The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

It's difficult to know where to start when talking about this film. Like a lot of people, I've been looking forward to it just a little bit. I'm a big fan of Batman in almost any form, but I grew up on the Tim Burton films and Bruce Timm's Animated Series especially, only searching out famous stories from the comics later on. I can remember seeing Batman Begins for the first time and thinking that it was enough that it's ending could tie into the Burton films, but still being pleasantly surprised when The Dark Knight was announced. TDK immediately became one of my favourite films for numerous reasons, the beautiful full frame IMAX photography, the tense bank robbery that reminded me of Heat and Heath Ledgers unique take on the Joker among many - I didn't even care that Batman wasn't really the focus any more.

So I obviously had huge expectations of this film but I think I didn't have specific expectations of it, if that makes sense. I hoped it would be a good film but at the same time I trusted Christopher Nolan to do what he wanted and not just expect famous comic storylines in movie form. But if I was ready to trust Nolan, in some ways this feels like a film more designed to please fans. I certainly enjoyed it at the time, but it seems less of a complete package the more I think about it. Whereas The Dark Knight always felt like the furthest you could take a comic book character into the real world, this felt like it was embracing its comic book roots a little more. Things like its expository dialogue and characters hopping around the world felt like things that happen in comics a lot. Even though critics have levelled the same complaints at some of Nolan's other films, this was the first time that these issues particularly stood out to me.

I thought that it got off to a shaky start too, I don't think I've seen many reviews that didn't have some issues with the first act. There are a lot of new characters and multiple plot lines running at once, with a few taking a while to really go anywhere. There were a lot of things to hold in your head and I found myself uncertain of which characters were important. On reflection there isn't much of importance here and I have seen debates on whether parts of it could have been cut, as well as entirely different takes on how it could have opened.

Selina Kyle (as played by Anne Hathaway) is almost certainly the highlight of these early sections. She is receiving almost universal praised for her role, one thing I liked in particular was that her interactions with Bruce Wayne also provide a bit of humour in a largely dark film. I loved how she revealed her true self when she first meets him and deftly disarms him before making her escape. A lot of people seem to think that Bruce Wayne was faking his injuries at the start of the film but I'd like to think that he was actually surprised by her, which then intrigues him enough to want to track her down. You generally get the impression that she is capable of continuing to frustrate him, with the lines "My Wife?" and "Huh, so that's what that feels like" making me chuckle especially.

I think it was important that the rest of the villains in this weren't particularly sympathetic though. Almost everyone rooted for the Joker to some extent but Bane doesn't really have the same attractive personality and seems more likely to kill innocent people in his path. Some of the violence meted out actually made me feel like the film deserved more than a 12A rating, despite the fact that it never shows anything graphic. Though there isn't exactly much competition, I feel this was the best representation of Bane there has ever been. On occasions he seems like a strange mix, especially how his voice doesn't really feel like part of the scene but the calm delivery gives the impression of intelligence that he really needs. In the original comics, despite his strength increasing venom serum, it was always suggested that he only managed to defeat Batman by engineering situations that would break his spirit as well as his body. I certainly found myself on the edge of my seat wondering if he was going to do what he is most famous for in the comics.

What's perhaps hardest to argue against is that the film as a whole doesn't really say anything. Bane's aims and actions seem to have some common ground with this year's 'Occupy' protests (although likely written before they started), which initially seems like a negative commentary on them. But these ideas aren't really followed through and leave it feeling very half hearted. There seem to be a lot of points like this, where there is a spark of something interesting but it doesn't receive much focus. Then there is also the question of what is said by the ending but I'm not sure I can discuss that much without heading into spoiler territory...

*Fairly major spoilers from this point on*

Not everyone liked the ending and to some extent I can see their point, with the powerful message of Batman making the ultimate sacrifice being undone by him surviving - not to mention how much pain and anguish it would cause his friends. But despite all that, to me it felt like what Batman would have done and it specifically reminded me of the end of The Dark Knight Returns. In that story he may have faked his death to continue to train others in secret but giving up the role of Batman felt right for this series and felt like a much better way of introducing a possible new Batman than any attempt that has been made in the comics. I really appreciated what the whole trilogy has done with Bruce Wayne - even if it moves away from the established view of him, he seems more human on the whole. In Begins he initially struggles with the desire for revenge against those who wronged him, rather than immediately trying to fix the system. He wants the world to change so that he doesn't have to be Batman anymore and then even gives up the role after the loss of a loved one, questioning what he has left to fight for. I think it's totally fair that this film then allows his journey to come to an end.

People have said that the revelation of John Blake's real name being Robin made them roll their eyes but I just saw it as a little joke for the fans, especially since Nolan has stated he would never add the Robin we all know. It seemed obvious to me that Blake would take on the role of Batman or at the very least would be jumping straight into a 'Nightwing' like role. What I felt was important was that Blake's character had taken a different route to this point than Bruce Wayne, which indicated that he could be a different sort of Batman. Someone who would focus on the downtrodden and fight against abuses of power by those in control, rather than focusing on criminals amongst the poorest in society. This left me with the feeling that the film wasn't trying to be 'anti-99%' and to paraphrase The Dark Knight's final line, perhaps this new Batman could be the hero that Gotham and the world actually needs right now. I also felt that even though the film brings this trilogy to a definite close in a nice circular fashion, I would still be interested to see someone take it onward from this point.

So my final thought on what I took the film to say is that we will always need Batman - but Batman doesn't always need to be Bruce Wayne.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) Vs. Spider-Man (2002)

Lets just say that my expectations of The Amazing Spider-Man (TASM from this point on) were pretty low. Before I even knew anything about it I was of the opinion that it was too soon for a reboot, so it was never going to be top of my must watch list. Thinking that I would not get around to seeing it at all, I've pretty much devoured every available review and opinion piece I could find on it. The majority of these did not do much to convince me that it was worth watching, with only a few positive opinions from people that I respected to hint otherwise. I didn't set out to compare it to the original Sam Raimi film but when I finally got to see it and then ended up watching Spider-Man later the same day it just felt pretty natural.

To begin with, I was most concerned about sitting through an entire origin story again but I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the first half of the film. The growing relationship between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone is quite nicely handled and wasn't what I expected after hearing that it was "A Spider-Man for the Twilight generation". The first scene after getting his spider powers was also pretty funny and I thought that this scene amongst others showed a more realistic, street level view of New York than the original films (he says having only visited the place once).

In comparison though, what struck me about the original Spider-Man was how quickly it gets going. In the first scene you find out everything you need to know about Peter Parker and the supporting cast via the minimum amount of information. I think within 7 minutes he has received the crucial spider bite, allowing the film to be more about the joy of discovering his powers. The irony being that this feels like exactly what this new version should have done, deal with the transformation quickly and move on, just like The Incredible Hulk did after Hulk. Even if the first half of the film turned out to be the best part, it still seems strange to spend around an hour on the same stuff that was originally handled in about twenty minutes.

A lot of attention has been placed on who plays a better Peter Parker/Spiderman and it might not be the popular opinion but my money is still on Tobey Maguire. I still feel that he captured the nerdy Parker perfectly and Spider-Man allowed him to lose his inhibitions. He way not have been quipping every five seconds but I thought there was enough enthusiasm there to get across that he was really enjoying himself with this persona. Andrew Garfield's Parker is a pretty different take and I can respect that but he was nothing like either the comic or cartoon versions I know of. I felt that his Spider-Man veered over the line of cocky quips into just plain being a dick, I didn't get the sense that taking on this hero persona was bringing out the good sides of his personality.

Looking at both interpretations I wouldn't say that either of them are perfect, perhaps Maguire didn't have enough of Parkers characteristics, whereas Garfield just adds far too much stuff into the mix. It might have been different if Raimi had gone with the idea of webshooters (though I'm not someone who thinks the organic webs are ridiculous) but you never get the feeling that he was the kind of person who could engineer them. Garfield on the other hand starts off as a handsome guy who is a photographer, inventor, skateboarder and all around science whizz - no one with that many interests could be top of his game at all of them (and still get the girl without added spider confidence).

Though most will probably associate the Green Goblin as Spider-Man's most iconic enemy, growing up with the cartoon version I would probably vote for the Lizard instead. I remember a lot of storylines that revolved around Dr. Connors' struggle to overcome the beast and with Spider-Man usually being involved in his initial transformation, it forms a very strong link between the two characters that makes sense for an origin story. The crocodile like creature in a lab coat is also an incredibly iconic image. So it probably comes as no surprise then that I was very disappointed by his representation in this, which felt like a completely wasted opportunity.

Aside from the lizard design being as ugly as sin, in his human form Connors veers into total insanity for no real reason before finally overcoming it at the end just because the plot demands it. It makes me wonder if they were concerned about The Lizard ending up too similar to Raimi's version of the Green Goblin, in terms of how Norman Osbourne had no idea what he was doing every night. But I think it had every right to make this a more explicit Jekyll and Hyde type situation, as that's historically been his story - while I've always found the Green Goblin to be more intimidating when Norman Osbourne is fully aware of what's going on too. Again it seems kind of ironic that pretty much all of the films in the Raimi series took a pretty black and white villain and turned them into a more sympathetic character for this to then screw up an established character that had a very sympathetic story to begin with.

Looking back at Spider-Man it is in no way perfect. The Green Goblin suit is still terrible and a lot of the CGI is looking pretty ropey now - something that the practical effects of TASM will hopefully alleviate in the long run. But I think the original's strength has always been in the journey of its characters and it has a much stronger ending. The ease with which the new Parker does exactly the opposite of old Parker is disturbing and his final line caused involuntary eye rolling. The problem is not so much that Uncle Ben doesn't say the exact line "with great power comes great responsibility" but that Parker doesn't seem to have learnt this lesson - or anything else from the whole experience for that matter.

Magic Mike (2012) - A straight husband's view

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

Though my wife probably doesn't believe me, I did actually mean to tell her about this film before she randomly saw an advert for it. I'd heard about it a while ago with critics’ early opinions being pretty positive, and combined with the fact that it was directed by Steven Soderbergh, it sounded interesting to me. So when my wife demanded to be taken to see it, I didn't feel like it would be too much of a hardship for me to go along. I'd recently made her sit through Prometheus, so I owed her a movie choice anyway and I didn't think it could be much worse than that...

That said, it was quite a strange experience to see the theatre slowly fill up with women, I can't think of another film I've seen with a similar audience ratio. I wasn't the only guy in there, but there were only a couple more and they looked a lot more miserable about the prospect than me. However, being on the back row right under a spotlight I guess I stood out. "Oh my God there's a man in here! I feel so sorry for you mate!" came a cry from someone finding their seat in front of me. All I could do was chuckle to myself and give a wave of thanks for the sympathy. I did wonder whether the crowd would get a bit rowdy as there was a loud shout of "Oh Yeah!" down to my left the first time Channing Tatum's ass appeared on screen, but for the most part it settled down.

It struck me that one of the characters you meet early on worked quite well as a way for men to get into the film. Adam/'The Kid' (Alex Pettyfer) is thrown into the world of these strippers quite unexpectedly and his initial reactions are probably similar to any men in the audience. There is a lot of comedy in these early scenes, as long as the whole situation doesn't just make you feel awkward. What I found the funniest section in the entire film might make some people just want to curl up into a ball and cover their eyes (the same effect that The Office and Alan Partridge often have on me).

The movie as a whole is more focused on the title role of 'Magic' Mike (Tatum) than Adam's story. In fact, I was quite surprised that there was very little attention paid to Adam "learning the ropes", which was pretty much handled in one scene - very different from something like The Full Monty, where the preparation for their first performance is the entire film. Mike is a mentor to him in a more general sense and also just a friend, with their relationship becoming strained as Adam is drawn into more destructive aspects of the stripper's lifestyles. It's that question of where you draw the line when trying to look out for someone and at the same time let them make their own decisions.

Mike's own story is a familiar one, both in terms of having a dream that he would give up stripping for and also issues that you hear people struggle with in the real world right now. He works non-stop to save up money and runs into problems trying to get any kind of loan from a bank. It quickly becomes obvious that his life is not perfect and you question whether he really fits in to the world of stripping. Tatum's performance is great, which I probably wouldn't have expected before seeing 21 Jump Street earlier in the year. I particularly liked how he struggles and stumbles over what he's trying to say in one scene, which came across as completely natural and believable when it could well have turned out disastrous. In fact the response to this bit of dialogue feels much more scripted and kind of takes you out of the moment, reminding you that you're just watching a film.

As for the actual stripping routines, they are generally not too explicit and didn't make me feel uncomfortable. A lot of the dances are pretty cheesy and even my wife admitted that most of them didn't do much for her, it was more the confidence that all of the dancers have that makes them attractive. I would say there is one routine that almost anyone could appreciate though, especially if you are a fan of groups like Diversity, which is set to Calypso by Excision & Datsik.

If I had any complaints it would be that the ending doesn't feel all that satisfying, I'm not sure whether that is down to it aiming to be realistic or to leave things open for a sequel. But because 'The Kid' doesn't really learn anything from the whole experience, you are left with the impression that he could just continue on his downward spiral. Overall I would say that men shouldn't be scared to go and see this film though. It tells an interesting, believable story, with a good mixture of humour and drama. You just might want to avoid peak times...

On Writing Criticism

I recently came across a blog post via Good Games Writing, which took a humorous approach to writing an 'opinion free' review. It was of the recent SSX game, inspired by a lot of complaints about the subjectivity of reviews. The point of course being that reviewing anything is always going to have a large dose of personal opinion.

I'd been thinking about the same thing recently and also whether sometimes reviewers need to be reminded of this fact - myself included. Certainly when I was writing up my thoughts on Prometheus, I felt like I was presenting my problems with the story as almost unquestionable facts. But my focus on its flaws was almost certainly down to my initial feelings on the film as a whole and plenty of other people have either not noticed the same flaws or did not find them jarring enough to spoil their enjoyment of it.

In fact comparing it to Alien you can point out some similar flaws in both films, specifically simplistic characters who make lots of mistakes. But because I enjoy Alien overall, my first thought would not be to bring up these criticisms in a review and it probably took some time to recognise them. To be able to see issues like that I think takes both experience and knowledge but sometimes just time to reflect on it too. That's something I would imagine a lot of professional critics don't have the luxury of and I'm quite happy to write reviews with no set deadline, so that I have more time to think through what I've experienced.

There have also been some Film Crit Hulk articles on this subject too, a slightly older one was Tangible details and the nature of criticism. The crux of this was how we can all end up out of our depth in certain topics and make judgements by what stands out to us most. The first example in this article was something I've probably railed against in the past, the 'strut' sequence from Spiderman 3. It suggests that there was nothing wrong with this scene overall but it stands out in most people's minds as the worst thing about the film over more fundamental problems. The conclusion here is also that it takes an in depth knowledge of a medium to truly understand why something doesn't work sometimes. Obviously I have an interest in films and know a little about the process of making them but I'm by no means an expert. In that respect I try to stay humble and accept that there will always be someone who knows more than myself and more for me to learn.

I often feel that I don't really have one single area with a huge amount of knowledge, I've always been a bit of a 'Jack of all trades, master of none' in terms of having a lot of interests that don't really go past a surface level knowledge. It's not something that I do intentionally though, I think it always comes from a genuine interest and a desire to understand how things work. Even things like understanding combo systems in fighting games that are way beyond my dexterity to perform, I just enjoy having that knowledge of how it all fits together.

In terms of one specific area that I have the most detailed understanding of I suppose it would have to be video games in general. Having trained to write them and gone on to work on them, I'd like to think I can use this knowledge to give a balanced view of games and perhaps suggest more in depth reasoning for why they turn out a certain way. Even so, that doesn't always translate into the most important part of a games review. What makes a game fun is such a difficult and personal concept to nail down, both from the point of view of those creating games and those criticising them.

A more recent Hulk article, What makes a movie good?, almost feels like the antithesis of the in-depth knowledge approach. Similar to the idea of writing an opinion free review, it suggests that it's pointless to critique a film via an X, Y and Z checklist, where a film lacking in Y can never be considered a classic. Here I felt the take away idea was that everyone ends up with a different view of movies, that may well be influenced by the circumstances in which you watch them and the people you are with.

With games largely being a more lonely pursuit there is often less of an influence from others but there are certainly some games that are remembered fondly because of who you played them with. From the split screen co-op of Halo played with university friends, right up to playing the Lego games with my wife, these experiences tend to elevate our opinion of individual games to another level again. And obviously there are purely multiplayer games that are highly dependent on finding a good group of people to play with, as I've been hearing about Day Z most recently.

If I had one point to end this on, it would be that we should probably be more honest when writing reviews and where possible not be so quick to judge. Try to separate our personal opinions from more technical issues but not just remove personal feeling completely. Be more open to having our opinions changed and admit that we may have been hasty in our initial judgement. I think I would find it refreshing to see more reviewers admit that they were drawn in by the hype or that they found more depth to a product later. Just looking back at the range of emotions I went through after finishing Mass Effect 3, writing a review of it based on my immediate thoughts would have created a very different picture than what I think now. The controversy over its ending in particular seems to have led to a lot of gaming sites really digging their heels in and branding fans as 'entitled whiners' when there have actually been a lot of well made points about its issues.

To me this is yet another reason to not give scores in a review, that official number that is the final opinion of an outlet as a whole makes it very difficult to overturn. In a sense the internet should really free us from the issue of a printed media writer's opinion being set in stone but there is still a sense that you should never back down from your review if people question it later. I get especially concerned about this when I hear about developers being rewarded based on average metacritic scores, which have no way of being updated to reflect changing opinions. Just today I've seen an article on The problem with Metacritic, which features opinions from both sides and I disagree just as much with the idea that a reviewer should feel pressured about writing a negative review that might drag the average score down. Sadly even those who don't give scores aren't immune from contributing to this problem as metacritic will assign your review a score based on what they think the content of your review suggests. It seems like this issue is probably here to stay and we can only hope that developers can gradually aim to negotiate better ways of being rewarded for their work.

The Walking Dead (2012) - Episode 2

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

After a long wait for some, the second episode of The Walking Dead game is finally here, released with surprisingly little build-up or fanfare. Entitled 'Starved for help', it centres around the group's growing need to find food. When I wrote about the first episode, I didn't really mention the story much, but with the mechanics of the game set in place, now seems like a good point to focus on it more. What stood out to me about the first episode was that like Day Z, it seemed to capture the feeling of being in a zombie film very well. Whereas Day Z is more focused around your interactions with real people, and whether you can trust them, here it seemed to be about making the tough decisions that you might be yelling at the screen for people to make in a movie. Ironically, I found that the decisions became tougher and less black and white in episode 2, with my own character starting to become the unsure person who couldn't always make the tough decisions.

The episode opens with the knowledge that three months have passed, which made me chuckle a little as it means there has been roughly the right amount of time between episodes. It did make the whole situation a little confusing though, as it immediately introduces a new character and a new threat: the lack of food. I had been wondering how they were going to get into this situation given that the threat at the end of the first episode was a sudden loss of electricity, which I suppose was just a bit of dark humour really. I feel like this could have been handled better as it pretty much diffuses any tension that there was and leaves you confused as to what exactly is going on, where the new character has come from and whether you should care about them.

You don't have too long to wonder about this though as the game kicks into action with some more new characters and a grim decision to make. I messed up this sequence by taking too long to look for a perfect way to deal with it, which I don't think exists. This was a great way of getting you back into the feel of the game and remind you that bad things are going to happen regardless of the choices you make. It's also another example where you have to repeatedly perform actions to follow through your choice, which makes it all the more harrowing.

Tensions are running high among the rest of the group after this introduction and it seems that trying to remain a mediator and not take sides isn't going to cut it much longer. You are eventually tasked with dividing up the limited food supplies for the day - again no right or wrong decisions, just down to what you feel. Beyond making sure that the kids got something I thought it was quite difficult to choose who else to help and whether others would consider it favouritism.

Any bickering comes to a sudden end via an unexpected zombie attack, which eventually leads to the discovery that zombies are not only created through people being bitten. This is actually something I haven't seen for a while, with more modern zombie films usually explaining the situation through some kind of virus. Though there is still the possibility that a virus could be the cause, it seems less likely to be the case and leads to more of a focus on survival than the search for a cure. It also adds an additional element of danger to the death of any character, which is an important issue later on.

The majority of the episode is focussed on yet another new group of people, who offer to help out with the group's food situation. I thought that this offer was a little suspect early on and I was slightly disappointed that there didn't seem to be enough dialogue choices to fully express that. It's one of those situations where obviously something had to happen to push the story forward but forcing the player to make bad decisions is frustrating. The same kind of situation can obviously work in a non-interactive story but it's something that I think games should shy away from unless you're absolutely certain you can pull the wool over the player's eyes.

I won't say too much more about what happens but I can say that despite my suspicions it was still intriguing to find out what was going on. What follows is certainly gripping and the gradual revelation of what's been happening is pretty disturbing. I mentioned in my previous piece that I would be looking out for a way to get rid of one character but when the opportunity finally arose it didn't feel as cut and dried as that. In fact the only decision that felt quite easy to me was at the end of the episode, though the final report on other player's choices surprisingly showed that it was nearly a 50/50 split.

Putting aside the story, it seemed that puzzles were a little thin on the ground this episode, with most items having pretty simple uses. The first episode wasn't that different but even in a section that was mostly about combat, there was something cool about figuring out how to take down a group of zombies silently. This wasn't something that I specifically missed while playing, more something that came to mind afterwards but I would still like to see more complex problems in future episodes.

My only other technical complaint is that it seemed to suffer from a lot of stuttering that I don't remember happening in the previous episode. Some of the pauses I saw were so long that I thought the game had crashed and I was just about to reach for the power button before it kicked into life again. While a relatively minor issue, I hope this is something that can be resolved in the next episode. Here's hoping that it won't take as long to appear this time.