My brother Jamey returns this week with a review of the new space horror movie Pandorum. I was most intrigued by the Crunch Master 6 aspect of the movie, though in full disclosure I never saw it.
Pandorum is a film about an underwear model who wakes up on a spaceship after a prolonged hypersleep only to find that he has no memory (hibernation sickness, though his eyesight returned on the spot), and that the ship seems to be abandoned. After peeling off several layers of skin from his nap (perhaps the only thing about the character that I identify with) he begins to search about his immediate surroundings. Now, I know what you're thinking, but don't worry because in the future every Hyper Sleep Chamber is fitted with a Crunch Master 6, so our hero is sporting rock hard, tasty abs right from the get-go. Equipped with nothing but a pair of sexy briefs, which I can only imagine were custom made to be specifically the length of his penis, and a pair of legs that are apparently immune to the effects of atrophy, the protagonist (Corporal Bower) locates some clothes from his own locker and can thankfully continue with the story.
After a few moments of ambling, we are introduced to the next principal character; the less talented Quaid brother (Dennis). Bower quickly attends to his newly awakened comrade, whose Crunch Master, it seems, must have malfunctioned during hypersleep. They quickly search for things that they have in common, and though they can't remember what their favorite colors are, or whether or not they both love cashews, they do realize that they are part of the flight crew and that Randy Quaid's brother (Lieutenant Payton) is the superior officer. They agree that they would like to find out what happened onboard, and attempt to escape their confines. Bower is elected to climb through a vent to open the door from the other side, as the ship has no power. They realize that they have to recalibrate the nuclear reactor, of which Bower is intimately knowledgeable because he is the ship's mechanical engineer (thank God, right).
This movie, as far as I am concerned, shoots itself in the foot early on by not allowing itself to be scary. The scary setting is there sure, but the problem is that instead of allowing the setting to be frightening by its own merits, the filmmakers decided to give the audience aural queues. The creepy setting is usually always accompanied by creepy score. Now while that might sound like it makes sense, it really just panders to the audience. You should not underestimate the effect of silence and ambient noise. In fact the few times there is silence, it is such a departure from the norm that the audience should realize that something scary is about to happen, which is exactly how it goes, but since it's so obvious, it doesn't pack any suspense. If there is silence all the time or only slight ambient scoring, then the viewer truly begins to fear for the characters at all times, as there's no distinction from when the characters are in a safe mode versus danger mode. The ghost is also given up a little soon for my tastes. The encroaching menace of space monsters is revealed, basically, immediately upon the realization that there might be the menace of space monsters onboard. The creatures themselves are postulated as being evolved humans, or at least mutated humans, which isn't a stretch given their similar appearance, minus a few details such as the, obviously evolutionary, loss of nose. I don't know about you, but when I think "evolution of man," the first thought in my head is, "Voldemort's got it; vestigial, plain and simple." It seems, in this regard though, that the filmmakers were not planning on using these creatures as the source of suspense, rather they intended to use the titular Pandorum (a fictional psychosis brought on by deep-space travel that is accompanied by hallucinations and, eventually hostile, paranoia).
Pandorum, as a means of suspense or terror, falls a little bit short as well, in the regard that, except for one or two instances, it is again accompanied by obvious queues that it is taking place. To its credit, though, it does lend an idea of what the characters are going through psychologically, and that at least helps you to fear for them. Besides this the movie only offers tenuous backstory that doesn't so much rally the audience to the plight of the protagonists, so much as it merely offers up that they were real people once, before they got into this mess. Given the circumstances of the story, though, whether or not Bower had a girlfriend before they launched really wouldn't have an effect on what his goal is, and accordingly in the movie, there is only one (maybe one and a half) moment where it actually does affect him.
Now, as if the aforementioned reason weren't enough to sway the movie away from being truly suspenseful, the film also falls victim to some of the usual post-apocalyptic tropes of movies today. Through Bowers search of the ship he eventually runs into survivors. It seems, by way of the plot, that there are a few people on the boat in a similar situation to Bower. These characters follow the usual archetype of grizzled survivors who hate you for being so clean and are too hard-bitten to fill you in on what has been happening. Characteristically though, and this could be a good thing (in the hypothetical situation of the movie, not for plausible fiction) every survivor is luckily trained in the Martial Arts. One such person Bower runs into is a Vietnamese Agriculturalist who doesn't speak a word of English but is luckily fluent in cock-punch. I can only imagine how lucky he felt when he woke up realizing that although he wasted his life studying agriculture, at least he jogged every weekend to the San Shou Kung Fu temple just for kicks (and punches I guess). Of Bower's other comrade I am less convinced. A shockingly stab resilient German scientist who, I'm pretty sure, was handed a pamphlet when she awoke and was told to "CHOOSE YOUR MARTIAL ART", to which she replied "knife". The super-human fighting ability phenomenon would be a little harder to swallow had the monsters actually been terrifying. As I said before, they are basically just ever present, and as I learned as a child while watching From Dusk till Dawn, if the monsters are always visible, they are not scary. When they are dumb and obvious, they are even less scary. For example, despite setting a rather elaborate trap, baited with a live survivor; assumingly to draw other prey to his cries; apparently our hungry friends are so thrilled at the fact that it actually worked, that their plan goes from setting a clever trap to blitzkrieging down the hallway towards their prey wearing blowtorches. Really. Despite all that, the survivors refer to them as hunters several times, which I guess is true enough, in the same sense that a retarded boy chasing a cat with a sprinkler is essentially a hunter, too. As far as characters go there's really only one more important one. Payton, not to be outdone, also finds a survivor while sitting on his ass in the first room he woke up in waiting for Bower to fix shit. This character is one of the previous team's flight crewmembers whose face you want to punch. The actor's actual name is Cam. Finally, there is a brief performance by Norman Reedus, whom douchebags will recognize from The Boondock Saints, and everyone else will recognize from The Boondock Saints II: All Saint's Day (that's not a joke).
In the end, the film isn't bad. It's entertaining, it just wasn't what I was hoping for as it only went for the cheap scares (BANG! Whoa!) and it sort of didn't mind being an action flick. It is enjoyable as long as you don't expect anything new. There is only a hint of romance implied in the movie, but it's so small that it doesn't interfere with the plot, or plausibility(of plot progression). While I won't say that everything in the plot is callable, I will say that none of it is surprising. In this movie climate, audiences are conditioned to expect the twist ending, and while this movie sort of has one, it's little more than a big "who cares?" Besides being another cautionary tale for Gothic stylish space architecture conclusively being curse-prone, this is a movie that I didn't ultimately regret paying money for. Take your girlfriend to see it, put your dick in the popcorn, it might be scary enough (to girls) to get away with. The movie, not your dick.
Grade: C - for cock punch
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Review: 9
9 is the kind of film that you watch the trailer and feel a sense of anticipation over whether the movie itself can live up. Smarter viewers may have had the foresight to realize that the chances of this movie being as cool as the trailer were very slim. The main problem with 9 is that it ends up being what essentially amounts to a more drawn out version of the trailer. Things happen fast in this movie... really fast. From the opening moments where main character 9 awakens to a very post apocalyptic world, the plot moves at a bullet's pace. One moment he's becoming self-aware and the next he's meeting another sack-goggle-man. Then a mysterious cat robot is attacking and stealing a mysterious rune found by 9 in the first few moments of the film. All of this transpires in the first ten to fifteen minutes, and while it is very cool to watch, the movie starts to feel like all flash and no substance. This is not to say that 9 doesn't attempt to inject moments of exposition though. Instead the movie does try admirably to introduce the world and the little mechanical characters within. The only problem here is that when this movie slows down, it doesn't do a good job of informing us while not simultaneously boring us half to death.
9 relies far too heavily on the draw of its art style and quirky look of its characters. Passed the fact that they are cool looking sack robots that run around fighting with exacto knives and have staffs that have gears attached for style, there's not much presented in this movie to make it all seem intriguing. For instance there's a sack-pope leading a highly insular group by staying secret... but outside of the fact that he's wearing a cool pope-hat and a cape, the character is sadly one dimensional. He's afraid of the outside world and he's awfully close-minded. That's it. Even main character 9 is little more than the eager minded new guy who asks dangerous and controversial questions. The most interesting character in the film that did not feel shoe horned into some cliche archetype was voiced by John C. Reilly. Number 5 plays slightly naive, but overall is the only character going through a believable set of emotions and reactions that don't play specifically to his strictly defined character description.
Characters come and go in this movie so quickly and events transpire likewise. It's hard to stop and care about what you're seeing passed the occasional "oh man, that was cool looking". In the end the movie basically follows a predictable throughline which will have you more or less guessing the sequence of events. 'Blunt' is the best word I can think to describe 9. If it isn't set out right in front of you in plain terms, then there is no use thinking about it further than that. To its credit, the movie does try to end on a slightly ambiguous, interpretable note that leaves the viewer the task of deciding what is going to happen next. The biggest problem here is that in a movie where everything has been spoon fed with a pat on the head, the audience doesn't really care to engage themselves enough to meet this haphazard attempt at mystery halfway.
9 is based on director Shane Acker's short film of the same name. I think this is probably the main reason the feature length version falls so short. As a brief and silent vignette, the style of the movie and the pacing of the events works insanely well. It's evocative, it makes you think, and you don't have to sit through cliched dialogue coming from predictably defined characters. Obviously stretching the movie to fit a feature length, the short story had to be padded and expanded in multiple areas. Unfortunately for as cool and edgy as the film ends up being, the heart and soul of the source material was never meant to be spread so thin.
In the end, 9 is one of those films you try so hard to love but it never pays you back. If you still feel an irrepressible need to go out and check this movie out, I'd suggest waiting until it's either free on cable or available to rent. At best a diversion, at worst boring; 9 is another product of ambitious scope and a lack of execution.
9 relies far too heavily on the draw of its art style and quirky look of its characters. Passed the fact that they are cool looking sack robots that run around fighting with exacto knives and have staffs that have gears attached for style, there's not much presented in this movie to make it all seem intriguing. For instance there's a sack-pope leading a highly insular group by staying secret... but outside of the fact that he's wearing a cool pope-hat and a cape, the character is sadly one dimensional. He's afraid of the outside world and he's awfully close-minded. That's it. Even main character 9 is little more than the eager minded new guy who asks dangerous and controversial questions. The most interesting character in the film that did not feel shoe horned into some cliche archetype was voiced by John C. Reilly. Number 5 plays slightly naive, but overall is the only character going through a believable set of emotions and reactions that don't play specifically to his strictly defined character description.
Characters come and go in this movie so quickly and events transpire likewise. It's hard to stop and care about what you're seeing passed the occasional "oh man, that was cool looking". In the end the movie basically follows a predictable throughline which will have you more or less guessing the sequence of events. 'Blunt' is the best word I can think to describe 9. If it isn't set out right in front of you in plain terms, then there is no use thinking about it further than that. To its credit, the movie does try to end on a slightly ambiguous, interpretable note that leaves the viewer the task of deciding what is going to happen next. The biggest problem here is that in a movie where everything has been spoon fed with a pat on the head, the audience doesn't really care to engage themselves enough to meet this haphazard attempt at mystery halfway.
9 is based on director Shane Acker's short film of the same name. I think this is probably the main reason the feature length version falls so short. As a brief and silent vignette, the style of the movie and the pacing of the events works insanely well. It's evocative, it makes you think, and you don't have to sit through cliched dialogue coming from predictably defined characters. Obviously stretching the movie to fit a feature length, the short story had to be padded and expanded in multiple areas. Unfortunately for as cool and edgy as the film ends up being, the heart and soul of the source material was never meant to be spread so thin.
In the end, 9 is one of those films you try so hard to love but it never pays you back. If you still feel an irrepressible need to go out and check this movie out, I'd suggest waiting until it's either free on cable or available to rent. At best a diversion, at worst boring; 9 is another product of ambitious scope and a lack of execution.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The City From My Roof
You're going to have to click this picture to see it in a bigger resolution, but today was an amazing day in Milwaukee. It's recently dawned on me the intricacies of the city and I find myself appreciating it a little more than I have in my previous 22 years. Anyways, this is the view from my roof; a view good enough to warrant my renting of this particular apartment.
*Disclaimer* There was some tweaking down in Photoshop to filter out some of the grey from the sunlight and inject some warmth into the whole thing. The view is still fantastic.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Review: Adventureland
Oh Adventureland... The cinematic equivalent of a cocktease. Honestly, presuppose that some person you know suffers a traumatic head injury and remembers everything except for what a cocktease entails. First make them watch the trailer for Adventureland. They'll love it presuming they remember teenage-comedic films that have preceded it. I'm thinking Superbad mostly here, maybe Sex Drive. Ok, now you've got them excited for the movie. Rent the DVD (really, really don't buy it) and sit your unfortunately injured friend down in front of the TV. At this point they're going to be pretty confused as to why your explanation has turned into a tangentially vexing movie night. If they voice these concerns, be sure to punch them soundly in the throat. Over the course of the next hour and a half you can safely bask in the dawning realization in their faces as they begin to perceive that the hilarious movie they were promised in the trailer is in fact anything but. No, the truth of the matter is that Adventureland, like any run-of-the-mill skank who promises wonderful sexual adventures but gets psyched out before delivering, is an all-too-ordinary movie about teenage angst.
The movie follows a young man who has just graduated from college and moved home to discover that finding a job after school isn't as easy as it may seem and before long he settles into a summer job at the local amusement park; the aptly named 'Adventureland'. Right from the get go, there's no crazy premise or zany antics that lure you into the story. I think most people, even those still in school or who never went, can relate to the mediocrity life takes on when you have nothing new to look forward to and you hate your job. For me, that's a strike against the film because the last thing I need is to watch a slightly less real version of my own life play out in front of me.
Ok, so maybe the film will pick up once main character James begins his job working at the park. Hmm... Nope. Looks like this job sucks about as much as you'd guess. Oh hey! There's Kristen Stewart. Finally we'll be able to see her play a character who doesn't seem like they're one Lifetime original movie away from jumping into traffic. Wait, aw man, she's doing the same thing she does in every movie. That sucks. Well, she's sorta cute but boy is James smitten. Here comes Ryan Reynolds. He's funny. Bring on the laughs! What the fuck!? He's pretty much playing an average older dude who works with kids. I suppose that's better than his annoying character from Waiting but... I really want to laugh. Wow, this movie is a little too much like anyone's life without any of the fun stuff that would make it enticing as a movie. Oh well, maybe we'll get some chuckles as James tries to get with Kristen Stewart's Em. Wait, she only likes him as a friend. Shit that's too close to home. Wait... She's sleeping with the much older Ryan Reynolds? God that blows.
I'm hoping my point is coming across here. The movie has almost NO comedy in it whatsoever. I don't really know if this is a failing on the part of the script and director, or if it stems from the film being marketed as something it's not. And herein lies the main problem. If Adventureland had been marketed as a drama from word one, I think the fact it's so depressing would not come across as so egregiously offensive. But no. The trailer for this movie would have you believe that you're going to get a laugh a minute comedy about working at a slightly off-center amusement park. Then you go to the theatre and watch a crude reproduction of your aimless early-to-mid twenties as it assaults you with the crappiness that life often slips into. Who exactly needed a reminder of any of this? When all is said and done, Adventureland could be forgiven its sins and accepted as a drama were it not for the fact that it seems to fall prey to the same bait-and-switch it served up in the preview. I am referring here to the casting of Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. These two have really been two of the funniest people to come out of Saturday Night Live in decades, and they're placed into this film to provide the surreal humor. The mistake of course is that juxtaposed with the sheer reality of the rest of the movie, both Wiig and Hader come off as overdone when they let loose some of the otherwise hilarious material they're presented with. It's a shame because in a movie that adhered closer to the outrageous comedy of its teen-angst predecessors, these characters would be infinitely more entertaining. As it stands, they serve simply as a reminder that you came to see a comedy and got served a steamy helping of melodrama.
All of this and more is why Adventureland is the perfect film to teach your selectively retarded friend the meaning of 'cocktease'. The film gets your hopes up with promises of wonderful laughs and then slaps you in the face for your belief in it. If it had just come clean from the beginning about what it truly was, maybe I wouldn't be so sour about my experience. As it stands I wonder if Adventureland ever knew that it was its own worst enemy. Either way, if you're going to see it know what you're getting into.
The movie follows a young man who has just graduated from college and moved home to discover that finding a job after school isn't as easy as it may seem and before long he settles into a summer job at the local amusement park; the aptly named 'Adventureland'. Right from the get go, there's no crazy premise or zany antics that lure you into the story. I think most people, even those still in school or who never went, can relate to the mediocrity life takes on when you have nothing new to look forward to and you hate your job. For me, that's a strike against the film because the last thing I need is to watch a slightly less real version of my own life play out in front of me.
Ok, so maybe the film will pick up once main character James begins his job working at the park. Hmm... Nope. Looks like this job sucks about as much as you'd guess. Oh hey! There's Kristen Stewart. Finally we'll be able to see her play a character who doesn't seem like they're one Lifetime original movie away from jumping into traffic. Wait, aw man, she's doing the same thing she does in every movie. That sucks. Well, she's sorta cute but boy is James smitten. Here comes Ryan Reynolds. He's funny. Bring on the laughs! What the fuck!? He's pretty much playing an average older dude who works with kids. I suppose that's better than his annoying character from Waiting but... I really want to laugh. Wow, this movie is a little too much like anyone's life without any of the fun stuff that would make it enticing as a movie. Oh well, maybe we'll get some chuckles as James tries to get with Kristen Stewart's Em. Wait, she only likes him as a friend. Shit that's too close to home. Wait... She's sleeping with the much older Ryan Reynolds? God that blows.
I'm hoping my point is coming across here. The movie has almost NO comedy in it whatsoever. I don't really know if this is a failing on the part of the script and director, or if it stems from the film being marketed as something it's not. And herein lies the main problem. If Adventureland had been marketed as a drama from word one, I think the fact it's so depressing would not come across as so egregiously offensive. But no. The trailer for this movie would have you believe that you're going to get a laugh a minute comedy about working at a slightly off-center amusement park. Then you go to the theatre and watch a crude reproduction of your aimless early-to-mid twenties as it assaults you with the crappiness that life often slips into. Who exactly needed a reminder of any of this? When all is said and done, Adventureland could be forgiven its sins and accepted as a drama were it not for the fact that it seems to fall prey to the same bait-and-switch it served up in the preview. I am referring here to the casting of Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. These two have really been two of the funniest people to come out of Saturday Night Live in decades, and they're placed into this film to provide the surreal humor. The mistake of course is that juxtaposed with the sheer reality of the rest of the movie, both Wiig and Hader come off as overdone when they let loose some of the otherwise hilarious material they're presented with. It's a shame because in a movie that adhered closer to the outrageous comedy of its teen-angst predecessors, these characters would be infinitely more entertaining. As it stands, they serve simply as a reminder that you came to see a comedy and got served a steamy helping of melodrama.
All of this and more is why Adventureland is the perfect film to teach your selectively retarded friend the meaning of 'cocktease'. The film gets your hopes up with promises of wonderful laughs and then slaps you in the face for your belief in it. If it had just come clean from the beginning about what it truly was, maybe I wouldn't be so sour about my experience. As it stands I wonder if Adventureland ever knew that it was its own worst enemy. Either way, if you're going to see it know what you're getting into.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
PSA: Fuck Halo, every story ever, oh, and God bless George Washington. No More Heroes 2.
Here you will find the second guest review ever featured on my site. Not so much a review as it is a PSA, please welcome my brother Jamey Scerpella as he delves into the video game series No More Heroes. He was very adamant about editorial control being at a minimum and thusly what he wrote is what you get. Without further adieu then...
No More Heroes 2 is a love letter to guys my age. The kind of love letter that can't help but murder its intended recipient, while thinking up imaginative new shapes for electric guitars. No More Heroes 2 is like if a rock viper wore a leather jacket, and then slept with your girlfriend. No More Heroes 2 is the kind of game that I talk about with my friend Jim and when someone overhears us and asks, "Oh, how is that?", the most cerebral thing we can simultaneously think to respond with is, "::sigh::... it's really fucking cool." If you're reading this right now and are thinking, "I don't know, I need some proof it's that cool", you're in luck, because there's an "x" button in the corner of this browser. This game is so manly that the disc itself wears a muscle shirt, and doesn't care that you can see its back hair.
To start, the basic premise of No More Heroes 1 is that you are Travis Touchdown and you've recently won a beam katana off an internet auction. After receiving the weapon, Travis proceeds to locate and murder the world's top ranked assassins, naturally, at the suggestion of some girl he met in a bar. The combat is, in a word, super fucking violent, otherwise labeled, as most parents know, "cool." You basically run into a crowd of people and start swinging until the game prompts you to finish them off. To do this, you can use a bad-ass wrestling move, or just cut them in half. In battle, in order to charge your weapon, you have to jerk it off. The image of this dude masturbating a lightsaber, is something I never knew I would identify with. In order to facilitate this particular sociopathic neurosis, which I can only assume is called "super-multiple homicide," Travis takes on odd jobs of a suprememly mundane nature (collecting coconuts, filling up gas, picking up garbage). Once Travis has approximately enough money to take on the next assassin, he goes on a killing spree ending with his target, a complete fucking stranger, the goal being that eventually he'll be ranked number 1. The reason this concept is so appealing to me, is because I was raised right.
Travis himself is a narcicist. In fact, one of the (only) distractions from the game's central theme of "work only as hard as you have to until you can buy killing someone" is a dress-up game. You can visit a clothing shop and, granted you've gathered enough coconuts to have some extra spending money after "The Most Dangerous Game" tax, you can buy rather expensive clothes. This may be the only time, outside of selecting which ribbon Chimchar should wear to the Pokemon beauty pagent, that I have ever willfully engaged in a dressup game, and done it with a smile on my face, no less. And the manner of clothes that is available to Travis, is nothing short of breathtaking. Some highlights: a shirt depicting a thonged ass which reads, "Miami Bass"; another shirt sporting a pair of tits, which aptly reads, "Love Tits"; blood-stained pants; assorted jackets, and so on.
The last, and possibly the only logical plot point, is that the girl who recommended going after the assassins in the first place, is a total cock tease. After, dispatching one assassin, Travis meets with the girl (Sylvia Christel) and attempts to bed her. Just as he's about to summon a mushroom, she stops him and barters, the seemingly reasonable deal, that if Travis becomes the number one killer, she will then uncross her legs for him. Slut. Travis tucks his blue, heartless testicles back into his pants, and is reinvigorated on his quest to murder countless innocents standing just in front of paid assassins.
The game itself is peppered with little references that make me feel like I'm not all alone in the universe. There's an unlockable 2-D bullet-hell game called "Glastonbury", that just fucks my shit up, everytime. Travis is an anime otaku, wrestling fanatic, and the proud owner of a cat with a people name (Jeane). I myself (like many my age) have been raised on the trite, ambiguous Japanese insights into humanity's desire to never give up, ever. I own a Macho Man Bash'n'Brawler, as well as a VHS tape of his greatest hits; I'm not gay. And Jeff sits quietly beside me even now, purring; his eyes barely open; mocking me with his coy permanent cat smile.
What really tickles my vas deferens is that this game calls to something (i-n-a-l-l-o-f-u-s) specifically in me. Monotonously working dead end, nowhere jobs until you have enough money to pay someone to tell you where you can kill someone and not rat you out, all in the pale hopes that if you kill enough people, some barfly will have sex with you(ain't that always the case?);meanwhile, in the interim, watching old wrestling tapes and driving around town, with total disregard for traffic law, on your oversized motorcycle "Schpeltiger"? That sounds like it was ripped out of my autobiography, "The Anatomy of Romance: Can Robots Remember?"
Oh, and by the way, this game has the best ending ever conceived by man's lizard brain. I'm convinced that the only way this ending can exist is if it was written by 100 George Washingtons* feverishly typing on 100 Truth Typewriters, which can only print childlike innocence, all while World War 3 wages on, as the world's super-powers ravage the land for the newest fossil fuel: George Washington's fingers. This is how you end a video game (or any fictional work). Not like that pussy Halo 3 ending where Master Chief finds out that from years of using alien technology he's developed a debilitating case of agoraphobia, and as he holds his Commanding Officer for no less than 17 minutes, Chief looks up from under his running mascara, and he wimpers out, "I can never go to space again." Meanwhile Samus Aran's screw attacking from planet to planet getting the upgrades knocked out of her every time she lands, and she just stands up, brushes herself off, and says, "Gonna need a Grappling Hook to get that missile expansion... better go get those upgrades."
The game's plot is so good, that they figured, "If we're gonna make a sequel, we might as well use the same plot." The same God-damn plot. Travis wants to be No. 1. Gotta beat the top ranked. It's the same. And it. Is fucking. sweet.
If you've never played No More Heroes 1, go get educated. If you don't have a Wii, go find the nearest light-socket and marry it in God's eyes, because without the system you're even further from His judgmental stare than an abortion. (God: "Way to live, fetus." Fetus: "I tried my be--" "God: "PURGATORY!")
When I saw the first trailer for No More Heroes 1, I smiled for 3 weeks. After seeing the trailer for No More Heroes 2 I can't stop repainting my bedroom walls any one of 3 colors: semen, nosebleed, or poetry. I hereby bestow the rank of "A+(copyright)" to the game No More Heroes, which is the same rating that, in a double-whammy decision, I've also given to No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, which has the rock solid release date of "TBA 2010."
No More Heroes- A+
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle - A+
Become a person of substance. Start by clicking these links:
Trailer 1
Trailer 2
* (George Washington is a time traveling psycho-bandit who repairs tears in space-time, as well as adopting several pseudonyms with which to go back in time and write the most important works of fiction of all time [because if he doesn't write them, how can they exist?]; also, according to conflicting reports, he may or may not have been America's first President. He also invented the peanut.)
No More Heroes 2 is a love letter to guys my age. The kind of love letter that can't help but murder its intended recipient, while thinking up imaginative new shapes for electric guitars. No More Heroes 2 is like if a rock viper wore a leather jacket, and then slept with your girlfriend. No More Heroes 2 is the kind of game that I talk about with my friend Jim and when someone overhears us and asks, "Oh, how is that?", the most cerebral thing we can simultaneously think to respond with is, "::sigh::... it's really fucking cool." If you're reading this right now and are thinking, "I don't know, I need some proof it's that cool", you're in luck, because there's an "x" button in the corner of this browser. This game is so manly that the disc itself wears a muscle shirt, and doesn't care that you can see its back hair.
To start, the basic premise of No More Heroes 1 is that you are Travis Touchdown and you've recently won a beam katana off an internet auction. After receiving the weapon, Travis proceeds to locate and murder the world's top ranked assassins, naturally, at the suggestion of some girl he met in a bar. The combat is, in a word, super fucking violent, otherwise labeled, as most parents know, "cool." You basically run into a crowd of people and start swinging until the game prompts you to finish them off. To do this, you can use a bad-ass wrestling move, or just cut them in half. In battle, in order to charge your weapon, you have to jerk it off. The image of this dude masturbating a lightsaber, is something I never knew I would identify with. In order to facilitate this particular sociopathic neurosis, which I can only assume is called "super-multiple homicide," Travis takes on odd jobs of a suprememly mundane nature (collecting coconuts, filling up gas, picking up garbage). Once Travis has approximately enough money to take on the next assassin, he goes on a killing spree ending with his target, a complete fucking stranger, the goal being that eventually he'll be ranked number 1. The reason this concept is so appealing to me, is because I was raised right.
Travis himself is a narcicist. In fact, one of the (only) distractions from the game's central theme of "work only as hard as you have to until you can buy killing someone" is a dress-up game. You can visit a clothing shop and, granted you've gathered enough coconuts to have some extra spending money after "The Most Dangerous Game" tax, you can buy rather expensive clothes. This may be the only time, outside of selecting which ribbon Chimchar should wear to the Pokemon beauty pagent, that I have ever willfully engaged in a dressup game, and done it with a smile on my face, no less. And the manner of clothes that is available to Travis, is nothing short of breathtaking. Some highlights: a shirt depicting a thonged ass which reads, "Miami Bass"; another shirt sporting a pair of tits, which aptly reads, "Love Tits"; blood-stained pants; assorted jackets, and so on.
The last, and possibly the only logical plot point, is that the girl who recommended going after the assassins in the first place, is a total cock tease. After, dispatching one assassin, Travis meets with the girl (Sylvia Christel) and attempts to bed her. Just as he's about to summon a mushroom, she stops him and barters, the seemingly reasonable deal, that if Travis becomes the number one killer, she will then uncross her legs for him. Slut. Travis tucks his blue, heartless testicles back into his pants, and is reinvigorated on his quest to murder countless innocents standing just in front of paid assassins.
The game itself is peppered with little references that make me feel like I'm not all alone in the universe. There's an unlockable 2-D bullet-hell game called "Glastonbury", that just fucks my shit up, everytime. Travis is an anime otaku, wrestling fanatic, and the proud owner of a cat with a people name (Jeane). I myself (like many my age) have been raised on the trite, ambiguous Japanese insights into humanity's desire to never give up, ever. I own a Macho Man Bash'n'Brawler, as well as a VHS tape of his greatest hits; I'm not gay. And Jeff sits quietly beside me even now, purring; his eyes barely open; mocking me with his coy permanent cat smile.
What really tickles my vas deferens is that this game calls to something (i-n-a-l-l-o-f-u-s) specifically in me. Monotonously working dead end, nowhere jobs until you have enough money to pay someone to tell you where you can kill someone and not rat you out, all in the pale hopes that if you kill enough people, some barfly will have sex with you(ain't that always the case?);meanwhile, in the interim, watching old wrestling tapes and driving around town, with total disregard for traffic law, on your oversized motorcycle "Schpeltiger"? That sounds like it was ripped out of my autobiography, "The Anatomy of Romance: Can Robots Remember?"
Oh, and by the way, this game has the best ending ever conceived by man's lizard brain. I'm convinced that the only way this ending can exist is if it was written by 100 George Washingtons* feverishly typing on 100 Truth Typewriters, which can only print childlike innocence, all while World War 3 wages on, as the world's super-powers ravage the land for the newest fossil fuel: George Washington's fingers. This is how you end a video game (or any fictional work). Not like that pussy Halo 3 ending where Master Chief finds out that from years of using alien technology he's developed a debilitating case of agoraphobia, and as he holds his Commanding Officer for no less than 17 minutes, Chief looks up from under his running mascara, and he wimpers out, "I can never go to space again." Meanwhile Samus Aran's screw attacking from planet to planet getting the upgrades knocked out of her every time she lands, and she just stands up, brushes herself off, and says, "Gonna need a Grappling Hook to get that missile expansion... better go get those upgrades."
The game's plot is so good, that they figured, "If we're gonna make a sequel, we might as well use the same plot." The same God-damn plot. Travis wants to be No. 1. Gotta beat the top ranked. It's the same. And it. Is fucking. sweet.
If you've never played No More Heroes 1, go get educated. If you don't have a Wii, go find the nearest light-socket and marry it in God's eyes, because without the system you're even further from His judgmental stare than an abortion. (God: "Way to live, fetus." Fetus: "I tried my be--" "God: "PURGATORY!")
When I saw the first trailer for No More Heroes 1, I smiled for 3 weeks. After seeing the trailer for No More Heroes 2 I can't stop repainting my bedroom walls any one of 3 colors: semen, nosebleed, or poetry. I hereby bestow the rank of "A+(copyright)" to the game No More Heroes, which is the same rating that, in a double-whammy decision, I've also given to No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, which has the rock solid release date of "TBA 2010."
No More Heroes- A+
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle - A+
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Trailer 1
Trailer 2
* (George Washington is a time traveling psycho-bandit who repairs tears in space-time, as well as adopting several pseudonyms with which to go back in time and write the most important works of fiction of all time [because if he doesn't write them, how can they exist?]; also, according to conflicting reports, he may or may not have been America's first President. He also invented the peanut.)
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