Friday, June 14, 2013

Man of Steel Review: Superman Sinks Again

I just got home from the midnight release of Man of Steel (don't even get me started on the Wal-Mart exclusive early showing) and I feel the need to vent.  So, fair warning, there be spoilers ahead.  Seriously, no bullshit, heavy spoilers.  Read on at your on risk.

I remember a time when Clark Kent was the boyscout of the comics universe.  Captain America maybe stood more for the American way, but he was a soldier, willing to do whatever was necessary, whereas the last son of Krypton always did what was right.  I feel that was lost on Man of Steel.

Nevermind that sending Zod's followers to the Phantom Zone was essentially a death sentence for them, I want to focus briefly on Zod's ending.  I never thought that I would see the day where Superman snapped someone's neck.  Sure, he did it to save a few people, but seriously, the edgier, grittier Batman I loved.  A gritter Superman, a Kal-El who kills?  That belongs in an Elseworlds tale, not on the silver screen. 

Say what you will about Superman Returns, at least it was still a Superman I could recognise.  Yes, Lex's plan was fucking terrible, and yes, the Christ metaphors were heavy, and yes, I know that Superman never used his powers offensively, but still.  Brandon Routh did an excellent job as the titular icon and, given that Returns was a sequel to Donner's Superman and Superman II films, I'd say it did exactly what it was intended to do.  Routh's portrayal of the late Christopher Reeves' Superman/Clark Kent was spot on, so much so that it was eerie to watch, but in a good way.  It was a really good character piece (and not much else) for one of America's most beloved and popular icons.  MoS just... ugh.

Don't get me wrong; Henry Cavil's acting chops were on fine display.  I think he did incredibly well with the script he was given.  Crowe did a fantastic job as Jor-El, but I never envisioned him as a bad ass.  Suddenly, Crowe's casting makes sense on even more levels.  Hel, nobody let me down in the acting department.  I especially enjoyed all the bit parts played by familiar faces; Alessandro Juliani (Lt. Gaeta; Battlestar Galactica), Tahmoh Penikett ('Helo' Agathon and Paul Ballard: Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse, respectively)  and Harry Lennix (Boyd Langton; Dollhouse).  I thought it was really cool.

That's about all that I liked about the film.  The effects were dazzling and dizzying.  I thank my lucky stars that I never jumped in with the 3D crowd.  I can only imagine how much more my head would have hurt watching this film in that particular format. I did like the combat between Faora-Ul and the humans; she moved like a video game character and it was really bad ass.  Sadly, that was the only time combat was entertaining in the film.  The other fights?  Meh, at best.  Now, the gravity effects of the terraforming machine were pretty cool, but why did the thing need fucking tentacles? 

The movie was rife with problems for me.  Jor-El storing the data of all of Krypton in Kal's cells sounds like a great idea, if the general audience doesn't realise that the cells in the body die at a rate of something like 60 billion a day.  I don't care how much information Jor could story in his bouncing baby boy (and can I say that the first shot of baby penis was more than enough; the second was strictly uncalled for), all that info would be gone by the time the kid was six weeks old.  And that's a generous estimate. 

The character assassination of both Jonathan Kent and Clark was just disgusting.  The elder Kent suggesting that his son should have let a bus full of children die just to protect his identity.  Sickening.  Clark wilfully taking a life?  I swear, it was like watching Injustice's Superman come to life. 

And the Christian metaphors just kept coming.  Returns was bad about this, but this one was fucking awful.  Not only did it lay the Christ imagery on thick, but it also took up the war between science and faith.  Several times faith was mentioned (take it on faith, take a leap of faith, etc).  Clark visits a church for guidance as to what to do when his 'fellow' Kryptonians threaten Earth.  There's even a line between Kal and Faora where she tells him that evolution will always win.  This movie isn't bad enough, it feels the need to demonise Darwin.

Overall, I would say that the film is worth watching, but just barely.  I give it a 48/100.  Wait until this thing comes out on a streaming service of your choice, folks; don't waste your money in theaters.  Trust me.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

The Brothers Stone: Part 4; Are You Happy Now?

The music of love reached my character as well and I was forced to roll a new Will save.  Having failed it miserably, I was as amorous as Paddy's character and also ran back to find that "lovely female" Goliath.

We met somewhere in the middle (there's a song there somewhere...) and began immediately "displaying" our "affection".  I think half the fun of this for Tokyo was seeing how far we would take this, the bastard.

Well, third base will only appease a rock man for so long, so, having previously established that my character's preference for "love tunnels" tended more to the rear, he broke the kiss and turned Paddy around.

Finally, Tokyo allowed an intelligent thought to materialise within our characters.  In Paddy's mind, if I were a woman, why would I want to be behind him?  As a lady friend of mine can tell you, women generally don't want to be the big spoon.

Still, our sadistic (and possibly closeted) DM made us continue under the ruse that we had no clue that the other was a male.  So, Paddy rolled a grapple check and, due to my diminished Strength score (thanks, Rock-Ade), I lost and found (heh) myself face to face with the "gorgeous female" once more.  It was then that Paddy's hand found something it wasn't expecting when reaching down to my nethers.

 The spell broken, we rushed back into the room of sorcery, characters swearing to never speak of the incident again.  The door had appeared and we stuffed our bags full of the food present and got out of that creepy-ass room.

Munching on leftover Gnome and drinking fine wine, we exited the room via the crawlspace and found ourselves in a new room, this one lined with bookshelves overfull with scrolls, the overflow piled on the floor.  In the centre of the room was a statue.  Tokyo moved to recite the inscription upon it but I stopped him.

"Is it written in Dwarven?" 

The look on Tokyo's face was priceless.

"No."

"Then we can't read it."  Gleefully, Paddy and I then set about the room.  I read one and took quite a bit of damage.

"This one prepared explosive runes today," I muttered under my breath, to which Paddy replied sardonically,

"No metagame references to OotS.  Also?  Socerery."

As if to prove his point, Paddy read a scroll, which also blew up in his face.  Bad times.  Deciding not to further explore the scrolls, I had the idea that, if I 'read' the inscription on the statue in the mirror, then I would be far enough away from the effects.  I was wrong.

The act of trying to read the words is enough to trigger the trap.  The floor slid out from under us and towards the other end of the room.  We slide uncontrollably that way, followed closely by all the scrolls and the bookshelves that held them.  Paddy passed his reflex save to avoid damage; I did not. 

I slammed into the end of the ramp beneath us, followed closely by the heavy oak bookshelves.  Then by Paddy.  I was down to one HP and Paddy wasn't doing much better.  Also of note; we could feel that the scrolls had unfurled.  So, eyes closed, we blindly groped our way into a hallway far from the opened pages of explosiony death, and we slept.  For days.  Only interrupting ourselves to eat and shit, using the parchment as wipe. 

Well fed and rested, we finally move into the next room.  There is a pulsing red orb in the centre.  There are also two guillotines on either side and a doorway past the orbs.  As we step closer to the orb, the ruby pins in our wrists (one in my case, both in Paddy's) begin to vibrate.  The closer you step, the more it vibrated.  So, I decide to walk up and touch it.  Apparently, this was a fatal mistake, as when I touched it, the orb exploded and I died from the shards shredding me to pieces. 

Paddy and I had a long discussion with Tokyo over how the entire dungeon was bullshit at this point (interesting side note; as I finish typing this, I am listing to three of my other friends [CK, Melonie, and recurring character Jimbo Baggins] suffer through this exact dungeon.  They are telling Tokyo the same thing; this dungeon run sucks)  and essential insta-death should have more warning than "the thing in your wrist(s) vibrates. 

Angry and fed up, I sat there and morally encouraged Paddy to finish.  After my death, he picked up the magic mirror (of the "only one shall live" fame) and screamed.

"ARE YOU HAPPY NOW!?!"  He picked up my corpse, cause we're bros like that, and moved past the shards and out the hallway.  After some minor twists and turns, Paddy found himself facing a ladder.  He climbed out to sweet, sweet freedom.

Finally emerging from the ground like a vampire given new life, he scans the area.  It's the plantation we found ourself at before we were DM fiated into the dungeon in the first place.  Paddy sees a nearby tree and grabs the largest branch he can and breaks it off to form a club befitting our Goliath heritage.

He stalked into the place, headed towards the largest building.  Two armed guards stood blocking the doorway.  They said something to Paddy in common, but even if he had understood it, I don't think it would have mattered.  It was ragey fun times.

Paddy took the first one below half health in one blow.  His partner fled in terror, presumably to alert more guards, while his injured companion threw down his sword and begged for mercy.  Paddy picked up the weapon and promptly slew his pleading foe, lopping the head off to insure that no extra damage came to the armour.  He then picked up the corpse and headed off behind the nearby farm. 

As the rain began to fall, Paddy looked into the sky and screamed in frustration, mourning his fallen brother and our wasted five hours of lifetime.