Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Cour, Petit Lapin, Cour.

I’ve felt that my reviews have had a large gap in them for some time.  Not necessarily that today’s movie is such a classic or amazing movie that it was a shame I hadn’t reviewed it though.  It’s just that I’m a completionist.  I can’t have reviewed one film in a series without reviewing all of them.  Some people may refer to that as being OCD.  To that I say, “Shut up.”  I reviewed the sequel to today’s movie because I saw it in theaters, and never reviewed this movie because – though I was sure I purchased it at some point – I was never able to find it.  Eventually I repurchased it on BluRay, because I was obsessively compelled to have it since I also had the second movie.  Again, shut up.  After it sat around on my computer for a while, I eventually got around to reviewing Sherlock Holmes, based on characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, written by Paul Bales, Anthony Peckham, Simon Kinberg, Michael Robert Johnson, co-written and directed by Guy Ritchie, and starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Mark Strong, Rachel McAdams, Kelly Reilly, Eddie Marsan, Hans Matheson, and Geraldine James.

Detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and his partner Dr. John Watson (Jude Law) prevent Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) from ritually killing a young woman, as he has killed five women before.  Three months later, Watson is preparing to move out of the flat he shares with Holmes to marry his fiancée Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly).  Holmes is not taking it well.  The two are asked to attend the hanging of Blackwood; Watson to pronounce him dead, and Holmes because it was Blackwood’s last request.  Blackwood tells Holmes that his death is only the beginning, and that three more deaths will happen after he rises from his grave.  Holmes scoffs at it and Blackwood is hanged.  Three days later, Blackwood seemingly rises from the grave.  Holmes resumes his search, and he even convinces Watson to join him so that his reputation wouldn’t be damaged.  After all, who would want to marry a doctor who can’t even tell if a man is dead or not?  To get them started, professional thief and former adversary of Holmes Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) sends them to find a ginger midget who was working with Blackwood.

If you connect the dots of me having purchased this movie twice, it will probably come as no surprise that I enjoy this movie.  I found the movie to be pretty well-written with well-developed characters.  I’m not sure how much of any of this credit goes to the writers of this movie or to Arthur Conan Doyle though.  I know he developed the characters originally, but I don’t know how much of the stuff in this movie is from his stories because his stories were written and Homie don’t play that.  But it doesn’t really matter.  There are already 20 writers on this movie, so credit is already getting spread pretty thin.  My favorite thing about the movie is how well they keep the question alive about Blackwood’s magical powers.  When I first saw this movie, I was asking myself, “Is Blackwood immortal?  Are his methods supernatural?  Or cheap parlor tricks to conceal his true identity?”  Being almost completely ignorant about Sherlock Holmes (meaning that I had never read any of them, but I knew the name and that he was a detective) I couldn’t be quite sure if it would be out of the question for someone to actually have magical powers in them.  Do they do that?  How am I supposed to know?  Why am I asking you when you can’t respond?  I also don’t know if most of the stuff they use to conceal the things he does as magic actually hold up to real world logic, but I don’t care.  It’s enjoyable.

The look of the movie is also very nice, albeit a bit dark.  Dark is what they were going for, so it’s okay.  It also looks exactly like England looks in my brain.  England either looks like a foggier version of this movie or like Harry Potter in my brain, and I refuse to go there so that it can be that way forever.  Also, I heard a lot of talk about this movie about the fights.  And not so much the fights, but the visualization that Holmes does before he actually fights.  It’s very polarizing, from what I’ve gathered.  I’ve heard people hate it and I’ve heard people love it.  I’m in the middle.  I really appreciate the fights because they’re well-choreographed, but I definitely understand that I don’t really need to see the same exact fight twice in a row.  It didn’t bother me either way though.

The performances were all great in this movie because they got exclusively great people.  Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law work great together.  They have great chemistry and Jude Law plays an excellent straight man to Downey’s crazy and generally funny Holmes.  I had a problem with Watson’s wife, Kelly Reilly, though.  Not the actress or her performance, but the character infuriated me when she threw wine in Holmes’ face for deducing her backstory correctly.  First, he was right and wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true.  Second, you asked him to do it.  Third, you actually INSISTED that he do it.  Perhaps this was done to illustrate the exact moment in time when the phrase “Be careful what you wish for” was created.  I don’t know of anyone who could take issue with Rachel McAdams though.  I really liked her character in this movie, playing a very intelligent and crafty woman who had once outsmarted Holmes, and also playing it very selfish but with definite signs that she cares about Holmes.  I may have liked her character much more because of her extreme hotness as well.  But it was more than likely both.  But for examples of over the top beauty, you need look no further than the English bulldog in this movie.  That was a gorgeous sumbitch.

I feel a sense of satisfaction based on nothing now that I have finally finished reviewing both Sherlock Holmes movies.  I like both Sherlock Holmes movies.  The writing is well done and the mysteries keep your brain occupied while still allowing it to let the mysteries play themselves out as you just enjoy the funniness of the interactions between Holmes and Watson.  The performances and the look are also well done, and the fights are interesting and exciting, though I can definitely understand some people being irritated by with the parts where they are telegraphed before they actually happen.  Either way, I really dig this movie and recommend both Sherlock Holmes movies for a purchase.  Sherlock Holmes gets “Begging your pardon, my lord, but I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time” out of “In another life, Mr. Holmes, you would have made an excellent criminal.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, MySpace if you just awoke from a coma, and whatever else you can to get as many eyes on these things as possible.  Follow my fanpage on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep on top of all things Robert.  And don’t underestimate the importance of some constructive criticism.  Rate these reviews, like the videos, and comment on both with anything you’d like to say.  And don’t forget to request things you want a review of.  LOVE YOUSE GUYS!!

Battleship (2012)

You Ready for This?

I feel like the greater majority of the world knew better than to bother with today’s movie.  But the greater majority of the world isn’t aspiring reviewers.  I felt it was my duty to watch this movie, no matter how painful.  Even after making that decision, I still put off watching this movie for as long as I could.  Hey, I’m not getting paid for this stuff.  It’s not like it’s a legitimate obligation or anything!  Well, as the end of 2012 came up, I decided that I needed to see this movie in case it made it to my list.  And it did … in the bottom five for the year.  What else do I have to say about it?  Find out as I review Battleship, written by Jon and Erich Hoeber, directed by Peter Berg, and starring Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Alexander Skarsgard, Tadanobu Asano, Liam Neeson, Hamish Linklater, Gregory D. Gadson, Rihanna, John Tui, and Jesse Plemons.

Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is a slacker who gets arrested for robbing a store while trying to impress Samantha Shane (Brooklyn Decker), daughter of a Navy commander Admiral Terrance Shane (Liam Neeson).  He does not pass Go; he does not collect 200 dollars.  After his Boggle, Alex’s brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgard) sets his Cranium on making his brother join the Navy.  Later, Alex is dating Samantha and playing soccer, Scrabbling for a victory over the Asian team.  They then go out for a large scale version of Chess in a naval exercise against the Asians, designed to test their Stratego … I mean strategy.  During the exercises, five alien spacecraft land and throw up a force field, claiming a Monopoly on the area, taking down some of the Navy like they were Hungry Hungry Hippos.  Even though it seems like a Trivial Pursuit, Alex maneuvers the Chutes and Ladders of the ship to take over the ship, at considerable Risk.  But soon, he’ll Connect 4 ideas and develop a Clue on how to defeat the aliens, involving Pictionary and Scattergories.  I apologize for all the board game puns.  And by that, I mean I am Sorry.

It came as no surprise to me that this movie was stupid.  I get the feeling that they meant it to be stupid.  But what can usually overcome stupidity is fun, and this movie just didn’t have enough of it.  It had its moments, but the stupidity overrode that in most parts.  It was extremely painful to see a movie try to take itself while still being loosely based on a board game and actually using some really sweaty, contrived way to make firing at space E11 seem plausible.  But the entire premise of the aliens didn’t make any sense in the first place.  That’s probably why they chose to leave those out of the original board game.  It simply wouldn’t make sense for these super advanced aliens to have no technology to overcome their crippling weakness beyond waiting for something to fire on them so that they knew where to return fire.  Even if you can punch very hard, it seems like you might be a more successful boxer if you didn’t need to get punched first to do it.  And that being the case, why does our Navy not realize that they only retaliate and never attack first and decide we should just not attack?  Also, why were they here in the first place?  As best I could tell, their only motivation was to use the satellite thing that called them in the first place.  Is your story really just an adult version of ET?  The aliens just want to phone home?  For what purpose?  Do they need water?  Food?  Land?  Should they not find a place where they can see?  Because they can’t here.  And most importantly, why did I spend 10 minutes watching a gundamned soccer game?  It’s like watching Top Gun again with no volleyball and (thankfully) more shirts.

The look of the movie never really caused many complaints from me.  The odd moments tied with the look of the movie were more because of their strange choices in the action.  I don’t understand what the purpose was of the explosions that seemed to pull the person closer, push them back out, and then pull them back in was.  Why would a simple explosion or a singularity not be more effective?  Was it simply to pester your foe before they die?  And later, when they anchor the giant battleship and somehow make it drift like in the Fast and the Furious movies, would there really be no consequences for that?  Those things weren’t really built for that.  They made a few odd decisions with the music too.  They used a lot of good music in vaguely inappropriate places.  Like when they used the AC/DC song “Hard as a Rock” during the scene where Alex was quietly getting berated.  And then some other hard rock song while some amputees were exercising.

The performances in the movie were really hit and miss.  Taylor Kitsch has never really done anything I’ve enjoyed, but it may be the bad taste he left in my mouth when he played Gambit in X-Men Origins.  And, though his character was the hero of the movie, he was never really likeable.  It takes him until nearly the end of the movie to realize that there are consequences to his stupid actions.  He didn’t even realize it right after he told someone to unload on the alien spacecraft with a Gatling gun when there were battleships lining up to fail out there.  Liam Neeson surprised me in this movie.  Not with his good performance because he always brings that.  What surprises me is that he actually felt it was necessary to bring it to this movie.  Rihanna was also surprising in this movie just because I expected her performance to be awful like most of her music, but she was pretty decent.  Actually, I don’t know any of her music, so that’s probably unfair.  I don’t know what his name was, but as is typical with this character type, I hated the comic relief guy.

Battleship was exactly what I expected.  It was dumb.  There seems to be no reason for it to have been made, and probably less reason for me to have seen it.  The story was not great and only got worse when aliens were introduced.  And what’s worse is that the movie never really managed to reach the fun that would normally overcome that stupidity.  We can only hope that Hollywood starts looking away from board games (that have no story) for the stories of their movie, but I would not be surprised.  You can skip this movie.  Battleship gets “Sorry” out of “Backgammon!”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, MySpace if you just awoke from a coma, and whatever else you can to get as many eyes on these things as possible.  Follow my fanpage on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep on top of all things Robert.  And don’t underestimate the importance of some constructive criticism.  Rate these reviews, like the videos, and comment on both with anything you’d like to say.  And don’t forget to request things you want a review of.  LOVE YOUSE GUYS!!

Looper (2012)

It’s Going to Happen to YOU, It’s Not Going to Happen to ME!

When I originally heard about today’s movie, I had exactly zero intention of watching it.  It reminded me of the movie Premium Rush in more ways than just sharing a main actor.  It also just seemed like a super basic action movie that really had nothing to set itself apart from any other random action movie I could choose to watch instead.  But, as my end of the year review was coming up, my friend Greg told me that this movie would probably have to be his movie of the year, even after we had both just seen Django Unchained, which ended up making third on my list.  I decided that I had to see it, and was actually able to accomplish that before the year ended, it just still didn’t make my list in any capacity.  And, since it didn’t make top or bottom of 2012, what level of mediocrity did this movie attain?  We’ll find out as I review Looper, written and directed by Rian Johnson, and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Pierce Gagnon, Jeff Daniels, Noah Segan, Xu Qing, Paul Dano, and Piper Perabo.

In 2044, Joseph Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) works for the mafia as a “looper.”  With Minority Report going on, the only way to kill someone is to have them sent through time with silver strapped to their backs to be killed and disposed of by Loopers so that no one would notice, since they weren’t supposed to be there in the first place.  The only caveat is that their contract will eventually end as well.  They know that their contract is at an end when the older version of themselves is sent back with gold strapped to their backs to be killed by the younger version of themselves.  When this happens, they are no longer Loopers and live with this gold until someone takes them and sends them back to the point when they kill themselves.  But this creates a lot of problems if the Looper fails to kill themselves, as Joseph finds out when his friend Seth (Paul Dano) fails to close his own loop, leaving the mob boss Abe (Jeff Daniels) to have to take care of the situation in a brutal way.  That doesn’t really help Joseph learn from his mistakes though because Old Joe (Bruce Willis) gets sent back and knocks young Joseph out.  Joseph has to fix the problem before Abe takes it into his own hands.

This movie was pretty fantastic.  It wasn’t quite able to make its way into my top list of 2012, but it was not far off.  The surface of the movie feels like a pretty standard action movie, but the science fiction stuff compounded with the time travel stuff makes this movie have a lot more going on under the surface than I would’ve expected.  Time travel always tends to leave a lot of plot holes in a movie, but I felt like this one was handled so deftly that I didn’t notice any plot holes at all.  I’m not saying they weren’t there, but I was so riveted by the story that I wasn’t bored enough to pay attention to trying to find any.  And parts of it were just shocking.  Like what Bruce Willis sets to doing when he gets loose back in time and decides he needs to stop the Rainmaker.  I couldn’t believe they went there.  The story actually has a lot of surprises in it, all the way up to – and including – the end of the movie.  The situation did make me laugh a little bit just because it seems the character Joe would fall in love with anybody as long as they helped him recover from his addiction.  Old Joe fell in love with the Asian lady because she helped him out with that, and Joseph falls in love with Emily Blunt because she helped him through his withdrawals.  Thank God Joe never met Dr. Drew.  That could’ve turned out weird.

The effects and action in the movie were all solid.  The look of the future was never over the top like Back to the Future Part 2 makes it look like it will be in 2 years, but they had enough going on that it didn’t seem exactly contemporary.  The most futuristic thing was probably those jet motorcycles they used.  Those seemed almost over the top, and also sounded like the land speeders from Star Wars.  There were parts where they looked a little goofy, but never enough to take me out of the movie.

The performances in the movie were all pretty great, but none of them ever really did much to give me cause to talk about them.  I heard a lot of talk about Joseph Gordon-Levitt and how he did such an amazing job becoming Bruce Willis, but I didn’t really notice that.  He did a good job in the movie, but he actually felt more like DeNiro than Willis to me.  I also heard a lot about how good the kid, Pierce Gagnon, did in the movie.  That one I totally agree with.  That kid was pretty crazy.

My expectations for Looper went from complete disinterest because of the trailers to expecting a lot because of the opinions of my friends.  In the end, Looper ended up being a fantastic movie that far exceeded my original expectations while not quite making it to the point where they met up with the hyperbole my friends used.  The story was fantastic and surprising, the action and visuals worked really well, and the performances were all completely solid.  I can understand not completely trusting this movie enough to purchase it straight away, but I imagine any rental of it stands a good chance of leading to a purchase.  Check this movie out.  Looper gets “I’m from the future.  You should go to China” out of “This time travel crap, just fries your brain like an egg…”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, MySpace if you just awoke from a coma, and whatever else you can to get as many eyes on these things as possible.  Follow my fanpage on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep on top of all things Robert.  And don’t underestimate the importance of some constructive criticism.  Rate these reviews, like the videos, and comment on both with anything you’d like to say.  And don’t forget to request things you want a review of.  LOVE YOUSE GUYS!!

House at the End of the Street (2012)

Honey, Sometimes People Can’t be Fixed.

When I get requests from people, the same question goes through my mind most of the time: “Is this being requested because this person wants me to share their love for this movie or because this person wants me to hate-fuck this movie with words?”  It was certainly what I thought when today’s movie was requested by my friend Tiffany.  It’s the kind of movie that I knew existed, but certainly never would’ve felt the need to watch on my own.  It basically just looked like a pretty standard thriller movie.  But, if nothing else, the main actress is hot.  I decided to watch the movie very quickly after the request because it was a 2012 movie that I could add to my list, so you may have already seen a paragraph about this movie.  But I intend to add a few more paragraphs as I review House at the End of the Street, written by David Loucka and Jonathan Mostow, directed by Mark Tonderai, and starring Jennifer Lawrence, Max Thieriot, Elisabeth Shue, Eva Link, Gil Bellows, Nolan Gerard Funk, and Allie MacDonald.

In the beginning, a crazy little girl kills her parents with a hammer.  Years later, Sarah (Elisabeth Shue) and her daughter Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence) rent a house … also with a hammer.  I’m not entire sure what that’s supposed to mean.  They find out that they have moved in near where those murders happened, and the crazy girl’s brother, Ryan (Max Thieriot), is still living there as the sole survivor in his family.  Because Elissa is herself crazy, she decides she’s gots to have her some of that definitely-not-psychologically-damaged man meat named Ryan, and starts developing a bit of a relationship with him, even though her mother frowns upon the eventuality that her daughter will be murdered with a hammer.

I didn’t get this movie.  I wouldn’t say I necessarily got to the point where the movie’s initials were accurate.  I didn’t HatE … otS this movie.  But I didn’t like it.  Most of it didn’t really make sense to me, and it wasn’t even remotely scary.  I’m not even entirely confident that they were trying to be scary.  I mean, one of their earliest ideas of a startle was a light in a house turning on.  The movie starts slowly with the scares, but it’s decent enough in the logic department.  Then they start switching places, letting the movie start to amp up as it takes a turn for the nonsensical.  The entire premise for the movie didn’t make a goddamned bit of sense to me, but let me put this up first.  ::SPOILER ALERT::  How the hell is a person fully aware of his own psychosis and still able to convince himself that it’s real?  “I know you’re not actually my sister, but I’m gonna kidnap you and imagine you are anyway.”  I guess psychos shouldn’t make that much sense to sane people, but movies should.  ::END SPOILERS::  Another thing that makes no sense is that a cop would draw his gun because he knows a situation is dangerous, but decides that it is far too much effort to reach up to his shoulder to use his radio to call in back up.  And later, when Elissa comes across the cop, she also does not find the situation worthy of using his radio.  I guess they didn’t want to bother anyone at the station.  And when the guy and the girl are running through the forest, am I supposed to know how the girl died?  He was holding her mouth to keep her quiet and she was suddenly dead.  Did she suffocate?  Did he break her neck?  Do you know that you should let us know these things?  Also, at what point are horror movies going to get over the idea of the malfunctioning flashlight?  The scene managed to be a little tense, but not in any way we haven’t seen before.  And we’ve definitely seen the flashlight malfunctioning in horror movies, but never in real life.  I’ve come across a large number of flashlights in my day, but never one that turned on intermittently.  I have a flashlight on my desk that has been dying for about 7 years, and the bulb remains on when I turn it on, but is just really dim.  There is no truth in this cinema…

The greater majority of the performances in the movie were fine, but I hated pretty much all of the characters.  Jennifer Lawrence did a good job portraying her character, but her character was an asshole.  She was randomly douchey to people, and makes the decision that all Ryan could possibly want to talk about in their very first conversation is the brutal murder of his family.  I realize that we needed to get caught up on the backstory, but I assume we’re also supposed to like the character.  As best I can tell, there was also no reason to have some stupid battle of the bands thing going on in the movie beyond Jennifer Lawrence wanting to sing and the director wanting to pad the movie.  Elisabeth Shue did a good job in her performance as well, but that mom was a bitch too.  It makes it really hard to decide whether douchiness is nature or nurture.  She decides she hates Ryan and doesn’t want Elissa hanging out with him.  Why?  Because his family was murdered?  He didn’t do it!  What does this chick do if she walks past an orphanage?  Yell at the confused kids that they should stay away from her daughter because they’re inherently evil?  The Ryan character was the exact opposite for me.  I thought Max Thieriot did not give a very interesting or appealing performance, but I kept siding with his character (aside from the spoiler bullshit from earlier).  Besides the other two instances that I mentioned in this paragraph, there’s also a point in the movie where four guys start to randomly beat the shit out of him for some insult that only they could’ve possibly understood, and everyone looks at Ryan like he’s a monster because he decides he’d like to stop getting kicked in his ribs, and puts a halt to it by breaking the dude’s ankle.  Everyone in the mob watching gasps and Elissa shuns him.  Of course Elisabeth Shue thinks he’s evil already, so we know which way she’ll go on it.  Look, I’m not a violent guy by any stretch of the imagination.  I’ve never been in a fight, and I assume I’ll never need to be.  But if the situation arises that four guys are beating me mercilessly, they should feel lucky if the only thing I break is their ankle if I get the opportunity.  Even if the other three guys stopped after I broke the other one’s ankle, I would go after them next yelling, “YOU EARNED THIS!”  And anyone that gave me an odd look for it would have a foot cast in their future as well.

House at the End of the Street did not work out for me.  The movie starts as if it’s got some promise, but then the logic starts to unravel.  It manages to build some tension, but none of it evolves into scares or even startles, and though the performances were mostly good, the characters that they were performing were generally annoying and nonsensical.  This movie wasn’t painful to watch, but it also has nothing it can offer that would give you a reason to watch it.  House at the End of the Street gets “HatE” out of “otS.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, MySpace if you just awoke from a coma, and whatever else you can to get as many eyes on these things as possible.  Follow my fanpage on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep on top of all things Robert.  And don’t underestimate the importance of some constructive criticism.  Rate these reviews, like the videos, and comment on both with anything you’d like to say.  And don’t forget to request things you want a review of.  LOVE YOUSE GUYS!!

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Waiting for a Written Invitation?

Why would someone feel so compelled to watch 5 movies in a series that was never really that good to begin with?  I don’t have an answer to that question.  I do know the person that would do such a thing: me.  Every time this series releases a new movie, I feel like there’s no way I’m going to watch it.  I let it get all the way through the theaters too.  But when it comes to DVD, I always check it out.  There’s no excuse for my actions.  I’m contributing to this.  It’s like I’m watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians or the Jersey Shore or something.  But I can’t help myself.  And so you will be dragged into my psychosis as I review Resident Evil: Retribution, written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, and starring Milla Jovovich, Li Bingbing, Shawn Roberts, Sienna Guillory, Aryana Engineer, Johann Urb, Kevin Durand, Boris Kodjoe, Michelle Rodriguez, Oded Fehr, Colin Salmon, Megan Charpentier, and Mika Nakashima.

Alice (Milla Jovovich) is a normal housewife that lives with her husband Todd (Oded Fehr) and their deaf daughter Becky (Aryana Engineer).  OR IS SHE?!?!  No, she’s actually a zombie killing machine.  Well, one of her is.  There’re a lot of clones in the Umbrella facility she wakes up in.  The real-ish one wakes up and is getting interrogated by Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), who has been brainwashed by Umbrella.  Alice escapes to find herself in a giant, underwater facility designed to test the zombies or some shit.  We spend the rest of the movie watching Alice escape this facility with the help of Ada Wong (Li Bingbing), Leon Kennedy (Johann Urb), Barry Burton (Kevin Durand), and Luther West (Boris Kodjoe), who have all been sent by Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), who is a good guy now, I guess.  The Red Queen (Megan Charpentier) is also back, and she uses clones of Alice’s original team – Rain Ocampo (Michelle Rodriguez), Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr), and James Shade (Colin Salmon) – to try to stop them.

This movie is exactly what you expect.  I think it was Jonah Ray on the Nerdist podcast that acknowledged that these movies are lower class cinema, but that he could not help but be excited that they were coming out.  I never get so far as to say that I’m excited for them to come out, but they are enjoyable in their stupid simplicity.  The same goes for this movie.  It’s definitely not a good movie, but it’s enjoyable if you just shut your brain down and watch.  That’s the way they’re meant to be watched; with an aneurism.  They don’t really seem to be trying too hard either.  First off, the story is really not much more than Alice trying to figure out how to get out of a facility.  And that facility is full of various landscapes representing different places in the world, so they’re going to act like Alice is spanning the globe on the poster for the movie even though she’s not leaving that one facility.  But don’t worry; if you forget that all these places are fake, everyone in the movie will need to remind Alice several thousand times.  But she’s pretty, so brains are really irrelevant.  The same kind of goes for the writers of this movie and their ability to pull off some sweet one-liners.  They all fell completely flat.  Alice hits some baddies with a, “Hey boys.  Bad idea,” when she blows a car up in their faces.  You’re not even trying now, guys.  Bad idea works if you blow up a light bulb in their face or something.  That situation demands more of a “Here’s your ride” line.  I’ll need to refer you to Batman & Robin for proper usage of horrible one-liners.  Then you miss out on another good opportunity after Leon proclaims, “We’re gonna be okay,” and you didn’t have the Red Queen pop up and say, “Activating ‘Famous Last Words’ Protocols.”  It also bummed me out that it seemed clear that this game was not made for fans of the Resident Evil games, or even gamers for that matter.  All gamers know about the concept of a weak spot.  And all Resident Evil fans remember that the way to beat brainwashed Jill was to shoot the giant red spider brooch in the center of her cleavage.  And it wasn’t just obvious because all gamers were probably staring at her sweet rack.  Well it took this killing machine lady about 15 minutes before someone else told her to shoot at the bull’s-eye between Jill’s tits.

The look and the action in the movie worked out pretty well throughout.  The first scene in the movie was interesting because they were basically playing the last scene of the previous movie in slow motion reverse.  And, for a while, I thought they were going to play the entire movie in reverse because it went on so long.  But the movie seemed completely aware of the fact that its story wasn’t going to support it, so it made sure it was decently full of action.  The hallway battle early on in the movie was pretty sweet, even though it didn’t really have anything to do with the story.  I didn’t really care though because I didn’t really care about the story.  That way, it’s perfectly fine to make your action scenes just a bit of jerkin’ off because it had been three minutes since something blow’d up.  When the executioners showed up later, I was a little bit thrown off over how much they were ripped off from Pyramid Head from Silent Hill, but I’m pretty sure I remember them from the game too, so I can’t really blame the movie for that.  I also realized that this movie had a total Star Trek thing going on because guys wearing masks were the red shirts of this thing.  Michelle Rodriguez and Oded Fehr would come out of battles unscathed because they had the sense to not cover their faces.

Most of the performances were entirely acceptable and not much more.  I thought it was cool that they got the original team from the first movie back for this one, but I also thought it got a little confusing that there were like 4 versions everyone.  The only thing I thought about Milla Jovovich is that her housewife character was fuckin’ stupid for throwing away her baseball bat after one use.  That shit still works.  Li Bingbing was also pretty good.  Her performance wasn’t anything special, but she looked good in that Ada Wong outfit.  I did have some problems with Sienna Guillory.  She definitely looked the part, and definitely had some sweet knockers, but she delivered her lines super robotic and paused in weird places.  I guess she could’ve decided that it was the way someone who was brainwashed would act, but I just felt like she decided to let her tits do the talkin’.

Resident Evil: Retribution is exactly what I’m sure everyone expects.  It’s a big, dumb action movie.  And it lives up to every bit of it.  It’s so huge in scale that it’s unsatisfied with the idea of having their movie appear as if it was filmed in only one global hemisphere.  And, even though the story was weak, the action was fun and frequent.  It will probably not be the last time I say it about the Resident Evil franchise, but you know what you’re getting and it always delivers.  I wouldn’t necessarily recommend you buy this, but it’s a fun rental.  Resident Evil: Retribution gets “I’m kinda enjoying myself” out of “I’ve heard that before.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, MySpace if you just awoke from a coma, and whatever else you can to get as many eyes on these things as possible.  Follow my fanpage on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep on top of all things Robert.  And don’t underestimate the importance of some constructive criticism.  Rate these reviews, like the videos, and comment on both with anything you’d like to say.  And don’t forget to request things you want a review of.  LOVE YOUSE GUYS!!

Assassin’s Creed III (2012)

The Future of Our Land Depends on Those Who Are Truly Free.

I was incredibly excited to get to play this game and, truth be told, I beat the game about two months ago but was so back-logged with other reviews that it’s taken me this long to get here.  Some of you may have already seen a quickie review of this game in my end of the year recap because it took me so long to review it.  But I’ve been a big fan of the series since its inception, so the game was certainly deserving of a full review.  Plus, there’s a chance that this game is the final game in the saga, so I feel that I need to send it off properly.  This game is Assassin’s Creed 3, developed by Ubisoft Montreal, published by Ubisoft, and including the voices of Noah Watts, Nolan North, Adrian Hough, Kaniehtiio Horn, Roger Aaron Brown, John de Lancie, Neil Napier, Allen Leech, Robert Lawrenson, Robin Atkin Downes, Danny Wallace, Eliza Jane Schneider, Margaret Easley, and Nadia Verrucci.

Desmond (Nolan North) and crew – William (John de Lancie), Rebecca (Eliza Jane Schneider), and Shaun (Danny Wallace) – are still trying to access a temple with the Apple of Eden, and use it to stop the end of the world.  …I don’t get it either.  To do so, Desmond gets into a machine that sends him back into his ancestor’s memories.  First, he becomes Haytham Kenway (Adrian Hough), who then fathers Ratonhnhaké:ton (Noah Watts) – who thankfully gets called Connor – with Connor’s mother, Kaniehti:io (Kaniehtiio Horn) – who I will call Unpronounceahontas.  Connor must stop the Templars in their plots in the American Colonies while simultaneously helping the Americas gain their independence.

I really liked this game (as you may have guessed from the quickie review in the Games of 2012 review), but it was not without its share of problems, most of which will not be found in this paragraph.  The story of the game was pretty good.  I’ve always kind of taken issue with the Desmond side of the Assassin’s Creed games.  They tend to be a little on the strange side.  The guy gets into a machine to allow him to access memories stored in his DNA while talking to ancient but super-advanced aliens and save the world with an apple.  But that’s a fairly minor section of the game, and that’s how I like it.  I don’t give a shit about Desmond.  But Altaïr, Ezio, and now Connor?  Yeah, that’s the stuff.  And Connor’s part of the story holds up as well as Altaïr’s and Ezio’s, but it does take its sweet time to get started.  I wanted to get into the Connor part of the story quicker because I didn’t see much point in getting attached to Haytham when I realized that he wasn’t my guy.  There wasn’t anything wrong with it, but I was in this to be Connor.  I even really liked the scenes of Haytham and Unpronounceahontas and their burgeoning relationship, but this guy isn’t going to participate in the Boston Tea Party, witness the Boston Massacre, chauffer Paul Revere on his Midnight Ride, and watch the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Connor was!  And it was pretty cool to take part in all of those things, so I enjoyed it thoroughly when it got going.  There were a couple of minor qualms to be had with the rest of the story.  First off, the names of things.  The Mohawks seem like they had absolutely no interest in making their names easy on me while writing these reviews, and I think that’s very inconsiderate of them.  There was our main character, Ratonhnhaké:ton, his mother, Kaniehti:io, and the place they were from, Kanien’keh(‘a):ka.  Come on!  That can’t be real!  What possible use for colons, semicolons, and parenthesis would the Mohawk have?!  I guess, much like their philosophies in hunting, they felt like they must use all parts of the keyboard as they use all parts of the buffalo.  The endings were a little weak as well.  The defeat of Connor’s mortal enemy was a little anticlimactic, and I wasn’t that pleased with what happened with Desmond either.  I was happy they didn’t go with the typical ending with making the audience make a choice.  I just want to see YOUR story, not make my own.  Or, more accurately, I don’t want to have to look up the other ending on YouTube.

The controls of the game were what gave me the most trouble.  Not all of the time as it controls very similar to every other Assassin’s Creed, but I had never had so many problems with glitches in the other games.  There were times when the controls wouldn’t respond, I would run into invisible walls, icons wouldn’t show up when they were supposed to.  The worst one was when I was trying to climb a wall and I was inexplicably fired up into the air, only to come crashing down to the Earth and die.  It didn’t happen all the time, but even just a few times in such a big name title is extremely frustrating.  Otherwise, the game is exactly as you’d expect an Assassin’s Creed game to be.  And by that, I mean it’s awesome.  It’s like Dishonored if it didn’t punish you for killing bad people.  And the parkour is great, and improved for this game a little.  It’s mostly what we’ve done in the other games, but this game takes us out into the wilderness a lot more than the other games does.  And that means free-running through the trees.  It works very well most of the time, though it’s occasionally difficult to see your path clearly when trying to figure out which way to jump.  The side missions in the game were fun, but some were extremely tedious and others I just did not play the way they wanted me to.  Like the hunting stuff.  Connor was an effective, but very impatient hunter with me at the helm.  It would’ve been a fairly common sight to see Connor running through the frontier, trying to bum rush a raccoon in the brush.  And the board games were a constant annoyance for me.  I realize that the only reason I was even bothering with them was because I wanted achievements, but I found them really annoying.  One problem with playing a board game against a computer is that the computer knows how to play and what is going to happen way better than we do.  Another problem is that I don’t really want to play these things.  I don’t need the money, so I’m just forced to play the stupid things for the achievements.  And Six Man Morris is a horrible piece of shit of a game.  I want it to die.  I resent this game for making me play it.  I don’t know anyone named Morris, but I will befriend one just so I can hate him.  I had a couple minor issues with the logic of the game as well.  Like why do guards attack me because 3 orphans are pestering me?  I would understand if they were already looking for me, or if I just killed them like I always wanted to, but just because they see a guy being bothered by kids?  They should attack the kids!  Or let me!  As much as I loved the regular gameplay of Assassin’s Creed, this game kind of overshadowed it for me with the new nautical battles.  I really dug these.  It made me wish Ubisoft would take over a really cool Pirates of the Caribbean game.

The look of the game is fantastic, with next to no complaints.  The landscapes are beautiful, and the seafaring levels are brilliant.  The only thing I took issue with was minor, but annoying.  The game gives you the ability to change the color of Connor’s outfit, but does not have the ability to change his costume color in the cinematics.  I’ll be wearing some badass black and red getup just to suddenly, and jarringly, be wearing classic white because I’m chatting with Sam Adams now.  Come on, Ubisoft.  We all know this technology exists.

I never was all that interested in the multiplayer of the Assassin’s Creed games.  That lack of interest, as well as the structure of the multiplayer, has not changed much.  It’s an interesting idea, and it’s nice that it’s different from the typical first person shooter multiplayer, but it also doesn’t really keep my attention very long.  The first problem is that they take so long to explain it in the overlong tutorials for it.  They actually show you how to free run!  Does anyone buy Assassin’s Creed for the multiplayer?  In which case, how would they not already know how to free run, and probably have played the entire story mode before even bothering to give multiplayer a shot.  Then, when you get into the multiplayer, it’s not usually the game of hiding and surprising that the tutorials make it out to be.  It’s mostly just people running around in circles trying to stab each other.

The achievements in this game weren’t insurmountable, but there were still some that I was not going to bother with.  Namely, the multiplayer ones.  But I did get the rest of them.  The only ones that I found very annoying were the ones involving the board games and the damned Encyclopedia of the Common Man stuff.  That was extremely tedious.  You basically have to take a look at everyone in your homestead doing three different versions of their jobs.  They may choose not to do their jobs for about 4 or 5 days because they’d rather be fishing, and you may not be able to kill them in punishment for their inefficiency, but you will have to stand around waiting for them to do it anyway.

Assassin’s Creed 3 was a great game that was hindered by a few minor problems that just should not have been there from a company that makes such polished games usually.  But they were only temporary hindrances in a beautiful game with highly enjoyable gameplay and completely forgettable multiplayer.  I recommend buying this game.  I bought it for $35, which it is totally worth.  I’d still probably get it for $60 though.  Assassin’s Creed 3 gets “My enemy is a notion, not a nation” out of “Better the world burns, than SHE is unleashed upon it!”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, MySpace if you just awoke from a coma, and whatever else you can to get as many eyes on these things as possible.  Follow my fanpage on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep on top of all things Robert.  And don’t underestimate the importance of some constructive criticism.  Rate these reviews, like the videos, and comment on both with anything you’d like to say.  And don’t forget to request things you want a review of.  LOVE YOUSE GUYS!!

0001 – Mission Statement (2013)

Hey YouTube.  My Name is Robert, and I Review Stuff.

Today is going to be a quickie review, and a review of something I don’t usually review.  I haven’t gotten a lot of requests to review YouTube videos.  Well, technically, this video wasn’t requested either, but I felt it was necessary.  This guy just started posting videos on YouTube, and just posted his first video on Sunday.  Apparently, he’s going to do one every Sunday from now on.  And this mother fucker is trying to get in on my review game!  That’s what I do, baby!  Let’s see if this guy even deserves a YouTube channel as I review 0001 – Mission Statement by Robert Bicket at YouTube channel RobertReviewsStuff.

I loved this video!  I was surprised that I’d like it since this guy is totally trying to swagger jack me, but there’s a slight chance that he does this better than me.  How am I supposed to compete with this guy?  Have you watched the video?  Have you seen him?  He’s a good-looking son of a bitch!  You can’t even see my face here!  (I mean, that’s really more your problem than anything else)  But this is a simple YouTube video, but it shows promise of so much more.  I would say one major problem with the video is that the guy claims that he reviews stuff, but does not actually review anything in the video.  I assume that is something that is going to happen at some point in his bright future.  There are also a couple of parts to the video that indicate a certain lack of familiarity with his video editing software, but it’s his first video so I’ll give him a break.  I appreciate his self-defacing humor, his reference to a Twisted Sister song, and the ending makes me laugh every time.  But I would say that I’m perhaps a bit resentful of the fact that he hates reading, and that’s what I do!  I hope he’s not shitting on reading reviews, ‘cause that’s my bread and butter.  And what’s more is that he actually links to this website in his video!  I love this guy!

I love everything about the look of this video.  The backdrop he chose was great because it gives him a great credibility when it comes to reviewing movies since the entire background is a mere section of his DVD collection.  It does not really demonstrate any ability to review video games, but his alabaster complexion tells us all we need to know about his ability to review video games.  His wardrobe also deserves to be lauded.  Sure, it looks like a sweater that his sister probably got him for Christmas at some point, but I imagine that his sister has better taste in clothing than he does.  Not that he even needs them since he’s so friggin’ sexy that I would put down cold, hard cash to see this guy naked.  No homo.

So that’s it.  I totally recommend that you go to the YouTube channel of this “Robert Bicket” person and subscribe.  I probably shouldn’t have to tell you to like the channel because I assume you are a sane person and could not possibly dislike this video.  Sure, this first video doesn’t offer too much to the audience, but you should definitely subscribe because the videos will most definitely improve, even though you won’t believe that they could get better.  I give 0001 – Mission Statement “I WANNA ROCK!” out of “OR DID I?!  BUM BUM BUM!!!”

In all seriousness, this review was just my stupid way to tell you to go watch and “Like” my video, and don’t forget to subscribe.  Please leave comments telling me what you think and get this channel popular.  I had to really force myself to overcome my insecurities to put this video up in the first place (after having talked myself out of the channel about 20 times before the drop date) and it would do wonders to have people supporting me to keep doing this in the future.  Thanks in advance, Robert.

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, MySpace if you just awoke from a coma, and whatever else you can to get as many eyes on these things as possible.  Follow my fanpage on Facebook, follow me on Twitter, and subscribe to my YouTube channel to keep on top of all things Robert.  And don’t underestimate the importance of some constructive criticism.  Rate these reviews, like the videos, and comment on both with anything you’d like to say.  And don’t forget to request things you want a review of.  LOVE YOUSE GUYS!!

The Games of 2012

It’s hard for me to decide how long this review is going to be before I get started on it. I feel like I didn’t play as many of the new games that came out this year just because of financial restraints. On the other hand, I also started using my Gamefly subscription more to fill in the gaps that I wasn’t willing to pay full price for. I’m also a little bit worried that I won’t have enough games to complete a bottom three, just because my precious time and money could not be wasted on untested, shitty games this year. Hopefully I’ll have plenty to talk about, but there’s only one way to find out…

JANUARY

FINAL FANTASY XIII-2

I fully intended to play this game; so much so that I actually purchased it and everything. The reason I never got started was because I still haven’t beaten FF13 yet. I started playing it when it originally came out, and then started from scratch again when this game came out, determined to finish a review of it and move onto the next game in the series. I have lost interest both times before actually finishing. One day, FF13-2… One day…

FEBRUARY

THE DARKNESS 2

I actually purchased this too … and still haven’t started playing it. I’VE BEEN BUSY!!

KINGDOMS OF AMALUR: RECKONING

AHA! A game I actually beat! And it was … thoroughly mediocre. There’re a whole lot of side missions, and a whole lot of dialogue to sit through, and all of that is written by some guy that nerdier people than myself know. I, however, don’t know him and don’t care to listen through novels worth of dialogue that is not that interesting in the first place. It’s a decent enough game, but certainly not worth a full purchase … unless you find it for $10 bucks like I did.

UNCHARTED: GOLDEN ABYSS

I was very excited about this game (as I am with all the Uncharted games), but I was not nearly as excited about the Playstation Vita at first. Eventually, I bought a Vita in the Assassin’s Creed Limited Edition bundle, and this game was the only game I was really concerned about getting. How was it? …I’ll let you know. I haven’t finished Assassin’s Creed yet. I’ve been told by my roommate that it’s really good though.

MARCH

MASS EFFECT 3

I am apparently a liar. I looked briefly at the 2011 reviews and saw that I said I would definitely be playing this game. Eh… not so much. Not because of the game, but because I seemingly completely forgot it existed.

APRIL

DISGAEA 3: ABSENCE OF DETENTION

I haven’t gotten this game yet, but I desperately want it. I have an unnatural obsession with this game series.

PROTOTYPE 2

A decent enough game. It’s a little repetitive, and I never was really able to muster more than an hour at a time, but it was solid fun. It also looked pretty good, and it was pretty easy achievements. It’s worth checking out if you can find a cheap enough copy.

MAY

SNIPER ELITE V2

I was pleasantly surprised by this game. I assume my friend Phil let me borrow the game because he expected such a thing, and he was right for once in his life. The story is simplistic and the graphics aren’t always what we’ve come to expect in this generation of gaming, but the satisfaction I gained from watching one of my shots go through someone’s skull in slow motion never dulled, even when it happened over and over again.

JUNE

LEGO BATMAN 2: DC SUPER HEROES

It’s another Lego game! …Take that for what it is. It’s good, and definitely right up a kid’s alley, but it’s not dissimilar from every other Lego game I’ve played in the past. Just this time, it’s Batman and other DC superheroes. Basic gameplay and basic story – and I was a little bummed that they made the characters talk when they’ve been so successful making the other games tell a story in an amusing way without it thus far – but there is some stupid, silly fun to be had in this game. And easy achievements! I’m sure it will be super cheap soon enough. You can give it a go when that happens.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

My strange desire to play this game nagged at me for a long time. I had the strange desire because I’ve really liked some of the Spider-Man games in the past. It nagged at me because I wouldn’t buy it because it’s been a very long time since they’ve made one of the good ones. What did they do this time? They made another mediocre one, but one that had the free-roaming gameplay style that I wanted. Overall, I enjoyed playing the game enough because of the gameplay, but the story was really plain, and was also basically the not groundbreaking movie with more cross breeds. It’s okay, and probably worth a rental, but not much more.

SEPTEMBER

Quite a break here, right? It’s almost enough to make you think I had a life during this period. (Psst. I didn’t)

OCTOBER

JUST DANCE 4 and DANCE CENTRAL 3

If I had ever reviewed one of these games before, I would suggest that you take that review and change the music on it. Then add one to the number in the title.

ASSASSIN’S CREED III: LIBERATION

I’ve always loved Assassin’s Creed. But every handheld game (of course, I’m referring to the one other handheld one that I played) has been an utter disappointment. I have not completed this game, but it has blown my expectations for the handheld Assassin’s Creed games out of the water, while simultaneously not really being as good as any of the console games. It handles a lot like the Assassin’s Creed with the addition of the Vita’s second analog stick, but there’s not a whole lot going on in the story, and most of the missions involve changing Aveline’s costume and going to kill something. At least from what I’ve played so far, it’s not the greatest game, but it is a good game, and it’s the best Vita game I’ve played so far. It’s also the only one I’ve played so far.

NOVEMBER

CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS II

I’ve made it no secret that I’ve decided to boycott the Call of Duty games. They typically have next to nothing interesting going on in their single player campaign because they know that no one is really that interested in playing it. They tend to do a lot of good with their multiplayer, but that has bit me in the ass too. I bought the last two CoD games, and never really played Black Ops online. And I didn’t even open my copy of Modern Warfare 3. That caused me to decide to completely boycott this game. …That being said, I received the game as a Christmas present, and so I played it. The story is fairly solid, though not at all groundbreaking. They did make a few changes to the gameplay, and they all work well in favor of the game. It’s fun, though I’d say it’s a little easy for its own good. It’s also fun that they take it a bit into the future while also taking us back into the past, so we get to use some tried and true weapons and also use some futuristic weapons, some of which seem far fetched and others that seem realistic. I have not ventured into multiplayer yet, but I would say that what I’ve played of the game so far has made me not disappointed to own the game.

LEGO THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE VIDEO GAME

I haven’t played this game, but I assume you can take my review for Lego Batman 2 and exchange the word “Batman” with the word “Aragorn”.

HITMAN: ABSOLUTION

I look forward to playing this game … when I can find it for about $30.

THE WORST GAMES OF 2012

FIFTH WORST

MEDAL OF HONOR: WARFIGHTER

When I rented this game, I wasn’t expecting much. With a name as bland as “Warfighter”, what should I expect? A mediocre game! DELIVERED! The story of the game was too long, it offered no appreciable innovations to the first person shooter genre, and the graphics were occasionally subpar. I’m sure they invested a good amount of their time into the multiplayer, but I invested none of mine into it. I just rented it to see if it was any good, then I beat it in a couple of days and sent it back, relatively unsatisfied. It’s not awful, but it’s probably only worth picking up if you can find it for about $10.

FOURTH WORST

DISHONORED

This game disappointed me, but it also helped prove me right. People need to stop using hyperbole when talking about things with me. If you’re going to set this game up to me as mind-blowing – so much so that I’ll actually invest my monies into it – then it had damned well better be. It had better not be okay, and then just devolve into repetitively cutting throats. And the goddamned game better not try so hard to make me feel shitty for doing cutting those throats. You put it into the game! Maybe YOU’RE the bad person! Not me for realizing that the least frustrating way through a stealth game is to take the bad people out of the equation. Bad people can’t be bad anymore when their blood is no longer in their body.

THIRD WORST

TWISTED METAL

A pretty disappointing game that I probably shouldn’t have bothered expecting anything out of in the first place. This game was my own mistake because I put it on a list for my birthday and it was gifted to me by my sister. I should have probably known better. My sister doesn’t game, so she wouldn’t know better. The game did remind me of a simpler time when all a game really needed was some goofy cars and explosions, but the problems of the game became more and more annoying over time. There were some frustratingly difficult parts in the game, and the game has no interest in telling you how to play it. And, to top that all off, you can probably knock it out in a few hours and then have no reason to play it. It has multiplayer, but it wasn’t my cup of tea. It had Twisted Metal Black to download along with the game, but that only really served to remind me that lots of games don’t age well. I can see some potential for this game to be entertaining when split-screened with your friends, but that does not justify its price.

RUNNER UP

KINECT STAR WARS

I never got around to finishing this game, but I did play a good deal of it. I only bought the game because there was no other way to purchase the special edition R2D2 Xbox 360 without getting this game to come along with it. I even tried to trade in the game after I purchased the console, but the game wasn’t in Best Buy’s systems yet. So I decided to play it instead. The regular gameplay was fine enough, but a little repetitive. I did feel like I actually had full access to all of my midichlorians though. So what was the problem? This game shit all over my childhood! You seriously gonna have Han Solo dance in the carbonite chamber before he gets frozen? To a poorly parodied version of “I’m Riding Solo?” Fuck that shit! Those were not good times for old Han.

THE LOSER

SSX

Oh that’s right, I DID want to kick a game in the nuts this year. That game was SSX. I only played this game because I remembered playing it when I was younger and really liking the simple fun of the series. I played this game and found that fun did not hold up anymore. There was no story and I got extremely bored of the gameplay in about a half hour since it was the same thing over and over, and that one thing was not even very fun. The game looks okay, but really has nothing else going for it.

THE BEST GAMES OF 2012

HONORABLE MENTION

The only game that almost made my top five for this year was Sniper Elite V2. It was a pretty fun game and surpassed any expectations I could’ve had for a game that I had never heard of that came out completely under my radar.

FIFTH BEST

MAX PAYNE 3

I had been a fan of the Max Payne series since its beginning, and I still enjoyed Max Payne 3, but it was a bit of a trudge in more than one part. Mainly, Max himself. Such a whiny bitch for someone that is killing hordes of his enemies like he was the Armageddon the Mayans were talking about. The story was good, but the dialogue suffered from Max Payne’s inescapable moroseness. So morose was he that it actually took away from my enjoyment of the extremely quality gameplay. I knew I would love that much, with all the jumping through windows and firing in slow motion. I just could’ve enjoyed it much more if Max would just shut the fuck up.

FOURTH BEST

HALO 4

I give this game extra credit for blowing my expectations for it out of the water. This was the first time the fate of Master Chief had been left in non-Bungie hands, and 343 tore it up. I’ve only played the campaign thus far, but I thought the story was really good, and even had a surprising bit of emotion to it near the end. Before that, it’s not much more than going from computer terminal to computer terminal, and I could resent that because it’s a version of my life with more guns and aliens. But the game looks GORGEOUS. Best looking Halo game so far by leaps and bounds. I bet the multiplayer is even good. Maybe I’ll give it a go.

THIRD BEST

ASSASSIN’S CREED III

I’ve always loved Assassin’s Creed. Every console game thus far has been right up my alley. This one was as well … with a few notations. I loved the story and felt that it came a lot closer to home (as it physically came closer to home) by actually happening during a time period I would actually have any knowledge of. And I’ve always liked the way the Assassin’s Creed games play. Running over rooftops and stabbing necks with wrist blades is always good times. It’s like Dishonored if Dishonored didn’t punish you for playing the game the way it was designed. What did kind of punish me was how many glitches I encountered in the game. I ran into invisible walls, jumped onto walls instead of running in the direction I was trying to tell Connor to go, and on one occasion something in the game fired me up into the air, sending me crashing to my death. Still, the game was awesome when these things were not hindering my enjoyment.

RUNNER UP

FAR CRY 3

This was probably my most anticipated game of the holiday season, and it did not disappoint. All the Far Cry games are graphically fantastic, and this one held up its end of that. And you can also expect the landscapes in Far Cry to be huge, lush, colorful landscapes with tons of things to explore. The stories of the Far Cry games are typically unimpressive, but I actually liked the story of this game … mainly because there was one. And it was good too. I especially liked any parts of the story involving Vaas. My roommate did good by getting this game for me for Christmas.

THE WINNER

BORDERLANDS 2

When it came to the best game of this year, there were a few games it could be, but only one game it’s gots to be. I have already beaten this game as well as all the available DLC for it so far, and I’ve also played a good amount of time with all 5 character types available to me, but I still haven’t produced a review for the game because it’s so good that I have not yet decided that I’m over it. It is so good! The story is as fun as I’ve come to expect from my time with the first game, but they also actually put a few surprises and a few emotionally impactful moments. And on top of that, it’s an excellent first person shooter with RPG elements, and that is pretty much my two favorite game genres. This game is awesome. You need to buy it.

These are my opinions, but I would love to hear yours. Just like with the movies of 2012, I would love for you guys to leave me a comment telling me what your top and bottom 5 video games of 2012 were.

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people. Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense. Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated. You can also add me on FaceBook and Twitter. Don’t forget to leave me some comments. Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

The Films of 2012

2012 has come to a close and I guess we all survived.  It’s a little disappointing for me because I now feel obligated to write one of these really long reviews talking about all of the movies of 2012 in order to whip out my movie dick and measure it against yours so that you will feel inadequate.  I went to the theaters quite a bit this year and caught quite a bit of what I didn’t bother with in theaters when it came out on DVD.  Of the 253 movies that Wikipedia listed as a 2012 release, I saw 46.  This is also the very first year that I’ve been writing reviews for the entire year, so I’m sure I have even more to write about this year than I had last year.  So let’s dive right into the films of 2012.  And, since this is essentially 46 mini-reviews, you may feel free to dive right to the deep end and just read my top and bottom 5.

JANUARY

HAYWIRE

I have no real reason to have been as interested in this movie as I was, but I really wanted it to be awesome.  It had some really good action because Gina Carano is very good at translating her MMA career into fake fighting, but there was not nearly enough action and the rest of it was really boring.  Edit about 40 minutes of Gina Carano walking down a street with nothing happening and maybe you have a movie here.  Until then, skip it.

UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING

I think the Underworld series on the whole is actually much more serviceable than one could expect going in.  The story has nothing shocking to be found in it but you also probably aren’t really expecting that as you go into the movie.  The action is cool and stylized, and I am never going to argue with you about seeing a movie with Kate Beckinsale wearing skintight clothes.  This movie is worth a rental at least.

THE GREY

I was not into this movie.  I know it’s probably mainly due to the fact that I have ADD and require a movie to keep me constantly riveted, but I’ll just blame the movie instead of myself because it’s easier that way.  The performances are great and the story is a great look at the way people would react to the building tension of the constant threat of death, but only on rare occasions was that threat in the form of an unconvincing CG wolf, and the constant threat of death by falling asleep because you’re really cold is not going to keep my attention.  But, because some people really like this movie, I’d call it worth a rental.  I wasn’t into it, but there’s a chance you would be if you’re more patient than I am.

MAN ON A LEDGE

I watched this movie as part of a mad rush to try to see as many movies from 2012 as I could.  It was one of four I watched on Christmas day.  I went into this movie expecting it to be really shitty, but it actually wasn’t that bad.  It wasn’t groundbreaking, and it kind of felt like it was an amalgam of Phone Booth and some heist movie, but it was an interesting enough premise for a movie, it kept my attention well, and had some good performances by Elizabeth Banks and many of the non-Sam Worthington people.  Sam Worthington was at least serviceable.  As was this movie.  Decent enough to earn itself a rental.

FEBRUARY

CHRONICLE

I was actually fairly surprised by how much I liked this movie.  I felt like it was a little bit hindered by having to force the found footage style onto us, but the movie might not have made any real impact without it.  It was a nice superhero-esque movie and an interesting character study.  Good story, good action, minor problems.  Definitely worth a rental

THE WOMAN IN BLACK

I saw this movie because Harry Potter was in it.  And also ghosts.  I like both of those things.  It didn’t necessarily lead me wrong, unless I went in expecting it to be Harry Potter.  It wasn’t a whole lot like those movies.  It had some thrills to it but was hindered in my mind by a piss-poor ending and lack of any surprise to the story, but it was good enough.  And Daniel Radcliffe did a good enough job that some people might actually be able to look at him as something other than Harry Potter.  But not me though.  I will always call everyone in that cast by their Harry Potter character names.  You could rent this movie, but you should just go buy Harry Potter instead.

STAR WARS EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE 3D

Fuck this movie, and also fuck 3D.  …Did I see it in 3D?  Fuck no, I didn’t!  I’ve made enough bad decisions in my life.

THIS MEANS WAR

I went into this movie with low expectations, but I found the movie charming on the whole, and mainly because all of the parts of the movie were charming.  A lot of the dialogue was charming, the story itself was an interesting idea because it was a chick flick that had a good deal of action to keep men just as interested, and all three of the leads in the movie were very charming.  Rent it if you desire to be charmed.  …CHARMED!!!

MARCH

THE LORAX

The Lorax wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good.  I know that the overblown environmental message would come hand in hand with a movie about an orange, mustachioed creature that speaks for the trees, but it wasn’t funny enough for me to not get irritated by it.  But the movie wasn’t made for me.  Kids should like it for its goofiness and its colorful landscapes and adorable animals.  Parents might not even find it unbearable as most things kids might make them watch.  But I haven’t made the mistake of getting someone pregnant, so it’s not my cup of tea.

JOHN CARTER

It’s probably too easy to kick this movie when it’s down.  They tried very hard with this movie and just failed miserably.  It had lots of ingredients that could sometimes be assembled into a great movie, like some big action scenes and epic landscapes with tons of well-realized CGI, but when they put it together it was just really boring and all the characters in the movie were overshadowed by a dog creature.  There was no tangible reason that this movie was as boring as it ended up being, but it was.  You could rent it, but I think you’d be safer not wasting the time or money.

SILENT HOUSE

A cool idea that never needed to be realized.  Silent House invested so much into making the movie seem like it was one, continuous shot that they forgot that movies should have stuff happen.  They also forgot that feeling it was necessary to film in one shot meant that their camera angles would occasionally be annoying and make you miss stuff that you shouldn’t be missing.  The story was a good idea and Elizabeth Olsen was great, but the movie fell flat.  Skip it.

WRATH OF THE TITANS

I knew this movie was going to suck when I went into it.  It didn’t disappoint me.  The story was bland and even the action that was certain to be the only thing of interest was lackluster.  But the movie did look good, and Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes brought more credibility to it than they should’ve felt necessary.  It’s not the worst movie you could watch, but there’s also not a whole lot of reason to bother going to rent it.  If you want to sit around with your friends and crack wise about the movie, it’s good joke fodder.  Otherwise, skip it.

GOON

I liked Goon a lot.  I found the movie charming, even in its violence and occasional vulgarity.  It had some solid laughs, and spent most of its time being generally amusing, but I think the movie had been talked up to me too much for its own good before I started watching it, leaving it a mountain too hard for it to climb to be considered funny by me.  But it was charming and I enjoyed my experience with the movie overall, so I’d say it’s at least worth a rental.  Just don’t go in thinking it’s going to be the funniest thing ever like one of your friends acts like it is based on one really funny scene in the movie.  There’s a whole lot of movie bookending that one really funny scene.

APRIL

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

I was left with a bad taste in my mouth because of this movie, but I don’t think it was really as much the fault of the movie as it was the fault of the world.  I had expectations set up for me for this movie that I would be blown away by it, and that the twist in the movie must not be spoiled in its epicness.  I thought the movie was okay, but it did not blow my mind.  And the “twist” kind of got on my nerves because it happened as the very first thing in the movie, and thus did not feel twisty.  Not twisty at all!  But it was a pretty decent idea for a movie, it had some funny moments, and overall it was at least worth a watch.  Especially since you could be one of the people that really loved it.  I say rent it for now.

MAY

DARK SHADOWS

Not really the worst thing I watched this year, but also a complete waste of my time.  I think it wanted to be funny, but it wasn’t.  It probably wanted to be interesting, but that also didn’t work out for them.  I don’t even have that much to say to shit on this movie.  You can totally skip this movie.

CHERNOBYL DIARIES

A decent portion of this movie was good.  It had some creepiness, and even had a few funny moments to be found in some of the clever dialogue, but near the middle of the movie it started to unfurl and the ending took it down a few notches.  It wasn’t a bad movie, and worth a watch if you’re in the mood for it, but I feel fairly confident that your life will continue without it.

MEN IN BLACK 3

It’s another Men in Black movie, and I don’t mean that in a bad way.  I would be comfortable arguing that this one was possibly the best in the series.  It has lots of funny moments, plenty of interesting moments, and even some surprisingly heartfelt moments that were unexpected, but appreciated.  Worth watching for sure, and probably even worth owning.

JUNE

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

This movie wasn’t bad.  Just Kristen Stewart was.  But she always is, and I went in knowing that.  I’ve seen her worse than she was in this movie, but I could not get over my irritation over the fact that everyone in this movie kept acting like there was some definition of the word “fair” that would have Kristen Stewart winning out over Charlize Theron.  This movie wasn’t the fairest of them all, but it was fair.  Still skippable, but certainly not as bad as I thought it might be knowing that Kristen Stewart was in it.

PROMETHEUS

My own uncontrollable expectations caused this movie to fail in my eyes.  Well, the movie had something to do with it too.  The story was fine, but had a really slow start.  The performances were fine, but none were too fantastic, and the female lead could’ve done with a little bit more of that Ellen Ripley moxie.  One thing that was inarguable about this movie was that it looked amazing.  It’s definitely worth a watch, but I haven’t yet felt inspired to purchase the movie.  I don’t resent having watched it though.

ROCK OF AGES

Unimpressive, but it still managed to be entirely watchable.  Was it the story?  Nah, that was pretty much just a love story with some Footloose going on in the background.  Was it the performances?  Kinda.  Tom Cruise did a solid job, and I am always down to watch Julianne Hough and Malin Ákerman be super-hot.  It was mainly the music, which was right in my wheelhouse.  I suppose there are people in the world whose taste in music is wrong (aka does not match mine), which would make this movie less interesting to you, but ultimately it’s a fine enough rental.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER

Buried within the deep recesses of my brain was a profound interest in this movie based on the crazy idea it was based on.  One of our greatest presidents fighting vampires on the side?  WACKY!  It didn’t work out quite like that.  I blame part of my annoyance with this movie on the quality of the theater and the theater goers, but the story never lived up to their own interesting idea, the graphics were lackluster, and the performances didn’t do anything for me.  Not the worst thing ever, but it has nothing that requires your viewing.  Skip it.

MAGIC MIKE

I had just started to feel like I hadn’t seen this movie.  Thanks for opening old wounds, calendar!  In all surprising actuality, this movie was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be.  It was a kind of basic story with dicks and man-meat thrown into it, and was probably pretty heavily based on Channing Tatum’s life.  The dialogue was sometimes annoying because it seemed like parts of it were improvised to come off as unpracticed, but it was not improvised well.  But there were some funny moments in the movie and overall was a fairly enjoyable experience, and probably much more enjoyable if you are a gay man or a straight woman who just wants to see your own version of mainstream pornography.  Olivia Munn’s boobs are in the first 5 minutes of it if you’re not as into man-meat, but you can Google that too.

JULY

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

I know this movie took a lot of heat, but I feel that people were a bit too harsh with it.  Sure, there was no need to give the series a complete reboot when everyone going to see it already knows the story of how Peter Parker became Spider-Man, but they changed it just enough to keep it mildly interesting, and they had some solid enough action.  Some of the dialogue was crap, but overall the movie was entirely watchable, at least for a comic book nerd like myself.  I’ve been wanting to watch it again recently, but not enough to buy it.  I guess that means I recommend this movie for a rental.

KATY PERRY: PART OF ME

Of course I wouldn’t have watched this movie unless it was requested.  I don’t give a good gangnam about Katy Perry, and I’d rather sit on a rusty pipe than sit through a movie about her.  I had to listen to her music, I had been forced into her life, and when I left I knew that this movie wasn’t meant for me.  I know that the right groups would be really interested in this thing, but I was not one of those people.  It wasn’t painful to watch, and Katy Perry came off very likeable, but I’d much rather have not been involved in this movie whatsoever.

AUGUST

TOTAL RECALL

I went into this movie with a very sour face on.  I staunchly expected this movie to suck.  Remakes tend to be pretty bad, and this was a remake of a movie that a lot of people love for some reason, but I don’t even think anything was all that great about the original.  Unless you mean from a comedy standpoint.  But this movie was actually pretty good.  I wouldn’t call it great by any stretch of the imagination, but the plot made a little more sense than the original, the action was really good, Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel are really hot (Hell, I’d even say Colin Farrell is hot), and the look of the movie was fantastic.  And, most importantly, they included the three-boobed lady.  What more could you ask for?  Rent it.

THE BOURNE LEGACY

Sometimes it can be detrimental to a movie to associate itself with a preexisting property.  I understand that the studios know that putting Bourne in their title will draw in fans of the first three movies, but I also saw this movie.  I know that this movie would’ve been pretty cool if I hadn’t already seen the first three, which were way better.  The story was fairly typical of the Bourne series, but what they forgot to capture was that the Bourne movies are action movies.  They get around to it, but unless you consider Jeremy Renner walking through the snow “action”, then they take their sweet time getting there.  I’d say you could do worse than renting it, especially if you have the ability to skip in a little to when it starts getting good.

THE CAMPAIGN

Until I was corrected, I had the opposite response to this movie from the one I had with Ted.  I went in with inexplicably high expectations for the movie that could not be met.  But Friendboss Josh reminded me afterwards that I had laughed many times in the movie, and comedies would be exhausting if I was laughing nonstop through the entire movie.  With that realization, I also realized that I enjoyed the movie.  Basic story, but enough laughs to be worth a watch.  Check it out for a rental.

THE EXPENDABLES 2

This movie was exactly what I expect it to be.  Mediocre story, decent action, and overall completely meh.  The action in this movie wasn’t nearly good enough to overcome the horrible dialogue, and the vaguely depressing tone they go for even lessens the potential fun of the movie.  But it’s not bad and, if you’re in the mood for a big dumb action movie, you could do worse than to rent this movie.

PARANORMAN

I kind of watched this movie on a whim when I saw it in a RedBox.  I didn’t really regret it.  The artistic style of the movie was a little odd but interesting as they went for stop-motion animation instead of the tried and true CG style, and I respect that.  The story wasn’t anything special, and was mostly just a pretty overblown anti-bullying message.  But that’s appropriate because this movie is for kids … or is it?  It’s hard to say, because some of the things in the movie seemed a little dark and mature for kids, like the fat kid’s ghost dog that was cut in half.  I’m not really sure who the audience was for this movie, but neither adults nor kids should find it painful to watch.  It’s at least worth a rental.

THE POSSESSION

It’s like the Apparition, but slightly better.  At least this movie had some decent performances, though it also had some annoying ones.  It adds nothing new beyond making the demons Jewish, but at least it was able to keep a certain degree of suspense in the movie.  It was a well-realized movie, but one that could easily be skipped.

SEPTEMBER

RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION

Spoilers!  I haven’t written a review for this one yet.  But I did watch it and it was crap.  But I would give it credit for not being as bad as the last movie, as well as seeming to be fully aware of its dumbness.  The story is barely anything more than Alice trying to escape a facility, but the movie was almost entirely action so as to leave no room for a mediocre story.  We’ve got things to blow up!  The performances in it were either bad or average, but the movie itself never becomes unwatchable.  Does that mean you should watch it?  No, not really.  But it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.

HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET

It’s probably appropriate that the title of this movie can be broken down to HATE … of the Street.  I guess I can’t really say that I HATED the movie, but I also did not necessarily enjoy the movie in any way.  The look of the movie was interesting enough, but nothing happens for the bulk of the movie, and the psychology of the killer doesn’t really hold up to me.  As with most horror movies, the characters in the movie were all completely incompetent, but since this movie was set in a more real world situation, it seemed out of place and unbelievable.  Ultimately, it just wasn’t interesting.  Skip it.

OCTOBER

SINISTER

Sinister was partially able to do well with me because I went in with a blank slate about the potential for the movie.  As with most horror movies that I watch these days, I felt like they took a lot from other horror movies, but the movie was not without a few startles and its own set of charms.  It was full of good performances, but ended with a whimper.  It’s at least worth renting, but there’s not a whole lot of reason to purchase this thing.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4

Sure, these movies are beginning to beat a dead horse with the frequency of their releases, but I would say that Paranormal Activity 4 actually has the potential of being the best in the series thus far, or at least of having the best ending.  It was slow going in the start, and I spent that time picking out logic loopholes.  But ending on a strong note always leaves the audience with a better taste in their mouth than does opening strong, and this movie proves that.  I liked it, and I will probably buy the movie.  If you haven’t liked the other movies in this series, this probably won’t change your mind.

NOVEMBER

SKYFALL

Skyfall didn’t blow my mind or anything, but I did like it.  It was the first Bond movie that I can recall that had a fairly emotional story and I liked it for that.  It also had a pretty good amount of action, even though part of the action was Bond pulling a Kevin McCallister on his childhood home.  They at least pulled a good amount of action out of that goofiness.  I’ve always liked Daniel Craig as Bond, but I thought Javier Bardem was a bit of a strange character choice.  He did manage to be fairly intimidating while also seeming entirely gay.  Overall, I thought it was good.  Definitely worth checking out in theaters.  I’ll probably buy it when it comes out on BluRay.

DECEMBER

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

I still have a bad taste in my mouth about this movie, but I have calmed myself somewhat since I saw it.  When I saw it in theaters, I got very mad at the fact that Peter Jackson split one book (that was already turned into one cartoon movie) into three movies, and that he didn’t even feel the need to include the dragon (which was the only thing I remembered about the Hobbit) in this movie.  And it wasn’t even a short movie!  It was 3 hours long and filled with lots of time-wasters, like scenes of people walking.  But people more patient than me (and more forgiving of directors who overblow their movies) will like this movie.  In fact, I liked it.  It was a good movie with some funniness and some decent action, but I was also made pretty angry about it.  I would say you can wait to rent it so that you can control the pace of the movie.

THE WORST FILMS OF 2012

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: For not bothering to live up to a vaguely interesting idea.  Dark Shadows: For existing without reason.  John Carter: For spending so much money being so boring.

FIFTH WORST

THE HUNGER GAMES

Watching this movie and the Twilight series has brought me to the conclusion that women need to raise their standards in movies.  The story was predictable and slow, and not nearly as innovative as some people (who had not seen Battle Royale or Running Man) acted like it was.  Also, much as with my reaction to the second Ghost Rider movie, I would like to remind filmmakers that close-up, shaky camera movements walk a fine line between getting the audience involved in the scene and nauseating and annoying them.  There were parts of this movie that were downright unwatchable.  In fact, I’d say the entire movie was unwatchable.  If you’re really into prolonged scenes of a chick named Katniss sitting in a tree, this is the movie for you.  Everyone else need not bother.

FOURTH WORST

BATTLESHIP

I think there was a time when people only joked about Hollywood being so at a loss for ideas that they would do something as crazy as turning a board game into a movie.  That joke became a reality when they turned Battleship into a movie … and added aliens for some reason.  The story redefined the “dumb” part of “big dumb action movie” and the greater majority of the performances were underwhelming.  Some fairly decent action scenes could not make up for the goofy choices that they made in making (and in choosing to make) this movie.  Skip this thing.

THIRD WORST

THE DEVIL INSIDE

Fuck this movie out loud.  I got really into this movie for a while because of my crazy obsession with movies about ghosts and possessions, but the ending of this movie was so abysmally anticlimactic that it ruined the entire movie for me.  I suppose I could say that the movie is enjoyable because they pull off a fairly good amount of creepiness, but it remains good only if you throw a chair at your TV and destroy it 15 minutes before it ends.  Don’t bother.  That could get expensive.

RUNNER UP

THE APPARITION

This movie was the testicles.  I can understand a movie getting the idea in their head that there are no new ideas in the world so we’ll just steal ideas from other people, but you could at least try to make your horror movie scary.  Part of me feels like that’s essential.  I also felt like I spent the bulk of the movie not knowing what was going on, not knowing why the ghosts were a spore of some kind, and not knowing how playing a video backwards was supposed to help defeat them.  And then I started wondering why I was watching this movie.  You should probably skip it.

THE LOSER

GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE

What’s that?  You say that they couldn’t possibly make a worse Ghost Rider movie than the first one?  Well we’ll show you!  They picked up that challenge and not only ran with it, but filmed it while hanging onto the back of a truck while wearing rollerblades and called it, “Intense.”  I called it “Annoying” and “Nauseating.”  It had one or two moments of awesomeness, but then there was another hour and a half or more of movie that was just shit.  It’s Crank if Chev Chelios’ head was on fire, and if he was overacting in a way that only Nick Cage could do and still have a career.  I recommend you buy this movie so that you can pee on it.  I’m kidding … don’t buy this movie.

THE BEST FILMS OF 2012

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Men in Black 3: For being a great, emotional, and funny addition to an already quality series.  Skyfall: For action as sweet as Daniel Craig’s abs.  Looper: For blowing my expectations out of the water, just not quite enough.

FIFTH BEST

TED

I made the rare, good decision to keep my expectations for this movie inexplicably low.  It wasn’t a good decision because the movie was bad; quite the opposite.  The movie was really good and really funny, and it was able to be that because I strangely didn’t expect it to be.  I don’t know why either.  I love Seth MacFarlane and have found a good portion of everything he’s ever done amusing, but I still strangely had no interest in this movie.  I’m glad I overcame that because Ted had plenty of laugh out loud moments, and maintained a steady pace of amusing throughout.  Definitely worth a watch.  Probably worth buying.

FOURTH BEST

THE RAID: REDEMPTION

It’s a little difficult to put this movie at the top of my list of movie just because the story and the performances of this movie really don’t offer much.  What puts it up there for me is that this is one of the best action movies I’ve seen in a very long time.  It had all the great, long, martial arts scenes of the orient tied in with Western gun battles.  What it winds up as is some super badass action with plenty of “OH SHIT!” moments that just demand to be watched.  And purchased.  I bought this movie on BluRay the day after I watched it.  I don’t think I had even returned my rental before I purchased this movie.  You must check it out if you have any love whatsoever of martial arts films.

THIRD BEST

DJANGO UNCHAINED

I caught this movie during the writing of this review and I’m so happy I did.  I didn’t find myself too interested in seeing it even though I typically like the things the Quentin Tarantino does, and I don’t know why.  It’s like the awesome version of Ted in that respect.  But the story of this movie was very interesting, the dialogue was typically hilarious – as with most things that Tarantino does – and the action was over the top and great.  But the best part of this movie by far was the people that Tarantino got involved in it.  Every performance in this movie was sublime.  Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, and everyone else put on a clinic for interesting performances.  Definitely check this movie out in theaters.

RUNNER UP

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

I had my problems with this movie, and I argued vehemently in support of my ideas.  But the truth of the matter was that this movie was very good and I loved it.  I just hated certain things about it.  I hated that it was a Batman movie that quite frankly barely involved Batman, but the additions of Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy really did a lot of work saving the movie from that shortcoming.  Also, fans of the Batman comic books could see a few things coming, such as the outcome of a fight between Batman and Bane and the reveal of the child of Ra’s al Ghul, but it didn’t really take me out of the movie in general.  It was still a great accomplishment in filmmaking that, in my opinion, suffered from the high bar set by its predecessor.  Still very much worth buying.

THE WINNER

THE AVENGERS

I loved the balls right off of this movie.  I know there’s been much argument since the movie was put head to head with Dark Knight Rises over which one was better.  I was much more fond of Avengers.  I realize that the Dark Knight Rises was a much deeper story, but Avengers was pure, unadulterated fun, and since one goes to see such a movie to be entertained, this movie accomplishes its goals exquisitely.  It was a nerd-boner smeared across film and shown to me specifically for masturbation purposes.  That is probably the grossest description of The Avengers you will ever see.  Enjoy it!  And buy this movie.  I cannot fathom a person that would not enjoy the experience.

Please feel free to leave a comment with your idea of what the best and worst movies of 2012 were!

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook and Twitter.  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.