Episode Review & More

Some quick reviews while I prepare what I’ve been working on of late.  Hope everyone likes it (or at least, doesn’t hate me).

Supernatural: The French Mistake – A pretty entertaining meta episode of SPN where the crew decide to poke more fun at themselves than their fans this time.  Not too bad, but nothing I can ramble endlessly about.  Though all the references can be a fun drinking game among fans.  All in all…

An extra half shell for making me laugh.

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Of course, I’ve recently discovered just how much stuff is on Netflix’s instant stream.  Some thoughts…

Red vs Blue: Recreation (season 7) – Yay!  Donut and Tucker return!  It’s amazing how “off” the dynamic is without them.  I always liked that Tucker is (in some ways) the blue team’s Griff – both are the most competent people on the team.  Except Griff is too lazy to succeed and Tucker is too horny.  I always enjoy his general love/hate relationship with the other members of his team.  I think this may be my favorite post-Blood Gulch season.

Red vs Blue Revelation (season 8) – Noooo!  Donut’s dead!  Still, 4 things about this season.

1. Sarge decoding what’s happening at red base from Simmons’ transmission just about killed me with laughter.  That was great.
2. Sarge’s inspiring speech?  Crowning moment of heartwarming.
3. Doc’s back!  His interaction with the supervillain Omega from the blood gulch series was some of my favorites.
4. The action directing was top notch.  However, Tex beating up on the Reds & Blues started to get cruel and less funny.  We love these guys!  We don’t want to see them go through all of this.  Well… not at once.  It needs to be spread out.  Now the beating she gave to Meta & Washington?  THAT was awesome.  By this point, we were hating these guys, so it was nice to see them get knocked around.

So what does it all mean?  WE DON’T NEED PETER JACKSON TO MAKE A HALO MOVIE!  Until now, RvB was almost always primarily a script & dialog show.  Yes it had some great physical comedy moments (the warthog blowing up onto the base remains one of my favorite) but they’ve never been that great at the physical aspects of the show.  However, this last season proved that not only can they do physical comedy, but glorious action sequences as well.  Throughout Tex’s fights, all I could think about was how glorious it would all be on a big screen.

Refine the graphics a bit, hammer out a script that you want (I’m guessing Halo would be more serious than RvB) and put out the Halo movie already!  A few realistic humans can be shot and inserted into the movie if need be but… really there’s no excuse.  If you keep costs low (using most funds for advertising and prints), this movie could make a profit easy (even assuming just fanboys go to it).  Come on people!  Let’s break the Hollywood cartel already!

Batman: Under the Red Hood – Not bad all things considered.  I was grateful they brought Jason Todd back in a far less stupid way than the comics did.  All in all, not bad considering they didn’t get Kevin Conroy for Batman or Mark Hamil for the Joker.  I’d probably rank it as the 3rd best Batman animated movie (after Mask of the Phantasm and Sub-Zero).  I’m seriously considering adding it to my library.

Planet Hulk – This thankfully ended on a far more positive note than the original did.  Not bad in general, though this movie made for comic fans more than casual viewers.  I know a bit more about the Hulk than the average person, and I still had to look some things up.  Which is a shame.  If they had maybe added an extra 30 min onto the movie and given a bit more background for uninitiated viewers, this could have been a really great movie.

Moon – Biggest twist?  The computer turns out to not be evil!  A pretty good movie that doesn’t bother dragging out mysteries that the audience has probably already figured out.  It’s definitely a worthy rental for those who want something different on their movie nights and want to be engaged mentally, but not quite on the level of Inception.

Daybreakers – I wanted to see this in theaters but never got around to it.  Which is a shame because this movie deserved more support.  If anything the movie almost seems schizophrenic.  On the surface, it’s just a bunch of gore and action (what’d you expect from a vampire movie) and yet bubbling just under the surface… a rather interesting meditation on traditional vampire lore.

At least until the end and a sequence that is so over the top, it becomes comical with everything going on (but comical in a good way).

But despite all that, it was the little touches that drew me into this film.  The examination of what would happen if vampires took over the world (as they should if their condition is spread by biting) just fascinated me and like in I am Legend (functioning under a similar premise), the first half showing us this world is so great, you just wish that was the entire movie.  The subtle touches of how government, society, economies and technology would change if the whole world became undead was just superb (such as an increase in smoking).  The ending is ok and flows from the story, though I could have done without some of the cheap jump scares sprinkled throughout.  They use profanity, but not to the point of drowning out the story.  To tell the truth, it was also a relief to watch a movie where vampirism is shown as actually horrifying instead of glorified!

Watch for me to start making references to this film in the future.  Especially when talking about _Twilight_.