I feel kinda sorry for the guy. Because I know how hard people were laying into him because of the way he looks and the character he plays, since way back. When you single out someone like that and attack them in a group all at once, the very last thing you're going to get is a good movie. Ethics aside it's not even in your own self-interest.
I always hated BioShock Infinite . I think it's an actual abomination. But not for the reasons mentioned here. I was relived when I read Tom McShea's 4/10 review of it a couple weeks after the 9/10 one. I was like he was reading my brain, and a lot of commenters seemed to agree. I was starting to think I was going a little crazy before I read it. And this is from someone who loved the first two games.
Yeah, good list, assuming you're only taking one title from each series.
Wolfenstein: The New Order in particular deserves special praise. Off the top of my head I can't think of any FPS campaign which felt more meaningful. They constructed that campaign so masterfully that I almost felt like I was sitting there at my desk playing it in a Nazi-dominated Europe. So engrossing, well-realised, visceral, raw, traumatically brutal, while being heartfelt and genuine, not to mention expertly paced. They committed wholeheartedly to the story they wanted to tell, and pulled no punches and took no prisoners. The publisher however took all that for granted and managed to capture absolutely none of it in the sequel, failing in every single domain aside from moment-to-moment gunplay.
Prey (2017) should be on there as well, even if only for its first third. Condemned: Criminal Origins deserves a spot too. I think GoldenEye: 007 should be there too, even if it's a bit disjointed for a story. People give it a lot of s*** but Quake 4 has a really solid campaign; best in the series imho. I don't know if Resident Evil 7 fits the genre, but it's bloody fantastic. TimeSplitters 2 definitely deserves a spot. No One Lives Forever is in the same boat. If Deus Ex 1 is on the list, that should be. Dishonored as well. Personally I prefer the first game to the second. And if you're going to include those you should include System Shock 2. I don't know if you'd include Portal based on genre, but you could make an argument for it. Some people may include Agent Under Fire and Nightfire. Definitely Clive Barker's Undying should be on the list. The Evil Within 2 is a really excellent game which can officially be played in FPS mode. I haven't played the Resistance games on PS, but some say 3 is particularly good. Similarly Killzone 2 is probably the best in the series. It's probably not up with the best of the best, but I was really surprised by Shadow Warrior(2013). Painkiller and its sequels aren't great stories, but their gameplay is just so damn fun. Bulletstorm has a very underrated campaign, which usually games like it don't bother with. Call of Juarez: Gunslinger has an extremely solid campaign. S.W.A.T. 4 is another genre stretch, but excellent at what it does. And S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl has some of the best atmosphere ever in a video game.
It looks great, it's just that I'm not buying these characters at all.
They all look like box-ticking exercises, or a name drop, or a friend of a friend of the casting director. The most attractive, or the ones who laughed hardest at the director's jokes. Basically anything other than the person actually best fit for the role. And there's really no excuse for that after Jackson has already shown you how to do it right.
The characters are the best place to see what a show/film is all about, because it's where a director can most easily impose his own identity onto the show/film if not being careful, or if trying deliberately to slip political ideologies in. It's very difficult to write a cast of natural, believable characters while holding a grudge or desire to push propaganda.
No matter how good it is, it doesn't look to me like devotion to the source material with concessions made for the format. It looks like the general gist of the source material, stuffed like a turkey with whatever else is fashionable or expedient, or just different for the sake of being different.
I expect the show will be good, but enjoyed more by non LOTR fans than by the fans. As another fantasy world to jump into, it'll serve its purpose just “fine”. But without that anchor to the spirit of the books, it'll never feel particularly deep or lore-rich or ancient. It'll feel relatable to the point of being dumbed-down or even patronising. Once you make the leap from archetypal to topical, you never get that magic back, and it'll quickly age in a way the Jackson trilogy never will.
A female James Bond really would be the ultimate in box-ticking exercises.
It already shatters my suspension of disbelief in a film, when I see a thin woman in a dress and high heels taking out 4 geared-up, highly-trained, professional male soldiers, in hand-to-hand combat, a la Ana De Armas in No Time To Die. That's already more than what could ever make sense in any universe. To make, say, 3 films in a row based on that concept would be enough to kill the franchise outright in my opinion.
The last movie made over a billion dollars on a budget of just over 50 million. Phoenix gave a 10/10 performance and was unquestionably the star of the show, the draw, but still only pocketed ~0.4% of the harvest.
Last time leftist media made such a ridiculous show of slamming the movie for being everything from “nightmarishly grotesque” to “too horrifying to watch”, that everyone felt obliged to go see it, and audiences overwhelmingly came away with a profound sense of pity for the protagonist, much to the media's frustration.
This time time mainstream media will probably try a different tack and label the new film, “a lacklustre shadow of its predecessor” or “lacking both the spirit and sparkle of the last entry”.
I doubt all the manipulation will be necessary anyway, since once he's already become the Joker there's much less nuance at play, and much less to direct empathy towards.
@christophersays: You're giving him too much credit. There's no intention of openness and honesty here any more. That's long gone. He didn't even mention the CPU model for god sake. GameSpot users are cattle for the milking.
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