Dredd (Film) - Review

 When Dredd was announced and trailers started coming out for it, the response seemed pretty negative. I saw people write it off as Hollywood frigidly attempting to make a quick buck off of the nostalgia of its audiences for the 90s Stallone film and Judge Dredd comic book series. When the movie actually hit theaters, the reaction was surprisingly positive. Those that saw the movie generally had great things to say about it, and the movie was critically well-received despite being a financial flop, actually losing money at the box office. I haven't extensively read the comics, nor have I seen the Stallone movie, but my interest was piqued. I just got done watching it on Blu-Ray, and I'd say it's a pretty good action-filled romp, despite some problems with characterization. 

The movie starts off with an incredibly awesome intro sequence establishing Dredd as a badass cop [called a "Judge"] trying to establish justice in a city filled to the brim with crime. After that, Dredd is introduced to a rookie named Anderson that just narrowly failed her exam to become a Judge. He is instructed to take her out on duty and judge whether or not she should be hired, because she not only shows potential but she has psychic powers. The two decide to investigate a block at the scene of a triple-homicide.

They encounter a man that Anderson's psychic powers tells her is responsible for the triple-homicide, but Dredd decides rather than trust her "ninety-nine percent" certainty, it's best to take him in for interrogation. This intimidates drug-lord Ma-Ma, who has employed this man in her gang's murderous domination on other gangs and the production and distribution of an illegal drug called "Slo-Mo." She devises a plan that sends the entire block into lockdown, and intends to kill Dredd and Anderson in order to stop them from taking in the man for interrogation and spilling the details on her operation. The basic premise is established: Dredd and Anderson have to get themselves out of this block alive, and ensure justice is served. 

It's a pleasantly simple premise. This allows for tons of action, and the action is good. The violence looks great. It certainly leans on the cheesy side, but that doesn't take away from the entertainment value. People's faces get torn apart, mush that looks like bubble gum is underneath of skin, the "Slo-Mo" drug allows for some sweet slo-mo sequences, and the various applications of Dredd's weaponry are fun to watch. It's brutal, but rather than being uncomfortable, the brutality serves as spectacle when it's supposed to be spectacle and service to the story when it's supposed to be service to the story. The low budget makes the film look noticeably less produced than other movies you'd see at the theater, but it's not much of a problem. The story is unaffected and what they do with the budget is creative and looks good, so I can't knock it too much for its noticeably low budget.

My biggest issue with the movie is a rather annoying plot hole dealing with Dredd's characterization. As I said earlier, Dredd decides at the beginning of the movie that Anderson's "ninety-nine percent" certainty wasn't good enough to execute the man for the triple homicide, so they have to take him in for interrogation. This implies that he needs a spoken confession or hard evidence for an execution. However, later in the movie, in an act of rage, Dredd decides to do a makeshift interrogation of his own, and eventually allows Anderson to read the man's mind. "If you leave it to me he doesn't have to speak," Anderson says. She learns about Ma-Ma's operation in full through just her psychic interrogation, and not through a spoken confession or any hard evidence. Dredd doesn't object this time, and even formally accuses Ma-Ma of the new information he acquires from this moment shortly after. Is this because he gained more trust in Anderson from the start of the movie up to that point? Maybe that's what they were going for, but nothing here substantially makes that implication. By the end Dredd certainly seems to have gained trust in her, but I think the moments that made that change in him happen after this troubling scene. As it stands, Dredd seemingly makes a decision during this makeshift interrogation that contradicts the decision at the beginning of the film that gets them wrapped up in this predicament in the first place. 

Looking past that, the performances are great and the film does some great things thematically. Karl Urban plays a badass Dredd and has some really satisfying dialogue. The movie establishes him as an uncompromising function of the law that isn't against executing those that the law finds guilty of such a punishment. This of course raises ethical questions about government-sanctioned execution, that is thankfully challenged through Anderson's character, played by Olivia Thirlby. She hesitates to use her power to execute as she is more empathetic and kind, seeing the good in people and the problem with the coldness of government execution. Lena Heady plays a detestable bad guy as Ma-Ma that sets up a conclusion that has Dredd giving her a taste of her own medicine. How Dredd does what he needs to do comes off as uncharacteristically cruel from him, but brings her story arc full-circle in an inventive way.  

The action really is great, and unabashedly violent without being uncomfortable. The characterization of Dredd takes some head-scratching turns towards Unchallenged Contradiction City, which really hurts the film. But the characterization at its best is when the movie really shines, portraying Dredd as an utterly badass but ethically questionable function of law-enforcement and Anderson as a sympathetic counterweight, both fighting against the despicable baddy in Ma-Ma. As a whole, it's pretty good. 

Iron Man 3 (Film) - Review

Iron Man 3 may just be the best super hero movie of all-time. This flick is jam-packed with sweet action, near-perfect characterization and great laughs, all tied together with smart story-telling. Like Tony Stark's suit, it's not free of its rusty parts, but dude, it's still a freaking Iron Man suit.

Robert Downey Jr. is out of the suit quite a bit in this movie, which actually works to the film's benefit. The movie displays the man as the human being he is. As a line of dialogue accounts for, Tony is, on the surface, just a guy in a suit, in a world filled with aliens and super soldiers and demi-gods. Throughout Iron Man 3, it's made clear that Stark is a serious force to be reckoned with, and made more badass by the deck of cards he's dealt. It's awesome. This character is impossible for me to root against. He's the ultimate super hero.

His weaknesses really add to to his ultimate super hero status. Stark has developed severe cases of anxiety and insomnia from the events of Avengers, and when a terrorist called Mandarin is crafting disasters around America, he's pushed to the brink. Stark has severe panic attacks (which are depicted realistically, speaking as someone who has had panic attacks), makes some irrational decisions, and loses the trust of love interest Pepper. Instead of beating the character down in a way that makes him less compelling, this humanizes him, making him more compelling. Iron Man is the ultimate super hero because he's awesome despite the odds.

There's a major plot twist around half-way through the movie, and it just makes the main antagonist cooler and more intimidating. The origin of the bad guys actually ties in thematically with the demons and fears of Tony Stark, albeit not as strongly as it could. And it's just clever, and rather original. For the most part the performances for these baddies are great, creating utterly detestable faces to punch, but the most important role, while great, isn't superb. The character's performance is just one piece of the puzzle, though - the writing and placement in the story still rocks.

As I said, it's not without its issues here and there. The biggest issue is that the final fight scene, while purely satisfying from an emotional angle, is a lot to take in from a logical standpoint. After the credits rolled I was able to piece everything together to a point that made sense in my head, but that doesn't excuse the head-scratching. Besides that, the president of this film is frustratingly dopey, which is such a small complaint because, within the context of this movie, it doesn't really matter how smart he is, but I wish there would have been a joke or two thrown in or a scene of explanation to calm my mild frustration. And sometimes, I felt like it tried too hard with the comedy. 

But don't get me wrong, it's funny, and also just fun in general. Robert Downey Jr. follows up his stellar performances from before as a one-liner-filled powerhouse of amusement. Stark meets a tech-savvy kid that helps him out as the plot unfolds, and all of his bits don't miss a beat, at best managing to not only be funny but also charming. Don Cheadle is better than ever before as War Machine, and even Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper gets an upgrade in some respects. The action is fantastic, with some invigorating set pieces of pure visual splendor. These set pieces are often quite creative, the best of which being the scene with the plane in the sky from the trailers, forcing Stark to link save everyone in a fashion similar to, as he says, the game "Barrel of Monkeys."

Iron Man 3 is such a great movie. It gives viewers the ultimate super hero, who's incredibly awesome despite the odds. It's funny and purely entertaining, but it's also compelling on more intelligent planes. It's not perfect, but to quote the man himself, "glitches happen." Director Shane Black and all others involved have crafted one of the very best super hero movies.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (Video Game) - Review

Sly 2: Band of Thieves is my favorite video game of all-time. It's more or less a flawless game, which heavily plays into its place as my all-time favorite, but it also has a lot of nostalgic significance to me. The story of the Sly Cooper series was one of the first, if not the first, video game story to really click with me. Young Matt would just skip the cut-scenes in the games he played, but Sly 2 didn't give the player that option. Young Matt was forced to watch the cut-scenes, and Young Matt became engrossed in the tale of a mischievous trio of anthropomorphised animals. So engrossed that he hunted down the first game in the series, and so engrossed that he excitedly got in on the third game when it released back in 2005.

And then, the series was gone for awhile. Developer Sucker Punch moved onto the more popular Infamous series on the Playstation 3. Imagine my excitement when the Sly Cooper HD Collection revealed that a Sly 4 is in the works. It was first slated for a 2012 release on Playstation 3, but that was changed to a Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita release on February 5th, 2013. I loyally went down to the game shop on its day of release and bought myself a copy.

The first game in the series, Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, was, for the most part, a standard, linear-style 3D platformer that uniquely mixed in elements of stealth, had a quirky story, and used an interesting visual style. The second game became less linear in its progression, beefed up the story, vastly improved the graphics, and allowed the player to take control of more than just Sly Cooper. Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves used the same framework as Sly 2, but threw even more gameplay concepts and characters into the mix. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time continues the story of the series by using the same structure of the second and third games, but scales its gameplay variety and character roster to something comparable to the second game. The game is out on both PS3 and Vita, the PS3 version includes a free download of the Vita version, and players with both can take advantage of a cloud-save function used to continue progress across platforms [which works brilliantly]. It's successful in capturing the magic of the older games in the series and is a great game in its own right, despite hitches such as consistent technical problems and an unsatisfying conclusion to its narrative.

The plot of Thieves in Time takes place directly after the events of  Sly 3. The Sly Cooper gang, a ragtag trio of master thieves, is split up after the climatic events of the third game. Sly is hanging out with police officer and love interest Carmelita Fox, whom only allowed this because she believes he has amnesia [he doesn't... hopefully things didn't get weird behind the scenes]. Meanwhile, Bentley, the brains of the Sly Cooper gang, successfully created a time machine with his love interest Penelope. The premise of Thieves in Time forms when the gang learns that Penelope is missing and there is a baddie with his own time machine thwarting Cooper ancestors throughout history. Each chapter takes place in a different time in history, and features a different, playable Cooper from the past.

The story's lots of fun and mostly maintains the tone of past games. It is a lot more comedic (Murray, the third member of the Sly Cooper gang, is more or less completely comedic relief in this entry) and often laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it still has a reasonable amount of smart, inventive drama that I more than appreciate as a fan of the series. It’s ridiculous, just like past games – the wheelchair-bound turtle Bentley doesn’t just have the rocket packs and hydraulics from the last game, but he also has Doctor Octopus-style mechanical arms this time around. There's a big plot twist around 80% through the game, and it hits hard and surprises. Overall it’s great, but the conclusion is weak and wholly unsurprising, despite the satisfying and engaging final boss fight.

And the game is quite striking. On PS3, I can confidently say that these graphics are some of the very best of its kind. This is very impressive cartoonish celshading, with intricate and expressive character animations and colorful and interesting vistas. On Vita, it looks pretty good, but the resolution and draw distance take noticeable hits. In both versions, the 2D animated cut-scenes are massively cut off by black bars on the television, but what’s there looks great. Voice acting is similarly impressive, with goofy and fun performances that fit the over-the-top characters. The original cast from past games more or less reprises its roles, as well.

The biggest problem with the game is something on a similar note, and that’s technical issues. The framerate on the Vita version is not awesome, as it frequently drops throughout the whole game. On PS3 it’s mostly pretty smooth, until the final chapter in which the framerate is just as unimpressive as the Vita version always is. Load times on both platforms are exceedingly bad, which may be the worst of the technical issues. I had the audio cut out while playing on PS3 at one point, and I got stuck in objects once on each platform, as well. These technical issues bring the overall experience down, but never made me think twice about booting the game up to play.

And that’s because the game is lots of fun. The gameplay is comprised mostly of sequences combing stealth and platforming. The game introduces new concepts enough to keep things fresh, and the organic nature of the level design makes the platforming engrossing in a way that games like Super Mario 64 just aren’t. During gameplay, it doesn’t feel like jumping from platform A to platform B, it actually feels like jumping from the chimney of a roof to a cable line. Every now and then the game will throw sections of brawling, or of dual-stick shooting, or of third-person shooting at you, and they’re fun while they last.

The game is rife with collectibles, creating an incentive to continue playing after the credits roll – or at least to make you play more carefully the first time through. The game is split into five chapters, each taking place in a secluded, [small-scale] open-world. Each has their own set of three types of collectibles. The bottles and treasures of past games return, the latter of which providing in-game money as well as the pride of collectorship that the former solely provides. The game also has masks, which are sometimes hidden within missions; all of which are replayable. I love the idea of exploring these little worlds to find treasures and bottles, but the prospect of replaying missions for masks seems exhausting. It’s just extra, so it’s hard to complain too much, but this is preventing me from doing the 100% completion I was more than happy to do with the second and third entries in the series.

As a big fan of the series, I’m happy with Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. It’s unfortunate that the game didn’t get the extra time needed to stamp out the technical quarrels, and it’s unfortunate that the end to the story is as lame as it is, but the game succeeds as a whole. Sanzaru Games was able to make me smile in the same way that Sucker Punch did with the original trilogy on PS2. The story is taken in a fun direction, the goofy comedy squeezed out some Petras laughter, the leap in generation does wonders for the visuals, and the organic, engaging platforming is as good as it’s always been in the series. Bring on Sly 5, Sanzaru.