The Dark Knight – Movie Review

I am going to begin this review by getting something out of the way early.  A great deal of time and effort has been put in by various people – be they critics, fans, actors, or what have you – into the fact that Heath Ledger is assuredly going to be nominated for a posthumous ‘Best Actor Oscar’ for his role as the Joker in the Dark Knight.

There appears to be numerous arguments for and against Ledger actually winning the award (his being nominated is apparently a foregone conclusion)…myself, I’m not really certain whether his performance will win it; however, I can unequivocally state that he most definitely deserves to be in the running for what is the highlight of a superb movie, and undoubtedly the best acting role of Ledger’s too-short career.

The Dark Knight (which, for trivia buffs, is the first Batman movie not to have the word ‘Batman’ in the title) picks up pretty much directly after Batman Begins left off; bazillionaire Bruce Wayne (the always impressive Christian Bale) is still living his double-life, keeping up appearances as a partying playboy by day, and fighting crime as a costumed vigilante by night, and is assisted by loyal butler Alfred (Sir Michael Caine) and Lucius (Morgan Freeman), CEO of Wayne Enterprises.

Things in Gotham are starting to look up; the citizens, inspired by Batman, are working together to end crime (with some overeager individuals dressing up like the Bat in a rather amusing case of copycat vigilantism), and are led in their efforts by champion District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart).  Even cynical Bruce is swayed by Dent’s conviction, and he even begins considering giving up the hero mantle as realises that this man can make a difference that even he cannot.

Of course things aren’t that easy, especially when the sociopathic Joker shows up in town, seemingly intent on killing Batman and causing as much general mayhem as possible for the rest of Gotham.  The war between Batman and the Joker drags in all of Gotham City, and not everybody makes it out in one piece by the time the credits roll.

The Dark Knight is, quite frankly, a masterpiece of film.  Forget the comic book origins or any concepts you have of “superhero movies,” because this isn’t a brilliant movie with a “but” tacked on the end; it really is just that damn good a piece of cinema, and deserves to be favourably compared to all the other brilliant action/thrillers that have come along over the years.

Tightly scripted, phenomenal action sequences, drama that never descends into ham (thanks especially to the fact Katie Holmes is gone), and amazing acting performances from every major and minor player in the film ensure that the Dark Knight is a success on every level, seemingly moving from dark, slow-boil thrills to edge of your seat action to humorous quips and back instantly with no sign of feeling forced or tacked on.

The acting performances play a big part in making the experience feel so organic and real.  Ledger makes this movie, there is no doubt about that; his interpretation of the Joker is so intensely deranged and unsympathetic that the audience should feel nothing but revulsion for him, and yet somehow Ledger manages to successfully incorporate elements of humour and humanity into a character that is really completely devoid of anything that would make you consider him human or even slightly funny.

This is not to say that Ledger is the only star; far from it.  Bale delivers another understated, but powerful performance as Batman, Eckhart is superb as the seemingly incorruptible Harvey Dent, and Gary Oldman continues to display his versatility as James Gordon, seemingly the only clean cop left in Gotham.  The supporting cast are equally as adroit, with Caine, Freeman, and Maggie Gyllenhaal all playing their parts with typical panache.

It is hard to really discuss this movie without spoiling much of the excitement, as (despite the two-and-a-half hour length) every moment delivers something worth talking about.  The Dark Knight is a terrific example of how to do everything right in a movie, regardless of genre or concept, and everyone involved in the production should rightly be very proud of what they have accomplished with this superhero-cum-action-movie-cum-thriller.

The Dark Knight is, quite simply, the best superhero movie yet made; yes, even more so than Batman Begins.  Furthermore, The Dark Knight is also one of the best action-thrillers released in quite a while, and is certainly the best movie released so far this year, regardless of genre.

So forget about Oscar nominations and forget about superheroes; just remember that this movie is a must-see for anyone that enjoys a good movie, and not just those that are into tights and capes.    

     

I rate The Dark Knight: 10/10 (Batman Begins took the world by storm by showing us what a superhero movie about The Bat could be; the Dark Knight takes everything that was established in the first movie and makes it that much better, showing us instead what every superhero movie SHOULD be.

From the action to the special effects, from the pacing to the superb acting, everything comes together beautifully in this movie.  It probably comes as little comfort to his family, but there could be no finer epitaph for a career than Heath Ledger’s role as the Joker.  I’m not going to say that he deserves the Oscar, but I will say that I would certainly not be adverse to his winning it).   

   

- Tim Sweeney

New position (get your minds out of the gutter!)

Actual content today, I swear it!

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that I have just joined the regular staff over at AceGamez, which is a UK-based games review and preview site that specialises in having varied and interesting writing styles.

I’m really looking forward to starting to write regularly for them, and I would just like to say thank you to Geoff, Paul, and anyone else involved in getting me onboard! 

Further updates when I have my first review up over there, but for now take a look around the site and enjoy.

  

- Tim Sweeney

Sick and some PC problems (of course)

Almost inevitably, I’ve developed a chest infection from my 7 day marathon work run conducting pilgrims on World Youth Day.  While I don’t regret the experience (or the cash), I’m pretty stuffed now, and naturally the old creative juices aren’t quite a’flowin.

Even better, I’ve been having universal PC problems; the videocard in the desktop is about 5 minutes short of melting down completely, the laptop has been a bit twitchy, and I haven’t even been able to get the wireless up and running on Sam’s new one!

The good news is that I am in the process of gaining a new regular position as a games reviewer; more info as that develops over the next couple of days. 

I’m taking some time off to recuperate, but I’ll be back to writing by the weekend, promise ;)

  

- Tim Sweeney

So very tired :(

As I sort of mentioned last week (I think), I’m currently doing a 7-day work contract which has sort of screwed up my writing schedule just a little, especially considering they’re 10 hour days that end at 3 am.

It’s been a very tiring and physically draining, but rather interesting experience working for the Ministry of Transport helping Pilgrims here for World Youth Day get to their lodgings, work out when and where they have to go during the day, and generally just preventing the chaos that having thousands of non-english speakers descending on Campbelltown at midnight can bring.

It’s been very tough standing around for hours in the cold, often with long periods of inactivity, but kind of rewarding too.  It’s been amazing seeing all these pilgrims, often with little-to-no grasp of English, and always exhausted and freezing from a long, cold day out, still be in such high spirits at the end of each day, laughing and never complaining at all.

The best part of the whole job has been that us Ministry people have been, on the whole, largely superfluous.  The pilgrims have all helped each other out, everyone has learnt where they need to go, and there hasn’t been a single outbreak of swearing or violence that didn’t stem from a drugged-up local (seriously, Campbelltown? What the hell was the Catholic Church thinking!)

Anyway, that’s it for my news update today.  We should be back to normal by tuesday or wednesday next week, depending on how I recover.

   

- Tim Sweeney

Top 5 Most Disastrous Gaming Villains of All Time (Part Two) – Feature

As we established in our last “Interesting Villains” series, bad guys that really appeal and draw you in can be rather hard to come by in the gaming world.  Conversely, finding villains that fulfil the basics of evil without ever stepping out of their generic, clichéd shell is unfortunately about as easy as pointing at a random game on the shelf at your local EB and playing it for five minutes.

There does exist a third tier of gaming villainy, however, one that is rarer still than the really great fiends like Kane, Irenicus, or even (shudder) John Romero himself.  I am, of course, talking about the villains that are “interesting” for all the wrong reasons; the ones that make you wonder just what the hell the designers were thinking when they put a character this undeniably poorly designed (or just plain stupid) into their multi-million dollar project.

So in order to honour those villains that make gaming audiences around the world sit back and say “What the frick?”, I’d like to present to you this, the first part of my Top 5 Most Disastrous Gaming Villains of All Time; the games themselves may have been successful, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t spend all our time laughing at the absurdity of our foe.

For our next entry we’re going to leave Mr Beardy’s Star Wars universe behind, and instead head to the sometimes 2D (and fun), sometimes 3D (and rather un-fun), but always interesting world of blocky trees, robotic animals, and peculiarly mutated foxes with dual tails.  If you haven’t guessed it yet, our rather disastrous villain is none other than…

   

Dr Robotnik (AKA: Dr Eggman) – The Sonic the Hedgehog Series, Sega (Various)

 

So you’re an evil genius, right?  I mean a bonafide evil genius, scientific whizz, inventor of whacked out robots, an IQ of 300, secret laboratories in unusual places, comically giant moustache; the whole works.  You apparently have a grasp of technology unheard of anywhere else, access to pretty much unlimited resources, and your main enemies consist of lame anthropomorphic animals that don’t even have weapons; no sword-wielding lions or AK-47 grasping elephants here! Instead it’s just foxes, echidnas, and a Hedgehog that spends most of his time in the foetal position, albeit whilst spinning really fast.

With all that in your favour, wow hard could it be to succeed in your goal of wielding unlimited power?

Harder that you would think apparently, especially when you add in an obsession with convoluted plans (which, admittedly, most villains seem to dig) and the singular inability to create a killer robot that isn’t completely worthless, built around a fluffy bunny core, or both.  Even worse, all your deadly pieces of hedgehog-killing machinery just HAVE to have an inherent weakness (where they aren’t just pathetic in the first place), and there’s the constant struggle with obesity that you don’t really help by riding around in a floating car all day.

Whether known as Doctor Robotnik, or as his Japanese incarnation Doctor Eggman, the fact is that the main villain from the Sonic the Hedgehog games is, quite frankly, just plain freaking weird, and does not translate very well into the more serious tone of the later games in the series; mind you, considering that these later games have been almost universally shite, that isn’t necessarily that bad a deal.

Robotnik attempts to bugger off with the Master Emerald as Super Sonic flies after him…this is going to end well

Robotnik has now assumed his original, Japanese name of Dr Eggman, and the change obviously agrees with him if the weight loss and slightly more badass attire is anything to go by

Doctor Robotnik – because apparently looking like an obese circus performer makes this villain VERY happy

It’s hard to work out where things went so wrong with poor old bloodnut Robotnik. His motives seem pure(ly evil) enough; steal the Chaos Emeralds to become uber-powerful and turn the vibrant, talking-animal rich world into a rusty, metallic haven populated by unthinking machines and random beds of spikes.  But his methods!  I understand that the Sonic games are made in Japan, and the Japanese have rather…unique…ideas when it comes to character design, but seriously, what the hell?

Rich and powerful evil genius decides (repeatedly) that the best way to defeat his constant nemesis is by kidnapping a bunch of his cuddly forest critter friends, and encasing them in robotic forms that are almost completely useless at stopping said enemy; even worse, every time Sonic defeates one of them, the fluffy bunny inside gets to go free with a happy little skip…what’s evil about that?  Why isn’t Robotnik’s mechanical horde powered by being bathed in the blood of cute little duckies and pretty little bluebirds? Now THAT would teach that smug bastard Sonic a thing or two, and make Robotnik a big more palatable to the other villains of the world.

Then there’s the obsession with hiding his valuable belongings in places that are easily accessible by his enemies; why bother collecting all the Emeralds if you’re just going to leave them lying around?  I mean, if you know Sonic needs rings to stay alive (don’t even get me started on THAT one), and he can use said rings to steal your goodies, wouldn’t you instruct your otherwise completely useless minions to, I dunno, maybe collect the rings before Sonic rocks up? Just a thought.

Then there’s the egg obsession, which at least makes a little more sense now that his Japanese origin as Dr Eggman has been revealed; up until then, us Westerners could only assume that Robotnik was a huge Star Wars fan, but didn’t want to be sued by George Lucas for copyright infringement when he ripped off the design for the Death Star (incidentally, didn’t Robotnik see how the movies ended? Giant spacestations tend not to be very cost effective when used against plucky young rebels, don’t you know).

Look I understand that the Sonic games are platformers (or pinball games, or an upcoming RPG, but I digress), and as an old, Japanese platform game, things were always going to be a little illogical in favour of fast gameplay and just plain weirdness that so typifies anything that comes out of the Land of the Rising Sun. But even so the balding, obese, moustachioed, and poultry-obsessed Robotnik is a major head-scratcher, simply because so many elements of his character seem to make no sense whatsoever. 

At least Mario got to fight a giant, fire-breathing lizard-thing; Sonic just gets to beat on a pathetic fat guy with an unhealthy obsession with eggs.

  

 

Robotnik makes Sonic face a mechanical version of himself onboard the Death Egg, before attempting to do the job himself in his rather rotund robot armour…at least he remembered to clean up those damned rings before Sonic arrived!

    

Well that brings us to the end of the second article in this series; who can follow in the waddling footsteps of Doctor Ivo Robotnik? You’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t you?

   

- Tim Sweeney

   

(Please note that all images and videos appearing in this article series are not my property, but were instead sourced from Google Images and Youtube for non-commercial purposes; if there is an issue with my making use of these, please contact me and they will be removed immediately)

Hancock – Movie Review

Superhero films have been the flavour of the last few years, no doubt about it.  Really taking off with the adventures of Spidey and the X-Men, these days a comic doesn’t exist that isn’t being brought to the big screen in one form or another; occasionally they’re even decent to watch!

I guess that is what makes the idea of Hancock – a superhero movie based off an entirely original idea – so refreshing; with the freedom not to keep a Batman or Hellboy true to the source material, interesting things can be done without the risk of offending any of the hardcore fans that make up your core audience.

‘Course, if your movie is crap anyway…

Hancock (Will Smith) is a rather unwilling superhero living in the city of Los Angeles, spending the majority of the time drinking heavily and being abusive towards everyone he comes across, including the people he has just rescued from certain death.  Despite the good he has done for the population of the City of Angels, his abrasive manner and the rather large amount of incidental property damage caused while he is “helping” means that most people would prefer it if he was gone for good.

All of this starts to change when he rescues PR man Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) from a potentially rather messy incident with a train, totalling aid locomotive and a couple of cars in the process.  Embrey decides that, despite the painful and destructive rescue, he nonetheless owes Hancock his life, and makes it his mission to help the troubled hero with his public image; along the way Hancock becomes involved with Embrey’s wife Mary (Charlize Theron) and young son, and slowly begins to reclaim some of his lost humanity in the process.

Hancock is a bit of a strange movie, both in the watching and the reviewing stakes.  Many of you will have heard that this film comes in two distinct halves, with a fairly significant twist halfway through; you may also have heard that the second part of the movie pales in comparison to the rather awesome first half.

Whilst always a matter of personal opinion, things aren’t so cut-and-dry with Hancock that the common critical opinion should be taken as gospel (which, incidentally it never should be, including my own!).  Is the first half of the movie great? It certainly is, and indeed I would say that, overall, the first half is indeed the stronger act.   The second half of the movie moves away from the constant humour and brashness, and instead begins to explore the character origin stories and some deeper themes (including love, loneliness, and sense of self).

The fact is that the effectiveness of the big twist, as well as the overall entertainment value of the film post-twist, is going to be directly relevant to what you expect from the movie.  Superhero fans that have been fed on a steady diet of shallowness like the Fantastic Four or Daredevil will most likely find the darker plot and “heaviness” hard going, or indeed inappropriate to a movie that is billed as an “action-comedy.”

Those who see this film expecting nothing more than an examination of a hero who, while funny and powerful, is also a deeply flawed man haunted by his past (or lack thereof) and his own personal demons, will most likely walk out pretty satisfied.  Hancock is a good, entertaining movie that manages to reach a depth of character exploration that is rare in the genre; however, even though the movie may be a bit deeper in concept than most superhero films, the material never really reaches any great dramatic height, and the twist itself is interesting but clumsily executed.

Hancock is a good superhero movie…but that is all that it is.  The plot may be a little better than average, the characters may be a bit more three-dimensional, and things may be more serious and dramatic in tone (at least after the twist), but anyone expecting a Batman Returns-esque redefining of what the superhero genre can be will probably be disappointed.  

     

I rate Hancock: 7/10 (An entertaining, funny, and somewhat dark take on what it is to be a superhero in the modern world; Hancock is quite different to the norm when it comes to story, dramatic impact, or exploration of character, but unfortunately these differences are not executed well enough to raise the movie significantly above it’s more traditional heroic cousins).   

   

- Tim Sweeney

All quiet on the Wombat front

Hey everyone,

I haven’t forgotten the site, but things are starting to get really hectic at the moment; next week, for example, I’m spending 7 days straight working a rather brutal series of 10 hour night shifts, so unfortunately things are going to be a little sporadic.

The good news is that I have a couple of articles almost finished, one of which should hopefully be done for tonight; will it be part 2 of the Disastrous Villains piece, a review of Unreal Tournament III, an album review, or something else entirely?  Only time and my brain will tell.

I’m looking forward to having enough time to write just for the enjoyment it brings me; this whole working thing is interfering in my ‘me’ time!

  

- Tim ’so very tired’ Sweeney

Top 5 Most Disastrous Gaming Villains of All Time (Part One) – Feature

As we established in our last “Interesting Villains” series, bad guys that really appeal and draw you in can be rather hard to come by in the gaming world.  Conversely, finding villains that fulfil the basics of evil without ever stepping out of their generic, clichéd shell is unfortunately about as easy as pointing at a random game on the shelf at your local EB and playing it for five minutes.

There does exist a third tier of gaming villainy, however, one that is rarer still than the really great fiends like Kane, Irenicus, or even (shudder) John Romero himself.  I am, of course, talking about the villains that are “interesting” for all the wrong reasons; the ones that make you wonder just what the hell the designers were thinking when they put a character this undeniably poorly designed (or just plain stupid) into their multi-million dollar project.

So in order to honour those villains that make gaming audiences around the world sit back and say “What the frick?”, I’d like to present to you this, the first part of my Top 5 Most Disastrous Gaming Villains of All Time; the games themselves may have been successful, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t spend all our time laughing at the absurdity of our foe.

For our first entry, I would like to take you on a visit to one of my favourite games ever, set in one of my favourite fictional universes ever, and then present to you one of the most illogical choices for a main villain ever!  I give you…

   

Desann – Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Raven Software (PC/Xbox/Gamecube/Mac)

 

Jedi Outcast was a terrific game, there is no denying that.  It had a great storyline that was darker than the typical Star Wars game, was built using a strong and good looking (for the time) engine, and brought comfortable and deep Lightsabre mechanics to the masses for the first time.

The story itself focused on a hidden Dark Jedi taking control of part of the Imperial Remnant post-Return of the Jedi, and using a secret source of Force power to create an army of other Dark Side users to conquer the galaxy.

The Empire are the quintessential bad guys in that they are essentially Space Nazis; they’re racist, sexist, all look the same, and enjoy shooting the crap out of things.  Perhaps it was this pro-human, anti-alien xenophobia in the background that made Raven come up with their master stroke: lets make the evil villain behind the Empire Reborn an alien himself, sending out his secret apprentice and manipulating the bad guys from behind the scenes for his own benefit.

Probably not a bad idea, right? I mean look at Grand Admiral Thrawn, Star Wars fans love him and he was an alien leading the Empire.  There was, however, just one teensy weensy little problem with this plan to make the Dark Jedi leading the Empire into an alien master of destruction…

Raven decided to make him a dinosaur.

Maybe the next Jurassic Park movie will have dino-men with stripy pants? One can only hope!

Desann with his apprenctice Tavion; notice she is NOT a dinosaur-woman

Oh yeah, xenophobic humans would just LOVE him!

They may say he’s an alien of the Chistori race, he may have a bipedal body with hands that can hold a lightsabre and feet that can wear boots (would love to see the evolutionary theory behind THAT species!), but the fact remains that the Empire Reborn was being led by a man with a brown-and-purple Tyrannosaurus head.

Look at the pictures, watch the video, and tell me if you can take this guy seriously at all?  I kept expecting him to reveal that he had been created in a lab by splicing human DNA with that found in a fossilised mosquito for the purposes of entertaining Jedi children in a future-style Jurassic Park.

The truly tragic part was that every other aspect of Desann made for a remarkably interesting villain; he had a tragic back story, terrific voice acting and dialogue (especially for an FPS), was presented as being supremely powerful and dangerous, and was suitably menacing in combat.

Shame then that it was impossible to see a cutscene starring him without immediately imagining him eating Newman from Seinfeld while he’s hiding in the crapper.

  

 

Desann: Though he may be deadly, if you stand still he probably won’t be able to see you, and instead will wander off in search of easier prey (including obese men in toilets)

    

Well that brings us to the end of the first article in this series; who can top Darth Dinosaur? You’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t you?

   

- Tim Sweeney

   

(Please note that all images and videos appearing in this article series are not my property, but were instead sourced from Google Images and Youtube for non-commercial purposes; if there is an issue with my making use of these, please contact me and they will be removed immediately)

‘Star Wars: Darth Bane – Path of Destruction’ by Drew Karpyshyn – Book Review

As both a budding author and also someone that has spoken to his fair share of writers, one of the most common comments you hear when it comes to writing an effective story is that the main character must be capable of creating empathy with the audience; they don’t necessarily have to be good, or nice, or even sympathetic, but the reader should, in some way, feel that their actions and reactions are justified (or at least appropriate in the circumstances).

This is why, I think, so many otherwise good stories about “evil” main characters fail; when we think about bad guys, we often cannot resist thinking about them as the moustache-twirling, beret-wearing, two-dimensional types seen in Saturday morning cartoons.  Real evil, however, usually stems from real people with goals beyond that of kidnapping the princess and laughing maniacally, and it is this kind of character, who believes that every step down the wrong path is right or justified, that can be more interesting than any other.

Why the long winded intro to a book review? Because Darth Bane, the titular character of this novel, is most definitely a bad guy walking down the wrong path.  The good news is that author Drew Karpyshyn (who I interviewed recently for The Escapist) has captured the humanity of Bane even as he proceeds to do his best to lose it, and every step along his sad, sordid path is one that any one of us could have made in similar circumstances.

Make no mistakes; Path of Destruction follows a similar path to the other more recent Star Wars novels by being quite a dark, bleak story.  In fact, it almost plays out like a Dark Side opposite to the basic story of Luke Skywalker; boy grows up in crummy place, boy gets off planet, boy joins galactic struggle, and boy learns the ways of the Force.  The difference is in the detail, and in this case we have child abuse, a fatal brawl, a brutal war, and a Sith academy that epitomises everything wrong with the Dark Side. and in this regard Karpyshyn excels in weaving existing Star Wars lore (including that established within the Knights of the Old Republic games, particularly the tale Darth Revan) together to create a believable origin story for one of the most important ‘historical’ characters in Star Wars.

Bane, for those who are unaware, was the Sith Lord who created the ‘Rule of Two’ (as mentioned by Yoda): a Master embody power, and an Apprentice to crave it.  Path of Destruction plots the rise of Bane in the Republic a thousand years before The Phantom Menace, and is an interesting look into Sith culture and what it is to willingly embrace the Dark Side of the Force. This kind of ‘historical’, canon establishing story is very dependent upon the author’s ability to weave together all the disparate lore into a cohesive whole, and in this regard Karpyshyn delivers, even referencing various events and characters from the Knights of the Old Republic game (which he was the lead writer on) in a successful effort to create a deep, entertaining story about a very influential and important character

With this novel (and it’s sequel Rule of Two, which I am currently in the process of reading), Drew Karpyshyn has succeeded in creating a novel that manages to tell the almost heartbreaking story of an interesting, compelling, and ultimately fatally flawed (not in his opinion I would imagine!) character who manages to have just enough inner conflict and brief flashes of goodness that the reader keeps hoping he might somehow be redeemed, even though we all know, deep down, he is going to become about as bad as they come.

At the end of the day, this is exactly what we really want; don’t we all occasionally wish we could just lash out, Force Lightning flying and crimson-bladed lightsabre swinging, and consequences be damned?

   

I rate Star Wars: Darth Bane – Path of Destruction: 4.5/5  (A very well crafted take on the traditionally heroic youth-coming-of-age story; instead, the man in question gives into his urges, revels in his Dark Side, and in the process a terrifically compelling and somewhat disturbing tale is told that no Star Wars, or indeed Science Fiction fan, should miss.

     

- Tim Sweeney  

 

Interview with Drew Karpyshyn on The Escapist

So this is the big news then!

After much secrecy and whatnot, I can finally reveal that I have an article published on The Escapist!

I pitched the idea of interviewing Lead Writer from BioWare and best-selling author Drew Karpyshyn for the Star Wars themed issue; the idea was accepted, we rolled with it, and that rather chunky feature is what we ended up with.

I’m really happy with the quality of the article, and the fact it appears to be the lead story for this issue is just amazing.

This is my first major published article, so I’m really just very happy right now.

I would just like to thank Drew for being willing to talk to me in so much depth, and to The Escapist for giving me a shot.

- Tim Sweeney