Surrogates (Movie)

Cover of Surrogates

Surrogates came out last year on September 25th, 2009 and is directed by Jonathan Mostow. The film stars Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, and Ving Rhames. When I first seen the trailers for Surrogates I was really impressed, but after hearing so much negativity about the title I decided to skip out on this one. I should know by now not to always go by what others say, but in a time of tight money and movie prices at all time highs I really don’t feel like gambling with every movie that comes out. Needless to say the movie is now available on Netflix’s streaming service which I am already a member of so with nothing to lose I decided to watch it this past weekend.

In a nutshell the story takes place in the near future where people live their lives out through remotely controlled machines known as “surrogates”. If these machines are damaged, or destroyed the end-user feels none of the effects and just wakes up and buys a new machine. Since the invention of surrogates crime has gone down, and the world is doing well. Not everyone buys into using surrogates and these groups of people settle into reservations for humans only. Meanwhile a rash of crimes start to break out where “surrogates” are being destroyed and their operators along with them. We follow the exploits of Willis’s character Tom Greer and FBI agent investigating the murders, and trying to deal with an uneasy marriage to a wife unwilling to be seen outside of her surrogate.

I love movies that take place in the future because you can have a lot of fun with the story and technology as it isn’t based on a time period that has taken place yet, and this movie does a great job at creating a believable setting. It also does a good job of getting you to think if our reliance on technology is always the best thing, other movies have done this as well but it definitely prompted debate between me and my girlfriend who I watched it with. Overall I enjoyed it for what it was, while I can say I’m glad I didn’t go see it in the movies that is not a putdown in any way, it is certainly watchable on TV and is a good 90 mins of entertainment, it’s just not up with spending money on food, parking, and movie tickets, but not much really is lately in my opinion. It is available on Netflix’s instant streaming, and at this point is probably playing on cable or on demand so I say if your into future and technology films check it out.

No Ordinary Family (Pilot Episode)

I just finished watching the very first episode of “No Ordinary Family” which airs on ABC from 8PM to 9PM on Tuesday nights. No Ordinary Family is about an ordinary family that has been slipping apart from each other due to busy life styles and each member doing their own thing in their own world. The father Jim Powell played by Michael Chiklis wants things to be like they were and decides to turn his wife’s research trip to Brazil into a family vacation, but during a violent storm their plane crashes in the Amazon river and they are exposed to some kind of glowing mineral in the water which gives each member of the family different abilities that they start to discover throughout this first episode.

Image by Geek Tonic via Flickr

Jim who is a police artist for a living discovers that he is super-strong, almost invincible, and can jump (cough, cough, leap) tall buildings in a single bound, and uses his new strengths to help fight the criminals he once only was able to draw. The wife in the show Stephanie Powell who is a scientist with not enough time for her family discovers she is now the fastest thing on two legs with her newly discovered super speed she can find the time needed for family and work. Kay Panabaker plays the teenage daughter Daphne Powell who develops telepathic abilities which she hasn’t yet learned to control but has helped her realize that the guy she has been seeing in H.S. has been less than faithful to her. Finally we have the teenage son JJ Powell played by Jimmy Bennett who had learning disabilities before the crash and discovers a huge increase in his intelligence, probably the least interesting power demonstrated this episode but I’m interested to see how this will be utilized in the future. We are also introduced to a villain with a unique power of his own, who mentions that there are others out there but doesn’t give any answers to how or who, this will obviously serve as a running theme for this show and has me interested.

So when Heroes ended last year I was very sad that I wouldn’t be able to get my super hero fix every week, though there is always Smallville on Friday nights but that’s ending this year also. Then I heard about this show and was a little skeptical at first, but loving Chiklis from his previous role on “The Shield” I figured I would have to at least check it out. I have to tell you I really enjoyed this show and think I found the fix I was looking for, this is a great family show that has a nice mix of comedy, action, and real characters with real family problems we can relate with, who just also happen to have super powers. I’m very excited to see what this show has in store for us next and am highly recommending it. Two thumbs up.

Halo Reach: Initial Impressions

The game that led me to re-buy an Xbox 360 has been out for a couple of days at this point, and I’ve put in a decent amount of hours on it, so what do I think so far? Well to be fair this review pertains mostly to the online component of the game as I have only played about an hour and a half of the campaign mode, but that is not unusual for me when it comes to first person shooters as I prefer the competition of online multi-player, and so most of this review will be based on that.

One of the coolest new features is armor abilities which replace the one time use abilities of the pick up items in prior games. These new abilities include jetpacks(need I say more), sprinting, a shield dome protecting those inside from outside fire, and a hologram you can send out to distract other players, and more. These abilities can be used as much as you want as long as you allow them the short time to recharge. The online in this game has more possible game modes than I have probably ever seen in a game.  Some of the modes that I can remember off the top of my head are Slayer which is your typical death match where the first person or team to reach the number of kills needed wins the match, you have a few different variations of capture the flag which involves storming the other teams base to take their flag and carry it back to your base. One of my favorite modes which I believe is new to the series is headhunters, in this game type every time someone is killed they leave behind a skull, and you have to collect as many of these skulls as possible and bring them back to a designated place which keeps moving around in order to score points. Another new mode introduced is called Invasion in which you must either take over or defend points from being taken over, and at the end of the round you switch sides to do the opposite, whoever takes over the most points during these rounds ends up winning the match.

Firefight mode which was released in last years ODST has been revamped including the ability to find others online to play with in matchmaking, which was one of the things I complained about in ODST where you were only able to play with those on your friends list. The forge mode from Halo 3 has been reintroduced in a grander scale with lots of customization, I have tried tweaking with it a bit even building myself a castle with towers which was pretty cool, however I have a hard time figuring out how to add objective based items but that’s just my stupidity when it comes to map editing. The game advertises that you can play through the campaign with people you don’t know through the matchmaking system, but this option is nowhere to be found when I look for it, so for now I have to just play with friends if we ever manage to all be on at the same time.

There is a lot of meat to sink your teeth into when it comes the multiplayer, but how does it all stack up? When I played with my brother for a few matches and a few of his friends we got our butts handed to us but I was actually enjoying it. However when I play matches with random folks I feel really alone, and it seems as though most people do their own thing and don’t believe in team work leading to many losses which when compared to a game like Battlefield Bad Company 2 is the total opposite with its squad based play. Another complaint I have about the multi-player system is the matchmaking feature which hasn’t been updated since Halo 2. Call of Duty has this part done right, you pick the type of match you want to play and it hooks you up with others that want to play the same type, where as in this game you pick certain aspects but don’t really get to pick the exact type so you never know what you’re going to end up playing though you can choose to vote it seems that most people are never on the same page when it comes to this as well.

In the end this game can be so much fun when playing with those you know or when you get matched up with people willing to communicate and work together, but most of the time you end up in lone wolf situations and I can’t help feeling like I should just go play Battlefield Bad Company 2 or wait to play this when friends are all online which makes a big difference. I do like the improvements to Firefight, and the armor abilities teach an old dog new tricks and help make old game modes seem new again, but in the end this is the same Halo we’ve been playing for almost a decade, for better or for worse.

Side Note: You will find that most matches you play there will be at least one or two people on either team who quit early into the match, and this game does not allow them to be replaced which can lead to an unfair advantage in a lot of matches. In most games in this genre if someone quits the game will fill the spots in with new players.

Here is a video showing off Multiplayer with Bugie’s designers

Resident Evil: Afterlife

I went to see Resident Evil: Afterlife yesterday, which is the fourth film in the Resident Evil film franchise based very loosely off the video games of the same name. To bring you up to speed really quickly the first film introduced us to the films main protagonist Alice played by Mill Jovovich who worked for the Umbrella Corporation(the company responsible for letting loose a zombie virus). Alice was infected with the T-Virus but instead of turning her into the undead it enhanced her with superhuman abilities which get stronger in each film. In the second film Alice tries to escape from the infected Racoon city while be pursued by Umbrella and their newest biological weapon known as The Nemesis. When we get to the third film in the series it took a totally different tone as the whole world has been infected with the virus at this time and turned the world into a desolate wasteland(Mad Max style) with only a handful of survivors moving from town to town. At this time Umbrella is still trying to imitate the results they had achieved with Alice by using clones of her, and when the film ends Alice attacks one of their headquarters and frees her clones who team up with her to take on Umbrella which is how the third movie ends and the latest one begins.

Afterlife was released on September 10, 2010 and boasts the fact that it was shot in 3D using James Cameron’s 3D Fusion Camera System, and is available to see in 3D and Imax-3D in theaters. The movie was directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, and sees the return of our favorite female hero of the series Alice(Milla Jovovich), along with well-known characters from the game series including Claire Redfield(Ali larter), Chris Redfield(Wentworth Miller), and the main villain from the games Albert Wesker played very cheesily by Shawn Roberts. In the beginning the film does start off where the last one ended, but after the amazing initial scenes the film changes tones and the plot revolves around Alice finding survivors she met in the earlier film as she tracks a message being sent from a place called Arcadia. From here and for about fifteen to twenty minutes we get to see Alice fly a two-seater plane to Alaska and then to Los Angeles where she ends up finding a couple of survivors whom she ends up joining as they search for Aracadia, and fight for their survival.

I’ll be honest I didn’t expect much going into this, and I didn’t get much. The best film in the series is the first, and each subsequent one has gotten progressively worse. The 3D was a shining spot in the movie and did not look bad. The visuals, soundtrack and action sequences are the high points of this film, and Jovovich does what she does best look good, and kick A**. The guy who played Albert Wesker in the film was quite comparable to the actors from the original game, which if you played you know it was funny B movie at best. Wentworth Miller of prison break fame does a pretty good Chris Redfield whom when we are introduced to in the this film ironically happens to be locked up in a prison. If you’ve seen the prior movies and are a fan of the games I say you might as well go see this one, just don’t expect great material or plot advancement, as for everyone else wait for it to come on cable or rent it somewhere down the line. Funny thing is they’ll probably keep making these and I’ll keep going to see them as I feel like I’ve attached so much time into them already and they do leave off with a huge cliffhanger that I am curious to see resolved.

Talking Tom Cat (Android App)

This is another app I have on my Android phone in which I thought was cute but didn’t really know what its true purpose would be. Talking Tom Cat is a free app created by Outfit7 available for Iphone, Ipad, and Android devices, and features a cute animated cat named Tom with whom you can interact with in a variety of ways. If you pet his body or head he will purr, you can grab is tail and he’ll get angry, if you’re the abusive type you can smack him in the head a few times until he eventually falls down, and you can pour him a cup of milk and watch him drink it. All of these things are quite cute but can get stale quickly, however there is one feature that makes this app worth downloading and that would be the ability to record whatever you say to him and have it played back in his cat voice which you can then share through email, Facebook, or even post on Youtube(see video below for example). With your imagination the sky is the limit with this thing, well actually 30 seconds seems to be the limit for recording, though I’m sure crafty people out there could probably just record multiple videos and string them together but you get the point.