This movie's not so good. Remember that scene in Heat where De Niro and Pacino are talking in the diner? Remember how awesome that scene was? Now imagine the complete opposite of that, and you have Righteous Kill. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino quite literally sleep through their roles, and I found myself dozing off multiple times throughout the film. They're okay performances, but nothing of the usual calibur for both actors. This was supposed to be the ultimate movie in which De Niro and Pacino are together, instead audiences got this. It's sad, really.

The story and plot work for what it does, but the most dissapointing aspect of the film was the complete lack of action. There are no action scenes to be found in this movie. If there was an award for most misleading trailer, this movie would take it, bar none. The most audiences get to see is a 2 second shoot-out in the first 15 minutes of the movie. From then on, it's just a snooze fest of great actors doing poor acting. I don't necessarily blam them, though, there's just nothing to work from with the script. "Jokes" ended up completely missing and some "intense" scenes were completely laughable. The story's also told in a semi-convoluted way, and I thought just doing it straightforward would've been much better. Also, there's a scene where the killer beats the living shit out of a chick for no apparent reason. If there was, me and all of my friends completely missed it. That's just sloppy writing.

Overall, there's just not a lot to say about this movie. It's really dissapointing, but most of all it's just damn boring. The ending is just a lame cliche, you can pretty much guess who the killer is fifteen minutes before they actually reveal it. I simply can't recommend this movie, for a matinee or even a rental. It's just not enjoyable.

A response to TokyoChicken's blog post

Now before you start thinking this is some kind of blog commenting on video games and fun, stop, I actually want to talk about something a tad different. I want to talk about the philosophical notions of human consciousness.
For a long time I've been pondering this question how did we come to be? What made me so oddly interested in the human consciousness? What exactly made me this way? Why do I love philosophy so much?

The one book that really made me interested in consciousness had to be "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" by John Locke. It was the first book of its kind that I've read. A new world was opened up to me, I started to see consciousness in a different way. I suddenly became obsessed with mind and matter in real life. Soon enough I found myself  escaping to these awesome new ideas constantly anticipating each day because each day was another opportunity to be completely immersed in a new philosophy. Eventually I began finding more and more books like it to feed my addiction.

As I grew older my interest in this began to grow beyond human consciousness into more and more general things. I started getting into philosophy . From morality to religion to life, if something was quirky and interesting I always had to drop all my money on it. My house became decorated with crazy vinyl books and my shelves were stacked with novels and essays. All of it fed my crazy obsession with the human condition. I'm not sure why but something about being so engrossed in these ideas and always brought some kind of joy to me .Being around these ideas made me happy, it reminded me of all of the problems of the world. To me this was my way to indulge in something interesting and different.

To me consiousness is the ability to imagine. Imagination bring people together. They allow us to feel control over something (Something we tend to lack in real life to an extent). To me imagination is an escape. I'm a philosopher because I love the ideas, the people, and the world that philosophy has created today. Philosophy, ideas, bring people together, they bring us to places like Giant Bomb, they bring us to places like college.  I'm a philosopher because I have a passion that grew in me a long time ago and places like Giant Bomb just further allow me to idulge in my passion. Here I get to write about ideas and most importantly talk about philosophy with people who have a passion for it like me.

That's what you get TC! Super misleading title, and your general thoughts about video games can be pretty much replaced with anything else.

P.S. Yes, it's all in good fun.

I've been hopeful about the new Max Payne movie coming out October 17th. Bad idea, right? Well I was, right up until this moment in time. If you didn't know already, a new Max Payne trailer came out for the movie.

You can check it out here: http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/maxpayne/

Everything seems to be fine... until:


















Um, excuse me, but WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!?!

From the first trailer, I saw the whole angel-thing as a cool visualization of someone's death. A personification, not this BULLSHIT that Constantine already did. Upon further reading, I stumbled upon this synopsis by Apple:

" As the mystery deepens, Max is forced to battle enemies beyond the natural world and face an unthinkable betrayal."
"...Max is forced to battle enemies beyond the natural world..."
"...beyond the natural world..."

Someone PLEASE tell at what point did Max Payne fight enemies "beyond the natural world"?!?!?!?!?!

I'm sorry for being hopeful for a video game movie. I'm sorry that I thought it might be a decent movie. I'm sorry that it might actually use the plot from the source material. But most of all, I'm sorry for every video game movie that comes out after this. I've been betrayed too many times. I officially give up on video game movies. They'll never be good; I'm sorry I even tried.

Okay suckas, I'm gonna make this as easy as possible to join The Bomb (our IRC channel). If you don't know already, IRC is pretty much a chat room. We have a great community and want more people to join in. (Btw, yes I am a whore for the IRC). If you were born before the days of IRC, here's how you get in:

1. Get Mozilla Firefox, if you don't already use it.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/










2.  Download Chatzilla
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/16










3. Bookmark this page so you don't lose track of where to find the IRC

4. Restart FireFox (Close out of all windows and open FireFox again)

5. Click the following link:
irc://irc.deltaanime.net/giantbomb

That's it! Easy as 1-2-3-4-5 steps!! Be sure to hit me up when you get in, but watch out for godhand... he's a little... strange.

Finally got to see this on Sunday and just had time now to write my impressions on it. Bottom line: it was okay. It's definitely a movie for people who know the business and are into movie culture. I don't know what's up with the hype and the enthusiastic reviews for the movie. Perhaps it was the audience I was with, but the laughs per minute were way down even from Get Smart. When I laughed, I laughed hard, but most of the time the moments were chuckles or material your brain comprehends as humorous, but no laughs are produced.

Everyone gives a great performance in the movie. High points obviously include Robert Downey Jr. and a surprise visit from Tom Cruise. But Jay Baruchel isn't given enough credit, he's the only real person in this entire film and gives the audience a nibble of reality in a 3-course meal of absolute craziness (bad metaphor, I know). Robert Downey Jr. really puts in an Oscar worthy performance, and everytime he's on screen you know something is going to happen. I could tell that everyone in the theater leaned a little forward whenever he had dialogue. Ben Stiller gives an adequate performance, as does Jack Black, but by the end of the film the same gags over and over again got boring. We get it, they're in a serious situation and oblivious to it. Tom Cruise was amazing and he seemed to fit his role perfectly, but once again at the end of the movie they just overuse him. Matthew McConaughey is also in the film, but all of his comedy revolves around TiVo and a G5 jet. Not really funny.

The plot itself becomes thin about half way into this movie. I'd say the best parts of this film are in the beginning when introducing these characters and in the end with a surprisingly intense action sequence. The second act was definitely the low point of this film, and if someone were to ask me what happened during that time, I could only remember Robert Downey Jr., landmine, iPod, and retards. Those are really the only parts I laughed out loud in the middle portion of this movie. In the end, that is the ultimate downfall of Tropic Thunder. I just did not laugh that much. Maybe my sense of humor is skewed, but that's what honestly happened. The times I laughed HARD are in the beginning. There was about a 15 minute period where not even a chuckle came out. I understand the need to advance plot, but c'mon.

If you got 2 hours to waste, go ahead and see this at a matinee. Maybe you'll find it amazing, but I have this sneaking suspicision that people are lying to themselves so they can justify buying into the hype. Actions scenes were well-done, acting was good, but the laughs were missing. By no means is this a bad movie, but it sure isn't the masterpiece of comedy we all hoped it would be.

P.S. If you haven't caught up on your Vietnam movies yet, you better if you plan on watching the movie. Some of the biggest laughs came from the parodies on Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Apocalypse Now. I'm pretty sure I saw a little Deer Hunter in there as well? Even if you don't plan on watching Tropic Thunder, they are just great movies to watch.