too much to rave about, except Amrish Puri, who was a famous star in India at the time, who is excellent as the implacably evil Mola Ram, and also there is a brief cameo from Dan Aykroyd, who puts on one very silly sounding English accent, and gets the hilarious line when he addresses to Willie, near the start of the film, where Indy, Willie and Shorty are about to board the plane, "My God, aren't you Willie Scott, the famous American female vocalist???".  

The film of course does have a few flaws naturally, and its that difficult second film, it was never going to be as good as the first one.  The action in itself is also ridiculously proposterous, especially the scene Indy, Willie and Shorty dive out the plane using the inflatable life boat, and they are hopelessly spinning through the sky, yet they manage somehow to inflate the lifeboat, and land the right way up on the water!  And in the next moment where the lifeboat falls over a cliff into the raging waters below, the lifeboat doesn't tip over and they fall to their deaths, the lifeboat again some miraculously stays up and keeps them inside!  I also found it a bit daft at the start when Lao Che introduces Indy to Willie by saying "this is Indiana Jones, the world famous archaeologist", as I don't quite see him as being a famous figure within the world of the series.  Surely Indy would be just trying to travel incognitio on his journies, and the idea that he is world famous makes his character sound like is James Bond or something!  So for me it was just a rather fatuous piece of dialogue.  Some of the characters are also pretty inconsequential, the main one probably being the Maharaja who is just put on there for show, but as he is just a young lad, he probably wouldn't have much to contribute, as he is used as a figurehead.  Also rather amusingly in the scene where the androgynous Maharaja recovers from the influence of Kali with help from Shorty, the Maharaja tells him how to get out of the mines, and they share a smile, and its almost like they have a brief homoerotic moment together (and I'm sure its not just me that thinks that!).

The film despite its flaws, has plenty of fun moments, especially when Indy fights the big head guard in the mines, as Indy tries to hit him with a big hammer, the guard takes it from him and throws it casually away and it hits one of the guards on the head, who is knocked out cold!  I also liked the scene near the end where Indy having severed the wooden bridge in half, he tries climbing up one of the halves, and Mola Ram's men fire a volley of arrows at him, but they all miss, and Indy exclaims with relief.  They also do a nice nod to the first film where Indy is challenged by two guards armed with swords, and he goes for his gun, but he hasn't got it, so he has to fight them off, and he grabs one of the men, using his sword hand to fight the other swordsmen.  Then of course there is the moment where they are in the mines, and Indy has to use his shoe to grind the mine cart to a half before it crashes into the end of the line, and his foot is smoking hot, steaming, he shouts for water, and he sees the water from the dam surge towards him!

Technically the film looks great, again akin to Raiders, costing nearly $30 million, the sets all look lavish, particularly the Pankot palace ones.  There is also some great model work, for the mines, despite the obvious shot of the little dolls substituting for the actors in one scene!  Spielberg knows how to keep things moving along in temple of doom, and as usual the pace is at breakneck speed, and he always knows how to keep the audience riveted.  John Williams once again provides a nice score, with a great mix of drama, thrills and humour all roled into it.

So that's it for the Temple of Doom, which makes for an enjoyable, if at times rather daft entry in the Jones adventures.  So Part 3 coming up soon....

Indy Part 1: I'm making this up as I go!

Ahem right okkkk, I've decided to do another set of reviews on a series of films, the Indiana Jones adventures so to speak, so where better to start then at the end, the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, erm maybe not! No this shall be done properly from the beginning, with the best of them, Raiders of the Lost Ark. So here we go......

OK to start with the usual plot dissection, the films starts in the year 1936 in South America, where Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), an American archaeologist, makes his way into a Peruvian temple, which is filled with booby traps, to find a golden idle, which he successfully obtains.  However on his way out, he is surrounded by a tribe of Hovitos, who are lead by a French archaeologist, Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman), one of Indy's main rivals, who takes the idol from him, but Indy manages to escape just in the nick of time.  Indy makes it back to America, where he returns to a local college where he teaches archaeology and he is approached by two army intelligence agents, who tell him about Hitler and how he has gone on a quest for the occult and sent his Nazi soldiers across the world in trying to find artefacts.  The agents also tell Indy that the Nazis are looking for his old mentor, Abner Ravenwood, who apparently has in his possession the head piece to the staff of Ra, an old relic.  From this information Indy deduces the Nazis are trying to locate the resting place of the ark of the covenant, the biblical chest buit by the Israelites, which is supposed to contain fragments of the ten commandments, and if the Nazis get their hands on the ark, it will make them invincible.

Indy agrees to go and locate the Ark and try to obtain it before the Nazis do, with his first lead being Abner's daughter, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), who was a former lover of Indy's and now lives in Nepal and owns a bar.  After a drinking contest, Indy waits for Marion and she bitterly tells him to get out, angry for how their relationship ended, and Indy asks if she has the head piece he needs, but she tells him her father is dead, and to come back tomorrow.  Indy leaves, and after he does, Marion reveals she is wearing the head piece on a chain under her shirt, shortly after this, one of the Nazi officers, Toht (Ronald Lacey), enters the bar with some men who raid her place, and Toht is about to interrogate her (with a hot poker no less!) when Indy comes back and rescues her.  Toht during the ensuing fight in which the bar catches fire, he tries to grabs the head piece but burns his hand, he runs outside screaming.  After the fight is over, Marion vows to go with Indy until she gets her money back that he gave her for the medallion head piece.

Indy and Marion then travel to Cairo where they meet up with a friend of Indy's, Sallah (John Rhys Davies), a talented digger, who's services have also been utilised by the Nazis who are excavating the site called the Well of souls, where the Ark is said to have been kept.  The Nazi dig is of course lead up by Belloq, and Colonel Dietrich (Wolf Kahler) who have managed to obtain a copy of the staff head piece from the scar on Toht's hand.  Meanwhile Indy and Marion are attacked in the local market by Nazi operatives, and the kidnap Marion, with Indy chasing after her, he is lead to a truck where he sees a basket which Marion unsuccesfully hid in is loaded onto, he shoots the truck driver, which turns on its side and explodes, leaving Indy believing Marion is dead.  After this Indy goes to a friend of Sallah's who tells them what the markings of the head piece mean, and they also deduce that the Nazis are digging in the wrong place.  Indy and Sallah then take advantage of this and find the actual location of the Ark by using the staff with the head piece, and soon excavate the dig site, and uncover the entrances to the well of souls.  Indy goes down inside but it is filled with snakes, some of which he burns with gasoline, Sallah soon follows down and the two of them find the Ark in one of the chambers, they place it in a crate and hoist it up outside.

By the morning however, Belloq, who by now has been holding Marion (it was revealed that they had switched the basket she was in prior to the truck being blown up) sees the dig site, and sends the Nazis up where they seize Sallah's men, and seal Indy into the well of souls, not before Toht throws Marion down into the well of souls also.  Indy manages to break through the walls with one of the giant statues to allow them to escape outside, where they see the Ark is about to be loaded onto a plane.  Indy fights with one of the plane mechanics, while Marion gets trapped inside the plane after knocking out the pilot, at the end of the fight the mechanic gets diced in the plane's propellers, and Indy rescues Marion from the plane, just before gasoline that leaks from it, catchs fire and blows up the plane.  After this, Sallah tells Indy that the Nazis are loading the Ark onto a truck for Cairo, and Indy intercepts the truck and manages to dispatch the Nazi soldiers who are inside it.  Indy and Marion with Sallah's help manage to leave Cairo on a cargo ship, but the next day the Nazis intercept the ship and board it, capturing Marion, although Indy escapes, and smuggles himself onboard the Nazi u-boat, where he dons the disguise of a soldier.  The U-boat travels to an island in the Aegaen sea, where Belloq and the Nazis plan to hold a ritual ceremony to open the Ark and test its power before presenting to Hitler.  Indy tries to stop them by threatening to use a rocket launcher, which he aims at the Ark, but Belloq disuades him from doing so, and let's himself be captured.  And at the ritual, with Indy and Marion tied to a post, Belloq has Dietrich's soldiers open the Ark, revealing it is just full of sand at first, but then strange ghostly mist appears and from here all hell breaks loose....

Well they say the first film in any trilogy or quadrilogy is usually the best and this certainly is the case with Raiders of the Lost Ark, which to this day still stands as one of the best and most entertaining action adventure films of modern cinema.  Steven Spielberg and George Lucas with Raiders of course were doing their nod to the old 1930s cliffhanger serials seen in the cinema back then, and there plenty of cliffhanger moments in Raiders.  And what makes Raiders also that appealing is of course its action set-pieces which are superb as well as very well staged, particularly Indy's chase of the Nazi's truck with the Ark onboard, and how he dispatches them, and ends up being flung out the windscreen of the truck, only to crawl underneath it and use his whip to trail behind it and get back on again.  Then there is of course the gunfight in Marion's bar near the begninng of the film, and the opening sequence with Indy braving the temple to find the golden idol, where he has to dodge booby traps that feature big spikes coming out the walls, darts, and that giant boulder!

And throughout the film there is also a great sense of fun, and there is plenty of wit and humour, and there are definitely certain moments that are tounge in cheek, the one that sticks in my mind is where Indy confronts a swordsman in Cairo, but rather than fight him, Indy takes out his gun and shoots him instead.  Apparently this scene was initially supposed to have been a big fight scene, but at the time Harrison Ford was said to have been suffering from a virus at the time, and instead suggested "why dont we just shoot the son of a bitch!".  Perhaps one thing that is noticeable about Raiders is the level of violence in it is quite strong, especially for a PG certificate, as the baddies get spiked, sliced, shot, burned alive, and wiped out nastily by the Ark, complete with melting and exploding faces.  For its time it was pretty strong stuff, but the Temple of Doom would take things even further in that arena. 

So cast wise, the performances here are all great, with Harrison Ford giving a great performance as Indiana Jones, the adventurous archaeologist, and its hard to imagine any other actor play the part as well as he did, with a dry wit, intelligence, and fair bit of grit as well.  As Indy, Harrison get's some of the best dialogue in the film, such as when Marion nurses his wounds and she says he's not the man she knew 10 years ago and he replies "its not the years, honey, its the mileage!".  Also the line, which I've used as the title of this post, where Indy tells Sallah to get a plane or boat for them, and he's going after the Ark, and Sallah asks "How?", and Indy says "I dunno, I'm making this up as I go!".  Karen Allan is also excellent as Marion, Indy's former girlfriend, who starts off the film as being very feisty, and halfway through becomes more of a damsel in distress, but she nonetheless is a welcome change to the usual screeching females you can get in these types of roles.  Paul Freeman as Belloq is great as well, playing Indy's rival, with a sly charm, and clearly is not overly furnished in the morals department, as he doesn't mind working with the Nazis to get his hands on the Ark.  John Ryhs-Davies is similarly great as Indy's good friend and digger, Sallah, and he get's some good lines such as when he and Indy open the Well of Souls and look down to see nothing but snakes below, and he looks to Indy and says "asps! Very dangerous, you go first!".  Denholm Elliot in a smaller role as Indy's friend and museum owner, Marcus, is also excellent, although he would go on to play a larger part in Last Crusade.

The film itself has many great moments in it, especially in its action scenes, some of which I've already mentioned, and others such as the fight scene in the market, where Indy finds the location of Ark, in the map room, and he shouts up to Sallah for the rope, only to find a Nazi flag fall down in his face!  And there are funny moments such as when the wee mischievious monkey salutes along with the Nazis when they salute "seig heil!", as well as later on when Indy and Marion are onboard the cargo ship, with Indy feeling the effects of his adventures and his injuries, he looks at his face in a big mirror, which Marion sitting on the otherside, flips the mirror upside down, only for it to connect sharply with Indy's chin!  After a big scream from Indy, Marion looks to him and says "what did you say??".

Technically the film looks superb as well, with Douglas Slocombe's gorgeous photography, which through the ages of VHS, DVD and now on Blu-ray looks terrific, especially in the scenes in Egypt.  Steven Spielberg, who is no stranger to knowing how to create suspense and thrills, keeps the action in the film at a nice fast pace and injects the film with the perfect amount of drama and fun.  And then there is John Williams superb score, which beautiuflly captures the mood of the film, and gives Indy the perfect signature theme, which is thoroughly memorable, like alot of Williams's scores, and the scores has many great passages throughout (keep seem to use that word passages!) that highlight the heroics, suspense and the fun.

In terms of flaws, well Raiders doesn't have too many, although you could argue in the scene at night where Indy and Sallah dig for the Well of Souls, its seems a bit bizarre that the Nazis wouldn't post guards around the dig site to check out for night activity.  As you would think the Nazis would be extremely security conscious, they would try and look out for a sneaking bunch of diggers trying to uncover the very artefact they are looking for!  Perhaps I'm wrong, and its reasonable to assume at night time, the guards will be just posted around the soldiers and officers tents.  Also the idea at the end of the film that the Ark would be just put in a wooden crate and stored away in a big warehouse filled presumably with other strange and invaluable aterfacts is a bit daft.  As the army intelligence agents want to just keep the Ark under wraps it seems they would rather not take any risks with it, but at the same time rather than study it, they decide just to sweep it under the carpet.  And with the Ark at the end of the film being put in storage in a warehouse somwhere, they might as well have just left it alone in the Well of Souls, where it can do no damage.  Its also a bit strange how Indy knows not to look at the supernatural powers of the Ark in the scene where Belloq opens the Ark, yet Belloq seems unaware of this himself, being a rival archaeologist, you'd imagine he would have this knowledge, and should have been more wise to have dealt with opening the Ark.  And if..... they had opened the Ark for Hitler in Berlin, it would have also probably saved WWII from having happened!  Marcus's statement about the "army who carries the ark before it, is invincible" also proves redundant in the end, as the Ark is a source of power that no one can control, so in the end it just seems a bit pointless excavating it, especially if they can't control its power!

Anyway all that aside, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a highly entertaining action adventure and it stands as one of the best action films from the 1980s, and that all said its still a great classic.

So that's it for Raiders, cue part two.   

I've got four skin-jobs walking the streets!

OK OK OK, time to return to the vault of classic films, and this time I'm going for a real sci-fi masterpiece, yep its Blade Runner, arguably Ridley Scott's finest film, and you could say his career has never been the same since.  So let's have an indepth look at it shall we????

Well the story begins in Los Angeles 2019, where the future is bleak, dark, and above all wet, the skies are also filled with futuristic flying cars, and massive digital billboards.  And one of the inhabitants of this bleak LA is Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former cop, who was nicknamed as a "blade runner", a term for a police officer who tracked down bioengineered beings known as replicants.  Deckard is detained by an officer, Gaff (Edward James Olmos) who takes him to see his former supervisor, Bryant (M. Emmett Walsh) who tells him that six rouge replicants have escaped and made their way to Earth two of them were killed, but four remain, and he wants Deckard to track them down and "retire" them (the term used for killing replicants).  Deckard reluctantly accepts and goes to the Tyrell corporation where he meets with Dr Eldon Tyrell, who formed the company, and was the creator of the replicants.  Deckard is asked to try out the voight kampff test, which is used to determine whether someone is a replicant or a human, on Tyrell's assistant, Rachael (Sean Young).  After many questions Deckard finds out that Rachael is in fact a replicant,  a Nexus-6 model (just like the others) who is unaware of being a replicant herself, as she has been implanted with fake memories from Tyrell's niece.  Deckard and Gaff then after search, one of the replicants Leon's (Brion James) apartment, where they find a photo and what appears to be a piece of snake scale.

Meanwhile, Leon and the leader of the group of replicants, Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) pay a visit to a local eye manufacturing laboratory where they question the owner, Chew (James Hong) as to how they can go about expanding their lifespan (which is four years).  Chew admits he knows nothing about this, but an engineer called J.F. Sebastian (William Sanderson) may be able to help them.  Roy then sends one of the replicants, Pris (Daryl Hannah) to meet Sebastian and gain his confidence.  Meanwhile Deckard is visited by Rachael, who emotionally tries to prove to him that she isnt a replicant by showing her a picture of her family, but Deckard coldly tells that her memories are just implants, and she leaves upset.  Deckard that takes the photo he found from Leon's apartment and scans it for more detail and finds in the photo a women with a tatoo on her neck.  Deckard soon tracks down the whereabouts of the woman, who soon turns out to be the other replicant of the group, Zhora (Joanna Cassidy), who works at a strip club, using a snake as part of her act.  Zhora soon catches onto who he is and flees, with Deckard chasing onto the busy streets, he guns her down in public, as crashes through shop windows, and eventually falls to the floor dead.  On witnessing this, Leon soon after attacks Deckard, who is about to kill him, but is saved by Rachael who shoots Leon in the head.  Back at Deckard's apartment, Rachael sobs and finally accepts that she "is the business" meaning that she realises she is a replicant.  Deckard then seduces her.

In the meantime, Roy meets up with Pris and Sebastian, and Roy calmly asks that Sebastian takes him to meet with Tyrell, and if he doesn then Pris won't have long to live.  Sebastian eventually agrees to take Roy to meet with Tyrell in the hope that he can find a way to extend his and Pris's lifespans, but on their meeting, Tyrell unfortunately can give no solutions or answers to Roy's demand "I want more life, fucker!", as he tells him "we made you as well as we could make you".  Roy seems to accept this, then gives Tyrell a kiss and kills him by crushing skull.  Sebastian watches on in horror and runs away, but Roy also soon kills him as well.  Later on Deckard get's news from Bryant that they have found Sebastian's body and that he checks out his apartment, where Deckard finally meets with Pris and Roy for the final confrontation....

There is no doubt that Blade Runner is a towering achievement in science fiction films, and it stands as one of the all time greats in its genre.  Originally based on the sci-fi writer, Philip K Dick's novel, Do androids dream of electric sheep?  Ridley Scott brilliantly took the novel and created it into a visually stunning bleak world, with which what has been called one of the more accurate pictures of the future.  Philip K Dick at the time was also astounded by the film as he said he could not believe how accurately the film's vision was to how he saw it visualised in his mind.  There have of course been over the years several different versions of Blade Runner as well, with the original theatrical release being something of a scornful memory of what the film should have been, as it was heavily criticised at the time for its use of Harrison Ford's narration (which Ford was against doing in the first place as was Ridley), and the going off into the sunset ending.  And it has to be said the definitive and best version of the film remains as the director's cut released back in 1991.  The Final Cut of course was released in 2007, for the film's 25th anniversary, but personally I think it doesn't add anything new to the film, and in a way it detracts from it in one or two ways, especially with the stupid inclusion of Joanna Cassidy's CGI'd face in the scene where Deckard shoots her (as originally it was a stunt woman with a wig on) and the scene with the CGI dancers, in fact CGI should never have tainted this film, as it has tained too many already!  But whichever version you watch, despite any additional bits, the film still remains a great one.

Performance wise things are top notch here, and Harrison Ford delivers arguably the best performance of his career as Deckard, the cool, laid back blade runner, who walked away from his life as a cop, before being pulled back in by his supervisor Bryant.  Its also a very interesting moment in the film where it is suggested that Deckard himself might be a replicant, as the replicants in the film all have glowing eyes under low light, and in one scene in Deckard's apartment we even see that in his eyes too!  There is also of course all that nonsense about the unicorn, which was added into the director's cut, which suggests Deckard's uniqueness and that he too might be a replicant.  Personally I don't think he is one, but its open to debate, and it was certainly one point that was argued to death by both Ridley and Harrison at the time, with Ridley for and Harrison against Deckard being a replicant.  

Rutger Hauer is also superb as Roy Batty, the leader of the replicants, and rather than play him as a blatant villain, he takes a very different take on Roy, as a somewhat sensitive, intellectual man, who desperately seeks to extend his short life as well as the lives of his friends.  But in doing so he also shows his rage, anger and madness, especially in the scene where he kills Tyrell, crushing his skill, and later when he finally confronts Deckard, howling dementedly like a wolf, as he follows him through the old Bradbury building near the end of the film.  His last scene is also quite poignant where she chooses to save Deckard's life as he nearly plummets to his death from the roof of the Bradbury building, and pulls him up and throws him down back onto the roof, and he delivers his last speech telling Deckard the unbelievable things he has seen, which was written by Hauer himself.  I also like the moment in the theatrical and director's cut where he confronts Tyrell and delivers the immortal line "I want more life, fucker!".  I was actually quite annoyed when they changed it to "I want more life, father!" in the final cut, as I think the original line was far better and more insistent and emphatic.  Again more unecessary tinkering with a film that didn't really need it.  

The supporting cast are also excellent, with Sean Young who gaves a rare fine performance as the replicant Rachael, who slowly comes to terms with who she is throughout the film.  Daryl Hannah, who is actually something of an underrated actor, also gives an excellent performance as Pris, and her best moment comes when she and Roy try to persuade Sebastian to take them to see Tyrell, and he she looks slyly at Roy and smiles, its a great moment in her performance.  Joe Turkell is also great as Dr Tyrell, and Ridley Scott cast him after he saw Turkell play the bartender in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, and his scene with Roy is one of the film's highlights.  Edward James Olmos also deserves credit for his brief perfomance as the police officer, Gaff, as he put tremendous thought into how he played the part, and he even came up with his own language for the part, as he took a mish mash of Esperanto and other languages to form the"cityspeak" he uses in the film.  His best moment comes at the end where he asks Deckard if he is through and says in regards to Rachael "its too bad she won't live, but then again who does?".  Emmett M. Walsh also does really well with his smaller role as the police Captain Bryant, and he get's some of the film's best lines, especially when he first meets Deckard and says "come on, Deckard don't be an asshole, I've got four skin jobs walking the streets!" and "stop right where you are, you know the score pal??! If you're not a cop, you're little people!".  And Brion James as Leon is excellent, the less brighter of the replicants, and his opening scene with the blade runner Holden, is a great moment, especially when he leans forward in his seat and says "let me tell you about my mother" before he shoots Holden, and the moment in his last scene where he is about to kill Deckard and delivers the great line "wake up, time to die!".  And finally Joanna Cassidy as Zhora, who probably has the smallest role of the four replicants, also does well with her role (and she does have quite a nice pair as well! ;-)).

Visually the film looks stunning there is no doubt about it, with Douglas Trumbull's amazing special effects as we see the flying cars in the skies, and the set design is simply superb, and the model work of the Tyrell corporation building is terrific.  Jordan Cronenweth's superb cinemaphotography also adds immeasurably to the tone and feel of the film, with its dark tones and beautiful shadows.  And of course I can't leave without mentioning the music score by Vangelis, which is brilliant, and remains one of the most memorable film scores in recent times, the opening passage in particularly is great in the titles, which is sparse, ambient and above all futuristic sounding.

And that is that for my review of Blade Runner, its a simply magnificent film that never ages and never feels dated, and despite the whole flying car thing, its not entirely far off the image of the future that we are now close approaching (in terms of time, 7 years away!) , well except perhaps not so dreary!

So with that I will finish there!   

Res Evil 6!

OK its been a while since I had a look at a game in terms of reviews, so here is my thoughts on Resident Evil 6, which was released last week for the Xbox 360 and the PS3.  I am the owner of an Xbox 360 myself, as I previously use to have a PS3 but after two years it died on me, and I've been suspicious of Sony ever since, especially since it was revealed there was a failure rate in their consoles after 2 years of use.   So after I that I decided NOT to buy another PS3 as I personally don't trust Sony as far as I can throw them (which let's face it, its impossible to do really!).

Anyway so here we go onto Resident Evil 6, the story is multi-stranded as its basically three games in one, with several different playable characters, the main ones being Leon Kennedy, Chris Redfield and Jake Muller.  The plot is way too involved, even for me(!) to go into so I will keep it brief and say the characters basically intersect with one another at certain points in the game.  I've completed the Leon campaign myself so far, so there is a connected storyline between Leon and Chris as they both chase after the mysterious Ada Wong.  But basically the main idea behind the plot is that Umbrella are up to their nefarious tricks once again as they have developed a new virus, called the C-Virus, which is released into the general population in different locations in the world, and it turns people in deranged flesh eating zombies.  And its up to the protagonists to basically kill the baddies and get to the root of what is behind it all to end the biological threat.

Resident Evil 6 naturally was a much awaited sequel to the very good Resident Evil 5 (well in my humble opinion anyway) and while I think it is an entertaining game, it also does have some frustrating flaws as well, but I'll say a bit more on them in a minute.  Back to the pluses, graphically the game looks terrific, with the character models for main protagonists looking really good and at times even lifelike (especially Chris).  The zombies on the other hand do look a bit less impressive, particularly the graveyard zombies as it looks almost like a hark back to the graphics from an early PS2 game.  The control system is also fairly simple, which was always one of the strengths of the series is its simplistic combat and movement, and your characters can interact well within the large environments, with the usual jumping through windows, climbing ladders, not to mention stoving zombies heads in!  The melee attacks on zombies is also pretty good as you can attack zombies front on or behind, and if you attack them from behind, you can do a cool move where you grab the zombie and slam him down on the ground, where their head bursts.  Lovely!  The inventory system is also largely still quite simple to use, and a big improvement is how you can quickly combine herbs when you get them, and you can see your character take them in pill form, which makes for a nicer bit of practicality, rather than just magically pressing the button to see your health bar go back up!  

Voice acting wise, Resident Evil over time has improved dramatically from the truly chronic acting we got in the very first game, where clearly the Japanese story writers were struggling with the concepts of Western dialogue, and we had such gems back then as "You Jill, take this lockpick, as the master of unlocking, it will come in handy!".  But by now, voice acting in games overall has become far more polished and it certainly is the case here, as the actors all do a fine job with their respective characters.  Musically, Resident Evil has always been excellent, even back in its 1990s synth heavy days, and here they have produced another excellent, moody orchestral score. 

But of course RE6 isn't without its flaws, and with the new style of gameplay and layout there are few frustrating things here.  First off when I played the Leon campaign, I felt there was a lack of variety in the guns, as you basically get your standard gun, shotgun, machine gun, sniper rifle and a magnum, and that's all fine, but the addition of assault shotguns, submachine guns wouldn't gone amiss, and that is something that RE4 & 5 offered.  And the game once again suffers from a lack of restocking on ammo at the save points between levels and that has always been a flaw in the series, instead you have to rely on picking up ammo from the dead bodies of zombies.  New to the game is of course seamless cut scenes, and in the first hour or so of the Leon campaign, the story is just too reliant on the cut scenes, and it almost feels like at times in that first hour or so you are playing Metal Gear Solid (which was very heavy on cut scenes!) which makes for an annoying gameplay experience.  And it takes to get over that first hour or so before the game improves, and also it does feel early on in the Leon campagin also things are a bit too monotonous, as you just keep shooting zombies, with not much variety with the new baddies, none of them are that interesting or creepy in comparison to what we have seen in the previous games. 

And one of the most frustrating moments in the game is near the end of Leon's campaign where you have to climb up a metal pole to reach the top of a building, and if you time it wrong then you keep sliping and sliding back to where you started!  Again the lack of explanation in these moments control wise is really annoying, you just get the LT and RT buttons flashing in succession to move Leon up the pole, and it took me to look up a forum to find out how to move Leon properly in that bit!  And again some of the timed action moments are also frustrating, this was particularly annoying in the scene where Leon has to save a plane from crashing, and you have to look around to find the control you want to press on the flight control panel.  And of course if you don't press the button at the correct time then Leon is fried, but this has been the case since RE4, but in RE6 it feels like they haven't gone out of their way to make it any simpler.  Early on in the campaign there is also an annoying tendency to look out for oncoming cars or trucks that are out of control and will crash into you if you don't dodge them in time. 

The on-line features of the game also can pose as a nuisance as you have to customise the game to play the single player campaign without ANY interference.  For myself I much prefer single player games, but if you are not careful in configuring Resident Evil 6, then you will have someone on the net join your game as your partner in a forced co-op mode, which to be honest is something I never want (no offence to other gamers, I just prefer solo!).  But as I said you can turn off these features and set up the game to play it as a single player campaign, so its not hard to turn off these settings, its just the pre-concieved notion that every gamer will want to play a co-op campaign by default with someone else on the net, when I personally don't, that appears to be the case with game companies these days. 

But anywayyyyyyyyyyy all that aside I did enjoy Resident Evil 6, and it also is a big bonus that it has three separate single player campaigns to work through, and after a slow start you should find much to enjoy in Leon's campaign.  I have also tried a bit of Jake's campaign as well, which is actually very good, and possibly even better than Leon's but I will give it a go later and see how it goes. 

Right so that's it for now, more stuff will follow, once I think of something. :-)

Till then bye for now! 

The Engineers

Right ok so its time for another blagged post from my overstuffed tennis blog, which has a mish mash of different posts, and this one is for the science fiction film, Prometheus, directed by Ridley Scott, which is essentially a prequel to Alien.  At the time of the review, it had just came out in the cinema, and now low and behold it has just come out on DVD and Blu-ray as I type this, how about that???!  Anyway so here is the review taken from then, which I have updated a bit here and there, as I've since watched it again on Blu-ray (its amazing how time flies!!).  Oh and yes just to warn you: PLOT SPOILERS LIE AHEAD IN THIS POST!!!! 

The film starts with the crew of the spaceship named Prometheus being sent on a mission to find a race of ancient aliens on the planet LV223, the ship was built and funded by the CEO of the Weyland Corporation, Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce).  Two of the crew members, Doctor Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her partner Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall Green) have discovered a star map, which leads them to the planet, in hope of finding out the answers to their existence, as they believe that the alien species they call Engineers, may have been responsible for the creation of humanity.  The crew go to the planet, travelling in cryogenic stasis, as the ship is manned by an android, David (Michael Fassbender), the other crew members include, Weyland employee, Meredith Vickers (the gorgeous Charlize Theron) and the Prometheus ship's Captain, Janek (Irdis Erba).

When the crew awake, they go out in groups, wearing spacesuits and helmets, due to the harsh and airless conditions of the planet surface.  The crew find an alien spaceship which they enter, and soon discover a chamber that is filled with strange pods, a monolithic statue of a giant head, and an alien corpse.  As a sandstorm whips up outside on the surface, most of the crew members abort their search of the ship ahead back onboard the Prometheus.  However two of the crew members who broke off from the rest of the group, Fifield (Sean Harris) and Milburn (Rafe Spall) are still trapped inside the alien ship, now lost, but on re-entering the chamber, the pods leek a black liquid, and the two men are attacked by snake like creatures.  Back onboard the Prometheus, David has taken one of the pods back with him, he opens the contents, which contains a strange gooey looking Cephalopod (an octopus in otherwords, just being a smarty!), he takes a sample from the pod.  David then speaks to Charlie and offers him a drink, and drops the sample into his drink, without Charlie's knowing, who soon becomes infected.  And before you know it, it all goes pear shaped, as the next day the rest of the crew go out to look for their two crewmmates, Fifield and Milburn in the alien ship, and on returning to the chamber they find Milburn's dead body, and David meanwhile searches the ship and finds a room containing an Engineer, one of the alien race, in stasis.  And from here things don't get any better.... 

As a much anticipated movie, which is basically a prequel to Alien, Prometheus does somewhat fall a bit short of the expectations it had in living up to Alien.  There are some good ideas in the film but it doesn't explain the origins of the alien creatures that well.  And the whole searching for answers behind why we are here, and who created us is a bit silly, as I think it would be better if they were just in search for alien lifeforms.  The alien humanoids themselves, or the Engineers as they are known, are also rather poorly realised, and later on the one that is awakened by David, is nothing more than just a heavy, which stalks and attacks the humans.  And the alien creatures, are like a bizzare octopus, and they are far from frightening or intimidating as the alien from Ridley's original classic was.

On a repeated viewing however, I did enjoy the film a bit more, and one or two things did click a little bit better.  The way I understand it now is the Engineers used the planet LV223 as a ground for their laboratory, in which they created the aliens, or biological weapons, but the aliens turned against them and killed, hence the one remaining engineers.  And the idea is that the Engineer intends to return to Earth with the cargo of aliens, so he can destroy the population of the planet and regrow it.  However if the aliens are such a threat to the Engineers, then why do they want to return to Earth in the first place??? As surely its as much a threat to them as it is to us, although it is made clear that the Engineers do have their own world, and this is basically just one nasty science experiment carried out on a barren desolate planet.  The bit at the start with the Engineer drinking the small cup of black liquid is initially a bit baffling as well, although he is basically sacrificing himself to create humanity using his own DNA.  And that is another dodgy bit in terms of the CGI, when we see the Engineer collapse as his DNA breaks down and his skin rots, its looks pretty naff.  Perhaps if however they chose to do a sequel at some point in the near future maybe all these unanswered questions can be finally answered.  It certainly has been left open for another film to follow.

Although on another repeated viewing I have a theory that as Shaw was impregnated with the first baby alien, then it shows that the humans were responsible for the creation of the alien creatures.  And perhaps the reason the Engineers wish to return to Earth is destroy the human population with the aliens, so that way the humans can no longer exist to create the alien race.  But that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either!  In fact you could say one of the more infuriating things about Prometheus is how the filmmakers have tried to distance themselves from saying that it isn't a prequel to Alien, when clearly it IS a prequel, when it blatantly shows the events that lead up to Alien, when the big bagel shaped spaceship crashes on its side, as well as the giveaway nod to the very first new born "alien" at the end of the film!   

Performance wise, things are quite good, Noomi Rapace is very good in her role as Elizabeth Shaw, the doctor, who finds the star map of the aliens, and she does well in what is essentially a version of Ellen Ripley, the main protagonist, who has to fight for her survival.  Irdis Elba is also fine as the gritty Captain Janek, and Charlize Theron plays the duplicitous Weyland employee very well (and doesn't she look great in that outfit! Or any outfit for that matter!).  But the best performance comes from Michael Fassbender, who plays the android, David.  Its also a rather neat touch that while David appears to be totally logical and devoid of any emotional attachment, that he does appear to have moments of irritation, particularly with Holloway, who keeps taunting him for being an android.  David arguably could said to be the emotional black hole of the film as his biggest crime comes when he intentionally infects Holloway with a sample from the alien pod he took, which soon leads to Holloway's demise, but we do find out of course that ultimately David was just acting on orders.  Fassbender's scenes with Noomi are also excellent and some of the film's highlights, and he also shows signs that he does care about Elizabeth, and in the end they help each other out.  Guy Pearce also does well with his role as Peter Weyland, the CEO of the Weyland Corporation, and it took me a second viewing to even realise that it was him wearing that make-up as an aged old man!  His best scene comes where he sits with Charlize Theron who asks that he accept he is dying and that his time will end rather than try and find a way to extend his life, as she moves to hold his hand, he coldly recoils, and replies "anything else?". 

Ridley Scott, while he has made a few dull films of late, with Prometheus he has gone some way in redeeming that, as the film has some interesting ideas, visually it looks stunning, with some excellent CGI effects, although the aliens aren't that well realised, but the spaceships, the alien ships and the sets are all great.  The film also has one or two suspensful sequences, particularly the scenes where Filfield and Milburn are attacked, and the rather shocking scene where Shaw has a "foreign body" implanted in her, and she has to perform an emergency medical procedure on herself!  Its a scene you won't forget in a hurry!  Also worthy of note is Marc Streitenfeld's music score, which is mostly good despite one or two lesser passages (one of which is a cringe inducing nod to Jerry Goldsmith's score, in the scene where we see the hologram of Peter Weyland), but for the most part it is quite an effective, haunting and atmospheric score. 

So Prometheus is far from a disaster, and on a repeated viewing it is actually quite good, but it does have a few problems and doesn't make a whole lot of sense and while its nowhere near as good as Alien, it still is worth watching. 

And that's itttttttt.