Movie Review: Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

I found this review by Sam Staley of Star Trek: Into Darkness to reflect my own thoughts on the film. (And, of course, there is Mr. Plinkett's video review that shows how almost all of Into Darkness was ripped off from previous Star Trek movies.) Staley begins by stating his reaction was "ho hum." Why is this? Because Into Darkness lacks what makes science fiction most appealing as a genre, specifically dealing with matters of "individual autonomy, technology, free will, and the role of the State." Classic science fiction stories, such as those by Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and Robert Heinlein do these things, as does the Star Trek television series.

The very first episode of Star Trek explores the question of how important human freedom is when Captain Pike encounters aliens with such fantastic mental powers that they not only are telepathic but can affect humans' brains so much as to cause them to see illusions (kind of like the Holodeck). These aliens capture Captain Pike and try to pacify him with the illusion of being back home on his farm with his favorite horse, a picnic basket, and a beautiful woman. The question thus presented to the viewer is: if you could indulge in all earthly pleasures (though artificial) to your heart's content, but would physically be trapped in a cage and studied by aliens, would you? Another interesting issue that Star Trek deals with (and which Into Darkness touches upon) is the Prime Directive, which is the principle that Star Fleet should not interfere with the development of more primitive cultures. (I wrote on this issue from a libertarian perspective here.)

But, states Staley, "nothing in Into Darkness rises to the level of meaningful social, political, or philosophical commentary." At best, it is a sign of how far we have come since the '60s, when "a biracial kiss was a big deal," a racial group could be openly denied equal protections under the law, and the Cold War potentially threatened thermonuclear war. But it is certainly not the case that the Western world is problem free or that moral issues involving technology are gone. This is clearly so when one considers the surveillance state, drone warfare, crypto-currencies, and so forth. One hopes that writers and artists will create content that grapples with such issues.

And this might be the biggest issue with Star Trek: Into Darkness: it is simply an action movie held in a futuristic setting. Star Trek didn't become the phenomenon that it is by doing action sci-fi well, but by presenting and wrestling with the political and social issues of our times (as well as future and past times), and allowing us to imagine what space exploration might be like. It's not that Into Darkness is a bad movie, but that it falls short of what we hope to see from Star Trek.

PS2 Review: Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (2002)

My first exposure to the Hitman franchise came through the form of a demo disc that I got through a demo copy of the official Playstation magazine. In the beginning it was an experience not unlike learning to play Splinter Cell, where you gun down many enemies because to this point in your gaming career, you never learned how to be stealthy. Unlike Splinter Cell, this was a viable option in Hitman 2, at least on the easier difficulties, as Agent 47 tends to be much better armed than Sam Fisher. But this gaming experience was obviously quite different than the stealth tactics of SC: you are out in the open, wearing disguises to pass security. Also, Hitman 2 offers much more of an open-ended gameplay than the early SC titles.

This demo of the first mission of the game offered so many options of how to infiltrate the Mafia Don's Italian villa: did you want to take the clothing of the flower delivery man? How about the grocery delivery boy (which allows you to smuggle your weapons in the grocery crates)? Or you can sneak in as a bodyguard, though you'll be the only one whose bald with a bar code tattooed on his head. What then? Did you try to get to the Don's bedroom to off him with a golf club? Strangle him in his office? Snipe him with the rifle in the garage? Out of all the demos I've played, this might have been the one I played the most because of all its opportunity for experimentation.

Does the full version live up to the demo? Yes and no. Without a doubt, there are other missions in the game that have an open-ended character, where there is more than one way to skin that cat, but many of them don't. The latter group seem to have very few options, if there was, in fact, more than one, and they would be very specific and difficult to figure out. If you lack the patience to figure it out (or have too much pride to look it up online), you'll often find yourself getting a "Mass Murderer" rating for your performance (which is another issue: it often seems like there is but one method to achieve the coveted "Silent Assassin" rating for each mission). It was also disappointing that the demo offered features that didn't appear in the full version. One was actual names for the guns in the game ("Beretta" became "9mm pistol" and "Desert Eagle" became "Deagle"). Another was that 47 could punch people, which needed refinement, but was tossed out in the final release. Hand-to-hand combat skills seem like something necessary for an elite assassin, but they didn't find their way into the game until Hitman: Blood Money.

This isn't to say that Hitman 2 isn't a great game; far from it. It is a solid action game that offers an exceptionally high amount of replay value for this genre and also requires a relatively higher amount of patience to master (the very first FAQ offered on GameFAQs.com for this game literally advises the player to "Kill everyone in site [sic]."). But if the player takes the time to learn how to play the game as Agent 47 would do things, it can be a rewarding experience.

The Hitman franchise features an iconic character who isn't just a generic action star who blows up every vehicle he gets into and causes the ladies to swoon. As far as video game characters go, he is unique and one of the most recognizable with his bald head, black suit, red tie, leather gloves, and twin silver .45 pistols. He is an antihero, but one we can feel justified in supporting.

Thus, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin seems to be a complete package: an intense and interesting character, the uber-interesting world of global assassins, widely varied and open-ended gameplay, the option for 1st or 3rd person perspective, high replay value, a masterpiece of a soundtrack by Jesper Kyd, and an engaging story (if you can manage to follow it). It is a classic and deserves one of Code Redd Net's highest recommendations.

The Winback Diaries, Day 1: "Sarcozia..."

You know how much we love Winback: Covert Operations. If you don’t know how much we love Winback, please, dig in the archives and find out. There’s nothing out there that can match its wall-hugging tactical combat, its love for exploding boxes, and its beautifully awkward voice-overs. But it’s been a while since I played through it, and I can’t really remember if I ever finished the game on its hardest difficulty setting. This is my attempt to document the journey, a true labor of love, a real mission into the heart of man. Join me for a trip back to 2001, when commandos had yet to figure out the advantages of shooting and moving at the same time. I’ll try to introduce you to the story and its characters as best I can, but this mainly going to be a series of reflections on the game as I progress through its box-laden levels and its joyously absurd conversations.

Note: For those of you more familiar with the N64 version, you really missed out on something special. The Ps2 version of Winback has two things going for it: first and foremost, it has some of the best voice-overs in history; and second, PS2 has a vastly improved multiplayer component, specifically BOT mode. If you still have a PS2 hanging around, do yourself a favor and snag a copy of it immediately. I’m sure Amazon can hook you up with a cheap copy.

#Sarcozia

Day 1: "Sarcozia..."

Before you get to the start menu, Winback opens up with a lengthy video to set up the highly emotional plot. It’s a doozy, too: renegades storm a nondescript office complex – which, you’ll notice, is completely box-free (Figure 1) – and exploit the poor or nonexistent perimeter defenses. This is later referred to as the Center for Space Development, a government agency responsible for protecting a satellite weapon. They do an especially poor job at protecting it.

Figure 1: The Center for Space Development, or CSD. As yet no boxes.

As you can see (Figure 2), even in the cinematics security personnel for the CSD, as well as their as-yet-unnamed adversaries, have a hard recognizing the dangers inherent in not moving while being shot at. This will become a common theme throughout the game. Because the nameless ne’er-do-wells have superior numbers, however, they win out. Betrayals also happen, and two nattily-attired fellows, including one clad in a goddamn orange trench coat, step out from inside an army truck.

Figure 2: Perimeter defenses.

Finally, someone speaks, and it’s none other than our boy, Kenny Coleman, leader of the “Crying Lions,” a terrorist organization from the mysterious land of “Sarcozia.” Like any foreign national villain worth his salt, Kenny demands justice for his homeland for some vague atrocities. You won’t believe this, but the Secretary of Defense is upset. Thankfully, however, a bright young man named Advisor arrives to deliver some useful exposition in a voice about as confident as mine was in tenth grade Speech. With the help of his loyal Advisor, the SoD decides that he will not negotiate with terrorists and sends for the S.C.A.T. squad. The real game begins.

Stage 0: Tutorial

Now, for me playing Winback is like riding a bike, but just for fun I decided to give the Tutorial a run through. I’m glad I did. Jean-Luc’s training is conducted by fellow S.C.A.T. squad mate Steve, the first subject in a recurring feature of the Winback Diaries, and it’s called…

Winback's Fashion Faux Pas!: Steve

"That's good, Jean-Luc. You're doing well."

S.C.A.T. headquarters must have everything but a mirror. He’s already going grey up there, so why make it worse by dressing in a disastrous grey/navy blue commando gear combo too? Steve, what were you thinking?

The tutorial at S.C.A.T. headquarters is short but effective. You will find out later that the interior decorator for S.C.A.T headquarters also designed the CSD. Steve has an annoying habit of always patting you on the back, whether you managed to silently subdue an enemy from behind or you simply managed to touch you back against the wall. “That’s good Jean-Luc. You’re doing well,” he’ll say. “That’s good Jean-Luc. You’re doing well.” When you get through all the controls and weapons you’ll be using on your mission, Steve challenges you to a boss fight. He’s pretty easy to beat.

[Incidentally, as kids Chicken Man and I wanted to pen a sequel to Winback. It was an alternate universe kind of thing, where Kenny and our hero, Jean-Luc, opened a girlie club called “Honeyz” when Jean-Luc’s career as a stand-up comic had stalled. Kenny loved the ladies and tried to help a down-on-his-luck Jean-Luc figure out what he wanted in life, besides hyphens. I’m not sure it would’ve made for a particularly thrilling game, but neither did anything Winback 2, so who knows, we may have had something brilliant.]

That’s all for this edition of The Winback Diaries. Join us next time to meet the rest of the S.C.A.T. team. Little did they know that someone in their midst had plans to sabotage the mission all along. All he needed was a stick of chewing gum...

Game Boy Review: James Bond 007 (1998)

Our first Game Boy review, and no better way to do it than to take a look at one of the most curious games in the James Bond franchise. Keep your eyes on Code Redd Net for more 007 coverage in the very near future.

It's always nice to play something a little bit different. Ever since GoldenEye broke out on the N64, the 007 franchise has stuck fairly close that first-person shooter model. Sure, there were a few misfires with third-person action, such as Tomorrow Never Dies, and a few hits, such as the inimitable Everything or Nothing, but overall the series has stayed within a pretty limited range of first- and occasionally third-person shooters. James Bond 007 for the Game Boy has its fair share of action, no question, but it's much more Zelda or Pokemon than anything else, as there's far more puzzles to solve and items to collect than thugs to gun down.

008, not 006.

Most of the plot and dialogue is recycled wholesale from old Bond films, including key villains Oddjob and Jaws, and there's just enough of a simplistic gun smuggling subplot to tie it all together. On your travels to find the source of the smuggling, and to locate the missing 008, you stop in mainland China, Marrakech, the Sahara Desert, Tibet, and a super-secret final base. Most of your time in-mission will be spent in trying to track down the right people and to collect the right keycard or item. Some of the puzzles you have to solve range from absolutely dumby-proof to esoteric, and many times an ally will only hand over the proper keycard when you've spoken to him twice, which can be quite irritating to find out after spending an half hour wandering around the level once again. Too often the puzzles to be solved only require persistence and not intelligence. I found that running alongside the walls would often yield the location of secret switches much more efficiently than solving the riddles by wit. Combat is kind of odd, too: pressing the select button brings up an inventory where you can assign an item to either the A or B button, such as a pistol, a rocket launcher, a very un-suave machete, or a pair of fists. Shooting can be difficult and slow, and bullets seem to take an hour to reach their target. Though later stages require more ammunition in order to get through the levels, earlier stages have a bit more variety to recommend them. I particularly enjoy laying the fisticuffs down on the streets of Marrakech, then ducking into the casino for a game of Blackjack. For me, this is the principal appeal of James Bond 007: you don't just shoot baddies, you go undercover, you partake in a little high-stakes gambling, you have to find a way to survive without water in the Sahara. There's not much to do once you beat the game, and it won't take long to do so, but upon completing your mission the game rewards you with passwords to unlock the gambling mini-games. So, not only do you have a solid, if unspectacular, Bond experience for your next flight or bus ride, you also have the best baccarat simulator around. It's worth picking up if you're a Bond fan with a mind for something different.

Blu-rays We Love: Spider-Man (2002)

Last time we took a look at the excellent DVD for Rush Hour 2. Now we move on to the Blu-ray re-release of Spider-Man, a film we reviewed in the formative years of Code Redd Net, which at the time I boldly described as" the greatest super-hero movie I have ever had the privilege of seeing." Chicken Man said the film was "a totally rad experience if your sitting in the front row." Perhaps the movie doesn't hold up as well as  you might hope, but it's still fun to watch 11 years later, and there's plenty of bonus features on the disc to make it a worthwhile addition to your Blu-library.

The most obviously dated element in Spider-Man is CGI Spider-Man. It's not totally embarrassing or campy, at least not yet, but technological advancements in the technique have clearly come a long way since then. The blend of live-action and CGI is not terribly smooth when it comes to human imaging. For instance, the early scenes of Peter Parker's transformation into Spider-Man are particularly jarring in their transition from actor to computer avatar. Nevertheless, it's not too distracting. What I enjoyed about most about Spider-Man on this most recent viewing was its tone: a fine blend of humor and seriousness, in about equal measure. Unlike the recent Amazing Spider-Man, which unwisely hit fast-forward on the origin story, Spider-Man prolongs the first appearance of its properly-costumed crime fighter until just prior to the start of its second hour. When Amazing Spider-Man went straight to the crib sheet, it lost the emotional backbone of the story, what makes Peter Parker's personal tragedy so significant. Spider-Man does a fantastic job of  inviting sympathy for the awkward teenager, played with appropriate dorkiness by the inherently dorky Tobey Maguire. While Maguire does an admirable job in his dual role, it's the rest of the cast that really stands out. Particularly noteworthy is Willem Dafoe's turn as Norman Osbourne/Green Goblin, a role which gives the actor ample opportunity to pull faces. Even James Franco is pretty good as his spoiled son, Harry. Spider-Man may not have aged gracefully, but it's still a completely solid film that remains enjoyable on a second or third or even fourth viewing, which is why you buy something like this on Blu-ray, right?

Tobey Maguire as Spider-Lee

In terms of the Blu-ray disc, you get all of the bonus features from the initial DVD version, and there were plenty of those, plus some new things to go along with it: namely, a "Spider Sense Trivia Challenge" and the "Spider-Man Cutting Room Floor" feature, both of which add tremendous value to the disc. Most significantly, the Trivia Challenge is a game played over the film in which you must answer a series of multiple-choice questions. These questions range from plot details ("How much was the reward for lasting three minutes in the ring with Bonesaw McGraw?"), to production history, to questions regarding Spider-Man's comic book history. It's hit or miss with most of these questions, as they appear in a seemingly random order not at all tied to the plot of the film. Because the questions appear to be in a random sequence each time the trivia game is activated, I was often asked questions about plot details that had yet to be revealed (fortunately, they are not significant enough plot points to be considered spoilers). Also, since the questions are timed to appear every minute or so, they often appear over very exciting visual sequences. While this is not too much of a problem if you've seen the film before, it would've been nice if the questions were more plentiful during the film's more expository, and less spectacular, scenes and didn't distract me from a fight scene. Still, though, there's enough questions about the tensile strength of spider webs, for instance, to keep your interest while watching the film. The game keeps track of your score based on the number of correct answers and the amount of time elapsed in answering them, and rewards you with a ranking at the end of the film. I was given the rank of "Superhero-in-Training" and treated to a 15-second montage from the film of Spider-Man swinging around the city in his hokey wrestling outfit. Not much of a reward, but it's nice to be ranked based on your performance. Even though the questions do get repetitious at times, I think this is a decent first effort at integrating elements of Scene-It into a single film, something that I believe could immensely enjoyable when fully implemented.

There's also a "Cutting Room Floor" feature which allows you to clip segments of the film and re-edit them into a short sequence with new music and sound effects. I was able to splice together Spider-Man's cage match with Macho Man Randy Savage with scenes of Peter Parker crying in his room, punctuated by comical sound effects and a somber musical score. It's a lot of fun, even though the interface for cutting the scenes can be cumbersome, and making changes later in the process can be quite difficult. This is definitely a feature I would love to see on future releases of Jackie Chan or Jet Li films, for instance, so that I could cut together all the fight scenes into one montage, but it works well for Spider-Man.

Finally, as indicated above, the Blu-ray includes all the bonus features from the original Special Edition DVD release in 2002. Of the three commentary tracks, only the one featuring the VFX crew is of any interest: director Sam Raimi does too much narrating and too much talking about himself on his track, while Tobey Maguire and J.K. Simmons' track gets awfully quiet for long stretches of the film. HBO's making-of featurette and E! Entertainment's "Spider-Mania" are typical Hollywood puffery, though the "Spider-Man: Mythology of the 21st Century" piece is a nice and thorough historical look at the character's cinematic development. Besides these longer extras, there's also an archival selection of theatrical trailers, TV spots, webisodes, screen tests, cast and crew profiles, and an outtake reel. All in all, it's a swell package that's worth picking up if you, like me, somehow lost your old DVD copy of the movie.