Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

If you read up on the original stories for most fairytales, they're often incredibly gruesome, gory, sexual, disturbing, or just flat out weird. You can thank the Grimm brothers, two German authors with wicked imaginations and amazing research skills, for a lot of the stories (albeit the rated G versions) you grew up hearing.

Extra crispy

The movie gets off to a wonderfully dark start, with the two small children being left in the woods for "unknown reasons" (It's part of the story, just have patience for the movie). They stumble upon, of course, a house made of candy. The witch occupying the house is less than friendly, however. The children are captured and force-fed magical candy, and then escape their bounds. After stabbing, clubbing, and roasting their first witch, the children apparently decide to make this their hobby. With their parents missing and a fairly large chip on their shoulder, the children create a whole new career path. A few credit pages and a montage later, the children have grown up, killing witches all along the way. 

When you lose the first fight, get a bigger gun.

As adults, the two travel the world hunting witches with oddly advanced weaponry (Jeremy Renner loves his ranged weapons) and a mysterious immunity to the witches magic. They happen upon a town where children are being taken in larger numbers, conveniently arriving three days before a holy day to the witches. The town's sherrif is doing an abysmal job of finding the witches, wrongly accusing women and losing men to the search. The mayor hires the siblings to investigate the abductions and to try and find the children, assuming there's anything left of them. 

It's always nice to see characters that have flaws. It makes them more relatable. It's hard to get connected to a person who always does the right thing, who always succeeds in their missions. Hansel and Gretel does a nice job of showing the two improvising on their witch hunts, making mistakes, and having exploitable weaknesses (Apparently the candy that Hansel was forced to eat as a child basically gave him magical diabetes).

With the size of that needle, and the frequency of the injection, it's a surprise he even has any thigh left

Visual: 5 out of 5
  The witches look great in their true forms, very primal and evil in appearance. There's a large amount of combat gore (especially when the troll is involved) that is well done. The environment is also quite vivid, reminding me of scenery from The Hobbit or other fantasy settings. It fits quite well for a fairytale adaptation.

Story: 5 out of 5
  Flawed heroes, a memorable story from your childhood, cool action with guns, crossbows, and magic. There's even a couple of romantic hooks and a loveable sidekick.

Overall:
  Fairytale remakes are very hit or miss, usually divided by the amount of money the movie has to use. With this being a higher funded production, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters falls into the "hit" category. Definitely worth a watch.


Toodles!

Prometheus

The Alien franchise has always been one that I have enjoyed watching (Though the newer ones have fallen far from the originals). One problem with the collection of movies is that they have not been made in chronological order. Prometheus is the prequel of the series.

After discovering a series of ancient artifacts depicting tall beings and a cluster of stars, a team of scientists locate a distant moon in the cluster that could support life. An expedition is funded and the team is sent lightyears away from earth to find out what is so important on this moon.

A very nice example of the CG effects in the movie

That head may or may not be to scale...

Upon arrival, the team discovers a structure that does not appear to be natural (God doesn't make work in straight lines). The team begins exploring and piecing together the events that occurred before their arrival. Extreme weather ends up stranding members of the expedition inside of the strange structure for several hours, and their presence inside sets something into motion.

With their discoveries creating more questions than answers, events quickly begin to spiral out of control. The history of what happened on the moon is pieced together, and the crew becomes divided on what the course of action should be.

This is what happens when you mess with the air conditioning

Visual: 4 out of 5
  The Alien franchise has always done a good job when it comes to special effects, making good use of the technology of the time. The environments are fascinating (though hard to see in the darkness most of the movie takes place in), and the CG effects are great as always. A few of the biological effects are a little cheesy, and reminiscent of the older Alien movies.

Story: 3 out of 5
  A lot is left unexplained (Prometheus 2, maybe?). It also follows pretty closely to the other Alien movies. Team arrives, team gets separated, team member does something stupid, team member gives "birth" to alien, most of the cast ends up dead. It's a little reused of a story arc at this point, but it still works.

Overall: 3 out of 5
  The effects are updated, but the story is similar to the other Alien movies. Having seen them first, this one is more of a nostalgic nod to the older movies. Still, if you liked the other movies this is just another way to watch the aliens make mincemeat out of scientists.

Toodles!

Batman Begins

He just had to tick off the boss...

Yet another origin story, Batman Begins is set in a slightly different universe than other Batman series. Christopher Nolan wanted to take a step away from the super-beings present in many other story arcs, and set this series of Batman movies in a more realistic world. Batman Begins follows Bruce Wayne in his training with The League of Shadows, an organization run by Ra's Al Ghul, who are essentially ninjas who strive for balance in the world. In the grand scheme of alignments, The League falls under True Neutral, striving for balance between good and evil, law and chaos, regardless of cost.

After time in harsh physical and psychological training at The League's hands, Bruce returns to Gotham City to find it in a terrible state. Crime and corruption run rampant throughout the society and Bruce begins to take steps to becoming the Batman in order to bring the city back to order. Being a billionaire certainly has its perks when funding a one man assault on crime. Using his company's resources, Batman is born.

This is a very technical Pew-Pew gun. For... spelunking... yeah...

After taking on a crime lord in the city, Batman finds his first rival in the form of Scarecrow, a master of psycological chemicals and poisons. Scarecrow uses a toxin that induces horrible visions into it's victims, chemically induced fear. His true purpose in Gotham is later revealed, as well as his accomplices.

Someone forgot to hold their breath

Visual: 5 out of 5

  The use of fear inducing chemicals plays a fair role in this movie, and the way it is portrayed is very well done. The action sequences are amazing to watch, as should be expected from a Batman movie. Cool gadgets, ninja combat, and high budget explosions. What more could you ask for?

Story: 5 out of 5

  Seeing Batman as a true human, not someone who trained in magic, not fighting alongside Superman, his enemies using chemicals instead of sorcery or mythical powers, is refreshing. He bleeds, gains significant injuries, and is limited to (movie) physics. The story of his training with The League mixes nicely with his first battle for Gotham's soul.

Overall 5 out of 5

I'm always a sucker for Batman movies and Christopher Nolan does an amazing job of creating a Batman series set in a realistic world. If you're looking for a DC movie to watch, this particular trilogy has an amazing start with Batman Begins.

War Dragons

There are a crap-ton of games out there now. Mobile gaming has exploded in the last few years with the introduction of larger phones and tablets (Gameboys will always have a special place in my heart). But like any gaming industry, mobile gaming is full of both fantastic and abysmal games.

I'm going to make this review short, because it's not a great game. War Dragons is a game for the iPad.

Graphics: 3.5 out of 5
Pretty cool looking dragons, the graphics take advantage of the iPad graphics processor between battles. During the flights the graphics take a pretty big dip down though.

Gameplay: 2 out of 5
The combat system is super grind-heavy and repetitive. The enemy defences quickly out damage your dragons if you don't use all of your cooldowns. You also are unable to dodge attacks or change your flight path. You fly at the speed the game wants you to, and in a straight line into the enemy tower assaults.

Overall: 1 out of 5
The game is very much a "pay-to-win" model, with structure upgrades, dragon creation, and damage recovery all being on fairly long timers without paying for the upgraded versions. It's kind of a fun game for the first few levels, but then the upgraded bases begin to destroy your dragons.


Sorry for the short post today, I didn't get around to writing a full review until fairly late. Tomorrow and Sunday should be more up to the regular par.

Toodles!

Priest

Movies about vampires go back for decades, and having a sect of holy men leading a fight against them goes back almost as long. Priest is a movie set in a post apocalyptic future where animalistic vampires have been fighting with humans for generations. Despite technological advances, humankind slowly is losing the war. They create giant, walled cities to protect their remaining numbers, and discover their only hope of defeating the vampires lies in their training of priests, ironically. These priests somehow attain supernatural speed and strength and use the generous funding of the church to gain specialized weapons for taking out the vampires. Once the priests succeed in single-handedly winning the war, the vampires that remain are herded into reserves. With the war over, the priests are sent back into the general population, where they fade into obscurity. For a time, everything seems peaceful. (Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked...)

Face, meet Stabby McStabstab. Stabby, meet Face.

The movie has some decent action scenes, which it should for a movie with so many plot holes. The origin of the superhuman priests is never discussed, other than that they a chosen by the church and trained to fight the vampires. The characters have just enough depth to keep the viewers attention, but have little history or development.

The opening animation. The whole movie should have been done like this.

The graphic nove

Honestly, the best part of the movie is the opening animated sequence. It give the most story, has well animated action, and would make for a more interesting movie, in my opinion. This is probably because the movie is based on a Korean graphic novel, Priest by Hyung Min-Woo.

Story: 2 out of 5
Really. There's not a lot explained for backstory and the characters lack depth. Certainly an action movie, and that's all.

Visual: 4 out of 5
The opening animation is cool, some of the fights are cool, and I've definitely seen worse CG monsters.

Overall: 3 out of 5
Priest is an action movie to the core. The story is fairly weak, but the action scenes are pretty good. I think it's worth one watch, but don't go in with huge expectations.


Toodles!

Batman: Year One

I've always been a fan of the Batman series. Something about having an entirely mortal man fighting crime in a city with chemically, magically, and cosmically enhanced heroes and villains. However, it's easy to look over the fact that as a human, Batman didn't always kick as much butt as he does now. He's come a long way from his first days as a crime fighter. Batman: Year One is an animated movie that shows exactly that, his first year of being Batman in Gotham.

In a style of production that reminds me a lot of the Sin City movies, Year One is supported by a large amount of narrative. Bruce Wayne covers a fair amount of it but surprisingly, this movie focuses more on James Gordon. It shows a lot of James' struggle with the corrupt police force and his first interactions with Batman. It also is an interesting view of Gotham, pre-Batman. It looks incredibly dirty, shady, and sad. 

She knows that long hair is how you get dead

The movie tweaks a lot of details that are different than what I know about the Batman universe (HUGE disclaimer: I haven't read the comic books, so I don't know that mythos. Don't rip into me for this please). One example is that the idea for using a bat as his symbol comes to Bruce when a bat literally crashes through his window instead of from a traumatic interaction as a child. Another small detail (That could be comic-accurate, I don't know) is that Batman trusts Harvey Dent before he trusts James Gordon, or the fact that Catwoman is a prostitute before becoming a master thief.

From his humble days of getting solidly decked by a hooker, to dodging the unavoidable death beams from Darkseid, Batman has certainly come a long way.

Look at that hook! Not like she just jumped out of a two story building...

Story: I'm a sucker for Batman stuff, so getting a larger view of what Gotham was like before Batman cleaned it up was a great time for me. It's also somehow satisfying to see Batman get his butt kicked in a street fight, no super villains involved.

- 5 out of 5

Visual: Some of the scenes are a little disorientating because of the older style animation getting crossed with more modern movement animations for backgrounds. It does do a very good job of emulating the old style of animation.

- 4 out of 5

Overall: It's a nice addition to the Batman universe, and worth the time to get a little more background on just how cool James Gordon is.

- 5 out of 5

He holsters the gun and gives the other guy the bat. Because he's awesome.

Toodles!

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Some movies are just bloody amazing (The Princess Bride), some are intentionally awful (Sharknado). So of course, there has to be movies that exist in the middle ground. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is one such movie. The storyline is fairly interesting, taking the classic life of Lincoln and adding in the fantasy of destroying vampires. He fixates on one particular monster who killed his mother, and pursues training in order to become strong enough to fight against the vampires living in America.

As far as a movie goes, there are some clear ups and downs. When the fight scenes use a bit more CGI than normal, holy crap, is it obvious. Like, Neo-spinning-on-a-pole-to-kick-people levels of bad. On the other hand, Lincoln's signature axe serves as a primary weapon in his fight against evil, and the fight scenes that use the axe are really cool to watch. It's incredibly flashy, and makes the fighting interesting to watch.

Story: 7 out of 10 silvered axes
It's about a president fighting vampires with an axe. That's amusing.

Visual: 6 out of 10 stretchy bodies
The horse scene is so bad...But the axe scenes are so cool...

Overall: 7 out of 10 outrageous hats
It's worth a watch, maybe even two. It made for an entertaining evening. I've certainly seen worse movies.