PS2 Review: The Operative: No One Lives Forever (2002)

No One Lives Forever is an ugly game, even by the lowest standards of the PS2. Fortunately, though, it's also one of the most smartly written games on any system, graphics aside. It's not often that we talk about the quality of a game's writing, but for once it counts for something. NOLF is a tribute to 60s spy junk, and it features all the exotic locales, ludicrous gadgets and megalomaniacal villains we typically associate with Sean Connery's exploits as 007. But instead of the scantily-clad women Connery ogled in his films, NOLF stars Cate Archer, rookie operative for UNITY, an international agency dedicated to stopping big name criminals. Archer must simultaneously contend with sexism internally, as well as unraveling the nefarious plot of an evil collective known by the mysterious acronym H.A.R.M. Fans of spy junk will absolutely love all the twists and turns in the story. I was particularly enamored with the voice-over work, which was both hilarious and considerably varied. Most missions call for stealth, and lightfooted players can often sneak up on guards engaged in droll conversations about tv shows and relationship woes. Of course, that's when you're not busy skydiving, or interviewing millionaire playboys, or fistfighting with Scottish patriots, or sneaking around a space station. I love that kind of mission variety, and in that sense NOLF has recent Bond games like Blood Stone soundly beaten. It's not all perfect, though; as I mentioned earlier, this game is not pretty. Character models are decent enough, but the backgrounds are ugly, and often distractingly so. Stealth can often be unrelentingly difficult, leading to some tedious and unnecessary repetition, especially when the auto-aim doesn't work the way it should. Now, NOLF is a long, involved game, but it still would've been nice to have a multiplayer option. As it stands, once you beat the game, it's all over. You can beat it again on additional difficulty levels, but without rewards, why bother? Still, if you love all things spy, I heartily recommend this one.

Netflix Review: The Siege (1998)

What should now be seen as a Denzel classic, The Siege may also be seen as prophetic. Washington plays an FBI agent responding to a series of terror attacks in New York City, resulting in an eventual military occupation and declaration of martial law. The climax is when General Bruce Willis, having a prisoner in his custody, says, "The time has come for one man to suffer in order to save hundreds of lives." Denzel responds, "What if what they want is us to herd children into stadiums like we're doing and put soldiers on the street and have people looking over their shoulders?" I find this to be a very powerful scene, and what I think makes this movie what it is. Regrettably, the heroism of Washington's defense of civil liberty is watered down by his own warrantless seizures. Having to depend on the goodness of law enforcement to respect the 4th Amendment will lead to disappointment. This keeps the film from being better than it is. I liken it to Ghandi preaching non-violence unless they really deserve it and the avengers have Ghandi's approval. But regardless, it presents a frightening and plausible image of what happens to a society that will trade everything for a false sense of security. And for that, I find it to be a movie worth watching. Compare the government's response to terror attacks in the movie to real events. While this exercise is interesting in itself, it is also useful as a warning (or perhaps a prophecy) of things that are and of things to come.

Movie Review: Safe (2012)

Safe is the best Jason Statham movie in years, and any complaints about its formularism would be misplaced. I can hear normally adroit critics opining now: "It's doesn't break any new ground..." "No innovation..." "Run of the mill..." Such comments, most cliches themselves, miss the point of genres, that being to specifically not break new ground, at least not entirely. It's more like repainting a house than tearing it down, and obviously that kind of renovation has tremendous benefits for filmmakers as well as for audiences, who like the familiar just as much as they like something new, who enjoy a theme and its variations. Safe is an action film, and not a particularly maverick one at that, and that's truly commendable.

Statham plays a cage fighter with a dark past, as you would expect, and after he botches a rigged fight for the Russian mafia, his wife is killed, as you would expect, and he is forced to wander the streets, broke. Before he can throw himself into an oncoming subway train, he finds salvation in a young girl, as you would expect, whom he rescues from her shady pursuers. They develop an unconventional bond, as you would expect, and Statham then proceeds to break bones and shoot fools and spew one-liners with about equal measure, as you would expect. But let's not mistake narrative tropes for cliches. True, much of the story is droll, but as I've said before, hackneyed plots are a virtual prerequisite for these movies. Parts of the story were muddled, but they get us to the fun bits sure enough, and the stunt work is, for the most part, good. Camera movement is a little rough during the fight scenes, a little blurry and unsteady (per the norm of today's mainstream film), but still, you get the context and the impact; I had no problem understanding, and better still, appreciating, the many interesting ways Statham knows how to disarm adversaries. The car chases are much less competently handled, and the jerky camerawork gets a trifle out-of-hand, but thankfully they're over quickly. Dialogue is horribly cheesy and punny, but again, that's something one expects from the action cinema, and Statham's inflection is always funny, however much it is unintended, and he obviously has a natural knack for timing. Unlike Transporter 3, this one understands how to use Statham, and not just for his star image and his narrative/stylistic baggage, but for his physical capabilities as well. That's a "smart" dumb action movie.

Movie Review: Transporter 3 (2008)

This afternoon I'm off to see Safe, but in the interim I wanted to get caught up on one of Statham's more high-profile actioners. Nothing too deep, I'm afraid. I want to get there early so I can play Hydro Thunder in the lobby.

Transporter 3 (2008)

I don't remember a thing about the plot of this one. Understandable, though, forgivable, even foreseeable. Ah, but the real sin against nature, and the real sin against the genre we love, is this: Statham fights, he drives, he says funny things in that voice of his, but I don't remember a thing about them. It's like taking a road trip to some beautiful place, except you never get to do anything there, you just buy a postcard and turn around. Sure, you can tell all your friends you were there, you can even comfort yourself with souvenirs, but what do you really remember about that trip besides the interminable hours on the road? To reverse a trite phrase, movies like Transporter 3 are all about the destination, not the journey. Facile, derivative narratives are essentially a trope of the genre, and Transporter 3 astutely arrives at its destination early; unfortunately, that destination hardly worth visiting. The fight scenes are made almost incomprehensible by rapid cutting, trimming the context of a punch or kick, for instance, covering up the considerable physical abilities of Statham. This compensational technique works well for actors instead of athletes, but Statham's there for his body, not for his charm. There's no sense in compensating for something that should be showcased. What you get then is an apparition, and an even more fleeting one than usual, and one that doesn't even swear and headbutt people quite the same.

An Honorary Code Redd Net Award: Best Jason Statham Movie

For excellence in headbutts and handsomeness, we give you the Code Redd Net Award for Best Jason Statham Movie. And the nominees are...

The One (2001)
The Transporter (2002)
Transporter 2 (2005)
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
The Italian Job (2003)

And the winner is...

The Transporter

"Stath" Infection

Code Redd Net is dedicating this week to our favorite contemporary action star, Jason Statham. Tomorrow kicks things off proper with only the second Honorary Code Redd Net Award in history, deservedly conferred upon the Best Jason Statham Movie. We follow that up with reviews of Crank, Crank 2: High Voltage, and Transporter 3. Finally, join us on Friday for the world premiere of his latest opus, Safe, and our review.

For now, though, we present the nominees for Best Jason Statham Movie:

The One (2001)
The Transporter (2002)
Transporter 2 (2005)
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
The Italian Job (2003)

007 Legends Announced

Alright then. Instead of going with a straightforward video game version of the upcoming Skyfall, we get 007 Legends. According to the Guardian games blog, this means the next entry in the series will not only feature levels from Skyfall, but from five other classic Bond flicks. Exactly which five, nobody knows. Furthermore, this one is being put together by the same crew who recently redid GoldenEye. It's not yet known whether or not these classic excursions will be of a similar nature, featuring Daniel Craig and retooled stories to fit his version of 007. This is an intriguing development, especially in light of the mediocre GoldenEye remakes, not to mention the deplorably ho-hum Blood Stone and Quantum of Solace. Going back to the classics makes sense, too, considering that the last quality 007 game was From Russia With Love.

As for the speculation, I think we can expect to see Dr. No as one of the five chosen classics. It is, after all, the fiftieth anniversary of that one this year, and something I suspect the market discourse for Skyfall will obviously draw from. Goldfinger is a virtual lock, as well, being the most canonical film in the series and all. Personally, I would love to golf against Auric, but I shan't hold my breath. As for the other three, we can virtually rule out GoldenEye, and thank goodness for that. The Spy Who Loved Me strikes me as a strong possibility. Personally, I would like to see a few unconventional choices, like the often overlooked On Her Majesty's Secret Service (I can always go for some skiing missions), or maybe one of the Timothy Dalton joints, The Living Daylights or Licence to Kill.

Movie Review: Safe House (2012)

Everybody loves Denzel. Including me. I was under the impression that he was incapable of being in a bad film until I found Queen and Country for sale at a closing Blockbuster. But, by and large, his movies are great. Does today's movie measure up? In Safe House he plays a rogue CIA spy who sells secrets. Ryan Reynolds is a greenhorn who is new to the spook game and has been in charge of a safe house in South Africa. I will refrain from giving up much of the plot, though it seems to not break much ground as far as the spy genre goes. One thing I find interesting is though there is a scene of torture, it appears as though it is simply standard operating procedure; a deep contrast to the moral outrage shown by Denzel's character in The Siege. Whereas The Siege seemed to be prophetic in things to come, perhaps Safe House can be seen as a commentary on current events among spy agencies. Disappointingly, the short-comings of the story are somewhat matched by Reynolds' cliche dialogue. However, the action scenes are the best thing that this film has going for it, and are quite good. In sum, Safe House is nothing really to write home about but is something to write on your blog about. Denzel fans will probably enjoy it but not find it up to standard with his best films.





SPOILERS:
Most likely, the biggest problem that I had with Safe House is the fact that Denzel's character gets offed because of a nonchalant oversight. It ruins the image he portrays of being a highly dangerous spook who has survived for so long because of his attention to details. It could be my disappointment with this inconsistency that does the most damage in my evaluation.

Movie Review: The Hunger Games (2012)

Well, this one certainly has the stink of Twilight on it. While that execrable series deserves to be soundly made fun of at every turn, The Hunger Games should at least get a fair shake on its own merits, instead of the consistant and unavoidable comparisons with those other tween bestsellers. Now, I have not read The Hunger Games, and I don't plan on doing so. I can say, without resorting to lengthy, rote recitations of the differences between the source and the adaptation (differences which always end up reinstating a tired heirarchy of the arts, venerating literature and bastardizing film), that this film is about as ordinary as can be, and just barely competent enough to be watchable. Enough has been said of the alleged allusions or homages or thefts from Running Man, Gladiator, Starship Troopers, Truman Show. That kind of sophomoric listing has little critical value, and even worse, it doesn't matter to audiences. Hunger Games is set in an ill-defined, unnecessarily vague and dystopic future, where rustic "districts" must each select one child from both genders to do combat for the "State" on national TV until only one remains alive. Our focus is on Katniss Everdeen, a young woman who volunteers to represent her district in place of her younger sister. She is then teamed up with her male "partner," perpetual mouth-breather Peeta Mellark, and off they go to train for the sadistic games.

Moot points about originality aside, what matters is the way this story, however recycled, is told. Unfortunately, Hunger Games makes several key formal errors. One element that has drawn significant criticism is the use of the reviled "shaky cam," and rightly so. I can understand the desire for a kind of documentary realism, but the camera movement is so messy and burlesqued that I often had no idea what was going on until the characters came to a stop, and even then, by the time I had regained my bearings, off we were again on another blotted green trip through the simulated woods. Even when the camera was forced to settle down for a minute while Katniss and Peeta gabbed, their dialogue was so insipid, and their delivery so poor, that I secretly wished for the familiar Roy G. Biv blur to resume. During these confabs, though, K and P decide to put on a front of love. They do this in order to earn the support of a million-plus saps watching around the world, specifically the powerful "sponsors," who, if properly touched or impressed by their "affection," can provided emergency medical supplies to the participants. Naturally, this kind of unintentional self-critique is something Hollywood simply cannot stand. And, naturally, simplistically, their love soon ceases to be an act, so what could have been a wonderful challenge to the kind of enforced, monogamist pair-bonding characteristic of Hollywood, becomes yet another triumph of simplistic, unfettered, "normal" heterosexual love. Hunger Games is just another movie, albeit one without conviction, without awareness, without politics.

The Dark Knight and Surveillance

Today for some quick entertainment, I decided to watch some portions of Christopher Nolan's instant classic, The Dark Knight. You may have seen in the past about how many of the themes and characters from Batman can have philosophical applications. But have you considered their relevance to surveillance? If you recall, Bruce Wayne uses the cell phone sonar technology developed by Lucius Fox to help him locate the Joker. However, Fox states that as long as this technology is used, he won't be a part of it; that it is "beautiful...unethical....dangerous. This is wrong." Does it change if it's not Batman, but your local police department doing the same thing? According to the Cato blog, various police departments have been using cell phones to track people for years, without warrants. Does this concern you?

Personally, my car has been searched twice by police with drug-sniffing dogs even though I have never used illegal drugs nor have any been in my vehicle. However, cops know that when they do this they will never face repercussions from their superiors because if they don't find anything (which of course they didn't in my case) they can just claim that the dog alerted on my car (something which I cannot prove to the contrary). This gives cops the ability to search any car they so please. How is this related to surveillance?

The more closely the government keeps track of you the more easily it can make life difficult for you. What if you have nothing to hide? Don't be so sure. Perhaps you own an unofficial copy of a copyrighted item. With civil asset forfeiture, your computer or other property might be confiscated without your even being charged with a crime. In a twisting of constitutional law, since your civil asset is not a person, the state requires you to prove its innocence (that it wasn't used in the commission of a crime) instead of the other way around. And even if you prove your stuff and yourself innocent, it will require a lot of money and time.

The question of whether art imitates life or vice versa has been asked many times. This is one of the times where they eerily and regrettably coincide. Stay safe out there.

From the Archives, Again: Winback: Covert Operations (2001)

And here I thought The Medallion was the end of these things; looks like I forgot to post our old Winback review when we ran this series as part of the summer/fall revival of Code Redd Net. Not much to add, really, except that I completely agree with my original assertions. Sure, the style is a touch annoying, but I'm glad both Chicken Man and myself mentioned the excellent BOT Mode. That was fantastic way to add replay value to an offline multiplayer game, unlike most modern shooters that focus solely on the online multiplayer crowd.

First up, Chicken Man's thoughts:

"This stuff is some pretty tuff crap! It also hasn't much to do with being covert either. The story sucks, the gameplay's fun. It has a huge variety of weapons: .45 ACP Pistol, Silenced Pistol, 12 gauge, SubMachine Gun, and Rocket Launcher. Each conveniently coming with laser sight. Weapon Total: 5. Mostly what the gameplay is is ducking, rolling, putting your back to the wall, and not getting shot. Exclusive to the Playstation 2 version is Bot Mode, which is pretty fun if you gotta buddy. If you first play the game and unlock some characters for Bot Mode: cool. But the bosses in Bot Mode aren't. They're slow and can't take cover, but they at least they have unlimited ammo of their specialty weapon. What's very unique about this game is the ending variations in Story Mode, depending on the time it took you to beat it. At some points the game gets a little frustrating, a little weird, a little stupid. But that's to be expected right? A little strategy: the terrorists are freakin' good shots so take some cover. At the start of the game your squads misplaced because the chopper crashes and your alone. Instead of calling for backup you're going to infiltrate a complex with 4,000 terrorists guarding it. Good luck."

Now for my cogent analysis:

"Jeez Jean-Luc, you scared the hell outta me." One of the many laughable bits of dialogue. Jean-Luc, main character, even tries to lighten the mood with some comic relief: "I thought this was some new kind of group therapy." These script samples are part of Winback's distinguishing trademarks. As you may have guessed, the "dialogue" is laughable, at best. Normally, I would penalize a game for that, but in Winback's case, it's part of the fun. The cast of characters is cliche, with the high strung, sarcastic Jake, ranging to the computer literate Tom. Winback's terrorist villains (known as the "Crying Lions") happen to be cliche as well. Kenneth Coleman (Known to Code Redd Net staff as a twister-loving ladies man, when he's not trying hostile takeover of world politics.), and Cecile, (his right hand man) run the "Crying Lions," avenging a mysterious place known only as "Zarcozia." Gameplay, on the other hand, is incredibly tight. It's duck, jump out, shoot, back to ducking main play mechanic may sound repetitive on paper, but quite the contrary; it never gets old. What does, however, is the music. Ugh. While the story mode is good if not decent, the real winner is multi-play. Whether it's the four-player VS. mode, or the compelling 2-player BOT mode, (in which a total of 8 players can compete; 2 humans and 6 CPU controlled bots) which includes the 1-player, 20-stage Challenge mode, that adds replay. Really though, I doubt I'll ever tire of hearing Jean-Luc and his intelligent questions. "Zarcozian, as in from Zarcozia?"

Xbox 360 Review: James Bond 007: Blood Stone (2011)

In my estimation, two things made Everything or Nothing great: variety and replayability. These two items seem paramount to a game's success with our staff, and EoN, in our minds, represents the height of 007 in video games for those reasons (and probably more, because how else do you win our awards for both Best Bond Game and Best Co-Op Multiplayer, as well as selections to both my own and Chicken Man's top ten lists?). It's strange to reflect on the evolution of Bond games in the eight years since EoN and see nothing less than an outright rejection of variety and replayability, much to the detriment of the games, and despite their increasing graphical sophistication.

Blood Stone does seem quite similar to EoN, at least initially. It's a third-person shooter with an ostensibly original story, featuring big, cyberscanned stars like Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, and Joss Stone, emphasizing gun fights, and utilizing many of the same gameplay techniques, like the ever-ready tactical stand-by, wall-hugging. For the first few stages, Blood Stone is a fun reminder of what made EoN so refreshing. The graphics are wonderful, especially the character models and backgrounds. Gradually, however, it all starts to get really repetitive. Only a few levels call for stealth, and only a few levels let you step away from the gunplay to pilot something fast, and only a few levels put Q-labs to work with the requisite gadgets. No variety, and no real replayability, either. Complete the game and you have achievements to earn, sure, but there's no gold, silver or bronze awards to chase after, no medals to achieve, no 007 bonuses to collect, there's not even tedious time trials to slog through. There's really no reason at all to play through this game again unless you play online or want to relive the story, but the plot is so barely there I'm hard pressed to remember anything about it. Bond fans could do with a weekend rental, but that's about all.

Meet the Skyfall Bond Gals, and now in Imax.

Evidently, their names are Bérénice Marlohe and Naomie Harris, and you can learn all about them in a videoblog on the official 007 website. Catching up on other Skyfall news, according to the same website 007's latest adventure will be released in IMAX theaters. If I had access to an IMAX theater I would probably be pretty excited about it. Alas, I do not.

N64 Review: Gex 64: Enter the Gecko (1998)

Nostalgia is a funny thing. Now that our world is online to such a degree that before we even have time to properly reminisce about some aesthetic object from our idealized childhood (and it's always idealized, that's how nostalgia gets away with a really wonderful lie) we can already have it downloaded or streamed or shipped to us overnight. It has become a phenomenon of access, not memory. Your memories are always available, and now, and entire industries are being built upon them, they are externalizing them. Netflix isn't just a movie/TV streaming service; it's a memory bank, it's comfort in the familiar for $7.99 a month. The comforts of glossy recollections have been monetized, repackaged, and sold back to us, sometimes changed, sometimes not, and sometimes these objects are good enough to overcome their age, at least for a little while, and sometimes these objects taste like garbage, even if trussed up by years.

[Of course, we realize that Code Redd Net itself is an exercise in nostalgia, but we believe that our site goes further. Our retro black and red color scheme, unchanged since 2001, is only a surface. Though we cannot deny that we love to revisit the games and movies we grew up with, our focus continues to be in examining new media.]

I bring all this up because I want you to understand how disappointed I was in replaying Gex 64. I loved that game when I was 10. I'm not 10 anymore, and that's probably a good thing, because even though there are many fine games I loved when I was 10, games that don't seem to have aged a single day since then, this one is lame. I would be an unrepentant romantic if I said I this game had some redeeming value beyond its simple service as a conduit to remembering friends I have not seen in many years. Among its many problems, Gex 64 has some of the worst camera angles I've ever seen. It's often impossible to calculate exactly how far and in what direction to jump because the camera, which you can only modestly control or configure, obstinately refuses to budge from certain angles. Add to this the fact that the controls are sloppy and unresponsive, and you have one of the more frustrating gaming experiences on the N64, and needlessly cheap to boot. Further still, Gex himself has not aged well. His "wise cracks" are roughly as cool or trendy as your grandmother's tweets about playing bridge last weekend. And he keeps on repeating them like your youngest sibling, desperate for any kind of attention. In its favor, I will say that Gex 64 does have some variety in its level designs, some of which are quite clever, but that's all I'm giving this game credit for. It's too bad, really, but I suppose the disappointment was inevitable. Not all N64 games have aged as gracefully as GoldenEye, The World is Not Enough, or even WCW/NWO Revenge. The disappointment I feel is like a child who loses his pet hamster and only finds him later, dead, behind the refrigerator. Should I feel let down by this stupid game?