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rockford_hinten
Reviews
Space: 1999: A Matter of Balance (1976)
Sexism on display
I would say this sets feminism back 40 years, but it already was 40 years ago. The plot driver of this episode revolves around a young female crew member who gets emotionally upset from a crush on Tony so that she is deemed unfit to do her job. Nice one, doctor. Apparently she has the vapors or something and needs a fainting couch, right? She then proceeds to make one after another horrible idiotic choice, following the directions of some alien. People, even Cmdr. Koenig, treat her like a child throughout the episode. This kind of old sexism was a little shocking and awkward to see for people with modern sensibilities.
Add to that the bald alien guy in the Speedo and the creature of the week who has a sound like a wailing cat dubbed onto it make for some interesting visuals as well, and I don't mean that in a good way.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
More like "The Real World: Revolutions"
I'll have a small section of non-spoilers first: I was really let down by this movie. It's a bad sign that when I think back of it, I can't think of any scenes in it that I liked. I found myself several times looking at my watch or just looking around being bored because stuff just didn't grab attention. I already have the first two on DVD, but I'm sure not going to buy the third one because I really have no desire to ever see it again, and I will not buy a movie I don't like just to "complete the trilogy".
Anyway, HERE BEGIN THE SPOILERS **********************************
Here are several things that bothered me about the movie and contributed to my dislike of it. * If I wanted to see a long battle with people shooting guns and rockets at an attacking army, I would have gone to see an Arnold movie or some other general war/action flick. I watch the Matrix to see people do cool stuff in the matrix. Besides that, it seemed really pointless to me that they were fighting to defend against this force that would wipe them out unless Neo did something amazing to rescue them. They would do just as well to just hope and pray for Neo because their fighting isn't going to accomplish anything. * Trinity's death scene--boring dialogue and too long. * The one stop train station--a big waste of time. If they were using it to show where Neo is as his mind is "trapped between our world and his", why can Trinity and Morpheus go there to pick him up? * OK, we knew Neo could fly in M1 and M2, but now all of a sudden Smith can fly too? Why didn't he fly in Reloaded if he had gone beyond who he was? * Also, I was looking forward to some cool moves in a big showdown with Neo and Smith. Instead, they are causing craters and mushroom clouds and seismic activity as they throw each other through buildings, fly and crash into each other, etc. It just turns into some kind of clash of the titans-style pummelling that just seems dumb.
So, the last movie was pretty bad because it wasn't really the Matrix anymore. They totally departed from the style of the first two and ruined it.
Enter the Matrix (2003)
Good gameplay, but with some weaknesses
First, I should say that I have played the PS2 and XBox versions of this. They are fairly close to the same--some control differences, of which I would give the advantage to PS2. I have read a lot of reviews of this game, and I see a lot of 10/10 and 1/10. I think both parties are overreacting. The game is pretty good, but could have had some things improved if they had put the time into it. First, good points: *The hand to hand fighting parts are really good. In bullet time, the moves get much better. There are also tons of different moves that you can discover, depending on things like what direction you're coming from, what weapons they or you have, if you are near walls/objects. The auto-rotating camera angles make things harder sometimes though. *Weapons. Lots of them you can get and use. It has some nice shooting features like sniper mode, shooting from around corners, and auto-aiming. Granted, auto-aiming is pretty bad if you are not using focus, but hey, that's one of the points of the game--focus makes everything better. *Cutscenes/video. Filmed just for the game--fills some gaps in the movie. Me like. *Focus. I think this is what makes the game. It enables lots of abilities that make it very like the movie. You can do stuff like sideways no-handed cartwheels, diving toward or away from guys while shooting, jumping farther, running up/along walls, and doing better fighting moves.
Negatives: *Bad AI. The computer controlled guys don't usually show much intelligence. They don't really gang up on you the way they realistically should, and they sometimes don't notice when you attack another guy near them. *Visual glitches. They don't crash the game as far as I've found, but they are sometimes annoying to see. People/objects don't really respond to physical boundaries of other people/objects. I've knocked guys down and seen them lying halfway through a wall. Other times I've knocked them and they fall down lying flat on the hand-rail of a catwalk! *Controls. I understand this could be a little difficult making it cross-platform for different systems. First, I wouldn't even want to try playing this on a PC. It's definitely a game controller game--it requires at least 6 or 7 easily accessible buttons in addition to a joystick/direction pad to make it playable. PS2 had the better controls by a little. The XBox controller has those nice trigger buttons on the bottom, and they make you use a thumb button to shoot with! Also, on both systems, the right joystick was just a toggle switch for going into first-person mode. Also, the joystick control is too sensitive in first-person mode, making sniping difficult, and too sensitive in driving scenes, making them hard to control.
Overall, very fun, but has some areas needing improvement. 7/10
The Master of Disguise (2002)
one or two good lines, and that's about it
I saw the trailer for this movie, and thought it might be good. I liked Dana Carvey in some Saturday Night Live stuff, and particularly Wayne's World, but this movie didn't cut it. I think the key to this was that Dana Carvey was the writer for Master of Disguise. He acts well to well written material, but he's not much of a writer. Generally, the dialogue just got old and irritating really quickly, and was just not very funny. He really tended to overdo things that may have been funny for a little while, but they went on longer than they should.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
More impressive than the first
I was very impressed with this movie. It was even better than _Fellowship_. Fellowship was a bit slow sometimes because they had to introduce characters and start building the story. This one took right off from there in full-tilt action and plot progression.
I was very impressed with their portrayal of Smeagol/Gollum and Frodo's relationship with him. They did a nice job emphasizing it as multiple personality disorder, like Green Goblin in Spiderman. I found it very meaningful that Frodo realizes first-hand what a torture the ring is, and what it has done to Smeagol. His pity manifests itself in attempting to help him and save him by reminding him of who he once was. ("It is the name of your true self--you've only forgotten."-ROTJ ;) ) That attempted redemption in Return of the Jedi is strikingly similar to this one, except that this meets with less success.
I only have a small problem with this movie, and that was some of its deviations from the story in the original book it is based on. No spoilers here, but it threw in several things that just weren't in the book. I won't fault that in the movie rating, though, because this is a movie producer's portrayal of it, and the things they changed actually made for a better movie than the book plot would have done.
For those who have read the books, I was surprised to see where this movie ended in the progression of plot, compared to the books. This movie stops well short of where _The Two Towers_ book gets to. It makes me wonder if we are in for a running time pushing 4 hrs. for Return of the King, or if they are just going to cut a lot of stuff out to fit in the end of Two Towers' plot and then all of Return of the King's plot.