Movie Reviews

Divergent

I tried, I really did. I couldn't finish it. I got about halfway through. This movie is Boring. I didn't read the book; I suspect that those who have read the book (if the book is better) might find it watchable and even enjoy it.

A girl Tris (Shailene Woodley) in a future walled-in Chicago, where everyone is forced to choose one of five "factions" for the rest of their life's work/society, chooses one faction even though she is judged to be capable of fitting into three of them (a "rare" trait, called "divergent"). The faction she chooses requires her to do physical combat training.

The first big problem is the complete lack of anything resembling tension. The movie presents itself as a dystopia with bleak camera shots, drab scenery, drab clothing, unsmiling heroine, etc ala The Hunger Games. But THG has a plot with tension: three-dimensional characters, hunger, poverty, war, a cast of enemies, the prospect of children killing each other yet the desire to avoid killing, and a real love triangle; this movie has none of that. Society seems to be working fine, nobody has problems, nobody is in love. The main characters jump on and off of trains, and some self-imposed leader tries to scare the recruits, but there doesn't seem to be a reason for it, or for caring about it.

The second big problem is how little sense there is in the setup. At least for humans. A) The five factions are not a sufficient number of factions for a real world to function. One of the factions (truthful people) doesn't even make sense (the people who tell the truth are lawyers (ha!)). Who builds the houses and takes out the trash? B) It makes no sense that human can be assigned into factions. Real humans are multi-talented, as are, apparently, all of the characters in the movie. And everyone gets to choose whatever faction they want, regardless of in which faction they were raised and regardless of what their test results were. Maybe it's all allegorical about how society boxes us into roles, but they get to choose! And the choice is free for anyone to make! The main character and some others are "divergent" but surely EVERY human would be divergent. What is this supposed to be solving? C) Why are the divergent people, who are obviously the MOST talented, the underclass? Why is there an underclass at all? D) What the heck is happening in the rest of the country while this going on in Chicago?

During the first hour of the movie there is dramatic music, dramatic camerawork, sudden tests of character, all of which has no dramatic tension and seems to serve no purpose. There's no particular plot, goal, or direction to the movie, other than Tris' trying to survive a series of basic training tests. I hear that there is a plot at the end of the movie, but I wasn't interested enough to make it there.

The LEGO Movie

This movie sounded like it would be a crappy commercial but turned out to be as smart and enjoyable as any Pixar film, with the same kind of snarky humor, characters, and action. LEGO's licenses allowed a slew of characters from other franchises to be added and skewed at the same time. Lots of LEGO in-jokes.

The visuals, all of which are made from LEGO pieces, even the explosions and water, are ubergeek cool. The end - which puts the entire movie into a new perspective - is a nice twist, though the movie's message is hardly original. While it doesn't cover any new ground in the movie-making industry, it's good entertainment.

Stage Beauty

This movie, loosely sourcing real events and people, is set about 50 years later than  Shakespeare in Love, at the very moment before and after women are allowed to perform on stage in post-Elizabethan England. This change spells the possible end of the career for male actors who specialized in playing women on stage.

The movie has a certain gloom and depressing atmosphere. While SiL was about the grand sweep and majesty of the stage and the eccentricity of Shakespeare, this movie is about two people (the male actor (Billy Crudup) who used to play women and the woman (Claire Danes) who once served him but is now going to replace him) trying to find their way with and around each other. It's nice, the story is dramatic and slightly romantic, but it's not spectacular.

Stuck in Love

This is one of those quirky, intelligent movies that are my cinema bread and butter. While not breaking any new cinematic ground, the acting and scenery are nice, the characters are beautiful and adorable, and the script is filled with literature.

Three writers - the father (Greg Kinnear) pining after his wife (Jennifer Connelly) who left him, the daughter (Lily Collins) about to publish her own novel, and the son (Nat Wolff) who needs some more life experiences in order to generate material for his own writing  - experience the joys and frustrations of relationships. The general plot is pure romcom; the only question is which relationships will end happily and which ones won't. For those that like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing they like.

Has a great soundtrack, too.

Saving Mr Banks

A good movie, but by no means a great movie - it was actually a letdown, considering the two awesome leads (Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson).

It's the story of Walt Disney overseeing the creation of (the songs of) Mary Poppins while in the presence of continuous disapproval from the author P.L. Travers (who only agrees to give it a shot because she is short on cash), interspersed with flashbacks about the childhood of Mrs. Travers. The flashbacks reveal that Mary Poppins was a serious creation for a troubled girl with an alcoholic father, which lends some insight into the disapproval she feels while watching Mary turned into a comic adaptation with nonsense words and dancing animated penguins.

Like Shakespeare in Love, much of the enjoyment of the film comes from the bits and pieces of the work in development (i.e. hearing the songs of Mary Poppins); leave those out and the movie is simply ok. Travers is unhappy, Disney tries to be patient. According to Wikipedia, the real-life result wasn't so happy: Disney tricked Travers; she hated the movie and she vowed never to work with him again. In the movie, the ending is far more pablum.

Your Sister's Sister

Another romcom; the characters aren't quirky, but the situation is. A guy (Mark Duplass) who lost his brother is sent by his best (platonic) girlfriend (Emily Blunt) to a cabin on a lake for quiet time, only to find his friend's lesbian sister (Rosemarie DeWitt) is using it for her own quiet time. A bottle of tequila and one thing leads to another. And then the platonic girlfriend shows up.

It all sounds straightforward, but actions and interactions that happen in the first half are gradually revealed to have ulterior motives as the dialogue progresses. It all functions more as a play than a movie. The best aspect is the delivery, which is incredibly good; lines and sentences are spoken so naturally that they seem to emerge from the characters themselves, and not from a script (indeed, some of the dialog was improvised). Movies that achieve this have a way of involving the viewer in their scenes.

The denouement is not particularly strong, nor surprising, which is a pity. Worth watching.

The Spectacular Now

This movie starts as a good movie and gradually gets great. Sutter (Miles Teller) is a high-school party guy who drinks a lot, but his friends think he's a joke, his girlfriend dumps him because she wants more, and he wakes up passed out on a lawn to a friendly-faced girl Aimee (Shailene Woodley) from his class.

Unlike every college movie you know, there are no "standard types" in this movie. The party scene isn't a wild party with everyone having a good time, it's just a party. The same goes for the prom, the classes, graduation, the fight scene, the sex scene, etc. There are no ultra-bitches or bros here (actually, maybe all of the kids are a little too good). Sutter has a drinking problem that is front and center in the movie, but it's not dealt with in a spectacular confrontational scene.

What we have, instead, is the best portrayal of a transformation I think I've seen in a long time. Sutter starts the movie one way and very carefully, gradually, and painfully learns something about himself. The movie strays briefly into some emotional and relationship territory that I have never seen covered in other movies. The only "type" might be Aimee, the good girlfriend, but she is so fetching and played so well that it is hard to get upset about it. The acting is superb and the movie makes sense and means something.

I was trying to figure out what other movie Shailene was in until I realized that it was Divergent.

Temple Grandin

A tour-de-force performance from Claire Danes in the true story of Temple Grandin, an autistic woman who (together with her mother's love and support) fought a woefully inept and dangerous medical establishment, society at large, and a male-dominated sexist old-boys' cattle industry to become a transformative force in ranching. Temple's story is amazing in its own right; Danes' portrayal is astounding.

The screenplay brings it all together with the essential stories of Temple's struggles through college and the development of her ideas for more humane treatment of animals (good for the cows, and good for business). The story is a bit scattered, but ultimately comes together. It's not too maudlin; the discovery and implementation is told simply and cleanly. Captivating.

Bug Too!

Developer: Realtime Associates
Publisher: Sega

You may find this hard this hard to believe, but 'Bug!' was a critical success back in 1995! Critics would praise the innovative gameplay and superb 3D graphics. It must've sold pretty well too because a sequel was out a year later.

This time the story makes a lot more sense in a cartoony sort of way, after the success of the first Bug movie, you and your friends are enlisted for seven new feature films all of which are shot on location with little regard for the actor's safety. I'm glad Bug Too! took a few seconds to explain the story a little better this time around, the first game was really needlessly confusing.

The game starts out well enough as it prompts you to pick one of three characters, Bug from the first title, a 1970's style disco character and a talking dog that sort of sounds like Scooby-Doo. Unfortunately, as it turns out they all play the same, none of them have any exclusive abilities, stats or moves.

You're then brought to the first series of levels which  parody horror movies, they're not done as well as Gex, but I did get a chuckle at some of the monsters, namely the ghosts who chain you, call you 'loser' and then release you. I have no idea why that costs you health points but I don't care either, it's funny and that's all I need. The first three levels are much more interesting than any of the worlds in the first game with actual background, walls and a generally more interesting art style.

Unfortunately once you finish the first world disappointment sets in quickly as the game quickly returns to the bland look and style from the first game. Even the movie parodies are completely forgotten! How can you have a space world parody with no references to Star Wars, Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey or really anything at all? It's just a generic level set in space! The desert levels could have parodied Indiana Jones or Lawrence of Arabia, but again, none of that actually happens, it's just a group of generic stages featuring none of the original enemies, walls or decorations from the first three levels.

None the issues from 'Bug!' were addressed either, levels become frustratingly difficult not just because of the enemies and death pits but also due to their sheer size and maze-like design, it also suffers from the same repetitive design

Graphically there are little to no differences from the first game once you beat the first world (yes I know I sound like a broken record here), meaning you'll soon return to the boring featureless corridors which seem to do a good job at getting you lost. The music isn't bad, though I noticed Bug re-uses a lot of the same one-liners from the first game and the recording equipment sounds noticeably different than the newly added ones.

It almost feels like the developers wanted to create a game that parodies pop-culture but ran out of time, so you get a really fun first world followed by six boring, generic worlds that look like they were ripped from Bug! If you enjoyed the first game you might as well view Bug Too as a mission-pack, however, if it's a full-fledged sequel you're after, prepare for disappointment.

Pros:

- First few levels are fun and quirky
- Fun gameplay in short bursts
- Character models look pretty good and are nicely animated for the time

Cons:

- It's easy to get lost and the high difficulty can be frustrating
- Gameplay becomes somewhat repetitive after a while
- Visually the maps start out interesting but quickly become dull and boring

Final Grade: C+

The game may not be much of improvement over its prequel, but the cover sure is! Look at that, color, backgrounds, actual stuff going on! I love the box art's color balance and there's so much going on in the background that the cover always draws my eye onto it.

The manual isn't bad either, there describing the backstory and items with a few black and white screenshots here and there. Nothing ground breaking but it does its job well enough. A shame it still comes in an early Saturn packaging meaning it's too fragile for its own good. Regardless, the cover alone makes this packaging an improvement over the previous one

Packaging Grade: C+

Bug!

Developer: Realtime Associates
Publisher: Sega

Playing the Clockwork Knight games and 'Bug!' back-to-back really makes me appreciate not only what Mario 64 brought to the table. 3D was this new exciting technology and developers knew they wanted to implement it in their games, but weren't quite sure how it would apply to the platform genre.

Clockwork Knight was a 2D game a few 3D elements graphical elements thrown in, 'Bug!' however tries to take it a step further by creating a (almost) fully 3D game and as a result we got a very experimental game. In a way I do miss the experimentation period of this era, once Mario 64 became the standard it was pretty much expected of every game in the genre to draw some influence from it.

In 'Bug!' you play as well, a bug who is tasked with saving his family... in a movie he's shooting. Yeah it's never really clear if it's just a movie or if you're actually rescuing anyone, I mean if it's just a movie why do the enemies kill you? Maybe I'm just over-thinking this.

As previously mentioned, this is an early 3D platformer, meaning you can movie in any direction, however, much like Clockwork Knight, every character in the game is a pre-rendered sprite. The makes the characters seem very clean and nicely animated but has the downside of making it hard to judge depth and distances between characters. To reduce this issue, most of the levels consist of narrow corridors and walkways, which does help, but the occasional judgement error will still take place.

You might think this system makes the maps rather limited, but the developers actually did a really good job here! Yes, they consist mostly of corridors with the occasional wide room, but the stages are really quite expansive, twisting and turning you scale up or climb down between all the ledges, springs and moving platforms. It's really quite easy to get lost and some levels even place a map at random spots so you know where you need to go. Regardless, the game does become repetitive after a while and the high difficulty only exacerbates this issue.

Bug's actions are rather limited for the most part, he can walk, duck and jump on enemies. Thankfully there are a few power ups scattered about that add to his moves, you'll need them too because this game is HARD. At first it may seem like there's a shortage of checkpoints, but actually bug is kind of secretive in how they work. While there are some sparse checkpoints on most levels, you'll also occasionally run across some guy wearing sunglasses, if you give him a coin not only does it act as a checkpoint, it also sends you to a bonus mini-stage. Another strange design choice was the save option, your progress is saved automatically and it keeps track of your lives and continues, but you need to start each world from the beginning, so some degree of backtracking is involved.

Each stage has a few bonus mini-games as previously mentioned and if you finish three consecutive levels with over 100 gems you're also greeted to a flying stage similar to what you might find in Space Harrier (minus the shooting).

The character models are composed of pre-rendered sprites, similar to what you'd find on Donkey Kong Country or Clockwork Knight, though they are definitely much cleaner here. The environments however look rather dull as they're mostly composed of corridors and a static background screen. Even with the sparse graphics, there it still a degree of pop-in for any platform farther than 20 feet, it's not long before you get tired of watching the same corridors over and over again.

I found the music rather annoying and while bug's comments are fun at first they eventually repeat themselves a little too often.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised with 'Bug!', the gameplay and the graphics have aged a bit and repetitiveness does eventually. With that said, Bug's charm eventually grew on me somewhat.

Trivia: Despite being similar in theme and style to Pixar's 'A bug's life', Sega's game was actually launched 3 years before the movie. Between this and the Toy Story/Clockwork Knight scenario I'm starting to think someone at Pixar loved the Saturn.

Trivia 2: In one of the bonus levels, you get to race against Sonic the Hedgehog, it even uses Sonic 3's sprite and animations. It's kind of strange Sega would just let Realtime Associates use its mascot like that.

Pros:

- Interesting take on the 3D platformer
- Fun gameplay in short bursts
- Character models look pretty good and are nicely animated for the time
- Mini-games and interesting level design help spice up the gameplay

Cons:

- The Music can become rather grating
- It's easy to get lost and the high difficulty can be frustrating
- Gameplay becomes somewhat repetitive after a while
- Visually the maps look extremely dull and boring

Final Grade: C+

Mid-90s CGI cover with very little detail? Check! Blank featureless background? Check! Character(s) either staring blankly at the player or doing nothing that tells us what the game is about? Check! Yep! It's a mid-90s videogame cover with another one of those crappy early Saturn boxes no less.

At least the cover is a bit better than Clockwork Knight's though that's not saying much. The manual is pretty good though with backstory, character and enemy bios and a general description of every item and world.

Packaging Grade: D

2013 Game Industry Survey Questions Online Now

The tabletop game industry includes companies as diverse as museums, box manufacturers, and advertising agencies, as well as major publishers and retailers. If your company makes or sells (or helps to make or sell or play) even one tabletop game for profit, we're interested.

Unlike previous years, Purple Pawn's fourth annual tabletop game industry survey is available online! The survey asks you, on behalf of your company, to answer a few simple questions about your company and what it experienced in 2013. RESPONSES ARE OPTIONAL. Answers will be aggregated and summarized, and provided to the public for free on Purple Pawn's website.

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Past survey results: 2010, 2011, 2012

Click here to take the 2013 survey.

This survey will end on March 22 (update: extended to March 31). Results will be posted about a week after.

POTM March 2014 winner announced

Quite close outcome this time for the Project of the Month 2014 vote over at linuxgameawards.org. But there has to be a winner:



Here is a closer look that which project got how many votes:



Congratulations to the winner Battle for Wesnoth!