Funny how???

OK so its blog removal time again as I move a post from the "other" blog to this one, this time its my review of Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed crime drama about the real life story of former gangster Henry Hill.    

The film itself starts in 1955 with Henry as a teenager who lives in East Brooklyn ad he longs to become one of the "wiseguys" and chooses to work for them at the local cabstand.  However Henry's father soon finds out he has not been at school and beats him, as he doesn't want his son to have anything to do with the mob.  However the mobsters manage to put a stop to this by threatening the local mailman by putting his "fuckin head in the oven first!" if he delivers another letter to Henry's house.  After this Henry works full time under the wing of the boss Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino) and he also meets his two associates the smooth talking but lethal Jimmy "The Gent" Conway (Robert De Niro) and the psychotic loose canon Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci).  After being pinched by the cops for selling cigarettes off the back off a truck, Henry is taken to court, but tells them nothing, and is eventually let go where Jimmy tells him "Never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut".

As the film moves into the 1960s, Henry now in his 20s (as is Tommy) are making a solid living stealing cargo from the local airports, and they also pull off the Air France robbery, which sees Henry move up the ranks.  By this time Henry also meets his soon to be wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco) a Jewish girl from the Five Towns in New York, initially they dont get on well, and Henry stood her up on their second date, but after Karen confronts him about it, Henry makes it up to her.  After this Henry charms Karen with the glamourous side of his life, as he takes her out on expensive dates for meals and drinks.  Henry also at one point defends her, by brutally beating up an abusive neighbour of Karen's, and despite her initial shock toward the incident, she admits that it turned her on, and soon after they marry.

Now into the 1970s, where things start to get more heavy as Henry and Jimmy host a party for Billy Batts (Frankie Vincent) who is a made man with the Gambino crime family.  During the party, Tommy arrives with his date, where Billy first off warmly greets Tommy but then proceeds to wind him up about his past when he was just a boy who shined shoes, this drives Tommy mad (or madder than before) and he threatens Billy then leaves.  Later on Tommy comes back and with Jimmy they both brutally beat up Billy, and later stab and kill him, and soon after bury his body out in the woods.  With Batts being a made guy, this causes a serious problem for the three of them as they killed him without consent.  And during this period Tommy's psychosis continues as he first off berates and shoots a young hood Spider (Michael Imperioli) in the foot for not getting him drink, and then later shoots Spider dead for talking back to him.  Round about this time Henry also starts an affair with a girl Janice Rossi (Gina Mastrogiacomo), but Karen soon finds out about it and rows furiously with him, which leads to Karen becoming hysterical and confronting Henry, pointing a gun at him while they lie on bed, but Henry soon slaps her and takes the gun off her and shouts at her that he's got enough to worry about without coming home to this, and leaves.  Soon after, Paulie expresses his concerns about Karen, but insists he can put things to rights, and in the meantime Henry go off with Jimmy on business down to Florida.  However on beating up a bookie, things soon go awry as the bookie's sister is revealed to be a typist for the FBI, who gives them up, and Henry, Jimmy and Paulie serve a prison sentence.

After Henry is released, he gets involved in drug dealing (behind Paulie's back who insisted Henry doesn't get involved in it) and he also comes across a very appealing  business proposal from his friend and local mobster Morrie Kessler (Chuck Law).  This turns out to be the legendary Lufthansa heist at JFK airport, where Jimmy and a small crew pull off a robbery where they steal over 6 million dollars  However as a result of the robbery, the crew all buy expensive things with their cut of the money, which infuriates Jimmy who expressly told them not to buy anything as it would attract unwanted attention.  Soon after Jimmy has the participants of the heist murdered by Tommy in order to cut any link between himself and the robbery, this includes Morrie, Henry's close friend.  Once the dust has cleared from the heist, Tommy receives the good news that he is set to be "made" and ingratiated into the crime family as a proper member.  But it soon turns out to be a setup as Tommy is taken into a room by Tuddie (Paulie's brother) and is shot dead, as a revenge for killing Billy Batts and various other things. 

By the time we hit 1980, Henry gets involved even heavier in his drug deals and is trying to set up a deal with his associates in Pittsburgh.  But by now Henry is a total dishevelled mess, addicted to cocaine and has become increasingly paranoid.  However before Henry can get the deal underway he is arrested by narcotics police and he is sent to jail, where Henry fears he may be murdered by his crime partners in case he rats them out.  After posting bail, Henry meets with Jimmy who for the first time asks him to do a hit on someone who was supposedly the rat who snitched on them, but Henry realises its a setup because if he decided to go along with the hit, he himself would be killed.  Henry afterward realises he has little choice but to become involved in the witness protection program in order to save his own life and his family.

Right from the start you just know that Goodfellas is a classic film, that certainly isn't far off the level of The Godfather.  The first scene which definitely ranks as one of the most violent opening scenes in American cinema where Tommy and Jimmy finish off Batts, really grabs you by the throat and pulls you into the film straight off.  The characters in Goodfellas are certainly very vividly drawn and Henry Hill himself is far from an angel, but he does appear to be a man who is out of his depth in this world.  He is surrounded by vicious thieves and murderers and while he is a thief himself, he isn't murder, and as Hill in real life himself said, he lived in constant fear 24 hours a day, fearing that he might be killed himself at any moment.  Hill's narration in the film is also really contrary with the events that occur in the film where he says he loved the life, and the thrill he got from it, but you also see Henry's utter shock and fear at his associates behaviour.  This is probably best displayed in the scene after Tommy and Jimmy brutally bludgeon Billy Batts and stick him the boot of their car, they then go and have dinner at Tommy's mother's house, and Henry sits silently, while Tommy and Jimmy laugh and joke, despite what they have just done.  But at the end of the film even though he is living in the witness protection program, he still has the nerve to complain about how boring and inconvenient has life has become since leaving the crime life behind.  Yet if it wasn't for the program he would have been dead long ago, since then Henry Hill himself said how grateful he was for the program and that it did save his life, although he has since had a few lapses and gotten in trouble with the law for drink and drug abuse.  

However Jimmy and Tommy are far from sympathetic as they come across as the vicious bastards they no doubt were in real life, and no doubt in real life they were much worse.  Tommy's character was for example based on Thomas DeSimone, Hill's real life criminal associate who Hill himself described as a "sick deadly fuck, who would kill your rather than steal", DeSimmone also in reality attempted to rape Karen Hill as well.

Performance wise there is precious little to fault here as the cast are all really strong and on top form.  Ray Liotta is great as Henry Hill, as he starts off as a suave well dressed gangster, but ends up a total mess, burnt out on cocaine.  Liotta perfectly grasps the (fancy word here) Hill's ambivalent emotions about the life, as one minute he loves the thrill of stealing, but the next he fears for his life.  De Niro is also really good as Jimmy Conway, he plays him with just the right amount of charm and menace.  Paul Sorvino also does really well as Paulie Cicero, its basically a part he initially found really difficult to capture, until he saw a look he gave in a mirror which scared the hell out of him!  And he adopts this menacing look throughout the film, and his best scene comes when he confronts Henry about drug dealing.  Lorraine Bracco is terrific as Karen Hill, and she is a far cry from the quiet wives off The Godfather as such as Kay and Connie.  Karen is far more fesity and has the guts to stand up to Henry and confront him about his infidelities, and she also remains strong when Henry serves his time in prison.  But the best performance in the film comes from Joe Pesci as the hot headed and aggressive crook Tommy, and its great how he can take his small demeanour and turn himself into quite a chilling but at the same time amusing bad guy.  Pesci's famous scene where he asks Henry "funny how?" is a great example of Pesci's intensity and ability to play a scene as being both funny and menacing all at once.

The film itself has only a few flaws, but the main one unfortunately however has to be that after Tommy's character is bumped off, the film takes a dip and the energy and momentum of the film drops.  In the last 30 minutes or so, its all about Henry's frantic state of mind as he tries to put his drug deal together, and picking up his brother from hospital and getting him to stir the tomato sauce for their dinner, while at the same he is paranoid about helicopters following him outside.  It all becomes a bit bogged down with inconsequential details at this point, and all Henry's running around really drags the pace of the film down.  However it does feature a great moment where Karen meets up with Jimmy who says he has some dresses for Karen to look at, which are in the back of Jimmy's warehouse in an alleyway, but Karen out of fear choses not to look and drives away in her car.  But the end of the film does feel like a bit of an anti-climax, which is a shame as the rest of it is so good.  

Technically though the film is just as good as anything Scorses has done, as there are many great scenes, the scene where Henry escorts Karen through the bowels the club they are going to in order to skip the queue at the front door is definitely one of the most memorable.  I also love the pull in zoom shot where Henry meets with Jimmy in a diner toward the end where they discuss Henry's case.  Scorsese's also put together a terrific soundtrack for the film and his choice of music is perfect in each scene with such artists as The Rolling Stones, Donovan, The Sex Pistols, George Harrison and Cream.

Soooo that's my review and analysis of Goodfellas over with, its a real classic no doubt it and if you haven't seen it well get it sorted! 

That it for now.

Star Trek III: Searching for Spock

Right as I did a review of Star Trek II, I thought I might as well follow it up with one on Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, which saw Leonard Nimoy make his directorial debut back when it was made in 1984.  So let's gie it a look.  (As usual PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!)

Right right right, I might as well start with a bit of the old plot, which begins with the USS Enterprise returning back to Earth, in the aftermath of Kirk's battle with Khan, who tried to destroy the Enterprise by detonating the Genesis torpedo, and as a result Spock sacrificed his life to save the ship.  As they are about to dock, Kirk (Shatner) receives word that someone has broken into Spock's quarters, and he goes to find McCoy (DeForrest Kelly) there who is acting strangely as he tells Jim to "climb the steps to Mount Selaya" which is on Vulcan, but McCoy passes out before he can say more.  Once back at Starfleet command, Admiral Morrow (Robert Hooks) tells the crew that the Enterprise is to be decomissioned and that Genesis is now a taboo subject and not to be discussed with anyone, as a result of a political fallout over the device.  Kirk back home receives a visit from Spock's father, Sarek (Mark Lenard) who confronts him over his son's death.  Sarek mind melds with Kirk but he finds no trace of what he had hoped was his son's "katra" or living spirit, however Kirk suggests that Spock might have joined with someone else.  This is revealed to be the case when they check the engineering room video tapes and they find Spock performed a mind meld on McCoy, on which Sarek tells Kirk that he must find Spock's body and bring him and McCoy to Mount Selaya where they can restore Spock's mind.  

Meanwhile Kirk's son David Marcus (Merritt Butrick again) one of the main scientists involved in the Genesis project, is now assigned to the USS Grissom, where investigates an unidentified lifeform coming from the Genesis planet.  Along with Lt Saavik (Robin Curtis) David beams down to the surface of the planet and they find that Spock's coffin chamber is empty, and they soon find a Vulcan child, which as it turns out the Genesis wave has regenerated Spock back to life.  However the planet itself is becoming highly unstable as David admits to Saavik that he used "protomatter" in constructing the Genesis device, which means that Spock will age rapidly and the planet will be destroyed within a matter of hours.

Elsewhere Kirk with help of Sulu (George Taeki), Scotty (James Doonan) and Chekov (Walter Koenig) manage to steal the Enterprise from space dock and fly off to find Spock.  However to complicate things a Klingon crew have learned of the Genesis device, and the commander, Kruge (Christopher Lloyd) intercepts and destroys USS Grissom and he beams down to the planet, taking David, Saavik and the rapidly aging Spock hostage.  As the Enterprise reaches the Genesis planet, Kruge is informed of their arrival and beams up to his Klingon bird of prety, where he does battle with the Enterprise, and knocks out the ship's engines and weapons in the process.  Kruge tells Kirk that he has David and Saavik hostage below and he orders one of them to be killed, and on the surface, David prevents one of the Klingons from killing Saavik, but he is killed himself in the struggle.  Kirk is devastated by news of his son's death and surrenders to Kruge, but in the meantime he activates the Enterprises's self destruct sequence, and he sets the transporter to beam down to the surface of the planet, just in time before Kruge's boarding party arrive on the ship as it self destructs.  On the surface Kirk and the others soon find Saavik and the aging Spock, who by this time has fully growing into the adult Spock we know.  But before they can escape, Kruge beams down and seeks revenge over the death of his crewmembers, as he confronts Kirk as the planet collapses around them...

Although it isn't quite in the same league as its predecessor, STIII: The Search for Spock has alot going for it as a film, and Leonard Nimoy makes an impressive directorial debut here taking over from Nicholas Meyer, who was set not to return.  It also sees the second part in what is something of a trilogy of its own as the story arc of finding Spock is a continuation from the events of the second film, and this continues into Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.  I also quite like the concept that Spock can be brought back to life by placing his "katra" or living spirit into McCoy's mind and it also allows for McCoy behave in an amusingly strange manner, as he takes on some of Spock's personality traits, which I'll mention more about a bit later on.  And the Genesis theme is again used well here, although it does seem a bit of a change-up that all of a sudden Genesis, which is supposed to have the power to create, turns out to be a scientific failure, as the Genesis planet becomes unstable and destroys itself later on.  Its also refreshing to see the return of the Klingons to the franchise as well, and this time they are far better represented than they were in Star Trek The Motion Picture, where they hardly had any screen time at all.

Which brings me onto the performances in the film which are again pretty good, and the regular cast once more deliver some nice performances.  William Shatner once again is great in his role as James T. Kirk, and he shows great decency, courage and loyalty in doing all he can to find Spock and bring him back.  Bill also has some funny moments in the film, one of which being when he finds McCoy who has been arrested in put in a holding cell after having an argument in a bar, and Kirk does the Vulcan peace sign and says "how many fingers am I holding up??".  Also later on he has an amusing moment when he takes the remaining Klingon crew hostage, and he says "help us or die" to the Klingon officer, Maltz (played by John Larroquette) who says "I do not deserve to live!" and Kirk replies "fine, I'll kill you later!", which he doesn't to which Maltz angrily says "wait, you say you would kill me!" and Kirk says "I lied.".  Bill however does have a rather silly dramatic and cheesy moment where he learns that David has been killed and he collapses in his chair on the Enterprise bridge, and says "you Klingon bastard you killed my son!".  Bill also has another great moment in his climactic fight scene with Kruge on the Genesis planet as it destroys itself, and he tries to save Kruge from falling over a cliff, but Kruge tries to take him with him, and Kirk says "I... have.... had....enough... of.... you!!!" as he kicks him off.  

DeForrest Kelley is great again as McCoy, and this time he is given more to do as he holds the burden of carrying Spock's katra in his head, and as a result he takes on some of Spock's logical personality, which provides some amusing moments in the film.  McCoy's best scene is of course where he meets with a strange looking alien with big ears, whom he tries to arrange a space flight with to go to Genesis, and he says to him angrily "I wan't to go to Genesis, how can you be deaf with ears like that??!".  He also has a funny moment in the same scene where a barmaid asks McCoy what he wants to drink and he asks for something different to which the barmaid says "that isn't your usual poison" and McCoy replies in Spock fashion "you don't expect one to order poison in bars, its not logical".

And while they three of them have limited screen time, Walter Koenig, George Taeki and James Doonan also provide nice performances.  And James Doonan in particular get's one of the film's best lines where he is about to sabotage the new USS Excelsior starship he has been assigned to, and the automated elevator voice asks him where he wants to go and he says "up your shaft!".  George Taeki as Sulu also get's a funny moment where he teases a big security guard who stands up over Sulu and says "don't get smart. Tiny!" and later Sulu knocks the big guy out and says "don't call me tiny!".  And I will quickly mention Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, who get's an amusing moment in the film where she locks an ambitious cocky wannabe starfleet officer in a closet, "the old adrenalin going?? Good now get into the closet!".   

Of the new cast members, Christopher Lloyd is excellent as the Klingon commander Kruge, an meglomaniacal Klingon who is out to seek power, glory and the usual stuff renegade Klingons look for!  Lloyd overall makes for quite an effective villain, and he has some good moments one of which is where he kills a crewmember who mistakenly destroys the USS Grissom when Kruge asked him to target only the ship's engine, and the victim officer says "A good shot sir!" before being vapourised!  Robin Curtis who takes over the role of playing Lt Saavik also does a good job here although she is arguably not quite as good Kirstie Alley, but she does play Saavik in a more logical way, and her most notable moment is when David has been killed, she calmly tells Kirk on the radio "Admiral, David is dead".  This might appear to be a badly acted moment, but considering that she is Vulcan and they are a logical race, it makes sense that she wouldn't be overcome by emotion.  Merritt Buttrick again as David provides a good performance and his last scene is quite poignant as Kirk speaks to him over the radio and asks "David what went wrong???" and he replies "I went wrong!" before sacrficing himself to save Saavik and Spock.  And finally Mark Lenard as Sarek does a fine job playing Spock's father, and his scene with Kirk at the start when they join minds is quite a sad moment in the film, where Sarek sadly reflects about Spock "that every he knew, everything he was is lost".

In regards to the special effects, once again they were provided mostly by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and this time we have four spaceships on display with the USS Enterprise, Grissom, Excelsior as well as Kruge's Klingon bird of prey.  Overall once again the special effects for the ships are all very impressive and one of the new effects we see in the film is the Klingon cloaking device, which is well used.  However the most notable effect in the film is of course the destruction of the Enterprise, and its one of the film's most memorable images as Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, Scotty and Chekov have safely beamed to the Genesis planet, we see the smouldering remains of the Enterprise fire down in the distance.

And regarding the film's music, we are again treated to a great score by James Horner, who follows up his terrific work from Star Trek II with another wonderful effort here, which has the perfect mix of drama, adventure and atmosphere.  Horner reprises some of the themes from the second film, but he also adds in plenty of great new cues, such as the one used in the Enterprise self destruct sequence, and the scene where they attempt Spock's "refusion" on Vulcan.

So that's it for my look at Star Trek III, which to this day is still a very entertaining and worthy addition to the franchise.  It might not be quite as good as Star Trek II but it still stands tall among some of the efforts to be later found in the Star Trek world.

And with that I shall leave it there.  Live long and all that. 

Star Trek II: KHANNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!

Righty time for another review, so this time I've dug back in time to an old sci-fi classic and its one of the Star Trek films, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which is widely regarded as the best of the original crew's films.  So let's give it a look....

OK starting with the usual stuff, i.e the plot the film begins with Starfleet officer, Lt Saavik (Kirstie Alley) who is taking the "Kobayashir Maru" test, which is a test of Starfleet officer's character and leadership qualities in battle situations.  Saavik fails the test as it ends Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) comes as he has been overseeing the test and speaks with Captain spock (Leonard Nimoy) afterwards.  Kirk by now has given up his command of the Enterprise, as he insists "galloping round the cosmos is a game for the young".  On the night of his birthday back on Earth, Dr McCoy (DeForrest Kelly) visits Kirk and insists he get back his command on the Enterprise.

Meanwhile the USS Reliant, is on a mission to find a lifeless planet so they can test the Genesis device, which is a torpedo that has the ability to reorganise matter and create habitable worlds for colonisation.  On beaming down to a barren planet named Ceti Alpha V, Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Captain Terrell (Paul Winfield) beam down to the surface, during a heavy sandstorm they are soon captured by mysteriously masked figures.  The leader reveals himself to be Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) a genetically engineered tyrant who was exiled to the planet 15 years ago by Kirk.  Khan tells them that he was abandoned by Kirk and that he blames him for the death of his wife.  Kahn then uses small eels which he places into Chekov and Terrell's space helmets which crawl into their ears, which Khan uses to control the men's minds and he get's them to find out where Kirk is, and they soon take the Reliant.  Chekov then sends a strange message to the Genesis research team, who created the weapon, insisting that they transport the Genesis materials to them.  The leader of the group Dr Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch) then contacts Kirk to ask why they are taking Genesis away from them, but their transmission is jammed.  Kirk then decides out of concern to take command of the Enteprise, which is supposed to be on a three week training cruise.  And its not long before Khan shows up in the Reliant and launches an attack on the Enterprise, but Kirk manages to trick them into lowering their shields and they counter-attack and escape.  

On arriving at the scientist space station, Kirk with Lt Saavik and McCoy find most of the crew murdered and also Chekov and Terrell, who tell them that Khan tortured and killed most of the crew to get information about Genesis.  Saavik tells Kirk that the remaining might have beamed down into the planetoid of Regula, and they teleport down, to soon find the remaining project team members, including Carol Marcus and her son, David (Merritt Buttrick) which turns out to be Kirk's son.  At this point Chekov and Terrell draw their guns on Kirk, as Khan has been using them as spies, and they beam up Genesis at Khan's command, who tells them to kill Kirk.  Terrell however resists and feeling the torment of the eel inside him, kills himself, whereas Chekov collapses, but eel drops out his ear and Kirk shoots it, and angrily speaks to Khan who taunts him.  Stranded on the planetoid for a short while until Spock on the Enterprise can restore enough power to the ship's engines, Carol shows them around the Genesis cave, which is a beautiful paradise like world.  After a short time, Spock calls Kirk and beams them back onboard the Enterprise, where Kirk once again is involved in a battle of wits against his old foe Khan for the final time.

There is no doubt that Star Trek II is one of the best films if not the best in the Star Trek movie franchise, and after a very disappointing and frankly boring first film, Star Trek: the Motion Picture, this saw the makers refind the essence of what made the TV show so entertaining.  The re-introduction of an old enemy from the TV series was also an excellent choice, as the filmmakers decided to go with Khan, who appeared in the original TV series episode "Space seed".  Khan himself is a very charismatic villain and at times even quotes pieces of Shakespeare, especially near the end when he is (PLOT SPOILER) abotu to detonate the Genesis device and he says "for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!".  Its also a really good choice in the film that Khan and Kirk never actually meet in person as they only communicate over the radios, or the ship's screen, and this is used to great effect in the scene where Kirk is left stranded on Regula planetoid and Khan taunts him by saying "I will leave you marooned for all eternity on the centre of a dead planet, buried alive!".  And Khan's mean motivation for vengeance is the death of his wife, although in the film its not really specified directly that this was Kirk's doing, it was more the eel like creatures that were responsible for her death as he says so himself "they killed 20 of my people, including my beloved wife!".  In the end however it is more about Khan purely out for revenge over Kirk for abandoning him on a desolate planet in the end more than anything else.

So getting onto the performances, well starting with the Star Trek crew themselves, they all give reassuringly charming performances that are very much akin to the TV series.  William Shatner is great as James T. Kirk and after playing Kirk in a very stiff and serious manner in the first film, here we see the proper Kirk, with a wry sense of humour.  Shatner himself get's some great lines in the film such as in the scene where he beams down to the planetoid with McCoy and Saavik and McCoy asks and tries to find the remainder Gensis project crew:

McCoy: Where are we going?
Kirk: Where they went?
McCoy: Supposing they went nowhere?
Kirk: Well this will be your big chance to get away from it all!

Shatner also shows Kirk as being quite vulnerable at times and at the start of the film he appears to be undergoing a sort of mid-life crisis, as he refuses to take command of the ship.  And in one of the best dramatic scenes, his former lover, Carol Marcus asks him how he feels and he replies "old, worn out".  Although later on he changes that to the film's last and cheesiest line where McCoy asks him how he feels and Kirk replies "young, I feel young!".  There is also of course the classic line which he delivers after Khan angers him by leaving him stranded on the planetoid and Kirk yells into his radio "KHANNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!".   

Leonard Nimoy also plays Spock nicely in a very subtle way, and he also shows that over time he has grown used to human customs and has a good understanding of their behaviour, and even at times displays a quirky sense of humour himself, as he says at one point to Kirk "I'm a Vulcan, I have no ego to bruise!".  Spock's friendship with Krik has always been one of the key relationships in the series, and they also share a couple of good scenes, mainly the one at the end where (ANOTHER PLOT SPOILER) Spock sacrificies himself to save the ship from the Genesis detonation, and in his dying moments he says to Kirk "I am and shall always be your friend!".  This still is one of the more poignant scenes in the Star Trek movie franchise, and no doubt there will be a few fans out there with something in their eye when this scene comes on!  Although in an earlier scene the way in which he phrases his friendship to Kirk sounds a bit suspect, as he says to him "you are my superior officer, and also my friend, I am and shall always be yours".   Ahem!

Of the other regular cast members DeForrest Kelly is great as Doctor McCoy, and he too get's some great lines when he argues with Kirk and Spock over the merits and flaws of the Genesis device and he says "according to myth the Earth was created in six days, now watch out, here's Genesis, now we can do it in six minutes!".  Later on McCoy becomes instrumental in the saviour of Spock's life in the scene just before Spock goes into the engine room, Spock uses his nerve pinch to knock out McCoy and he performs a mind meld on him, simply saying "remember".  Which amusingly brings to mind a story from William Shatner who was totally unaware of this scene at the time and implications of how it meant they were leaving it open for a third film, which Shatner had no idea about and jokingly accused Harve Bennet the producer and Leonard Nimoy with coming up with this sneaky idea to extend the film series.  And Shatner jokingly said "they knew about it, and did it on purpose and I didn't know, and I'm going to get them for it one day!".  Walter Koenig also does fairly well as Pavel Chekov, despite his forever dodgy Russian accent (always overpronouncing his v's as w's) he get's more to do in this film than normal, and its a nice change-up that he is used as a spy by Khan.

And as for the supporting new cast there is Bibi Besch, who is good as Dr Marcus, although she does have one cringeworthy line where she speaks to Kirk down on the Regula planetoid and she says "let me show you something that will make you feel young, as when the world was new!".  Although Besch does have a good line when David refers to Kirk as an "overgrown boyscout" and Dr Marcus says "listen kiddo, Jim Kirk was many things but he was never a boyscout!".  Merritt Buttrick is also good as Kirk's feisty and stubborn son David, and he would later go on to reprise his role in Star Trek III, and it was a great pity that he later on died only at the age of 29 due to AIDS related toxoplasmosis.

And finally there is of course Kirstie Alley as Lt Saavik, who is really good as the cool headed and ambitious Starfleet officer, who for half the film is frustrated at her failed attempts to succeed in the Kobayashi Maru test, before she get's a chance to have a shot at the Enterprise command chair herself when Kirk says "Saavik, you have the comm!".  As Saavik, Alley shares a nice little scene with Kirk in the elevator scene where she asks him how he passed the test and he says "you may ask!  That's just a little joke" to which Saavik shakes her head and says "humour its a difficult concept, it is not logical!".  But of course Kirk later on tells Saavik his solution to the test, which in effect suggests that he cheated to win, although Kirk puts it as "changing the conditions of the test".  Saavik also most notably cries near the end of the film at Spock's funeral, which was very uncharacteristic for a Vulcan, although in the script it was revealed that Saavik was of mixed Vulcan and Romulan ancestry, although Vulcans do of course have emotions, they just suppress them, and its fair to say that even Vulcans might shed a tear every once in a very long while. 

Which brings me onto the star of the show, Ricardo Montalban as Khan, and he does a terrific job as Kirk's old arch enemy.  Montalban plays Kahn as a charming, intelligent yet vicious villain who is quick to take lives when he feels like it, as we see the bloody aftermath of his attack on the Regula space station.  Montalban get's plenty of great dialogue in the film and he has several highlights in the film, especially in his first scene where he reveals himself to Chekov by removing his mask and he interrogates him, lifting him off the ground asking "why are you here???".  There is also the scene where Montalban is about to launch his first attack on the Enterprise and he says "Ahh Kirk my old friend, do you know of the old Klingon proverb that revenge is a dish best served cold?  It is very cold in space!".  I also like the line where Khan's second in command, Jaochim tries to convince him that he doesn't need to go after Kirk now they have taken the Reliant but Khan insists and says "He tasks me and I shall have him! I shall chase him round the moons of Nibia, and around the Antares Maelstrom and around Perdition's flames before I give him up!".  Montalban also did a fair bit of physical work to give himself a strong physique for Khan and he does impose himself as a very effective villain throughout the film both physically and mentally. 

As for the technical specs of the film, direction wise Nicholas Meyer does a terrific job here, and he also co-wrote the screenplay, and he adds in some doses of Shakespeare for measure here (although not Measure for Measure!) with several quotations from Hamlet, as Kirk and Khan both separately quote from the play.  Meyer also provides the perfect balance of humour, drama as well action to the film, and he nicely conveys how Starfleet is more like on giant navy in space, with even an admiral ranking to back it up.

The special effects for the film are also excellent as the Industry of Light Magic bring the space battle between the USS Enterprise and Reliant brilliantly to life in space and the model work for both ships are great.  And one of the most visually impressive sequences in the film is the cat and mouse chase through into the Nebula, where the two ships can't detect one another due to the large amount of static discharge in the Nebula itself.  Star Trek II is also one of the first films to have used computer graphics effects as well, which is shown in the Genesis proposal video, which shows the effects of the torpedo and how it creates a world.  And its ironic how Star Trek II cost a quarter of the amount that Star Trek The Motion Picture did ($11 million as opposed to $46 million), yet Star Trek II is by far the more visually impressive film, as I guess they used the money in just the right way. 

And finally I can't finish without mentioning James Horner's brilliant and wonderful music score for the film, which easily stands as one of his very best film scores and it was also his debut major film.  And throughout there are so many terrific passages of music, especially in the scene where Khan is introduced, and also in the scenes where the Enterprise comes under attack, as well as the film's terrific main theme. 

Sooooo that's it for my pretty exhaustive look at Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which for me is the best of the Star Trek films and to this day remains a very enteratining, suspenseful and enjoyable film.

And that's it for now, till the next time, beam me up! 

 

Die Hard Part 4.0: A timex watch in a digital age

OK now this is the final part of my Die Hard posts, and this will cover the latest installment in the franchise, Die Hard 4.0 (or, Live Free or Die Hard as its called in the US).  So as usual why not start with a bit more about the plot...

Starting at the start, the film begins with police officer John McClane (Brucey) being order by his superior officer at the NYPD to bring in a young hacker, Matt Farrell (Justin Long) to protective custody.  On finding Matt, an attempt is made on the young hacker's life, and McClane manages to get him out of there before the assassins kill him.  McClane takes Matt to Washington D.C. where he will be taken into custody by the FBI, and Matt explains that he was going to be paid a large sum of money for writing some security code for Mai Linh (Maggie Q) who turns out to be one of the cyberterrorists, lead by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), who was once a DOD (Department of Defence) analyst for the Government who was dismissed after finding flaws in the security systems.  On arriving in D.C. the traffic lights stop working all over the city, and traffic is grinded to a gridlock.  McClane gets Matt to the FBI cyber crime division, where they talk to Depty Director, Miguel Bowman (Cliff Curtis).  At this point the television networks are filled with a video compilation of the former presidents of the USA, stringing together a threatening speech from past speeches.  Matt soon realises that Gabriel is planning a "firesale", which is an attack on the country's computer infrastructure, which means Gabriel will take out the nation's electricity, fuel and water supplies.  Bowman has McClane and Matt escorted by agents to the FBI headquarters, but their car is intercerpted by a chopper enroute, which takes out the agent driver.  McClane and Matt soon escape sight of the chopper by going into a tunnel, abandoning the car, McClane gets into another car and uses it to launch an attack on the chopper, as he revs it up and it flies up over a damaged toolboth, thereby destroying the chopper.

After this McClane with Farrell's help find out that the terrorists next target will be a power grid and they drive to a power station in West Virginia.  At the station McClane takes out the team of terrorists and Mai, McClane contacts Gabriel, informing him his team and Mai are dead (who was his girlfriend), which pisses off Gabriel, who then sends by remote control, the stations gas supply into it, and McClane and Farrell narrowly escape being killed in the resulting explosion of the station.  After Farrell decides to get the help of his hacker friend, the "Warlock" Freddie Klaudis (Kevin Smith) who is initially reluctant to help them, especially as McClane is a cop, but he tells them that the piece of code Farrell wrote, was part of a code that will enable Gabriel to download all personal and finanical records into a secure facility based at Woodlawn, Maryland.  However Gabriel discovers and tracks Freddie's hack and speaks to McClane, and tells him that he will go after his daughter Lucy McClane (Mary Elisabeth Winstead), who he tracks by use of her mobile phone, and sends his men in to kidnap her.  McClane then heads off to Woodlawn with Farrell, once they get there, McClane takes out most of Gabriel's men, however Gabriel captures Farrell, who is caught encrypting the data that Gabriel has downloaded, and he escapes with Farrell and Lucy.  McClane follows them and in pirsuit kills one of Gabriel's men, driving a truck, but Gabriel is able to hack into the Military corps computers, and convinces a nearby jet fighter airpilot into believing that McClane is in fact a terrorist.  The pilot launches an attack on McClane's truck, but McClane narrowly escapes by launching the truck into the aircraft, which destroys both the aircraft and the truck.  McClane soon after tracks Gabriel to a warehouse, where Gabriel forces Farrell to decrypt the data, and there we have the inevitable final showdown....

Die Hard 4.0, or Live Free or Die Hard, if you like, is another enjoyable entry in the franchise, and while it isn't the strongest of the four, it definitely is more entertaining than Die Hard 2 was.  It was inevitable that with ever changing technology, that Die Hard would sooner or later get to cyberterrorism, and while its hardly an original concept or plot (look no further than the James Bond film, Goldeneye, and you will see the plot is very similar!) the film is still very enjoyable.  In Die Hard 4.0 we see John McClane is becoming more and more out of touch with technology, as he clearly is an old school guy, and is very wary throughout of all technical jargon he faces from Farrell.  In fact there times where McClane's character is almost overly simplified because for him its all absolutes, as he says things like "I'm gonna find the bad guy and kill him, and get my daughter" or "how about I find you, kick your ass out of your own party!".  However that is pretty much the essence of McClane's character, as Gabriel points out at one stage that he is "a timex watch in a digital age", he's a dinosaur in modern age.

However character wise, Die Hard 4.0 has quite a lot going for it, Bruce Willis once again as McClane is as reliable and likeable as he usually is, and his over protectiveness of his daughter is quite amusing, especially at the start when he spies on his daughter Lucy making out with a guy in a car, and he pulls the guy out of the car, and Lucy accuses him of spying on her, and McClane defensively says "I wasn't spying on you!".  He also has the odd moment of personal reflection where he says to Farrell how his life isn't all that great that way it has worked out, being divorced from his wife Holly, and that its up to him to do what he has to do to keep Farrell alive and safe.

Matt Farrell played by Justin Long is not a bad character, although there are a few scenes where he does annoy me, one which is where he berates McClane for listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son", and says it "I'd rather have a pine cone shoved up my ass than listen to this!".  However at the start you hear the crappy Goth metal pish music that Farrell listens to, and I gladly would put the mute on any day rather listen to that, in fact where is the pine cone????? (OK I pushed it too far there, ahem!! ;-).  Another annoying and pointless scene with Farrell is where they break into a car and instead of letting McClane hotwire it, he begs with the car's automated voice system to start the car by pretending that he was in a bad car accident, after which it eventually starts the car.  I mean why bother?????  It would be much quicker to just hotwire it anyway!!  Lucy McClane is also very well represented by the rather nice Mary Elisabeth Winstead, who personality wise follows in her father's footsteps, in being headstrong, stubborn and gutsy.  In fact Justin Long as Farrell get's one of the best lines in the film when Mary (as Lucy) says "look do you wanna grow some balls??!", to which Farrell replies "Wow!  I'm use to hearing that tone, but its funny to hear it from someone with hair!".

Supporting character wise the film also benefits from some fine performances, particularly from Cliff Curtis as FBI deputy director Bowman, who is very good.  Curtis is also a very chamaeleonic actor, and from one film to the next, there are times you wouldn't recognise it was even him!  Accent wise Curtis also is quite versatile, as he has played Americans, Hispanics, Muslims and of course New Zealand (where he is from!).  Maggie Q is also fine (and is foine!) as the icy cool assassin Mai, who at one point McClane says to Gabriel on the phone that "that little ninja chick was smokin hot!".  And of course Kevin Smith plays a very amusing cameo role as the "Warlock", the hacker, who literally lives in his mum's basement.  Smith also has one of the film's most amusing exchanges with Willis, in the scene where McClane looks at one of Warlock's figurines of Bobba Fett, and Warlock says "are you a fan of the Fett?" and McClane none the wiser replies "no, I was always more of a Star Wars guy!".

The film of course however does have a few flaws, the main one probably being that as the franchise has progressed, it has gotten more and more over the top and proposterous, and here it reaches it limits.  In Die Hard 4.0, McClane is now taking out choppers by launching cars at them, and facing off marine aircraft and taking them down.  Even by the standard of what went before in the series, this is getting really ridiculous on the "credibility" stakes, and has you shaking your head in disbelief.  The other film's main flaw for me is Timothy Olyphant, who makes for the least most effective villain in the Die Hard franchise.  Olyphant's Gabriel is more of a whining nerd, then a menacing baddie and at no point do you really get that he is that much of a match for McClane.  Olyphant also clearly lacks the courage of his convictions in killing anyone himself, as he really is like a boy sending men to do his work for him, unlike the Gruber's, who are seasoned professionals and not to be toyed with.  That's not to take away Timothy Olyphant's performance, which is not too bad, but he clearly has been short changed by his character.  Perhaps also another slight flaw in the film, is just perhaps due to its lower PG-13 rating (still rated a 15 certificate in the UK), the film contains much less profanity, which possibly takes away from the grittiness that fuelled the previous films well.  But I don't think that's a bad thing though, as it does provide a welcome change and proves that you don't really need a lot of effin and blinding to make a film work. 

Direction wise though Len Wiseman, who was responsible for directing the awful Underworld films, acquits himself quite well here with Die Hard 4.0, and handles the action scenes very well, as well as the pacing of the film, and he also neatly leaves the film's conclusion wide open for another film to follow.

However the film that followed turned out to be A Good Day to Die Hard, which was released earlier this year, and unlike the other films, its received a real lambasting from the critics, and I have not as yet seen it, but I would imagine that it would pale in comparison to the previous four films.  The plot as far as I know involves John McClane helping his estranged son, Jack, out of prison in Russia during a terrorist threat, and that's all I will say about it just now.  However perhaps one day I will give it a watch and add to this compendium (if that is the right word!). 

And on that note I shall leave it there and that's it for the Die Hard posts. Yippeee ki-yay, mutha fu***!!

Die Hard Part 3: Simon says....

OK now onto the 3rd installment of the Die Hard posts, which covers Die Hard with a vengeance, which saw the return of John McTiernan to the directorial helm.  So here is more on that and the plot.... (please forgive the long plot summary!)

The film begins with a bomb going off in New York Manhattan at the Bonwitt Teller department store during a hot summer morning.  The NYPD receive a call from a mysterious caller that uses the phrase "Simon says" and asks for John McClane (Bruce Willis of course!), who at this time is on suspension of duty.  The caller insists that John McClane get to Harlem and wear a sandwich board, or else, the caller will set off another bomb.  The major case unit inspector Walter Cobb (Larry Bryggman) of the NYPD goes and talks with McClane and tells them that he must do as "Simon" says, so McClane has no choice but to wear the sandwich board which says "I hate niggers" on it.  On walking through the streets of Harlem, a local shop owner and electrician Zeus Carver (Samuel L.Jackson) spots McClane and tells him to get out of there, but as McClane explains what he is doing, a local gang spot him and attack him, but Zeus manages to grab McClane's gun and they escape the scene in a taxi, back to the police station.  Back at the station, the police have found that "Simon" has stolen thousands of gallons of bi-chemical agent explosive.  Simon then calls again and speaks with McClane and insists that he and Zeus go on a series of games of games in order to prevent him from detonating more bombs.  McClane reluctantly manages to get Zeus to go along with him, and their first port of call is trying to prevent a bomb going off in one of the New York subways, which McClane barely gets there in time, finding the bomb in one of the carriages of a subway train, he throws it out the window and it blows up just in time before destroying the train.

Soon after this, McClane and Zeus are taken to meet two FBI agents, who explain that the mysterious caller is in fact the brother of Hans Gruber, the villain from the first Die Hard, and his real name is Simon Peter Gruber (Jeremy Irons).  At this point Simon calls again and tells them he has planted another bomb in one of the schools in the city, and that McClane and Zeus are to solve more puzzles in order to find the location of the bomb.  After the two men find a bomb in one of the parks, they disarm it and take it away, afterwards McClane spots a kid cycling away from a store, having stolen some food and stops him, where the kid says "Look at this place, there is no one here, the cops are into something, its like Christmas, you could steal City Hall!".  At this point McClane realises something is up and it dawns on him that this is actually been all about a heist, as Simon and his men, are in actual fact there to steal the gold bullion from the Federal Reserve Bank.  So Simon and his team, disguised as policeman and construction workers, enter the bank and kill or incapacitate the security guards inside, and break into the bank vault, and use dump trucks to load up the gold.  McClane soon after enters the bank, and meets with Simon's men, posing as cops, he enters a lift with them and notices one of the men wears the police badge from one of the dead NYPD officers, and kills the men in the lift.  McClane thereafter finds one of the remaining bars of gold and with Zeus they go after the trucks and follow them to tanker, which they board, but are captured by Simon and his men.

Meanwhile the NYPD have been distracted by the choas of finding the school and through McClane's help they have found that the school in question is the Chester A. Arthur school, where the police indeed find a big bomb, with two big cylinders of the chemical agent, that the police found earlier.  As the bomb counts down, the police evacuate the school, while their bomb expert Charlie Weiss (Kevin Chamberlin) tries to cut the wires to deactivate the bomb, however as he does, the cylinders simply leak out, what is in actual fact pancake syrup.  On the tanker, McClane at this point realises the bomb is only a decoy, and Simon finds him and tells him that there was no bomb in the school, but the real bomb is on the tanker.  Simon then cuffs McClane and Zeus sitting on the bomb's cylinders, leaving them to be killed in the explosion, the tanker supposedly filled with the gold will sink.  However McClane and Zeus soon manage to escape, just before the bomb detonates and destroys the ship.  McClane having been given a bottle aspirin (as he has been suffering a bad hangover throughout the film!) by Simon before he departed, finds it has the name of the Canadian bordertown where Simon's team have presumably gone to, giving McClane the lead he needs to find Gruber and end it once and for all.  

Die Hard with a vengeance is a very enjoyable entry in the franchise, and it sees the series get back on track after the rather disappointing Die Hard 2.  The film is also helped along by a very enjoyable and somewhat hammy performance from its villain, Simon Gruber, played by Jeremy Irons, who in a way is the perfect choice for the role, as he is very similar in manner to Alan Rickman.  And his character makes for a refreshing take on the Gruber family, and is a far more entertaining a villain than the very cut and dry Colonel Stuart from the second film, although my one criticism of his performance is he gives the worst ever phoney American accent (in the one scene he uses it!).  In fact he delivers one of the film's corniest lines using his Yank accent down at the Federeal reserve bank "holy Toledo! Somebody had fun!".  I also quite like the fact Simon isn't really portrayed as monsterous villain, his idea to plant the bomb in the school was just a ruse, and at one point even gives Zeus a chance to be let go, rather than be killed by his men, as he realises he was just an innocent guy who got caught up in his scheme.  He also clearly isn't too keen on unecessary killing in the film as well, as he clearly is shown as incapacitating most of the guards in the bank, and when his blood thirstry girlfriend Katya (Sam Phillips) viciously stabs the last remaining guard in the bank, he grabs her hand forcefully, stopping her from doing more damage to the dead man, and says "I think he's dead my dear". 

The other character of course which makes it so enjoyable is Zeus Carver, played by Samuel L.Jackson, who almost comes across like he is some kind of militant black man who has a mistrust of white people.  Samuel also gets most of the best dialogue in the film, I especially like his line where he says to McClane about his name "My name is Zeus, not Jesus!  Like the father Apollo, Mount Olympus, don't fuck with me or I'll shove a lightning bolt up your ass!  Zeus!!".  Although Zeus of course appears to some kind of racist towards white people (which I guess he isn't really) he does form a good relationship with McClane as the film goes along, and there is no doubt that Bruce and Samuel share a really good onscreen chemistry with one another.  And Bruce Willis does a fine job as John McClane, and he is perhaps at his most likeable in this film, as he has a good down to earth way with people, acting as a police officer and being polite with the public, even in extreme situations.    

One thing they have sorted out in a way in Die Hard with a vengeance is their attempts to no longer make the police force look as stupid as they did in the first two films.  And the police characters are all quite well drawn, particularly Inspector Cobb and Joe Lambert, one of the detectives in the film, played very well by Graham Greene.  Here the cops are actually fairly smart and they show that they can do their job well, and they aren't all bungling idiots like they were portrayed in Die Hard and Die Hard 2.  Perhaps there is a little bit too much inane chatter among the cops at times in the film, but it definitely is an improvement from the first two films.  Its also good to see McClane at work in his own town, as opposed to being in LA or in Dulles Washington, where he is a stranger and has no jurisdiction (not that the word meant much to him anyway!).

My only niggles about the film however probably are first off, the ending of the film is very silly, with McClane going after Gruber the way he does, and how he interrupts Gruber who is about to have it off with his girlfriend and says "Hey, dickhead, did I come at a bad time???" from a megaphone in a chopper.  Its also pretty daft as the writer of the screenplay, Johnathan Hensleigh pointed out in the DVD commentary, that Zeus would come along with McClane in the chopper ride, as he really isn't needed, but I guess maybe Zeus wanted to see it through to the end as well.  Another criticism I have is the scene with the police psychologist explaining the psychosis of "Simon" and how "we are talking about a pyschopathic personality, with possible schizophrenia, and he wants control over McClane, and his actions".  Its just really feels superflous to the whole film, and unecessary exposition, we don't really need a psychologist to explain all this stuff as its something we can all pretty much work out for ourselves, even McClane knows what Simon is all about without the help of the "shrink".

Music wise the film is well catered for as Michael Kame provides another good score for the film, and adds a few extra new passages to the already well established Die Hard score, he also incorporates "When Johnny Comes Home Marching", into the film quite alot as well (you will know it as soon as you hear it).  The start of the film is also really good, and is perhaps the best beginning of all the Die Hard films, as it has the New York backdrop and the great song "Summer in the city" by The Lovin Spoonful playing in the background, which is used to perfection here, right up until the moment where the first bomb goes off at Bonwitt Tellers.    

But Die Hard with a vengeance is a very entertaining film and worth a watch if you haven't already seen it and with John McTiernan at the directorial helm once again it makes for a worthy inclusion to the series.

Die Hard Part 2: How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice???!!

OK so onto part 2 of the Die Hard posts, and this is of course all about Die Hard 2: Die Harder (as it was known at the time), but to be honest it just sounds stupid if you ask me, Die Hard 2 on its own is better really, which it is better known as.  So here we go...

The film starts on Christmas Eve 1990, where John McClane (Bruce Willis) is waiting at Washington Dulles International airport for his wife's flight to come in.  McClane while waiting in the airport bar notices two men, who appear to be wearing army fatigues and carry parcels.  McClane follows the men to the baggage area, where he confronts them, and they pull a gun on him, in the enusing gunfight, McClane kills one of the men, while the other gets away.  McClane after the incident speaks with the police captain Carmine Lorenzo (Dennis Franz) who dismisses his request to close off the baggage area and investigate further, as he thinks it was just a punk stealing luggage, McClane is then escorted out Lorenzo's office.  After this McClane manages to borrow a fingerprint press and lifts prints off the dead man's hands, and calls up his fellow police officer Al Powell (Reggie VelJohnson again) and faxes a copy of the man's prints to check out who he is.  Al soon calls McClane back and informs him that the man was a former army sergeant who apparently died two years ago.  McClane then goes to the chief of the airport tower's operations, Trudeau, with his findings, but at that point the airport runway lights all start to go off.  It is soon revealed the airport has been taken over by a terrorist group lead by an ex special forces Colonel, Colonel Stuart (William Sadler) who wish to use the airport for their own means, so that they can intercept a plane carrying the drug lord General Ramon Esperanza (Franco Nero), who has been brought to the US to stand trial for drug trafficking charges.

With the terrorists now in control of the airport tower systems, all communications to the planes have been cut off, which leaves the planes in the air, unable to land, which includes Holly's plane.  And a botched attempt by Lorenzo's SWAT team and the airport tower's director of communications Barnes (Art Evans) to re-establish comms with the planes, ends with all the team killed by Stuart's men in an ambush, but McClane at the last moment steps in saves Barnes, and shoots Stuart's team.  This enrages Colonel Stuart who then recalibrates the instrument landing system, and pretends to be the tower chief, and causes one of the planes to crash into the ground, killing 230 people onboard.  McClane realises he must do something to stop the terrorists and try to ensure that his wife's plane will be able to land, and Trudeau tells him his wife's plane will soon run out of fuel.  Meanwhile on Holly's plane, she suffers the misfortune of having to share the same aisle as Dick Thornburg (Richard Atherton), the sleazy news reporter from the first film, who protests that he is put near Holly, as he filed a restraining order against her for assaulting him (at the end of the first film again).

McClane with Barnes help soon locates the terrorists hideout, which is an old church, and by then a Special Forces platoon is brought in to help try and resolve the terrorist situation, lead by Major Grant (John Amos).  Colonel Stuart and his men soon evacuate the church when the Special forces team arrive, a firefight ensues, and McClane chases after Stuart on snowmobiles, but Stuart gets away.  McClane having taken one of Stuart's machine guns soon realises that the ammo they used was actually blanks, and it dawns on him that the Major Grant and his team are working together with Stuart.  McClane goes back to Lorenzo and after failing to convince him that Grant is in cahoots with Stuart, he fires the machine gun loaded with blanks at him.  Lorenzo then sends out all his police units to go after Stuart and Grant's men, and McClane catches up with the pesky news reporter Samantha Coleman (Sheila McCarthy) who has been bothering everyone throughout the movie, to get a ride in her news chopper, in order to stop Stuart and Grant's men from leaving on a plane.  McClane soon with help of the ride, jumps on the plane before it takes off and a final fight ensues with the terrorists.

It has to be said for me anyway, that Die Hard 2 is the weakest of the films in the franchise, however that's not to say it isn't enjoyable, it is, but in comparison to the other films in the series, it falls short of the mark a little.  The problem mainly stems with the script and characters, particularly the bad guys who are really get the worst dialogue, and are basically like something out of a comic book.  Colonel Stuart's character in particular makes for a pretty bland villain, who lacks the charm, wit or humour that Hans Gruber had.  And Stuart's suborindate baddies are all very much the same, and they get some bog standard dialogue such as "I'm gonna kick your fuckin ass!".  There is also generally too much hackneyed dialogue between the police officers such as Lorenzo to Major Grant, as Grant says : "Make sure no one get's past us", Lorenzo says "You got it!".  Lorenzo even gets one of the cheesiest lines of all time, when McClane confronts him toward the end and they realise what they must do, "Its time to kick ass!".  Oh yeah sure.  Again I think the writers of the Die Hard series have a thing for making the police look like idiots.

Performance wise things aren't too bad here, but the film suffers again from poorly realised characters, particularly Colonel Stuart, played William Sadler.  Sadler himself is an excellent actor, as an example he stood out very well in The Shawshank Redemption, playing a colourful part of a prison inmate, but here he is just playing a cardboard cut-out villain, delivering loaded threats without any real sense of menace.  Other supporting cast members however are better, such as Dennis Franz, who plays he Airport police chief, who is quite amusing in his part, playing the police chief, as very stubborn and has no interest in listening to McClane, and is more concerned about the traffic going through his airport than anything else.  John Amos is also fine as Major Grant, the Special Forces unit leader, and he plays him with an expected sense of machismo, although he too does get some cringeworthy dialogue, especially the line where McClane says to him "I guess you're not such an asshole after all", to which Grant replies "No, you were right, I'm just your kind of asshole".  God.

The regular cast however do very well in their respective roles, with Bruce Willis, once again playing John McClane to perfection, or as much to perfection as he can expect.  In Die Hard 2 we get more wise cracking from McClane, but Bruce also throws in some deft little touches where he shows McClane's vulnerability.  The scene in particular after the terrorists crash the plane, McClane sadly moves through the wreckage afterwards and picks up a singed doll, and later sits silently in the airport tower, lamenting how he failed to help the people on the plane.  However now and then McClane's dialogue is a bit trite as well, especially then line near the end where he says "My God, John, what the fuck are you doing on the wing of this plane????".  Bonnie Bedelia is certainly not forgotten about here, and she too provides some of the film's fun moments, especially where she has to sit and listen to the arrogant sleazy Dick Thornburg, and she says to him "if you wish to sit this close to me, could you consider changing aftershave, and a stronger mouth wash would be nice".  Another fun scene Bonnie has with Richard Atherton is where as Dick Thornburg, broadcasts his propoganda about the airport takeover by the terrorists from the airplane toilet and says "If this should be my final broadcast", Bonnie eventually comes into the toilet and tasers him and says "Amen to that! Dick!".

Action wise though Die Hard 2, has plenty of fine set-pieces and Renny Harlin does a good job with the action scenes, and overall he does a pretty good job at picking up the pace of the franchise where it left off.  Michael Kamen also contributes another fine score to the film, building on the original score and adding some extra passages, as composers tend to do in sequels!  Track wise, Let it Snow is used once more, but an additional fine choice is Sebilius's Finlandia, which is used really well at the end where planes come in to land, once the whole situation has been "dealt" with.

So there you go, that's the Die Hard 2 analysis over with, its not a bad action film by any means, but it has to be said with its bland baddies and hackneyed dialogue, its not the best in the series by a longshot, but its worth a watch once in a while.

So let's cue Part 3.....    

Die Hard Part 1: Yipppeee ki-yay mother f*****!!

Right time for a quick bit of blog post "shifting" which I will call it, as it seems a bit silly to keep calling it robbery, as all I'm trying to do is shift most of the reviews from other blog onto this one (OK so there is a bit of laziness involved in this somewhere!).  So I've decided to add my reviews of the Die Hard franchise films, which certainly deserve a place here, so I will start with Die Hard 1, or just Die Hard. 

The film starts with New York police officer, John McClane (Bruce Willis) arriving in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve to meet up with his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) who has a very prominent job working for the Nakatomi corporation.  McClane soon meets up with Holly at her work, and is greeted by her boss Joseph Takagi (James Shigeta) who arranged his ride in, in a company limo.  Pretty soon however, a group men in cars and a truck pull into the plaza, two of the men in the car, Karl (Alexander Gudonov) and Theo (Clarence Gilyard) enter the building and shoot the security guard on the front desk.  Theo locks down the building using the computers in the security office, and the other men enter the building from the parking lot in the basement of the building, who are terrorists lead by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) who soon take the workers at the officer party hostage.  Hans once having identified Takagi takes him upstairs to the boardroom where he asks for the code to their vault as he wants to enter the vault to steal $640 million dollars in negotiable bearer bonds.  Takagi however refuses to cooperate and Gruber shoots him, leaving Theo to try and hack the locks and break into the vault. 

At this point McClane has managed to sneak away from the terrorists and listens in on Hans conversation with Takagi.  McClane then sets off a fire alarm which attracts the attention of Hans, who sends one of his men to investigation, who soon finds McClane, they fight and in the ensuing struggle, the terrorist is killed.  McClane then takes the terrorist's gun and checks his pockets to find he has a phoney ID and a CB radio.  The terrorist however is revealed to be the brother of Hans main henchman, Karl, who is furious at news of his death.  McClane runs up to the roof where he uses his radio to call the police, who respond to his call, but don't believe his call is for real.  By then Karl and his men engage McClane in a gunfight on the roof, which McClane narrowly escapes and makes his way back into the building, via the elevator shafts.  The police dispatchers however send an off duty officer, Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) to investigate the Plaza, on arriving he speaks with one of the terrorists, who has assumed the role of the security guard, and reassures nothing is up.  During this point, McClane having re-entered the boardroom, and after a gunfight with some of the terrorists, with McClane killing them, takes one of the bodies and dumps it out the window onto Powell's car to get his full attention and the LAPD's. 

Pretty soon the police arrive on the scene and try to take control of the situation by sending their SWAT team into the building, however Gruber's men shoot and maim the team members who try to make their way in the front door.  The SWAT team also try to send in a reinforced vehicle (RV) to the building, which the terrorists destroy with rockets.  McClane outraged retaliates by using some of the C4 he found from one of the terrorists, and throws it down the lift shaft, which kills the two terrorists, James and Alexander.  During all this McClane keeps in contact with Powell by radio, and gives him an assumed name to protect his identity.  However one of the execs at the party Ellis (Hart Bochner), a cocky negotiator for the company, in attempt to end the seige, gives McClane's real name away to the Gruber, and tries to reason with McClane to give himself up, but McClane refuses, and pleads with Ellis to tell them he isn't McClane's friend, however Gruber shoots Ellis.  After the debacale with the SWAT team, the FBI are sent in to try and mop up the situation, lead by special agents Johnson (Robert Davi) and Johnson (Grand L. Bush) who arranged to cut the building's power and go in with armed choppers to take out the terrorists, who they have agreed to meet with on the roof, allegedly with choppers for transport.

Gruber however has planned a double cross to blow the roof.  McClane soon enough finds C4 in the floors above wired to blow, and Karl finds him and they engage an intense fight, which McClane finally escapes from after hanging Karl up in chains.  McClane gets to the roof, where the hostages have been sent to and gets them to go back down, which prompts Hans to blow the roof.  McClane dives off the roof with a firehose attached to his waist, he manages to smash back into an office floor below.  McClane makes his way back upstairs to the 30th floor where Hans now holds Holly hostage, and the two men have the final showdown.
 
Die Hard is without a doubt one of the best action movies of the 1980s and it signalled the start of Bruce Willis's film career.  John McTiernan, who directed the excellent Arnie action flick Predator, does a terrific job here in keeping up the suspense, and brilliantly stages some great action scenes, that include McClane's fight with Karl, and the famous scene where he jumps off the roof, with a fire hose attached round his waist.  Although admittedly it is a rather silly way for McClane to try and get off the roof, surely he could have just ran back down the stairs and tried to stay out of sight from the terrorists.  However Die Hard is about all things proposterous, and what it does very well, is take an average joe like McClane and turns him into a hero in an impossible situation.  Of course as the Die Hard films progressed the situations got even more and more ridiculous, right up until Die Hard 4.0 where McClane faces off a Harrier jet plane, as you do!  McTiernan also uses the sets very well and the building to utilise the cat and mouse chase between McClane and the terrorists, and there some really well stage gunfights, especially in the roof scenes and the scene in the office where Gruber and Karl shoot out the office windows to force McClane to walk on the glass.  The Fox Plaza building of course also doubles as the Nakatomi Plaza building, although I doubt they used it to blow the roof and blast out the windows!  

In terms of performances, Die Hard has a pretty strong cast, and Bruce Willis is perfect for the role of John McClane, a wise-cracking cop, who is very down to earth and quite likeable and has plenty of lines we can all remember such as "Yippe ki-yay motherfucker!" and "I'm not the one that just got butt-fucked on national TV, Dwayne!" and "welcome to the party, pal!!".  Although at the start of the film I have to say Willis's take on McClane is somewhat cold, as he refuses to engage in conversation the limo drive Argyle (De'Voreaux White).  However as things progress McClane really emerges and becomes the affable character that he remained in the rest of the franchise.  Alan Rickman is just great as the Hans Gruber, a quintessentially smooth, suave, intellectual villain who as Holly says at one point in the film is no more than a common thief.  Rickman gets his fair share of the best dialogue in the film and plays Gruber with a dry wit and a cold calculating persona.

The supporting cast are also very good, with Reginald VelJohnson playing the desk jockey cop Al Powell, as a decent cop who got off the street after making the mistake of shooting a kid in the past.  Bonnie Bedelia too is very good as McClane's wife, Holly, a headstrong woman, and she keeps a cool head during the seige, and she gets one of the funniest moments in the film where she punches the sleazy news reporter Dick Thornburg (Richard Atherton) on TV at the end!  Paul Gleason is also quite amusing as Dwayne T. Robinson, the deputy chief of police, who despite his authority, is pretty incompetent in the film, and he gets one of the all time best lines in the film, when the FBI chopper is blown up, "Holy Christ!  Looks like we're gonna need more FBI guys I guess!".  And finally Alexandar Gudonov is quite effective as the steely cold henchman, Karl, and he too gets some good lines, when he argues with Hans for example about killing McClane, Hans says "We do not alter the plan!", and Karl replies "And if he alters it?????".     

Although if there is one critcism that can be levelled at Die Hard is its depiction of the police in the film, as they are pretty much all potrayed as idiots, except McClane and Powell.  The SWAT team in particularly make the silly decision to go in to the Nakatomi building, despite the drastic repercusions they will face if they do, and did face when the terrorists retaliated.  And one of the more amusing scenes shows the dim-witted qualities of Dwayne Robinson, when Gruber contacts him with his list of "demands" which are to release political prisoners, such as the Asian Dawn, and Robinson carries on following it up, despite the fact Gruber is just bluffing them to keep them away.  And the FBI aren't much brighter as they use as Powell describes "the universal terrorist playbook and play it step by step" in cutting the building's power, which lets the terrorist access the vault to get their money.  But again it is an action movie and the writers are poking fun at law enforcement as they have a tendacy to do.

And finally here's a bit on the score written by Michael Kamen, which is very good and has plenty of fine dramatic passages, Kamen of course went on to score the 2nd and 3rd films as well, before he sadly passed away in 2003.  However if you listen closely near the end, you can hear a passage that was nicked from James Horner's score for Aliens, which was apparently left in by the studio as a temp track (according to the ol Wikipedia).  The other tracks in the film are also pretty memorably used, especially Beethoven's 9th Symphony when the terrorists finally crack into the vault and raid it, and of course "Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!" at the end.  

Rrrrright well that's my analysis of Die Hard over with and it remains one of my favourite action films.  Die Hard 2 will soon follow.....

The Hobbit's unexpected journey

OK its been a while since reviewed a new film (or newer shall we say) and so having just watched the DVD I thought I would look at The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which is the first of a three part adaptation of J.R. Tolkein's novel, The Hobbit.  So let's shall we look have it.

Right well its a pretty long and involved plot so in a continuing effort to keep plot summaries DOWN in length on this blog, I shall keep it fairly short.  So the film begins with the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) who is approaching his 111th birthday, who decides to write down the full story of the adventure he had 60 years ago.  The film then goes back 60 years ago when Bilbo was a younger man (played by Martin Freeman) who one day is paid a visit by the great wizard, Gandalf the grey (Ian McKellen) who asks him if he would like to come on a journey with him, but Bilbo turns him down.  Later that night a whole host of dwarves turn up on Bilbo's doorstep and go in, under the impression Bilbo had invited them, and soon enough Gandalf turns up as well, as Bilbo realises he had been tricked by the wizard.  The point of the meeting is soon revealed that Gandalf wants to recruit Bilbo on their journey to find the Lonley mountain, which is said to be the last known dwarf kingdom, to which the leader of the dwarf party, Thorin (Richard Armitage) has a key and a map to help guide them there.  Bilbo initially turns down their invitation to come as their "burglar" as he put off by the fair chance of his not surviving their quest, however the next morning he changes his mind and catches up with Gandalf and the band of dwarves.  And from here this is where the long and very dangerous journey begins....

It probably has to be said that The Hobbit would be a tough one to follow up after the tremendous efforts Peter Jackson put into making the Lord of the rings trilogy, which were in great films in their own right, however The Hobbit stacks up pretty well.  Although it has to be said as it is just a single book (at a mere 310 pages), its seems a bit unusual that Peter Jackson would want to make a whole trilogy out of it, but I guess with his strengths as a storyteller he can find ways to pad things out in an entertaining way.  Admittedly the film is a bit of a slow burner at the start, but once the adventure gets under way it becomes a really entertaining film, with plenty of great moments of action, humour, drama and fun.  It also sees the reprise of several of the characters that we have seen in LOTR, apart from Bilbo and Gandalf, there is also Saruman the white (played once again by Christopher Lee), Lord Elron (Hugo Weaving) and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) as well as Frodo Baggins (once again played by Elijah Wood who doesn't look all that different!).

In regards to the performances they are all pretty good here, and Martin Freeman in the role as Bilbo Baggins is very good, and he bears reasonable resemblance to Ian Holm, and physically he was the perfect choice for the role.  Sir Ian McKellen is once again great as Gandalf, and he carries a fair amount of the film, especially in terms of the narrative as he delivers alot of the film's exposition, and as before he plays Gandalf with a nice sense of humour, stubborness, bravery and slight fragility.  Richard Armitage also gives a fine performance as Thorin, the grandson of the late dwarf king, King Thror, and for some reason his voice resembles that of Gerard Butler's (in fact at first I thought it was him!).  Sylvester McCoy is excellent as the eccentric wizard, Radagast the Brown, who lives in the woods with animals and also plays a small but key part in the film where he fights with a nercomancer, that corrupts the forrests with dark magic.  And then there is Andy Serkis and his contribution to the film as Gollum, as he once again does a great job in his vocal work and physical work as the tormented, twisted and pitiful creature, who's mind and body has been taken over by the ring.  And finally I will mention the band of dwarves and as there are 13 of them, I will only mention one or two, such as James Nesbitt, who gives a nice performance, as Bofur, as a genial dwarf.  And then there is Ken Stott as Balin (replete with a large white beard!) who provides some of the film's funny lines, such as when the dwarves reach Rivendell and Lord Elrond looks at the elvish swords the dwarves had found in the troll cave, and Bilbo is about to show them his sword and Balin says "I wouldn't show them that if I were you, its more like an envelope opener!".  

The film itself also has several entertaining sequences, and the film for me started to get going when Gandalf, the dwarves and Bilbo stumble across a trio of trolls, who have stolen a couple of their ponies for dinner, and they very nearly get added to the menu too, as the dwarves are pit on a giant spit!  The scene where Gandalf meet with Elrdond and Galadriel is good as well as we see the re-introduction of Saruman the white, the leader of wizard's order, and its strange to see him in a good context as opposed to a bad one, since the story takes places many years before the events of LOTR, and it also makes you wonder even then he was playing a double role as good wiz bad wiz.  The action scene where Gandalf, Bilbo and the dwarves fight off the orc leader, Azog and his hoard of orc soldiers is also pretty good as are the scene where the group try to escape the goblin caves, prior to facing Azog.  But for me the best scene in the film is where Bilbo encounters Gollum in the lower goblin caves, and they challenge each other to answer some riddles, and if Bilbo wins Gollum will show him the way out, and if Gollum wins "then we eats Baggins whole!" to which Bilbo replies "fair enough!".

Direction wise Peter Jackson overall has once again done a really good job here, and although it lacks pace in the first hour or so, it really picks up well as it goes along, and again he shows a great understanding of Tolkein's works.  Technically speaking the film also looks great and while there is perhaps a somewhat over reliance on CGI in the film, the CGI that is used is actually quite good, although perhaps the three squabbling trolls do look a bit naff in comparison to the other computer based characters, and the fact they all talk in cockney is a bit silly.  And finally I'll mention the film's music score by Howard Shore, which is excellent and it echoes some of the themes from LOTR, but he also adds plenty of new passages which are good.

So that's it for my look at the Hobbit's unexpected journey, which is overall a very entertaining film, albeit a little bit lengthy and it does take a while to get going, but once you get there it becomes an enjoyable watching experience, and it bodes well for the forthcoming second part in the Hobbit trilogy.

And that's all for now. 

Every dalek has its day

OK blog robbery time again, as I've pinched this post from my other blog, which is about another Doctor Who story, The Day of the Daleks, from Jon Pertwee's era, which was broadcast all the way back in 1972. 
 
Day of the Daleks is definitely of Jon Pertwee's strongest stories in his time as the Doctor, as it has some very well written scripts and despite the fact there are clearly only three daleks in the whole story doesn't really detract from its quality in the other areas of the show.  The plot deals with an attempt being made on the life of a peace delegate Sir Reginald Styles who is attacked by a guerilla who quickly vanishes before he can kill him.  As a result UNIT get involved (the Brig et al) and the Doctor and Jo as they try to get to the bottom of who and what was behind the assassination attempt.  The Doctor and Jo soon discover that the daleks are the masterminds behind the whole lot and the guerillas who went back through time were trying to stop a future war which erupted as a result of Styles allegely luring the world leaders to a mansion where he killed them in an explosion.  So the Doctor and Jo get tangled up in the mess and are transported to the 22nd century on Earth where the daleks now rule the Earth and are intent on ensuring their version of events stays the same.

The story definitely has some very good standout moments especially the scene where the Doctor has it out with the Earth controller (the excellent Aubrey Woods) and asks "who really rules this planet of yours??!" and the scene where the Doctor discovers the truth behind the war and the future with the guerillas.  There are also some fun little moments, my favourite of course being when one of the guerillas enters Styles house where he attacks the Doctor who uses his venusian karate to disable him, with wine glass in hand, he takes a sip of wine after!  The Doctor also got one of the best lines of the story as well when he says to Styles "try and use your intelligence, man, even if you are a politician!!".

The weaker side of the story is of course the somewhat poorly directed action scenes with the Ogrons, who despite their impressive makeup moved way too slowly to provide any major threat, as anyone could outrun them, especially in the last battle scene where the ponder slowly toward Auderly house (the peace conference setting).  The pacing of the daleks movement also is pretty sluggish, but then again they only had three working daleks back then.  The dalek voices at the time were also a bit of a disappointment as the voice actors spoke their lines too slowly as it came out even more staccato then usual "do----you----have-----the-----space---time---co---or--di--nates??" gives you an idea of that problem.  Despite that though the story definitely has a lot going for it and the plot and quality of scripts definitely make up for any shortcomings of the story.  Although I still cringe at Katy Manning's faux cry for help in the scene where the Doctor and Jo create a diversion so they can escape with Jo screaming "aghhh help me!!" but I like the Doctor's line after Jo smashes the Ogron over the head with a plastic wine glass, "pity that was rather a good vintage!". 

Coming onto the Special Edition DVD version of Day of the Daleks, it is essentially the same version except with a few extra added effects and tidied up vocal fluffs from some of the actors.  But the main part of the new version is of course Nicholas Briggs re-dubbing of the dalek voices, which is definitely an improvement on the original actors voices.  Nicholas definitely provides more pace and hysteria to the daleks voices, although perhaps he does add a little too much sarcasm into their voices, as his voice always seems to go up on the end of lines such as "you may goooooooo!".  It just sounds a bit out of place in those moments, but overall he does a fine job on improving one of the story's less impressive aspects.

Another aspect of the special edition that has been altered slightly is the scene where the Doctor appears to murder an ogron in cold blood with a disintegrator gun, this time round they have added in the old "Greedo shoots first" principal, with the ogron firing first at the Doctor who in turn shoots the baddie.  They also added in the Doctor shooting another ogron inside Styles house just before he leaves and shoots up the next one.  It does in some way make the Doctor seem a bit more moralistic in that he is killing the ogrons out of self defence, and I guess it does make up for what appears to be a very out of character moment for the Doctor.  Although if you look at other stories you see the Doctor is put in position where he does have to directly kill his enemies, such as pushing Magnus Greel into the distillation chamber in the Talons of Weng Chiang, or killing the Cyber Leader in Earthshock with Adric's golden badge and then with a cybergun (OK a bit of nerdy referencing there!).

In regards to the DVD's extras it has also a fine documentary about the story detailing how it was made, etc, and it also features a documentary on the special edition where we see that they actually used new actors to potray some of the UNIT soldiers being killed by the Daleks or Ogrons.  We also see Nicholas Briggs delivering his lines into a mic with fine hysteria, as well as how they did the special effects for the new explosions, the background of the future factory, and the video screen effects.  Overall the special edition is actually pretty good and doesn't in anyway detract from the original story.  We also get the second part of the UNIT family documentary which is really good as the actors from the Pertwee era, such as Richard Franklin, Katy Manning, Nick Courtney and John Levine all reminisce on their times on the show, and there is also a rather poignant moment with John Levine nearly in tears describing everyone's upset at Roger Delgado's untimely death and departure from the show.

So that's it for my look at Day of the Daleks, which is one of the most solid and entertaining stories of the Pertwee era.

And that's it for now old chap. 

Bioshock to infinity

OK time for a game review and I've opted to go for the newly released Bioshock game: Bioshock Infinite, which is the 3rd game in the series, and so far it has gained much critical acclaim for its graphics, presentation, gameplay and above story.  But what do I think of it????  Well you can read on and find out....

Right to start with just a bit of the plot (and don't worry it is only just a bit) as it really is quite convoluted, but the game is set in 1912, and its main protagonist, Brooker (voiced by Troy Baker) is hired by the Lutece twins to find a girl, and on return they tell Brooker "give us the girl and wipe away the debt".  Broker travels to a floating city in the clouds called Columbia, where the girl is believed to be found.  In the city Broker goes unnoticed by the public until notices he has the initials "AD" branded on his hand, which is the sign of a false prophet that could bring the end to the city of Columbia, which is run by the main anatognist of the story, Comstock (voiced by Kiff VandenHeuvel).  After this Brooker is forced to fight his way to the tower where the girl, Elizabeth (voiced by Courtnee Draper) is held captive.  Elizabeth is an intelligent (not to mention hot!) and creative girl, who has an uncanny ability to rip open tears that are located all over the city, which can lead into other dimensions.  Brooker escapes with Elizabeth from the tower, however they are attacked by a large robotic bird, called Songbird, who is both Elizabeth's friend and warden.  Brooker and Elizabeth manage to eventually elude Songbird, and Brooker tells to Elizabeth that they could take a trip to Paris, a city that Elizabeth has always wanted to see.  However once they manage to steal an airship, Brooker plots in a course to take them to New York, in order to return her to the Lutece twins, but Elizabeth angily knocks him out.  But their airship is soon captured by a gang leader of the Vox Populi, Daisy Fitzroy (voiced by Kimberley Brooks) who says they will return control of the airship to them, only if they find a shipment of weapons from the slums of Columbia.  Elizabeth reluctantly agrees to go with Brooker to find the weapons, which takes them on a dangerous journey into the city, where there are some terrible truths that lie ahead...

It has to be said that while Bioshock Infinite has garnered a great deal of critical acclaim on it release, I happened to think the praise has been a bit overhyped, and while it is a pretty good game, I would hardly describe it as a masterpiece.  The main problem with Bioshock Infinite for me is that the plot is just a bit too complex to follow, and by the end you are left well and truly baffled by it all.  The characters however are really well drawn out, and Brooker, who starts off pretty much as a mercenary looking to "wipe away his debt" by finding Elizbaeth, soon turns around into a more sympathetic character, as the story progresses, he becomes more her protector than her bounty hunter.  Elizabeth is also a good character, as a bright, intelligent (and yes hot) girl, who longs to escape from her prison tower and from Columbia to find life away from the city in the clouds, and her ability to open dimensional tears in the fabric of city plays a crucial part as the game progresses.

Gameplay wise, Bioshock Infinite does have alot going for it, as its combat system is pretty simplistic, and as before its very similiar, and there a big variety of weapons, such as pistols, machine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, carbine rifles, and miniguns.  And in a similar fashion, the game features vigors, which are the same as the plasmids from the first two games, in which Brooker gains special powers, such as telekinesis, electric shocks, fire, and animal control (such as a flock of crows).  And throughout the game, Brooker can access upgrades for his weapons and vigors from different vending machines, as for his weapons you can increase the firepower and ammo capacity, and the vigors you can increase the intensity of the attacks.  In a new feature of the game, Brooker also can use a grapple hook, which he uses to jump onto skyrails all around the city, on which he can also dismount onto a chosen area.  Elizabeth in addition to her ability to manipulate dimensional tears around the city, can also use lockpicks to break into different areas in Columbia, and during combat she also helps Brooker by locating, ammo and salts (which helps charge up Brooker's vigor energy) when is supply is running out.

In terms of the graphics the game looks visually stunning, as the huge environment of Columbia is very impressive, and the character models, while not exactly realistic, do look really good.  Voice acting wise the game is also top notch, and the two main characters, Brooker and Elizabeth, voiced by Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper are both excellent, as they drive most of the story and have the most dialogue throughout.  And its also refreshing to see in the game there isn't an overt reliance on bad language, and there are no f-words to be found (call me old fashioned but I quite like that! ;-)).   The soundtrack is also very good, and features some old fashioned tracks to fit in with the period setting from artists such as Duke Ellington, Charles Kaye & his orchestra, Billy Murray, Eddie Cantor, and some classical tracks from Chopin and Wagner, and the original soundtrack is also excellent. 

However as I said the game while on the whole its pretty good (pretty prettay good as Larry David might say!) it does have a few flaws.  The main one for me is the plot, which I already mentioned is very complex, and takes quite a few twists and turns, and by the end you are left more confused that anything else.  I was actually quite disappointed in the ending (which I won't give away don't worry!) especially as I had read on Gamespot's review website it was amazing, but it left me underwhelmed.  Gameplay wise there are also one or two niggles, such as Brooker's ability to only hold two weapons at one time, as in the previous games you could hold a variety of weapons at once.  But here you are  only given the option to hold two guns at once, so rather than allowing to store a third weapon, you need to drop one to pick up another in its place if you want to change over, which is annoying.  I also thought some of the vigors aren't so great, such as the flock of crows and the bucking Bronco, both of which are limited in their ability or appeal in usage.

The game also introduces a rather uncomfortable aspect of racism, which also gained some controversy in the press, and there is a scene near the start of the game where Brooker is forced to choose between hitting a black man and a white woman with a rock, who are tied up and brought out infront of a crowd, or the crowd leader.  But I guess it is just a reflection on the racial attitudes of the period, however this did raise some controversy with right wing groups in America as they felt it was "anti-white", and this isn't the first time racial attitudes in gaming has arisen and most likely not the last.  And as games grow more sophisticated in terms of storytelling and real life themes, there will always be some groups out there that will take offence or umbrage at these themes, and it just shows how far we've come from the simplistic days of Pac Man, Manic Miner and Space Invaders.   

So that its for my review of Bioshock Infinite, which is an entertaining first person shooter, which brings much to enjoy to the gaming table, but for me its not quite the masterpeice its been hyped to be, but I guess it all boils down to personal preference.  However it does have some fine gameplay, terrific graphics and voice acting, and if you liked the previous Bioshock games, then you will find plenty to enjoy here as well.

And on that note (or chord) I will leave it just there.