The Democratic-Republican from Virginia, and author of the Declaration of Independence, was a man of many contradictions in practice and in ideology. In many ways, that made him an interesting character to read about. Probably an under appreciated President, despite being perhaps the most quoted founder, he also managed to expand the office's authority more than his predecessors.
Sometimes, you do not need a ton of interactivity to recognize what kinds of experiences games can provide. A smaller game from 2016, Adr1ft provides a beautiful and engaging experience, functioning basically as an interactive version of the film Gravity. Despite some occasional technical problems, it is a great example of how less can sometimes be more.
Players control astronaut Alex Oshima, commander of an international space station that has suffered some sort of catastrophic incident. Alone in space, you must make your way from chunk to chunk in an effort to both discover what has happened as well as find a way to activate an escape pod. Scattered throughout the area are portable oxygen canisters. Navigating from point to point requires management of that oxygen, as it is used both as your "life bar" as well as the means of propelling yourself through the weightlessness of space.
In a sense, it is functionally just a "walking simulator," like The Stanley Parable or Dear Esther. Yet it does provide slightly more interactivity than those as there is a fail-state. Go to long or stray too far from the oxygen tanks, and you will suffocate to death. Additionally, the space location means there is an up and a down direction to explore, in addition to the usual front/back and left/right. It's actually pretty easy to get disoriented and turned around, and given that several large chunks of the station look the same, it can be hard to keep track of where you were going and where you just came from. Plus, the momentum of using oxygen thrusters means you are likely fidgeting with the controls on a much more frequent basis than other "walking sims."
Visually, the game is breathtaking out of the gate. It's hard not to see how much better the game might be as a virtual reality experience rather than a traditional first person game on your television. Until you realize that you can die, you can easily get lost just looking around at the Earth below. One of the creators tweeted a response to me saying that it is a meditative game, and to some extent, that is true. However, that feels a bit misleading since there is still an objective to the game. You still need to make it to certain points, and you can still get electrocuted or suffocate and die. There's still a point. It isn't just to let players experience a space walk.
For a game built to "stop and look around," they don't necessarily provide much interesting stuff to fill in the details. It is kind of easy to miss key story elements, and if you don't get those, or only get a few, you miss out on a pretty important aspect of the game. It's also a bit difficult to argue that it is meant to be simply a meditation given how stressful it can be when you find yourself desperate for oxygen. Some critics have complained that there just isn't anything to do in the game, but that isn't quite the right way to approach this game. In terms of "what to do," it's similar to the much praised Journey. The difference, however, is that Journey created a more compelling atmosphere and visual narrative that made it far more engaging than slowly drifting from place to place.
There is a lot to like aboutthe game. It's lack of hand-holding, that it tells backstory through discovery of personal computers around the station, the connection between motion and health that forces players to try and conserve oxygen, are all interesting design elements that make it solid. It's beautifully rendered, isolating, lonely environment just above the Earth makes it worth checking out.
Unfortunately, there are too many stretches where Adr1ft just sort of leaves you out to dry. For a game encouraging exploration, they could have provided some optional control feature that better points you in the right direction to the next objective. What they have in place can be infuriatingly inaccurate, causing you to spend hours just floating around doing literally nothing and ultimately going nowhere. This, also, says nothing of game breaking technical issues. (I had to restart the game three separate times because a door that was supposed to open so I could advance to the next stage would not. And I had another situation late in the third attempt wherein the game would not let me into the area that I had to activate. So I was never able to actually finish the game, which is a bit unfortunate since I did generally like it, and had to reference a walkthrough video to realize my game kept "breaking." It shouldn't take more than two or three hours to get through, but with game breaking glitches, you can be floating there for ages before you realize the game isn't letting you proceed.)
Few games build a world as deep and complete as BioWare did for their sci-fi RPG action game Mass Effect. Complete with rich written histories of each alien species, piece of technology, government agency, and even planets, it is not hard to argue that the lore and detail of its world is the strength of the first game in the trilogy.
Indeed, much of the gameplay leaves a bit to be desired. There are plenty of aspects to the combat that are great or could have been great. Issuing orders to squad mates, for example, is a good idea that never functions as it is supposed to, and instead winds up becoming the source of irritation in a firefight. Weapons that do not require ammunition, but will overheat and jam might be the single best aspect of battles, with minimal downside. The Mako, a ground vehicle used at the start of every story mission, is a solid idea, but falls far short in its execution. Even the dialogue wheel, complete with binary morality, is pretty good, yet has a number of shortcomings.
Probably the most frustrating aspect is that of exploring planets. In every star system, there are a few planets that you can land on and explore. Discovering gorgeous, realistic planets and moons goes a long way to crafting a compelling and engaging universe, but it actually is kind of bad game design. Realistic planets with realistic mountains might increase the realism of the larger game world, but it is such a slog to have to cross over in the Mako. Bad enough that the Mako handles like a cross between a crappy tank and a drunk refrigerator; having to scale steep cliffs to get to an element deposit is tedious at best. Why they thought it was a good idea to put stuff at the top of mountains is beyond my comprehension, and is one of the ways where developing the world seems to come at the cost of gameplay.
The first Mass Effect also doesn't run particularly smoothly. The controls are a bit clunky, certain functions don't work as they're supposed to, and when a lot of action is going on, there is often a noticeable drop in frame rate and rendering. Load times aren't the best (although I still actually like the long elevator rides that result in unique conversation between team mates), but they aren't necessarily the worst either. Certainly playing it today on XBox One, you can't help but notice how much the new console reduces them. The game can't handle swarming enemies well, which becomes a glaring issue when ambushed by rachni or large groups of geth or gangsters.
That, mixed with being more of an action RPG than a traditional third person shooter, can make it a hard game for new players to get into. By all means, Mass Effect is a game with an incredible world, great characters, and then almost nothing but unfulfilled potential as a game. In fact, when people ask me about it, I tend to suggest they just start with Mass Effect 2. The series eventually transitions further away from some of the better RPG elements found in the first game, but that actually does make it more palatable. Still, the leveling system - basic and simple, yet granting more freedom to the players - is an aspect that would have been nice to see get carried over in future games.
Half of the game isn't even combat, or infuriating combat with the Mako. A good chunk of the game is spent talking to people, whether it is folks on a colony planet with problems you need to solve or just shooting the breeze with your squad mates on board your ship, some of the most captivating elements of the game involve your choices in conversation. The overly simplistic, binary moral system of Paragon (good) versus Renegade (bad) is a bit bland and boring, but it actually works for the game given the story is one built on sci-fi and action tropes. Play enough times, however, and you notice how little your choices in conversation matter. In many instances, Commander Shepard will say the same exact thing with the same exact inflection regardless of which option you pick. And the choices themselves are rarely complex or difficult. In fact, probably the best, hardest decision to make comes in the "Bring Down The Sky" DLC, in which you are actually presented with a sort of lose-lose scenario. Allow the terrorist to leave, and you get to free the hostages. Stop the terrorist then and there, and the hostages will be killed.
Most of the voice actors are fine, but it isn't hard to notice that most actors are recording their dialogue in completely separate rooms at completely different times. There's a clunky sound to their rhythms. It doesn't break the game, of course, and that is often more than made up with the incredibly atmosphere, electronic and spacey soundtrack, but it does add to how dated the game seems by today's standards.
Frankly, for as much as I love Mass Effect, it really hasn't aged particularly well. Things would improve as the series continued, even despite it's final missteps, but that first game is still a little difficult to get through. If you're into really well defined and interesting characters, a super detailed world rich with lore and its own history, and that would be enough to make up for sometimes trying gameplay, then Mass Effect is a game you should have checked out by now. All the things it does amazingly - characters, world-building, et cetera - more than made up for the sloppy gameplay for me, but it likely won't be everyone's cup of tea.
In today's age of the nerd, it seemed inevitable that the kaiju genre might make an appearance in Hollywood. Sure enough, Legendary Pictures has taken up the mantle, almost entirely by themselves. They gave us Pacific Rim, then Godzilla, and now they've given us Kong: Skull Island, with the knowledge that they have acquired rights to other classic Toho monsters as they build for a cinematic kaiju universe (kaiju-verse? kaijuniverse?). Admittedly, I've never been a huge fan of Kong beside the technical aspect of it. The original 1933 film was groundbreaking and influenced an entire generation of filmmakers (including the Japanese creators who gave us the much superior film, Godzilla, in 1954). That said, there's just never been that much interesting stuff behind him. It's not that there's no substance at all; just that it's minor and not that compelling.
Kong: Skull Island suffers a lot of the same issues that have plagued the franchise overall and, frankly, the Legendary kaijuniverse too. What all films have in common is that they do the monster action incredibly well. Despite it's flaws, Godzilla produced two all-time great moments in the character's history. Pacific Rim also offered jaw-dropping action sequences, with an emphasis on scale and power. Kong: Skull Island similarly produces a number of memorable moments within the action. However, like the previous films, the characters and story leave a lot to be desired.
Lacking any real creativity, we once again focus on a group of military personnel (and a few eccentric scientists) as they search for Kong. In many ways, Kong: Skull Island has more in common with things like The Land that Time Forgot, Journey to the Center of the Earth, or even The Lost World than it does the original King Kong or any other kaiju film from yesteryears. After Kong attacks and kills much of the platoon, the survivors are separated and must reach the retrieval point. The island, however, is full of huge and deadly creatures that continue to threaten their lives. Meanwhile, commander Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) is determined to kill Kong in revenge rather than bring his men to safety at the evac point.
Packard offers some substance and depth to an otherwise bland story. It is 1973 and Nixon has just announced a treaty to end the war in Vietnam. A decorated war hero, Packard is convinced that this peace treaty functions similarly to surrender; that all who died gave their lives for nothing. He harbors a grudge towards the peace activists back home, telling Brie Larson's character, "Sometimes a a camera is more dangerous than a gun!" before claiming, "We didn't lose the war; we abandoned it."
The events that unfold on Skull Island serve as a quasi-parallel to the Vietnam War. Everyone involved was under no actual threat from the creatures on this island, but John Goodman and his organization Monarch are convinced it will become a threat to the nation and the world. So, they opt to send troops and deploy bombs, which gets the attention of Kong. The giant gorilla retaliates in vicious fashion, killing a group of men that just a few days earlier, received word that they would be sent home. Meanwhile, rather than recognizing that going after Kong was resulting in additional deaths, Packard digs deeper. He wants to kill Kong just to display the power of the United States military.
Those parallels, which get brought up on a number of occasions (including a great moment wherein they discuss whether these enemies are actually enemies, or if they become enemies because we went looking for them), and that gives it a substance sorely lacking from Godzilla. Still, there's not really any getting around the fact that, for rather well defined characters, none of them really matter much. Most of them are there just to die. They give them brief moments in an attempt to get you to feel something, but at the end of the day, almost all of the soldiers are just fodder. Even more, Tom Hiddleston is completely wasted as the generic white action hero man, who isn't even that important to the story in any capacity. Similarly, Brie Larson is there as an anti-war photographer. She makes a momentary connection with Kong (as is tradition for a white woman to do), but otherwise, she also doesn't have any real impact on anything.
Quite literally, the only characters who matter are Kong and Packard, which makes it hard to care when the monsters start picking off the soldiers and scientists left and right. The story is ultimately better than that of Godzilla, it still leaves much to be desired. John C. Reilly is the only one whose talents they fully realized, but even then, his comedic relief often feels forced, and creates a strange tonal clash. The dialogue is a bit all over the place as well, with a few too many wall-breaking jokes. The very first line of dialogue, as Goodman tries to secure funding from a Senator, is a silly, "Mark my words: there will never be a more dysfunctional time in Washington." Har har har. GET IT?!?
The film also serves as "world building." The entire beginning of the film serves almost exclusively to connect to Godzilla, so that they can build the "cinematic kaijuniverse." The post credits scene even goes all Iron Man in the way it spells out there is a larger world of monsters. It ends with Godzilla's roar, and I don't entirely get it. For starters, if ever a genre of film did not need "world building" and "continuity," it's the kaiju genre. Just play with the toys! If you argue that the lack of interesting human characters or drama is irrelevant because people just want to see monsters fight each other, then explore that! Use that to your advantage. (Granted, they appeared to have heard criticism of not enough Godzilla in Godzilla, and they do the complete opposite of "teasing" Kong. He is on full display within minutes of the film.) It also just seems strange to tease a movie that came out three years ago.
To be sure, there is much to like and appreciate about the film. Kong: Skull Island goes out of its way to avoid too many similarities with the previous remakes. There is no return to civilization, nor climbing New York's skyline. There are some, of course, most notably his affection for the central female character. The story also makes it seem more like an anti-war film than a generic monster movie. And at the end of the day, the action is still great. (Though I find it disappointing that these Western kaiju films continue to be very military-centric, and that they are almost entirely CGI with no discernible practical effects - part of the charm of the genre - it's hard to ignore that these films do have good monster battles.)
Still, it drags throughout - a result of splitting up the group into three for a bit. The writing isn't bad, but it's not particularly great either. Many of the complaints levied at Godzilla easily apply here. Like with Godzilla and Pacific Rim, there is something truly great just under the surface, but the writers just can't quite get there. While the Legendary kaijuniverse is not the train wreck of a cinematic universe that, say, DC's is, there are plenty of reasons to be concerned. Godzilla 2 is supposed to come out in 2019, and then King Kong vs. Godzilla will release in 2020. Given how none of their kaiju films have been especially huge box office hits, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see the entire enterprise collapse before that point. Godzilla 2 has already seen a director step down and the release date get pushed back a full year. I'm not sure Kong: Skull Island will really drive up enthusiasm for the larger universe.
That said, it's still a fun experience worth seeing in theaters. I'd just maybe suggest going on discount day, or to the matinee.
As an aside: I really wish more directors would shoot in the 1.85 aspect ratio. Guillermo del Toro did for Pacific Rim, and it's great because it maximizes the height of the screen. This helps increase the scale of the giant monsters. The anamorphic 2.40 ratio (cinematic widescreen) is a commonly used format for the "epic, action blockbuster," but there's something a bit disappointing about seeing a giant gorilla fighting a giant lizard creature with the image not taking up the entire height. Feels like an easy way to push the sense of size with these super tall beings. Both Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island use the scope 2.40 ratio.
So kind of a repeat in some ways, but mostly I just talk at length about the trouble with Legendary's kaiju universe (kaijuniverse?). I also try to prove my nerd mettle with a couple of online Godzilla quizzes.
Of all the comic book movie franchises, X-Men has been the most inconsistent. It ranges from legitimately awful (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Apocalypse) to mediocre (X-Men, Days of Future Past, The Last Stand) to pretty solid (The Wolverine, Deadpool) to pretty good (X2: United, First Class). Spanning nearly two full decades, the series partially responsible for kicking off the superhero movie craze has also survived almost exclusively on that craze. When the movies are awful, there's no concern that the franchise won't just continue on in spite of it.
After seventeen years of mostly Wolverine-centric stories, and some of the most perfect castings in comic book movies with Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, Logan might be the only installment worth considering "great" within the genre. Perhaps the biggest reason is that director James Mangold has embraced the fact that the X-Men timeline makes no sense. It has become an especially convoluted mess with Days of Future Past. Instead of trying to cram it somewhere in the larger universe and its timeline, Mangold and company decided to craft a story mostly independent of it. Yes, there are references to the first X-Men, but they are quick and subtle moments. There isn't a requirement to have seen it to understand. And yes, this works especially well if you are familiar with at least the first film, in which you go in understanding that Wolverine and Professor X are mutants who have formed a bond. Still, that is pretty well implied from the get-go, regardless.
The story takes place in 2029 at a time when mutants have been dying out due to a mysterious virus. Wolverine is dying because the adamantium covering his skeleton is poisoning his body, and the virus is impeding his healing ability. Charles Xavier is in his 90s and has suffered degenerative brain diseases, making him incredibly dangerous if not properly medicated. Everyone else is long gone. The focus on a smaller cast of characters provided adequate time for the few central ones to develop and display proper arcs. When the two retired superheroes find a new mutant girl escaping from a lab creating mutant soldiers, they opt to help escort her from Mexico to Canada. Xavier, predictably, desperately wants to help. Logan, per usual, begrudgingly does. He wants to remain isolated.
Essentially, it's a story that combines elements of Mark Millar's (very overrated) Old Man Logan story and The Last of Us video game. A road trip movie in a bleak, but relatively grounded world, it sets up an emotional journey. The character arc for Logan is not an unfamiliar one - the rough, loner Wolverine reluctantly makes a connection with a young girl and becomes a somewhat protective father figure by the end, like in X-Men - but it is a bit different, and the parallels serve as a nice bookend to the Hugh Jackman take on the character. He starts off more angry at the world, and more reserved than he did in the first film, and he seems to try even harder to avoid making a connection with Laura (X-23). This actually highlights that he has been through an emotional roller coaster that ended with more lows than highs. We know he's been through the ringer at the start in 2000, but he's clearly been through a lot worse by 2017.
What makes Logan stand out above the fray is its lack of concern about "world building," or even making sure to fit into the larger cinematic timeline. Nerds can, obviously, argue about its placement, but the filmmakers clearly don't care much about it. They used the toys in the sandbox to create a unique story with a darker, yet more character-driven story, with no concern about putting the toys back. This allowed for creative freedom not really seen in the franchise before, and is sorely lacking in the superhero genre.
The action is violent, complete with decapitations, skull piercing claw stabs, loss of limbs, and plenty of moments that seem completely out of place for a genre that has played it safe in the world of PG-13. Additionally, there is no shortage of cussing (sometimes a little excessive and unnecessary and feeling a bit like they did it just because they could). There is even a moment wherein a woman flashes Logan. Suffice to say, this is not a superhero movie for kids.
And that's what makes it actually pretty interesting. The violence actually sort of serves as a deconstruction of the genre. Superheroes fight mostly because they have to. No one wants to see super-powered beings talk things over. There always has to be a fight sequence that ultimately feels rather safe for the main characters. Fisticuffs is the only way they can solve problems, and it kind of cycles into this idea that violence is fun. It's fictional boxing, basically. In Logan, the violence occurs because the heroes literally have no choice. They are vulnerable and being pursued by people who want to harm them. They would prefer to flee to Canada and live in safety. At the end, the new mutant kids take flight, only resorting to fighting when there is clearly no alternative. This is violence with emotion and with purpose, rather than just because it has to be there.
There is a weight to the action as well. At no point does it feel like the main characters are safe. By limiting the healing factor of Wolverine, even he feels exposed. When he gets shot or hit, there is legitimate concern. At the very beginning of the film, he is being subdued by a bunch of random car jackers who give him a limp just by kicking him a bunch. This is not the overpowered Wolverine of Bryan Singer years.
Logan might also feature the best acting in a superhero movie outside of the Nolan Batman trilogy. Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman have always been great as Charles Xavier and Wolverine respectively, but they put in such powerful, nuanced, and emotional performances that it makes you realize that they've never truly capitalized on that before. Their swan song before retiring the roles (barring any random cameos - both have said they will not be portraying these characters in a major capacity going forward), they could not have gone out on a higher note. Even Dafne Keen (Laura/X-23) was excellent, despite being silent for the first two acts of the film. And, of course, the world could always use more Stephen Merchant (who plays Caliban).
Where the movie ultimately struggles is in some of its pacing. One trope that it engaged with to its detriment was the random cutting back to the villain just to show him being one step behind. If ever a superhero movie did not need to do that, it was this one. It is clear from the moment Xavier and Logan flee Mexico that they will be chased. Rather than unnecessarily cutting back to the bad guy to remind us he's the bad guy and he's on their trail, they could have focused more of that time on the Logan/Laura relationship. That was mostly well done, but could have used another scene or two of them actually bonding in some capacity. Given the story was about the character arc of Wolverine and his connection with Laura, there was no need to show the villain doing villainous things in pursuit. The story wasn't about that, and those scenes broke up the pacing. For a film that also treated its viewers as intelligent humans capable of figuring things out through context clues, it felt a little backwards to then engage in this genre trope that slows things up and makes it seem like we can't figure out that this bad guy is a bad guy.
This was almost exactly the kind of thing I want more of in the genre: stories using well-defined characters in original stories that are complete. Continuity is fine sometimes, but the superhero genre is rife for awesome, original content. This need to fit everything into the "timeline" or the "universe" harms creativity of the filmmakers. Logan falls into some structural traps of the genre, but otherwise has its own unique vision and executes it well. Admittedly, some of the emotion is based around being familiar with Hugh Jackman's stint as Wolverine, and knowing this is his send-off, but it all still works well.
People raved about Deadpool last year, and for fair reasons, but Logan will be the R-rated X-Men connected film that stands the test of time.
Tonight, I lose sleep thinking about something very near and dear to my heart: how the hell does Legendary Pictures think it's going to pull off a solid King Kong v. Godzilla in 2020? The miracle here, of course, is that I kept this under half an hour. Normally, once I start talking Godzilla, it goes for about the duration of Peter Jackson's King Kong!
