overly opinionated. as usual aye.

spoils of war: x-men 3 and da vinci code .......

revisionist history of x-men? sure why not. normally i'd balk at the butchering of canon material but, as these flicks were okayed by the man himself (how's that hose action there, mr. lee sir?), as well considering the nature of cinematic media, the results are pretty damn sweet. cranking up emotional drama to priority is a better plot mover with respect to the time constraints of feature films. it's not a comic book serial where you get years to develop characters and crazy plot arcs...and anyway, comic book plots play to a slightly different audience perspective due to that its very nature is rooted in more flash and action than any consecutively emotional scenes. (i'm not trying to sound all professory here, i'm just sayin what i say in my wordy way of saying.) as always, a list if you please:

- the whole fricken time i kept waiting for bobby drake to break out his omega level powers. hey man, they've screwed enough with the timeline already, why not break out all the way? at least he morphed fully into ice by the end. that was neat.
- interesting twist with the rogue becoming human bit. makes logical sense in the character dev of the movies...but the comic fan in me is so, so sad dammit.
- i also kept waiting for scott summers to come back. how can cyclops be dead?!
- better performances all around. as always, ian mckellan kicks arse. he makes the helmet look unsilly and oh the way he enunciates. the kind of villain that smacks you upside your head just by talking. best line he's uttered is still from x2: you're a god among insects. oh that filthy disdain, i love that.
- everyone has an agenda. i don't like how they leaned towards xavier's towards the end. it's so much more interesting when there's a whole mess of gray in the muddle.
- excellent work-in of magneto's tatoo. again with that disdain. yieah. sweetness.
- for the first time in like, ever, halle berry isn't annoying to watch on screen. that hairdo is still wrong, mind you (storm is that mane of white you fools), but she's got a better chemistry here with the rest of cast. doesn't stick out like a sore, and entirely too wooden, thumb. forefinger. whatever.
- pyro ya little freak. love ya.
- lots of nice moments with miss kitty at the end.
- killing the one you love to save the world has been so tried and done. didn't make me any less sympathetic for the logie boy.
- amazing mutant feats so redonkulous that it actually heightened the believablity. i mean, it's already a pretty far-out universe (mutants? x-gene? adamantium skeleton?!?!?!), so amping up the crazy acts is an excellent move. swivelling the golden gate bridge was fun stuff and pyro lighting up cars like he lights up cigs was funny-cool.
- so yieah, they kept the jokey one-liners down to a minimum. those things made x1 lame in certain moments.
- can't help noticing: homo sapiens, san francisco, cure. who's implying what now?
- way to tie up a buncha lose ends. and way to tie up ends that, you know, didn't need to be tied up at all. again, those ties make sense in the film's universe -- even if comic fans everywhere will cry the injustice. i don't care much. it's a more than decently made flick, highly entertaining, plenty thought provoking, blah blah blah. like lotr, some of the best fanfilms ever.

an ian mckellan film fest or what eh? he made a majority of the da vinci code not suck too badly. the other two (oh yieah, you mean bloated tom and sunken audrey?) get going only when they had mckellan to play off of. and oh did the gandalf man provide. his teabing leapt off the screen and strangled you with his intensity and insanity...so much better realized here than in the tissue-thin language of the book. (i was so right to love you straight from the scarlett get-go, mr. mckellan sir.) there were other decent moments too, mostly in the very well visualized flashbacks, and, occasionally, a flash of real sincere performance from the hank-man. he did okay but i think that someone else would've fit the role better. a harrison ford-ish guy (i still buy into his indiana jones act) but not the actual harrision ford (enough with the crazy mid-life crisises in hollywood already). more complaints and some happy bits:

- they managed to de-sensitize jean reno. i'd have thought that to be fucking impossible (did you guys even see him in the professional?!?!) but dammit, they succeeded. the guy had only one, ONE, good moment in the flick. wtf?!
- good god i can't stand that audrey chick. so...damn...shallow. no depth, no illusion of depth, heck, i think the best descript would be vapid. spic and spank and off we go on to the next line of dialogue. further, the fact that i couldn't understand her through the accent bugged me several billion times throughout the flick.
- so many contrived moments, mostly in the beginning. if i wanted to hear the book read to me, i'd have asked my dad to read it to me in his lame, broken english. he probably would've done a better job. and that's a sad thing to realize.
- less awkwardness in presenting exposition here than in the book, but it still creeps up from time to time. as previously mentioned, ian mckellan rocks your socks. he pulled that rabbit out of the hat in a way that made you believe he could do the same with a hippo. the man's a fricken genius.
- overall i liked the editing done to translate a script from the book. good cuts and some interesting additions. thank you to whoever realized that it shouldn't take anyone hours to figure out mirror writing.
- different ending than in the book. i like it better that they didn't get together, that she tried to walk on water, that he went back to the inverted pyramid at night with all the lights shining through.
- stupid, should've-been-obvious reality breakers: what kind of idiot policeman would approach a famous author in a crowd of civilians with a photo of a brutal murder!? that's just...stupid. apparently french police can't even come up with the common sense to say "sir, can i speak with you privately for a moment please?". and hello, stupid with the gathering of priory folks at the end. how the hell does a secret society stay secret if they're all just a phonecall away and willing to expose themselves by throwing an afternoon tea party. puh-lease.
- oooo, barbs making a sucking-popping noise when pulled outta silas' leg. i liked that.
- more of the completely pointless: why make fache beat up on some poor controller guy? just to show he's upset? talk about excessive violence.- some old ladies sitting next to me gasped and jumped at the appropriate bits. it was cute.
- so, y'know ron, dramatic sweeping scores are good only sometimes. the low curving tones in the space scenes of apollo 13? appropriately scored. you should've done the same with this flick. god, i can't even begin to count how often an overly pretentious musical arch broke the believablity of the story. corny. so. fricken. corny.

all these whiny bits. not that i didn't have a good day at the movies. yessir that's right, i still shed some tears at certain scenes in both flicks. i'm sappy that way.

chock fulla SPOILERS!!! from dreamfall: the longest journey:

- the mood and atmostphere is fantastic. much more adult than tlj1 and about a hundred times more creepy. much as i dislike the clunkiness of the keyboard controls, shifting (ha!) from point-click to an fps-style perspective movement made for some pretty tense moments. if the camera rotation wasn't so jittery, i'd have enjoyed the troll caverns more.
- more complaints about that damn camera and keyboard. kept getting stuck in corners, couldn't center my focus on anything. and i seriously hate the sequence where you had to run away from fat lardface peats. ugh. that took about thirty tries it did.
- hopefully they'll keep this 3d enviro setup for tlj3 but with improvements. like with the center on screen option in gk3, click to shift between panning up/down and left/right, and speed control options (cuz damn it moved so fast that it actually hindered action sequences at times).
- if anyone actually made a watilla, i'd buy two of them wonkers.
- does damien cavanaugh look like paul walker or what eh? leave him in the flesh and i find him boring. digitize the man and make him a computer nerd and i get all giggly. i'm so, so lame.
- proof of the power of gk1: over six years later and the first time i hear the name cavanaugh i immediately hear the voice of a god-fearin', voodoo stylin' old lady inside me head.
- as with tlj1, some of the locales leave you with your jaw dropping below the waterline. of particular drool-action is the dark people's library, winterland (creeptastic), the interior of the st. petersburg factory, the fringe, zoe's room, and damien's little studio. the nipponese vibe was strong with the set designers.
- what is it about abused, abandoned children's rooms that seem so frickin creepy and shit. ugh. faith's screen flashbys in stark were so reminiscent of the ring. did they do that on purpose? with the shifty electric static noise and with her black hair all in her face? damn you designers for making me jump in my seat in broad daylight!
- love, love, loved that charlie was back. that we can now go up the backstairs in the journey man inn. that we be stealin' past that oh-so-not-random door next to the fringe. that april is now hawt, gothy, angsty girlie with spear-through-your-right-eyeball action.
- wtf is up with westhouse. just. wtf. splainy already.
- crow! much more sarcastic and downright corny! better than ever before.
- april is not dead. she either a) shifted out before falling into the water, b) fell into the water anyway but hey, she's fully equipped with water-breathing equipment, or c) got saved by furious traitor apostle action.
- she and kian are so gonna get together.
- brynn is not dead. well. i hope not.
- where did damien end up?? for that matter, i hope reza aint dead either.
- who the hell is the black tatoo dude in dreamland?
- helena chang begot zoe with gabriel castillo. who knows who she begot faith with. she's also the white lady faith refers to.
- who the hell attacked the white kin?!?!
- is eingana a kin? the green or red one?
- so need to replay tlj1 again. refresher much required.
- why do people want everything tied up into a nice, neat little package? the open ending to this episode was excellently done in leaving you edgy and sad all at once. perfect for a middle chapter. closure is over-rated -- especially if the creator clearly stated he'll finish this story no matter what. it's why esb and rots are so great. that emotional hangover...there aint nothin like it.
- this game cries out for a better grafx card than what jedi bob currently carries. jaggies suck eh.
- theme song is pretty good.
- as are the character models. zoe's figure is realistically done and the shading on her jeans was fantastic. i kept finding myself staring at april's costume and wanting to wear boots like hers.

all done for now. until i replay this thing. uh. yieah.