Not Talking About a Movie: DEADPOOL (2016)

Watch Yourself
Yes technically I'm talking about a recent cinematic release, and no this has nothing to do with gaming, so we can't do what we did with Gods of Egypt and throw it into My Arcade. So...what are we talking about? This:

 What do you mean you can't tell what that is? I'll edit it a bit later...

Today's Leap Day, and Jessi wants to watch Leap Year, so I guess I'm going to instead just sort of piece this together, back on my birthday (Feb. 6) a friend ordered the Collector Corps Deadpool box. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Deadpool, but I do definitely enjoy him, and I'm appreciative of the box. Why? Because it dropped some awesome loot, so let's get started.

 First of all, we have this sweet patch, which is not attached to anything except the box, and may not ever be attached to anything, don't know anyone who can sew, and don't know what I would sew it to anyway.

 Second is this pretty cool pin. It should be noted that these two are side by side when you first open the box.

 After that comes the thematic shirt, a pretty tight little Deadpool, I think he's reverse colored. Speaking of tight, he's also an extra-small with a female body-type cut, so I guess he's Jessi's now.

 Under the shirt we have this little variant cover Deadpool comic, courtesy of Collector Corps, like everything else. Pretty sweet, in mint condition, and in it's own sleeve of course.

 Next is a Dorbz limited edition "cowboy" vinyl, with the little hat and a horsey!

 Beside our Dorbz vinyl is a Pop! Vinyl, admittedly I'm more familiar with these little guys (I have a handful of Star Wars Pop!s lying around.

 Finally this little plush dudey is left inside the box all alone, don't worry buddy, we'll get you out and put you alongside my Robin plush, you can kick the crap out of him while everyone else sleeps!

Anyway...yeah, that's about it, glad to have the box of course, a little upset about the shirt...of course. But, Deadpool makes a nice addition to my vinyls, and the box is pretty nice itself:



Remind me later and we'll get a post about the actual movie! We'll also hopefully do a bit of editing on these photos! (Taken with a wide lens camera intended for action shots...so yeah these closeups are bad)

Gods Among Us: GODS OF EGYPT (2016)

TO TRUST OR NOT TO TRUST
I face a confusing situation, in my pre-movie observations, on the one-hand, many movies receive reviews that mislead me, for instance, The Witch, receiving mostly positive reviews and praise. On the other hand, we have Gods of Egypt, which did not disappoint quite as much as reviews suggested, but still was not a terrific cinematic experience. Anyway:

TITLE: Gods of Egypt

SUMMARY:
Mortal hero Bek teams with the god Horus in an alliance against Set, the merciless god of darkness who has usurped Egypt's throne, plunging the once peaceful and prosperous empire into chaos and conflict.

PERSONAL CRITIQUE:
I am no professional critic, we have reviewed this often, I am merely a man with an opinion. In my opinion, this was not a fantastic movie, on the other hand, I do think this could have made an amazing game. Could have being the keyword. Let's just start with the first major problem I spot, the entirety of the movie is CGI, the characters are of varying proportions, I understand, the gods needed to seem like gods, but this doesn't necessarily require that you make them bigger than the mortals. Just make them a little flashier, heck, keep them in their Animorph form and let them be 100% CGI, instead of the bungled mess that is extra large normal humans next to shrunken normal humans. 

Follow this up with what may very well be simply atrocious casting, or at the very least, generally terrible acting, and we're faced with a computer generated monster. Not the one that is apparently threatening the entire existence of the universe either. This one is worse than Aphophis. By the way, Apophis, ever heard of him? No? Put your hand down Egyptologist, no? Good, no one else has, and no one would blame you if you thought he was stolen straight out of Norse mythology. Come to think of it, what are the odds that almost every religion makes reference to a serpentine creature that will potentially bring about the downfall of all creation?

Right, the casting, I don't know if it's the actors' fault, or just really poor direction, but the characters in this movie do not reach their audience. For the most part they're just sort of there, and they only seem to portray any real connectivity to the situation itself when it's absolutely essential. "Oh, you're the Goddess of Love," yet you don't have the necessary concern about you to- do humane things. Add to this all around horrible character decisions, like letting a mad man take the throne with a dozen gods present who could very easily tag team him, or, I don't know, letting that same mad man run rampant with power immediately after instead of striking out with your godly powers, and you have some outstandingly poor characters. This is ALMOST redeemed with Horus and Bek's characterizations, except that Horus, with his all-seeing eyes, is basically ignorant of everything around him, and Bek, who is clearly very agile and skilled, pulls off everything through sheer good luck. "Roll the bones," as he says.

All of this is tied together with one thing that is absolutely amazing, they cast the Scottish raised Irishman as an Egyptian god. Don't get me wrong, Butler is a very convincing psychopath (because that is literally all the thought that went into Set's character "What if he's just crazy?" "I love it! Do it!") but in a cast of characters who do a pretty good job of not sounding out of place, all of them generally speaking what might be considered unaccented English, Butler can't help but drop a few accents into the movie. Maybe that's just more what made Seth a complete loon? What do you mean his name's Set, his lover called him Seth, I'm pretty sure she would know. Oh, did I not mention that? Look, guys, if you're going to do it wrong, just do it wrong and get it over with, call the bad guys one name, and call them the right name, or the wrong name (which they nailed on Apep, a.k.a. Apophis.)

Did I mention the entire movie is Computer Generated? Seriously, and I don't really have a problem with that. I mean, I really enjoy animated stuff. The thing is, it's trying to be realistic CGI, I guess? Plus, it's super flashy, like more so than the last three J.J. Abrams movies of note (in case you're wondering, that's Star Trek, Star Trek, and Star Wars.) 

SPOILER TIME!!!
Now, real quick, I just want to touch on the plot a minute. Set steals Horus' eyes, presumably so that he can't be opposed by the most powerful of his rivals (because Gods know no one else could touch him apparently.) Nope, he's actually on this mad killing quest so that he can collect the essence of each God, in order to become the ultimate life form. But even then he won't be satisfied. It's rather obvious looking back on it, but in the heat of the movie you don't catch it, and I suppose that's good. Stealing Horus' eyes, again, easy enough to explain. Then he cuts off his ex-ladies wings (I called her Neith, I think they called her Neithis, I'm pretty certain she's "the weaver.") This is your first hint, the next? A little bit of dialogue from Horus to Bek "(Osiris) was cut into 14 pieces...they never found his heart." I don't quite remember what daddy's heart did, but uncle wanted it, so he took it, just like any crazy uncle. Then comes the last piece of the puzzle, Thoth's mind. Which conveniently gets drawn out by our heroes, of course.

But that's not all, he becomes this all powerful creature, goes to see his daddy (that'd be Ra) and kills him, or it looks like he does anyway, and steals his spear. But not to take up daddy's position as guardian of all of existence, no, in order to wipe all of existence from...existence...by calling Apophis forth to devour the Nile...apparently the source of all life. Seriously? Your plan is to kill EVERYTHING, turning the world back into Chaos? When was the last time that worked? Oh yeah, never.

But yeah, that's the movie in a nutshell. It's not quite as bad as all of that negativity sounds, it's still a reasonably interesting story, set against some relatively untouched mythology, with a decent cast backing it up. Still would have made a better game. Hmmm....

RATING:
Nine out of Ten Transformer Gods would give this movie Three All Seeing Eyes, out of Five.

Not the best, but definitely not the worst, check it out when the opportunity presents itself, but don't go out of your way and spend a lot on it.

Wrongfully Wary: THE WITCH (2016)

AN UPDATE
We're done with posting every day, we're through, we're beyond this. You can get a similar statement by checking out My Arcade. Basically I'm not as enthralled about writing every day as I ought to be, or rather, about writing about movies as I wanted to be. Instead I'm turning a bit more attention toward brainstorming, and a bit less toward My Cinema and My Arcade. With any luck, this will lead into some material I can get published!

So, I'll still be updating the two blogs, just not every weekday. With that said...I've come to terms with the fact that, although I am relatively easily scared, I really enjoy horror movies, and so, I went and watched The Witch this weekend, and here's my first impression.

TITLE: The Witch


SUMMARY:

A family in 1630s New England is torn apart by the forces of witchcraft, black magic and possession.

PERSONAL CRITIQUE:

I didn't really care for it. Is that too blunt? Well, to be honest, I went into this movie expecting a full-blown horror movie, and as a result I had my hopes up for a different kind of movie, instead The Witch turned out to be a sort of period piece about the impacts of witchcraft and distrust in the 1600s. In that respect, I guess it did a pretty fantastic job.

The problem with that is I went into the theater expecting to have my pants scared off, and I left with the image of a wrinkly old woman irreversibly burned into my eyes. The scariest scenes of the movie played more on shock factor than actual scare value, and again, I understand that's not exactly what the director was going for, well maybe it should be advertised in a less eerie fashion. Additionally, the ending played out very differently from what I expected...allow me to explain in a-

SPOILER SECTION!

So, throughout the movie our heroine, Thomasin (don't get me started) loses her baby brother to the witch, loses her older brother to the witch, has her siblings turned against her by the witch (and her own stupidity!), has her father taken from her by Black Phillip (the family goat) presumably due to the witch, and then her mother turns against her and she's forced to kill her mother. Most other movies have just set the stage for a final battle against the witch, an attempt to end the malevolence of this evil lucifer-bound monster.

Nope...Thomasin decides to wander out to the pin that Black Phillip is kept in (remember that goat that killed her dad a moment ago?) and ask him to speak to her. Okay, fine, the character has lost her mind, grand. Nope! After two or three repetitions of requests, Black Phillip speaks. Offers her whatever she wants (except revenge, which she evidently does not want), asks if she sees a book, tells her to write her name in it, then they go off and join a coven in the woods, where she gets her first taste of witchcraft. Game over.

So yeah, that's the disappointing ending to The Witch. I'm sure it's nice to break the mold, but not when your audience is desperate for a few more good scares.

RATING:

Nine out of Ten Teat-eating ravens would give this movie Two Black Phillips out of Five.

I didn't enjoy it for the most part, but I will still say it's a decent period piece, just not my cup of tea. I do however, really appreciate Black Phillip, wish we had gotten to see the man behind the goat.

My Primary Source of Video Entertainment: YOUTUBE

A Different Update...
Hey guys, I'm kind of not feeling the whole "reviewing movies" thing right now, so obviously I should just not do that, it was never my intention. That doesn't mean I can just abandon my blog though! Instead I'm gonna just scrape the surface of an entertainment and information medium that absorbs a lot of my time.

Youtube.

So...over the next week or two, expect me not to post movie reviews, instead I'll probably be posting some info on my favorite youtubers and youtube videos. I won't promise that these youtubers are all PG-rated either, because they're not. Some of them are, and some of them actually try to be out of sheer respect for their subject matter and fandom, but not all of them. With that said I'll go ahead and break it down.

TITLE: Youtube


Simple enough? There's no need for like a summary section or even a personal critique section, because it's not a movie...so yeah. There.

The reason I've suddenly changed subjects like this is really because I spend far more time on youtube than I do watching television or streaming movies. Watching videos made by less than movie star people just entertains me more. Particularly the fact that most of the information I watch on youtube pertains to video games and the culture around them, not so much big budget films.

Here's a really brief list of some youtubers I watch regularly:
The Game Theorists
 Team Four Star
 TheJWittz
 PewDiePie
ScrewAttack

So yeah, these guys all do different sorts of videos that I really enjoy, and it should be noted that with the exception of TheJWittz and The Game Theorists, their videos can occasionally be pretty offensive. Also, I didn't list the individual contributors to each channel, but for the most part if the channel is a collaboration effort, like the Game Theorists and TeamFourStar, I also enjoy the material the contributors put out on the side (like Culture Shock by Gaijin Goomba!).

So...that's it for now, I've got a post that explains my sort of theme for the next indeterminate time period, and I've got a general idea of how these will go. So let's jump right into it...later.

Mistakes Are Often Artificial: AVENGERS, AGE OF ULTRON (2015)

FINALLY
First of all, FINALLY I'M ALMOST DONE WITH LAST WEEK! Secondly...FINALLY I'M COVERING A MARVEL MOVIE! The Marvel Cinematic Universe is quite frankly, probably my favorite film franchise. I love the Star Wars Universe, but frankly some things in it are getting thrown out that I feel like shouldn't be, meanwhile there are some things that probably shouldn't exist.

Now, don't misunderstand, I'm a bad fanboy, I haven't watched the Captain America movies because, frankly, Cap is my least favorite superhero, I mean he's a fine upstanding person, and his character isn't such that it can be called into question, but so are many firemen, and I don't like fireman movies. He's a strong, fast, smart superhero, and he's a great super-soldier, but that's it. On the other hand, I am super excited about Civil War, which I think would be better titled Avengers: Civil War, but whatever. Enough about that, let's cover one other thing before we jump into my brief review:

Pageviews! Lots of'em, I've hit 70 in the last three hours, and I hope everyone enjoyed my brief statement regarding the sheer epicness...epicity? Epicocity...hang on...okay, we have to make up a word here...the epicocity of The Matrix, seriously, one of my favorite movies, and I'll probably cover it in greater detail in the future, possibly just updating the old post. Anyway, yeah, thanks for checking my blog out!

TITLE: Avengers: Age of Ultron


SUMMARY:

When Tony Stark and Bruce Banner try to jump-start a dormant peacekeeping program called Ultron, things go horribly wrong and it's up to Earth's Mightiest Heroes to stop the villainous Ultron from enacting his terrible plans.

PERSONAL CRITIQUE:

Just gotta say, loved this movie, went and saw it in theaters and was thoroughly pleased. In all fairness, I'm not a big enough comic book nerd to know the original story behind Ultron, but I do know that loved this rendition on it. I mean, I really enjoy Sci-Fi, and that's part of the draw to Marvel comics for me, most of the characters are science fiction heroes. I mean, radioactive spider bite victims, gamma ray afflicted scientists, super soldiers, and men in exo-suits, Marvel brings it all, and wraps most of it up in a nice little Avenger package. Not to mention the more supernatural characters like Dr. Strange and even an alien twist on the Norse Gods. But yeah, Marvel.

Age of Ultron, I'll grant, is more a superhero movie than an Artificial Intelligence movie, but let's look at it, the movie centers around a scientist trying to protect the world from an alien invasion by introducing a fool-proof defense system, known as Ultron. He already has a super-AI butler that tends to everything he needs, so this is no great stretch, but the ultimate end-game is a bit out of even Tony Stark's league. Ol' Stark uses Norse technology to jumpstart his project. The end result is pretty terrifying from an armageddon scenario point of view. Cue epic fight scenes and existential break downs of our heroes and villains as they fight to secure humanity's safety from its greatest threat, itsel- I mean Ultron.

Really terrific movie with some emotional string jerking scenes, some awesome heroic battles, and the Hulk doing what the Hulk does. Additionally, this movie does a decent job of setting up for the upcoming Civil War! Can you believe it? Like they plan this junk or something.

RATING:

Nine out of Ten haywire world defense units would give this movie Five ancient artifacts of power out of Five.

Okay, I'll grant you there are some issues with the movie, like some characters' origin stories being just a little off in my experience, and some possibly glaring flaws that I overlooked because I was just enjoying it so much, but isn't that what's important? Being so good we don't care about the bad parts?

Beware the Machine Uprising: THE MATRIX (1999)

BAD AT THIS...
Can we just take a moment to look at this? I have a goal of five blogs a week based on a theme decided rather spur of the moment at the close of one week or the start of the next. Last week I managed to post only two reviews, with a third coming out Sunday, and a fourth...maybe a fifth...today.

The problem? I set myself on a path I didn't even want really, I originally intended to do this in order to put fingers to keyboard (pen to paper) and get some words out there, regardless of their focus, because writing a lot is supposed to improve your ability to write, no matter the subject. Instead of just doing this to vent a need to write though, I decided I would do a series of blog posts every week, and I'm still going to stick to that! So hop over to My Arcade for what should be a series of rapid posts regarding AI in video games (I only managed one post over there!).

TITLE: The Matrix


SUMMARY:

A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

PERSONAL CRITIQUE:

Come on, we've already talked about it, this is The Wachowskis in their prime. The Matrix takes an already scary idea, machines take over the world (see: Terminator) and twists it into something just as terrifying, what if everything is a lie? Thomas Anderson, a.k.a. the hacker Neo, a.k.a. savior of the human race The One (an anagram of Neo, obviously) is perfectly satisfied in his boring office job and exciting night life as a hacker and tech dealer, well, not really. That's why, when a mysterious message appears on his computer, Neo goes out chasing the White Rabbit, encounters a group of people who are basically cyber terrorists, and gets caught up in a war he never knew existed, the war between humanity and the Machines. 

I'll go ahead and throw up a spoiler warning right here, in case you're one of those weirdos who hasn't seen the Matrix, it's a 1999 masterpiece, go watch it, now.

We're just talking about the first movie here right? Okay, so we're hit with this setting that says nothing of the sci-fi setting of the movie, except the opening. The opening sequence introduces us to Trinity, a woman who can run on walls, ninja kick cops into unconsciousness, and rather easily escape her pursuers by leaping between rooftops. Not only that, but we're also introduced to the agents, who at this point are just really tough, really powerful men in black who are out to take down Trinity. Then Trinity climbs into a phone booth, answers a phone call, and barely escapes near death.

So, yeah, definitely science fiction on some level, but what level? Well, would you believe the world as you know it is a computer simulation? No, well, that's how humans who have been freed from the Matrix view it, and Neo, our hero, is soon to be one of them. The movie revolves around an interesting plot and is put together well enough to spawn a constant stream of internet memes more than ten years later. How appropriate, since the Matrix is essentially the epitome of a technophobe's worst nightmare. Everything is put together very nicely, and while some people view the sequels as a perversion of an otherwise well put together movie, I can't help but feel like the sequels are just another layer on a delicious cake. Icing too.

There are of course some minor issues with this, such as Keanu Reeves' questionable approach to acting amazed, but other than that, and a sometimes difficult to follow plot to those who don't watch it willingly, this is fantastic. The characters are great, the music suits it, and the fight scenes are perfect. Bullet Time is utilized to the max and Neo is a kung fu master suddenly and to top it all off, we have an antagonist that will live forever, sort of.

RATING:

Nine out of Ten "Mr. Anderson"s would give this movie Five Sunglass removing "Whoa"s, out of Five.

It's probably not as great as I think to a lot of people who aren't me, but hey, I'm me, and I say this is one of the greatest movies ever. So go check it out, stop being that guy who hasn't seen the Matrix and the Lord of the Rings, come on.

I Thought About It, Therefore I Wrote About It: ERGO PROXY (2006)

Procrastination!!!
Have I not updated all week? No, I don't think so, oh well, I'm here now to update three times hopefully, and four times on My Arcade. Let's start...here:

TITLE: Ergo Proxy
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SUMMARY:

In a post-apocalyptic future humans live in peace with androids in a domed city. However, a strange series of murders has intruded into bored inspector Re-l Mayer's life.

PERSONAL CRITIQUE:

You know I have to do an obligatory anime every week, and I'm doing this one now! Ergo Proxy follows the adventures of Re-l Mayer and Vincent Law as they seek to understand their purpose in the world. Or something like that, it's set in a post-apocalyptic future where humans and machines, called entourages, coexist within domed cities. It's been a minute since I've watched the entire series, so pardon my possible incorrectness somewhere in this text.

Anyway, the series is set, like I said, in a very dark post-apocalypse world, with science-fiction/cyberpunk elements galore. There's a persona beyond Re-l and Vincent as well that is positively amazing and core to the plot, that we're actually introduced to in the first episode I believe. Regardless the core plot point itself is the existence of creatures known as Proxies, which I can't really explain in great detail without breaking into spoiler territory, but let's just say they're rather god-like in power. The point being, the setting is pretty well thought out.

Despite the dark, brooding nature of Re-l and the blandness of Vincent, the two actually draw a lot of attention from the viewer, and, in my case at least, I found it pretty easy to attach myself to the two. In fact, my first experience with the series was a brief five minute jaunt in the middle of the series, and it stuck with me so well I managed to look it up seven or eight years later.

RATING:

Nine out of Ten suddenly self-aware machines would give this movie Four random game show episodes, out of Five.

Speaking of random game show episodes, that's kind of a low and high point in the series, where our heroes randomly wind up in a game show with no explanation, and the audience gets explanations about a lot of the strangeness going on in the world.

Loving Machines: EX MACHINA (2015)

LITTLE LATE!
Had intended on throwing this up last night, but a spot of bad weather threw itself in my path, so we'll actually be updating with Ex Machina this morning, and hopefully one more tonight!

TITLE: Ex Machina


SUMMARY:

A young programmer is selected to participate in a ground-breaking experiment in synthetic intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breath-taking humanoid A.I.

PERSONAL CRITIQUE:

So...this one was interesting. Kind of messed up on multiple levels, and everything I was hoping for was ripped away from me! Let's start with characterization:

We are introduced in the first minute to our main character, Caleb Smith, who is an up and coming programmer employed by Blue Book, it seems like has several friends, or at least a lot of coworkers he associates with, as he received a message saying "You won!" and then thirty messages from friends congratulating him, and one who wanted to come with him...anyway. Caleb is a weird character, rather timid and awkward in almost all respects.

Within five minutes (because there are the elongated scenes of nothingness between Caleb winning and him arriving at the super secret base he was invited to) we meet Nathan Drake- sorry, Nathan Bateman. This one is even more odd, he's an accomplished programmer, apparently setting up the greatest search engine on earth at the age of thirteen. Since then he has aged though, developed a drinking problem, and become a body-builder. Seriously, this guy is a conglomeration of very different ideas. Oh, and he has anger management problems, and he may be a compulsive liar. There are some other character flaws, but we'll have to underline those, *winky face*. 

Our third character is Ava, our plot focus, she is Nathan Bateman's masterpiece, a human AI. She holds conversations masterfully, she has an expressive face, she's intuitive, and she's emotional. Of course, being that she has emotions and a new character was introduced to her environment, she falls in love with Caleb.

There is a fourth character, Kyoko, but she's less important, she is Nathan's Asian house servant and partner.

Shall we jump in now, after a period of dipping our toes in the exotic scenery's river?

SPOILERS!!!

Okay, so there's this budding romance between Caleb and Ava obviously, very enjoyable, until the end of the movie, oh my God. So the other character flaw that Nathan has? It actually fits with the whole introverted alcoholic genius thing (unlike the body builder motif), he's a sex addict. But because he's an introvert he doesn't have wild parties with lots of girls every day, instead he builds artificial women to sleep with. Four or five so far, with Kyoko being the latest. I believe his intention was for Ava to fall in love with him, but this is never stated, and if so, he failed. Something to do with keeping a sentient being trapped. 

There are some really non-sensical, yet totally believable ideas that follow this reveal, the most notable to me being that Caleb thinks he may be a machine. To figure out whether or not he is, he takes a razor blade and cuts his arm wide open. He may have been debating suicide, but I don't think so, I'm pretty convinced he was just really bad at decision making. This also includes a scene where Nathan wakes up a few minutes after passing out from intoxication and staying up all night (seems to me, in my experience anyway, if nothing disturbed you, you'd stay for hours), notices his card is missing, collapses to the floor (in desperation?), and then Caleb steps out of the door and finds his key on the floor. What super-genius doesn't realize he was already holding the card?

Then there's the big final boss battle, Nathan knocks Caleb unconscious after finding out that he's been outsmarted and Caleb managed to free Ava, Nathan goes to drag Ava back to her room, Kyoko stabs Nathan, Nathan kills Kyoko, Ava kills Nathan. Sure, final boss fights in robot movies are exciting and action packed. Not this one, Ava is portrayed as almost psychotic in this scene, as she doesn't desperately grab for the knife and assault Nathan, she methodically stands from her lying position, slowly draws the knife out of his back, and then gently slides the knife through his ribcage. Then Nathan stumbles away and slowly dies in a pool of his blood. 

There's this issue though, Nathan was right, he was always right. He insisted over and over that Ava felt emotions, and she does. He told Caleb a thousand times he was making a mistake, and he did. He assured him that Ava was just using him, and she was. In the final scene Ava repeats a very key line from before, earlier in the movie she asked Caleb to close his eyes and wait for her, when she returned she dressed up and pulled on a wig, creating a more human appearance. In this scene she asks him to wait there, she goes into Nathan's room, peels the skin away from one of the abandoned sex-doll robots, and attaches it to herself. Then, she locks Caleb in the room, and leaves. 

The end. Seriously, good idea, good twist ending, but I probably won't be watching this one again for a while.

RATING:

Nine out of Ten Sentient AIs would give this move Three classy robot sex scenes, out of Five.

I can safely say the first watch of this isn't terrible, but after your first viewing, there's a good chance you won't watch it again. The movie isn't paced very well, it's slow and monotonous ninety percent of the time.

Skynet is Coming: TERMINATOR GENISYS (2015)

MACHINE TALK
Let's talk machines, for the rest of the week, on both blogs. My Arcade will cover AIs in video games, and My Cinema will cover machines and AIs in film. Will we finally get to see a Matrix blog? Maybe, but for now let's tackle the movie I just got done watching.

TITLE: Terminator Genisys


DETAILS:
...will be dropped from this point on. The Details section is a great thing when dealing with foreign movies and obscurities, but for the time being I'm hitting mainstream titles, and the "details" I provide hardly cover all the bases, nor do they really provide new information.

SUMMARY:
When John Connor, leader of the human resistance, sends Sgt. Kyle Reese back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor and safeguard the future, an unexpected turn of events creates a fractured timeline.

PERSONAL CRITIQUE:
Okay, real quick, someone tip me off, do I have to watch the Sarah Connor Chronicles to figure out what's going on in this alternate timeline? Because there's seriously no clarity to be found here. Okay, random spot of irritation done there.

Great movie, really enjoyed, it I laughed, I frowned, I never cried, because it's not appropriate to cry in a movie like this, but it did move me a bit. The story, as you would expect from a Terminator movie, follows a human from the future, Sarah Connor, and a psychopathic killer robot...and another killer robot...and another killer robot...for a while anyway. So yeah, a classic Terminator movie.

So here's the gist, in case the summary doesn't explain it well enough, Kyle Reese goes back in time to mate with Sarah Connor...I mean protect Sarah Connor, but she doesn't need protection, she's a strong independent woman with a powerful butt-kicking robot sidekick, known only as Pops...and T-800...and "Guardian" in the credits. Whatever. This has just as much time-travel shenanigans as the first two movies, with not only a causality loop, but a causality defiance combined with a potentially universe altering time-hop.

I won't go into so many details that I ruin the ending of the movie, but I will tell you what I enjoyed the most. Schwarzenegger, right down to the line he apparently has to say in every movie "I'll be back." The idea of the T-800 developing a human-like personality is fantastic and played-up very well as the movie progresses. That combined with an over-all decent cast made for some good story-telling. Partner good-storytelling with a musical score that never put me off, but didn't really draw a lot of attention to itself, and fight scenes that weren't trying to be realistic, but instead took advantage of the over-the-top science fiction setting and released an epic battle between obsole- I'm sorry- old and new.

RATING:
Nine out of Ten old models remastered would give this movie Four magnetic sucker punches, out of Five.

If you haven't watched this movie yet, what are you waiting for? Place your hand on your partner, look them dead in the eye, reach for the keys and say, in your best T-800 voice, "I'll be back."