1) This review is spoiler free. Therefore this will be relativley short since I dont want to give anything away, and I mean anything.
And......here.....we......go.
Christopher Nolan is one of those directors who cant seem to make a bad film. Memento, The Prestige, and of course Batman Begins are just 3 to name a few in a flawless career. The Dark Knight continues the formula by not only following up Begins perfectly but shattering the bar that it held so high.
Walking into The Dark Knight in the pit of my stomach I had a feeling the film could suffer from Spider-Man 3 syndrome. Excessive amount of villains, overload of plot, trying to cram to much in one film. I'm glad I went in expecting this because whenever I do and it turns out incredible it makes the experience so much better. Not only does The Dark Knight not suffer this problem uses it as a strength.
The Dark Knight picks up right where Begins ended, Batmans theatrics have jumpstarted a wave of good in Gotham. Enter the new DA for Gotham, Harvey Dent. Dent is played by Aaron Eckhart who does a phenononal job of portraying the white knight for Gotham. Dent does not back down and has put away half of Gothams mob. But as Gordon mentioned at the end of begins, the problem of escalation could occur and does. The "good" of gotham seems to be effective at first until "a better class of criminal" emerges known as the Joker.
The Joker is played by Heath Ledger and he better win an oscar for it. He throws his entire being into the role and the result is something that cant be described, you must see it. The Joker represents the word anarchy. The Joker is a criminal with no purpose and pushes Batman and all the people of Gotham to a limit that makes the line between hero and villian hard to distinguish.
That's all I'm going to say. Because that's all I need to say. The bottom line is go see this film immidiatley. When you think it can't get better it always seems to. It's one of those films that even after you leave it stays with you. It's easily the best super hero movie so far, and one of my favorite movies of all time.
Microsoft: Good showing of games that gamers will actually get this year. Which included a live showing of Fable 2, Gears 2, and Resident Evil 5. The show continued with the new dashboard being shown. It looks awesome. After which a partnership between Netflix and Microsoft was announced giving live members access to over 10000 movies and TV shows along with the already large database. Then we get annoying stuff like at the movies, and lips that lowers the score. But then the huge bomb Final Fantasy 13 coming to Xbox 360. Great showing.
Overall: B+
Sony: Started off strong with some games, but honestly same old song and dance. Littlebigplanet and infamous continued to look awesome but otherwise colored me unimpressed. Some trailers from Resistance 2, and that's about it for ps3 other than montage shown at the end. A God of War III trailer was also shown but it was literally 10 seconds with no actual gameplay. Some new PSP and PSN games were announced but nothing that got me excited. Bottom line Sony continues to say that its the year of the PS3 but to me its the same old system the one that will eventually have games but never does.
Overall: C-
Nintendo: No new interesting games, no storage fix, and Animal Crossing is the flagship title for hardcore players. Well fuck. A quick summary below. Overall Grade: F- (See me after class)
Finally: This penny arcade pretty sums up E3 08' (image credit to penny-arcade.com)
Continue Reading»
Everytime I see a Pixar film I think it cant get better. Well except Cars. But once again Pixar manages to outdo themselves with Wall-E. Pixar combines simply must see CG, and storytelling to create a great film. Wall-E or (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) is the last robot on earth left with the duty of cleaning the mess humans have left behind after earth has become uninhabitable. As we are introduced to Wall-E we learn he has one unique trait. He has a personality. It's funny that as I type this review I actually put the words "he" instead of it. It shows that even with almost no dialogue. Pixar still manages to develop such a great character.
Wall-E heads out for another typical day cleaning when a mysterious ship lands. A new robot emerges from the ship, Eve (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator). Wall-E immediately falls for the sleek robot. As soon as Eve departs from her ship she starts scanning nearby objects. Wall-E helps Eve during a sandstorm and brings her to his home where he shows her all the trinkets hes collected while cleaning. While there Eve finds the object she has been sent to look for she is immediately returns to the humans on a luxury space station who have now grown so accustomed to space life that earth life is a completely foreign idea. Wall-E chases his love across the galaxy where you will see some of the most amazing CG ever. Through this game of cat and mouse you grow more attached to the characters and meet some new and interesting ones along the way. Wall-E does everything right, it looks incredible, fun to watch, funny, and is a great overall heartfelt adventure.
Wanted is a balls to the wall awesome summer popcorn flick. Based on the comic series by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, director Timur Bekmambetov tells the story of Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) a man allowing his time to tick away in a miserable existence. How bad is Wesley's life? His girlfriend cheats on him with his supposed best friend, his job sucks as he is tormented in a cubicle daily, and to top it all off Wesley has stress induced panic attacks. On one of Wesley's trips to acquire pills for his said panic attacks he encounters Fox (Angelina Jolie). Fox explains that Wesley's father was one of the greatest assassins of all time and that while working for a group known as the Fraternity he was killed by a rogue assassin. During this encounter the rogue assassin tries to kill Wesley. Fox and Wesley escape to where we are introduced to the r test of the Fraternity. Sloan (Morgan Freeman) plays the leader of the group and offers Wesley a way out of his life and asks him to join the Fraternity. At first Wesley is reluctant to join untilhe next morning he sees he has inherited all his fathers fortune massing millions of dollars. I really love the next scene because anyone who has hated their job just feels so good when they see Wesley call out the office boss. It's pure awesome.
After quiting his job Wesley joins Fox and they return to the Fraternity. Wesley trains in a cliche action movie montage. After Wesley completes his training hes anxious to go after the rogue assassin but Sloan gives him another assignment. Wesley is asked to kill some guy but questions the call. Fox explains why they do what they do with some obvious character development. Wesley now having no quills with his mission goes ahead and takes a bunch of targets in awesome fashion. Sloan satisfied with Wesley's skills sends him after the rogue assassin.
While on his mission for vengeance Wesley learns that the Fraternity's actions may not have been just after all. You can piece whats coming after this but final scenes are still satisfying. Morgan Freeman curses! Twice! Overall Wanted is a fun, unique action film that will keep you in your seat.
