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LEGO Ninjago Was Just A Few Bricks Short…

When Warner Brothers and LEGO went looking for a third property to turn in to a feature film I am sure Ninjago made a lot of sense.  The sets are already very popular with kids (especially boys), and the TV show on Cartoon Network is still going strong after seven seasons.  The problem is that LEGO Ninjago still feels like something made for TV, and it doesn’t do a lot of the things that made the previous LEGO movies so good.

The main character Lloyd (Dave Franco) is the leader of the elite Secret Ninja Mech squad that fights off the evil Lord Garmadon’s (Justin Theroux) attacks.  However, Lloyd is also Lord Garmadon’s son, but since his identity is secret everyone hates him at school for being Garmadon’s son instead of being loved for saving the day … pretty much every day.

Teenage superhero kid with a rough home life is a pretty common theme, but it is played for some decent laughs in LEGO Ninjago.  Unfortunately the laughs don’t come often enough, and worse I am not sure the makers of this movie saw the other two movies.  Two of the fun selling points from The LEGO Movie and LEGO Batman are missing.  The integration of other sets, and the Master Builder mythos.  LEGO Ninjago is completely its own thing.  There is never a Batman, Voldemort or Eye of Sauron in sight, and the characters barely ever build anything.  This is 100% a Ninjago movie, except it changes a lot of things from the TV show, so that way hardcore fans of the series are confused too.

On the plus side the movie still looks great, and LEGO movies are still probably your best bet for a kid friendly action flicks.  The graphical engine they use to make these films continues to pump out on screen wonders.  Sadly, they just make me wish they were using them on another LEGO Movie or another LEGO Batman, or if they were going to do Ninjago, why not integrate it in to the existing world.

I have been kind of hard on LEGO Ninjago, but it was actually a fine movie.  It is just that fine after two home runs (well maybe a home run and a triple) is a little disappointing.  Though if my daughter is anything to go by, your kids will love it, and you will not hate your time watching it, so it is an okay family movie night choice, but the other two LEGO movies are better ones.

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Shmee Visits Skull Island And Sees Kong!

It seems like every decade or so someone gets the bright idea to make another King Kong movie, but this time they decided that it would make sense to put Kong in the same universe as Godzilla.  While the King of the Apes doesn’t go head to head with the King of the Monsters in Kong: Skull Island it definitely plants the seeds for that epic mashup which happens May 2020 after the next Godzilla movie next year.  With all that crossover business behind us, the question becomes is Kong: Skull Island good by itself? Yup, it is a fine popcorn movie, but I doubt it will become your favorite movie.

Kong: Skull Island begins at the end of the Vietnam War when John Goodman convinces a Senator to let him take a helicopter squadron and a bunch of scientists to an uncharted island.  He hopes there will be monsters there.  Guess what? He is right, and they find Kong who isn’t happy to see them.

The story is fine, but it is pretty much an excuse to have a cool scene with a lot of helicopters fighting King Kong while blaring awesome 70’s music.  Which is something I can get behind!  It is a pretty epic fight, and then after that a bunch of monsters slowly reduce the survivors to a fraction of their original number.  I know it sounds like I am giving away spoilers, but this is what Legendary and Warner Brothers promised us with their marketing, and they delivered.

There are a ton of people in this movie, but for the most part just the pretty ones, John Goodman, Samuel L. Jackson, and John C. Reilly matter.  On top of that only John C. Reilly seems to know he is in a cheesy monster movie.  Everyone else must have been told they were making the Kong version of Apocalypse Now.  Reilly makes this flick better every time he is on the screen.  Other people mostly provide excitement when they get eaten or smashed.

Even if you haven’t seen the new Godzilla or care about yet other shared universe, Kong: Skull Island is a decent movie on its own.  If you do care about those things, it is fun to see all the Easter Eggs for future films littered around.  Kong: Skull Island should be hitting streaming services soon, and there are worse films to spend a couple of hours with.  I enjoyed myself.  Just make sure to forward your way through the credits for one final King Kong vs Godzilla teaser.

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Shmee Takes A Listen To The Thrustmaster Ghost Recon Wildlands Y-350x Headset!

Thanks to the one and only Major Nelson, I got a new headset at PAX West 2017.  The Ghost Recon Wildlands Y-350x Headset for Xbox One and PC.  Over all it has been a nice upgrade from my Microsoft Stereo headset.  Thanks to their deep base from the 60mm over ear drivers and 7.1 virtual surround sound.  Though so far the best part is the memory foam padding keeping my ears from hurting during those long play times.  While all this sounds great, there are some drawbacks.

First up, to keep these headphones from draining the controller’s battery too quickly, Thrustmaster attached an inline power pack that you can charge separately.

The problem is now you always have this floppy thing attached to your controller, and it is always pulling your headset down.  I am not sure why they couldn’t have just made the control pad for the headset bigger, and hid the battery in that, since you can’t detach the two from each other anyway.  Speaking of the control pad, here is a look at it:

It is pretty easy to control once you get used to it, and the back lights are nice, but the problem is the back light doesn’t stay on for very long, so sometimes you have to push something real quick to turn on the back light before you can find the right setting.

The last annoyance is probably the biggest.  When you first turn on the Thrustmaster Y-350x’s there is audible hum/buzzing.  It is supper irritating.  Though once you give the headphones a slight workout the buzzing stops.  It is like they need to get a range of sound pushed through them to calibrate themselves.  Then they sound great.

All in all I like the sound and the bass these headphones are able to provided, but they are not perfect.  However, for the money they probably perform much better than other $150 headsets, and you can get them for as little as $100 if you look around.  With The Ghost Recon Wildlands Y-350x Headset you just got to learn to live with their little flaws.  Which is a shame because with a few design tweaks they could have been truly great, but since I got mine for free, who am I to complain?

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Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 2 Is Just As Great A Episode 1!

I know I didn’t technically review Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 1, but I did say its group play was one of the best things about PAX West 2017.  Episode 2 continues Telltale’s great work.  It has been so fun to watch them throw out certain parts of the Bat-cannon and replace it with their own.  The Telltale Batman universe is fascinating.  To see how so much has changed, but how much still stays the same.

Front and center with these new lore changes is Harley Quinn.  Episode 2 completely reimagines her relationship with Joker John Doe.  I want to know everything about how this new Harley ticks.  Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 2 also introduces a lot of other Bat-criminals, but I won’t spoil who shows up.  Though it is quite a list.  However, their changes don’t seem to be as major.

I was quite happy to see that the game runs better in Episode 2.  It was a rock solid 60 FPS the whole way through.  Not that you need that precision timing for a Telltale game, but so many of their other games can get so stutter-y that it takes you out of the story, so for at least with this chapter, everything looks great.

I am also curious what other choices I could have made.  I may have to play it again to see what I can screw up.  For now, I will just have to bide my time for Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 3, and it is teasing a reunion that I can’t wait to see play out.  I have said it before, and I will say it again.  Telltale should just do all the DC superheroes.  I would love to mess up their Justice League’s group dynamic!.