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Y2kk Update: - Electronic Arts' James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers) -

... I own 36 Xbox games, and I believe this is my 50th review... I never really thought that I'd ever be bored enough in life, to actually write 50 goddam reviews for just one damn console. But apparently, even I underestimated the amount of worthless, free time I had waiting in the wings... not to mention how many damn crappy games I pick up for dirt used cheap, or rent for free from Blockbuster... but that's besides the point...

Well, that's half true and half false actually... Electronic Arts' James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing really surprised me when I first got it back in Spring... It was much better than I thought it would be. The third person aspect worked amazingly well, considering how crappy EA had made their first person shooters Bond games before... And to be honest? I'm tempted to say that Everything or Nothing for the Xbox is the second best Bond game of all time. Behind the ever classical legacy of Goldeneye 007 for the N64, of course...

... and normally, considering how crappy most of EA's Bond games have been, I'd saying being second behind Goldeneye really doesn't mean a lot for Everything or Nothing... but truth be told? I really did enjoy The World is Not Enough for the N64... And Everything or Nothing, presentation wise at least, kicks the shit out of every single Bond game that Electronic Arts has ever put forth... maybe even TWINE...

Now, I wasn't sure whether a third person aspect would work in a Bond game or not. And truth be told, some things just didn't work out as anticipated... Aiming is a bitch in this game. The lock-on ability normally helps, but EA really didn't think about the kind of crap players would have to go through, when trying to cycle through different enemies on screen all at the same time... And the camera in the game? While definitely above average for a third person shooter, just can't really compare to the authenticity and familiarity that a first person shooter brings... While the framerate and steadiness of the manual camera was definitely one of the better ones EA has ever implemented, it still wasn't perfect. I still had trouble finding the bad guys at times, and the camera really did go wonky thanks to the lock-on abilities at times... Everything or Nothing was great for a third person shooter. But could it really compare against the best of first person games?...

Luckily for Electronic Arts, they've been going through some sort of personal renaissance for themselves lately... Def Jam Vendetta showed promise. Their new Madden, Fifa, NBA, and NHL games all tried to improve for the first time in decades. And I absolutely loved the feel of Need for Speed: Underground... and that's definitely one thing that EA did just as well in 007 Everything or Nothing. Despite all the flaws in the game, still... the actual feel of the gameplay, the actual shaken and not stirred feel to the mood, was now more smooth and more suave and far more Bond, James Bond like than ever before... even compared to Goldeneye, I think...

I loved a lot of additions to the game... I never really cared for the spider-bots, but the grappling hook action was some of the best I've ever seen in a 3d-game... It took me a while to figure it out, that grappling was just as easy as jumping off a cliff. But once I got the hang of it? The actual rappelling simply beats the shit out of anything in the MGS or Splinter Cell series, bar none... and the car stages? The motorcycle stage? Thanks to the use of a modified Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit engine or something, the vehicles really handled themselves well in this game... I will never really enjoy the use of homing missiles and cloaking devices in a video game. The controls did feel clunky for those... But the actual feel of the wheels as you're racing against the clock?... While the helicopter and other non-terranean stages sure as hell could've used more work, the actual driving mechanics on the road were just as priceless as they ever were in the Need for Speed series... I may never truly be a fan of combining a license to kill with the license to drive in a single video game. But Electronic Arts sure as hell knows how to make a case out of it all... though as always, it took them about three games to pretty much get the formula right...

And the presentation of the game? Absolutely stunning... Truth be told, I bought this game for Shannon Elizabeth alone... Sure, I was disappointed that she looks like a disfigured CG monster in the actual game. But damn does she ever look hot, endlessly spinning in that silver silk gown of hers at the starting screen. And hell, I don't think I've ever enjoyed pausing a game so damn much in my life...

Everything or Nothing really went all out or nothing with the actors and actresses this time around... I couldn't care less for Heidi Klum, and Willem Dafoe just didn't seem to put his heart into this epic of a score... John Cleese as the ever beloved R put on a decent show, though he just pales in comparison to Bruce Campbell's stunning performances in the Spiderman games... But Mya's voice really gave the theme song to Everything or Nothing real meaning in the end. I never really liked the song itself, but the fact that it was near-movie quality was simply stunning enough for a video game... And most importantly, the addition of Pierce Brosnan as James Bond himself was what really turned the tide of the game over to the jaw-dropping side of the force. The last Bond games really suffered from a god-awful Brosnan-wannabe of a voice actor, but now that both his likeness and voice had finally been lent over to the 007 license (for perhaps the last time ever, movies included?). It's simply amazing what kind of a world of a difference that a real Bond of a voice can make...

Now, Everything or Nothing didn't feel like a Bond movie or anything. Especially with the god-awful, predictable and cliche plotline of evil nanobots in the hands of Willem Dafoe... But having Pierce Brosnan along for the ride, made the game feel much more than just a game in the end. It added a real sense of importance and authenticity to the atmosphere... and really helped to make the constant third person aspect of James Bond far more bearable than a lack of likeness ever could...

The graphics themselves weren't spectacular, and brief moments of slow down did appear from here and there... But the movie-like atmosphere of the entire game, with giant explosions here and snipers on roof-tops there, all made the feel of the game so much greater than the sum of its parts... The sound in this game was probably the best damn part of the presentation. The effects themselves weren't anything special, but all the star-studded celebrity voice work was a hell of a lot better than hearing Leo the turtle whine in an RPG for the twentieth damn time... And the music? Perhaps the best damn part of the game was the goddam music. Electronic Arts finally nailed the kind of musical score that you'd really expect from a full-out, full frontal James Bond epic... None of the tunes may have been as memorable to me as the midi ones were from Goldeneye. But almost every single stage in the game had better music than even Die Another Day seemed to have... and definitely better than any other recent Bond movie since Goldeneye, but I guess that's obviously not saying much...

Presentation wise, Everything or Nothing simply could not be beat. It was everything a gamer could hope for, especially with the sight of lovely Shannon Elizabeth sucking down the cock of a smokin' hot gun... But there were obviously flaws in the gameplay. There always are, no matter how greatly a game seems to be from first impressions...

The controls in this game were mostly pretty spot on. There's nothing more fun in the world than to mow down endless enemies with a handy MP5... But like I mentioned before, the third person perspective really screws up the lock-on aiming. And the hand to hand combat moves? While definitely comprehensive and a hell of a lot better than any other Bond game has mustered, I still was fighting the camera more than I ever was Jaws during our little encounters... Juggling through items was a bitch in Everything or Nothing. I would've rather just preferred the old tried and true Goldeneye methods, of selecting the weapons I was going to kick ass and take names with... The rappelling like I mentioned, worked absolutely masterfully in this game. But the rest of the Q-gadgets (like the toy car bomb, for example) just didn't feel right. Or felt too much like a toy car, actually...

And to be honest, I bought the game for slightly more than the perks of Elizabeth Shannon in the end... I was expecting a great co-op experience. Instead, I got absolutely the worst multiplayer Bond game since before the days even James Pond... I mean, WTF was Electronic Arts' thinking? The deathmatches were completely lame in this game, with the third person perspective and the lock-on ability ruining any kind of Goldeneye fun... And the co-op? WTF was up with the co-op? It completely felt meaningless, not even being able to play the actual real stages of the game with my brother. Hell, we couldn't even play as Bond, but rather as some ripped-off Lara Craft wannabe... And the co-op special stages themselves just felt tacked on at best, with piss poor objectives, and hard ass enemies that were simply too hard to beat. And without a difficulty setting for co-op, and definitely without any incentive to keep playing on (no plotline in multiplayer), my brother and I just gave up... and went back to Halo, the only damn decent co-op game on the entire Xbox...

I played through half of Everything or Nothing's single player mode in the end... and half of that half was great... I loved rappelling off walls, I loved shooting up terrorists with MP5s, and I even loved driving around in that god-awful Bond SUV (although don't remind me of the parking... never, ever remind me of the parking...)... But throughout those fifteen or so stages, repetition really started to settle in. Even with wacky Q-tip toys and helicopter battles, repetition and boredom eventually settled in... And call me weaksauce if you will, but the reason I never finished this game, was that even on Easy difficulty, the game was too damn hard. Finding body armor was a constant pain the ass, especially after the glory days of Halo shields... I mean, I understand if getting all the gold and platinum medals would be a challenge. But why the hell was I loosing in so many damn stages, even on Easy, when the only real problem with my gaming skills, were the goddam inadequacies of the lock-on system?... It got frustrating in the end, not being able to kill the enemies that I needed to kill when I wanted to kill them, I mean... I kept getting massacred in stages, even the straight forward ones, all thanks to annoying bad guy placements and third person controls that just didn't work... not as well as Electronic Arts would've wanted them to, at least...

Everything or Nothing was absolutely everything I ever wanted in a video game... presentation wise at least... The graphics were amongst the best the Xbox had to offer. The sound was as searing as a movie's. And the music was some of the best I've heard since the 16-bit days... And the inclusion of real actors and actresses? While I normally frown at the thought of Hollywood taking over the video game industry... if Everything or Nothing was any indication of the future... then I welcome the future that Electronic Arts brings...

... except for the piss poor plotline in the game... or the awkward third person perspective controls... or hell, even the challenge of the driving stages were a deterrent... or hell, now that I think about it, why would I ever want a game to be a movie? I've always loved innocent little Nintendo-like gameplay mechanics... it's no wonder why the big box-office budget of Everything or Nothing just got boring in the end...

... afterall... you can only watch so much of a movie, before you just roll your eyes and turn it off...

Ah, yes... Electronic Arts' always manages to create a great game, and then breaks it down with a bunch of flaws in the hopes of fixing them up for the sequels... good ol' EA...

But Everything or Nothing was still a renaissance for the series. It was simply light years ahead of any other Bond game they've ever made, and still one of the best and most polished games I've experienced all damn year... If this is an example of the new Electronic Arts, willing to go all out with everything or nothing for its products, then yes... I do welcome the future that Electronic Arts brings... even if it brings a host of god-awful Hollywood-wannabe clones along for the ride...

... unless the next 50 Xbox reviews of mine are all games, from the ever increasing EA monopoly of a mangled and maimed sort of market...

... Goldeneye: Rogue Agent... now there's a game I'd personally kick EA's ass over... I'd go all out, everything or nothing on its wannabe ass... but that's a story, for another cliche, Bond villain kind of day...

Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: Covenant and Stargate Atlantis: Underground Reviews (Spoilers) -

Now, at first glance, I really didn't think I'd like Covenant... I mean, yet another earth-centric episode? Yet another NID or "Trust" sort of bottleneck for the show? What were the writers thinking, right? Why were they leaving all their better (though rehashed) ideas for Stargate Atlantis instead?... well, that was my first impressions, at least...

But I'm a sucker for episodes featuring n00bs beyond the Stargate... And while last week's episode sort of disappointed me in that aspect, I gotta admit that Covenant was the first Stargate SG-1 episode that I've absolutely loved this year. And it's not hard to see why, knowing my newbie fetishes and all... I loved the old skool music that played when Mr. Sheffield from the Nanny (Alec Colson, I mean) saw the Stargate for the very first time. And I was just amazed as he was, seeing the New Alpha Site in all his subterranean glory (how the heck did we build that in such short notice?), and ironically meeting "Captain Sheffield" for the very first time... I was like a kid in a candy store this episode, I really was. Boys like toys, and I gotta say, damn I want my own F-302! Damn I want my own Alpha Site. And hot damn, I want my own pet Asgard... Even the sets in this episode all blew me away. Alec Colson's workplace really did seem like a aerospace engineer's dream come true. And the inevitable (and welcome) return of Julia Donovan from the Prometheus incident led to some really well designed news casts as well... I was relieved that Brian wasn't really a traitor, but rather just a Judas that was really scared.... And Thor! I've always loved Thor at his comedic finest. Everybody loves the poor bastard, especially when wondering what to get the president for what seems to be the presidential birthday... I loved the wonder in the female assistance's eyes when telling Colson about the whole clone disappearing act. Plus, she was pretty damn hot. A lot hotter than Fran Drescher at least... And I always love it when characters see the big Stargate whoosh for the very first time, or meet Thor and act like he's a child or something. These were the little moments that made seasons 2 and 3 seem so wondrous and magical to me. And I always seem to get all nostalgic when yet another newbie meets the Stargate universe for the very first time...

... and aww... Thor even got to be a TV star! And notice that he technically didn't lie even once on the news... smart little bugger...

Not every character had their turn to shine this episode. I mean, Teal'c only got two lines, to fill his quota for the week apparently... Daniel Jackson didn't have much to say, but he was just so infectious with his jovial callousness this episode, smirking at the sight of Emett Bregman messages, and just shrugging his shoulders after Thor and Jack beamed to the president... Jack himself probably felt most like a general than ever before. By completely denying everything with a single focused mind, he reminded me a lot of Hammond back in season 2. And you gotta love the fact that he was ten seconds early on his big "marker" speech. You gotta love the fact he tried to haggle for a hyperdrive as a birthday gift... Dammit, I want one too... Give me the Prometheus, dammit! It looked so damn adorable in that Antarctic picture and all...

The episode was all about the hopefully non-romantic relationship between Sam and Alec Colson though. With Sam playing the Nanny (or his tour guide) most of the ride through... I loved Carter in this episode. I loved the way she discredited Alec on TV, with a live alien holographic broadcast to boot... I loved the way she took him out on a joy ride in the F-302 he helped build. I've always wanted to feel one of those things in the air, and Sam always makes it seem that damn enjoyable... I loved the fact she kept stiffling Donovan whenever it came to the truth. I loved the fact that she really didn't want to make Colson look like a fraud - she was just following orders, from Jack no less... but I didn't care much for the big revelation of "The Trust" this episode. And I didn't find her whole suicidal solution at the end rather convincing, if I had killed my best friend through fear at least... And about Alec Colson? I loved the fact that he wasn't an nutcase, and that he figured all of the aliens-on-earth crap with high tech satellites, debris clean-up outsourcing, and grow-it-yourself Asgard kits. But still, Alec Colson was a closed minded jackass for much of the episode. Though even I have to admit, sometimes I do wonder about the "knowing if you have cancer" argument. I really would wish that the government would come clean on things, in reality at least... Not in the Stargate universe though. God knows I wouldn't want to deal with UN based episodes and goddam anti-Goa'uld oppression protests in NYC...

Covenant was an almost perfectly written episode, that took its earth-centric focus to the absolute limit... As soon as an Asgard showed up on television, I was sucked right into the episode. Throughout the commercial break, I couldn't help but think up every single possible way that an Asgard could ever have been captured by a corporation... And since when has that ever happened? Me, actually in awe over the events in a Stargate SG-1 episode?... Covenant really made me feel like a Stargate n00b all over again. I mean, just to see that Stargate ring, for the very first time after a million different times?... And me being Mr. No-Name Nostalgia?... no wonder I loved this episode so...

For the first time in a very long time, Stargate Atlantis was secondary to its big brother in arms, in both timeslot and IvanFian favoritism at least. But that's not to say that Underground wasn't a good episode in the end... It wasn't the most exciting of hours gone by, but knowing that the Genii are going to become villains in the near future, I really did feel a sense of urgency and dread in this episode. And the Wraith ship?... While the Wraith themselves are just meaningless threats, their ships themselves have a real Aliens-type vibe to them, neural peptide controls and all. I've always had a thing for biological ships, and combine that with the Species 8472 feel of the Hive ship's lighting? Add in all the cocooned humans, ala Aliens?... then you have one damn fine action scene for an episode, even without much action in the end...

Plotwise, I really was absorbed into the whole Atlantis universe this week. But character wise? Not so much... Ford was the most pathetic of all characters. He was truly the token black guy, where his only chemistry was with Teyla in that one instance she actually made a joke. Teyla herself was a joke, except whenever dealing with former Harvest ceremonies and her childhood friend Sora (who was damn cute, by the way... why couldn't they have chosen that actress for Telya's role, dammit?)... Elizabeth Weir was completely at her most annoying this episode. All she ever does is condemn Sheppard on the decisions he makes, and then just goes along with them, even to the point of offering C4 and nuclear weapons. The only time her character was ever decent, was when she was mocking Sheppard about his rivalry with Bates. And it certainly didn't hurt that she looked damn fine in that white tank top of hers, but I digress... Sheppard himself may have had a lot of classic lines. I especially loved the fact that his food negotiations turned him into a nuclear arms dealership, and that he didn't particularly care. But for the most part? Except for perhaps his stand-off against The Genii at the end, he really wasn't serious enough for the feel of the episode. I mean, showing off C4 to farmers?... MacKay was the only character I truly loved in Underground. Because he made me envious, dammit!... I've always loved how arrogant he is, and I sincerely hope he never changes. I loved how he kept ranting off about his grade sixth science bomb, his fondness of being fondled by the CIA, and the fact that he didn't even win the science fair that year (serves him right, considering A-bombs are damn primitive, even for us Canadians...)... I loved the fact that everything he gloated about his A-bomb knowledge was actually real, and I understood it all. And I'm sure one day it'll come back to haunt him, that all his arrogant revelations about weapons of mass destruction, will help the Genii nuke the hell out of some innocent planet...

... now, if only more races would just keep their secret, hidden, underground-lair hatches locked, then this could've all been avoided...

I loved MacKay's interactions with all the Genii. He was their hero, being the beloved geek and all... But the Genii themselves weren't exactly the villains I was hoping them to be. With just WW2 weapons, they didn't seem so threatening... But I personally was surprised that they somehow made a primitive interface to the alien Wraith computer data device... Colm Meaney, yet another actor making the Trek from the Star Trek universe, was at his absolute Irish meanest. And hell, I'll love to see Sora back one of these days, with that pretty little face of hers... And while Underground may not have been the best episode ever, it certainly set things up well for the rest of the season... We saw yet another example of a race so desperate to fight off the Wraith, that it really makes the threat seem that much more imminent... Sora now blames Teyla for her father's death. The Genii are desperate to get their hands on some Puddle Jumper ships. Sheppard got to have some chemistry with Weir again. And we figured out there's more than 60 Hive ships out there, a threat that suddenly feels so much more real after this onr episode alone... afterall, the build up now is really, umm... building...

Unfortunately for Underground, I enjoyed SG-1's Covenant episode a lot more than I did Stargate Atlantis. But I gotta give props to Underground for one thing at least... it was damn funny to see Amish farmers carrying machine guns out of nowhere... and damn, Weir in a white tank top?... count me in then for the rest of the series...

You know, there's a few things that I regret about this noname website of mine...

I regret that my writing sucks. I regret that nobody ever visits this website... I regret that I don't have a PS2 so that I could review and bash all of Sony's games... and I regret, never reviewing The Last Samurai... because it's the one movie in the past two years that probably was damn good enough to actually get a 9.0 from me...

... well, 8.5 at least... points off, for trying to make suicide look like the trendy thing to do, but I digress...

Anyhew, Tom Cruise really surprised me with his performance in The Last Samurai. It was probably the best movie I watched from last year. And I just feel bad, that I never did watch it last year. I waited until the DVD was released, since the trailers of Tom Cruise just looked so damn bad at the time... And truth be told, I almost felt the same way about Collateral this year. The trailers all seemed unremarkable, with Jamie Foxx of In Living Color trying to be a serious actor for once, and Tom Cruise going all white with the evil hair and all... But this year, I made sure not to miss out on the movie that all the critics were talking about...

Last year, I missed out on The Last Samurai, simply because I was more bored with Tom Cruise than I was with Bennifer... but this year, I wasn't ready to make the same mistake twice... And was it worth it?...

Collateral was a solid movie, all the way through. I can honestly say that except for a few short moments, there's not a single boring scene in the entire damn movie. And that's quite a rare thing for me to say, to claim that a two hour movie never once got boring. That's truly the definition of solid, a term I rarely ever use for anything I ever watch... But at the same time, I think my nostalgic memories of The Last Samurai clouded my better judgment. I expected a complete miracle from Collateral, to simply knock me out on the floor and wow me with its ever deep and trendy suicidal character meanings. And Collateral just didn't do that... well, that wowing part of it, at least... It was a solid movie all the way through, and it never once got boring. But it never once got great either... and sometimes, it's hard to figure out exactly why...

The cinematography in the film was probably the best I've seen all year. And the writing was definitely some of the best I've experienced in the last few years of movies, with just two characters constantly lighting up the screen in a single night of contrast... But I just don't know. The movie was good, if not great. But take the music for example... I can complement it, that the score always seems to blend perfectly with the scenes in the background. But then I can also complain, that except for the night club scene, no music particularly stands out at all in the film... Is that a good thing or not? I'm not sure. All I know, was that the music was as solid as the film itself. A perfect microcosm, of a movie that flowed perfectly well... a movie with near perfect pacing... yet just never hit the mark, never once hit its true stride, when it came to true excellence... and it's hard to place a finger exactly on why...

As soon as Jada Pinkett Smith stepped into the car, I knew she would be a target on the bad guy's list. And when I realized that she was a lawyer as well?... well... I was just counting down the minutes until Jamie Foxx would inevitably try to save her... poor whipped bastard...

When Vincent was reminiscing about the story on a subway, how a dead man had people sitting right next to him without ever once noticing, I just joked to myself then and there... that poor Vincent was going to die on a subway, just for dramatic irony's sake...

... I, umm... didn't actually expect it to happen though. But it just shows you the kind of predictability that Collateral had in the end... and yet, you know what? You know what was really unpredictable? How'd I react to it all. The predictability, I mean...

... even after guessing what was going to happen every step of the way, my legs were still shaking by the time Annie and Max were hiding in the subway cars, with Vincent nipping at their heels like some sort of deranged Santa Claus... And that was perhaps the biggest clause of a paradox with this film... No matter how predictable it was, the film just managed to use that to its advantage. By foreshadowing the future (like letting us know that Vincent was going to off the Daniel the jazz player, and then gave us the whole friendly conversation that made us hope he wouldn't?), by giving hints of what was to come, I actually somehow anticipated every single scene that would come... Every single scene was like a teaser for the next. And there wasn't really a single moment that I didn't enjoy. A surprising paradox indeed...

Well, okay... So the police moments really did feel awkwardly placed, completely ruining the mood of the movie... I've always had a thing against movies where every cop but one was a complete idiot... I mean sure, the cameras couldn't see a second person in the cab. But why the hell must movies so often make bone-headed cops who are so damn sure of themselves, whenever they decide to eliminate the wrong guy?... The only cop moment I did enjoy, was when they were all cannon fodder for Vincent's target practice in the Blade II rave scene... I've always had a thing for red shirts, as long as they aren't complete dumbasses at least... and Collateral failed to pay its dues in that retrospect at least...

But thank God, the movie wasn't about the police. Hell, the movie didn't even need any characters but Vincent and Max... This entire movie was based on the relationship between these two, with everything else surrounding them as mere frosting. And I really do believe that Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx really did deliver... in ways that surprised me, even after The Last Samurai... even after Bennifer, though we shall never speak of that again...

Max wasn't really a deep character or anything. Most of his development was based on his unwillingness to tell the truth... I mean, after 12 years of being a cab driver, he was still claiming that his dream of a limousine company was right around the corner? Poor whipped bastard... But we as an audience really got to identify with him. For all those lost dreams we've had as well. For all those lies we've told ourselves and our mothers... I mean, Max was definitely a good guy, giving cute girls tips on how to save money, and even being honest with Vincent about how long it'd take until the next drive by shooting... And I was surprised. I really was with Jamie Foxx's character... I mean, this was the same damn actor that made a fool of himself with Jim Carrey on In Living Color? And yet here he was, in living colour himself, pretending to laugh yet never really laughing, when hearing a heart-breaking story from a man who was about to die in his very own club that night...

Michael Mann has a thing about his movies, where his films just can't be appreciated in parts. They just seem to come together as a whole. Only as a whole. Like a Canadian donut with maple dip, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean... And Collateral was perhaps his greatest example of that. Of the donut effigy of an analogy, at least..

Because every single situation that happened to Max just felt right... Nothing felt anti-climatic. Everything just kept escalating and escalating, until my legs were goddam shaking by the time he was running up and down those escalators to the subways... Now, sure I was complaining in the back of my mind, that he should've tried to crash his Taxi much sooner in the film (since he must've known Vincent wasn't going to leave any witnesses alive, including him). But that doesn't change the fact that somehow, just somehow, this film really made me identify with the poor whipped bastard of a character. I really did feel threatened, just like Max was in so many scenes... From the two police officers who pulled him over, to the idiot gangsters who got themselves killed, to even the poor bastard who got his neck ripped off after Max mingled with the in crowd, I actually cared if Vincent was going to take down some noname, useless characters on the side... Because the feeling of guilt Max would have, of utter helplessness that he would feel, from putting those people into that kind of jeopardy? I don't know how, but Michael Mann just made that all seem real... Me, actually caring about extra actors paid $50 just to dance on the sidelines?... it's a rare thing, for a movie to be so intimate that it almost feels real... kudos to Michael Mann, for not being Michael Moore...

Or was it Tom Cruise who deserves the props?... He really impressed me with The Last Samurai. And he impressed me yet again with his Vincent Lecavalier character (... yes, I hate the Tampa Bay Lightning really that much...) ... Now, there really isn't much to mention about Vincent, character development wise at least. Probably the only thing of real note was his reluctance to ever kill Jamie Foxx's character... Some of that could be blamed on the mutual respect that was earned, after Max had the guts to destroy the hit list in front of his very mother. And some of that could be blamed on the fact, that he still needed Max's face around (in case Felix would ever come looking for him again...)... And yet even without any words, just from the look on Vincent's face after remembering his dead father, you could somehow tell that he was refusing to kill Max... not just because he was getting through to him, psych 101 style... not just because he was identifying with him... but because somehow, just somehow... I think Tom Cruise said beyond words, beyond the script... that his character... kinda wanted to die... and he wanted to die at the hands of a person who deserved to kill him...

I have to give props to the man... Sure, I got sick of all his goddam preaching, about Rwanda and how damn callous people are in the world. And many of Vincent's lines were just too damn stereotypically "evil", that it makes almost every psychotic killer movie these days look original (I personally thought The Three was a hell of a lot better...)... But what truly was original, was just the way Tom Cruise would play every look, and hint at every smile. He had this kind of bastardized reverence and reserveness to him, that made almost every single scene he had with Max an absolute treat for the audience... I loved the way he threatened to kill Max's mother, almost as if he said it under his breath. Almost as if he didn't even care to say it... I loved the way Tom played the later scenes, half scared and half hoping that Max would crash the Taxi into the side of an incoming car... And although I'll always hate the movie for the cliche cellphone dying scene, and I'll always hate just how damn idiotic Max was with the goddam gun (fucking just shoot him a dozen times on the fucking floor, you fucking idiot... God, Max deserved to die after a dumbass move like that...), I still have got to admit that the final fight scenes were simply amazing... Even without much action. Even with all the silence... Hell, especially from the silence. Especially from the lack of words...

I don't know how Michael Mann did it. I don't know how Tom Cruise did it. But dammit, just Vincent staring at two damn subways, not knowing which one to pick?... it's the little things in life you treasure. And this movie was just goddam full of the little things in life that truly do matter...

... which is why I seemed to care... Vincent, as callous of a character as he is, made me care...

... dramatic irony I suppose... I doubt I would've ever noticed him on the subway...

... end spoilers... although those weren't really that many spoilers, me thinks...

A Michael Mann movie is truly only worthy as the sum of its parts... The trailer to Collateral never looked great. And all the plot synopses for the film just felt too damn simple to ever make this movie seem like one of the true greats of the summer... hell, I almost missed out on the film, simply because its quality could never be exemplified outside of the movie experience itself...

But Tom Cruise really pulled through... Jamie Foxx really surprised the hell out of me... And hell, Jada Pinkett Smith even had her best performance in a movie yet (although considering The Matrix trilogy was her last big gig? I guess that's really not saying much...)...

So many of the little things in this movie were just so great... From a bunch of flowers bought for a mother, to the sight of a goddam simple speedometer reaching 100mph, to even the goddam counting of floors in a goddam elevator on the rise... I don't know how, I don't really know why, but just the simplest things in this simple little movie just goddam worked, and worked so goddam well... It was a movie that we could all relate to. It was a movie that could've happened in real life and we'd never really notice... It was a movie that was truly threatening. It was a movie that made me laugh (though not very often). It was a movie that made me care. And it was a movie that entertained me all the way through, just from the interactions between two amazing actors that I never would've thought were amazing just one year ago... A solid movie and an even more solid performance from all the cast, no doubt... no doot aboot it...

Now, I can always complain that while every scene was enjoyable, no specific scene was ever truly memorable... While Shrek 2 had the Hero scene, and Spiderman 2 even had Raindrops, what does Collateral have? Absolutely nothing that I'll have stuck in the back of my head for the rest of the goddam summer... as short lived as the rest of this summer will be...

... well, at least the name of "Collateral" gives me a ton of puns to choose from, whenever I feel like annoying a poor whipped bastard... I just can't believe I haven't used in any in this review yet... sparing you from any Collateral damage indeed...

The point is, pretty much nothing in the movie really stood out as great... But absolutely nothing in the movie stood out as bad either, and that's all that really matters in the end... Collateral was two straight hours of one of the most enjoyable rides I have ever had in a Taxi in my entire life...

... except for that one time with Jodie Foster, at least... quite a ride I had with her, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean...

Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: Affinity and Stargate Atlantis: Poisoning the Well Reviews (Spoilers) -

Stargate SG-1 really hasn't had the best of seasons so far... While none of its episodes have been particularly boring or anything, it's just that... none of them have been really good either, you know? As if the writers were holding something back... hopefully for the second half of the season, like they did with season 7...

Now, Affinity was definitely one of the more enjoyable episodes of the season. And it's not hard to see why I would have an affinity for Affinity... While it did annoy me a bit, that simply because he's black, Teal'c would have a whole African-American vibe to him in his apartment, I must say that I was pleasantly enjoyed at how interesting a Teal'c episode like this could be... and why? Well... Erica Durance did a superb job as his neighbour Krista. But since I don't like the name of Krista, let's just call her Lois Lane, shall we?... And this Lois? Well, she did a good job in her role, a hell of a lot better than she did on Andromeda, but her acting skills I definitely did not see... What I did see however, was all that she needed to be Lois Lane though. She had wonderful chemistry with both Daniel Jackson and Teal'c, simply because she was hot as hell in all those urban tight ass outfits of hers... If this is how she's gonna look on Smallville season 4? Then maybe there is hope for the show afterall... And there was definitely some hope for Affinity, as long as she was motel easy, and as long as I could stare at Lois Lane all episode long...

... yup... much better than she was on Andromeda... small Smallville weeks in review to come...

Okay, so I enjoyed most of the Teal'c and Krista scenes. I may never like the sight of martial art training montages in television episodes, but I seem to always have a thing for characters who don't know anything about the Stargate, yet get all wrapped up in its internal affairs... That's why I enjoyed Chimera so much last season: because Pete Shanahan, the stalker, was actually hilariously bewildered in his fight against Osiris... Unfortunately, he wasn't as inept in Affinity. Instead, we got his quite early proposal to Samantha Carter, who somehow took two damn weeks to even muster up an answer... I mean, hello? Two weeks for a 'yes'? Doesn't that tell her something? I'm not really sure... All I do know, is that I wasn't a huge fan of her character arc this episode (though Pete was quite impressive in his apartment detective work), but Carter still entertained me nonetheless, with her lovely rant about what it means to be in love. Just the look on Daniel's face when Sam went on a Cosmo tangent was simply priceless... And I did feel a little something when O'Neill was staring at the ring Pete had given Sam. Just the way he'd shut the box lid tight, you could tell he was feeling something, even if Jack wasn't showing it on his face... That was definitely his best moment of the episode, as small and subtle as it was. You could sense the jealousy, yet no hint of hostility somehow. And you gotta admire that in an actor...

Alas, Jack O'Neill didn't do anything else special, besides whine to that useless Kendrick guy. And Daniel? Well, he got to stare at Ms. Lois Lane for a moment, and gave a nice quip how every rule has an exception. But his later scenes with the ex-NID "Trust" weren't any better than the annoying NID ever was before... The episode belonged to Teal'c, and for the most part, he did a pretty damn good job. The apple throwing was a nice touch, and it was nice that he was finally honoured with the Serpent Guard etched into a skateboard... The story has a nice moral too: nice guys finish last. He was being the hero of the neighbourhood, but that just wasn't good enough - not when there's a bunch of annoying NID pricks out there, willing to take advantage of his heroism... The NID themselves perhaps ruined the episode. While I hope the symbols they got translated will have some meaning in later episodes, I've just never liked the NID guys. They're just all smug and arrogant, yet really have no purpose beyond their one-dimensional evilness. And WTF? They got an Asgard transporter from where? Osiris' ship from last year?... How the hell could they get to the ship before the air force did, I will never know. Hence, all the annoyances and stuff...

Affinity wasn't a great episode. Bad martial art montages, scenes in the motel, and the return of the NID definitely kept it off my favourites list... But the acting and the comic relief this episode definitely was strong enough to make it perhaps the most enjoyable SG-1 episode since New Order... and probably the most compelling episode until Lois Lane dumps Teal'c for yet another superhero...

Affinity was good this week... but for the umpteenth week in a row, Atlantis was better... The good thing was, Affinity was decent enough that Atlantis' Poisoning the Well wasn't that much better than its Big Brother. Or was it that simply because Poisoning the Well wasn't really good in the first place?... It's quite often that I end up hating one half of an episode, and liking the other. But Poisoning the Well broke hell with all rules, segregating itself into something likable for five minutes, then something to hate for another five minutes, then vice versa... and the cycle repeats... I literally sat through this episode, wondering how the hell some scenes could be so damn good, followed by yet another scene that just grated the eyes at best...

Both the best and worst part of Poisoning the Well was definitely the moral dilemma... On the one hand, I enjoyed at first all the talks about what it means to "defend" against the Wraith. I saw both sides of that argument at least, of the new wonder drug potentially being a reason for the Wraith to kill off their entire population... But then the show just had to drive the wedge even further, didn't it? One by one sequentially, the show just kept pilling on the moral dilemmas, until there were simply far too many, and not all of them were good... Should we risk a terminally ill patient as a test, even if he's willing to die for a cause? Is it right to mass produce the medicine, without all the hundreds of trials required by the FDA? Is it right to inoculate the people, when half of them will die?... Sure, each and every one of these dilemmas has a place in the modern world. But they were all shoved together, like one bad omelet, into this one episode alone... and it just didn't work... Especially considering it was so one-sided per team. The 1918 aliens wanted one thing, and the SGA team wanted another... I was hoping that maybe Teyla would be the Daniel Jackson, taking the opposite perspective of her leader. But instead, she was just a useless sheep in this episode, sucking up to the boss... even though out of all people, I'd figure she'd be the one to want to take the fight back to the Wraith...

Actually, that was another problem with Poisoning the Well. None of the character particularly came off well... Ford became even more Mayweather than usual, except for his one badass "bye, Steve" line... Now, I was happy that Dr. Weir kept her hair and warddrobe. But the scene where she's deciding about the fate of the terminally ill test? It just dragged on and on, to the point where I wished she would change her hair for some variety... MacKay had his worst episode of the season as well. Besides his Geothermal remarks, he had nothing to contribute at all... And while Sheppard definitely had his moments with "Steve", the montador of a captured Wraith, he just didn't have enough witty lines to really make me care... Now, I enjoyed most of the Wraith scenes. The poor bastard was starving to death, and Sheppard teasing him about his food "just being out of reach" was great. And the idea of experimentation? Always a good thing. Although I wish they would've implanted a chip in his brain so he couldn't feed on humans, and make him a champion, but I digress... But besides pointing P90s everywhere without a single shot fired, did Sheppard really do anything? I loved his rivalry with the poor Wraith bastard. But I was hoping the Wraith would survive, you know?... instead, the rivalry just died, with no real "humanized" villain on the series any longer...

But the episode belonged to Dr. Beckett, the one truly defined character of the show (who ironically isn't even part of the cast). And those were the few moments that I truly did enjoy the episode... Now, it annoyed me that the SGA writers once again recasted a SG-1 character. And it was just ironic that Perna would come back in yet another episode about a wonder drug (and she'll probably find a way to come back again, now that she's dead)... But the cuteness between her and Dr. Beckett was undeniable... I loved just how adorable she was every time she was amazed at our technology. And the talk of us being "spoiled rich" back home where the Wraith don't show, actually gave me good remembrances of Affinity the hour before... Now, if any scene should've been cut, it was the drawn out scene where Beckett lectures Perna on the ethics of being a doctor. The entire episode was about ethics, so we didn't really need to be hit over the head with an ugly stick about it all... But still, it was touching at the end of the episode. 96% of the people voted to make themselves weapons against The Wraith, and Perna was amongst the first. The contrast between her dying happy, and Beckett believing she died needlessly, was perhaps the only strong thing the episode did morally...

Poisoning the Well was not the finest hour of the series, especially considering every character but Sheppard and Beckett was shunned... and if only because nobody ever realized that this protein vaccine could be turned into some sort of bioweapon bomb... But still, Poisoning the Well was definitely a memorable episode. If only because poor damn Steve bit off quite more than he could chew... and if only because Stargate is really starting to pull a Smallville, by hiring as many cute actresses as they can find these days...

... mmm... I'd sure like to poison Lois Lane's well... but, umm... that's a small Smallville week in review for another day...

You know, I kind of miss the 80s... Am I willing to sacrifice all of society's sane fashion sense, just for some more decent movies for guys who like movies? I don't really know... BUT, I will tell you one thing... I do miss Predator.. and I do miss Aliens, even after how damn bad Alien Resurrection turned out to be (but let us never speak of that horrid film again...)...

There hasn't been nearly enough decent movies this century for guys who like movies... Terminator 3 may have been a favourite of mine, but my friends are still smoking and mocking that opinion of mine to this very damn day. And certain movies like Bad Boys 2 and Freddy vs Jason definitely did have their share of moments, but neither franchise really had the kind of pull to make any of us alpha males froth in anticipation of their respective releases...

But an amazing thing happens whenever Aliens and Predators are mentioned in the same damn sentence...

... hell, I think I saw some people cry in joy when the Alien and Predator first faced off in this film... Hell, I think I was one of those people...

Alien vs Predator has been a long time coming, and sometimes it's really hard to explain why... We guys just can't get enough of this "versus" crap when it comes to ass kicking series characters. I mean, why else would the Marvel vs DC comic book series be one of the most memorable series of battles in the history of graphical novels? Why else would every single living man and child on the face of the planet all agree, that Captain Picard versus Captain Kirk would always have the English Frenchie end up on top? Hopefully not in a 'shipper way on a starship, mind you... I mean, what other meaning is there in life, if guys can't dream of what would inevitably happen when an Alien gets locked in a room with a Predator, ready to 'wrassle it out with some kind of oil involved?...

... fantasies, I know... I'm sure... but definitely the kind that dreams are made of...

Alien vs Predator, in theory, is the dream match of every single freakin' guy on the face of the planet. And professors I'm sure, have written entire goddam rants of psychology reports on why, just oh why exactly why... And while I can always come up with those hokey, jokey, and half-hockey Oedipal Complex half-assed explanations of my own, the fact of the matter remains... I really don't care why... All I care about, is that me and my brother have been ever patiently waiting for Alien vs Predator to arrive in theatres, ever since Aliens first graced our television screens in the 1980s. It's been a long time coming... and definitely a longer time cumming...

Was Alien vs Predator everything that we cracked it up to be in the end? Is it even possible for the movie to be everything we wanted it to be in the end?... unfortunately, the film wasn't the greatest footnote for the summer blockbuster season. And part of that was because Paul Anderson just can't seem to make a decent movie if his very life depended on it (which I thought it would have been, considering how damn bad Resident Evil was)... The biggest gripe that so many fans had for the film was obviously that there was no character development in the movie. Every single member of the cast basically entered the pyramid with exactly the same damn personality they had when they left... even if they didn't leave in their own bodies...

But really, at least Paul Anderson understood one damn thing... Why the hell would someone ever want to go into an Alien or Predator movie, hoping for some goddam awful character development? Sure, Ripley was well developed in Aliens. And arguably, Arnold grew as an actor from the original Predator... But really, the name of the movie says it all: Alien vs Predator. None of us really cared if Alexa became a damn sympathizer with Weyland when it was all said and done. None of us cared if she even survived, mind you... All we cared about, were Aliens and Predators getting their Stella, steel toed grooves on. And in that sense, the film did manage to somewhat deliver...

... spoilers for those two of you who can't figure out the whole movie from the apple.com trailers...

It was impossible for Alien vs Predator to live up to the hype. But for the first half of the movie, I really did think the movie had a chance of being one of the greatest in either series... A lot of people complained that the first act of the story was too damn slow, with all the characters talking about nothing more than technobabble aboard an icebreaker ship that no-one really gave a damn about... But personally? I actually enjoyed the first third of the movie pretty damn much. Even if no character was developed, I was still left in anticipation on the ship, if only because we as an audience all knew that the entire crew was nothing more than cannon fodder... While some just claimed the movie was moving along too slowly, I thought that the first act of the film really helped to build some suspense. Even if we all knew who drilled the hole in Antarctica with a thermal cutter from space, and even if we all knew what happened to the Whalers in the 1900s, I still thought the film was pacing itself rather damn decently for a film of this scope. And I personally thought all the little personal touches to the film, like Bishop's moment with the letter cutter, and that one second of father-and-daughterness between Mr. Millennium and Lex (which led nowhere, might I add), helped build the suspense in the first half hour better than even Aliens did back in the day...

And the second act of the film? It was worth the price of admission alone... Now, sure we can all complain that for some goddam reason, pretty much all the damn good fight scenes were goddam ruined for us on Apple.com. And sure, a lot of fans of both series are still whining that it makes no sense, that the Predator boomerang could be immune to Alien acid but every other piece of weaponry they had was not. And hell, I even heard complaints from my brother's own friends after the movie, that the Predators were too damn wussy in their earlier fights (ignoring the fact that we'd be wussy too if we didn't have guns...). And of course, I guess I can complain that the humans simply died off too damn early in this film for any of us to care. Hell, I think I even laughed out loud when whats-his-face gave a speech about never giving up on their children, only to predictably die something like ten seconds later...

But dammit, the Alien and Predator fights were amazing in the second act of the film! The Aliens took everything but the Predator's gun to heart (quite literally), and they just still kept on ticking... Every single guy in the theatre felt chills run up and down their spines when the two nasties of the universe faced off against one another. And I'm telling you, that for the few battles that there were, no-one but die-hard Predator fans were disappointed by the outcomes... The name of the movie was Alien vs Predator, and it was only natural that the humans would be the monkeys in the middle. Sure, it sucked that the best of the humans barely even got a shot off in the movie... But while the team was still alive, being hunted by the Predators for stealing their guns? I personally thought the action in the film was the absolute best of the year so far (except for maybe the Shrek 2 Hero sequence)... The Predator cloaking devices were definitely improved over their 80s counterparts. And while the lack of R rating definitely ruined the human gore factor in the movie, I can't say the same about anything dealing with green blood in a film about aliens...

The first half of the film made me Ripley believe. Regardless of what the rest of the net said, the first hour or so of the film definitely had me on the edge of my seat... My only real complaint was that there simply weren't enough battles between Aliens and Predators to satisfy the male bravado ego (if it's even possible to satisfy the male ego). At just an hour an a half long, this film was just too damn short for its own good... and my only other real complaint?... well, I knew the film would go downhill after almost every single human died... but still, I didn't expect the film to become that damn bad...

My brother and I were only sure of one thing when going into the theatre: that Bishop Weyland would survive, if only to bring more credit to the Alien conspiracies out there... And then what the fuck happens? He dies? He dies a completely meaningless death? WTF?...

And from that point on, the movie just went completely downhill... First, we got a horribly in-your-face montage of a completely Stargate-ripped-off backstory, of the Predators being in control of planet earth in the past. And then we got absolutely no decent action between Aliens and the humans later on, because what good is running around from Aliens when you don't even have a frickin' gun leftover in a guy movie?... And then the worst part of the entire film happened... Just when I thought things would pick up again. Just when the crowd nearly cheered at the sight of the triforce laser pointer aimed at poor Lexa's head... Just when I was hoping to finally see some decent Alien vs Predator action again... then?... well...

... the two goddam enemies become best damn friends... Lexa and the Predator, I mean...

I mean, it wasn't the truce that annoyed me to hell. It was just how damn badly it was done in the end... It just looked completely pathetic of the Predator, to care for Lexa enough to actually arm her with a weapon. And even if he wanted help to finish off the Aliens, at least the director could've made the Predator seem more badass, by using Lexa as bait or some crap like that. And then we got the horrible running montage! I mean, like most sci-fi alien outfits, the Predator only looked decent up close. But far away, running like ass in a clunky ass clown suit? Honestly, I think the entire damn theatre started laughing at just how bad the whole nuke scene was in the end... And even the fight against the Alien Queen couldn't save the film, especially since the Predator got wasted, and especially because there weren't any frickin' guns in the movie anymore!... What point is there to a guy's movie, if there aren't any frickin' guns? I ask you that...

The idea of a truce wasn't a bad idea. Hell, it was even in the comic books... But the execution of it was just so damn laughably woeful, that it almost wiped out the mind-numbing orgasmic taste that the first hour of the film had left in my stomach...

... end spoilers... not like those were spoilers to anyone with Quicktime and internet access, of course...

Alien vs Predator was absolutely the movie my brother and I have been hyped about for years... And obviously, considering the stakes that had been stacked against it, there was absolutely no way that the film was ever going to meet our most wild of monster expectations.

But the movie really did give me hope, you know?... The first half of the film was half full of mounting suspense, and half full of the most amazing battles that a guy has seen since Aliens and the first Predator movie last left American theatres. And just a sci-fi geek, the whole atmosphere of the film was amazing... The special effects? I have to give absolute kudos to those. Because for the first time ever, I must admit that CG characters actually looked as damn good as the models in the movie. Hell, I'd even say that the Alien Queen at the end animated more fluently than its robotic self ever did before...

What really defines a movie as a classic though? Must we take the movie as a whole, or is the bitterness from the god-awful ending of a film enough to solidify its pure crappiness?... Sure, the first half of the film was amazing, with a decent death count here and a wily war waged there. But the second half of the film was just damn pitiful at best... The action was sorely lacking, the plot became laughably bad, and the absolute zero amount of character development in Alexa's character definitely started to whine and wane by the time she started staring at the Predator with starry eyes...

Some people hated the film for ruining continuity (although it never really did, considering Weyland's company probably learned of the Alien threat from Lexa... leading to their search for aliens far in the future...). And some people hated the film, not just for its second half, but because the first half was just too pansyass-PG-13 for the series' own good... The fans wanted a new Predator and a new Aliens. The problem was, they didn't just want a film as good as those two films...

... they wanted a film... I wanted a film... as good as our memories of those two films still are...

... and hell, at least it was a hell of a lot better than both Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection... but dammit, that's not saying much...

Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: Avatar and Stargate Atlantis: Childhood's End Reviews (Spoilers) -

I was really afraid that I wouldn't like this week's episode of Stargate SG-1... I mean, Avatar sure didn't look like anything special from what I read about it before. The idea of a virtual reality simulator gone as bad as The Sims has been done to death, not just in sci-fi but in all the video games I play as well. And after all these weeks of SG-1, I was definitely starting to get bored of all these bottlenecks of bottle shows stuck on the base... While Stargate Atlantis gets to actually give meaning to the name of "Stargate", SG-1 has sort of just been left in the stone ages (or the computer ages) in terms of writing and artistic design...

And while Avatar does pretty much suffer from the same plagues that befell all the other SG-1 episodes this season so far, I still gotta admit that I liked Avatar a lot more than I thought I would... I mean, sure it was pretty much an episode in a bottle. Nothing happened except people dying everywhere, and supersoldiers being far more super than they ever have been on the show before... But you see? That's the thing! Lots of people died. Lots of guns were fired. And lots of super soldiers were actually super for once... And as a guy, how the hell could I not just sit back and enjoy the ride? I mean, I had just come back from watching Alien vs Predator (a decent movie, though obviously not Shakespeare... review to come later...). And after being disappointed in the lack of human firepower in that movie, how could I not love an episode where Jack gets to die a dozen different ways? Hell, Avatar almost made me feel as special as a spokesperson for the bloody hell NRA...

Avatar was the first episode since The Lost City to have truly strong writing for the entire team... Jack got to complain about the game being defective (and I'm sure he felt bad that in Teal'c's mind, he's the guy who always seems to get killed off first...). He had a bunch of other good one liners as well. And for the first time in a long while, I really didn't notice RDA's light shooting schedule (normally, he's only on the air when all the characters are nowhere to be found these days...)... Sam got to spout a lot of technobabble that even got my head spinning. She didn't have any real momentous lines or anything, but she did seem concerned for Teal'c. And she played a decent role in each of the fantasy shots as well, seemingly always being the last person to stand by Teal'c's side... Daniel not only got to look really weird in the CG shots of the game (a bad Gordon Freeman with the glasses, anyone?), but he also got some of the greatest scenes of the season everytime Teal'c just shot him in the ass without caring... Daniel wasn't in much of the first half of the episode, except being the first Goa'uld that Teal'c's mind decided to devise (telling, I see...). But perhaps because of that, it was actually meaningful that he was the one to sacrifice himself for Teal'c in the end. And it actually made logical sense too, considering tactical abilities weren't going to win the game. But rather, trust and Enterprise faith in the heart were the only ways to get the job done...

The episode wasn't an acting revelation for Christopher Judge. And actually, I couldn't help but shake my virtual head at the Def Jam Vendetta comments. Not just because CJ was a voice in the game, but because I'm sure he plays Def Jam on a goddam PS2 or some horrible system like that (in which case, I'll now have to officially hate Teal'c, since the character likes Star Wars as well...)... But while his acting chops were stretched to their limits, I really felt Avatar was one of the best episodes in a long time to develop Teal'c's character. It was actually sad and surprisingly that Teal'c really didn't feel the Goa'uld could ever be beaten, even if he only thought so subconsciously. And even I admit, it was kind of heartbreaking to see the poor guy all slouched down on a wall in solemn frustration, the way Jack was when he was being killed over and over again by Ba'al... Now, at first I was upset that Avatar took itself too damn seriously, when really Teal'c could've had a lot of fun shooting all his friends, ala Window of Opportunity. But in the end, the seriousness of Teal'c's ego and condition really made the ending much more powerful than I thought it would be... Not only was the Reservoir Dogs style of showdown at the end pretty nostalgic, not only did I love everyone's reaction to Siler being evil... but I really liked the solution at the end of the episode. Because deep down inside, Teal'c knew he could never defeat the Goa'uld alone. But by having Enterprise faith in his friends, even evil Siler couldn't wipe that eternal grin off his face...well, faith along with precognition, at least... indeed...

Avatar obviously wasn't the best of episodes. Daniel only looked good in CG, Sam was far too technobabbly (even for my tastes), Jack was alright but not anything special, and Teal'c never got to wield that shotgun he so loves to cuddle... But hey, there were tons of guns and explosions everywhere. It may have been a bottle episode, but it was a bottle episode with a lot of buzz, and a lot of beer.. I enjoyed Avatar. So sue me... and yet?... Avatar still couldn't take the episode of the week crown from Atlantis, for the how-many-ith time this season now?...

Atlantis has unquestionably been the better of the Stargate shows this season, and in my honest opinion, Childhood's End really showed why... I mean, sure the episode would've been one I probably would've hated back when Stargate SG-1 was new and I couldn't stand all the low budget cultures out in space. But now that I care more for the writing than for the plotlines of a show?... Childhood's End was really the childhood beginning for me of a rich and bright universe for the Stargate Atlantis crew.

The plot had been done to death on Stargate before, with a messed up culture needing help from us to turn back to agnostic common sense... I would've hated this kind of plotline just a few years back, but after all these years of Stargate SG-1 ignoring the effect technology has on religion? I personally got a whole nostalgic buzz about it all, actually... And plot wise, the episode wasn't really bad at all. The villagers may have been as two dimensional as anybody was in The Village, but at least they looked decent with their CG bows and arrows... It was jarring to see Lt. Elliot back, willing to sacrifice himself for the third bloody hell time (though unfortunately, not to save Lt. Haley this time around... I thought the two had chemistry...). But actor reusing aside, I thought he did a very good job as a wise man willing to do what's best for his people. He had good acting skills, strong delivery, and took an arrow to the chest pretty damn decently, so why wouldn't the writers bring him back from the grave?... And the whole idea of the EMP generator on the planet? Sure, it bugs me that Ancient technology is so susceptible to little Jackism magnets, especially when Goa'uld technology seemed like it was immune to EMP back in SG-1's season two. But I actually thought the whole general premise of the episode was pretty damn well thought out... Ritual suicide as population control, I mean? Not only was the idea of heaven vs the Wraiths used well, but I actually thought the population control idea was a rather nice and indirect commentary on human politics as they are today... me being Chinese and all, at least...

But what's always been the best part of Atlantis has been the characters, even Lt. Ford (who's still Mayweather Jr. as far as I'm concerned)... Ford still hasn't gotten any character development. But I still loved his moment with the kids and the chocolate... Weir didn't do much this episode either. But at least she got to be a bitch again, got to pretend like she cared about other cultures (unlike other episodes), and at least she didn't change her hair and don a completely new wardrobe yet again (what? So all those boxes of things the scientists brought to Atlantis weren't her selection of clothes?)... Teyla didn't get to do much herself, and that was probably what made Ms. J-Lo-faux tolerable this episode. She only seemed like an advisor, and thus didn't force me to hear a ton of alien lines that just don't work with the actress. And heck, I even thought her confidence in her lovely P90 was darling at the end as well (although she's becoming too technologically sound for her own character's good, I think...)... Sheppard got to crash a Puddle Jumper, and besides that? He didn't have much to do except talk with Lt. Elliot, climb trees like an Ewok, make questionable decisions about stealing the "ZED"-PM, and get his ass handed to him by two lowly twenty year olds... so all in all, a decent day for Sheppard I think...

And speaking of kids, I gotta admit that MacKay really felt look a fun father this episode. Because for the umpteenth time in Atlantis already, Sir Rodney MacKay stole the show... He had so many great lines that I can't even remember them all. I mean, anyone who's watched SG-1's Redemption would just fall in love with MacKay's love for Carter this episode. And I loved his distaste for Ford's compass at first, even after realizing how useful it was... I loved his snippiness with Weir, not even pretending about respecting other cultures as long as they're stupid... And his chemistry with the kids? For the first time in a long television while, I actually liked little kids!... I'm sure MacKay would've lost the fight against three-foot what's-his-name, and the hope of a "quiet competition" between the kids still has me chuckling... And I don't know why, but just the little touches to MacKay's character worked really well as well. I mean, especially considering he was absolutely clueless about giving up his chocolate just one moment before, it was actually surprising to me that MacKay would protect the two children from the probe before getting back to his work. It showed some real class, you know?... Plus, I'm hooked on counting the number of times he pronounces "ZED"-PM just to annoy all the Americans watching the show... MacKay's my goddam hero. You're damn right, skippy...

Plotwise, Childhood's End was definitely not the beginning and definitely not the end of a long line of rehashes in the Stargateverse... Fixing an alien device the stars mess up is nothing new. And hell, I'm pretty sure I've seen ritualistic suicide somewhere in sci-fi a dozen times before... But the strong characters and writing of Stargate Atlantis continue to push the show far past whatever its older brother has ever managed to achieve this season. And hell, it's sort of like Alien vs Predator in a sense... because the side that I thought was going to win, in both cases? I mean, I was so sure about SG-1... and so sure about Atlantis... and so damn sure about Summerslam... and, yet?... um...

Y2kk Update: - Square Enix's / Nintendo's Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Nintendo Gamecube Review (Spoilers) -

I still remember just how damn excited I was the moment that I heard Squaresoft was coming back to Nintendo... I mean, sure I never liked Final Fantasy 7 (the most overrated game of all time), but that was probably because I completely hated Sony... And sure, I didn't even like the Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger series on the SNES back when I was praising Square for all they did. But I wasn't a huge RPG fan back then, you know...

But I fell in love with the RPG genre from Squaresoft's Super Mario RPG... and I've dying for a great Japanese style RPG after all of these years of being starved on the N64 and Gamecube... which is why I still remember that very same damn day, for being so bitterly disappointed in the fact that Square Enix was still goddam refusing to make a new RPG for the goddam Gamecube...

... they were going to make Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles instead... a Final Fantasy game like no other... for better or for worse, at least...

To be honest, besides the brand name recognition that comes with the Final Fantasy name, I don't even have a clue why Square decided to place Crystal Chronicles in their famed Final Fantasy domain... I mean, I can't even begin to remember just how many arguments erupted over forums, of whether Crystal Chronicles ever deserved to be counted as a Final Fantasy side story, let alone an actual new chapter in the most famed RPG multiverse of them all... And I still completely agree that it was completely unfathomable as to why exactly Square thought Crystal Chronicles deserved to be part of the Final Fantasy universe. I mean, it has far more in common with the Secret of Mana series than it ever did with FF... and even though Secret of Mana was directly related to FF in Japan, it certainly was never given a connection over here. And to be honest? Considering the first Secret of Mana was the only Square game I ever loved, even to this day?... then it was no wonder why I would've had no problem if Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles simply took place in that universe instead...

... and yet, that still wasn't the end of all the raging, volcanic debates... I mean, has there ever been a game before, that started so many fanboy wars over the internet, as this one little Final Fantasy sidestory somehow managed to do?... Not only did forum posters strangle and wrangle the heck out of each other over the damn name of the game alone, but I refuse to even begin to imagine just how many spiteful slurs and insults were spat at each other over the goddam GBA connectivity part of the game... Even after Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles sold almost half a million copies in North America (a lot by today's averages, but not compared to FF averages), gamers today still more than often believe that the Connectivity feature was nothing more than a Nintendo-forced gimmick in what otherwise would've been a decent game... Hell, gamers still blame Nintendo over FF's return to "kiddie graphics". Gamers still blame Nintendo for ruining the Final Fantasy name with a game outside of the Sony fanbase... So why wouldn't gamers also blame Nintendo for "forcing" them into buying 4 GBA SPs, 4 GBA Link Cables, 4 houses and three hookers to play their latest non-RPG game as well?...

And, well... the irony here for me, is that I actually got myself a Game Boy Advance just the other day. It was just sitting on the floor of my cousin's basement, after I spilled a bunch of coke on it by accident... and since he somehow had gotten the system for "free", he didn't hesitate to give me the charred and coked remains of a portable system more durable than time can tell... and I'm sure one of these days, I'll use the still somehow working system with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles and Legend of Zelda: Four Swords, two of my favourite games of 2004 so far... but the thing is...

I bought Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles all the way back in February... and if it wasn't for mid-term exams, I would've been done the game back then as well... And because I had no Game Boy Advances, no Link Cables, no friends, and sadly no hookers around to play the game with at the time, I was forced into the "sad" position that Sony gamers so love to advocate, of having to bore myself with the over-gimmicked Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles all by my lonesome... and to that effect, this review of mine shall be kind of unique amongst the internet. It'll be just one of the few who reviews the game from a single player point of perspective, and not the multiplayer side that gets all the attention and fanboy flack...

And I'm not just saying this to spite Sony fanboys (although that is part of it...), but honestly, I actually very much enjoyed the single player experience in Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles... I mean, sure the gameplay was completely repetitive. The entire game consisted of visiting the same dungeons over and over again, finding crystal balls to cast cure on yourself with, and then hacking and slashing your way to the generic bosses at the end in the hopes of finding mana... Yes, I realized there was almost absolutely zero storyline to the game whatsoever. And yes, I realized that the game was just so formulaic, with linear dungeons and bad guys with the most basic of AI implementations. And hell, at times I even really hated the experience system in the game, or lack thereof. Going through entire fire and brimstone stages, just to earn a little amulet or charm at the end, just wasn't very worth it after beating the same damn Worm boss five times in a row... and yes, I realized that the game in single player was a far more shallow experience than multiplayer, where at least co-operative competition could've made even the first boss battle with the crab a lot less crabby than it actually was...

But the thing is, I still managed to enjoy the game... Reviews often say that Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is a flawed game, but still a very good game... but then all because of Connectivity (or simply out of media spite for Nintendo these days), almost every single website managed to absolutely destroy Crystal Chronicles in their final marks, even if their scores just magically seemed several grades lower than their reviews ever would've let you believe... I mean, just take a look over the net. Consistently out there, reader reviews rate FF:CC much higher than any of the so-called "professional" sites ever did. And in my honest opinion? While Sony fans would just call that fanboy reviewer bias, the higher reader and actual gamer scores were probably from the sad fact, that pro websites often care more about the hype and politics about a game, than the actual games themselves these days...

Because even if it wasn't the greatest thing since sliced bread, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles was a hell of a lot of fun for me. After university hours, I couldn't wait to come home and simply hack and slash my way to the ghost dragon that never died, or the giant robot that capped that easiest level there was to level up on... I mean, sure so many parts of the game were boring. The first few stages or whatever seemed to lack any imagination in the settings. Sure, the "cinematics" with fellow caravans definitely got old after repeating themselves a dozen times fold. And sure, all the little yearly dancing scenes in the game definitely started getting on my nerves, except for perhaps the bouncing bump-mapping of the lovely Selkies who suck in the game... But dammit, flaws may be flaws. They may detract from the overall game, but they just didn't detract from the overall fun of the game, you know? I never once got bored of the hack and slash routine. I never once got bored of visiting cities and selling off my myrrh. I never once got bored of powering up my special attacks, doubling up my spells for Holy, or just venting all my frustrations on that one damn worm that could never damn kill me... In my honest opinion, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles was one of the most therapeutic games I have ever witnessed in my life. It was like a good ol' fashioned beat 'em up, the kind of which I just can't get enough of after fucking failing yet another midterm at university...

And the production values? My God, the production values were almost through the roof in this game... Sure, it annoyed me how Square just didn't put the care into this game that they always do with their "real" Final Fantasy games. Voice acting was completely missing, and CD-quality sound was pretty much absent as well... But the music that was there really got stuck in my head. A ton of the little midi-line tunes, especially the ones by the ports, just wouldn't get out of my goddam brain... And the graphics? My God, if you haven't seen the graphics in this game, you're denying yourselves one of the most beautiful sights in all of gaming. I mean, forget about the overhyped Ninja Gaiden or the Selkie boobs of Dead or Alive. Because just take one damn, good look at the lakes in Crystal Chronicles... just take one damn fine look at the reflections in the crystals in this game... just take one damn step into the Great Miasma Streams... and then just try to look me with a straight face and claim this wasn't the most absolutely stunning game you've ever seen in your life...

Sure, the game gets a lot of flack from its "kiddiefied" character models... Sure, the game will probably look outdated in a few years, unlike Zelda: The Wind Waker... but dammit, I haven't been floored in years like this when I first set foot into the first windy, watery miasma stream. And I haven't been wowed since... especially since my jaw still hasn't left the goddam floor...

The play control in this game got a lot of criticism too, and for really no reason why... The game uses a GBA as its primary controller, and a lot of hardcore gamers simply couldn't stand how Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles didn't use a thousand different buttons like a PC MMORPG would root and toot as bells and whistles to be proud of... But in my personal opinion, the controls were pretty spot on in this game. Movement flowed perfectly, I could target any enemy that I wanted to. And besides that, is there anything I really need to comment on? Precise controls and simplistic gameplay - isn't that the measure of what all games should strive to be?... but, well... there was I guess one huge complaint about this game: the goddam bucket... While the fog effects in this game were amazing, they just couldn't make up for the fact that carrying the bucket in single player was goddam annoying as hell at times. While my moogle did carry the damn bucket most of the time, it really did get sickening to keep giving him rests ever couple minutes or so... and I couldn't even imagine how annoying the bucket would be in two players without the moogle, although I've heard lovely stories of rock, scissors, paper and losing bare naked bets...

... definitely play this game with a wife and two hookers... I mean, if you're still going to bitch about buying 4 GBAs, at least you won't have to care about paying for clothes anymore...

... minor spoilers, for those who haven't gotten through 99% of the game yet... 'cause neither have I...

The thing with Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, is that I loved it when the game was new... and I couldn't help but keep leveling up my two characters, racking up the years of healthy mana buckets back home...

But then university midterms struck the gullet of my gameplay. And half out of studious necessity, I simply quit on Crystal Chronicles... I was literally at the final boss of the damn game. I only needed to go through the final stage, and then I'd be home fries free... but the problem is, six months later, I'm still literally at the final boss of the damn game. I still need to go through the final stage. And because of my eternal procrastination (and my ever growing list of backlogged games), I'll never figure out the plotline to this game. I'll probably never ever finish Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles... just like every other Squaresoft game ever made except for Secret of Mana...

Crystal Chronicles is almost an anomaly of a Squaresoft game. It's completely unheard of for them to produce a game that literally has no plotline (except for the weak Black Knight one) all the way until the final hours of the game... hell, even the Bouncer had more of a story... I mean, it's almost as if Squaresoft couldn't afford to miss out on Nintendo's money hats after their god-awful Final Fantasy movie bombed so damn hard at the theatres. And simply to trick Nintendo into publishing one of their games, they slapsticked the Final Fantasy name on a budget, storyless title they were planning to release on the Game Boy Advance in the first place...

There are no story spoilers that I have to report, because I'm still disappointed that a) the story doesn't pick up (or even start) until after I get the courage to play the final stage, and b) I'm just too damn lazy to even pick up a single game in my collection, let alone a now old RPG that actually takes effort to remember how to play... but after putting 25 or more hours of my life into this one game alone, I think I've seen enough to make a comment or two...

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles didn't really have imaginative stages or anything. And most of the regular foes weren't anything special outside of the generic monster books at least... But the bosses were simply the absolute best part of the game for me, even if some of the encounters were simply too damn hard for me to manage in single player... The double team of the giant and his wife in the mansion took me forever to beat the first time around. And constantly casting Holy without a couple of friendly bodies to hack and slash in unison, really made the Ghost Dragon into a battle that tore me to shreds... But I couldn't get enough of slapping the Big Worm in the ass. And the big ass guy with the sword in the Volcano definitely showed a hell of a lot of class too... And hell, I even thought the big ass plant in one of the opening stages had a really nice design. Because I completely do not lie when I say the graphical and presentation values of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles were simply through the roof...

... well... except for the ironic, complete lack of a story from a Squaresoft game... but I digress...

Sure, I wished that Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles just gave me the option to play multiplayer with Gamecube controllers, considering I'm too damn poor for GBAs and hookers, and considering it would've been a hell of a lot of fun to just stick the bucket with my brother... Sure, I wished that Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles had some sort of variety in its gameplay somewhere, if only so that the leveling up process wouldn't have felt so tedious in single player after 20 or so hours... And sure, I wish Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles had a goddam shorter tithe of a title, considering I completely hate the damn spelling, abbreviated laziness of the internet whore of a world... FF: CC my ass...

But even with all the glaring flaws in this game, and even despite the fact that I never did finish Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, there's still simply no denying that this game was a hell of a lot fun to me, even in single player... I never got bored of Secret of Mana in the past. And I never really got bored of Crystal Chronicles either... I never got bored of hacking and slashing away at god knows how many respawning enemies. I never got bored of finding as many charms and amulets as I could get, just so that I wouldn't need to overstock on magical items in each and every stage anymore... And hell, I even wasted my time with that 100,000 gold quest with the princess. There was pretty much the only damn sidequest in the entire game, and I did it, if only because of the sheer lure of gold and the prettiest of miasma tiaras...

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles was not the Squaresoft or Enix game that we Gamecube fanatics have been frothing for, ever since Square stabbed us in the backs with FF7 and their anti-cartridge policies. And hell, it's not even the goddam Japanese RPG that I was so hyped and hoping that they would frickin' throw us a bone with, especially considering I somehow liked Mystic Quest over FF3 back in the day...

But once you get past the sidestory issues... once you get past the Secret of Mana issue... once you get past the whole Connectivity debate... once you get past the whole lack of a storyline thingy... once you get past your hatred for Nintendo... once you get past your bias towards Square... and once you can finally see beyond all these goddam petty politics of the gamingverse...

... but dammit, I still like Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles... if only because I have a fondness for simplistic games...

Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: Icon and Stargate Atlantis: Suspicion Reviews (Spoilers) -

... if there's anything that I've learned after watching seven full seasons of Stargate SG-1, especially after the last three or four seasons... it's that a) all aliens inexplicably speak English without any accent, b) P90s are way cooler than MP5s, c) the writers just love revisiting World War 2 technologies, and d) the fifth episode of a new season is almost completely guaranteed to suck balls...

Lucky for me, this week's episode of Icon defintiely and most certainly was all of the above...

... in other words, Icon was absolutely the iconic episode, for what exactly NOT to do with Stargate anymore these days...

It was a Daniel Jackson episode, without all the fluff about saving lives and making peace... For some odd reason, he was quite gungho this episode, almost with a George Bushian flavour to his religious extremist killing ways. And in a sense, that was good, considering it led to the only actually decent scene in the entire episode (the bunker busting scene at the end, although I really don't get why he didn't have a damn Zat by his side...). But besides that, was there anything even worth mentioning in Icon?... Daniel got to get frisky with Leda, a married girl. Sure, I thought she was cute, and quite nicely reserved the way she backed off from his touch. But besides that? Was there anything to their relationship at all?... It went nowhere in the end. His petty rivalry with the husband, Jared, went nowhere at all. And what was the point of him being injured at the start of the episode? Did we really need another flashback, Memento type of episode to fill the yearly quota?... The only Daniel Jackson moments I did enjoy were a) when he was explaining about the Goa'ulds to Leda, and b) when he looked absolutely ridiculous wearing a World War 2 rifle on his back...

The rest of the cast didn't have much to do either... Did Carter do anything besides stare at the other-worldly map? Did Teal'c do anything, except actually give a non-token line to that Sauron or whatever Lord of the Rings kind of guy?... Jack got to try his diplomacy a bit, but besides being confused by poorly accented Goa'uld, I was disappointed in him as well. I mean, since when did he treat religious extremists who act like Goa'ulds with actual hospitality?... And as for ol' Sauron or Sarumon or whatever the hell his name was? Not only did he roll my eyes from his sheer, token religious fanaticism, but he was just so damn useless at the end of episode that I really couldn't (or could?) care less about his stupidity. The only thing I was happy about was that he didn't turn out to be a Seth-type of a hiding Goa'uld in the end. Because rather it simply turned out, he really was just that damn stupid...

The prospect of the Stargate team inciting a civil war was a neat little idea, considering the World War 2 scenario (I don't think those were nukes that were used... pretty good SCUD missiles then...). But it's oddly been done before on this one series alone, enough times that I knew I didn't even want to bother with this episode... But now that the fifth episode of the new season is finally done and over with, maybe the writers will finally be able to move onto the finer points and graces of the season?...

... or are they simply keeping all of their good ideas for Stargate Atlantis these days?...

Suspicion wasn't a great episode. And hell, the first half of it was boring as hell... I've never minded bottle episodes, but I certainly do mind episodes with boring interviews with an extremely boring set of alien cast members... and Teyla's speeches to her people? I know this episode was meant to be her character's inauguration, but really, her speecifying was just downright nauseating to me...

But the second half of the episode definitely picked up, and once again proved that the newer, fresher feel of Atlantis was definitely outpacing its bigger brother of Stargate SG-1 this year... The Wraith are still not very threatening, considering their weapons are non-lethal, and they use some of the stupidest tactics known to man... But their T2 or "Kane" kind of regenerative sitting-up does make their minions more interesting than Jaffa are more times than not. And I personally did enjoy the final fire fight of this episode, if only because Teyla actually looked pretty damn sharp with those little fighting sticks of hers... She pretty much sucked when it came to acting in Suspicion. She just couldn't suspend my belief... but her fighting skills made up for her lack of anything else. And of course, having P90s pumping lead into everything that moved is always on my plus list of the light side of the force... Although if frickin' taser guns actually work on the Wraith, then WHY DIDN'T THEY FUCKING BRING ZAT GUNS FOR FUCKING CHRIST'S SAKES!... sometimes, the Atlantis crew can really be stupider than anyone ever thought possible...

Suspicion was Teyla's first real episode, and unfortunately for her, her acting abilities were suspiciously absent... Her speeches to her people were grating on the ears. And it was kind of strange actually, why she would so readily choose to stick with Dr. Weir than with her own people (lesbianism, maybe?... hopefully?...). At least her fighting skills made up for her lack of character, but damn, she really has to start wearing some better outfits... As for Dr. Weir, she frickin' changed her hair again! Every single episode, she decides to just keep bouncing back and forth between straight and curled, even with the Wraith showing up at the door five times out of nine... But at least, the return of her sexy curled hair and furled brow hid the fact that she was just completely awful this episode. Not only did she completely treat the Athosians undiplomatically like her character was always meant to be, not only did she look like a complete dumbass whenever she was pressured by that Sergeant Bates guy, but I just can't stand how the actress keeps talking to people as if they were five year old idiots! If only it wasn't for the sexy hair, I'm sure she would've been voted off of the Atlantis island a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

And as for the rest of the crew? Sheppard had a few moments of shooting Wraith in the nuts, and eating his beloved turkey sandwiches in Puddle Jumper cockpits. He got to show trust in Teyla, but that was nothing new, so I didn't really care... Lt. Ford once again got back to his god-awful naming ways. He didn't grow much as a character, but at least he's starting to get more decent lines... Dr. Beckett was only there for one scene, but I always just love how smugly arrogant he looks whenever someone else gets the short stick of a blast to the face. And MacKay? Well, he had the least amount of amusing lines of any of his episodes so far. But I still loved his cotton mouth bit at the start, and his snip of a snap was definitely back by the time the secret to Teyla's necklace was found... I mean, besides the final fire fight, the only thing I did enjoy in this episode was the fact that I was pleasantly surprised at the "spy" amongst the ranks. I knew that Sheppard's team was accidentally giving away their position somehow, but I was most impressed by the idea of the first episode's necklace coming back to haunt them (although I don't really get how the Wraith detected it in Rising if it has such a short range, but I digress)...

So what is that now? Stargate Atlantis has been better than Stargate SG-1 four out of five episodes by now or something? That's pretty damn embarrassing for the nine o'clock home team then... and very suspicious of the writers, indeed...

Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: Zero Hour and Stargate Atlantis: Thirty Eight Minutes Reviews (Spoilers) -

Stargate SG-1 hasn't been the brightest star in the galactic empire this year so far... I personally didn't feel much for New Order, despite it's promise of a new feeling for the new season. And Lockdown was even worse, suffering from too-serious-schizophrenia and a claustrophobic kind of episodic environment... like a ship in a bottle, without the 'ship...

Zero Hour doesn't really change much in the claustrophobic environment department. And it didn't really deliver the new kind of feeling that was promised for the new kind of season... But Zero Hour truly responds as the true Zero Hero of the hour. Because for the first time in the new season, I truly did enjoy a Stargate SG-1 episode.

And Jack O'Neill is obviously to blame... In season six, I could enjoy episodes that Jack wasn't in, simply because Jonas was quirky enough to fill the void. And in season seven, while Jack still wasn't around, at least the ideas behind the plotlines were more interesting than usual... But Zero Hour truly showed that there is simply no substitute for a lack of Jack O'Neill, whether he's a colonel anymore or not. Nearly every single line he had was finally the kind of serious-jokey kind that Richard Dean Anderson has perfected on the show, and it really showed with the sheer quality of Zero Hour. Couple that with a fortress of migraines for the newest General on the block, and you have a light episode that just feels Diet Pepsi taste challenge right...

The weakest part of the episode in my eyes was the plant. I never really cared for it, and I was disappointed when O'Neill didn't send it through with Camulus as a present for Ba'al... But nearly every other scene with General O'Neill (which literally was just about every other scene) truly shined above the rest. I loved his constant bickering with the now officially named "Walter" (although you can never replace the Jack and Daniel banter). And I always love Jack's obsession with food in the middle of a crisis, talking about buffets rather than anything else on the General budget menu... I liked his solution to the trade negotiations far more than I did back in the last Kelownan episode, if only because Mr. Happy Mark Gilmore was right there to act as a confidant of a counterpoint... And finally, Jack had some contact again with Ba'al! It was great that his time in Ba'al's fortress wasn't forgotten. And Jack's line, "it's what I do", was simply so brilliant (him probably being a closet Wormhole Xtreme fan and all, I'm sure...)... I personally thought his letter to General Hammond was a bit cliche and predictable, but the "nevermind" signed at the bottom was a nice touch at the end. And as always, Jack had wonderful, playful chemistry with Sam Carter. The look on her face when he wouldn't let her see her team's written reports was simply priceless...

The rest of the cast ironically pulled a Jack O'Neill by not being in the episode... Now it bugged me how Jack never demanded proof of SG-1's capture from Ba'al (even though Ba'al easily could fake a voice or image), so I thought it was pretty dumb of him not to think that SG-1 was just missing in action, rather than being in Goa'uld's hands... But Carter, for the brief moments she was on screen, was simply beaming as the new commander. Her insecurity was definitely in character for her, and a nice contrast to Jack's usual ways. And the "animal" comment from Teal'c's written report I'm sure was more than justified... Daniel and Teal'c didn't get to do anything at all, but their moments will come soon in later episodes... Camulus was featured a lot on the other hand. And since I still don't know how to spell his name properly, I'll still call him "Rhade" or "Blade" for now... Now, Rhade wasn't extra slimy or anything this episode, to a degree that was annoying at least. And I felt it was kind of pointless to send him to Ba'al so early in the SG-1 storyline. But I did like the little connections to Stargate Atlantis with the ZPM and everything. I loved how sinister Rhade was as well, booby trapping the power source and all... I liked all the fine touches in this episode, even the mention of the Tok'ra poison (so... now Earth has Naquadria hyperdrive, Naquada chain reaction bombs, anti-life energy weapons on our bloody hell machine guns, and tons of Tok'ra poison all manufactured and lying around?... wow... we can really kick ass and take names, now can't we?...). And I even liked Jack's little planned revelation at the end. I actually want to know what will happen to Rhade now, the poor planted sap who tried to be king...

The real reason why Stargate SG-1 was a Zero Hero this week, was not just because it somehow managed to produce a bottled episode that was more entertaining than even their massively overbudget season premiere... but it was also the first week of the season so far, where SG-1 has managed to outshine its late hour (or zero hour late) counterpart... although in a sense, that has more to do with Stargate Atlantis than it does with its parent trap of an earlier show...

Stargate Atlantis aired the episode, Thirty Eight Minutes, this week. And while it wasn't a bad episode, it surely suffered from the one thing I despise most in fantasy and fanboy sci-fi shows: the error of taking themselves too seriously... I mean, for Christ's sakes, this isn't the original Star Trek series, despite the lovely reference to "Cling-ons". So when I see a little parasite bug attached to some actor's neck, I'm going to laugh like a lunatic, alright?...

... and because I'm going to laugh, it made Thirty Eight Minutes a lot more laughable than it would've been if only at moments, the episode didn't take itself so seriously... Because against my better wishes, nearly every single cast member acted like the episode was the most dire moment in their lives to be... While I found some of his rants of "certain doom" to be amusing, MacKay was simply not endearing to me for the first time in the history of the show. I already forget most of what he said, simply because it was mostly generic for a geek on a show with an impending crisis. Although at least, we found out that he hasn't really mellowed out since becoming the hero last week... Rainbow Sun Francks or however you spell his name did a superb job in his role this episode, acting all concerned for Major Sheppard. But the problem is, he may have had tons of anti-Mayweather lines, but he had no backstory. He had no character development, besides showing he had a backbone at least... All he did was keep repeating "are you alright?" and then got to play the hatchback hero at the end. He really didn't have any memorable lines or actions, which kind of sucks (out of the airlock Archer) for him, considering how much air time he got... And Dr. Beckett? At least, he was once again the saving grace of the episode. Sure, he acted all serious himself. But he had probably the only clever lines in the episode, from the "Cling-on" comment, to merely the look in his eyes when he said you aren't supposed to try cutting leeches off... (and oh yes, just for reference, it makes a lot of sense now why Atlantis was submerged, if the Wraith truly can't take saltwater like this episode suggests... too bad it all reminds me a bit too much of god-awful Signs...).

Now, Dr. Weir was quite a weird enigma for me... Can Torri Higginson act at all? I say that with disdain this episode, not with the lovely prose I had for her last episode. Why? Because she changed her hair back, that's why!... So let me get this straight. In the midst of the Pegasus Galaxy, our Dr. Elizabeth Weir not only changes her hair every episode, but seems compelled to wear bad zipper shirts to work as well? Eh? WTF?... Either way, I didn't like any scene she was in. I hated her moment with the Aragon-clone where once again, the actress couldn't seem to relate or bash or whatever the Athosians properly at all. And while she did a good job of embarrassing the embarrassed ass of a scientist later on, she simply couldn't pull off her lines without sounding like a fool herself. Even her question to the Czech doctor of a weird name, of what she could do to help, sounded completely forced and fruitless and futile and lacking in emotion. Torri still sounded horny this episode, but dammit, after changing her hair, she just didn't look hot anymore... Teyla had a lot of lines like Lt. Ford. But she didn't really do anything, except get the medical kit way too late, all things considered. I did see some chemistry with Lt. Ford though. But besides her generic concern for the ship and crew, Teyla really didn't offer anything to the show. Hell, she didn't even look good in a uniform for some strange reason... And Major John Sheppard? Well, the episode probably failed in my eyes because he just wasn't really there. He never really got to pull of a joke, and all the flashback scenes of the Wraith planet just didn't have the oomph and power that I thought they would have on me. Plus, he had a stupid looking bug on his neck, which definitely didn't help make the episode seem serious in my eyes... I liked the idea of fooling the bug into thinking he was dead though. And I actually felt some chemistry between Sheppard and Weir for once, even though she technically wasn't there. But this was the first episode that Sheppard really didn't help the episode at all. I guess every character gets at least a week off from the show, you know...

Technical wise, I did love this episode. The simplistic special effect of the event horizon just sitting in the shuttle was amazing. And the idea of being lodged in the Stargate was a great 24 way of making an episode feel tense for 38 minutes... I loved all the little timbits of info we got about Stargate knowledge in this episode, from MacKay's "relativistic" reminder, to confirmation that the Stargate only transfers discrete bodies of matter through the wormhole (although that contrasts some things in SG-1, like staff weapons getting cut in half by the Stargate, but I digress)...

But even with all the fine technical details in this episode, I still didn't find it decent whatsoever. Why? Because it took itself too damn seriously, when it had a goddam tick attached to an actor's neck for Christ's sakes!... I needed some sort of comic relief in an episode like this. Even O'Neill turning into a viral alien had "undomesticated equines" to back the episode up... Thirty Eight Minutes was definitely not a bad 43 minutes of Stargate Atlantis allotted air time. It's just that, it was definitely the weakest of the episodes so far. And for the first time this season so far, Atlantis conceded the throne of the week to Big Brother, Stargate SG-1... a Zero Hero of a Zero Point Module, at the absolute Zero Hour indeed...

[c. visitors too bored to return...]
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