Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Act of Valor

Firstly, it really should be Acts of Valor, because it’s not singular. There’s more than one person doing it, and the team does more than one. But anyhow, that’s beside the point. Guess what Evan and I watched this Tuesday? No, it wasn’t The Silent Overture (that was playing at The Plaza, and if you missed it – like we did – then you missed out). Instead, Evan and I watched a navy SEAL recruitment video that happened to play at the local megaplex.

Trailers this week were for Safe, GI Joe, The Bourne Legacy, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Lockout, which I mistakenly called as Lockdown. Whoops. I won for Lincoln and Legacy, Evan got GI Joe, and we tied on Safe (the trailer started off with a picture of a safe, so it’s not like we were going with anything else).

The movie itself starts off slowly, with men bonding. Frankly, I could have used a bit less bonding, and bit more SEALing, but that’s just me. Then we get introduced to a terrorist, who blows up a school to get at a diplomat. So we know he’s bad, because he HURTS KIDS! After that, there’s a CIA informant who’s captured, and the SEAL team gets called on to rescue her. Following a debrief, we get an insertion, some tension, and then a bullet-filled extraction.

That action scene is particularly well done. We get some first-person shots looking down the sights of whatever combat rifles they use (M-16s?) and computerized shots from an overhead drone, controlled by the SEAL team leader. The rest of them (except for the sniper) head in and do business, but their extraction is thwarted, so they make their own. Lots of gunfire ensues, until they’re backed up by gunboats and helicoptered out of there.

Information from the raid (the grabbed a cellphone) leads them to a terror plot that seems aimed at the American economy, but I doubt would have that much impact in real life. Regardless, the team (the same one? Do they only have one on station at any time) has to do some globe trotting to stop it. Some gunfights ensue, but they’re a bit harder to follow than the first one. That one was probably the pinnacle of the movie, although there is a longer shootout at the end of the movie.

This movie was like watching a 2 hour episode of Burn Notice, only with SEALs instead of ex-spies. Team goes in, we see some realistic stuff, bad things happen, team follows plot, team has large action scene at the climax. Evan was uncomfortable with the whole jingoism of the movie (the military is depicted as perfect), but I managed to ignore it since it’s what happens on TV most of the time.

There was a giant cliché that I really didn’t like, but they needed it for the framing device. A lot of the dialogue felt really forced, especially the bonding scenes (but that's probably because they used real SEAL members as actors). Yes, we get it, these guys are friends even when they’re not blowing stuff up. But I’d never say some of those things to my friends. I’d say them way more realistically.

The music was pretty good. The fight scenes were good, if occasionally confusing. There wasn’t a whole lot of humour, because you can’t ask military guys to have comedic timing. One or two laughs, but that’s about it. Still, if you can get past that, and the stilted dialogue, there’s a good movie in here, filled with all sorts of real-world tactics. And that’s about all that I asked. Blu-Ray movie for me, but others might not be so accepting of the American armed forces.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Ghost Rider

Yesterday was Family Day, a statutory holiday. Evan suggested we see a matinee. What better way to celebrate your family than by ignoring them completely and going to see Ghost Rider? Okay, there are several (hundred) better ways, but we decided on that.

Evan schooled me in the preview game. I got one, he got four, and I shall now erase it from my memory. I'm pretty sure Act of Valor, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Battleship were involved, but I can't remember much else.

Anyway, the movie opened with four studio logos. I'm always a little wary of that, since it seems a bit like too many cooks in the kitchen. It doesn't really apply, though, since there's only one director. But it does mean that the chances for executive meddling are exponentially greater (or possibly, only geometrically greater. Maybe proportionally greater. I'm not sure).

After the logos, we get some nifty painting-esque images and a narration of how the Ghost Rider came to be. Deal with the Devil, Devil lied (really? Who would've guessed?) and now Johnny Blaze is cursed (with Awesome!)

Whenever he's around evil (particularly at night) he tends to lose control and burst into flame, and the Ghost Rider comes out. He can't control the Rider, who will go after anyone who's done any evil (according to the Bible, that's pretty much all of us. Except for this one guy who seems to be important. He died, though. And got better).

Anyway, there's a child (Danny) kept in a monastery. It's attacked by armed thugs, and the monks fight back (because they've all been combat trained. Which denomination is that, and where do I sign up? Being a Baptist never got me access to firearms. Except once) and it's almost no use. The monks are killed, but Danny escapes with his mother. They're pursued (there it is again) by Moreau, who wants to help them, and by a bunch of bad guys, who want to kidnap Danny. Moreau and the kidnappers take care of each other, leaving the boy and his mother to go free.

Then the title screen comes up, with narration by Nicolas Cage. Normally I don't like narration (usually because it's just redundant), but I don't think I mind when Nic Cage does it. He's just that good. Or quirky.

Moreau is miraculously saved (perhaps literally) and goes off to find Johnny Blaze to track Danny and keep him safe for a few days, after which his church order will free Blaze from his curse. Beelzebub sends his rather well-armed goons after Danny and his mother for some reason or other. We find out later that he'll transfer his power to Danny, erasing Danny's soul and taking over his body, and becoming way more powerful. God may have something to say about that, but God is strangely silent in this movie.

Anyway, wacky hijinks ensue. Well, incredible stunts, giant machines on fire (Ghost Rider can make any machine he's using - cars, motorcycles, construction equipment - light on fire), and unnecessary camera work. It spins a lot more than it needs to. Mind you, it's from the makers of Crank, so it shakes a lot more than it needs to as well. It's all very kinetic.

Anyway, it was better than I'd feared, but not really as good as it's potential. Nic Cage was pretty good. I mean, some people can do crazy (Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys), but only Nic Cage can do CAAARRRRAAAAAAZZZZZZYYYYYY! There's one scene of him on a motorcycle, where you get his parts of his face changing into and out of skull form. It lasts for quite a while, and he's grinning and laughing maniacally the whole time.

The other actor's are fine. Danny wasn't too bad (as some kids would be in that type of role), and Ciaran Hinds is always ... creepy. Especially since they gave his eye an exploded blood vessel.

All in all, a Blu-Ray movie. The acting was good, the special effects were cool (although I don't think there were enough of them), there was more humour than I thought. The music was not great. It didn't add to movie, and I wouldn't want to listen to any of it outside the theatre. But if you can get past that, and the total and utter ridiculousness of the basic premise and plot, it's a decent dose of entertainment.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Safe House

So, this past Monday, in the midst of a snow … not storm, precisely, but there was an awful lot of it … well, we went to see Safe House. We tied the trailer game, although I’m willing to concede the week to Evan since I think he started saying Battleship a split-second before me, but I got it out faster. Besides that, Evan got 21 Jump Street, I got GI Joe, he got Project X, and I got Bourne.

After two studio logos (Universal and Relativity), the movie started with shots of Cape Town, in South Africa (for those of us who are geographically challenged). Then we follow Ryan Reynolds (Matt) and Denzel Washington (Frost) as they go about their separate days. Matt has a very boring job but has to lie to his girlfriend because he works at the CIA, watching over a Safe House (something we’ve all heard about in action movies and spy books, but which tend to get glossed over). Frost has a meeting with a traitor in MI:5, and then has to evade pursuit from some mercenaries (by the way, if you hadn’t noticed by now, pursuit is just about my favourite word in reviews right now, slightly edging out awesomeness).

Frost can’t get away, and continues to get shot at and chased until he escapes into the US consulate. From there, he’s taken to the Safe House that Matt looks after. We also get some shots of the CIA base back in Langley, Virginia, where Matt’s patron (Brendan Gleeson) and his rival (Vera Farmiga) are working.

Things spin out of control when the Safe House is attacked, and a lot of shaky-cam ensues as Frost tries to escape, both from the killers and from Matt, who needs to take him to another Safe House.

Plot threads are unravelled, and minor people are killed, and there are good people who’re actually bad, and bad people who’re actually good, and then bad again (wha?) and a more shaky-cam.

This movie tries to go the realistic route, which isn’t a bad idea. It just made me realize that I enjoy a lot more ridiculous in my movies. Take the A-Team, for instance. Ludicrously over-the-top, but I like it a lot more than Safe House. Sure, Safe House plays injuries as a real thing (people go into shock, mumble unintelligibly, and then die), and it even has gunshots being accurately loud (I don’t think real people understand how loud a gunshot in an enclosed space is), but being real tends to take the fun out of it.

I try to give movies extra points for trying something new, but that’s usually for a stunt I’ve never seen before, not for verisimilitude. The shaky-cam did not help. I know it’s supposed to put us in the middle of the action, but actually being in the middle of the action would be quite a bit different than a shaky-cam. Our brains interpret data like that differently that what you can project on a movie screen. So please, just get rid of the shaky-cam. Not that any movie producer will ever do that, because a shaky-cam will (possibly) cover up the fact that there’s actually very little action, or terribly choreographed action, just badly done action.

I did like that instead of just wondering about one person’s loyalty, we got to wonder about which sides each member of the cast is on. It’s just too bad that they set up some of the actors too well, so we could almost say, half an hour before it is was shown, “Oh, that person is actually good; this person is actually bad.”

All told, it’s a DVD movie. There is some action, and the invasion-to-car chase is actually quite good. But the rest of it goes downhill. Yes, bonus points for realistically portraying things other movies don’t. I’m sure that appealed to some subset of critics who like that type of thing. But not me. I demand more ridiculous.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Underworld Awakening - Evan's Take

I am going to keep it three for three and put up a review of the latest installment of the Underworld franchise. So, let's do this!

We actually had a bevy of movies to choose from this week since we could have gone to "Chronicle", "The Grey" or "Red Tails"...We didn't even get a chance to skip the Gina Carano vehicle "Haywire" because it looks like everyone else beat us to skipping it already. (Who is Gina Carano? She is an attractive MMA fighter that they tried to make into a movie star...and failed miserably). Instead, we decided to check out Kate Beckinsale in Underworld Awakening. I like to think of the Underworld movies as movies about vampires and werewolves that AREN'T super lame...and no glitter.

I am a pretty big fan of the Underworld franchise (except for Rise of the Lycans...I just don't think Michael Sheen has enough star power to carry en entire movie) and I was excited to see that Kate Beckinsale had returned to reprise her role as Selene. These movies are all stylish and dark and like most good action movies, spend lots of time and money on really cool action sequences. I was a little disappointed when the movie started explaining that the vampires and the lycans (werewolves) were now being hunted by the humans and I thought that the plot was going to progress to the point that the vampires and the werewolves would have to join forces to fight off the humans...and that just didn't really appeal to me. For some reason, it felt like I was watching Blade II where Wesley Snipes joins forces with the vampires to fend off a greater evil. Plus, they are just people...you are badass vampires!!! It's not even a fair fight and the vampires were losing for crying out loud!

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was wrong about the plot because this movie takes a crazy and unexpected left turn and proceeds to plow ahead at a frenetic pace. This is because there is no shortage of action in this movie...the final scene alone feels like it is about 45 minutes of non stop action as we cut between four different fight scenes that are all happening at the same time. I will also say that this movie earns it's "R" rating...and that is saying something for a movie with no nudity or coarse language. The action in this movie is brutal, gory and AWESOME! I squirmed at least five different times watching people get maimed and killed in a variety of ways. Great fun! (It's a movie...I can have fun with that stuff at the movies...)

All in all, I would say this is a solid addition to the Underworld movies. I did find that it started a little slow but I will chalk that up to them explaining the story (12 years happened between the end of the second movie and the start of this one) and setting up the misdirection for the plot line. Once this movie gets going, it turns into a wild ride which fans of the first three Underworld movies will surely enjoy. If you don't like the Underworld movies, or are expecting cinematic masterpieces, then this isn't for you. Maybe you would enjoy crappier Vampire and Werewolf movies.

I will give it four decapitated lycans out of five...that sounds about right.

Underworld: Awakening

Last night, Evan and I went to see Underworld: Awakening. I always get the subtitles of these movies mixed up with Resident Evil (I know. “You can you mix those two up?” You say to yourself. “Resident Evil is action/horror from Screen Gems about zombies, and Underworld is action/horror from Screen Gems about vampires! They’re completely different!”) Maybe it’s that they all tend to have subtitles that are one word starting with a vowel. Apocalypse, Evolution, Extinction, Afterlife, Awakening. Rise of the Lycans and Retribution broke the trend, but I would not be surprised to see Resident Evil: Ovulation or Underworld: Ululate in 2014.

In the preview game, Evan got The Hunger Games right off the bat (in the future, people will apparently be fine with watching murder on TV. Everything set in the future agrees with this), so I had to lay the smack down. I got Cabin in the Woods, The Raven, Ghost Rider, and one more that I can’t remember. Evan complained. I gloated.

The movie starts with flashbacks to the previous three (possibly just the first two) movies, while Selene (Kate Beckinsale, still as good as ever) narrates what happened. Then we cut to a series of news-ish shots as humanity discovered the existence of vampires and werewolves (sorry, Lycans) and does what humanity does best – wages war. Then we cut to live action (and 3D!) as Selene has to escape the teams that humanity has sent out to hunt down the non-human species. She does this in a series of pretty awesome stunts, as well as jumping off a lot of really high things (it’s been established that she can survive pretty much any fall. Which is doubly impressive, because she does it in what I can only describe as high-heel combat boots.

She makes her way to the docks, where Michael (her boyfriend and hybrid vampire-lycan) waits. They plan on fleeing to whatever the remotest part of the world is. Unfortunately, the docks are being staked out, and they both end up getting knocked out and captured.

Selene awakens upside down, frozen in a block of ice in a lab, somewhere. She’s also getting visions from the viewpoint of whatever or whoever woke her up. She manages to break free of the ice, and stumbles over to her combat suit (conveniently stored in the lab, right beside her). She puts it on right as security starts gassing her room, and now she has to escape from that, too. Does she do it? Of course she does. In the coolest manner possible? Of course she does.

From there, the plot kicks off, introducing new characters and their relationship to Selene, Vampires, or just society in general. There’s an inexplicably helpful cop (actually, the reason may have just been unstated. Subtlety? Really?) and a few more vampires and lycans, and we see how that goes. There are guns that need strangely little reloading, a bladed (and curvy) tonfa, silver bullets, UV-bullets, silver nitrate gas, and grenades. There are wicked awesome stunts, and a car chase scene that made me flinch because I forgot I was wearing 3D glasses.

The movie is pretty awesome. It’s possible I’m overstating that because it exceeded my expectations. There is a lot of blood and gore, but it’s awesome! The music is fairly good. It punches up action scenes to make them more frenetic. And action scenes make up most of this movie. It doesn’t slow down a whole lot.

There are a few things bad with this movie. Sometimes the acting isn’t terribly good. But if you’re going to this for the acting, you’re doing movies wrong. There’s a young girl who gets all creepy, like the girl from The Ring gone terribly, terribly wrong (or right). Children in horror movies are all creepy. Horror should be reserved for adults (and scantily clad teens, but that’s a given).

All in all, I think I’d go as far as saying this is a theatre movie. It’s pretty much all action, and the stunts are wicked-awesome. This is the rare movie that actually better than its predecessors. Not that that’s too hard (given its pedigree), but it’s still a really cool action movie.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Space Travel

I like math. Or (I should clarify), I like numbers. At higher levels, maths gets all weird and incomprehensible, and that's about the point that I give up. But at lower levels, math is still about the numbers, and so that's what I like.

For sports stuff, I've been reading a lot of Grantland, and they have two guys that do numbers. Bill Barnwell does a good job of breaking down football numbers (and why most teams should go for it on fourth and short. Coaches don't do that often because they're scared of getting fired more than they want to win); while Sebastian Pruiti does incredible things with basketball numbers and graphics. Seriously, I'm there's just a ton of data about how well a players does in specific situations (coming off a pick and roll, taking a pass without a dribble in the post). I knew that there were some numbers like shooting percentages, but the fact they can be broken down so much pretty cool.

Also, I've been playing through the Mass Effect series - partly because it's awesome, but mostly because the next game (Mass Effect 3) comes out on March sixth, and it will undoubtedly blow my mind. I promise these paragraphs have something to do with each other. Honest.

In the Mass Effect universe (it takes place about 170 years in the future), humanity has expanded into the stars and met up with a bunch of alien races. Most technology is based around a weird thing called Element Zero, or Eezo for short. When electricity is passed through Eezo, it changes its mass. I know, that violates at least one law of physics, and probably a few more as well. Sure, it's Applied Phlebotinum, but whatever. Everything else is explained fairly well (and in some depth, too). Anyway, putting Eezo engines on ships and in Mass Relays (huge devices scattered throughout the galaxy) has enabled faster than light travel. We can zip from one side of the galaxy to the other in a few short second.

This is a bit different than the FTL drives in Star Wars and Star Trek. Star Wars has a hyperdrive, which seems to be like the engine in a car. The better then engine, the faster it goes through hyperspace. Star Trek uses Warp Speed, which is based on some sort of logarithmic scale, except that Warp 10 is infinity (or so I heard. It was in Voyager, and I watched that episode a long time ago and didn't pay too much attention).

These three universes all tend to portray FTL travel as normal, which is fine as long as you work out the physics. And control gravity. See, to get up to lightspeed, you'd need to accelerate to lightspeed. Do you know how long that would take? Sure, you could go from zero to lightspeed in a matter of seconds, but your crew would be red smears on the back of your ship, which may or may not have survived the stresses. The human body can only survive so much acceleration before it gives up and dies. Most fictional universes have some sort of inertial compensator (both Star Wars and the Honor Harrington universe both explicitly mention these), but in real life, we don't.

Imagine for a moment that lightspeed was no barrier, but all other physics were in place. That we could go as fast as we wanted, provided we could get achieve that velocity conventionally. Alpha Centauri is roughly four light years away. To get there, we'd need to accelerate until we were halfway there, and then turn the ship around and start to brake.

That is, unless you put engines on the front of your ship as well. And designed the interior ceilings to also be floors (and vice-versa). Acceleration would provide the gravity. I'm just going to go ahead and ignore the nearly-weightless part where we turn the ship around, because it would play havoc with whatever direction we wanted our feet to go (for instance, unless it was a carefully controlled burn centered around a point in front of the ship, the gravity would vary wildly depending on where in the ship you were).

Now, I'm going to go ahead and say that we'd want gravity on our ship to be the same on earth, so we'd be accelerating at 9.81 m/s² until we had to turn around. At that rate, it would take about 4 years to get to Alpha Centauri. It's 4 lightyears away, and it takes quite a while to get there, even with constant acceleration (by the way, our velocity when we turned around would be a little over twice the speed of light). Even if we got up to two gravities of acceleration, it would still take about 2 years and 9 months to get there. Time is inversely proportional to the square root of acceleration, so to cut the time in half, we'd have to quadruple the acceleration. It would still take us two years to get there at four gravities, and I'd hate to think of the effect that would have on our bodies. Two years at four times our weight? We'd be dead when we got there.

Here's a picture of the nearest stars to earth. In a 15 light year radius, there are a number of stars. Of course, to go 15 light years safely (accel of one gravity) would take 7.6 years. We could colonize it, but trade? Impossible. And since information would either be passed by light (15 years), or by ship (~7.5 years), communication would be next to impossible.

Our galaxy is around 110,000 light years across. To cross it safely would take over 650 years! If galactic space travel were possible, it's not the velocity that would kill exploration. It's the acceleration.