Superman/Batman: Apocalypse (Movie Review)

This week “Superman/Batman: Apocalypse” came out on DVD and Blu-ray, and being the DC Comics fanatic that I am, I couldn’t resist making the purchase. For awhile now, Warner has been putting out some fantastic animated movies in the DC universe. And while this one isn’t near the top of the heap, it’s still some cool action and fun in the DCU.

The story centers on Kara Zor-el, Superman’s cousin, who arrives late to earth as another survivor of Krypton’s destruction. Superman immediately takes her under his wing while Batman is of course suspicious. Wonder Woman shows up and is a little of both, demanding that she be allowed to train Kara on Paradise Island so that she will not threaten others with her poorly controlled powers. And wouldn’t you know it, cosmic baddy, Darkseid has designs on Kara as well.

The action goes from earth, to Apokalypse and back again and provides a real visual treat. Near the end we get to see some of the most explosive and epic animated DC action to grace home video. Another visual treat is the character design, which carries over original artist Michael Turner’s flavor without going overboard.

Where the movie becomes mediocre is in the voice casting and/or direction. I’ll be the first to say that I wanted Kevin Conroy and Tim Daly to reprise their animated series roles as Batman and Superman in these animated movies. But I’m amazed to say that I think I’m getting tired of them.

Daly’s voice is getting older and losing some of the clean “farmboy” quality that has made his portrayal so endearing in the past. And Conroy seems to be putting too much bark and tonal clarity in his Batman voice these days, when I’d rather hear a gruff, breathier sound that sits lower in his voice.

But the worst fit in this flick is the voice of Darkseid, as provided by Andre Braugher. Braugher received top billing for this movie, though I’m not sure why, as Batman and Superman are more prominent than Darkseid and Braugher isn’t THAT well known compared to Daly and Conroy.

In any case, his delivery sounds just like that. An actor delivering lines. No subtext and not much expression, either. It sounded read. Read well, but read just the same. Not to mention the fact that his voice just didn’t have the depth and size to fill the shoes of Darkseid. Ed Asner, who reprised his animated series role as Granny Goodness, would have been a better choice. Or perhaps Michael Dorn, who voiced Kalibak (the son of Darkseid) in the animated series. Or best of all just a good unknown that could really do it well. As it is, Braugher’s voice sounds strangely “small” and uninteresting coming from the hulking gray tower that is Darkseid.

If you haven’t read the original comic book story, there are some cool surprises and it’s fun watching Kara interact with the other characters. If you were a fan of the animated series, though, this ground will feel covered already, as it nearly was in the two-part story “Little Girl Lost”, which is actually included in this release.

The included special features are cool, as usual, and definitely add to the value. The Supergirl feature was alright, until it started showing clips from Smallville (blech!). And the New Gods documentary was insightful.

The Green Arrow short feature is okay, though Black Canary stole some screen time and I would have liked to see Oliver Queen’s skills as an archer showcased a little better.

Nothing much to talk about of philosophical value in the main feature. Kara wants to be her own person and everyone else wants her to conform to a certain way of living. So there may be a parent/child metaphor in there somewhere, but it’s not brought out at all and is easily missed.

A cool, fan-service animated movie that isn’t the best they’ve put out for the DCU, but is hardly the worst.

Quality: 8.5/10

Relevance: 5.0/10


www.spiritblade.net/paeter
www.spiritblade.net/podcast

Creating A "Gamer's" Card Game

While camping this weekend I was reminded of the severe lack of playing card games with a "gamer" sensibility. A game where the suits have meaning in the game that are related to their symbol. (Hearts=health, Diamonds= money, Kings=Actual Kings)

I suck at number crunching, so creating a balanced game is not my strong point. But with nothing else to do on my Sunday afternoon I decided to take a crack at creating a basic framework for a game like the one I had in mind.

You're invited to try it out and send any notes for improvement my way, or post them here or in the topic I created for it at spiritblade.net/forums. (In the "Fan Zone") I'm sure it could use a ton!



"Bloodlines"- A card game by Paeter Frandsen


Two Players, each needs their own standard 52 card deck of playing cards.

The object of the game is to kill off the entire bloodline (Jack, Queen and King) of the enemy player.

Players start by shuffling their decks and drawing the top card. This card determines the suit of each player’s bloodline. (If a joker or identical cards are drawn, draw again until each player has a different suit selected.)

Suits can also be chosen in advance if the players prefer.

A player’s suit determines their strengths and weaknesses and has significant effect on game play.

Each player removes the Jokers, King, Queen, Jack and Ace of every suit that is not their own, as well as the Ace of their own suit. Each player then places the Jack, Queen and King of their own suit face up in front of them, with the rest of their deck face down to the right of them. (Leave room for another row of cards between the face up “Royal” cards and the edge of the table.)

Each player then draws a hand of 4 cards. 4 is the maximum number of cards a player may have in their hand. (Players do not reveal their hands.)

On the first game, flip a coin to determine who goes first. Otherwise, the loser of the last game goes first.

Each turn is played as follows:

1. Play or Cycle any number of Diamond or Club cards.(Discard down to 4)(This may be done multiple times at any time during your turn.)
2. Draw a card (unless you already have 4).
3. Play a card from your hand OR attack with a “unit” or a Joker. (Or purchase a Joker if you are the diamond suit.)


Play proceeds with each player taking a turn until one player’s Bloodline of Royals has been completely discarded. A player whose deck has run out may no longer draw any cards for the rest of the game.

The value of each card (number printed in the corner) is raised or lowered by one depending on your suit. All cards you have in your own suit have their number raised by one. All cards you have in another suit are lowered by one.

Card uses/abilities are as follows:

Hearts- Hearts represent the defense (or “health”) of your royal family members. Heart cards are played in front of a royal (Jack, Queen or King) of your choice, and stay there until that royal is discarded. You may play as many heart cards on a royal as you wish. The card values are added up to determine the total defense of that royal. (Remember to add or subtract as appropriate for your suit.) A Royal with no hearts played in front of it has a defense value of zero. A “unit” may not attack a royal with a total defense that is greater than or equal to the total attack power of the unit.

Spades- Spades represent the attack power of a military unit. Spades are played on the table between opposing players, on the side of the table of the player controlling them. Units consist of one or more spade cards on the table together(stacked but with their individual numbers visible) and the attack power of the unit is equal to the total value of all cards in the unit. (Remember to add or subtract as appropriate to your suit.) You may have more than one unit in play.

A player may choose to attack an enemy Royal with a unit he controls on his turn, but may only attack a Royal with a defense value that is less than his attacking unit’s attack power. After attacking a Royal, both the Royal and the entire unit are discarded into their controlling player’s discard pile. Any heart cards the Royal had are discarded as well.

Clubs- Clubs represent the food and supplies your kingdom has to support your war efforts. You may discard any club card to draw another card from your deck at any time during your turn. If your bloodline is the club suit, you may instead discard a club card and draw a number of cards equal to its value. (No more or less) You must then immediately discard down to 4 cards before doing anything else.

Diamonds- Diamonds represent the financial resources your kingdom has to support your war efforts. You may discard any diamond card to draw another card from your deck at any time during your turn. If your bloodline is the diamond suit, you are wealthy enough to afford the most effective and versatile mercenaries in the land: Jokers.

To hire a Joker, you must first build up a pool of diamonds with a value of 25 or greater. At any time during your turn, you may place any number of diamond cards in your hand into a diamond card “pool” off to the side. On your turn, instead of playing a card from your hand or attacking with a unit, you may choose to discard a diamond pool with a value of 25 or greater to place a Joker in play between yourself and your row of Royals on the table.

Jokers are master performers and deceivers. You may use a Joker to attack a Royal instead of using a unit. In this case, the defense value of the Royal is ignored and they are instantly killed. (The Joker infiltrated the enemy camp.) The Joker is discarded as well.

Alternatively, when one of your Royals is killed, you may choose to discard a Joker instead of the Royal (in this case the Joker was acting as a decoy), although all associated Heart cards are still discarded.

Camping!

Tomorrow afternoon I'll be heading out to go camping with my family this weekend and believe it or not I'm actually looking forward to it!

I've got a great book to read, some s'more ingredients to put to use, and my parents even have room left for me and my wife to sleep in their camper! Wow! It might not even feel like camping! Woohoo!

Devil (Movie Review)

I greatly enjoyed M. Night Shyamalan's first two films, "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable". But afterward, his films became somewhat formulaic and his "twist endings" more and more contrived or even forced. But the latest movie with his name on it seems to have taken a step back in the right direction. (Although he produced instead of directing it.)

The story centers on five people stuck in an elevator together, dealing with the fact that every time the lights mysteriously flicker out, one of them is attacked or killed horribly. Meanwhile, a police detective and building employees are working to get them out while also trying to figure out what is going on.

The movie is not a constant nail-biter, but the tension created when the attacker strikes and the paranoia of the elevator passengers is still pretty effective. There are also a couple of twists near the end which, while not truly shocking, do serve to keep an element or two unpredictable.

The movie has a nice, unsettling feeling from the very beginning, with its strange "upside down" opening credits. And shots within the elevator are often close-ups that draw viewers into the sense of claustrophobia.

There are very few digital effects, but some suitably gross gore effects. People die and die badly.

There is plenty to mull over as you walk away from this one. The setup for "Devil" asks you to assume that sometimes the Devil likes to walk the earth, gather up a few condemned people, then torture and kill them. Fairly off point from the Devil of the Bible (which the film implies its intention to portray by quoting 1st Peter at the opening of the film), making him more of a common "boogeyman" than the far more dangerous deceiver and manipulator he is more often described as. But "A", this is a Hollywood flick, so we can shrug our shoulders and move on and "B", Satan HAS been known to physically attack people, though with different motives than those in this movie. (See the book of "Job".)

Themes of sin, forgiveness and salvation (of a kind) are all present here and may come up with little conversational effort on the drive home. On the "salvation" front, a method of escaping the Devil is presented that basically involves admitting and taking responsibility for the wrongs you have done. Although this kind of "I'm sorry" salvation is still missing the vital atonement that only God, through Christ, can supply, it is still acknowledgment of one of the greatest barriers to belief in Christ. Self examination.

In order to trust a savior, you first have to acknowledge that you need one. Because we mistakenly equate our worth with our performance, we naturally avoid looking at our performance to avoid feeling worthless. But as "Devil" demonstrates, our sin makes us a target for punishment until we acknowledge it and take the necessary action to deal with it. In "Devil", this action is simply acknowledgment and genuine remorse. But the need for compensation for sin is still implied (possibly unintentionally) when the Devil asks one character, "Do you think you can do anything to make up for what you've done?" To which he answers, "No."

"Devil" is a cool movie (though not a fantastic one) that contains some important truth and lends itself to exploring some extremely valuable ideas.

Rated PG-13 for violence and disturbing images, thematic material and some language, including sexual references.

Quality: 8.5/10

Relevance: 9.5/10

www.spiritblade.net/paeter
www.spiritblade.net/podcast

Book Withdrawal!

Where's my book! I ordered my book and I need my book because I ordered it and I need it! No, I don't want that book. I want the book I ordered! What is "Media Mail"? Where is my book! I want to read it! I need to do push-ups.

WTC...

The Matrix We Never Saw

Although I've had it since April, today I finally started taking a look at the shooting script for "The Matrix" that I was given by some mysterious benefactor that has still not revealed themselves.

Some fascinating stuff was either left on the cutting room floor or not filmed at all in this movie. For example, it's revealed that Neo was not the first "one" Morpheus recruited and thought was the "savior of the copper tops". In fact, there were five "ones" before him that all died fighting agents!

There's also some extra dialogue that clearly claims faith and reason to be incompatible. I've gotta say I'm glad that didn't make it into the film. The undertones of that self-defeating philosophy were already strong enough in the theatrical release.

I'm about two-thirds of my way through the script and can't wait to see what else I might learn. Makes me want to get around to reading the shooting scripts that came with the DVDs for the other movies, too! (That and I suddenly have an itch to dig out my PS2 copy of "The Matrix: Path Of Neo".)

Resident Evil: Afterlife (Movie Review)

(Warning! This review contains some mild spoilers!)

Although I’ve only played some of the first two video games in the “Resident Evil” series, I’ve watched all of the movies and enjoyed them for what they were,which wasn’t a lot. The same is true of the 4th movie in the series.

At the end of “Resident Evil: Extinction”, the implied promise is made that Alice and friends would finally storm the underground headquarters of the Umbrella Corporation and take them out once and for all. If you were hoping “Afterlife” would play this out and give you the closure you’ve been waiting for in this series, enjoy the first ten minutes and then leave the theater. This movie ends with yet another cliffhanger.

Rather than giving us the all out, crazy cool culmination of this series, the script practically resets the status quo to that of the first or second movie, very early on. Alice’s T-virus powers are taken away and Umbrella is as hidden and elusive as ever. In fact, due to a particular plot element, Alice even has to “meet” Claire Redfield all over again.

Despite this disappointing downward turn in the series’ overall progression, the movie still has plenty of fun to be had for many viewers. Creature fans will enjoy the nasty looking zombies and their “tongues”, while action fans will dig the bullets, explosions and use of slow-motion, even if a few shots early on were taken directly from the Matrix movies.

The movie creates a modest degree of tension, but is not what I would consider scary. One might even say the heroes are a little too cool for their own good. Some genuine fear in their eyes would have helped quite a bit. The script also seems more interested in providing Hollywood in-jokes (bashing on film producers) and video game fan satisfaction (the use of Chris and Claire to deliver the “final blow” near the end) than it is in creating a truly compelling story.

Characters are two dimensional and unworthy of emotional investment(which hurts the intensity of the film). And the script occasionally contains elements that don’t make sense. (Why did the T-virus make one zombie put a potato bag on his head, and why bring the basketball star back for a lame one-liner?) Maybe playing all the games would answer my questions, but I don’t think I should have to do that.

I can’t think of any worthwhile discussion that this movie might lend itself to. Pure mindless genre entertainment for those with the itch to scratch.

Rated R for sequences of strong violence and language.

Quality: 7.5/10

Relevance: 5.0/10

www.spiritblade.net/paeter
www.spiritblade.net/podcast

Dragon Age STILL Rocks!!

Over the weekend I finally got around to downloading thew two most recent pieces of Downloadable Content and was reminded of how awesome this game is.

As soon as I finished having my reunion with Morrigan, I loaded up my "second playthrough" character and logged a couple more hours in Ferelden. I can't believe the next game in this series is coming out as soon as this March! I could probably spend another year on this game!

"Guys" Weekend

Well, my wife left this morning for a church women's retreat, leaving me for the weekend with my three year old son and no ideas of what to do. A perfectly good "guys" weekend, and I have no ideas!

I'm gonna hang with my dad tomorrow and play a game or watch a movie. My son and I have already played the "run back and forth screaming" game, and he goes down in a couple of hours anyway. I think I've seen every good horror movie I want to see (usually what I do when my wife is out of town) so that just leaves video games. I'm diggin' on Baldur's Gate, but I've already been playing it this week, so it wouldn't be an activity that would make the weekend "special".

Of course, this has been a pretty long week, so maybe a great "guy's weekend" activity would be some sleep!

Crap... I'm old, aren't I?

The Last Exorcism (Movie Review)

Many movies treating the subject of Exorcism inevitably draw from the well of “The Exorcist” in repetitive and uncreative ways, adding only new special effects and visuals to an already established status quo. “The Last Exorcism” certainly revisits some established concepts, but also carves a new path into the genre with its unique premise.

The movie is filmed in a documentary style, following a southern preacher who admits that his own belief in God is not genuine and that the many exorcisms he has performed were fake. He decides that exorcism should be exposed as fake and takes a camera crew with him to an exorcism in service to that end. The only problem is that this time he gets much more than he bargained for.

With a cast of unknowns, this movie is a great example of the wonderful kinds of performances that can come to life in film when a studio doesn’t limit themselves to established Hollywood faces. I found every character in this movie to be believable and fascinating to watch. Of particular note is the actress who played Nell, the 15 year old girl who is the subject of the Exorcism. Her sweetness and innocence is almost moving in and of itself and contrasts incredibly with her demon persona later in the film.

As one would expect with this style of filming, there are not a lot of special effects. Effort is made to ground things in realism and suspense is created more by what you don’t see than what you do. Those who have a fear of the unknown and like to sit on the edge of their seat may find a rewarding experience here.

That’s not to say that the film doesn’t have special effects. At least, I think it does. That, or the actress playing Nell is also an amazing contortionist! Some creepy and realistic looking body bending provides a few good spine tingles the last third of the movie.

There is plenty to talk about after seeing this movie, and I wish I could sit down with the writer and director to hear some of their thoughts about specific issues.

First off, there is no positive representation of genuine Christianity in this movie. One of the first lines out of the main character’s mouth is about how he learned from his dad how to “hook” people into his preaching and get their money. In this movie, Christianity is represented only by those who are not what they appear to be or are ignorant and superstitious.

A brief all-inclusive statement is made near the beginning of the film that “religions all over the world perform exorcisms”. And the foundational truths of Christianity are given no unique ability to combat evil. If anything, Christianity comes out of this movie looking pretty weak.

Having said that, this is not a movie that will line up with an Atheistic worldview, either. This flick provides great opportunity to talk about demons and whether or not they exist during the drive home. The main character also makes it clear near the beginning that if you are a Christian and if you believe in Jesus, you have to believe in demons, because Jesus taught that they existed and performed exorcisms. So in this respect, the movie does uphold the basic value of logical faith, as opposed to picking and choosing what we want to believe from the Bible.

During an attempted Exorcism, the preacher spouts off scripture in an attempt to ward off the demon, to which the demon mockingly replies “Words, words ,words!” Though some may see this as an invalidation of the power of God’s words, I saw it as a validation of Christ’s power and not our own. The Bible is not a magic spell-book that we can recite “incantations” from to defeat evil. It is Christ himself who defeats evil or keeps it at bay.

An odd cliché the film does fall into is the upholding of Latin as a "spiritual" language. Given that the Bible was written primarily in Hebrew and Greek, this felt like Catholic traditional baggage more than anything else. I’d love to see a movie of this kind where the demons speak in Greek or Hebrew, rather than Latin.

The preacher also uses an old Latin tome, not the Bible, as his primary informational resource about demons. He doesn’t believe in demons, but it seems to be established in the film that real Christian exorcists would validate this mysterious Latin “demon encyclopedia”. Though it is never explained why this book is considered authoritative.

Like much religious superstition, this book is given authority not because it has been tested for historical authenticity, but simply because it is old, religious, and written in a dead language. Frankly, I’m ready for Hollywood and everyone else to get over using this kind of thinking. It just doesn’t make any sense.

If you like scary/supernatural movies and don’t mind the documentary style, this is a really enjoyable flick. You’ll also likely have lots to talk and think about afterward.

Rated PG-13 for disturbing violent content and terror, some sexual references and thematic material.


Quality: 9.0/10

Relevance: 9.5/10


www.spiritblade.net/paeter

www.spiritblade.net/podcast