Hot Fuzz (DVD) – Review

There is a right way and a wrong way to lampoon a movie. The wrong way involves juvenile humour and stupid sight gags, and usually involves titles including the words “Scary Movie” or “Meet the Spartans”. The right way typically involves a more subtle parody of things, and is usually far funnier without having to try anywhere near as hard.  Subtle and funnier than everything else; sounds a little British, doesn’t it?

Hot Fuzz is definitely British, and it most definitely does the parody film the right way.  From Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg (who brought us the terrific Shaun of the Dead), Hot Fuzz is the duo’s take on the Buddy-Cop genre.  Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is the best police officer in London, to the point where he’s started making everyone else bad.  His bosses conspire to have him promoted to Sergeant, and shifted off to the tiny little hamlet of Sandford, which has the lowest crime rate in the country.  Paired up with local cop Danny (Nick Frost), Pegg is quite resentful of his new locale and the small-town way of doing things, but soon enough the pair begins to work out that the spate of fatal accidents occurring in the town may be more than meets the eye (Optimus Prime not included).

The plot may sound nonsensical (and it is), especially once the big reveal occurs and we get to see old people jumping around wielding shotguns and dual pistols, but the execution is so brilliant that it’s all somewhat believable in a perverse sort of way.  Every step of the plot makes sense, and the mystery is actually mildly mysterious; it’s rare for this much effort to be put into the storyline of a parody, rather than just being focused on the gags. 

Mind you, all the gags are top-notch, and come thick and fast at the viewer.  Everything from sight gags, to throw-away lines, to the hilarious portrayal of some of the characters (with ‘Lurch’ being a particular favourite) is well written and acted out, and none of the humour falls flat like in so many other movies of the genre (again, mainly the stupid American efforts like those mentioned earlier).

The other interesting part of the Hot Fuzz production is that the action scenes are very well made and produced.  While fairly light on action in the first portion of the movie, the latter end is an absolute free-for-all, with slow motion gunfights, gruesome death scenes, and stupidly over the top gore. All of it seems just as authentic as the Lethal Weapons of the world, while still managing to maintain the hilarity present throughout the rest of the movie.

The DVD features are another highlight of this release, with a large variety of audio commentaries, deleted scenes, outtakes, featurettes and more; they’ve gone all out with the presentation, and it helps cement Hot Fuzz as being an A-grade title.

As can probably be gathered from this glowing review, Hot Fuzz is a brilliant release with no real faults.  A brilliantly funny script, good acting, surprisingly well executed action scenes, and a tonne of extras, it’s hard to fault Hot Fuzz in any way, shape or form.  A great follow up to Shaun of the Dead, and a movie that confirms Simon Pegg and Co as people to watch.

   

2 Disc Special Edition Features: Featurettes, Deleted Scenes, Audio Commentary.

       

Show: 9/10 (No downsides; Hot Fuzz executes everything it aims to do brilliantly.  Hilarious, well acted, and good action too.)

Features: 9/10 (Lots of features, including some funny TV spots and bizarre featurettes.  Good value)

Overall: 9.5/10 (As close to a perfect movie release as I’ve seen yet, with a highly entertaining movie combined with interesting special features.  Hot Fuzz is a great follow up to Shaun of the Dead, and stands strong all by itself.) 

        

- Tim Sweeney

300 (DVD) – Review

Warning: This movie contains so much testosterone that it may cause females to develop Austin Power’s-like chest hair, a Gandalf-like beard, and maybe even Chuck Norris testicles.  Thankfully this probably isn’t too likely an issue, since few women in their right mind would watch 300; for this is the cinematic equivalent of professional wrestling (we’ll ignore the movie Ready to Rumble), and is almost exclusively a boys-only club.

Based on the Frank Miller graphic novel of the same name, 300 tells the (fictionalised) story of the Battle of Thermopylae, in which the 300 Spartan Greeks of the title fought and held off a conquering Persian horde consisting of millions of warriors from around the globe.  King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) leads his men against the overwhelming odds to die saving his nation, and in doing so enter into immortality and legend.  He also yells.  A lot.

Shot almost entirely on blue screen, 300 very closely mimics the look of the comics.  Dark shades (almost sepia-esque) predominate, with the few bright colours seeming far more vivid; this is most often seen in the red capes of the Spartan ‘uniform’ (if armoured underpants and a cape can be called a uniform), and in the copious amounts of blood.

Despite this limited palette (or perhaps because of it), 300 is a visually stunning movie, often venturing into the territory of outright beauty despite the gruesome and violent subject matter.  The extensive use of slow motion, and the many wide shots of the Spartan ranks standing together, abs and pectorals glistening with sweat…come to think of it, maybe girls will dig this movie after all.  Anyway, it’s a feast for the eyes.

The dialogue is very much in the same vein as the visuals, with big, flashy speeches and one liners being the order of the day.  Leonidas especially, in his (ironically) Scottish brogue, gives us some brilliant lines, including the now ubiquitous “THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAAAAA!” which has been parodied in everything known to man.  The music is fairly typical fair for this kind of militaristic film, although thankfully is nowhere near as overwhelming (and at times, entirely absent) during the big battle scenes.  And yes he yells every line of dialogue, which just adds to the over-the-top cheesiness of the whole experience.

300 is pretty much the textbook definition of style over substance; a big, flashy movie replete with special effects and stupidly masculine dialogue.  The plot is incredibly basic, the non-action scenes undeniably corny, and the movie so overflowing with testosterone that it almost appears to be mocking itself.  There are a tonne of elements to 300 which would be flaws in films like To Kill A Mockingbird or Citizen Kane; but in a movie like this, they just serve to help it shine.

300 is a simple movie done very well, designed for people requiring something pretty looking, shallow, entertaining and easy on the eyes…well, barring the gratuitous violence of course.   

      

Special Edition Features: Commentaries, Featurette, Documentaries, Trailers, Behind the Scenes, Image Galleries  

     

Show: 8/10 (This isn’t meant to be Shakespearian; it’s a big, stupid movie based off a graphic novel, and it works brilliantly.)

Features: 8/10 (Lots of special features, most of which are interesting.  The features on how the movie was made are particularly entertaining.)

Overall: 8/10 (The movie which proves that a lack of real substance doesn’t have to be a downfall.  300 is a feast for the senses, and will have you laughing out loud in disbelief at how insanely over the top every single moment is.  Well worth the purchase.) 

        

- Tim Sweeney

The Simpsons Movie (DVD) – Review

There were a couple of different analogies I thought about going with for the intro to this review.  The first one involved the phrase “flogging a dead horse”, but I discarded that one as I didn’t want to offend those readers that do enjoy whipping deceased equines (you know who you are).  I then moved onto something revolving around the words “faithful dog”, “shoot” and “out of its misery”, but these felt just a little bit too clichéd.  So instead I’ll just say this; stop raping my childhood memories Matt Groening, and let the Simpsons die.

After over a decade of quality episodes, the Simpsons began to inexorably go downhill.  It’s hardly unexpected that the writers would begin to run out of quality ideas; after all the show’s been going for an awful long time.  And yet, despite constant rumours of “this will be the last season”, it never seems to end. 

But despite my unhappiness at the fall from grace of one of my favourite shows, I still held out some small hope that the inevitable Simpsons movie would redeem it just a little bit.  I mean, the writers would have to pull out something special for this wouldn’t they?  The answer is that they did pull out all the stops to have one last creative gasp at turning out something decent with the Simpsons brand.  The good news is that, just like all the critics said in their initial reviews, the Simpsons movie far surpasses all of the TV seasons of the past few years.

The bad news is that this doesn’t really mean much; the movie is positively lacklustre compared to the episodes of yore.

Revolving around the idea of Lake Springfield becoming so polluted (thanks in no small part to Homer and Spider-Pig) that the town is placed under a dome by the Environmental Protection Agency, the overtly political message around which the film revolves has none of the subtlety that once typified the writing of the Simpsons; in fact, even Family Guy or South Park manage to be more subtle than this.

Once Homer’s wrongdoing is discovered, the Simpsons are exiled from the town and move to Alaska, only to eventually return to save the day.  Along the way there is a romance for Lisa, Bart gets naked, and…Well there are a bunch of cameos and in-jokes, most of which fall flat, while the rest are just barely enough to raise a smile.

It’s not that the movie is devoid of laughs; there are some funny moments (most of which revolve around the aforementioned Pig), and Homer is usually good for at least a smirk.  The problem is that we have seen all of this before, and most of it was in prior Simpsons episodes.  Even a tonne of audio commentaries, special features and deleted scenes aren’t enough to save the DVD release, although they do make it more appealing to the die-hard fan.

The Simpsons Movie was always going to be a commercial success, both at the cinemas and on DVD.  Critically I’ve been surprised at how well it has rated, but I guess many movie critics out there have managed to remove themselves from what came before, and just focus on what is at least a decent attempt at a comedy.  As someone that grew up on the show, and can still watch repeats on Channel 10 and laugh my arse off for the umpteenth time, a decent attempt at a comedy just isn’t enough.  This is the Simpsons, damn it!  It deserves perfect.  Instead we get something that might technically be alright; it’s just a shame that it fails so massively at being true to the Simpsons of old.

     

Features: Deleted Scenes, Audio Commentary, Alternate Ending, Various Featurettes  

  

Show: 3/10 (A pale shell of what it used to be; the few laughs emphasise the despair of an old Simpsons fan.)

Features: 9/10 (A tonne of special features, including a zillion audio commentaries, deleted scenes, and the always popular alternate ending.)

Overall: 4/10 (Add a couple more points if you actually enjoy the current seasons of the Simpsons.  Otherwise this is a movie which doesn’t quite cross into adequate territory, and instead serves as a sad reminder of what could have been.) 

         

- Tim Sweeney

Audiosurf (PC) – Review

Many, many years ago, a hippy wished upon a shooting star. Gazing up at the sky in a LSD-induced haze, he cried to the heavens “I want to play the music, man” or something equally hippy-esque.  Decades later, in a completely unrelated incident, Audiosurf was born.A racing/puzzle game with highly stylized graphics, Audiosurf is a spectacular feat of gaming ingenuity for one simple reason: you get to play the music…man.  After the game is loaded up, you are prompted to choose a track; in any other racing game this would be something along the lines of a giant oval, figure-eight, etc.  Not so in this game. 

Instead you will choose an audio track present on your pc (in a variety of formats, including MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, etc) and the game, using fancy programming algorithm doodads which mean absolutely nothing to the average gamer, will build a race track based off your song of choice.  Every song will give a wildly different style of track/puzzle; a speed-metal epic will probably be an incredibly fast down-hill run with cars all over the track and no time to think, whereas giving in to your guilty pleasure and playing some classic Britney Spears will give you a gentler, more laid back and spread out affair.

The play style of each song is further altered by the choice of character.   Basic gameplay for all classes revolves around the collection of coloured blocks onto the grid at the bottom of the screen, with bigger clusters giving more points.  While this basic concept remains the same across the board, everything else will differ wildly depending on the character chosen; the Mono, for example, only has two types of blocks; coloured ones which must be collected, and greys which must be avoided.  The Pointman follows the basic gameplay description written above, except giving the player the ability to scoop up coloured blocks (‘cars’) and place them in another row.  Other classes include the Eraser (can remove a colour from the grid), the Vegas (can sit off the course and randomise the blocks on their grid) and the Double Vision (two cars share the grid, good for co-op or the ambidextrous).

The visuals will alter themselves to match the style of song which you are playing; block colours, the track and even the colour of your car itself will alter depending on the tempo of the song you are listening to; fireworks will go off in the background at particular crescendos, and the track will pulse when a punishing bass line starts playing.  The graphics themselves are quite simple, consisting of psychedelic colours overlaying simple wireframes, but it works immensely well.

Perhaps equally as amazing as getting to play a game built off your music collection, is the fact that every single song you play has its own international scoreboard; its a pretty mind-blowing experience to finish playing the most obscure song in your collection only to see that about 90,000 other people have beaten your top score at it.  Thankfully these scoreboards are divided by difficulty level, so at least amateurs will be getting smashed by other amateurs.

Audiosurf is a casual game which will take up far more of your time than a casual game really should.  Finding yourself racing along to the entirety of your favourite album instead of playing Team Fortress 2 or Call of Duty 4 is a bit of a shock, but at least you’ll be having an equal amount of fun.  Best of all, Audiosurf has an unlimited life span; there’ll always be more music out there to try, and you might even find yourself giving some old favourites a go.

   

Visuals: 6/10 (Simple indy graphics which are pretty and suit the style of game, but never distract from the audio.)

Sound: N/A (Some basic sound effects are present in the game, but really the quality of the aural experience depends on the quality of your music collection.)

Gameplay: 9/10 (A wide variety of different player characters which will drastically alter the playing experience; the basic idea of building a racetrack based off your audio tracks is an inspired one.)

Longevity: 10/10 (Every single song is a completely different gaming experience; the fun will only end when the world stops producing music, or when you stop having fun)

Overall: 9/10 (A unique little game which makes your own music the centre of everything.  Well worth the ten bucks on Steam.) 

       

-Tim Sweeney

   

My Top 5 Audiosurf ‘tracks’ (oh no, witty pun!) so far:

• 1. Hocus Pocus – Here’s Johnny
• 2. KoRn – Evolution
• 3. Dragonforce – Through the Fire and Flames
• 4. Dropkick Murphy’s – I’m Shipping Up to Boston
• 5. Iron Maiden – Aces High