The Dark Knight Rises Prologue: Incomprhensibility and the Masses

Today I managed to see the IMAX prologue for one of the most anticipated films of 2012, aka Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises. The prologue was announced by a staff member at BFI IMAX, something which gathered a fair share of applause. When the 7min prelude ended however, the audience reaction was totally muted. The main complaint over the short is of course well documented, being the fact that the main villain's dialogue (Bane, played by Tom Hardy) is incomprehensible or inaudible. Personally, I managed to get only one sentence out of the 7-8 uttered by Bane, which might say something about my English language level, my hearing problems, or the fact that Bane's dialogue is indeed garbled. Evidence points towards the latter, and Nolan should well be forced to make some compromises in his creative vision of filmic realism and change the sound mix in the final version of the movie.

As for the prologue itself, even with the dialogue explained there are several vague points that are apparently answered by the various viral sites found online. However, that is a relative drawback of the presentation - unlike the Dark Knight prologue, it is not completely self-contained and definitely did not have the same emotional impact, although visually it was much more impressive (featuring an airplane vs. airplane highjacking in Scottish locations). So, as an IMAX presentation it gets high grades (the resolution was amazing, and in fact the IMAX cameras used were much better than the ones used in the main feature, MI:4), but as a teaser it could have been better.

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" trailer is here!

This December marks 10 years after the release of The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring.

10 years.

I feel old. But this trailer for the first of the two Hobbit movies (titled An Unexpected Journey and There And Back Again) is just the thing to make me feel young again. Get a small taste of what our return to Middle Earth will feel like one year from now.

Movie Review: Drive

When I first read the synopsis of Drive I did not know what to expect from it. Would it be an action movie? Would it be a film about cars with lots of car chases driving around? Would it be something completely different? I was not very interested to watch it but my girlfriend really insisted, and boy, was I surprised.

Drive is a film about emotions and characters. It sets the tone very quickly with the main character uttering a total of 2 lines in the first ten minutes. A man in control of his life amidst the urban depression. Even the rolling introduction credits were a surprise. I immediately thought of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and I was not far off. From the credits to the shiny silver jacket the main character is wearing, to the fantastic soundtrack all set an 80s feeling throughout the movie without the story taking place in this flamboyant decade. Just the decadence and the sense of lost, of this era is brought to us from the movie.

The main character is a stunt driver that works in a garage and during the nights he drives for robberies. The character is not the cool, do it for the thrill, type of guy. He is actually the genuine nice, kind-hearted, type. We do not know why he does it, so we assume for the extra money, since there is nothing luxurious about his lifestyle. In the course of the story he meets a girl and with no agenda he decides to help her. It sounds simple and it probably is, but the emotions generated are very powerful. The main character is emotion-driven not interested about petty gains.

The action in the movie is actually very little but when we do see it, it is intense, powerful and very well directed. When we do see it, it needs to be there, we justify it and it actually serves a purpose to move the story forward, or to tell us something about the characters. The over all direction is superb and flawless. Nicolas Winding Refn is playing with what we see, what we do not see and what we think we are about to see. It is a thrilling ride...

The rest of the characters are all very interesting and serve their purpose well. At some points I actually felt like playing a Grand Theft Auto game(a blend between Vice City and GTA4). You 've got the filthy maniacs, you 've got the honest but troubled husband, the genuine friend, the thoughtful but evil guy and all of them have their part to play in the story. All the actors do a very good job with their performance delivering a very special overall cast package.

I want to make a special brief mention about the music in the film. It is an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. It is definitively not something I would listen to on my own, but after listening to it during the course of this movie I loved it because it was so well blended with each scene.

I intentionally did not include a trailer in this post. Do not watch the trailer, just watch the movie.

Over all, this is a must-see. Highly recommended.

8/10

Escape from City 17 part 2: Half-Life fan made short film

Allroundgeek.com is a big fan Half-Life inspired fan made films. Over the years we have presented many of those.

One of our favorite, so far, was Escape From City 17 part one. Finally, the people responsible for that short film created the part 2 which is even better, bigger and more awesome.

Come on Valve, give us Half life 3 already. We have been waiting for years.....how many times more do I have to play all the Half Life games(plus the expansions) to quench my thirst for anything Half Life, before we get to play Half life 3?

Here is part 1 in case you missed it the first time round:

Here is part 2:

Review: Rise of the Planet of The Apes

I went to the cinema with mixed feelings. I had low expectations of the movie mainly because I found the scenario that was suggested in the trailer very silly. It seemed like a far fetched explanation of how we go from today, to the Charlot Heston dystopia of the mute primitive humans and the thriving Ape civilization. On the other hand, the movie was rewarded by a big round 8 on imdb which had to count for something. I was pretty sure that the movie was not an 8 but at least it would be enjoyable and interesting and I was right. In this dry period, of ridiculously bad summer movies, Rise of The Planet of the Apes seems like a good movie, or at at least, a respectable one that the people bored of all the crap of the past 3 months will give a high score to.

This movie is more about characters than it is about action and this is a good thing 'cause when the action starts, about 2/3 into the movie, it feels necessary and well integrated. The movie is the story of an Ape, Caesar. Caesar is a special Ape. His mother was part of some lab experiments to cure Altzheimer's disease which resulted in Caesar having abnormally increased intelligence. This causes some rather interesting side effects in the psychology of Caesar who cannot really place himself as a pet but he also acknowledges the fact that he is not part of the human society. To that mix add many more apes, an advanced version a lab created virus and some stunning CGI effects and you got your self a good summer Sci-Fi mix.

The special effects are brilliant. The people at WETA did some brilliant job bringing Caesar and the other Apes alive. Especially in the scenes where there are not human actors, you really cannot tell the difference. This is not a movie that will astonish you by its obvious use of effects though. It is about not letting the effects get in the way....not let the viewer think that it is CGI. This is really important in this movie since the protagonist is a a computer generated Ape.

Caesar. Very convincing and brilliantly executed role.

Andy Serkis was fantastic as Caesar but I am not really sure how much was acting and how much was 3d modelers working in front of the computer. So, I will just say that Caesar's character was fantastically assumed by whoever that was. I don't have anything important to say about the human actors since you really don't care about them throughout the course of the movie. Ok, James Franco did a good job as the lead human male of the movie but nothing special and you will not really care about him. At least I didn't. The rest of the actors just play their parts to allow the script to move on with nothing particularly bad or good about their performance, except from Tom Felton who played the, badly executed, exact same role of caricature bully he played on Harry Potter for that past 10 years.

Over all I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It is not the best movie of the year but it is a good Sci-Fi cinema experience. If you are a fan of the franchise you will definitely enjoy it. The movie contains countless references to the original franchise with names and quotes. On the downside there are 2 scenes were Caesar does something which I consider a very bad choice from the filmmakers because it almost ruins the experience, at least to me, since it is scientifically impossible. When you see/hear it, try to go past it to enjoy the rest of the movie. Oh, and at the end, don't leave the cinema immediately because the credits include some further explanation to how we got to the dystopian future.

7/10

Back To The Future: The Game Review

If you were a kid growing up in the 80's or 90's chances are that one of your favourite movie franchises is Back to The Future. It had it all. Excellent plot, wacky Sci Fi, memorable characters, nice action, humor and of course, time travel! Since then I 've seen the movies countless times but they never fail to entertain me. Tell Tale games is a company that has given us some very good adventure games in the past few years, but Back to The future: The Game is their best so far! It continues the story of the movies with a brand new plot and contains all the elements that we loved about the 80s movies.

All the cast is back. Marty, Doc, the Mcfly family, the Tannens and of course everything is taking place in the Hill Valley's past, present and future. The game starts with Marty going back to 30s to look for Doc who has been lost and in the process to save him messes with the normal timeline. In the course of 5 episodes we get to fix things up and maybe even improve some aspects. I do not want to ruin it for you but the scenario is excellent and a worthy successor of the movies.

Since it is an adventure games we will have to solve puzzles to progress the story but these puzzles are so well done and so well implemented in to the story that do not seem like distractions but part of the game plot. In my opinion this is how adventure game puzzles should be. They should not seem something that the designer put there to make your life difficult but something that your character should do towards his story goals. The game is not very difficult but it is challenging nevertheless. If you ever get stuck there is an in-game hint system with 3 levels so you can get some help without ruining the experience.

The game looks beautiful. The cartoonish versions of the characters are convincing and the game scenes are rich with details that enhance the atmosphere. For each time period you will get a nice different feeling out of the graphics. The sounds and the voices are very well done as well. We have the actors of the movies' cast coming back to lend their voices once again and they do an admirable job in recreating the old magic.

One thing that I did not like at first was the controls and direction of how the scenes changed while Marty was moving. It seems as though the designers kept in mind that the game would be released for consoles as well and they made up this unified control method that would work well with a console controller, but at the same time keep the old school point and click control method. After a while I got used it and I did not mind.

Over all if you are a fun of the movies, or adventure games, this is a highly recommended purchase. It will keep you entertained for many hours and at the end you will see the all to familiar 'To be continued' that promises of an next installment to the franchise. I can't wait for it! In the men time Tell Tale is planning to resurrect another beloved franchise and transform it in an adventure game series, that of Jurassic Park. So, stay tuned!

Wing Commander: Privateer. Who needs Eve Online?

I got out of the jump point into an asteroid field. My radar started blinking with red marks. 3 pirate centurion ships were blocking my way while shooting at me. I quickly lock on the middle target firing two missiles. I hit my afterburner and at the same time and steer to the left to avoid the incoming fire. Soon there were two pirates left and I was dogfighting amidst asteroids. They really wanted my cargo but I wanted to avoid being sucked into the void even more. I hit the afterburner making a run for it. After two nav points I reached an agricultural planet where I sold my cargo for a, well deserved, amount of money which I used to buy some new tachyon cannons for my ship. While in the Merchants Guild office to enlist for a new mission I heard the voice of my girlfriend standing behind me..... "What's this ugly looking crap of a game that you are playing?" Welcome to the world of Wing Commander: Privateer.

It all started with Elite, the granddaddy of space simulators. It was an 8-bit heaven of space travel, bounty hunts, piracy and intergalactic commerce. Fast forward to the early 90s Origin Systems took the old recipe, added SVGA graphics and the Wing Commander universe and gave us an amazing game.

Privateer features a totally open world with dozens of solar systems to visit and countless missions to complete. There is even a campaign scenario that you can totally ignore if you fancy. The player can assume the role of pirate, a bounty hunter, a merchant, a courier, or even a smuggler, trying to make his fortune in the frontier worlds. It is all about the money....

You can use the money to upgrade your ship with stronger weapons, more shields, better armor and much more. You can even buy a newer ship more suited to your carrier. For example, you can get a ship with larger cargo space to move more goods, or a faster fighter for your dogfights.

The game uses the Wing Commander 2 engine to bring us some beautiful graphics that really help to build up the space atmosphere. Most of your time in the game will be spent on the cockpit traveling and fighting but you will visits planets and space stations as well to equip your ship, buy or sell goods and get new missions.

This game was recently re-released from GOG tuned to run on modern equipment. It costs just 5.99$ and for the dozens of hours of fun it offers it is a steal. For those of you that agree with my girlfriend about the graphics there is a free open source remake of the game with a new engine that offers 3d graphics and out-of-the-box support for modern operating systems., now if you 'll excuse me I ve got a shipment to smuggle into a system with really tight security.