Lost (2004 – ???)

If you haven't at the very least heard of this ABC TV series, where have you been?

Lost is a television series created, at least partially, by the guy who created Alias.  

An airline going from Sydney to Los Angeles crashes on a deserted island.  The survivors of the crash are attempting to make a living while they wait to be rescued.  In the process, they discover that many strange things are happening on the island. 

My roommates (Leroy and Angie) and I began renting the episodes of the series on DVD, since none of us had managed to watch it from the beginning.  I debated writing a review of the series, since it is ongoing.  I decided that, since we are finally caught up with the rest of the people who watch this (unfortunately) I figured it is a good time to review it.  

This is a very strange series.  It is definately not just an average sort of series and, in my opinion, is one of the best on network television.  So many weird things happen in this series that we have stopped actually saying things like "Okay, that is weird."   

If you like weird stories, you will probably like this.  All of the characters are well fleshed-out and you tend to care about what happens to them.  Interestingly, I've found that there are times that I change my opinion about certain characters as things progress. There is the right amount of suspense mixed with the appropriate amount of comedy and romance.  

I think once you begin watching, you won't want to stop.  

Rating: 4.7

Pattern Recognition – William Gibson (2003)

Pattern Recognition is a bit of a departure from William Gibson's other books. Gibson typically writes in the science fiction sub-genre called cyberpunk. Of course, he is mostly known for his novel Neuromancer.

Pattern Recognition is set in the aftermath of 9/11. The main character, Cayce Pollard (she pronounces it like Case rather than Casey) is a "coolhunter". That is to say, she predicts what is going to be cool. She is also a "footagehead". In other words, she follows "The Footage" which are short clips of a film that has been anonymously uploaded to the web.

While on assignment to find the latest logo for a line of shoes, she is offered a different job. That is to discover the source of the Footage. In the process, she is thrust into a world of conspiracy and intrigue.

I liked Pattern Recognition. While technically a departure from Gibson's usual cyberpunk work, one could make a case (no pun intended) that our world is mirroring the cyberpunk stories that Gibson has been writing. I have been a fan of Gibson's writing style since I first read Neuromancer. In Pattern Recognition, he shows that he understands the way of the modern world.

If you are a fan of Gibson, you should definitely give this story a go. Gibson will not disappoint with this story. If you enjoy a well written and exciting story, give it a read as well.

Rating: 4.3

Silent Hill (2006)

Last weekend, I watched Silent Hill.

Silent Hill is an action/horror movie directed by Christophe Gans (who directed Brotherhood of the Wolf) and stars Radha Mitchell (Phone Booth) and Sean Bean (Flight Plan). This movie is based on the Silent Hill video-games.

The plot-line roughly follows (or so my friend Jonathan assures me) the plot of Silent Hill 1 and Silent Hill 2. Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) is a young girl troubled by nightmares of a town called Silent Hill. Her adoptive mother, Rose (Radha Mitchell) takes her to the ghost-town to discover the reasons for her sleepwalking and nightmares. In the process, they, along with police officer Cybil (Laurie Holden) are thrust into a strange and horrific world.

I played the first Silent Hill game back when it was released on the PS1. It had some really creepy moments. Playing late at night (I worked a night shift at the time, and often remained on that schedule on my days off) I actually got somewhat frightened. The movie Silent Hill managed, at times, to recreate some of these creepy moments. The atmospheres were appropriate and recreated the town that I got to know when playing the game. However, it felt like they borrowed from other movies in the genre a little too much.

I believe that the acting was somewhat a weak-point Some of the acting felt wooden to me, without a lot of life. Perhaps they were trying to recreate the "acting" of the characters from the video games.

All in all, this wasn't a horrible movie. I enjoyed it. As I said, it truly did have some creepy moments.

Rating: 2.7

Ultimate Avengers (2006)

Ultimate Avengers is a straight-to-video animated movie loosly based on the Marvel comic book The Ultimates.

First of all, some background:

Marvel Comics has recently started a new “universe” of comic books where they take some of their classic comics of the past and re-issue them with new artists and writers, but with similar (although not exactly the same) backstories. So far, they have created Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate SpiderMan, Ultimate Fantastic Four and the Ultimates (which is based on the classic comic, the Avengers.) There might be some others, that I’m not aware of. My roommate collects all of these books, so he’d know more than I do.

So, when we saw the ads for the Ultimate Avengers, we were interested, yet a bit wary. However, when it came out, I dropped it to #1 on my Netflix Queue and we watched it last week.

The plotline roughly followed the plot of the Ultimates comic book. It began a few days after World War 2 was over. Hitler was dead, but some of the German officers were plotting to use some sort of “Super Weapon”. Captain America and a group of Army soldiers are tasked with storming the compound where this Super Weapon is stored. In the course of this battle, it is discovered that the Nazi soldiers are NOT Nazi’s at all, but are aliens. They manage to launch the weapon, but not before Captain America grabbed onto it. Captain America rides the rocket and after fighting off some of the aliens disables it over the Arctic sea, but the device explodes, and Captain America is lost. (This follows the basic plotline of the original Avengers comic.)

Years later, Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D (I’ll make you look up what that stands for) are trying to discover the secret of the Super Soldier Serum which was injected into Captain America many years ago. They are working to start up a team of Super Heroes to work for the Government in their Avengers Program. They find Captain America embedded deep into a glacier and eventually discover that he is alive. Before long the aliens that Cap fought so many years ago are back and the newly formed team must overcome their own inner conflicts and fight them.

The good:
I’ll start off by saying that I enjoyed this. As a typical straight-to-video animated movie, it was pretty entertaining. It had a degree of violence which included soldiers dying. However, it appears that their goal was to include enough violence to draw the Adult comic fans but rein it in enough that most parents won’t balk at the idea of their children seeing it. In that, I would say that they achieved their goal well. The plotline will be familiar to fans of either the Ultimates or the older Avengers comic.

Now for the bad:
Considering that they are obviously basing this off of the Ultimates comic, and are trying to draw the fans of that story, I think they deviated from the story a bit too much. Yes, they had the basic plot points. But they changed enough of it that any real fan of the Ultimates will probably be left somewhat disappointed. They shouldn’t have tied this work so closely to the Ultimates if they weren’t willing to go all the way with the story. So, small (but in my opinion, important) sub-plots were left out. The character Hank Pym (who is both Ant-Man and Giant-Man) is no longer the bi-polar mess he is in the Ultimates book.

I was probably mostly disappointed in their characterization of Thor. In the Ultimates they made him basically a hippie tree-hugger. I never got the sense from the comic that he spoke with the lofty tones of the Thor from the main Marvel Universe. In the Ultimate Avengers, they seem to have mixed these two traits.

And I think that is where the movie loses its focus. It appears to be trying to mix the old with the new. I personally think they should have gone all the way, instead of trying to please everyone. I would say that this movie is not for the “hard-core fan” of the Ultimates, or of the old Avengers comic. Some will like it, some will absolutely hate it. I’m sure most will be like me. “It was okay.” If you’re interested in Super Heroes or animated movies, you may enjoy this as well.

Rating: 3.1

Hypoc Reviews…

Hi.

Welcome to my new blog, Hypocalypse Reviews. This is going to be my space to review stuff. Movies I've seen, albums I've listened to, even software I've played around with. I began this on my regular blog at hypocalypse.net, but I decided to create a new blog specificially for this purpose.

So look forward to my reviews of stuff on this space.

I'm going to use a generic numbering system in my reviews. 1 through 5.

1. Utter Crap
2. Mostly Crap
3. Okay
4. Pretty Damned Good
5. Fucking Mind-Blowing