Continue reading »]]> This movie rocked! It was like a two-hour long chase scene starting in the wilderness of some Scandinavian-looking country, through the deserts of Morocco, then finally into Germany. The girl who plays Hanna does an awesome job of being both likable and giving off that “I’ve been living in a shack in the woods being trained by my ex-spy Dad all my life” kind of vibe. It’s nice to have a female baddie with some good acting chops (although Cate Blanchett’s Southern accent is a little overdone), Eric Bana is the man and gets a few good fight scenes in, and overall the movie keeps the tempo up the entire time.

I thought the ending was a bit anti-climactic but perfectly in keeping with the plot and tone of the story. I loved this movie and would recommend it to anyone.

Continue reading »]]> So, yeah, it’s awesome.

I just finished it tonight. This is the best horror game since Doom 3 came out and blew everyone’s mind with the awesome use of sound and light to scare the crap out of you. The monsters were fantastically disgusting, and dying was made into a really really bad experience with the level of gruesomeness your character endured every time he died. There was dismemberment, multiple stabbings, neck-chomping, and my favorite, being crushed by the blast doors when you accidentally do like Hans Gruber and “shoot ze glass”, causing explosive decompression.

The gameplay mecahnics were good, the weapons were interestingly varied and fun to figure out. I only used about six of the nine or ten possible. The missions in zero gravity were especially fun. The voice acting was good. But the most beautiful thing about the game is the look and feel of the levels: I didn’t think you could get such details and lighting outside of a Japanese-made game. Really a great job.

Highly recommend this one.

Continue reading »]]> I don’t know why the critics gave this one such rough treatment, I loved it.

Checking on Yahoo! Movies before heading out one night when I was home alone and needed some entertainment, the critics were giving it a C- and users were giving it an A-. Now, I’ve repeated this ritual many times, and usually the critics are one full grade behind the users (a difference which I put down to cognitive dissonance), but there were quite a few “D”s in the reviews, which made me a little worried, but I always knew I was going to see any movie where high school kid discovers super powers AND fights aliens.

I thought the main actor Alex Pettyfer (who I’d never seen before) was a decent actor, the alien bad guys were both intimidating and funny at the same time (neat trick), and the pacing of the movie was well done with a bunch of action at the end that’s like a good 4th of July fireworks finale.

True, there’s nothing original in the plot, and some of the critics complained that the internal logic doesn’t fully hold up, but I thought that was pretty thin criticism. Apparently there’s a book too, because many of the indignant teenage reviewers were complaining that the book was so much better (but isn’t it always that way).

All in all, I recommend it. It was a good time. If you loved “The Last Starfighter”, or “Explorers”, or the first “Spider Man” movie, you’ll like it.

Continue reading »]]> Robyn and I just got back from seeing “Unknown“. It was good, in the same vein as “Taken” with the whole foreign-city, Liam-Neeson-looking-for-people-and-causing-mayhem, lots-of-steady-cam elements. I was proud of myself for recognizing the chick from Troy who played Helen, and whoever January Jones is, she looked great in a designer evening dress.

Overall: Good action flick. B+