The Screaming Viking

If you are expecting something that is intellectually stimulating or makes you think of the world from a different perspective…you’ve either never seen a Stallone movie before or haven’t watched the trailers for this thing.  Going in to the expendables I was expecting to see a movie straight out of the 80′s action genre.  I wanted to see people die, shit get blown up, body parts fly and catchy one-liners…what we got was a 2hr review on everything that was bad with 80′s action flicks.

The best part of this movie was the beginning, not the beginning scene…no it was the moments right before that.  When you saw the ship on the ocean and the credits were rolling on the screen.  It was at that point that I was at the apex of anticipation…I was hoping for this movie to rival the “yippie kia a mother-f…” days of action.  Then I saw them…the thing that would dash all my hopes….the terrorists.  It isn’t that terrorists are bad in action movies, quite the opposite…they are vital to the genre as a whole.  Without the terrorist who would be blown to bits?  It was what the terrorists were doing that was lame.  They had hostages (of course), demanded money, said “you don’t care about your people so we are killing some…”  This was obviously designed to give you the impression they had already asked for money and give the “expendables” a reason to be there.  As expected our hero’s pop up over the edge of the ship and blow the hell out of everyone.  Apparently it was decided at some point that Jason Stathom would be a knife wielding stud, while stallone would work on his quick draw with a revolver.  Dolph Lundgren goes a little over board by trying to hang a pirate…so they decide to kick him off the team.  This was key for their “plot” I suppose, but it did miss out on one key element of the team action movie formula.  To have a successful action team you need characters so simple it’s best described by looking at the A-Team.  You need a brain, someone good looking, a tough guy, and comic relief.  They missed out on the unstable tough guy…sort of.

The next scene gives you that bad ass feeling as they are rolling in to their “hide out” on their bikes…some pretty kick ass looking choppers and then Stathom on a crotch rocket…

The tattoo shop they call home and the scene there in illustrates just how poorly thought out this flick was.  Stallone had a tattoo he was finishing up…which is fine it happens lots of times with big tats…they get done in pieces.  What did he need to finish?  Two letters…small letters…who the hell would stop with two letters left to go.  Then of course, following the tough guy mantra, Micky Rourke starts drawing on him with no gloves…blech.

It would be easy to break this movie down scene by scene and list everything that is wrong with it…but the main problem that runs all the way through it from beginning to end was the total lack of character development and chemistry.  We never got a feel for any of these characters or why we as an audience should be emotionally invested in them.  Why do I care if Stallone or Statham die?  We’ve seen the plot a million times, corrupt FBI agent, commie dictator…bunch of bullets and explosions…roll credits!

This movie felt like Stallone trying to capture some of his pop that he had while he was a big movie star.  He was involved in all the action sequences, tons of close ups…etc etc etc.  It seemed like the other guys just played bit parts to his lead.  Maybe the other guys are all bit actors, aside from Stathom, but it would have been nice to see them develop a little bit.  The only “alone time” Stathom got was when he showed up at his girl friend’s place to get dumped and again when he beat the hell out of some people for hitting her.

Overall, this movie should have gone straight to DVD…not just DVD…to the 5 buck DVD bin.  I’ve read online there is a sequel planned, hopefully they also plan on hiring some writers this time.  This was easily the worst movie I’ve seen all summer…and I took the kid to eclipse, if that gives you any idea how bad it was.

Happy Madden Holiday!

I haven’t been excited about a madden game coming out for years, probably since the first one or two I got on the original xbox.  I played 2k10 on the wii, and it’s obviously not the ultra high end versions available for xbox 360 and ps3 but it’s still fun to play.  The control is pretty interesting, the way they use the remote and so forth.  I’ll probably give the new one a try when it comes out.

Last night as soon as I came home from work I started cutting the grass.  It takes me about an hour by the time I do all the trimming.  It was hot yesterday, but I didn’t think it would be so bad…until I started pushing that mower around.  I wasn’t getting fatigued or anything like that…but I was sweating bullets.  Every few rounds I had to stop and wipe my forehead off to keep the sweat out of my eyes.  I usually sweat a bit, but not that much…was kinda weird.

Anyhow, I finish up and start screwing with the new bag I bought for the bike…the little girl comes out side with a piece of paper in her hand.  I saw her out of the corner of my eye but was focused on what I was doing…then she began to speak.  “listen to me entirely before you just say no” After that line, I figured it was either a movie, the dog park or someone staying over.  Those are really the only things she asks for on a regular basis.  This time it was a movie.  She starts looking at the paper she carried out, “I have a list of movies, the times they are playing and where they are playing at.  Can we go see one?”  She came organized and prepared…I’m good with that, she put some effort in to making the decision and gather information so we decided to go catch Despicable Me.

I’m not a huge fan of catching movies in the theater anymore.  The last one I went to that was worth the price was Inception, but before that I’d have to go back to Star Trek before that.  There are so many movies that just aren’t worth the 9 bucks/ticket + snacks.  I had a free ticket and some free pop corn thing…seemed like a good time to use them.  If I was going to pay for everything it would have run me 9+7+7=23 bucks for 1.5hrs of entertainment.  The price/value just isn’t there for me in that case.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this movie.  I’d seen previews but wasn’t interested at all.  After watching it, I can’t say that as an adult it’s a “must see” flick, but it is something that an adult can take their child to and watch and get a few laughs out of it.  To me it felt like a full length animated Spy vs Spy movie (remember that comic strip from MAD magazine?).  The drawing was really similar, the ideas and gadgets were crazy cartoony over the top and the two bad guys seemed like the black and white spies.

What really interests me about the movies like this are the background characters that do the screwy stuff.  In this movie there were the “minions” that were the background comic relief.  I can’t really explain the stuff they were doing, but it was your typical cartoon comic relief.  Some of the stuff was pretty funny, the only part that felt a little forced was when one of them was xeroxing his ass.  But it’s those scenes that will bring a smile to an adult’s face.  A child wouldn’t really understand the humor involved in xeroxing one’s ass…but adults may have done it and probably know someone who has and got a kick out of it.

There was also the option to watch this movie in 3D.  I didn’t think it was “shot” in 3D so it wasn’t worth the extra scratch.  There was only one scene in the amusement park that might have gained something from being in 3D.  I would almost bet that scene was an after thought when 3D became a way to get more money from flicks.

The story ends with a predictable story line to some extent.  It went a little further though in that it showed via flashbacks, which didn’t seem forced and flowed fairly naturally, that getting to the moon was this guys life long goal.  At the end, obviously the little girls melt his heart…blah blah blah.

If your kid is still in to cartoons, it’s worth letting them see…if they aren’t old enough to watch a flick themselves it’s quite tolerable for the adults.

EQ2 has gone free-to-play.  What that means is you get a watered down version of the game for nothing.  Something like this would be pretty cool for a casual gamer or someone who just wants to piss around by themselves.  Depending on the restrictions it sounds like a decent move for SOE as well.  I’m sure there market research has shown this will generate more money for them in the long run.  I was in to the original EQ pretty hardcore…I wasted years of my life in front of a computer screen.  It was my experience that SOE was full of a bunch of dickheads that really didn’t know what to do to keep the interest of their fan base.

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????Another premium MMORPG is testing the free-to-play waters. Soon Sony Online Entertainment will be launching a service called “EverQuest II Extended” (EQ2X) that allows you to enjoy EQ2 without paying for a subscription.

“What does ‘free-to-play’ mean? It means that you can download the game and play all of it (except the most recent expansion) all the way up to level 80,” said senior produce Dave Georgeson on the game’s forums. “Your character is restricted in a bunch of different ways (limited class selection, limited races, limited coin, etc.) and to unlock those features fully, you’ll need to subscribe to Gold level membership. Which, coincidentally, is $15/month. Sound familiar?”

EQ2X also features a “more robust” marketplace than the regular EQ2. You can spend real money there to unlock additional classes and races or buy items for your character. Georgeson is careful to point out, though, that the best items can still only be acquired through questing and tradeskills.

For all of your questions about the service, check out the official FAQ.