amplizine.com

If you don’t understand the humor behind it all, take that stick out of your ass and try again.

Quentin Tarantino, you genius, you’ve outdone yourself again. Just like Reservoir Dogs outdid Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction outdid Reservoir Dogs, this fantastic tale outdid even Pulp Fiction. And that’s saying an awful lot. Because Pulp Fiction is the shit. Yeah. Anyway, back to the review. From the very first scene of this movie right until the gripping cliffhanger at the very end, you will be captivated through the entire flick. Starring and written by Uma Thurman, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, and also starring Lucy Lui and Vivica A. Fox, this fascinating tale of revenge and remarkable constitution will drop kick you in the nuts and keep you wondering, all the while knowing. I know that didn’t make a whole lot of sense if you haven’t seen the movie, but if you have then you know precisely what I’m talking about.

Plot

In a desperate quest for revenge, the Bride (sorry, you have to wait till volume two to learn her real name.) as played by Uma Thurman, tears shreds into her old accomplices (and their bodyguards) until the very end of the movie. Of course, since this is only volume 1, she doesn’t get to complete her quest in this movie, but the journey itself is what is most spectacular. Broken down into several thoroughly rearranged chapters, the Bride procures a samurai sword, and kills the shit out of Lucy Lui’s character, has a somewhat epic fight and destroys Vivica A. Fox’s character–all the while fulfilling the sadistic death list of all those who wronged her. This film is Quentin’s homage to Bruce Lee era films, so the plot is laid out similarly to those, while still retaining a creative effect that only Quentin can produce.

Visual

Get ready for slightly comical blood and gore, because this movie has no shortage of either. In fact, there is a scene where the Bride is literally bathing in the watery blood of dozens of deceased (and maimed) samurai sword-wielding crazy-ass Japanese. In the story of Lucy Lui’s character O-Ren Ishii, the movie lapses into a fantastic Japanese animation sequence that was really stunning, and fit perfectly into the feel of the movie. During the massacre of the Crazy 88, the film drops into black and white, allowing for a fascinating cinematography affect the likes of which I have not seen in many years. Anytime the Bride sees someone who wronged her on her “wedding day,” shes shown in red to emphasize her fierce anger and hatred, and you know that person is going to die.

Audio

Only Tarantino can use such seemingly obscure music, and blend it all so perfectly into a movie. The song Twisted Nerve will haunt your dreams. Anyway, I strongly recommend procuring this movie’s soundtrack, whether legally or not is no concern of mine, but it’s really worth buying. Every song is completely different than every other, and yet it blends so well that you can’t even tell the songs aren’t even similar until you’re listening to the soundtrack separate from the movie. The sound effects are also fantastic, and you don’t need 5.1 to appreciate them, but it does make a really big difference.

Acting

Does this movie have any flawed acting? Absolutely not. The Bride is so perfectly convincing that you can almost believe it really happened. Bill is played better than anyone else, even though you never get to see his face, not even a little (at least not until volume two). Even Lucy Lui did a mentionable job here. Where often her roles can be very flat or staccato; she did an excellent job, and even wielded a sword very impressively. Uma really kicked some ass with her samurai sword, too.

Summary

This is one of the best and most unique movies to come out in years, and will probably remain so for quite some time. Get ready to be impressed, because this movie is truly fantastic. Quentin really is a genius for creating this, and special props to Uma for writing, because she and Quentin wrote this right after finishing Pulp Fiction. So here’s the final word: if you haven’t already seen this, you better or I will personally come to your house and beat you with a hose until you do. That’s right. Bitch.  5 out of 5 stars.

…and the valleys got stuck with the ass-crack.

Wes Craven, at what point did you go crazy? Because it must have been sometime before this movie. The master of horror himself let me down. Of course, he only is credited as the writer of this movie, as it’s an update of his 1977 horror flick of the same name. But if I was Wes, I would have told director Alexandre Aja to cram it up his ass instead of putting my name on this piece of trash. I don’t know why, but for some reason it seems that all new horror movies are too preoccupied with being bloody and gory to actually be scary. I may be more critical of an average viewer of this type of movie, but it really seems to me that any new horror is not even scary. Not even once during this movie did I actually jump. I was not drawn into “fear” by a creative and suspenseful plot. I just had to look at severed body parts, rape scenes, and no shortage of blood (there were a few points I swear the actors were just sprayed down with fake blood). It doesn’t even star anyone worth mentioning save one, but I don’t want to soil his otherwise decent name by associating him with this movie. But at least it was better than Hostel *shivers uncontrollably for a few seconds*.

Plot

Following government atomic and nuclear tests in the New Mexico and Nevada area, a series of birth defects and mutations arise in the population of a local mining town because they’re too stupid to leave their homes. It might just be me, but if the government asks me to leave or risk death, I’m going to leave, and fast. It’d be retarded to stay. But that’s just me. After living in the desert for some time, these folk apparently began to hate America and love human flesh. JUST MOVE FROM YOUR HOMES, YOU IDIOTS. Sorry. And using a gas station clerk as the gateway to their meals, these folks trap and brutally murder anyone traveling on their remote section of dirt road. In this specific case, it’s a family on their way to vacation in California. The father sets off to look for help, is beat to hell and burned on a tree. The folk use this burning as a distraction to rape one daughter, kill the other, kill the mother, and kidnap a baby. That’s about ten minutes of movie. The other ten is the son-in-law getting his baby back and killing all the mountain folk. I guess. I have to admit; I got bored of the plot and just stopped paying attention to the movie after a while. The movie wasn’t even scary enough to keep my attention. That’s saying a lot, I don’t often grow bored of a movie I’ve never seen before.

Visual

To all future horror movie directors reading this review: budget less money for fake blood, no one really needs to see that. Just because you can spray an actor down with blood, give him a shotgun and make him walk through the desert doesn’t mean you should. And that certainly doesn’t make it a good movie. Even attempts at key horror visuals in this movie came off cheesy and poorly planned, maybe even added last minute. For instance, they tried to do the whole “silhouette swooping past in the dim light” thing, but nothing ever came from it. Something would do the swoop thing, and the actor would turn around suspiciously and then keep walking. No attack, no animal mistaken for a person, nothing. The only key visual I could salvage out of this movie is fake blood sprayed on the actors. How does that make it scary?

Audio

The music was pretty good, but nothing I would spend money on. And come to think of it, nothing I would steal either. But it did suit the parts of the movie that didn’t make me bored or queasy (which wasn’t a whole lot, by the way). Did you need surround to get the sound effects? Nope. Not even once did I feel like something was behind me, and I use DITIGAL SURROUND SOUND. This movie couldn’t even make digital surround feel realistic. Shame on them.

Acting

Like I mentioned earlier, there was only one actor who I recognized, and I don’t even want to soil his name by associating it with this movie. And even his performance here seemed quite forced. All other actors/actresses wouldn’t even make the D-list they sucked so badly. Nothing about the acting in this movie was believable. Every bit of it was forced and flat, and where I come from, good acting can make a bad movie tolerable, but bad acting makes bad movies worse.

Summary

I know a thing or two about nuclear weapons and radiation. I grew up on F.E. Warren Air Force Base, which is smack in the center of the largest grouping of nuclear weapons in the nation (it also happens to be the number three target in the event of nuclear war, but whose counting, right?) I studied up on radiation poisoning and birth defects caused by it, so I can say I know enough to say this movie is full of shit. Anyone who lives through the testing just got cancer or leukemia and died. No mutation. The birth defects were generally in the face, hands, and feet. No extra limbs, no excessively large heads (at least not in the births that actually lived for more than a few minutes), and they got the cancer or leukemia too. Plus, the government paid heavily for the emotional and physical anguish these folks went through, so they usually died happy and wealthy. That puts this movie in the way of

1 more shitty horror movie for me to ream out of 5

Delightful

Here’s a movie that I forgot to review a long time ago, and one that is certainly due for it’s additional fifteen minutes in the spotlight (as if this review could be considered the spotlight, right?) I can only review this movie on the basis that it is quite possibly the best animated movie of all time. Right up there with Emperor’s New Groove (review coming soon, my minions).* Shrek really dazzles the audience with original humor, excellent voice over and even very believable animation, right from the very beginning of the movie to the very end. Plus it entails a wonderfully original love-story-adventure-quest plot that is not only easy to follow, but fun as well. Starring such huge names as Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, John Lithgow, and Cameron Diaz, this 2001 film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vickey Jenson will astonish viewers of all ages.

*Editor’s note: you don’t have minions King, you ARE the minion.

Plot

Reclusive ogre Shrek goes on an epic quest to remove a spattering of fairy-tale creatures dumped onto his swamp by the evil dictator “king” Lord Farquad only to be sent on a further quest to retrieve the lass Farquad wishes to marry in order to become king. Damn that was a weird sentence. But anyway, after embarking on an additional quest to save the princess, Shrek finds himself hopelessly in love with the lovely Princess Fiona who hides a terrible secret. This love then balloons into a frantic situation and a slight plot twist right at the very end. And although the plot does seem slightly cliché every now and then, there is not a single point where it disappoints. Plus, right when you start thinking you know where the movie is going, something new comes along and changes it all. Most excellent plot development.

Visual

The CGI really made this movie fantastic. Although still obviously CG, it is so well developed that you can really see the time and effort the animators placed into every scene. The lighting is exceptional and really requires mention. From the breath of the fire-breathing dragon lighting up the castle walls to the sun setting over the kingdom of Duloc, every bit of light beautifully interacts with all other aspects of the particular scene.

Audio

The theme song is beyond catchy here, it’s actually contagious. You’ll find yourself humming the song for days afterwards. Even during the actual movie, the music never takes on a point where it seems to not fit. Every part of the music fits exactly the way it should into every scene. Even though most of the music is an adaptation of the same theme song, it is adapted so well you barely even notice it’s the same song.

Acting

Here is where the movie really shines–for an animated movie anyway. When I watch an animated movie, I don’t want to spend the entire flick trying to figure out the name of one of the actors doing the voice over. But I also don’t want to only think of that actor during the movie, I want the voice to seem fitting with the character that is being portrayed. This is where many animated movies go astray when they enlist huge name actors–it’s far to difficult to forget that someone had to voice that character. In Shrek, however, the huge name actors blend so beautifully into the character being acted out that you actually forget who is doing the acting and enjoy just the characters. Just the way it should be.

Script

I have to add this little extra part in here to give some props to the writers in this movie, they did such an excellent job on the script that it’s originality is sure to become the standard by which all animated movies should be created. The humor is outright fantastic, and the movie actually sports jokes and melodrama suited not only for the young children, but also even more so to adults. So congrats to the writers of Shrek, because they did such a great job that I actually broke my template for movie reviews. Kudos.

Summary

If you haven’t yet seen this movie, you must be a caveman, or perhaps Amish. But if you’re Amish then you shouldn’t be reading this review on a webpage then should you? So anyway, if you haven’t seen it then go buy it right now. Don’t rent it first, don’t borrow it, just go buy it. The re-watch-ability is excellent and I don’t know of a single person who doesn’t love this movie. So in conclusion, the plot is great, the script is stunning, the acting is perfect, and CGI is just the way it should be. So all in all is this movie really worth your time? Absolutely. Is it worth 5 stars? You better believe it.

5 “You didn’t slay the dragon?!?!?” out of 5

The most kick-ass physicist since Stephen Hawking returns to take it to the man; G-man that is.

Welcome, gracious readers to my first review of a video game. And we shall start with perhaps the grandest PC game to be released in quite some time: Half Life 2. After long bated breath and wishing I wasn’t poor, I eventually acquired this game (Thanks Aaron) some 6 months after it had been released. As I finally get around to the review, it’s more than a year after it’s release. But, nonetheless, if you don’t already own this game and you claim to be a “gamer” then you should go out and buy it right now. In case you couldn’t tell (what are you retarded?) this is the sequel to arguably the greatest PC game of all time: Half-Life. And this sequel does not disappoint.

Valve built an all new engine to power this game, and the graphics really show it. Every skin in the game is as close to real as I could imagine a game being, if not better. Throughout the game, I was stunned repeatedly by the extreme attention to detail that was given to the graphics. And although I am sure there are flaws in the game, my first play-through did not reveal any to me. The second time through, however, I noticed a few small glitches (mostly caused by me not doing what I’m supposed to of course) and even those glitches were more than small enough for me to simply ignore. From panoramic views to vetilation shafts, the graphics really are revolutionary. Even if your machine is not completely able to handle the graphics, the boys at Valve ingeniously kept what you needed to see in the screen, and clipped out unnecessary items. So if your computer sucks (like mine) you’ll still be able to murder and maim without hinderance.

This game really handles excellently as well, it’s very easy to get lost in the game and not even remember that you’re just playing a game. It really handles like all games should. The movements are crisp and very precise, helping seat you into Gordan Freeman’s shoes. The weapons are fairly believable, and your enemies fall with a proper amount of force. Plus the ragdoll characteristics that the corpses take makes it extra fun to nab a headshot. As a bonus over Half-Life, you can actually operate vehicles that aren’t mounted on a rail. Granted you only really get to drive a few vehicles, but it’s very nice to be able to move about as you like and not to be stuck on a track able only to accelerate and slow your craft. So in that regard, this game really is an improvement over the original. Plus, the dune buggy sounds like a small block Chevy, and that makes me super horny. But I digress.

The only real problem that I have with this game is the mood. Yeah, the G-man is present and quite prominant, and you even get to spend some time with characters from Black Mesa that were in the original Half-Life. But the sequel just doesn’t feel like Half-Life did. The plot really didn’t seem like you were fighting for freedom from aliens and grunts while trapped in the labs. It really felt more like you are on a one man vigilante attack against all things evil in the world. It almost seemed more fitting of a James Bond game than Half-Life. And you spend the whole game fighting men, and get to kill hardly any aliens, which is quite the disapointment. I really wanted this game to be like an extension of the original, with better graphics and drastically improved gameplay. Although I was not disappointed in regards to graphics and gameplay, I just really hated that it didn’t feel like Half-Life. In the original, there were countless puzzles and riddles you had to solve in order to progress, but in Half-Life 2, the puzzles are far too easy and I just never really got stumped. This was fairly saddening to me, because I’m not that smart of a guy and I really enjoyed getting stumped by the original.

The enemies in this game, however disappointing that they’re not aliens, are excellently built and quite intellegent. In the original, it was fairly easy to outsmart the AI, but not so here. I actually feel hunted in some places, which is almost refreshing (while creepy). Even the spawn points for the enemies feels realistic in most places, which really is an improvment over the original, where if you watch closely you can see exactly where to stand in order to spawn in the head-crabs and what not. Enemies get harder the farther you progress, which is becoming typical for first person shooters, but it fit what I was looking for. As an added bonus, when nearing the end of the game, you get to command some of the rebel troops, and they follow you like idiots and take all the bullets so you don’t have to. But the friendly AI seems like a last minute addition to the game and might need just a little more development to run perfectly. Plus, you don’t get troops for very long, so there’s really not much to mention about it.

All in all, this game is beyond excellent. The graphics rock, the enemies are believable, the gameplay is great and even the music is bad ass (even if there seems to be a shortage of it…) and I can’t stay mad at this game for not feeling like the Half-Life, but due to this I simply can’t give it 5 stars. Maybe if they had slapped a different name on it instead of Half Life 2, like Half-Life: Apocalypse or Half-Life: Aftermath or Half-Life with a Vengance or something I could have got on board with the feel the way they had it. But slapping it with that magic number 2 and then making if feel completely different? Sorry, but I just didn’t like that. Otherwise, the game is great. Anyone who thinks themselves to be a gamer needs to have this in the arsenal, and since it’s part of Steam it’s exceptionally easy to purchase, install, and play without going out into the evil sunlight.

4 Annoying head-crabs out of 5

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Adventures on the high seas without the scurvy! But we can’t guarantee that.

Arrrrgh!! Avast, ye land lubber! And other pirate talk! Been waiting to get your pillage on? Well this game has more than enough fun, so you don’t even need to get loaded to the gunwalls! (Look it up)

All pirates want revenge for something right? Well in your case, another pirate kidnapped your family when you were younger. And now that you are old enough, you set out with a pirate crew and a ship of your own, courtesy of a mutiny against your old captain. As the captain of your new sloop, you have to keep your crew happy so they don’t mutiny against you as well and dump you on an island. How do you keep pirates happy? Pillaging of course!

Through the course of your life (yes you age in this game) you will have the opportunity to attack any vessel you encounter, duel the captain of an opposing vessel, attack settlements of opposing nations, battle rude fiancés to win the approval of governors’ daughters, and of course dance with them. But first, the battles!

Naval battles are fantastic. Depending on what ship you are sailing, how many guns you have, how many crew, the wind conditions, and your sailing skills, the sea battles can either be exciting, or they can have you setting your sails at full and hoping you can outrun whoever is chasing you. Three different types of cannon shot can be used to take out crew, sails and masts, or just plain pummel the other ship (or yours). If you are more at home with a rapier in your hand you can close in on them a quick as possible and initiate a battle with the captain while your crews battle it out. After the smoke has cleared and you are (hopefully) the victor, sometimes the opposing crew will ask to join yours. You can also take all the loot that was onboard the other ship as well as choosing to either keep or sink that ship. Land battles are turn based fights with different types of pirates at your control. The number of crew you have and the number of soldiers defending a town are really important factors in deciding if you should attack, try to sneak into the town, or just sail away and find another port.

Dancing is something entirely different, altogether. (Dancing is something entirely different). It’s sort of like that annoying beeping little disc with four colors and goes by the name Simon. She gives you directions about what to do by pointing with her hands right before you do it. So you have to sit there and pay attention to her hands (at least you aren’t staring at her chest), and as soon as she is pointing you have to press the correct button in time with the music. If you don’t, you trip and embarrass her, and she doesn’t like that very much. If you are really smooth and she likes the way you dance at the end of the song, she will let you kiss her hand or twirl her around and look down her dress! (Ooooh!) And then she will give you some information either about a criminal that needs to be brought to justice or about your family. If you impress a girl enough times you may even get to marry her!

The visuals in this game are great. Most computers will be able to make full use of their video card to show off the stunning 3D animations while sword fighting or dancing. The only thing that I find irritating about this whole game is that the video settings reset every time you exit the game. Audio quality is good, but there isn’t very much to listen to in the game. There is the background music as you sail around the Caribbean and when you enter ports, but there are no voice actors. Everyone seems to mumble or speak gibberish. The dancing obviously has music, but how hard is it to play a classical dancing melody without any effects?

But the gameplay itself is engaging enough to keep you coming back. As you get older your pirate gets slower and eventually you have to retire. Now the great thing is that every game is different. Your family, all the lost cities, the secret hiding places, they all move around from one game to the next so you never know where they will be. With several different eras to play in, the politics are different every time, as are the beginning conditions. With the option to attack anyone at any time, or to just be a trader and attack only pirates, there is no set way that the game ends. You could end up marooned on a desert island for the rest of your life, or you can retire a rich man with a beautiful wife and ten’s of thousand’s of acres of land. All things considered I give Pirates! 4 Treasure chests out of 5

Editor’s Note: one more “Hyargh matey” for good measure.

The smallest big city ever, all in your hands

You had to see this one coming. There is hardly a game I’d want to be made portable more than a Grand Theft Auto game. And thankfully, Rockstar thought the same. How could anyone resist having their own pocket sized hooker-murder simulator?

Portable GTA! Brilliant!

This game fits the PSP so well and surprisingly runs great. Take GTA3, humorously add motorcycles to the mix, kill off the only Dodo, and add multiplayer mini-games and you’ve got a recipe for a classic. Mmmm, just like momma used to make (well, except the drive-bys and hookers). Speaking of drive-bys, the Xbox should be ashamed of itself for its history of terrible controls in GTAs because the PSP pulls it off perfectly even with fewer buttons. And the PSP looks just as amazing as the Xbox; I don’t know how those crazy Japanese fit so much power into such a small package. Liberty City Stories’s story is new and quite lengthy, so it should provide hours and hours of missions and side tasks. Not much else to say here. If you’ve played any GTA game, you’ll find the same things here–good and bad.

Social commentary brought to you by:
“The Mainframe” Now in Theaters, Rated R for Retarded

The radio that we all know and love is back to offend, so parents and responsible adults be warned. They haven’t pulled any punches in the past and aren’t about to start any time soon. From Manifest Destiny to the Evils of the Internet to stereotypical Indian cab drivers to transsexual German DJs, everyone is sure to find something that interests them. There is even an inside hot coffee joke. But where is all the good music? Did Rockstar run out of good songs from the 90s they were allowed to play? They certainly found enough crappy house/techno music, but all the radio stations seem to be playing leftovers. Most stations’ cycles are too short, and others are about 25 minutes too long. Then, you get excited when you learn you can do custom tracks (as it’s been lacking on Sony platforms), but then you learn the details of it. You need their special utility that only rips from legitimate store bought CDs to put them on your PSP. Fucking DRM. Stop acting like Microsoft Rockstar!

Go sit in the corner Rockstar

On the surface, it is another great GTA game, and it’s portable! But I can’t help but be disappointed since I’ve played San Andreas. So many features such as developing character skills, minigames, airplanes, helicopters, and the miraculous swimming ability have been removed (or more accurately, not considered to be put in). This was a bad step backwards Rockstar. Don’t give us Kool-aid just to take it away soon after. Whether it’s due to technical restrictions or laziness, it doesn’t feel like your best effort.

So really, what else could you ask for from the PSP? Actually, Ace Combat and Knights of the Old Republic, but GTA is good too. I get the feeling I’ll be waiting for KOTOR for a while. Liberty City Stories fills a void in the handheld market almost perfectly. And if I didn’t know so many schmucks that don’t own PSPs, I might’ve been able to test the multiplayer part for you. Perhaps I would even be able to forgive the step backwards then. As it is though, Liberty City Stories is one of the best games for the PSP as long as you fit the “Mature” category.

4 Rock-stars out of 5

LilPickle: “I swear, if you play it one more time Matt, I’ll teabag you!”

To start off, this isn’t exactly a new game, but this one is definitely worth the time. And when do we ever actually get to review the new stuff? If you have played the first one and liked it, then you are in for a treat. The Sith Lords uses the same engine as the first, so the controls and graphics are the same. But even if you never played the first game, this one will help make you a less terrible gamer. Now on with the show!

Gameplay

Since this uses the same engine as the first, the combat and basic gameplay are relatively the same. One of the new additions is the whole mess of the influence you wield. Honestly, this is one of the better points of the game. The concept that your actions and words can affect your companions is one of the things that make this game great. So what’s the point of all that crap? Well, with some of the characters, you can train them to become a Jedi. Others, you can unlock different “Easter eggs” that can give you some back story in between the games or other tidbits.

The combat in this game is just like the first, but there are tons of new powers. My favorites are Force Crush and Force Sight. Force Crush is a neat-o darkside power that you learn on your own, so you can’t choose it as one of your level-ups. But at any rate, it’s almost as fun as squishing mice under your boots, and it sounds about the same too–only there are no mouse parts and goo left on your shoes, so it keeps all those duck-squeezers happy. Stupid duck-squeezers. Tell them I hate them and that I’ll eat their children. Alas, I digress. Using this power on just about anyone will flat out kill them. And Force Sight is cool cuz you can “see” a NPC or other character’s alignment whether light or dark. So either way you go, you know who to support and who to pwn.

As with the first game, your main choice of weapon is of course the lightsaber. Unlike the first one, however, there are three more slots to buff up your s-word, and with the right upgrades, you can deliver a beat down that would make Chuck Norris proud. Just remember most places don’t cash Chuck Norris brownie points out of fear of being blinked out of existence.

Characters

With TSL, you can get up to 10 characters in your gang. Who follows you depends on your alignment dark or light and your gender. Also, there are a few characters in the game that are left over from the first. Each of these characters has their own personality with plenty of depth to them.

But now for the bad

If you are a fan of the first KOTOR then you might have issues with this installment. Some of the force powers seem almost too powerful. The ability to wipe the floor with 15 bad guys in just 2 rounds is a little too much. And unlike the first, there is no big secret in the end. In fact, the ending is a bit disappointing. There is no great revelation at the end, and it leaves you feeling short-changed.

Well before I blather on much more, there is plenty that I didn’t talk about for fear of rewriting “War and Peace” and all that other fun on a bun. Here are the results: because of the old engine, combat problems, and the lack of the whiz-bang ending like in the first, I can’t give a perfect score. Fortunately, this game is now available for about 20 bucks. It does have some decent replay value, and it is a great rental if you’re too cheap to shell out the money for it. All in all, I give Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords a lightsaber-wielding, jedi-hacking, bone-crushing, hyphen-ated 4 out of 5.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Pixar is at it again

Horsepower, speed, chrome, and skid marks. No, I’m not talking about King’s car, or his underwear for that matter. I’m talking about Pixar’s newest release, Cars. They packed the cast full of big name celebrities from the big screen, TV, radio, and several racing circuits. There are so many running Pixar jokes in this movie that I couldn’t even begin to count them all after only watching it once.

Plot

Have you seen Doc Hollywood? It’s fairly similar to that, but without all the people. It’s called Cars, get it? The movie follows Lightning McQueen (voice by Owen Wilson), a cocky rookie racecar on his way to California for the Piston Cup. On his way he gets lost one night because he can’t see where he is going, his headlights are only stickers. He ends up causing a lot of damage to this small town of Radiator Springs and is sentenced to community service by repairing the main road he tore up. After a while he begins to make friends with the locals and eventually makes it to his big race.

Visual

AMAZING. If Pixar were to leave out the cars and just show some short clips of the Radiator Springs area you would probably think it was real. People who really pay attention to the background will pick out car shapes in the mountains and the rock bluffs. The little VW Beetle bugs flying around in some of the scenes are hilarious, rather than contrails in the sky left from jets you can see clouds in the shape of tire tracks. Pixar quadrupled (that’s 4x for those of you who have trouble with big words) their processing power after making The Incredibles and they still spent an average of 17 hours rendering each frame of the movie. And it shows in the final product. The detail that they put into the cars, the buildings, and especially the scenery is amazing.

Audio

Lots of good stuff here, they have some good music that really helps set the mood for whatever might be happening at the time. Nothing really memorable about the music, but at least none of it seemed out of place. Lots of country and slow music to describe the old town of Radiator Springs and especially when Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) and Lightning go “Tractor Tipping.” And the music speeds up when Lightning gets back on the race track. The voice over acting matched seamlessly with the mouths on the cars so there are no problems there.

Acting

Woah, how many actors and celebrities can you fit into one movie? Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Tony Shalhoub, George Carlin, John Ratzenberger (Isn’t he in every Pixar movie?), Michael Keaton, Richard & Mrs. Petty, Darrell Waltrip, Tom & Ray (Click & Clack from Car Talk) Magliozzi, Jay Leno, Michael Schumacher, and Mario Andretti just to name… more than a few. Pixar recognizes that John Ratzenberger is in every movie they have made, and they make a joke about it at the end of the movie while the credits are rolling. The only thing that struck me as odd through the whole movie was that the fire truck, Red, never said anything. And I didn’t find out until later why. The movie is dedicated to Joe Ranft who was the voice of Red, and the Peterbilt at the beginning of the movie, as well as being the Co-director of the movie, died in a car crash in August 2005. They had to cut Red’s lines because they didn’t want to replace him. The appearance of racing celebrities throughout the movie adds a touch of fun. I would have acted much the same way that Luigi and Guido did if Michael Schumacher showed up at my door too.

Summary

Great, fun movie. There are jokes for the entire family. Car lovers will find nearly every kind imaginable in the movie at one point or another. Mater’s signature voice adds the hillbilly humor everyone loves and will make you “Happier than a tornado in a trailer park.” There is a good lesson in the movie about friendship and respect too… somewhere. I was too busy laughing to notice. I give it 5 “Pit Stop?”s out of 5

Please kill me…

It’s been called the first killer app for the PSP, received by some as Game of Show for E3 2005, and been given high ratings on crappy “out of 10″ systems. Must’ve been a slow year for everyone else. The most fun I ever had playing Death Jr. was anytime Dead Guppy was on screen because I knew exactly how he felt. He was just playing dead in hopes the game would just leave him alone. I take it back, the instruction booklet was rather fun, too.

Widgets and Foobars

So the Grim Reaper’s (aka Death) son DJ goes on a field trip with his strange group of classmates to the Museum of Supernatural History. Him and his friends sneak off when DJ’s sweetheart Pandora tries to open an un-openable box. To impress her, DJ cracks it open with his scythe, but gets everyone’s souls stolen by the Necromancer inside. Proof that girls are wicked. So DJ sets out to return everything to normal so his dad never finds out what happened. You’ll run around button mashing to find soul fragments, weapon widgets, health and ammo while fighting off demons-a-plenty. Combo attacks with your scythe and a fairly large collection of weapons will help you get there. Just be careful you don’t lose your own soul by playing this game, I hear replacements are tricky to find.

So your Death’s son, how can you lose?

Well you’ve already lost some cash if you purchased this game. Inside the game, however, the camera is your worst enemy, followed closely by bad controls, and then demons spawning in behind you after you just cleared that area. It claims you can move any direction with the analog stick and the camera will automatically move to give you the “best view of the action,” but I think the people who wrote the book never played it. Target locking doesn’t help either, but I think they thought you’d never have any enemies off screen according to that last statement. Which further doesn’t make any sense when THEY ALREADY DECIDED TO CHEAPLY SPAWN IN DEMONS BEHIND YOU. You do best when you resort to button mashing with the infinite ammo pistols and keep running. And yes, you die when your health meter falls (don’t ask me how it makes sense). I’m flustered by how terrible it actually is.

Maybe it’s because YOU suck LilPickle

The back of the box has a bulleted list with one of the features being “jump on hard-to-reach platforms utilizing DJ’s iconic scythe…” Why don’t they just say, “good luck with the camera while you have to do wall jumps at least 4 times in a row up a narrow crevice in a wall while the demons at the top of it shoot you and you can’t shoot back because target locking doesn’t apply for anything off screen.” I guess they didn’t say that because the box is only so big. It’s not just the interface that sucks though. The whole game works based on how many hits in a row you can do without stopping. So to keep things chaining, you can destroy objects in the level like fences, garbage cans, meat globs, whatever. This introduces two problems though: you end up trying to destroy everything by always mashing the O button, and it interferes with the target locking with the enemies you DO have on screen (causing you to mash the O button twice as fast and hard). Bottom line–button mashing sucks.

Come on, its good exercise

So is having a seizure. Actually, that might be more fun than this game too. My complaints don’t stop there though. Both audio design and animation are terrible. Sequences sound unprofessional or as if they were the initial test readings done by the programmers just to fill in the blanks. And I feel mean for saying this (I’m as shocked as you are), but the animation in the sequences looked like an amateur did it and no one had the heart to tell the guy it sucked. Even the frame rate was disgusted by it and had to leave the room. Maybe it’s a good thing the dialog in each level is just a text box rather than voice acting.

So you’re saying there’s a chance…

No Harry, this hole is un-dig-out-able. Unlocks to improve weapons or get new combos or something (I can’t remember because I’m trying to rid this game from my mind) are too little too late. Levels are decently made, but can be frustrating at times. Music is better than the dialog, but still dull. Death Jr. tries its hand at humor too, but hardly gets more than a giggle. Dead Guppy is by far the coolest and funniest character. I wish he could get his own spin-off game. Death Jr. has no multiplayer, isn’t replayable, and most importantly ISN’T FUN… but at least it isn’t glitchy and bugged.  2 wall jumps short yet again out of 5

Pixar just can’t make bad movies!

What? An animated flick? Who the hell do I think I am? wait…I think I’m a movie reviewer dude, and I think I know who I am. Right. Moving on. Here’s a bit of a break from the norm, with a review of the movie The Incredibles. A creation of Disney in conjunction with Pixar, this box office smash hit cartoon dealie was more than entertaining. It was just flat out fun. And anyone who has read my previous articles knows that I don’t really review a movie based on its “fun” factor. But after seeing this flick, I was persuaded that movies really can be fun. It stars such people as my favorite actor of all time Jason Lee as the bad guy and Samuel L. Jackson (what movie isn’t this guy in?) as a kind of sidekick. Unfortunately, I didn’t really recognize the other actors and actresses, but more on that later. This movie is exceptionally well done and is more a work of art than a movie.

Plot

The movie follows the lives of a family of underground superheroes after a series of lawsuits forces the government to conceal the identities and stop the super activity of superheroes. This particular family’s father, Bob Parr (Mr. Incredible) played by Craig T. Nelson longs for the “glory days” when he could save lives and be loved and cherished by the whole nation. After losing his job at an insurance company, Mr. Incredible gladly takes on a job for big bucks on a remote island where he can once again use his powers. Unbeknownst to him, however, he is working for someone whose sole purpose is to kill all supers and become a super hero himself. After “killing” Mr. Incredible, Syndrome played by Jason Lee, sends a gigantic robot to the city and attempts to disable it. After realizing he is unable to become the hero he wants to be, Syndrome is foiled by his own robot, which is now destroying the whole city. It is then up to the Incredibles (that’s the whole family, not just Mr. Incredible) to vanquish the evil. And so on. I won’t delve in any more, because I don’t want to ruin the ending.

Visual

All CGI, all the time. But it really works. I know I’ve left a few animated movies thinking how crappy the graphics seemed, but this flick pulled it all off very well. Now, I’m sure you’ve all seem some Pixar movie, so I’m sure you know the quality of graphics they produce. But this movie even exceeds all previous work. It’s not quite perfectly lifelike, but it’s close enough to make you believe it could be real. Plus, a lot the visuals took on a very “James Bond” kind of feel that I found quite exhilarating. I really can’t stress enough the uniqueness of these visuals, I actually left the theater wanting more. I wanted to see more of the movie, I wanted more James Bond bad guy secret hideouts and beautiful CGI.

Audio

A great theme song, and even better special effect sounds. I found myself humming the theme song for the whole day afterward, and occasionally it gets stuck in my head still. The song fit the movie perfectly, and almost helped the believability of the flick. It actually helped it seem like a Superman meets James Bond movie, but with better acting, plot, sound effects, and originality.

Acting

Yeah, I know it’s animated, and that there really isn’t a whole lot of acting required with voicing-over, but I was pleasantly surprised with the acting quality here. Every part of each voice-over is incredibly (pun intended) believable. You could almost catch yourself thinking the characters are real thanks to this. It really helped make the whole movie seem more like a live action movie than an animated flick. As for the acting quality of the actors I had never heard of? I could almost say that they are better than even the ones I have heard of. Truly impressive.

Summary

I would strongly recommend this movie to any person of all ages. From that six year old obnoxious cousin you have to baby-sit for the weekend while her parents are in Vegas, to the ninety year old that you sit with on Thursday mornings to make him feel loved again. But it also works for everything in between. This is the kind of movie that my parents would watch and enjoy (for those who don’t know, I help them to watch movies that won’t make them mad…and that’s pretty damn tough to do). So as the first review of an aminated movie, I’m proud to rate this one exceptionally high. If you haven’t seen this one yet, you should go do that. Just spend the buck or two to rent it. You’ll like it, I promise. Yes, do my bidding, excellent. Right, anyway. 5 out of 5