Remedy Reviews - Speed 2

For mine there are three types of sequels. The first is for movies that deserve a sequel and receive one worthy to follow the original. Aliens and Terminator 2 are good examples of this. The second type is a movie where a sequel is needed but the execution of that sequel leaves a lot to be desired. Think of the Transformers sequels to get an understanding of what I am talking about. The third type, and perhaps most wretched, is a sequel that is for a movie that never needed a sequel. The motive behind these sequels is normally a desperate cash grab by producers and directors trying to milk a great movie for all it is worth. Speed 2: Cruise Control is one of the best examples of this type of sequel. Based on this premise I want to make one thing perfectly clear before attempting to remedy this movie. I believe this movie should not exist. Speed is a fantastic action movie that deserves to stand on its own for originality and direction. So while I will be attempting to correct this abomination I want it well know that this is still not a good idea and some movies are better left alone. With that established lets dive right into Speed 2.

The biggest issue I have with this film is that it feels like a poor rehash of the original. Instead of an out of control bus it is an out of control ship. While the first is great because the premise is quite unique with the second I get a sense that I have seen it all of this before. While I believe that certain aspects of an original need to be maintained to keep the connection valid with the original this can be overdone. If I use a good action series, like Die Hard, the same theme is maintained i.e. John McClane needs to stop a group of thieves/terrorists; the method of crime and resolution vary from movie to movie. This keeps the premise fresh and makes the viewer want to see the next installment. If Die Hard 2 and 3 were about John McClane needing to clear the Empire State Building and London Tower of terrorists respectively we would lose interest pretty quickly. Therefore we would need to severe the strong connection between the first and second Speed movie. Keeping with Die Hard for a second there is a scene in the third movie that inspired me on this. There is a scene where McClane and Zeus Carver have to barrel through New York in a taxi to get to a pay phone on the other side of town to prevent a bomb from exploding. Expand this into a series of speed related obstacles and I think you have a good premise for Speed 2. I know this is not an entirely original idea. Not that I have seen it but I think 12 Rounds has the same premise, as well as some others I am sure. It’s more the idea of keeping the theme of fast moving decisions and quick paced action common between the two movies without having to flat out borrow the plot from the first movie. I think if Speed 2 was to take this approach it would be better for it.

This poster makes the movie seem way more intense than it actually is.

Casting also plays a big part in the success of a sequel and unfortunately I believe this is something that Speed 2 gets wrong. The returning character for this film is Sandra Bullock’s Annie. For it to work I believe they really needed to bring back Keanu Reeves’ Jack Traven. While Annie is a character who does play her role well and contribute a lot to the story in the end it is Jack Traven that we are truly cheering for. He is the one that is risking his life heroically to save the people on the bus and the one who is going up against Dennis Hopper. To therefore have the sequel focus on Annie and a new male protagonist (who I add is basically a more wooden Keanu Reeves) just seems a bit of a letdown. To again reference Die Hard it would be the same as making Die Hard 2 about Al Powell. Sure he’s an important part of the story but the story is about McClane. I also think that Keanu’s performance in Speed is one of his better ones. While he can be a bit stiff at times you do still buy into the character. Therefore I would have done everything in my power to make sure Jack Traven was in Speed 2, and considering Reeves did the Matrix sequels it would seem he does not have an aversion to doing poor sequels.

The next issue I believe needs addressing is that of genre. For all intents and purposes Speed 2 is not an action film. It is a romantic comedy with explosions. I’m not trying to over embellish this fact! To give you an idea of what I mean by this, discounting the opening motorcycle chase (which is no elevator scene I assure you) it takes 40 minutes for the next bit of action to take place!! During this pause in action we are treated to awkward scenes of Annie and Alex (Reeves Version 2.0) enjoying the festivities of the ship they are on and being introduced to characters who will be semi-important later on. After the fluid and continual action of Speed 1 this tawdry opening is not what is expected of a sequel. Speed wastes little time in getting to the overall plot of the movie, i.e. the bus that is going to explode, and develops character as the action is happening. Speed 2 believes that getting the audience emotionally invested in the characters is better to keep us involved with the action. While this sounds plausible in theory all this does is piss off the fans that came for an action movie and are treated to Notting Hill. In short, the action in this film should have been ironed out first before trying to flesh out what little of the characters there is.

Along this theme of genre is another key failing which is very much apparent throughout the movie. This is the fact that the comedy in this movie is anything but subtle. While I could go through many examples of this I think I’ll stick to the two most prominent issues that spring to mind to better explain this.

The first is the villain of Speed 2, Geiger, played by Willem Defoe. Before I start bashing on this character I do want to say that Willem Defoe is the only actor in this movie I feel does try his hardest to be menacing but unfortunately is bound to the material around him. Therefore while he starts as moderately creepy and conniving in the end he is reduced to a live action Looney Toon. That’s not an overreaction either because one of the traits of his character is as the movie progresses he incoherently laughs with greater frequency. Even as he is about to die at the end of the movie all he can do is cackle hysterically. While this sounds like a failing on Defoe’s part I do need to point out that movie becomes increasingly stupid around him. Really the character has little choice but to react to this. Compare this to Dennis Hopper’s Howard Payne (one of my favourite villain performances of all time) and you can see where Defoe simply becomes more ludicrous, Hopper becomes more evil and desperate. Very rarely does Hopper lose his sinister cool, until the point where he loses his head. It’s this stark contrast that points out where the comedy lies because whereas Hopper is subtle in his humour Defoe is as blatant as you can get. Let’s put a line from each character side by side just to prove the point.

Howard Payne: “The whim of a madman…… I like that”

Geiger: “Bwahahahahahahahahaha!”

Need I say more?

Visual representation of the point just discussed! This man was in Platoon for heaven's sake

The second point I want to make about the comedy lies in the movies show piece moment, when the ship crashes into the harbor city. This was the moment that made every trailer and was even on a few movie posters. Much like the bridge jump scene in the original this was to be the moment that defined the movie. Unfortunately instead of this being a quite harrowing and awe inspiring moment it is completely ruined by the over use of sight gags and over reactions. I watched this scene over again and there are eight different hammy performances in this five minute sequence. These range from simple double takes to the gag inducing final joke of the ship stopping just short of an expensive sports car only for the anchor to fall on it. Having this parade of juvenile humour only weakens the power of this scene. I sometimes feel the scene should be shown in black and white with a 20’s piano tune humming the background. This scene perfectly demonstrates the overriding humour of the entire film. In reality the ship crashing scene should have simply been the ship plowing into sizeable structures while people flee. How hard is that to get wrong?

I could go on and on about this, mentioning scenes like the smoke stripping scene, Annie’s driving test and the hammy returning cameo of Glenn Plummer but I won’t because I believe the point has been made. I will leave you one last addition to this point, in the final joke of the movie. After surviving the ship Annie re-sits her driver’s test (she started the movie taking one). Anyway, as she is about to pull out of the driveway a bus goes roaring past to which Annie explains “that bus is going way too fast’. Subtle humour….. End Point!

The last point I believe that needs to be examined and altered to make this a better movie is a very simple one. Despite its name Speed 2 has very little speed in it. While I will agree that the bus in Speed 1 had to only stay above 50mph, which isn’t overly fast, it was fast given the surroundings and situations. Put that up against the “speed” portion of Speed 2. To set the scene Geiger has messed with the ship’s navigation and is setting it on a collision course with an oil tanker. The ship is now hurtling towards the oil tanker at a brain melting 17 knots. This translated into road speed is 31.48 kilometers per hour (or 19.56 miles per hour for the imperials). I don’t care how you cut it that is not fast. I want to really put this in perspective so let me share this fact with you. Usain Bolt (the world’s fastest man) can do the 100 meters in 9.58 seconds. Assuming he can keep that momentum indefinitely this would equate to a speed of 37.56 kilometers per hour. Bolt is over 6 kilometers an hour faster than this out of control ship. I’m sorry but when a vehicle has the potential to lose a footrace it loses a lot of creditability. Now before the nautically inclined start hating on me yes I am aware that ships of this size would struggle to do anything higher than this and that therefore makes it more realistic. I believe however that this strengthens the argument further to have this movie not take place on a ship. I might also add that this crash scene takes around 20-25 minutes and loses all tension after 5. This movie had to take place in a vehicle that could accomplish a speed to be worthy of a title like Speed.

Perhaps Speed 2 should have taken place on Bolt's back.

In summation Speed 2 should have been a proper action movie, focusing on large set pieces rather than forced character development. It should have maintained the premise of a vehicle being commandeered to foil a terrorist plot at high speed while not having the vehicle directly involved. Willem Defoe should remain on as the villain to take on Keanu Reeves with witty banter and threatening conversations (opposed to needless sight gags). Mostly however Speed 2 should be fun. Much like the original it should be a chance for the audience to immerse themselves in, without wanting to sound to cliché, a true thrill ride. Living the twists and turns of the protagonist as we cheer for him to inevitably triumph over what seems like an insurmountable evil. Doesn’t sound that difficult does it? The mere fact however that they got it this wrong in the first place backs up my original point. Speed 2 should not exist. Do yourself a favor, go and watch Speed and enjoy it for its entire splendor. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go home and have some sex…. Or puke….. which will be fun too.

What Ever Happened To Good Video Game Endings?

I have just defeated Rage on PS3. Where I should be feeling triumph and self satisfaction all I can feel is a white hot, uh, rage. The reason for this is that Rage has one of the most appalling endings to be found in a video game. I’m not even talking about the ending cinematic, which in itself is uninspired, but the pinnacle of actual game play left much to be desired. As the credits rolled after my 20 second or so ending movie I was left cursing, posing such questions as “Are you fucking kidding me?” and “That was the best Id could do?” To try and distract myself from this outrage I thought back to all the great endings to games I had witnessed recently. Uncharted 3 – I found it disappointing, Assassin’s Creed 2 – Meh, Duke Nukem Forever – Oh God No!! Batman: Arkham City is the only game in recent memory where I quite liked the ending (although the final battle with Clayface kind of ruins it). This got me thinking, are good video game endings a thing of the past? Do game developers now put so much emphasis on getting you gripped by the story and game play that these are paramount over a decent conclusion? In short what ever happened to good video game endings?

Before I get into this question I feel I should justify my disgust at the ending of Rage. For those of you that are not familiar Rage is the latest first person shooter to be made by Id, the minds behind Doom and Quake. As an FPS fan I couldn’t wait to dive into the game and for what it is worth I quite enjoyed the game proper. It looks magnificent and although the game play can get slightly repetitive the controls and weapons available are quite impressive. This however is made null and void when you reach the climax of the game and yes I am going to reveal the ending so if you wish to avoid spoilers I suggest going and finishing the game so you can experience my point first hand. Ok, to give you a brief rundown on the plot you are an Ark survivor who joins a resistance to uproot a tyrannical post-apocalyptic regime. I know, Id get zero points for originality but I digress on that point. Anyway the climax of the game has you invading the headquarters of the evil regime (sorry I have already forgotten what they were called) to hack into their main frame to find the locations of other Arks in the world. As I wandered through the same silver halls fighting the same three soldier types over and over again I held in the back of my head that I would eventually reach my goal and a giant battle droid would be blocking my path, or some kind of enhanced cyber ninja akin to Raiden out of Metal Gear Solid 4. I ascend to the top of the tower I have been climbing to reach the mainframe. I flick the switch to boot up the mainframe and I am informed this will take time. All of a sudden my years of video game experience kick in. This is it, the final boss and I am fucking ready!! I am then attacked, one at a time, but what could only be described as Timesplitters. This procession of needless massacring occurs for about three-four minutes and then I am ready to flick the next switch to continue the boot up process. Once again I am attacked by Timesplitters. This process repeats two more times and then that is it. I have defeated the game. For a game that actually has end level bosses in other levels for this to be the ultimate battle is underwhelming. What made this worse was that I had been given an “Authority Minigun” for use in this assault. Thinking I would need this for the final boss I managed to get through the entire level with my regular weapons so as soon as a Timesplitter appeared I pink misted it’s ass with the most powerful weapon in the game! I will admit that I was playing on Normal but I seriously think even on Nightmare this wouldn’t be a massive challenge. With that I strapped myself in for the ending cinematic because I thought with that piss poor boss fight they must have put more thought into the actual conclusion of the game. What I got was the boot up sequence of the mainframe, a map of the Earth showing all of the Ark locations and then a transition to one of the Arks coming out of the ground and opening. Fin.

Decent Game. Shit Ending!!

For mine the ending of a video game consists of the two very aspects I mentioned above; the final boss fight and the ending cinematic. As I hope I made it abundantly clear above Rage failed dramatically on both counts. What seems to be the convention for this current generation of games is that they are so focused on cramming as much as humanly possibly into the game itself that the ending suffers. The best example I can give you of this is Bethesda Game Studios. Now before people start going ape shit I love Bethesda. I own almost every RPG they have released and have loved playing each one. However when it comes to the endings of those RPGs I think saying they’re shit is an understatement. I loved Fallout 3 and New Vegas so much I went out of my way to get the platinum trophy for both because the depth of game play was unbelievable. The problem I had was that the game moved you to play these additional bits because they were always far more interesting than the main story line. When you focus on additional bits to a story it is quite easy to lose focus on the main storyline. I am currently playing Skyrim and the having the same problem. The Dark Brotherhood storyline I thought was far more compelling than the main plot. I haven’t even finished Skyrim yet because I am afraid that the ending will not live up to the rest of the game.

The issue of having too many optional extras in a video game was not as prominent back in the 8 and 16 bit eras. This was mostly because the whole game was the main story line. There was no messing about with side quests or menial collection objectives to pad out the game. You simply busted your ass to get to the end of each section of the game laid in front of you. I already know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that endings of games in the 8 and 16 bit eras were hardly spectacular. With the exception of Bionic Commando were Hitler’s head explodes at the end you were normally greeted with a weak bit of text and some even weaker animation. I will concede that this is how most games ended in this era of gaming. However you were so chuffed that you defeated these games that you really didn’t give two shits about the ending. Ask anyone who has beaten Battletoads if they remember the ending. Guaranteed they won’t remember the ending but they will definitely remembering beating that game! It was this sense of pride that made it worth it, something which is also sadly lacking in the current generation of consoles. With the obvious exception of the Demon Souls series the difficulty seems to be somewhat removed from newer games. Sure you can ramp up the difficulty which will make it more challenging but it feels artificial. In the 8 and 16 bit eras you didn’t really have a choice of difficulty. You were simply saddled with how nut achingly difficult the game was and it was up to you to power through it. Now if you set the difficulty up on a game and reach the end, you will have some satisfaction at seeing the end but in the back of your mind you know some noob has seen the same ending playing on pissweak difficulty. Takes some of the gloss off doesn’t it?

Epic!!

Ok, so having identified that current generation video games have issues with too much content and a lessened sense of accomplishment detracting from the conclusion how do we go about fixing this. While this may sound over simplified this is the best I can come up with. Have more of an emphasis on narrative. Now while I’m not saying you have to go to the extremes that games like Heavy Rain do, being interactive dramas, I believe that if you start developing a game by properly planning a base narrative it would improve the ending vastly. To give you an example of what I mean one of the endings to a video game that has stuck with me was the ending to Final Fantasy: Crisis Core. Without going into too much detail this was the prequel to Final Fantasy VII (and the only reason to buy a PSP) that told the story of Zack. Now if you had already played Final Fantasy VII you knew a bit about Zack and you had an idea as to where the story was going (knowing that Zack is dead when Final Fantasy VII takes place). As you send Zack on the path that would ultimately lead to his demise you really start to feel involved with the story, wanting to overwrite the inevitable. The final fight of the game is Zack fighting an unrelenting wave of Shinra soldiers until you succumb to this never ending fight and watch Zack die. While the idea of an unwinnable fight is not unheard of to end a game on it I think was quite an ingenious idea. It is your will keeping Zack alive and your ultimate decision to let him fade away. I’m not saying this is the answer to every game but making the player feel more involved in the ending will go a long way to making a more memorable conclusion.

Perhaps they will re-release this on the PS Vita?

As I conclude this article I am starting to wonder, am I in the minority here? Is the rest of the gaming community fine with 50+ hours of game play surmised by 1 minute of rubbish? If that is the case then good luck to you all but for me I am still going to expect that a conclusion to a video game be parallel to those of their cinematic cousins. After all this the way that video games are heading so I don’t think it is unfair to ask. To not sound like a hypocrite I believe I should end this article well so I end it by revealing that the whole time writing this I have been…… a ghost…. From the future……. Who may also be Keyser Soze!! Oh well at least I tried.

Quarter Circle Specialists - Top 15 Fighting Game Characters

Before I get started on my latest Top 15 list I need to address something that is tarnishing the gaming landscape for my fellow countrymen. Before I get hated on I love Australia, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, but the video game censorship laws in this country are making us the butt of a very bad joke. The latest in a long list of games to either be banned or have content altered for Australian gamers is the latest Mortal Kombat game. As a massive fan of the MK series this pissed me off enough but for the life of me I can’t see any reason for this. To illustrate this point I am going to suggest all the reasons why the latest Mortal Kombat was banned in Australia and then show you how every reason is complete and utter bullshit.

The most obvious reason is that the Australian government wants to shield the Australian public from the graphic nature of these games. For this I have one simply response….. Youtube!!! I personally have watched every fatality from the game on Youtube which is in even better clarity considering my computer monitor is better than my TV. This isn’t the 1980’s where if you stop something reaching our shores we won’t be able to view it. Digital media means that anything (and I assure you there are far more perverse things on the web then some MK fatalities) is able to be watched practically anywhere. Therefore the reasoning behind keeping these images away from the public is no longer valid.

Another reason that comes to mind is that the game itself is centered on killing, because there are so few games out there centered on killing enemies. I can hear some of the bleeding hearts say “Oh but it’s the horrible ways in which it’s done”. I put this to you, which of these is more socially acceptable; A game where you decapitate and mutilate a bunch of mythical characters (I know some are human but others have four arms for heaven’s sake) or a game where you are in a realistic setting with realistic weapons and can kill innocent civilians at will. Now before you bureaucratic motherfuckers go and ban Grand Theft Auto that again is acceptable because there are punishments for doing so but do you see my point. Games like MK and Left 4 Dead 2 are based in fantasy which takes away from the realism of the violence.

On this same vain the only other reason I can think of is that we can’t have players in control of characters that can perform such violent actions. Now if MK was on the Wii and you had to physically do the slashing and stabbing motions yourself this might have some validity. On console based platforms where you use a code input to perform a fatality this is just absurd. What am I (as a highly impressionable and highly stupid individual) going to do with this new found MK knowledge? Walk up to people and take two steps forward, crouch once and say “circle” to perform my act of violence? Give me a break! It is not as if you actually perform the acts, it’s basically you watching a movie. To put this in perspective I own Hostel which, to be honest, is a movie based entirely around torture. How is it that I can have this movie but not a game where in essence it is the same thing?

If any other conservative nut job out there has another reason why these sorts of games should be banned please feel free to tell me and I will be more than happy to tear it down for you. It is high time that the Australian people were given the respect we deserve in that we are mature enough to be able to handle graphic content in our video games. With the other more serious issues that Australia is far more liberal on, prostitution being legal, injecting centres in Sydney, you can’t seriously tell me we can’t handle an R18+ classification on video games. In summation, to all of those right wing conservatives who will fight to the bitter end to “protect” Australia from this sort of media I have one simply message for you. GO AND GET FUCKED!!!

To take my mind off this utter lack in common sense I decided to have a think about all of the fighting games I was allowed to play and the characters that made them truly memorable. This, along with the fact the last couple of week have been insane and I have not been able to write any proper reviews, has led me to countdown my favourite fighting game characters of all time. Just like last time this is purely my opinion. I am certainly not saying that because these are my favourites they should be everyone’s. I am simply saying that these are the characters that I turned to in each of these game series when I wanted to kick some ass and take some names. The only rule I imposed on myself is that the characters needed to come from fighting games and not be simply put in one (so you won’t be seeing Pikachu from Super Smash Bros or Deadpool from Marvel Vs. Capcom). With the ground rules being set ring the bell and bring out my top 15 fighting game characters.

Number 15 – Katze (Bushido Blade)

Now while Katze might not have been the sleekest, strongest or speediest character in the Bushido Blade universe there was one thing that made him truly awesome. In a world full of swords the mother fucker has a gun! I love the idea that one day Katze woke up and thought “this samurai stuff is for suckers I am going to go around a pop a cap in everyone’s ass”. For those not overly familiar with Bushido Blade Katze was the hidden character that you unlocked by defeating the survival mode of the game in a certain amount of time. As a character he is actually quite sluggish and can easily be picked off by more advanced players but I can’t get over the fact that he was smart enough to bring a gun to a knife fight and for that he earns the number 15 spot.

You call that a knife? This is a gun bitch!!

Number 14 – Leon (Dead or Alive)

To be fair I’m not the biggest Dead or Alive fan out there. I mean yes this was the first game to really go out of its way to emphasize bouncing boobies in a game, but really there are women in the real world who can pull that off far better. So that little gimmick didn’t really suck me in. One day I relented and went over to a mates place to play the latest Dead or Alive he had bought, it escapes me what sequel it was. We were playing along when all of a sudden I picked Leon and became an ass kicking machine. Leon’s great strength comes from his….well… great strength. He is one of those characters that when he hits you, you stay hit! With his windmill punches, hardened kicks and vicious throws (one of which I named the angry Russian neck breaker because in reality this is what he does) he is a formidable opponent. Another reason Leon makes this the list is one of my mate’s favourite characters was Zack and Leon and Zack are natural tag team partners so as such we would torment players with our tilt-a-whirl slam and the be cool head butt. All in all Leon is a great example of the tank style of fighting character.

Angry Russin Neck Breaker!!

Number 13 – Nightmare (Soul Calibur)

Speaking of tank characters, just beating out Leon as my favourite tank is Nightmare from the Soul Calibur series. So why is Nightmare better than Leon? Firstly because he has the best giant fuck off sword I think has ever been created in a videogame. For those of you unfamiliar with the Soul Calibur series Nightmare is the incantation to Siegfried (who also has a giant sword) after coming into contact with Soul Edge. Soul Edge is a demon sword that corrupts the user with its power and as such Nightmare denotes all of the evil inside Siegfried. Armed with your giant sword you are able to devastate your opponents with vicious juggling combos that will either result in a ring out or KO. Like all tank characters Nightmare is quite slow which means to use him most efficiently you need to be patient. This tact is not for everyone but when you can anticipate the combo an opponent is going to throw at you this allows you to hit some devilish combos back at them. I also do love the look of Nightmare. The ghostly scraping together of armor with spikes sticking out of every discernable location and to top it off a fanged mouth on his shoulder. The monstrous presence, giant sword and being able to make newbies pay for attacking a little over zealously is why it will take a mighty effort to dethrone Nightmare as my favourite out and out tank.

Number 12 – Cyrax (Mortal Kombat)

Scorpion is a well beloved staple of the Mortal Kombat franchise, having many fans and being the most played character online of the latest Mortal Kombat game. While I can understand the appeal for mine Cyrax is a better version of Scorpion. Cyrax came into being as a replacement for Scorpion in Mortal Kombat 3 and I for one thought he was an upgrade. I know I am going to cop shit for this but let me explain. The most obvious comparison one can draw between Cyrax and Scorpion is their relative special moves the net and the spear. Both achieve the same result in that if successfully hit they will draw your opponent closer to you allowing you to unleash a combo while they are in a prone state. The net however had a wider area, was harder to dodge and easier to execute if the time called for it. The only way that the spear was better is that it actually did a little damage when it hit but that is so minimal it is really a non issue. Aside from this Cyrax also had deployable bombs that he could litter on the screen to make a harder time of it for your opponent. The linchpin for mine why Cyrax should make this list is his animality from MK3. While others turned into lions, wolves and leopards Cyrax turned into fucking Jaws! I don’t care how much of a hardened Scorpion fan you are you have to admit it that’s certainly a lot cooler than Scorpions tacked on penguin animality from MK Trilogy!

Scorpion V2.0

Number 11 – The Blob (Clayfighters)

When a lot of other fighting games of the 16 bit era were taking themselves very seriously with complex back stories and brooding looking characters along came Clayfighters to get us a little silly again. Based in a carnival the game revolved around very bizarre characters beating the clay out of each other, literally, to reach the evil Ringmaster. While the game got a little repetitive and the final boss was a complete let down (it was basically a giant ring) there were some memorable characters to come from this franchise. The most memorable of these was a character simply called The Blob. The Blob was just a blob of clay that could mould itself into different shapes to attack its enemies. It was this ability that made it the most fun to use. It would turn into a giant boot when kicking people, a boxing glove when punching and it even turned into a circular saw to attack enemies. The Blob would even turn into a trophy when it won! The Blob wasn’t just a novelty though, the boots and gloves that it threw would really sting so along with being comedic The Blob was also quite powerful, a very potent mix I assure you.

You were expecting something different?

Number 10 – Talon (Primal Rage)

I am going to come clean and admit that in my first draft of this list Talon was not on it. Given how shocking my memory can be sometimes I knew I would forget some fighting games so I asked a good friend of mine to name me some of his favourite characters from fighting games. Sure enough he mentioned Primal Rage (his picks were Chaos and Armadon for those playing at home) and immediately I knew that Talon had to get onto this list. The reason is quite simple. Talon has the most effective special move in any fighting game….. EVER!! Ok that might be a bit much but Talon’s flail attack is one of the most effective techniques I have ever used. During this move Talon does an impression of the Tasmanian Devil and kicks and punches all over the place while you direct him towards an opponent. I have yet to find a person who, once I pin you in a corner with this move, could get out of it. Add onto this the fact you could assign special moves to regular buttons and you could become an unstoppable, if slightly spamming, ass kicker. Apologies do go out to Garuda from Street Fighter who was bumped off the list to make way for Talon, perhaps if he had a flail move he might have survived.

Number 9 – Spinal (Killer Instinct)

There are very few fighting games in which I won’t try all the characters out to get a feel for each of their styles. Killer Instinct was one of those very few games. From the time I first started playing I picked Spinal and never looked back. In what was a particularly rigid fighter Spinal was able to rise above that and feel quite well balanced. Spinal’s combos did take a while to master but they were not by any means unachievable and once you had them down it took a small army to stop you. Many of the speed tests on Youtube of Killer Instinct involve Spinal so it would seem I am not the only one who agrees with this. Add on top of this the fact that Spinal is a skeleton with a sword and shield and it is a recipe for awesomeness. Spinal always reminds me of the stop motion skeletons from Army of Darkness which makes me think that Ash would have been an awesome secret character for the Killer Instinct series, in fact Ash would be great in any fighting game! I may be on to something, while I ponder my horror movie beat ‘em up let me assure you that Spinal is one of those rare breed that was able to be better than the game mechanics would allow it to be.

Number 8 – King (Tekken)

A Mexican wrestler in a lion mask who actually roars at people when attacking them, what’s not to love? Seriously though if you were patient enough to master King’s chain grapples then you could make those juggling pricks pay. While King does have some decently powerful one off moves like the Disgraceful Kick and the Toll Kick his power came from getting close and not giving your opponent another chance to attack. Talking from experience I can tell you it takes some training to become a master with King (not that I would tout myself as one) because not only do you have to learn the timing of King’s chain grapples but you also have to know how to evade or block almost every combo in the game. King is the master of the counter attack. If you charge head first into a fight with King you are going to get owned as he can leave himself quite open to attack if improperly timed. Learning to block, or even use the counter grapples, however after an assault or a misdirected combo would mean you could lay on some serious pain with your opponent powerless to stop you. I would never consider myself a Tekken Lord by any stretch of the imagination but if you gave me an opening with King I don’t care how good you are you were going down. That is the sort of power that made King awesome.

John Cena has nothing on King

Number 7 – Sub Zero (Mortal Kombat)

Sub Zero is an interesting choice for me on this list because while I do think he is a decent enough character in most of the games he is in it’s the mythology surrounding Sub Zero that I really like. Before you start NO I am know talking about MK Mythologies Sub Zero which was a giant pile of shit but rather I am talking about how Sub Zero’s story has progressed through the games. With the original Sub Zero being killed by Scorpion at the end of the first game his brother takes the mantle. From there he does battle with the spirit of his deceased brother, his own clan and Scorpion still out for revenge against any who take on the name of Sub Zero. It is very rare that back stories involved with fighting games are this complex. Usually they are either; a) ignored completely or b) made so confusing that after a while you are unsure of what exactly is going on. I believe that the twists and turns in the evolving life of Sub Zero are what make the character so compelling. I should still talk about the fighting because that is what it is all about. Sub Zero’s main talent is freezing people leaving them vulnerable to an onslaught. In some games this is great as Sub Zero can unleash combos decent enough to warrant a freeze but other times it is simply wasted. The addition of other ice based moves added some variety but as I have described in each subsequent chapter of Mortal Kombat I will always be looking for the path of Sub Zero and the story that grows around him.

The Shredder version of Sub Zero

Number 6 – Ryu (Street Fighter)

The quintessential fighting game character! If you are even remotely interested in video games you know who Ryu is so I’m not going to go into avid detail as to why he has made the list. What I will do however is explain why I have chosen Ryu over Ken, who many people believe is exactly the same character model. I am not going to talk about the variances in latter games (with Ryu focusing on the Hado-Ken while Ken focused on the Shoryu-Ken) but rather I am going to focus on the main difference in the original game that made Ryu stand out. Both Ken and Ryu had the spinning kick but while Ken’s hit multiple times but did not knock over your opponent Ryu’s would hit once and knock them over. While this doesn’t sound like much when you used Ken’s version of this move you were guaranteed to cop abuse whereas Ryu’s version allowed you to hit your opponent and then set up for your next assault. The spinning kick was a big part of my offense in the first Street Fighter game so as such this was quite a big deal. With these sorts of franchises once you pick a character it is hard to swap over and this is why Ryu still remains one of my favourite characters in Street Fighter, and I am sure there are many other stories as to why Ryu is a fan favourite for others.

Is there a cooler pose in gaming?

Number 5 – Bakuryu (Bloody Roar)

Out of all the characters on this list none is more dominant in their franchise then Bakuryu from Bloody Roar. Bloody Roar was a fighter made around the time of the PSX which allowed fighters to transform into various animals to power up their attacks. While this does sound like an awesome concept the execution was quite flawed and this ended up being a mediocre fighter. The shining light was Bakuryu who had the ability to transform into a mole. I know I know this is not the most intimidating creature in the animal kingdom but this mole was around six feet tall with giant claws. Now while in most fighting games you have to settle for a character who is either really fast but quite weak or a strong character who is slow Bakuryu was both strong and agile. In human form Bakuryu could hold his own but it was during his time as the mole where he became the most dominant character in the game. The speed and power at which his moves come at meant that your opponent will have no idea what just hit them. Bakuryu was so powerful and so fast that growing up we had to place an embargo on using him during friendly matches because it was too unfair. The only negative thing about Bakuryu is that he was devised in a so-so grade fighting game but if you are willing to put up with the harsh graphics and failing story I would fully suggest to anyone finding a copy for the joy of being able to unleash the brutal fury of the mole!!

Fear Ze Mole!!

Number 4 – Kilik (Soul Calibur)

I was the last person to think that out of a game that has people touting swords, pole arms and scythes that my favourite character would be the one armed with a giant stick! Ok, in fairness it is a battle staff but it doesn’t seem to be the wisest choice of weapon against character carrying swords bigger than they are. Kilik however managed to impress me so much that I now only rarely go back to Nightmare. Kilik for mine is the best character for anyone knew to a fighting game to pick up and play. While this might piss off fighting game veterans who believe you have to earn your stripes with hours of practice I think it is great that someone has thought of a character like this. New players can learn a variety of simple combos which can give them enough variation in attack to pose a challenge to hardened players. That’s not to suggest that Kilik is simply for beginners who would then graduate to a more complex character after mastering Kilik’s moves. There is enough depth to Kilik’s arsenal that more advanced players can expand their move list to take on harder difficulties or tougher opponents. In short I believe that Kilik is the most rounded character for any player of any experience, which is something very special in the world complex move lists.

Number 3 – Lee Chaolan (Tekken)

I found one of the most effective techniques to dethrone any opponent in Tekken is to combine high/mid and low attacks to catch an opponent out trying to block an onslaught. For mine no one does this better than Lee. Relying mostly on kicking for offense Lee is able to deftly adjust the altitude of his attacks to catch out opponents. Tekken was never a strong suit in my fighting repertoire. Being more of a Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat player I was used to the quarter circle forward style of fighting so moving into Tekken I took a while to find my feet. After several frustrating outings being battered by Heihachi and Jin I finally found Lee and was able to hold my own. Not only does he adjust the trajectory of his attacks brilliantly he can also add in grapples for getting past those who would sternly block your attacks. My favourite aspect of Lee comes from the fact that not a lot of people know about him. Lee has never been a central character in the Tekken universe so people would be able to scout Kazuya or Marshall Law quite easily but not have a great idea about Lee. This gave you the element of surprise against some players which was invaluable when breaking past their defenses. To put it simply Lee was the character who made me halfway decent at Tekken and for that I must thank him by giving him the number three spot.

Number 2 – Akuma (Street Fighter)

To put it simply Akuma is a bigger, badder version of Ryu. While some purists will stick with Ryu because he was there from the beginning if you give me the choice between Ryu and Akuma, Akuma will always come out on top. From his first appearance in one of the later reincarnations of Street Fighter 2 I knew this was the character I wanted to wield in the Street Fighter universe. I’ll never forget the first time I fought Akuma. I was all ready to go toe to toe with Bison when we suddenly got the shit beaten out of him in no time flat by Akuma. Now I’m fighting some demon dude who can throw fireballs from the air, teleport and use a better version of every one of my moves…. Are you serious!! Needless to say I got my ass handed to me right quick. It took longer than I’d like to admit before I could defeat him and good lord wasn’t that an accomplishment. Ever since then whenever he has been in a game I have ensured that I have him readily selected. The aerial attacks are what I truly like about him. Throwing a fireball while leaping away to deter your opponent from following was fantastic and when they gave him hyper moves in the air it made for some truly great beat downs. Call me a traitor, call me a heretic for turning my symbol covered back on Ryu but I’m sorry in the Street Fighter universe I find there is no one better.

Maybe this is cooler!!

Number 1 – Baraka (Mortal Kombat)

Yes, the bizarre Wolverine clone from the Mortal Kombat series is my favourite fighting character. Why I hear you ask. To be honest I really don’t know. There are some reasons based in logic. Like the fact I believe he is the most balanced character in Mortal Kombat Deception when it comes to switching between his fighting styles. Also the fact that his special moves don’t change their button combinations through the games so I am always going to know those moves going into any new game. Really this is purely a sentimental pick! I can remember playing Mortal Kombat 2 (the first game Baraka was in) and loving the jagged fangs protruding from his mouth. I loved the fact that his special moves consisted of a general neck slice and a move that basically was a shredder. Oh and let’s not forget that he has retractable machetes coming from his arms. He reminds of a villain that would have come from one of Peter Jackson’s splatter fests from the 90’s. To give you an idea of how much I enjoy playing as Baraka in video games I bought MK Vs. DC simply because at the last moment they put Baraka in it. After playing the game I wished they didn’t (calm down Remedy. That is for another time). I hope this now hammers home to you why I was so offended by the piss poor attempt to put Baraka in Mortal Kombat Annihilation. Here was my favourite fighting game character turned into a retarded muppet. Anyway, as said it’s one of those things I can’t put my finger on put Baraka will always hold a cherished place for me, not just in fighting games, but in video games in general.

You see this then you die!

Ahh, that’s better. I forgot what I was mad about in the first place. Talking about Baraka has put me in the mood to play some Mortal Kombat. I think I might play some of the one that just came out OH FUCK!!!! While I start to contemplate picketing outside parliament house next time I write I will be bring you the first of my C.U.R.E.S. Well my second really but all will be explained next time.

House of the Dead - The Remedy

Trying to fix an Uwe Boll movie is like trying to repair cracks in the Hoover Dam using only your fingers. The fact that Boll gets even the easiest of film conventions wrong means that there is just far too much for me to address in one sitting. I may revisit this Remedy later down the line and add to it but for now I would like to address the key areas that would need to be fixed in order for this to be a passable movie. Having said that I can’t promise I can even do that but let’s see how we go.

There is one aspect of this movie that is quite blatantly obvious that it needs to be addressed and this is an issue that plagues most video game to movie adaptations. Boll is not the only person guilty of this, in fact I think Paul W.S. Anderson has done it more, and that is taking the movie on such a bizarre tangent that it does not faithfully portray the game. Keeping in mind that the core market for movies based on video games is going to be the fans of the video game it’s not too much to ask to have the movie reflect the game. Where I am going with this is that the game House of the Dead is about two FBI agents who are tasked to save the president’s daughter only to have a far bigger and sinister plot exposed. Compare this to the movie where it’s about some dead shit teenagers who are trying to escape zombies at a rave. Now as I said in my review the difference in the plots is summarized by the movie being a prequel to the game but given that link is tenuous at best it would have been a far better option to simply follow the precedent of the game. This is not to say I am condoning bringing anything original to a video game adaption. In fact it should be encouraged for directors to add their elements onto a franchise to not make it seem simply like a live action cut scene from the game. Having said that you do have to remember the audience you are making this movie for and in this case House of the Dead fans, with me being one, expected some elements that should have been integral to the movie.

Firstly and definitely most importantly is the foreboding sense of dread as you traverse tight corridors. A majority of the game is made up of you navigating tight corridors, turning sharp corners and all of sudden being confronted by zombies carrying chainsaws or fat bastards throwing oil drums at you. The sense of not knowing what could be around the next bend is exactly what the game is about and would have had the audience identify more with the movie. At the very least it would have made it a lot more thrilling than it currently is.

Secondly, the world of House of the Dead is not confined to zombies. There are leeches, swamp beasts and hulking behemoths that could have been introduced into the movie to give the audience that sense of recognition to the game. I understand that this movie was made on a budget and could hardly afford Avatar like CG effects but a bit of variety in the foes the heroes have to face would not have gone too far astray. While it would have been nice to include the hulking iron giant with the vulnerable point on its chest (the first boss from the game) but if that was not an option even having zombies wielding chainsaws would have sufficed.

Thirdly, this movie gets too confused by all the characters it tries to cram into the story. In the game there are simply two agents traversing the house instead of a litany of idiots giving thoroughly uninspired performances. With this movie I do truly believe less would have been more and having only two central characters and build them up for the audience would have at least had us giving a shit about them. I am aware that horror movies do need their array of meat puppets who are simply there to die but the movie could have gotten around this the same way the game did. At certain points during the game there are scenarios where a survivor is slowly being stalked by a zombie and it is up to you to save them. All you had to do was adopt this concept into the movie of having little moments where someone is in danger of dying and the heroes either do or don’t save them. This then satisfy the horror fanatics who came for their quota of blood and can also add dramatic elements as the audience is left anticipating whether the person would be saved or die. A little bit like saw except less predictable.

Ok, now that I have got the changes to the script and feel of the movie done I must now fix the biggest cinematic bungle of this movie. This of course being the idea of fusing images of the game into the movie to either act as screen transitions or even in a general scene. I think it goes without saying but this is entirely stupid and pointless. The only reason I could possibly imagine Boll having attempted this is simply to show how faithfully he recreated the game. This is all well and good but when your movie has absolutely nothing to do with the game it is somewhat of a mute point. These scenes give the movie are very cheesy feel which the game certainly did not have. Yes, later games such as House of the Dead Overkill had a more tongue in cheek feel about them but at the time the games were more tingling than tongue. This also applies to the other wipes and fades that Boll has put into this movie. The Star Wars wipe is blatant stealing and the blood spill wipe is just childish. Really, conventional scene switches would have sufficed, because your movie should be riveting enough without having to put a cacophony of shit in between.

Staying on that and there are a number of other odd conventions that Boll uses in this movie that are either unnecessary or not executed properly. Throughout the movie you get the sense that Boll is trying to make this movie feel like a game, which is not a bad idea, but he executes this the wrong way. For example the game over screens which consist of a 360 pan camera that dissolves into red. While this is a completely ridiculous idea if you are going to include something like this at least be consistent. The fact that only two people get this screen makes it seem more like a mistake than a convention. If every character that dies had this screen then we would at least understand it, and perhaps even get a little giggle out of it. Another element of this comes halfway through the movie in the little arming up montage. Having the characters name their weapons (Monotone can even identify the type of ammunition her weapon has despite it not being visible) just seems like a very vain attempt in making us identify weapons that are common in gaming culture. Really a better use of this would have been to simply for the characters to use them on zombies and have the viewer, who is most likely a nerd, identify the weapon for themselves. It can give the viewer a sense of accomplishment for having determined the weapon being used. All in all this movie did not require it to have a gaming atmosphere as we know it is based off a game and we came to watch a movie about it. So simply make a movie about it.

Leaving the gaming culture aside for a moment another important point Boll needed to consider was that he was making a zombie movie. This sub-section of movie has its own set of conventions that are to be followed. To not repeat myself I will not go back into detail about all of the genre rules that Boll broke but needless to say he broke pretty much all of them. While the zombies in House of the Dead do attack you with weapons their primary goal does not change. They still want to eat you! Very rarely do zombies obey a higher power and given that this movie offers no good explanation as to how or why the zombies serve the villain it would have been better to leave them as mindless drones with the one desire to feed. Another problem is that very rarely in this movie do the zombies ever seem menacing, most of the time they simply stand around waiting to die. The true horror of zombies comes in their unrelenting nature. Unlike vampires or werewolves who have their times of vulnerability where you get a reprieve the moment a zombies lays eyes on you that is all it cares about. They will constantly pursue you giving you no time to relax or catch your breath. A good example of how the zombies in this movie are anything but scary comes during the giant fight scene. Monotone’s partner shows up and he has been zombified. The two lock eyes and the partner simply stands there for about ten seconds before Monotone shoots him in the head. In the world of zombies the partner should have immediately rushed for Monotone. This is an obvious problem because if we don’t view the zombies as a threat then where does the horror in this movie lie? An overhaul of the zombies is desperately needed to invoke that sense of dread that would have been further enhanced by the changes in script style I mentioned earlier.

The last thing I want to mention in this remedy is the fight scene during the middle of the movie as the group try to get back into the house. I showed a friend of mine this recently and he agreed that it is one of the worst sequences in cinematic history. It is overly long, we timed it at eight minutes, insanely repetitive and a lot of the time there are obvious continuity issues. Fight scenes can either go one of two ways in a zombie film. They can either be stylized and slick with great CG and varying action sequences, the Resident Evil films are a good example of this. The other way is to have the survivors, rather than fighting the zombies, frantically trying to escape through tight shots and frantic pacing, 28 days later is great at this. For this movie I would have picked the latter, as the former can be quite expensive. So this fight scene I would have had the group trying to escape the horde through the twisting corridors of the house where certain members would be nabbed out of the blue and really build the suspense of the whole sequence. What I also would have done for this, and I know I have mentioned this a couple of times, but would be to have the sound of a revving chainsaw echo through the halls. Giving that chill that there is a lunatic wielding a chainsaw but having no idea where he is would again hopefully add that lump in your throat. I know this would be a bit Texas Chainsaw but for mine on of the scariest noises out there is a revving chainsaw in a horror movie. You wouldn’t even have to show the person dying at the hands of the chainsaw, simply having them finally run into them is enough because nothing is more grotesque than what we imagine in our own minds so I would have the viewer imagine the scenario of what happened. I would definitely cut down the time of the whole scene but changing that entirely boring gun fight into something far tenser I think would have been the best thing for this movie.

I know there is still plenty more that could be fixed but really I have exerted enough brain power on this shit than it deserves. The summary of this remedy is that this movie should have been far more frightening than funny. Sadly in the horror community at the moment this is a regular complaint so we do sometimes just have to grin and bear it. Next time I get my punch on and vent my spleen on one of the biggest issues I have with my beloved homeland.

The Token Uwe Boll Shot: House of the Dead Review

This is a very exciting time for me. At one point or another in every online reviewer’s life they have to review an Uwe Boll movie and for me now is that time. Most people should know who Uwe Boll is but for the benefit of those that don’t I will explain. Uwe Boll is a German film maker who specializes in making really shitty movies; I mean the guy is a genius at how bad these movies are. What makes it worse for nerdy reviewers, such as myself, is that he seems to have found his niche in making video game to movie adaptations. This obviously results in him shitting all over some of the most treasured games from mine and many others childhoods. He has made himself a target to the gamer community and as such we all need to take this rite of passage to move on with our reviews. After I knew I was ready for this I then had to decide on which movie I would review because as I mentioned in terms of finding a bad movie to review with Uwe Boll you are like a kid in a candy store. I have settled on House of the Dead for a number of reasons. Firstly this was the first Boll movie I ever saw so it is the one most prevalent in my mind. Secondly, and more importantly, I loved House of the Dead at the arcade. Growing up in Australian gaming culture, I’m not sure if this is applicable around the world, but House of the Dead was the one machine in the arcade that had a curtain around it because it was that intense. Now being an eight to ten year old boy that is simply an invitation to play and once you grabbed that light gun and were blowing limbs and zombie heads off it was awesome! A friend and I actually spent an afternoon finishing the game at the arcade so as you can imagine I have a lot of fond memories of that game so to watch Boll systematically rip it apart is a truly special experience for me. So enough with the wide eyed nostalgia and let me take you through the horror, and I don’t mean that cinematically, of House of the Dead.

Apparently is now working on a Tetris movie that will have a love triangle

As if the movie is preparing you for how bad it is the first shots we get are of the most important scene in the game, this being when the woman you were originally tasked to save dies and tells you to go after the main villain Rudolph Curien. You think this might be a powerful way to start the movie making the viewer relive that moment that defined the game unfortunately Boll has ruined this by distorting the colour scheme to make it look like a bad LSD trip. He unfortunately continues this throughout the opening credits showing various screen images of the game in this technicolour nightmare. It is so unappealing that you actually want to avert your eyes from the screen.

Anyway now that is over we are introduced to our main characters by the softest narration I have ever heard. I’m serious I tried to turn the volume up but the narration is still drowned out by all the ambient noise. Since I can’t be fucked to put the subtitles on, mostly because I shouldn’t have to, I’m not going to bother and learn these characters real names and instead give them names of my own, based off their obvious character traits. Therefore ladies and gentlemen let me introduce you to the main characters of House of the Dead; Broody, Vanity, Ditzy, Minority and Douche. Apparently they are heading to the rave of the century on an island. We are then taken to this rave where people a mindlessly swaying about, women are flashing their breasts (because mindless nudity can always help distract men from a shitty movie) and the one thing that proves that this has to be the most awesome rave ever, a giant SEGA sign over the stage. C’mon there is blatant product promotion and then there is this. I assure you the only other time that banner has been unfurled was for a “how else can we fuck up Sonic the Hedgehog” convention.

Back with the Scooby gang and they have realized that they have missed the boat to get to the island and ask a cliché boat hand if they can use his boat. How cliché I hear you ask, he has a hook for a hand, that cliché! Anyway we find out that he is the first mate to Captain Kirk (yes that is the character’s name and Boll must think this is really funny because he keeps referencing it). The actor who plays Kirk looks staggeringly similar Liam Neeson, so much so that they could be brothers. In keeping with naming my own characters I think I will name you after another brother of a famous actor who is doomed to live in the shadows so I present to you Donnie Neeson. Congratulations to all those who got the reference. Vanity tries to convince Donnie Neeson to use their ship to go to the island with $600. Donnie Neeson informs them that the island is known as Death Island and there isn’t enough money in the world to get him to go to that island. Vanity bumps up his offer to $1,000 and Donnie lifts anchor. I think someone needs to learn the art of haggling. As they are setting off the Coast Guard appear on the dock and ask to search Donnie’s boat. Donnie Neeson, being a fearless outlaw, guns the motor and VERY slowly gets away. The Coast Guard woman could swim faster than the boat moves but she decides to let him go, you know because chasing people is such a pain in the ass.

Cut back to the island and we find that two teens have slipped away from the rave to go for a skinny dip. Hmmm, that sounds familiar, two promiscuous teens in an outdoor setting partaking in a rude act. Seriously we just need a nutjob in a hockey mask to really make it seem like a rip off. Anyway the “man” of the two can’t go into the water because it’s too cold! C’mon mate, the shrinkage issue was explained to women thanks to Seinfeld so you have nothing to worry about. So anyway captain flaccid decides to sit on the beach and watch his hot half naked girlfriend from a distance. She suddenly becomes a little freaked out by really nothing as we are treated to an underwater shot of her while ominous music plays in the backgrou.. are you kidding me!! Ok the Friday the 13th similarity might have been a bit of a stretch but this is completely ripping off Jaws in every conceivable detail….. well minus the shark. Anyway the girl in the water is becoming increasingly concerned over the nothing that is happening while the guy has passed out on the beach for some reason. Wouldn’t surprise me if one beer is enough to put this guy out. The girl comes out of the water to realize that the guy has gone. She searches around and finds an old house, steps in and finds her boyfriend just before zombies rip him apart and finish her off. I like to think the zombies all sat around and were thinking “oh dude wait till she comes in and do it when she’s watching. She’ll wig out and it’ll be fucken funny”. After this happens we are shown one of the things that this movie is famous for. Uwe Boll in his infinite wisdom decided to use small cuts of the game House of the Dead as transitions. The first time this happens you wonder what the fuck just happened. These are so needless, amateurish and stupid that they defy logic. Perhaps this will be the only time; maybe he wanted to trial it out and then move on. You can only pray so.

Images like this lead to seamless transitions

The gang has now arrived at the nerd rave and find it completely trashed. Banners have been torn down, tents are shredded and debris is all over the ground but thank fuck the kegs are still connected. Only Broody seems to think something is wrong. I’m sorry but I don’t care how much of a party animal you are anyone would notice something was wrong but apparently they think it is a reason to celebrate. Broody being the only one with a modicum of common sense, for the moment anyway, decides to head off and find out where everyone else went and since Ditzy and Douche are practically doing it on the stage Minority and Vanity decide to join her. To transition out of this scene Boll seems to have opted for the classic Star Wars wipe. Good to see that common sense has prevailed.

Special needs hook is carrying a box of something into the jungle for Donnie Neeson while figures run around him. In light of this I want to address a very contentious issue within the zombie fans community and that is the idea of running zombies. Zack Snyder is the man we have to thank for this when his re-make of Dawn of the Dead introduced us to not just zombies that could run but could flat out sprint. This was met with a lot of controversy and while I can understand why purists might react badly to this I don’t have that much of a problem with it. My reason being that in Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead and to a lesser extent this movie, the zombies seemed to be newly reanimated and are mostly intact. These aren’t decaying corpses who have skin falling off everywhere. For the most part their muscles are still intact and zombies have basic reasoning and primal natures so why couldn’t a zombie in this condition run? And for all those people who are already starting to talk about rigor mortis and other death related ailments may a remind you the whole premise of zombies is not exactly based in the world of science and reasoning and certain leniencies need to be given. While I respect the purist way of thinking I hope I have opened your eyes to the possibility that running zombies are acceptable. Oh and while I was talking about that Hook died, but who cares the running zombie issue was far more important.

Back with Douche and Ditzy and they have decided to move their lust into a nearby tent so as not to offend the no one around. Douche announces he needs to take a leak, there is a joke there but I am above that, so Ditzy waits in the tent. Rustling can be heard from behind the tent and Ditzy is becoming increasingly concerned. She calls out to Douche to cut it out when all of a sudden Jason jumps in and oh wait, sorry thought I was watching Friday the 13th there. I mean the movies are so similar it’s sometimes hard to tell. Anyway zombies come and rush the tent and Ditzy is dead.

Jason plans to send a message to Uwe Boll, personally.

The other three have stumbled across the same house that appeared earlier with the skinny dippers. Am I to assume this is the house from house of the dead because if so then the movie should have been called shack of the dead. Anyway they decide to go in to investigate, Broody opens the door and is about to walk in when Vanity spots a guy hiding behind the door with an axe and tackles him. I would like to point out that Vanity was behind Broody and had no way of seeing behind the door so I guess we just have to settle on the fact that Vanity has X-Ray vision, or Boll is a complete tool. I think I’ll take the latter. After the near homicidal accident we are greeted to three survivors of the rave who have been hiding in the house. These are Asian, Comic Relief and Obvious Hero. Apparently Broody and Obvious Hero know each other; how? why? Who cares Boll has more breasts to show us to take our minds off those trivial facts. Comic Relief breaks out his handheld camera to show what happened at the rave. Obvious Hero says that these were zombies, how do they know this, because Comic Relief has seen Night, Dawn and Day of the Dead. That’s right the greatest zombie movie of all time is mentioned in this piece of crap. I think I threw up in my mouth slightly first time I heard that. Let’s just move on! Broody tells the others that they have a boat and can get off the island but they’ll need to go back to get Douche and Ditzy. They agree and head off and you know this is going to end well for the gang. Before leaving this scene Boll has gone back to the game shot transitions, I guess he thought the wipes were a bit too star wars. That’s cool I’m sure he has picked his favourite transition shot now.

Back with Donnie Neeson where he is enjoying a cigarette on his boat when we seen scenes of zombies swimming towards his boat. Ahh, another contentious issue, I guess you are wondering what my reaction is to swimming zombies. Well I think it is complete bullshit and should have been desperately rethought. Running zombies I can hack as that is more of a primal instinct whereas swimming is something that must be learnt and zombies do not have that sort of reasoning power. Land of the Dead showed this perfectly by the zombies, instead of swimming, walking across the bottom of the ocean. That is how you are supposed to do it; then again this is Uwe Boll so I’m not surprised if they weren’t capable of hi-jacking a boat. After this scene we transition with the Star Wars wipe again, for fuck’s sake Boll pick a transition and stick with it!!!!!

The gang arrive back at the site of the rave and Douche and Ditzy are nowhere to be found. Some commotion can be heard from an upturned porta-loo. They tip it back up to find Douche covered in shit, I’ll let you insert your own joke there, and saying that the loo just tipped over on him. At that moment zombified Ditzy leaps out and snaps Comic Relief’s neck. Weird, normally I thought that zombies FUCKEN ATE PEOPLE!!! They aren’t Rambo or anything of that nature they simply bite people. Anyway the Coast Guard woman, who I will simply name Monotone after her style of acting jumps out and blows Ditzy away. Right after blasting her into next week she turns to others and asks “what the fuck was that?” I see that you subscribe to the shoot first ask questions later philosophy, good one to live by not so much back chat. Douche is clearly bummed by the death of his love as he now can only speak in monotone as well. Good lord I never knew bad acting was contagious, I should warn the CDC. They all decide to seek out Donnie’s boat to get off the island.

The gang arrive at Donnie Neeson’s boat to find him fending off zombies trying to climb aboard. Vanity runs up the pier to help Donnie but then realizes this was a mistake as there are still zombies in the water. Vanity tries to swim back while Monotone takes pot shots at the zombies chasing him. I think it’s worth mentioning that for some unknown reason Boll decided to add underwater shots of the bullets missing the zombies. Not sure what this accomplishes but anyway let’s just roll with it, the movie will be over sooner that way. Again, for no reason that is apparent to me, Asian decides to wade into the water to try to save Vanity. She is completely unarmed and he is a fair way out but you still have to admire that enthusiasm. As you probably guessed a zombie sneaks up behind her and I wish I was joking here but the zombie tries to drown her. For the benefit of Boll, who obviously is a complete dickhead, there are only two golden rules surrounding zombies. Number 1 is that they can only die by being shot in the head and Number 2 is that they FUCKEN EAT PEOPLE!!! Even if you have never watched a zombie movie before you still know that is what zombies do so to have something like this is inexcusable, even for Uwe Boll which is saying something. Anyway someone saves Asian, I don’t care who because I’m still too angry over the whole drowning thing. Anyway Vanity starts taunting a supposedly dead zombie only for it to raise its head and spit acid at him. Oh yeah didn’t I mention these zombies are fucken Xenomorphs now. Hey Boll here’s a good idea, HAVE AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT!!! As you can imagine this is bad for Vanity and suddenly he regresses to being emo. Broody asks what is going on and Donnie Neeson informs them of an old fable about the island. That’s right kids it’s flash back time.

I can see the relationship between Alien and Zombie, oh wait no I can't!!!

The screen suddenly turns all grainy and rustic, I mean how else are suppose to tell this was in the past apart from the period style clothing, the galleon in the opening shot or the fact that Neeson explains this happened hundreds of years ago. We are introduced to our main villain, I wish I could tell you his name but when Donnie says it the words are drowned out by a door opening sound effect. I know he is Spanish so let’s call him that. Spanish is apparently being extradited from Spain because of some unholy experiments he was performing. He baits the officer in charge of him to come closer and then strangles him with his chains. He then apparently managed to kill the entire crew on his own and run the ship aground on the island and no one has seen anything since. After our little trip down memory lane Obvious Hero tries to think of a scientific explanation for the zombies but is immediately shot down by Broody who thinks that it is easier for everyone to accept that they are zombies and move on. I love the fact that this movie is so lacking in depth that they couldn’t even think of dialogue for an alternate explanation. This is normally a staple for zombie movies but Boll has much more stupid things to do. They decide to go back to the House for cover until help arrives so Monotone and Douche go off to find Monotone’s partner who was left on the boat while the others go off to find Donnie Neeson’s guns, oh yeah Donnie is a smuggler. Yeah the movie only decided to tell me now.

While Douche and Monotone are looking for Monotone’s partner they are attacked by zombies, surprise surprise. They split up and we are then treated to a bizarre close up of Douche’s face as he is running away followed by close ups of the zombie’s faces. I really do sometimes think that Boll is an eight year old child playing with the controls in the editing software. Douche decides to hide under a tree and perfectly reenact the hiding scene from the first Lord of the Rings movie, it is mirror perfect! However zombies are too smart for that and end up catching him. The next shot is a 360 pan of Douche which dissolves to red. I mean what could that be and HOLY SHIT that was a game over screen. What else could it be, Boll has included game over screens in this movie!!! I am seriously floored by how stupid this is. I mean this movie is not based on the game whatsoever and yet he is trying to give the movie a game feel. It just doesn’t fit.

At least doing it this way gets the message across quicker.

Now that I have recovered from that small pocket of insanity Monotone rejoins the others and tells them that Douche is dead and again they all seem a little bummed by it. After an arming up montage they reach the house and find it swarming with zombies. This begins the crescendo of shitness as this gun battle is so long, uninteresting and badly shot that it makes the rest of the movie seem like a masterpiece. Where do I begin with this scene? Well firstly the entire time this hideous rock/rap music is playing in the background to take away any drama that this scene could have had. Secondly, given the success of the game over screen Boll has decided that every character needs their own slow motion 360 pan shot. What makes these worse is not only are they not interesting or relevant in anyway but they are also incorrect. For both Broody and Minority’s pan arounds they are clearly holding different guns then what the establishing shot had them holding. What I mean by this is that in Broody’s one it opens on her aiming her shotgun and then in the next shot, which is the pan around she is holding a handgun. I have no idea how anyone fucks this up especially when you have obviously decided to make this a key point of the fight. The biggest problem however is simply how uninteresting this whole scene is. All it has anyone doing is blindly shooting at zombies (in the chest I might add so he has broken the other golden rule) and jumping around. Nothing really gets accomplished and I’m not joking about how long it is. The entire scene goes for around fifteen minutes! I know I am yabbering on about this scene a little but you simply have no idea how bad it is. There are even some weird moments in it to. Broody blows up a well for no discernable reason but the weirdest one comes when Asian dies. Asian is busy fly kicking all the zombies to death when she is suddenly rushed by zombies and screams out to Obvious Hero. This causes Obvious Hero to have a sudden flashback of scenes we have already seen in the movie that led up to this moment, including scenes of places he never was. After this Obvious Hero simply rejoins the others, well hold on what the fuck was the point of that flashback. He didn’t psyche up and save her or condemn himself for not being able to do anything. He just had it like a bad migraine and moved on. Boll you can’t simply add shit wherever you want, it has to have a purpose!!! Oh and by the way Asian gets her own game over screen, I guess Boll thought he was being ground breaking or some such shit. Another thing I should mention about this scene, yes it’s that bad, all through the fight Boll has inserted images of the game during the action. I assume this is to show us how faithfully he has re-imagined the game but when your movie isn’t based on the game in the first place it’s just completely pointless and I tell you after fifteen minutes of this I found myself hating the game I once loved. This my friends is the power of Boll.

Now that is over Obvious Hero and Monotone find a way into the house through a window, oh yeah the house was locked for some reason despite that fact when they left it would have been open! Zombies catch Monotone and hack off her legs with axes. It would seem these zombies do everything except eat people. Obvious Hero again is bummed someone is dead and goes to open the door. Donnie Neeson gets caught and a zombie starts gnawing on his leg. Hoofuckenray!! A zombie has finally tried to eat someone and it only took an hour. Donnie Neeson says that the kids should start worrying about themselves and leave him. Then comes my favourite line in the entire movie. Broody discovers a book on a shelf and says “hey this looks old, maybe it can help us”. I think that is so inspired in how uninspired it is. What kind of explanation is that? It would be like Indiana Jones raiding a temple and saying “that looks old, it could be valuable”. Surely it doesn’t take much brain power to quantify how useful something might be. All the book turns out to be is a journal from Spanish guys ship that ran aground so it doesn’t help that much but why not have the line be “hey I found a ship journal, perhaps it relates to the story Donnie Neeson just told us”. At least that is based on some logic! The group go to the back of the house and find an old science lab where Broody looks into a glass case to have a hideous zombie sperm attack the glass. Minority does the right thing and shoots at it despite the fact it was completely encased in glass and couldn’t possibly have harmed anyone!! This awakens some nearby corpses as they find out that it was the blood the sperm was encased in that revives them. Thank you Boll for that very weak explanation into the zombie phenomenon when before you clearly had no interest in doing so, bravo.

Donnie Neeson hears a familiar voice outside and walks over to the door, his legs miraculously healed, and finds that Hook has been zombified. Neeson does the honourable thing and lights a stick of dynamite and blows himself up to save the others, how noble. This backfires however and it simply leaves a giant hole for the zombies to pour into. The remaining gang find a secret door to the underground and all decide to go down. Vanity however is caught by a zombie in the weakest chokehold you have ever seen and instead of trying to wrestle free he decides to blow himself up with a barrel of gunpowder nearby to save the others. Wow just had a wicked case of déjà vu just then.

The remaining three are pretty bummed that Vanity is dead but oh well we must press on. They continue through the catacombs as Obvious Hero puts it, to make it seem more gamey I’m led to believe, when the group is set upon by moss zombies, I.E. zombies covered in moss. Now believe it or not these are actually enemies in the House of the Dead game and if you don’t believe me that’s fine because Boll has kindly overlaid the footage from the game of the moss zombies to prove this. It was annoying in the monotonous fight scene and it is still annoying. Minority decides to do the noble thing and sacrifice herself to save the others aww c’mon! You can’t do that three times in a row. I mean you seriously couldn’t think of another way to kill these characters off. This sort of death only works once and only for a character that the audience has developed an emotional bond to, anymore than that and we simply see it coming and don’t have emotional interest. Also I must ask why have none of the characters past Asian had game over screens, I mean if you are going to have a theme throughout the movie even given how shitty this one is at least stick to it. Douche arrives to kill off the remaining moss zombies, wow he must have put in another $3 for a continue. Douche leads the others into a torture room where he rips of the Douche mask to reveal himself as Spanish. He more resembles a patchwork quilt than a man now but he has his zombie lackeys hold down Obvious Hero while Broody is obviously petrified with fear. Now comes my second favourite line in this movie. Obvious Hero says “You did all this just so you could become immortal, why?” to which Spanish replies “to live forever”. Everyone please with me, WELL NO SHIT!!

Unfortunately for Spanish decaying corpses don’t make good muscle and Obvious Hero breaks free, kicks Spanish in the nards and grabs Broody. He lets off a couple of grenades as they escape to the forest. The explosion goes off but Spanish will not be defeated that easily and appears to attack our two heroes with a sword. Boll brings back the 360 pan camera for this fight to make it even more awkward, thanks Uwe I really missed that nauseating feeling. During the fight Broody gets stabbed in the chest, you know stabbed in the part of your chest that doesn’t bleed. This angers Obvious Hero who cuts Spanish’s head off. Being immortal however Spanish’s headless body starts to choke Obvious Hero. Broody decides she isn’t dead and walks over to Spanish’s head and squashes it while whimpering the catch cry “game over”. That would be really effective if this movie had referenced a game in anyway but it doesn’t so it instead comes off completely retarded. Broody decides now she is dead.

The FBI arrive, for some reason, and rescue Broody and Obvious Hero. They ask for Obvious Hero’s name (which has been Rudy the whole time) and he responds with Rudolph Curien. OOOOOHHHHH, so this is a prequel to how Curien became an evil genius. Hey no wait that makes no sense. If he went through such a traumatic event and was clearly on the side of good why on earth would he turn evil, if anything from this back story Rudy should be the hero of the games in sort of a Chris Redfield/Leon Kennedy sort of way. That’s great Boll not only did you mess up the movie but you did it to mess up the back story of one of the main characters from the game, well done!

Boll's message to all of his fans

Well that is House of the Dead and what else can you say apart from the fact it is a steaming pile of rubbish. There a plot holes everywhere, it defies the most sacred conventions of zombie movies and worst of all it has absolutely nothing to do with the game it is based on. So next is the herculean task of trying to make this into a passable movie, lord help me.