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Sep. 23rd, 2009 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynMeant to go and see 9 either Monday or yesterday. Didn't really get to, esp. since yesterday I picked up Halo 3 ODST. When I got home and turned on my Xbox, I glanced through Video Marketplace to see if there were any new Halo or Mass Effect trailers up. Not so much… but I did run across their rent a movie service, and since I had already prepaid a small amount, wound up renting The Mutant Chronicles.
Um.
I rather enjoyed it, but it was more for the sake of ‘interesting aesthetic choices’ and ‘wow, I like your cast’ than anything else. The storyline was like the Dark and Grim and Gritty sibling of Fifth Element- a vaguely explained ancient evil from Outside, an order of monks left over from a long time ago keeping the information about the evil thing, and the need to get someone modern with guns and stuff to fight it. The statement one of the monks made that life, all life, came from God and that this was the Enemy of all life and of Man and that it was from Outside- they used that word a lot, and you could hear the capitals- made some of it a little easier to handle, because then it could be nudged in the direction of either Mythos tinges or the C’tan Void Dragon from Warhammer 40k. But… well, they had trench warfare, muddy rainy 1916 style trench warfare, in what was supposed to be the year 2707. And people got pulled out of the trenches when their position was overrun- by hovering, very obviously not aerodynamic at all and therefore blatantly based on antigravity tech futureships. And the world was ruled by four corporations. And ‘mutant’ was used to mean ‘people who have been taken over by and completely subverted by or controlled by the creepy extradimensional machine’ rather than a reference to, y’know, genetic mutation or anything.
On the other hand, it had Sean Pertwee, Ron Perlman, Tom Jane, the woman who played Princess Nuala, the woman who played Miho in Sin City, the big black immensely civilized fellow who played Lennox in the ’98 Macbeth done by Michael Bogdanovich (I thought at first that I’d seen him in GI Joe somewhere but then he spoke with a British accent), John Malkovich, and Benno Furmann, who played Inspector Detector in the live-action Speed Racer and whom I consider the live action face of Gordon Freeman. And any one of them other than Malkovich was guaranteed to have at least one awesome moment of shooting or sword use, or occasionally both (Furmann got a really nice shot or two of gunning down mutants with two submachine guns, then throwing the empties away and whipping out a broadsword). And they were all really good at what they did. So that was something.
I have a feeling 9’s going to be a better movie, but this one was at least entertaining, if nothing else.
I then went on to Halo 3 ODST. Somewhere a fanboy is crying because someone has leapt directly into his beloved franchise feet first and is asking questions like “The little Covenant aliens that look kind of like leafhoppers and scream ‘We’re DOOMED!’ when you start shooting really well, what are those? Also, what are the ones belching green plasma fire at me? I'm not comfortable with green fire!’. However, the game so far is a lot of fun, and it doesn’t hurt that three of the voices are familiar… Nathan Fillion as the squad sergeant, Adam Baldwin as the squad heavy weapons guy, and Alan Tudyk as the demolitions expert who squees with joy over getting to drive a tank through the streets of New Mombasa. It'll be a long time before I play it on any level other than Sissy-Boy (the difficulty description for 'Easy' said 'the game practically plays itself'), but I'm enjoying it so far. And as far as multiplayer mode goes... well, allow me to sing you the song of my people: ahahahahahaha.
Not unless everyone else in the group is as much of a goob as me, anyway.
Um.
I rather enjoyed it, but it was more for the sake of ‘interesting aesthetic choices’ and ‘wow, I like your cast’ than anything else. The storyline was like the Dark and Grim and Gritty sibling of Fifth Element- a vaguely explained ancient evil from Outside, an order of monks left over from a long time ago keeping the information about the evil thing, and the need to get someone modern with guns and stuff to fight it. The statement one of the monks made that life, all life, came from God and that this was the Enemy of all life and of Man and that it was from Outside- they used that word a lot, and you could hear the capitals- made some of it a little easier to handle, because then it could be nudged in the direction of either Mythos tinges or the C’tan Void Dragon from Warhammer 40k. But… well, they had trench warfare, muddy rainy 1916 style trench warfare, in what was supposed to be the year 2707. And people got pulled out of the trenches when their position was overrun- by hovering, very obviously not aerodynamic at all and therefore blatantly based on antigravity tech futureships. And the world was ruled by four corporations. And ‘mutant’ was used to mean ‘people who have been taken over by and completely subverted by or controlled by the creepy extradimensional machine’ rather than a reference to, y’know, genetic mutation or anything.
On the other hand, it had Sean Pertwee, Ron Perlman, Tom Jane, the woman who played Princess Nuala, the woman who played Miho in Sin City, the big black immensely civilized fellow who played Lennox in the ’98 Macbeth done by Michael Bogdanovich (I thought at first that I’d seen him in GI Joe somewhere but then he spoke with a British accent), John Malkovich, and Benno Furmann, who played Inspector Detector in the live-action Speed Racer and whom I consider the live action face of Gordon Freeman. And any one of them other than Malkovich was guaranteed to have at least one awesome moment of shooting or sword use, or occasionally both (Furmann got a really nice shot or two of gunning down mutants with two submachine guns, then throwing the empties away and whipping out a broadsword). And they were all really good at what they did. So that was something.
I have a feeling 9’s going to be a better movie, but this one was at least entertaining, if nothing else.
I then went on to Halo 3 ODST. Somewhere a fanboy is crying because someone has leapt directly into his beloved franchise feet first and is asking questions like “The little Covenant aliens that look kind of like leafhoppers and scream ‘We’re DOOMED!’ when you start shooting really well, what are those? Also, what are the ones belching green plasma fire at me? I'm not comfortable with green fire!’. However, the game so far is a lot of fun, and it doesn’t hurt that three of the voices are familiar… Nathan Fillion as the squad sergeant, Adam Baldwin as the squad heavy weapons guy, and Alan Tudyk as the demolitions expert who squees with joy over getting to drive a tank through the streets of New Mombasa. It'll be a long time before I play it on any level other than Sissy-Boy (the difficulty description for 'Easy' said 'the game practically plays itself'), but I'm enjoying it so far. And as far as multiplayer mode goes... well, allow me to sing you the song of my people: ahahahahahaha.
Not unless everyone else in the group is as much of a goob as me, anyway.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 06:06 am (UTC)I also see no problem with doing at least one play-through on Easy. I usually do that for my first run, so I can focus on taking in the story without quite as much immediate fear for my life (including running around picking up all the pieces of the audio-log sub-plot, which if you hadn't heard about before, enjoy (http://achievementhunter.com/games/halo3odst/guide/)!), and then subsequent runs at higher difficulties just to see if I can. (Note: I have never come even close to hacking it on Legendary. I didn't even manage Heroic on H3.)
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 05:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-23 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 05:12 pm (UTC)We can suck at video games together. ~fist bump of solidarity~
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 05:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 05:51 pm (UTC)It's the little things that make life in the Wasteland bearable.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 05:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-25 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-25 04:47 am (UTC)