Review: If theres one video game that I suck at big time, it will be The King of Fighters. Already I was struggling back then with mastering all the Street Fighter character moves, then this game came along, where one has to master 3 characters as a group and face them off either with some artificial intelligence (now programmed to be smarter at your neighbourhood video game store), or with another human challenger who finds it easy to cream me with one character in full energy left to spare.
Things have been relatively low key for the film version of the video game, and perhaps rightly so since its not automatic that films from Japanese video games, manga and animation make that dignified live-action leap onto the silver screen, most falling short in the process – last years disastrous Dragon Ball Evolution and the lacklustre Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li being very recent examples of the bad aftertaste left at the box office. Audience these days demand a lot more, and the in-built fan base no longer representing a ready market, but a base of high expectations that are difficult to meet even as they are aware some tweaks to characters and story lines are necessary for the change of medium. This Gordon Chan directed effort however, is expected to fall short given the extremely flimsy, cookie cutter storyline that reeks, and for an action film, the cardinal sin of having limited action, almost all of which are left to the last 30 minutes.
Maggie Q marquees this film as Mai Shianui, working undercover for Terry Bogard (David Leitch) of the CIA (I hear yawns already) to hook up with Iori Yagami (Will Yun Lee) who teaches her the background myth of having a necklace and a mirror combined to open a door to another dimension. Theres a sword in the picture as well belonging to the Kusanagi clan, but one rumored to be lost, and required by chief villain Rugal Bernstein (Ray Park) in order to reign supreme in the King of Fighters MMORPG since hes stolen the other two items and tweaked the system so that his rules apply in the virtual world and is working to combine all dimensions and realms into one. Thats basically it, with the heroes trying to convince the Kusanagi clan heir Kyo (Sean Faris who plays a half-Japanese, that explains his Caucasian looks) to cough out the legendary sword, and stop Rugal from destroying civilization.
Whats neat is how Rita Augustine and Matthew Ryan Fischer managed to fuse the fantastical elements of the fights that nods at the Matrix experience, with combatants jacked in through bluetooth-like earpieces in order to fight in the virtual MMORPG dimension complete with superhuman powers from the game, though the fights during the first hour had just a very little glimpse of what the finale would promise. The King of Fighters then is a tournament where combatants rise in the ranks through each victory, though with the compromise now by Rugal, death in the dimension also means death in the real world.
What didn work, happens to be a lot of things. For starters, we have the usual cardboard characters (OK, so this is based on a video game) with CIA agents, hokey Japanese philosophy talk, and just about every situation, setting and background of the characters being extremely contrived. As mentioned the first hour of the film is talk, talk and more talk on the usual genre themes like responsibility and destiny, Then you have heroes who are reluctant and blur, and how one gets transformed from zero to hero is absolutely baffling based on pep talks from memory. The quest for the Kusunagi sword also happens in the most roundabout fashion just to bloat the films runtime, and amongst all the characters, Terry Bogard happens to be the most carelessly designed on screen with that out of place jacket and baseball cap (keeping to the game I know), with a really obnoxious, ignorant attitude, and a CIA dimwit a-hole to boot.
The fight sequences happened to be a mixed bag, though Hong Kong influences are very heavy in the way the fisticuffs are designed. Special effects inspired by the game are also limited, which is most unfortunate as the game is famed for the various combo-moves that the characters can execute, which is all but lost in the film version. Even then, whatever effects all seemed to be reserved for the extended battle sequence at the finale for an all-out duke out, and audiences will have to be patient with all the talk for the first hour before things start to get remotely interesting since all the money shots get concentrated toward the end.
Naturally movies of this nature will have an ending primed for sequels to continue where it left off especially when the box office response is positive, but my moneys on the “Nay” list. If I have to compare, then this is ahead of Dragonball and The Legend of Chun Li, but only just.
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Friday, September 17, 2010
Alpha and Omega (2010)
Alpha and Omega is a trite, forced, boring retread of The Lion King which could only have been designed by a committee without a boss. It has no vision and little charm. It has questionably computer-y animation which looks and moves terribly in 3-D. It has no fun voice performances, character development or good music. There is a basic thread of a story you may find yourself shredding trying to hold onto until the final credits, so it charts a bit higher on my scale than some lousier films, but folks, that is low praise. Run your fingers over its movie brain and you will find no grooves.
There are these animated wolves, see, in animated Wyoming, who live by wolf pack law, a strict segregation between Alphas and Omegas, except for when their two stated purposes--hunting and distracting with humor for various reasons, respectively--come into alignment.
Kate (voice of Hayden Panettiere) is "The Wolf Princess," the daughter of the leader of the pack, Winston (voiced by Danny Glover)--because kids love throwaway Tarantino references--who is coming into her own as a grown-up Alpha and learning about some of the hard choices adults and leaders must make.
Her fun-loving childhood companion, Humphrey (voice of Justin Long), pronounced "home free," an Omega with a major-league crush on Kate, is fun-loving and has a major-league crush on Kate.
Kate has only just learned about an arranged marriage with the risible but earnest Garth (voiced by Chris Carmack) designed to unite two feuding wolfpacks, when some pesky human conservationists muck everything up by tranquilizing and transporting Kate and Humphrey to Idaho to repopulate another national park with wolves. This has worked startlingly well in real life, but of course seems somewhat presumptuous to our rather pointlessly anthropomorphized cartoon wolf heroes.
So Kate and Humphrey must journey back to Wyoming, Kate to fulfill what she sees as her responsibilities to the pack, Humphrey for fun and because Kate is. Along the way, they meet not-particularly-interesting golfing goose Marcel (voiced by Larry Miller), who sometimes sounds French?(-Canadian?) and his duck caddy, Paddy, who's British or something. Maybe they were intended to be funny. The interesting animals they meet along the way have no lines, because they are animals with animal instincts, and that would be dangerously interesting.
There are lots of particular plot elements which might have been expanded into something meaningful, or useful for character development--the stratification of the wolf society, Marcel and Paddy's purposes as characters, conservation and its successes and failures, Kate and Humphrey's love story--but everything's told in shorthand, and interesting questions and happenings are instantly forgotten the few times they are raised. It's relatively inoffensive, because it engages no dramatic or humorous issues. Whatever thought may have gone into it has been rubbed out by somebody else working fast over here to make sure there are no actual thoughts left extant. Oh, don't get me wrong, it is mildly, casually sexist, racist, misogynistic and homophobic, but clearly only from cluelessness, and in no way which would require or sustain much analysis or rebuttal. (I admit I'm a bit embarrassed to write this about a talking wolf movie, but I'll leave it in because it's true.)
The film doesn't even look good. It's at least two more illustration passes away from being theatrically releasable, in my opinion. We know it's computer animation, but we're never supposed to be able to see that on the screen with incomplete, ugly blocky characters and backgrounds of what are supposed to be some of the most beautiful places in America, looking like when the scene scrolls between shots in golf video games. It makes the least interesting use of the extra dimension of 3-D films that I have seen, mostly because of blurriness, also because of bad blocking. And some fine and just-okay actors' vocal performances are wasted in a film with few emotional notes and little wit. The score, by Chris P. Bacon, is rather listless Americana which matches the unimaginative landscape.
If you're truly desperate for an animated movie, you could theoretically do worse than Alpha and Omega for an afternoon matinee, but I would urge you to reconsider your desperation level. It's not a run-screaming-from-the-theater-bad movie, it prompts more philosophical questions, like "Why are we here?" and "Did I really pay enough attention when I skimmed Dianetics?" but generally, anyone would be well advised to find a stronger and more entertaining movie, and could certainly easily do so. Why not give Alpha and Omega a solid skip.
Related link's
There are these animated wolves, see, in animated Wyoming, who live by wolf pack law, a strict segregation between Alphas and Omegas, except for when their two stated purposes--hunting and distracting with humor for various reasons, respectively--come into alignment.
Kate (voice of Hayden Panettiere) is "The Wolf Princess," the daughter of the leader of the pack, Winston (voiced by Danny Glover)--because kids love throwaway Tarantino references--who is coming into her own as a grown-up Alpha and learning about some of the hard choices adults and leaders must make.
Her fun-loving childhood companion, Humphrey (voice of Justin Long), pronounced "home free," an Omega with a major-league crush on Kate, is fun-loving and has a major-league crush on Kate.
Kate has only just learned about an arranged marriage with the risible but earnest Garth (voiced by Chris Carmack) designed to unite two feuding wolfpacks, when some pesky human conservationists muck everything up by tranquilizing and transporting Kate and Humphrey to Idaho to repopulate another national park with wolves. This has worked startlingly well in real life, but of course seems somewhat presumptuous to our rather pointlessly anthropomorphized cartoon wolf heroes.
So Kate and Humphrey must journey back to Wyoming, Kate to fulfill what she sees as her responsibilities to the pack, Humphrey for fun and because Kate is. Along the way, they meet not-particularly-interesting golfing goose Marcel (voiced by Larry Miller), who sometimes sounds French?(-Canadian?) and his duck caddy, Paddy, who's British or something. Maybe they were intended to be funny. The interesting animals they meet along the way have no lines, because they are animals with animal instincts, and that would be dangerously interesting.
There are lots of particular plot elements which might have been expanded into something meaningful, or useful for character development--the stratification of the wolf society, Marcel and Paddy's purposes as characters, conservation and its successes and failures, Kate and Humphrey's love story--but everything's told in shorthand, and interesting questions and happenings are instantly forgotten the few times they are raised. It's relatively inoffensive, because it engages no dramatic or humorous issues. Whatever thought may have gone into it has been rubbed out by somebody else working fast over here to make sure there are no actual thoughts left extant. Oh, don't get me wrong, it is mildly, casually sexist, racist, misogynistic and homophobic, but clearly only from cluelessness, and in no way which would require or sustain much analysis or rebuttal. (I admit I'm a bit embarrassed to write this about a talking wolf movie, but I'll leave it in because it's true.)
The film doesn't even look good. It's at least two more illustration passes away from being theatrically releasable, in my opinion. We know it's computer animation, but we're never supposed to be able to see that on the screen with incomplete, ugly blocky characters and backgrounds of what are supposed to be some of the most beautiful places in America, looking like when the scene scrolls between shots in golf video games. It makes the least interesting use of the extra dimension of 3-D films that I have seen, mostly because of blurriness, also because of bad blocking. And some fine and just-okay actors' vocal performances are wasted in a film with few emotional notes and little wit. The score, by Chris P. Bacon, is rather listless Americana which matches the unimaginative landscape.
If you're truly desperate for an animated movie, you could theoretically do worse than Alpha and Omega for an afternoon matinee, but I would urge you to reconsider your desperation level. It's not a run-screaming-from-the-theater-bad movie, it prompts more philosophical questions, like "Why are we here?" and "Did I really pay enough attention when I skimmed Dianetics?" but generally, anyone would be well advised to find a stronger and more entertaining movie, and could certainly easily do so. Why not give Alpha and Omega a solid skip.
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