Resident Evil Retribution (2012)

Disclaimer: I realize that I am taking this movie too seriously. It’s a movie about monsters and zombies, it doesn’t have to make sense, right? 

There will be spoilers, though you are probably not watching the movie for the story.

Resident Evil Retribution takes place immediately after the last one. Alice, Chris, and Claire are all on the super tanker Arcadia while Umbrella and evil-Jill are seen on various helicopters headed towards the ship.

Everything explodes, and we see Alice fall into the water.

Umbrella Mega-Evil Corporation, in an effort to sell biological weapons to opposing nations, had to create multiple-block-wide simulation cities in their super secret UNDERWATER RUSSIAN facility. They have created duplicates of downtown Moscow, New York, Tokyo, and Racoon City. Umbrella has filled these places with perfectly functioning vehicles, weapons, electronics, furniture, and everything.

Umbrella has also prepared fifty different models of clones which can be programmed with various directives to fulfill various testing purposes.  For example, the same clone model can be programmed as a mom, or a business executive, or a business executive mom. They’ve been inserting these clones inside these city-domes to test out their bio-weapons in a realistic scenario. At one point in the movie, we see a conveyor belt of thousands of clones. They're just being strung up by wires swinging aimlessly along the assembly line in the air. How is Umbrella able to create so many clones? If they had this kind of future technology (along with holo-projectors and future bombs and vehicles), why do they need to even develop bioweapons?

We see one of these tests play out with an Alice clone getting eaten while trying to protect her daughter in an initial outbreak scenario. We see cars collide, fires get started, zombies get shot, and furniture gets broken. How is Umbrella able to replace everything for each test? Do they have a staff of cloned janitors and mechanics to reset it every time? How are they able get new vehicle? How could they afford to spend what must be a trillion dollars to construct this facility, and expect to turn a profit? This is ridiculous. Did anybody think the movie through?

The ‘real’ Alice wakes up in an interrogation chamber when somebody releases her. She explores the various city environments (with zombies!) until she gets to the main control centre, where she finds Ada Wong. Apparently , Albert Wesker. CEO of Umbrella, (the same person who we kinda saw blew up in a helicopter last movie) has sent in a team to try and rescue Alice. The Red Queen artificial intelligence system has turned crazy, taken over all remaining Umbrella assets, and is now focused on exterminating humanity.  They have to fight through various test environments to get to the underwater elevator which will lead them to the surface. Wesker also sent in another team consisting of Barry, Leon, redshirts, and Luther West from the last movie. They’re to rendezvous at one of the test environments.

It’s actually a little strange that a trillion dollar facility wouldn’t have underwater emergency escape pods. I guess they're trying to cut cost after overspending on hallways made entirely of light panels, holographic projectors for the sky, and domes with weather control.

So Ada and Alice go through the New York environment, and fight some monsters. They go through the Raccoon City and find the clone-Alice’s daughter. She thinks Alice is her mommy. The Red Queen’s security forces featuring Michelle Rodriguez and evil Jill attempt to kill the girls. Alice escapes to the Moscow environment where she helps the ‘guy team’ fight against a bunch of gun-wielding monsters. The rest of movie is pretty by-the-numbers. They fight bigger monsters while members of the team die one by one. Alice's desire to protect/rescue her faux-daughter conflicts with saving the rest of the team. 

Four members are alive by the time they explode the facility and escape to the surface. Jill/Michelle Rodriguez crashes the party in their submarine. A boss fight occurs featuring exclusively melee weapons. Alice almost loses until she remembers to remove Jill’s mind-controlling beetle from Jill’s chest. Umbrella should have made a mind controlling hat or helmet or something, but  Paul WS Anderson thought that the heart was the gateway to controlling a person.  Jill becomes good again.

Michelle Rodriguez has a secret weapon. It’s a super parasite that grants super strength and regeneration when inserted into her body. Seconds later, she was able to heal through bullet wounds through her head. It’s so powerful that it’s almost like magic.

They defeat her anyway, and Wesker sends a helicopter to pick up the survivors. The chopper lands at the White House where Wesker had become the President of the World in the time between the two movies (about a week or so, I’d guess.)  He gives Alice super powers and tells her that she is the only hope for humanity to stop the RED QUEEN AI from killing off everyone. It’s like Terminator, but with zombies.

The final shot of the film is Alice staring out the balcony in disbelief as the camera pans out, revealing the white house is besieged by an unending swarm of zombies and other creatures.

That’s strange, because Alice should have seen them while the chopper is flying into the base.

And if the Red Queen wanted to kill all humans, she should send in a couple of nukes at the white house.

If they don’t have nukes, then use those magical self-destruct bombs (like the ones on the Tanker or in Japan.)

Terrible movie overall.

Plot Holes?

I’m not an expert at underwater engineering, or weapons. I don’t think it’s smart to give monsters access to guns, rockets, and grenades. Just from a safety perspective, it would seem like a dumb idea if they accidentally ruptured the dome. What if stray bullets damage the edges? I’m only bringing this up because Ada brings it up during the film, telling Alice to not shoot at something.

There’s also a huge Licker that wanders around the service corridors, demolishing everything it its way. We’ve seen that it’s capable of causing massive damage to buildings, cars, whatever. The Red Queen probably shouldn’t have let it loose. It’s funny though that Alice finally kills it by shooting a clip into it’s exposed brain. (The brain is always exposed, it’s not like she removed the skull or anything.)

It would have been nice to see some sort of quarantine procedure in this research facility. An ability to lock things down if bad things happened, possibly purge all life forms inside of an environment. That kind of technology should exist, right? Umbrella was testing various bio-weapons, if they can’t clean/wipe out contaminants, how could they test things properly?

This film heavily hinted that all the characters in the first film were clones, Alice included. I thought they were going to get in the ‘life is important, even clones’ territory, but everyone pretty much just glossed over the facts. At this point in the story, Humans are a near extinct species. I thought it might have made sense to convert this place into a sanctuary for humans. They’re able to manufacture clones as needed to fight zombies. There’s safe, (weather) controlled environment domes. The team kills tens of thousands of (near completed) clones without even thinking or feeling anything, even though Alice has adopted her clone’s daughter. Wesker is one dumb dude.

Big Butt Stick

“The previous films sucked, why would you expect this one to be any good?”

 I’ll be honest, I didn’t truly think this one would be any good. I enjoy making fun of movies.

“It’s just a zombie movie, stop expecting realism.”

That’s no excuse. There’s no reason why a film can’t have action and also a compelling story. See: Dark Knight, Inception, Source Code, The Thing (1982), Avengers, Matrix 1.

The RE universe is just incoherent. It’s about 5 years after the zombie apocalypse. Humans are vastly outnumbered by zombies and other creatures. How are Umbrella facilities still operational? Where is food/power coming from? By now, all canned/shelf food have long expired. Why would anyone still willingly work for an organization that’s doing this? No thought has been put into anything. It’d complicate things if the people that the heroes are fighting had actual depth.

What’s Umbrella’s endgame? With Wesker as CEO, he was probably using the company as a way to achieve ultimate power and to gain immortality through the T-Virus. That’s sounds ok. In the last movie it was shown that Wesker was laying a trap for Alice the entire time. He wanted to ‘eat’ Alice and to consume her DNA so that his mutation would stabilize. In light of this film, why wouldn’t he just go to the sweet Russian Umbrella Prime base?

Profit through bioweapons? They have cloning technology, and the ability to place directives into clones. It doesn’t take much thought to see how this technology is worth more than a million times the bioweapon. People can essentially achieve immortality Sixth Day style. Just download memories into a new, younger clone body. There’s unlimited organ replication. They can bring loved ones back from death (in a non zombie manner J ) They can sell clones to Governments, trained to kill with no moral qualms about following orders. They can replace Presidents with their clones. Possibilities are endless.

But yeah, let’s build a secret base with multiple city blocks to test out bioweapons.

Too many dumb things in the movie that are too trivial to mention.

The audience is hammered with the idea that Umbrella started doing this stuff because of money. It just doesn’t make sense because they could do so much more with what we’ve seen that they could do.

There’s a really simple fix for it too. Umbrella’s one and only goal was to take over the world, Bond-villain style. Why were they creating monsters. They want to shit up the planet, and then repopulate it with those Japanese Umbrella Execs and clones of Mila Jovovich. That’s an idea I can get behind.

What about the Action Scenes? It's a good action movie, right? Stuff blows up?

There's nothing really memorable about any of the fights. It's just a bunch of named good guys shooting at named bad guys shooting at zombies. And they all miss. Nothing particularly unique or spectacular.

Though I didn't like the 2 minute slow motion reverse-shot at the start of the film, I thought it was visually interesting. That's about it.

Resident Evil Retribution feels like a 3/10 movie at the theatres. It's about 5/10 if you want to watch the film and mock it with a couple of friends. (but do it at home, and not at the theatres)

Amazing Spiderman 2012

I think there’s a really anti-reboot/remake sentiment in the general public. It’s like having new revisions somehow diminishes the originals. I don’t mind remakes at all. It’s another chance at making a story great. If it ends up being bad, I could just ignore it.   I don’t remember much from the Sam Raimi Spiderman films. I’ve watched the first two movies maybe twice, and the third once in the theatre. They were decent films for sure. I just remember a generally good vibe from those movies. I think the third had some problems which could have been fixed.

By now, I’ve probably seen the origin story for Peter Parker half a dozen times. He’s a photographer/high schooler nerd who gets bit by a special (radioactive, sometimes genetically modified) spider. He abuses his powers at first, until through inaction, he caused the death of his Uncle Ben. He then figures out to use his powers responsibly to do some actual heroics.

I think this version of the retelling the best I’ve seen. It shows a version of Peter Parker who isn't above lying to various people to get what he wants.

My problem with the movie is that so much of it was unrealistic. I’m willing to allow the idea that a spider bite can give super powers, or that a man can inject reptile DNA and regrow his arm. That comes with the price of admission.

What I don’t find realistic is Oscorp. They supposedly have twenty (non summer) intern positions available for highschool students. That’s a bit strange, I suppose. I guess if they were students with a lot of potential, Oscorp would want to ‘lock’ them in. Fine. (I loved the idea that there’s a place in fiction with hundreds of bustling scientists in the background doing SCIENCE acitivies!) The problem is that Oscorp has worst security in the world. Peter was able to sneak into a place filled with GM spiders. It was just a single layer of door passcodes. I think most computer OS require you to type your password for every significant change. What they should have done to get Peter his power was to have the interns shown a new batch of genetically modified spiders. The spiders could have been demonstrating hostile behaviors forcing them all to be incinerated. Maybe one of them survived by hiding behind some extra durable webbing, and manages to bite Peter Parker.  

Later on in the movie, Gwen Stacy, another intern, was able to go up to a machine and just fabricate a serum that modifies genetic material. That’s insane, especially when you consider that the place has EVERYTHING NEEDED TO MAKE A BIOLOGICAL WEAPON in one of the world’s biggest cities. 

I think having Curt Connors as the villain could have worked. I remember that a big portion of what made him sympathetic in the show/comics was that he had a family, which was a driving motivation for injecting the serum.  From what we’ve seen in this movie, he’s put a potentially fatal serum inside himself JUST BECAUSE he wants another arm. I’m sure that Oscorp has a synthetic limb division that would like volunteers. If the movie Connors had a wife and son/daughter, and it was revealed that his amputated arm was the result of a genetic defect that was passed down, then he would have had a non-selfish reason for testing it on himself. Dr. Connors would have lived his entire life knowing that he was physically defective and inferior. The only non-broken thing was his intellect. He wants to find a cure so that his kids, and others like them, wouldn’t have to suffer like he did.

Nope. Connors did it because it was his last chance to grow an arm. What’s that? 80% fatality rate? Who cares. He always loved his right hand.

When the Lizard found out that Spiderman was Peter Parker, he wasn’t even shocked. I would have thought that a successful mutation that yields amazing agility and wall climbing abilities would be at least interesting for him. Lizard Smash. Wouldn’t it have been great if the Lizard didn’t magically turn into a creature 3 times his human size? They could have used the scale prosthetics shown in various scenes. You know, let the actor genuinely act, instead of putting a cgi mask on his face.

I was mostly disappointed that a potentially humanizing storyline with the Lizard was reduced to a conservation-of-mass-defying cgi green monster. 

The rest of the movie was pretty predictable. I think I’m more disappointed with this movie because it was so close to being great. Instead, it’s just good.

7/10

A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas Explosion 3D.

I could rant about the commercialization of Christmas, and how commercials seem to start the second after Halloween, but that’s not really important. It’s just weird to have a Christmas movie in the first week of November. Am I the only one who thinks it’s insane to essentially spend 1/6^th of the year celebrating Christmas?

I went to a two dimensional showing despite the fact 3D is in the title. Whenever there’s a ‘3D’ moment, I am reminded of how terrible this whole 3D fad really is. Gratuitous 3D is the worst. There are scenes with stuff flying towards the camera, hitting the camera, and cracking it. Do people actually like that kind of stuff? Things that bring you out of a movie? They should have a 2D cut for the 2D version without tall the crap flying towards the screen.  “This (fake) 3D penis is really awesome. Just wish I saw it in 3D so it’s right up against my face. Thanks, James Cameron, you Avatard. “  

It’s been years since Harold and Kumar are roommates, and they’ve grown apart. That’s not unusual because statistically people lose half their friends every 6 years. Harold’s become a successful banker-man with a large house and a beautiful wife. Kumar’s been kicked out of the medical practice because he’s failed his drug test. He’s been living in squalor with his life focused on chasing the next marijuana high.

The day before Christmas, a magical package containing a magical joint is delivered to Kumar’s apartment addressed to Harold. When Kumar delivers it to Harold’s new address, the magical joint starts the magical adventure by burning down the Christmas tree, which was a gift from his wife’s violent Mexican cartel-ish dad. So the adventure begins with them trying to find and replace the McGuffin tree.

I guess I just had too high of an expectation for this film and franchise. I thought Go to White Castle was a genuinely good film. Escape from Guantanamo Bay was an alright film. It’s been a while since I’ve watched those movies. From what I could remember, they started off pretty reasonably, and were steady slides into more and more absurd situations. They culminate at an absolutely insane point where everything sort of flows together. 

3D is easily the worst of the trilogy. From the start, the relationship between Harold and Kumar were strained. They don’t really like each other anymore, and it gives off a weird vibe. By the end though, they learn to become BFFs and everything works out.  That’s kinda cool, I guess. This film starts with a pretty insane premise and never really attempts to bring it back to reality. In this movie, it is clear that all the characters in this world are larger-than-life. They have a car accident and a car is ruined. Of course they won’t call the police or their insurance company. They were mistaken as extras in a musical while hanging out at a back alley. Despite their protests, the lady was apparently able to get them in full costumes and into the rehearsal. Movie logic :/ 

 In the original, the world is shown to be fairly normal with unusual freaks that the two characters meet. Harold and Kumar are still grounded to reality.  In this movie, it is clear that all the characters in this world are larger-than-life and does things just to move to the next sketch. It feels less organic.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some genuinely funny scenes in the movie. They’re just too few and far in-between. The same baby joke is rehashed throughout the film. Two characters get locked in the same place for half the film. The best parts of the film are the short vignettes when we’re taken away from the characters.  I think the film would probably be better if the characters were high the entire time, that it wasn’t clear if everything is really happening as we see it. 

As is, A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas didn’t work for me. I had a terrible experience during and after the film. I would sit in silence as people around me were laughing. I understood the jokes, but they felt completely flat. Honestly, I think the combination of “THREE DEE” and “CHRISTMAS MOVIE” has turned me completely off to the film. 

I wish I hadn’t paid money to watch this. I’m sure all the funny bits would end up on youtube anyway. 3/10

Terra Nova Review: Time Travelling Dinosaurs.

The show starts off with text on the screen sstating the premise of the show.

AT THE DAWN OF THE 22^ND CENTURY. THE WORLD IS ON THE VERGE OF ENVIRONMENTAL COLLAPSE. MANKIND’S ONLY SURVIVAL LIES 85 MILLION YEARS IN THE PAST.

We are shown a futuristic apartment in a smog-filled city. It might have been Beijing or Shanghai or something. There’s a character walking inside the hallways wearing a futuristic air filter. Oh no. The air is so toxic that you can’t just breathe the air outside!

The first 5 minutes of the show just keeps hitting the viewer on the head about how terrible the future really will be. Consumerism and High-Tech gadgets are pretty much gone, except for the occasional super thin ID cards. The dad goes inside his apartment and shows his family the wonder of an orange. Apparently they’re so rare that it’s been years since some of them have seen one. The mom name-drops that respiratory diseases have risen recently, probably due to the poor air quality.

So, the police come in and say they have to search the house. In the future, one person can only have one offspring. They have three. The police finds the third child (named Zoe.) and the dad is put in jail.

For twelve more minutes, we see the dad try to solid snake his way out of prison and to the Stargate facility. In the end, he makes a mad dash towards the portal.

FLASH FORWARD 2 YEARS

In the two years, the mom found a way to get the family into Terra Nova and travel into the past because she’s a doctor.  Even though she can have a good life, she doesn’t want her kids to stay in a dying world! The bad thing is that the dad(Jim) has to stay in prison, and Zoe can’t go.

The first sixteen minutes of the show has been entirely superfluous. Honestly, if they excised it, the pilot would probably be better. I don’t think they had enough budget, time, or imagination to create the world of 214X well enough. Everyone is living in squalor… in a dying world. They don’t outright say what caused the environmental collapse. I hope it isn’t just pollution or ‘global warming’. Anyway, there’s enough dialogue after the jump in time to describe the future. There’d be more mystery and would have probably been better.

Jurassic Park.

So the Terra Novan colony has existed for 7 years now. They quickly explain that this is an entirely new timeline so they can kill dinosaurs or whatever they want without causing any causality problems.

Characters make the comparison about the lush environment compared to the dark/gloomy/perpetually cloudy environment. I can understand things like “The air is so fresh!”, but things like “I’ve forgotten what the moon looks like”, or  “the sky is so blue I’ve never seen.” is bizarre. Are there no television programmers in the future about what the past is like? Minor complaint.

When the family and the rest of the expedition arrive at Terra Nova, the dad is assigned to agriculture duty.

The youngest daughter Zoe finds some brontosaurus which was right on the other side of the fence. Nice job keeping dinosaurs away, security. It was one of those Jurassic park moments, and I guess it was absolutely necessary. Doesn’t mean it makes sense in-universe.

The main conflict of this episode revolves around Josh (the son) hanging around female love interest (Sky) and engaging is some incredibly dumb shenanigans. They decide to go into a restricted zone to jump off a waterfall. They also decide to go make alcohol in an area with dangerous dinosaurs. On their way back to the camp, they were ambushed by dinosaurs. That’s such an unforeseeable plot twist!  Oh, Sky shows Josh some strange cave markings, and then makes him promise not to tell anyone about the cave markings. Yeah, like that won’t be a plot point in the future.

The other plot point involves the doctor wife healing a man who was supposed to be a thief. Turns out that the guy is a “Sixer”, which is a group of people from the sixth pilgrimage who have since left the main group and found their own colony. The thief breaks out of the hospital laughably easily, and then proceeds to try and assassinate Taylor, the leader of Terra Nova. Why nobody at the hospital decided to inform security (to warn Taylor or anyone), I don’t know. Probably just bad writing or something.

Jim stops the plot and becomes a new cop. They go for a ride outside the gate and spots the Sixers riding towards the camp. They’re here to exchange some ‘meteoric iron’ for  the prisoner and some supplies.

The Sixers have a hidden agenda and are led in part by Taylor’s son. Apparently Taylor’s son is the one making the cave markings which will be the key to controlling the future.

The retarded teenagers and the sixers storyline intersects when the sixers were murdered on their way back to the their camp. The teenagers find their vehicle and hides inside it when dinosaurs come. They are rescued by the end of the episode.

This show has excellent dialogue/interaction such as

“GET AWAY FROM ME”

“Hey I know you, you are Drake, right? It’s me, Sky.”

“SKY? ALRIGHT GET IN”

Right as they’re getting away from a dinosaur.

Two guards chilling at a tower.

Security perimeter is so poor that people can just crawl outside the gate. If jurassic park taught me anything, is that there are small killer velociraptor everywhere.

No guards at all. I guess that's why the little girl was able to feed the brontosaurus some leaves.

One guard on tower.

 

What I don’t like about the show, which probably won’t improve as it goes on, is that the military/security of Terra Nova is so absurdly terrible. We have areas where there are absolutely no guards while dinosaurs roam nearby. We have guards that don’t know to fire a weapon until ordered by the main characters. We have (farm) areas which are not within the perimeter of the colony. Terrible planning, guys.

Also, I refuse to believe that 130 years from now, humans won’t have weapons that would simply shred dinosaurs apart. Even in an environmentally collapsed Earth, you just know that hoards of money will be spent developing even more effective weapons of war.

5/10

It’s a pilot episode. It’s not very good at all. I have a feeling this show is going to be a lot like Falling Skies… except that Falling Skies doesn’t have as dense of characters as here. The teenager plot reminds me a lot of Tyler from V.
Is this show worth watching? I wouldn't say so. There's not really anything here that's done particularly well. There's better things to do with your time. Go watch Breaking Bad, or Fringe, or Supernatural. Go back and watch SGU or Alphas.

I am curious to see what kind of storyline they can do to sustain a full season.

Conan 2011 Review

When I saw this movie today, the entire 200+ seat theatre was empty. At first I thought it was because of the 18A rating which would limit the audience, but just when the room began to darken and the trailers started to roll, a dad and his ten year old son came in. If the father thinks his son is mature enough to grasp all the complex situations in the film, all the power to him.

Now, the lack of an audience is not necessarily an indication about the quality of the film. The last film that was empty on the first opening week that I saw was Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It was a pretty good, but complex film.

I’m not a fan of the original Conan film. The only thing going for it was Arnold Swarzennegar’s portrayal of Conan. He was played as a dumb, simple, and generally good hearted guy.  Arnold also seems to struggle to read his lines, but it was clear that he was trying his hardest. His bad acting actually contributed positively to the movie. If someone like Arnold, with little to no talent, can be a movie star, then maybe I can achieve my goals too.

Conan 2011, starring Jason Momoa, is definitely a technically competent film which supposedly follows the original book/novella mythology closer. There’s no glaring flaws technically. The action scenes were actiony. The musical score was engaging. The computer graphics / set design / costumes were all good. Alas, there are some problems with the pacing and story... which isn’t necessarily caused by the writers/script supervisors. A lot of changes can happen from script to the screen which can come from a myriad of sources. There were supposedly a lot of rewrites during the filming process, and the film shows that.

The first third of the film is actually completely fine. It tells the story of Conan’s upbringing, and the events causing him to seek out the main baddie, Zym. Ron Perlman performed an adequate role as Conan’s dad.

The second part is about Conan as an adult. He’s been looking for Zym for the last twenty years unsuccessfully, until he happens to find one of Zym’s lieutenants at a bar. Hilarity ensues and bowels explode. Conan kills a bunch of guys for an hour or so. Oh, he accidentally rescues a white monk-lady who has pure blood. She’s also the only person that Zym needs to complete an evil ritual. Conan goes to a variety of different locations during the hour. I think the film could have use some “Indiana Jones”-style map transitions, or “Lawrence of Arabia”-style wide shots to really demonstrate the distances that Conan is covering. Conan’s journey doesn’t feel mythic. He just bounces from location to location changing sidekicks briefly. It would feel different to really show the passage of time.

In the final act, Zym acquires the monk-girl and is finally able to complete the mask which will give him ultimate power…the power to shout really loudly and to collapse his skull-shaped cave. Yeah, it was a bit anti-climactic considering Zym has been saying that it’ll make him a new god. Incredibly underwhelming. Oh, he dies like a punk in the end because he spends time gloating instead of killing Conan.

Conan’s entire life so far has been about getting revenge against Zym for murdering his whole tribe. When he finally kills Zym, the story just ends. He has about three lines of dialogue, none of which reflects what just happened. It’s like killing Zym was not a big deal at all. There’s no indication that he’s changed at all through the story. There’s no real character arc. There’s no growth. Arnold’s Conan goes through a gamut of change through the 1982 movie. He grows as a character and finds love. 2011 Conan remains the same.

Conan 2011’s weak final act really hurts the film. Is it really too much to ask for the villain to have laser eyes? It needed to be over-the-top to make the final battle compelling. He needed to complete a task that was truly heroic.

5/10

There’s some parts of the film I would like to rewatch. I would never go out of my way to watch it.

X-Men: First Class Review

It is easy to write about bad films. Great films are difficult to write about. Much easier to say that a film is bad because of plot hole X and logical fallacy Y. It's also a lot more fun to trash a movie.

This X-Men prequel is less about the First Class and more about the story of Charles and Erik. If you have had exposure to the franchise's history, then you know the basic storyline of the film.

Erik (Magneto) was raised/taken into a Fun Camp during World War 2. When the Nazis discovered his ability, they performed experiments on him. Erik believes that the rest of humanity will try to control, enslave, and exterminate mutant kind. Charles grew up in America (and miraculously retains an English accent) far away from the atrocities of man. He believes that mutants and humans can share the future and co-exist in harmony. Despite the ideological difference, Charles and Erik became Best Friends once they grew up while working on a mission for the CIA. After the mission, Magneto and Professor Xavier are put on opposite sides and sets up the status quo for future installments (hopefully).

The story is pretty hard to mess up and I'm glad that they didn't. The origins of Magneto is forever tied to the Holocaust just like Captain America with World War 2. It would have been disastrous to have changed anything.

I feel that the 'First Class' parts didn't really mesh well in the film as they didn't appear until the 60ish minute mark. This film is 130 minutes long and they had plenty of time to at least give the remaining characters a little depth. I'm sure comic enthusiasts would have gotten more out of those characters but I barely know any of them.

The only big criticism I have about First Class is all the constant 'winking' at the viewer with references. SPOILER ALERT. During the film Charles attaches some electrodes onto his skull to tap into Cerebral. "It works better if you are bald." "I'm not shaving my hair."  Charles becomes paralyzed from the waist down at the end of the film, and he's all like 'well at least I'm not bald'. Ugh. "We should give ourselves some cool man nicknames. I'm Mystique, what about you?" " Oh I'm like a Banshee because I can do this." wink "I cause a lot of Havok" wink wink "Hey you should have a cool name like Professor X and you should be called Magneto." wink wink "Even I've got to admit you're kind of a BEAST now."  Fuck you writers. We don't need you to throw in names like that. It didn't feel natural at all. The audience can figure out which characters are which if they really cared. I can't forget about the big one. "Oh we're still working along side the G-Men." "No you need to stay independent. You don't work for the G-Men. You're now an X-Men." Fuuuck.

There's also some really bad trope-y dialogue. Charles: "They were only following orders". Erik: "THE LAST TIME I HEARD THAT THEY KILLED SIX MILLION JEWS. NEVER AGAIN."

Anyway, this film doesn't really jive with the established film franchise, but that can be easily forgiven since the later films have been terrible. I understand that this is supposed to be the start of a new trilogy of films. I hope that the sequels don't falter like the last X-men trilogy.

X-Men: First Class won't win any awards in the writing department, but is well produced and well acted. Definitely solid entertainment.
7.5/10

Supernatural (Anime) Episode 1+2.

The Alter Ego

This series starts with a creepy man sharpening a knife. There’s a woman tied up in the background. The old man claims to be her husband ‘Zack’ and promptly stabs her thirteen times.

Next, we finally see Sam and Dean driving the Impala talking about the case. Apparently the murderer could be in two places at once, and there have been cases like this in the past two years. Doesn’t take much to realize that the old man is a shape shifter. (I much prefer skinwalker like in the original show.)

Anyway, Sam and Dean, and the hot female detective of the week visits the scene of the crime. The female accidentally cuts her finger on the door frame. (THIS IS IMPORTANT) The female establishes that she was a friend of the murdered wife from the start. The two brothers find a trail of blood leading to the sewers. Sam asks “How can he leave a trail of blood like this?” I want to know how the cops missed this.

The brothers head to the sewers to pursue Zack. They get ambushed by the shape shifter. Sam wakes up tied up and sees the shapeshifter Dean.  It isn’t the real Dean because the real Dean just received a shoulder injury. Through the power of exposition, FakeDean says that he resents Sam had a normal life while he had to hunt with Dad who leaves without a word. When FakeDean leaves announcing his plan to attack the hot female, real Dean wakes up. He frees himself and slings around on his injured shoulder as if it wasn’t injured. I guess that plot point wasn’t important huh. 

Real Dean goes to the female’s apartment. Turns out the shape shifter kidnapped her and took her form. Dean identifies this by the lack of a cut on her finger. She escapes. 

Sam and Dean drives on the road when suddenly Dean pulls a gun onto Sam while driving on a busy highway. “I know you’re not Sam. You think I don’t know my own brother?” Sam claims that Dean is the fake. They fight each other (while the car is still going) but Sam ultimately gets the gun.

At this point, we see realSam walk into a busy highway holding his gun towards the Impala. He fires and the car dramatically stops inches away from hitting realSam. fakeSam shape shifter is dead. The story effectively ends here.

I’m just aghast at the thought of Dean deciding to out fakeSam while driving on a busy road. That’s not even the worst crime. He decided to have a conversation while holding a gun to fakeSam’s face while driving. This is a level of stupid that I can’t handle. It wasn’t like Dean was trying to press for information. All he says is that he knows Sam is a fake and that he knows he’s a shapeshifter. You could be doing that while parked or inside the hotel. Instead he needlessly endangers the rest of the people on the road by pulling this stunt.

Why is RealSam on the highway miles away from the building anyway? How did he know that the Impala was coming when the road is completely packed? It doesn’t make sense. 

As a pilot, the Live Action version is much, much better. It was able to set up the story in terms of the Yellow-Eye Demon / backstory more coherently. Here, we get flashes of scenes that will probably be explained in future episodes. One of the strengths of Supernatural is the ability to explain the actions or motivations of the monsters in a realistic way. What was the shapeshifter’s plan? Torment women? He left the Female alive. What was his plan in the apartment when he was acting like her? At no point in the story am I able to see a rational plan from the shapeshifter. The original show had the benefit of using 42 minutes to tell the story so I guess it is only fair I view the next episode too.

Roadkill

There’s not much to say here. The episode is almost an exact remake of the episode Roadkill from Season 2, Episode 16. I just want to comment that Dean is a terrible driver. Once again he swerves and almost hits a target. At one point Sam says that the most important thing is to take Molly away from the forest. Sam and Dean then continue to explore the haunted house. Good going, Sam

.

In the original, there was an accident which occurred 15 years ago. Molly accidentally kills Greely with her car. She also died. Greely’s wife was so distraught that she commits suicide after burying Greely. It is a custom for folks to plant a tree with the dead. Similar thing happens in the anime except that there’s multiple photographs of (an adult) tree. Sam comments on one photo and that’s how they realize where the body is buried. But wait a minute, how can there be photos of an adult tree when it was planted fifteen years ago? That means that Mrs. Greely must have stuck around for years after her husband died. Her suicide must have been recent. Unfortunately, the appearance of Mrs. Greely’s ghost matches the ones before her husband died. This means that she killed herself soon after. What if she did survive for years? This wouldn’t make sense because for the last 14 years, she would have seen Molly run through the woods into her cabin asking for help. What’s going on here?

Another change in the story is that Mrs. Greely also haunts the road after her suicide. At one point she drags Molly into the river and tries to choke her out. Sam jumps into the river to try and save her while Dean disposes of the body. Why would Sam jump into the river to save a ghost from a ghost? When Mrs. Greely is destroyed, he showed concern over Molly telling her to breathe. I want to make it clear that Sam knows that she’s a ghost. Molly’s a ghost. She can’t die again. She doesn’t even breathe.

David (Molly’s husband) mentions in the anime that she was cremated. According to the lore, cremated bones can’t have ghosts. Ugh.

After the credits of the episode, Sam freaks out and we see a tease into the history of the characters.

Bottom Line.

I’m not impressed with the anime. While Jared Padalecki reprises the voice of Sam Winchester, Dean is portrayed by an other actor. I think having only half the cast actually makes it worse. I don’t want to be reminded that Dean isn’t actually Dean. :/ I feel like if they spent any time reviewing the show that they would realize the mistakes in lore or logic.