Author: Shmee

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I Liked Half Of Pacific Rim: Uprising…

I was blown away by the first Pacific Rim.  It was big and dumb and I couldn’t stop smiling when I watched it.  Pacific Rim: Uprising is also big and dumb, but it misses the heart of the first movie.  Which is a shame, because the movie has a promising start, but then somewhere someone decided that the second half the movie had to be a pointless monster fight, and while Pacific Rim is a movie series about giant robots fighting giant monsters, apparently the writers must have had a contest for the dumbest reason for this fight because it defies all logical explanation.

Pacific Rim 2 takes place ten years after the events of the first movie, and the world has obviously changed.  People are rebuilding after the attacks, and the Jaeger program is struggling to continue to have relevance.  Meanwhile, Jaeger tech is booming on the black market as people try to build their own massive robots.  A post Kaiju world is an interesting one.  Sadly, the movie doesn’t continue to explore this, and instead has a series of increasingly dumb things happen until some robots fight some monsters.

I would have loved Pacific Rim: Uprising if had just extended the first part of the movie to a logical conclusion (or at least a more logical one).  While I may have suggested the writers had some sort of terrible contest to decide the ending, I am guessing there was actually more than a little executive interference that demanded a monster v robot fight like the one we got, and the writers had to figure out how to make it work.  Which is what makes this all so aggravating.  Had the whole thing been bad, I wouldn’t have been as upset, but there were some good ideas here that just got squandered.

I am guessing you can tell that I was disappointed with how Pacific Rim: Uprising turned out, but if you like the first movie, the second one is worth a rental, or if you are MoviePass subscriber like me, there are worse movies.  The robots and the monsters are still cool, even if the reason they are fighting is not.  Let’s hope Pacific Rim 3 learns the right lesson’s from Uprising.

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My Take On All This Far Cry 5 Nonsense!

The game that has been all over the media these days has been Far Cry 5, and it seems that people either think it is the best game in the series, or the worst one.  What seems to be swaying people one way or the other is how they respond to the main story.  The marketing made it seem like it would tackle America’s hot button issues, but the actual game goes out of its way not to say anything about anything, and since this is a Far Cry game, this shouldn’t have surprised anyone.  Top brass isn’t going to take a chance offending anyone’s political or religious beliefs with a game this big.  They need Far Cry 5 to move a lot of copies to keep the company in the black.

However, I do understand that this can be disappointing.  Especially to players from United States.  To use our problems as marketing, and then not say anything about them is a tough pill to swallow.  It would have been nice to have a major game have an actual point of view.  Any point of view.  Even one a lot of people disagree with, but apparently Far Cry 5 goes out its way to not have one.

Does the Seed family’s religious symbology look a lot like that used by white nationalist extremists? Yes, but the Seeds have multiple African Americans in their ranks, so it is just a coincidence the imagery looks similar I guess?  Do they Seeds seem to worship guns? Yep, but they are being taken down by a bunch of gun loving rednecks all around them.  It almost makes people wonder how the Seeds took over in the first place.  Oh, they are drugging people.  Sure, that is fine.  So it is cool if I, as the player, murder a bunch of drugged up people?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯   There doesn’t seem to be an alternative.

Here is the rub.  All Far Cry games are zany and crazy, but this time the craziness has hit our shores, and the story is just an excuse to let loose in Montana with a rocket launcher and a weaponized bear.  If you are okay with that, apparently Far Cry 5 is great.  If the use of current political goings-on for cool posters makes you a little teed off, maybe skip this one, but at least now we know how Bolivia felt when Ghost Recon: Wildlands hypothesized what it would be like if their country was run by a Mexican drug cartel (they threated legal action).

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Shmee Befriends The BFG!

Considering The BFG was directed by one of the most celebrated directors of our time, Steven Spielberg, and it was based off a book written by one of the greatest children’s authors of all time, Roald Dahl, you would have thought it would have been a sure fire hit.  Unfortunately for Disney it was a major box office disappointment, and in just two short years it has been all but forgotten.  Thankfully its lack of success is not a measure of its quality.  The BFG is a fun family film, and one all ages should enjoy.

Like 99% of all Dahl’s books, The BFG is about an orphan.  In this case a young girl named Sophie (Ruby Barnhill).  She can’t sleep due to her insomnia, so she spends her nights taking care of her orphanage because the woman in charge of the establishment is incompetent.  One night after her rounds she sees something through the window.  It is a giant (Mark Rylance), and it snatches her away.  As you can guess by the title of the film it is probably not a spoiler that Sophie is just fine despite being kidnapped, and that she is probably better off with the giant than in the orphanage.  Even if all the other giants do want to eat her.

The BFG is quintessential Spielberg youthful adventure, and screenwriter Melissa Mathison (she also wrote E.T.) chose lighten up Dahl’s book, so the movie is more fun than scary.  Which is probably for the best, since Dahl’s dark take on the world doesn’t always transition well from page to screen, or at least without terrifying younger viewers.  With Mathison’s version, my three year old got a little nervous in a few parts, but for most part enjoyed everything she was witnessing, as did her parents.

This movie is pretty much about two main characters, Sophie and The BFG, and Barnhill and Rylance do a wonderful job.  Their chemistry is great.  Which is pretty amazing considering Barnhill is having to interact with a large CGI giant.  They must have had Rylance up on stilts or something so that Barnhill could interact with him properly.  Regardless of how it was done, kudos to a young actor for pulling off something so difficult.

Now to the one shortfall of this film.  The CGI.  While sometimes it is impressive, for the most part it just looks cartoony and falls hard in to the uncanny valley.  I am sure the trailers of the iffy CGI giant is one of the major reasons audiences didn’t show up for this film.  Which is a shame.  So few true family films come out, so it would have been nice for this film to succeed and encourage more movies like The BFG to be made.

The BFG is now on Netflix, and it is well worth watching on family movie night, or if you are standing in front of a Redbox wondering what to watch.  If there is one thing Spielberg knows how to do, it is direct a family adventure movie, and he doesn’t disappoint here.  It is not a hard hitting drama, or a massive spectacle, but it is sweet and fun, and for most families, that should be more than enough reason to watch The BFG.

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Things That Sea Of Thieves Needs!

It is no secret that Sea of Thieves is a little bare bones right now.  The sailing, exploring, and fighting are all great, but after a while you have kind of seen it all.  Here are a few quick things they could add to liven things up a bit.

1: An Arena Mode

A lot of pirates out there just want to fight, so why not let them.  Have a vender set up where you can pay a little for an entry to battle other crews for the enjoyment of others.  Then take the entrants to a smaller map with just a couple of islands to have ships dart around, and loaded with bananas and cannon balls, so they can send pirates out to scavenge while that battle rages.  When it is all over the winner takes home a hefty prize and bragging rights.  Then allow people to spectate from the islands and place wagers

2: More Complex Sea Warfare

Right now you can only fire two things from cannons.  Yourself and standard cannon balls.  Just by adding a couple more shot types this could get so much more fun.  Grape shot to take out other crews while leaving the other boat intact to try and steal their loot, chain shot to take down enemy masts and slow them down, or harpoons to pull in other boats or take down sharks.  More variety would make ship to ship combat way more fun, and give people more stuff to scavenge off islands.

3: Parley/Safe Harbor

Always looking over your shoulder for other pirates is half the fun of Sea of Thieves right now, but there is no good way of just meeting up with other crews and hanging out.  If there was an island you could go to chill and talk to other crews that would be pretty cool.  Even cooler if this was something players could set up.  Maybe they could buy ravens and send them out asking for parley and setting a location, then other crews could accept or deny the request.

4: More Life Like NPCs

The only NPCs in the game are shop keeps, which I understand, but it makes the world of Sea of Thieves seem lifeless.  There needs to be more people to make this feel like a real place.  Maybe just a couple of pirates drinking and singing songs in the bar, or a couple guys wandering about.  Maybe they could even give you special quests for rare items if you listen to their tales.

I want to like Sea of Thieves.  It has the bones of a game I want to get lost in, but right now it just needs more.  More of everything.  The quick fixes above would go a long way to making things feel more fleshed out.

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The Honest Trailers For Every Wes Anderson Movie Is Amazing!

Wes Anderson is kind of low hanging fruit for this sort of thing.  I mean he knows he makes movies with the same emotional beats, imagery, and story lines over and over, but we love him for it anyway.  It is just what he does.  However, Honest Trailers completely knocks it out of the park with this video.  It was all I could do to keep from crying I was laughing so hard.  Honest Trailers is usually pretty funny, but this is one of their best.  Obviously you will need to have seen a few Wes Anderson movies to truly appreciate it, but if you are fan of his work like I am, it is a must watch.