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Well... The Longest Yard doesn't exactly make for the longest reviews... or the most stellar reviews, for that matter (except I had a hell of a lot of fun, laughing at Ebert's piss poor joke of one... but that's besides the point...)...

The thing is, The Longest Yard is a sports movie. And as a sports movie, just like with any romantic comedy, you know exactly what you're going to get going into the theatre...

The thing is, I just have a place for sports movies in my heart for some odd reason... Maybe it's because they provide the kind of sweet, loving family that I've been searching for ever since I was a small, potty-trained child?... well, a family outside of my family and friends and relatives, that is...

Or maybe it's just that I'm still bitter that I was always picked last after the white kids, black kids, yellow kids, red kids, white kids again, and even the Chris Rocks when it came to any type of sport?...

Either way, I gotta admit that I enjoyed The Longest Yard... and I was kinda surprised that I did...

I mean, Adam Sandler is usually hit or miss. Movies like Happy Gilmore make me a very happy Madison man... and them he produces films like Mr. Deeds, which just makes me wish I could kill myself, or suicide myself by cop in a prison...

The Longest Yard avoids most of the mistakes Sandler has done in the past... He's natural in his comedy this film, never resorting to pure stupidity like Mr. Deeds was, and yet never getting overly sentimental like Big Daddy suffered from near the end... I mean, you know that Adam is finally back on his game, when he's calling short cops "Frodo", breaking up with bad girlfriends over helicopter cameras, and showing videos of himself "earning" last year's video tapes of the prison guard football team...

I've personally never heard of a prison guard league out there, but it definitely makes sense. Whatever NCAA football players didn't make it to the NFL or any respectable minor league, would surely find it at home beating on poor Adam Sandler's in federal prisons...

And for the most part? I did like the guards in this movie. Although that may have more to do with me still being a WWE Wrestling fan, than it has to do with anything in the movie... Seeing Stone Cold Steve Austin, doing his usual WWE hick promo thing when it came to calling Megget the N-word in the library? I don't know, but that seriously had me laughing the loudest in the entire theatre (although that may be due to the fact, that I was the only one in the entire theatre today)... Seeing Kevin Nash as a 7-foot football monster, going all nipple apeshit after his steroids are replaced by estrogen supplements? Hey, it may be stupid comedy, but there's just something so ridiculously amusing about seeing one of the toughest SOB wrestlers of the past, whooping it up with the gay cheerleaders in the stands...

Now, as a sports movie, the formula for The Longest Yard was obviously nothing to be surprised about... All you have to do, is take a bunch of random misfits with quirky personalities, and whip them into shape with a bunch of montages to the sound of music. The only real diversion in the genre happens at the end, with whether the team wins and celebrates, or comes close to winning and then celebrates... either way, there's gatorade, hatorade, and a bunch of seagulls, but that's about it...

The Longest Yard didn't exactly have the best band of misfits around, but at least it had its fair share of decently memorable ones (completely unlike Kicking and Screaming...)... Megget wasn't really special off the football field. But that library scene with Stone Cold was just absolutely so precious, that I couldn't help but cheer for the N-word as he was dashing his mad ass on the battlefield... Probably the best of the misfits was the McDonald's guy, whatever he was called. Not only was he pure jakked, looking like a real football player (unless he was one). But he made me want to actually eat McDonald's in the theatre with all his witty lines... that's good ol' fashioned subliminal McMessaging for ya... except that it wasn't exactly subliminal, but I digress...

You had your other members of your Motley Crewe... You had the fat guy. The closet gay guy. The soft-hearted man of pure rock and steel... You had the psychotic huge guy back from Happy Gilmore (looking like WWE's Rhyno, might I add)... You had Goldberg, doing absolutely nothing but trying to look huge for the camera, in more ways than one... and I'm sure there were a bunch of other generic guys, who may not have stood out, but still played a damn fine game in the end. And that's all I really ask for in a sports movie...

Yeah, the Motley Crewe as they're called, all get together as one big happy Gilmore family in the end. And thanks to some classic sports tunes played from the past, the final 'bout between the inmates and the guards was actually one hell of a good time to watch... You had huge tackles here, and massive sacks on poor Adam Sandler over there... You had Stone Cold getting back on the WWE injured list yet again. You had Mr. Deuce Bigalow doing his usual cameo thing yet again... You had a lovely ref (Sandler's friend... forget his name right now...) get nailed in the nuts twice... You had nuts being sold in the stands, and guards selling sniper rifles up in towers... All in all, as long as the music was good and the sound effects were loud, how can I really complain about a good ol' fashioned sports movie? It may be simple popcorn fluff, but never once did it get sentimental or boring or some shit like that...

The fate of Caretaker (Chris Rock's character) wasn't just pure shit - it was sentimental crap that the film really could've done without...

Thankfully though, Chris Rock was pretty damn good for the rest of the movie, as even the Academy Awards 2005 proved that the comic black guy in charge is tolerable in small doses... He provided most of the humour at the start of the film. And while he did get lost in the shuffle with all the other black guys later on in the film, I still must admit that he had a natural chemistry in this film that just felt, um, natural... He didn't feel like he was forcing his comedy for once...

I didn't care for Burt Reynolds much. It was nice he was included in the film, considering this was a remake of his old 70's film. But it was disappointing how as coach, he did steal the spotlight from Adam Sandler a few times...

James Cromwell was a bit too evil for the pig farmer's own good this movie. Why on earth he was so eager to shoot Paul Crewe in the head at the end of the game, I may never know... But for the most part, I've always liked Cromwell as an actor. He was certainly threatening, whispering in Sandler's ear to throw the game, or else he'll throw away the key to his cell... And c'mon, who here didn't love his partner in crime, Colonel Sanders?... Sandler and Sanders, together again. How the hell could I not enjoy this film then?...

And yes, we finally get to Adam Sandler... who just like Chris Rock, let the comedy just flow in this film... They didn't force any jokes. Every single slip of the tongue just felt natural instead, as subtle reactions, decent camera angles, and appropriate moments of awkward silence made every joke seem to stand out without somehow overshadowing everything else... Take the car chase scene we all know from the trailers, for example. Sandler never goes overboard with his voice or anything. He just subtlely shows the cops all the beers he's been drinking with a smile, calls up his old girlfriend, has a lovely chat, and then smashes her Bentley in three, in a way that just somehow made me laugh... even after watching that scene a dozen times in the trailers alone...

I thought he did a great job as an athlete. Sure, he didn't really look the part, but he played the card of a player earning props to a perfect T... I mean, take the basketball one-on-one game for example. Sure, he lost, but why does that really matter? Street ball is all about respect, and that's what he showed... He never called a foul. He played through every single bad call that he got... He bled and never complained... I mean seriously, except for maybe smashing his head into the metal post, that's how the game is supposed to be played... and you gotta give him props for that...

... and, well... contact sports are good, but it also helps that I'm a huge wrestling fan... which was probably why I liked this film so much, seeing Stone Cold get to throw riot grenades and all... but that's besides the point...

... because I don't know... I guess I'm just a sucker for sports movies... I mean, you know you have a thing for sports, when even I hated Paul Crewe at the beginning...

I don't care much about rapists, or child molesters, or ten year old daughters who fuck their fathers... hell, I'd even pay to watch the latter...

But I just can't stand a sports player, who throws a game on purpose... it just ain't right, you know?...

And if anything?... even if I was half expecting this film to turn into some sentimental bullshit in the end?...

Adam Sandler never threw in the towel... He never threw the game. And he never threw the movie...

From some of the reviewers out there, I had expected The Longest Yard to be the longest damn yawn...

... not one of those fixed ones that play all the time in the NFL and NBA, but I digress...

Now there was a time, when I couldn't even be dragged from a Will Farrell film, kicking and screaming... A Night at the Roxbury stands as one of the all time greatest films ever made by man. And his cameos in Austin Powers and Zoolander, solidified the former SNL star as the greatest sixth man in the history of motion picture comedies...

But none of the movies he has done since then, have even remotely seemed interesting to me...

But after catching Will Farrell during his first time ever hosting Saturday Night Live the other week? Bah... it reminded me of all the glorious days of Will Farrell past...

And how the hell could I possible not forgive the guy, after the return of "Jap Anus Relations", and songs that needed more cow bell?...

Anchorman was great as well. I was hesitant at seeing it at first... but honestly, the Bear Fight was one of the most classic moments in film making history, right up there with the walk-off in Zoolander... So how the hell could I possibly not forgive the guy?...

It did have its embarrassing moments that were meant to be funny... Seeing Will Farrell channel the mean, old soccer parents that ruin peewee sports in real life, was supposed to be humorous at best... Seeing him push over opposing players, or hassling the refs, or doing all those other things that only Will Farrell does best, was supposed to be funny at least...

It just wasn't though... The sad thing is, I agreed more with the Robert Duvall side of things in this film than I ever did with the film's morals...

And to win? Yes, you should hack the bone. Yes, you should take out their jugular... Yes, you should lie and cheat and steal, but don't get caught... I'm a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, so obviously I love the down and dirty truth behind the rules and whatnot...

And hell, if I was in Will Farrell's place? I would've called all the teams that I was beating "losers" too...

... still, it just wasn't funny, you know? Pretty much the entire soccer part of the film, I mean... and I guess it's because the film was just too much like Elf in the end. It was just too damn sentimental for its own damn good...

People complain about how quick Anakin's turn to the dark side of the force was Star Wars: Episode III? So why not in this film then?... Will Farrell goes from a repressed child in a man's hairy body, to dressing up in some god-awful Tiger outfit as head coach of the team. And then just like that at half time of the championship game, he reverts back to his old loser self, losing the Tiger outfit and actually claiming that everything he taught his kids was wrong? WTF?... to be honest, I liked his teachings more when he was insane...

Every feel-good sports movie needs interesting team members to keep the movie going. But Kicking and Screaming sure as hell didn't even have one...

Sure, the blonde lesbian chick with glasses was hot. But having the little, adopted Chinese kid wasn't just annoying - it was cliche, and just didn't work out... None of the kids had distinct personalities. Sure, you had the stereotypical shy Chinese kid, who might've seemed cute if he didn't remind me so damn much of my own self playing sports... Then you had the worm eating guy. And then who else? I don't even remember... It kinda shows something, when I didn't even know Bucky's name until checking the IMDB database later on... Hell, even Will Farrell's son in the movie was just so boring, that I would've benched him myself. I mean seriously, if he could manipulate the ball like that as he did in the championship game, why the hell didn't he show it during the regular season? Half sized guys who only give half sized efforts don't deserve to play, you know...

Anyhew, to be fair, I will admit that Kicking and Screaming did have its moments... whenever the action was off of the soccer field, at least...

Mike Ditka as the Superbowl coach turned little league, certainly made me snicker a couple of times with his psychotic football training methods. And I'm sure the juice box moment would've been remotely funny, if only it didn't remind me of my own sorry past (...)... Will Farrell didn't have nearly enough politically incorrect moments outside of just abusing refs and little children. But at least he seemed genuinely awkward whenever he met the lesbian mothers, in a way that any other actor would've been slapped a lawsuit for...

Robert Duvall wasn't bad in his role. It just wasn't developed enough, you know?... The neighbour rivalry with Mike Ditka had its moments, but only took up a minute or two of screentime... Instead, we got a lot of scenes of the old man depressing the man from Old School with Bauchy Ball or whatever that was. And while sure, I can take my own experiences of a repressive father to make this film feel more like home (afterall, I am Chinese...), the thing is... the film just wasn't funny because of it...

If there was any single thing I did love? It was the coffee addiction... I mean, here in Canada? Where Tim Hortons and NHL hockey reign supreme? How the hell could I not fall in love with Coffeeholics Anonymous, as Will Farrell got his ass banned from a Starbucks-like coffee shop?... not to mention the fact that Starbucks sucks ass, but I digress...

Even all the adlib like lines that Will Farrell had, like expressing his tornado like rage in the car, were just so subdued and sentimental, that it all just paled in comparison to the kind of brilliant improv I came to expect from Anchorman...

Will Farrell will forever be known as the greatest sixth man in history to me. He is one of the best, if not the best, improv actor I have ever seen in my life. And his Saturday Night Live stints definitely proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt...

... but after I was left so bitterly disappointed from this film, weeping away kicking and screaming as if I had just lost the championship game?...

Y2kk Update: - Star Trek: Enterprise, Season Four IvanFian Year in Review (Spoilers...) -

Well... technically, I have nothing left to review for my precious Star Trek Enterprise...

The series is over... and the only thing I have left to do, is somehow save up enough money to buy those over-priced, fucking ugly DVD boxsets of the series... all four seasons, really... and keep the series in my mind and heart for as long as I can remember it...

And it just doesn't feel right anymore, you know? That I have absolutely no Star Trek to review on my Friday evenings anymore...

... which may be ironic, considering Star Trek Enterprise was always a Wednesday show until its fourth and final season, but that's besides the point...

The point is, I thought that with the end of May coming, and with the end of Star Trek as we know it now long gone?...

I thought that I might as well just post here what I wrote last week about Star Trek Enterprise's season four as a whole...

... and also shows that once again, I still have absolutely nothing to do on my Friday nights...

... and replaced with a whole bunch of reality TV bullshit on UPN (not to mention WWE Smackdown in its Friday death toll timeline... oh, the irony... sort of...)...

For the first time in pretty much my entire life (or the parts of my life that I do remember), Star Trek will no longer be on the air in any sort of current season fashion... Sure, there will always be syndication. Sure, there are DVDs... Sure, I know that Star Trek will return one day, either with a new television series or a new set of movies...

I am one of the few who loved Star Trek: Enterprise since its very first conception... I still remember how I felt that series pilot day, determined to never watch another episode of Trek after the abomination that can only be known as Voyager... and yet I still fell in love with the series the moment I laid eyes on the NX Enterprise and her crew... I could never quite figure out why, but I did...

The first season may have had a ton of boring filler episodes, but there were truly some classics in there as well, like Dear Doctor and Shuttlepod One... Season two in retrospect wasn't quite as great as I remembered it, but increasing tensions with the Klingons and one kick ass Borg sidestory in Regeneration, truly made the season memorable to me... And truth be told, I absolutely loved the third season of Star Trek Enterprise. While I admit that the Xindi war arc does leave a bit of a bitter taste in an old Trekkie's mouth, for seemingly coming out of nowhere with no prior precedent in history, I still must admit that I just loved what that season long arc stood for... Earth couldn't defend for itself. In the end, humanity had to become best friends with its worst enemy to save both races. And in the process? We got some kickass battles against the Xindi, and some great episodes along the way such as Similitude, Azati Prime and Damage...

Season four was arguably the strongest of the four seasons though. Because just like with The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, things really start picking up for Trek series with their third seasons leading into their fourths... Manny Coto was given free reign to bring his love of the Original Series to Star Trek Enterprise. And while as a TNG fan, often Coto's dreams didn't end up quite as my own wet dreams come to life, I still have to admit that he did bring out some of the best nostalgia I have ever experienced out of Trek, or any television show for that matter...

The return of the Augments were simply amazing, with some great tributes to Wrath of Khan throughout that mini-arc. The episodes with the Orions stood out as well, if only because of the reminders of just how sexy and sleezy the Original Series really was... The mirror universe episodes done in season four were far superior to the crap ones we got in Deep Space 9. And the Romulan arc? Simply put, United became one of the best episodes ever of Trek, right up there with Shuttlepod One and Azati Prime in my book... And for the TNG fan in me? Brent Spiner made a terrific return at the start of the season. And even though I won't even try to argue that These are the Voyages was a decent way to end the series, I still have to admit that the CG work on the Enterprise-D in the asteroid field, still nearly brought a nostalgic tear to my eye...

I loved season four, not just because of all the amazing mini-arcs put forth by the reinvigorated writers, but because of the strong acting and performances of all members of the cast throughout the season as a whole...

Mayweather did his usual thing, only getting to say a couple of lines for most of the episodes throughout the season... But hey, they eventually threw him a bone. Even he got a moment to shine, getting the uber-hot girl in Demons and playing backstabber in In a Mirror, Darkly (Part 2)... But it was Hoshi that truly got to shine in the final episodes, compared to every other season but her first perhaps... She still makes my bits and pieces sizzle as Empress Bitch in the mirror universe episodes. And Linda Park even got her moments to really shine actress wise, with strong performances in Observer Effect and arguably Terra Prime...

I do wish that Phlox was given more air time in season four. John Billingsley is perhaps the most talented overall actor on the cast, and it's just unfortunate that his first season episode, Dear Doctor, still hasn't been topped in terms of acting and moral controversy (though Similitude came close)... Still, while Phlox wasn't exactly given an entire episode devoted to him, he still definitely had his fair share of the spotlight. He had perfect chemistry and animosity with Brent Spiner's character in the Augment arc, he showed some real balls when it came to protecting his patients in Observer Effect, and he probably had his strongest showing of the season in the Klingon plague arc...

Malcolm Reed has been sadly ignored since the first season. To be honest, besides Shuttlepod One and some of his homoerotic scenes with Hayes in season three, the actor has been sadly invisible behind his console... Reed wasn't exactly given the ball to run with in season four either, but at least a lot of his friendship with Trip was allowed to come back. The two definitely worked perfectly with one another throughout the Romulan arc, and they even got to share a moment with the decommission of the NX Enterprise in the series finale... And at least Reed will forever go down in history (or the Star Trek encyclopedia at least), as being one of the first ever members of Section 31 not only immortalized everyone's favourite Brit, but really helped to make Terra Prime into one of the strongest outings that Enterprise has ever produced...

Now, Connor Trinneer has never been quite ignored on the series, no matter how few lines he had throughout the seasons past. The actor has always managed to stand out nonetheless, thanks to some real character development and some kickass hick acting along the way... Hell, B&B even devoted the entire series finale to pretty much everyone's favourite engineer from the South, and why? Because quite frankly, he's one of the best characters the series has ever seen... Now, he didn't have much to do with Hoshi this season, except play the big brother sort of crush for her. And except for some touching scenes with the death of his cloned baby, Trinneer didn't interact with Phlox much either...

But if there's anything truly redeeming to say about the series finale, it's that Charles Tucker the third was forever truly loyal to his captain and best friend. Connor nailed his speech perfectly to Chef about trust in the end... And throughout the entire season, you could name pretty much any episode, and Trip was a huge part of it... His reactions to T'Pol's marriage were the only redeeming moments of Home. I loved his final scenes as a dead man in Observer Effect. He was such a poor, tragic, hapless figure to T'Pol's fine ass figure in the mirror universe episodes... And hell, you want to talk about tragedies? Trip is a man who has lost his hometown, his sister, his baby, his girlfriend (sort of...), and eventually his own life...

And as for the other half of the tragic, Romeo and Juliet couple?... I've never been a big fan of Jolene Blalock, especially when it comes to her behind the scenes comments about the show... But damn, does she ever have chemistry with the pecan pie man... Sure, some can complain that the both of them together made Star Trek into a space opera. But how the hell can I complain, when Trip and T'Pol made me an actual 'shipper for the first time in my life?... I felt so bad for them when they lost their child in Terra Prime, that my heart literally melted when the two held hands. And the bond between the two of them (and Trip's rolling of the eyes at its revelation), was perhaps the only true redeeming part of Bound as an episode... Blalock as a mother was amazing throughout the Demons and Terra Prime arc. But it should also be noted, that she showed some true Spock like moments when it came to the Vulcan Kir'Shara arc as well... Hot damn, did she ever sizzle the screen as an oppressed minority in In a Mirror, Darkly. And hell, I'm actually proud of the actress... Because no matter how much she despised the premise of These are the Voyages? She still put on an amazing performance when it came to Trip's death...

The T&T space opera may have stolen the show and stolen my heart, but the true man of the season was Captain Jonathan Archer... He was immortalized in canon Trek history in a dozen different ways, from the naming of Archer IV in the mirror universe arc, to even getting his big speeches memorized in future grammar schools by TNG characters... The fans wanted proof that Jonathan Archer would forever be remembered as a great man. And if there was any decent point to These are the Voyages in the end, it was that the Birth of the Federation ceremony proved once and for all, just how beloved everyone's favourite quantum leaper turned out to be...

While I still prefer season three over season four, I'll gladly admit that Scott Bakula had his best chemistry of the series with each of his fellow cast members this season... His fling with Hoshi the Hottie in In a Mirror, Darkly provided some of the greatest scenes of the entire series. And with Phlox, Archer put forth a wealth of memorable scenes, in both Observer Effect and the Klingon forehead arcs alone... He finally showed some real respect for T'Pol, even if teaching her how to mind meld was stepping the bounds just a bit too much after the Kir'Shara arc... And we all knew beforehand that Trip and Archer were long time friends. But they really did stress it and show it this season, as the trust and loyalty between the two of them made for a brilliant, Original Series like trio, with T'Pol as the third pillar in the mix...

... I loved Star Trek Enterprise... with all the faith in my bloody hell heart...

... it was my favourite Star Trek series since The Next Generation , no doot aboot it...

... it's been a long time... but alas, not long enough... its time is finally here...

But at least Star Trek Enterprise will achieve what no other Trek series but DS9 has...

... it's the kind of show that people five years down the road will be asking themselves, "why weren't we watching this?"...

Y2kk Update: - Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith Theatrical Review (Spoilers...) -

I mean seriously, did the man even take one good look at the acronym for his latest and perhaps final Star Wars film?

It's true, oh it's true, that Star Wars: Episode III suffers from the same horrid script writing that the other two prequel movies did... When you've got love exchanges with lines like "You're beautiful because you're in love" and "You're beautiful because I'm in love", then you know somebody was smoking a joint when he was writing the damn lines to this film...

It's sad to say, that George Lucas can't even write romance scenes on the level of the bloody hell Catwoman film. I honestly felt more romantic chemistry in Team America than I did in Revenge of the Sith...

But at least George Lucas actually listened to the fans, and kept the Padme and Anakin Skywalker scenes to an absolute minimum. Sure, the fact that Padme was broken down into a bitchy, helpless housewife actually had me cheering like a football fan at her death and everything. But considering her best friend, Jar Jar, was barely in the film at all?... then I guess George Lucas was listening to the fans afterall...

He listened a little too much for once, I'd wager. I mean, Star Wars: Episode III pretty much can be summed up as one big fanboy fanservice for the long time fanatics... They replaced Jar Jar with Chewbacca. They had more scenes of Senator Organa than they did of Padme, me thinks. And was that Grand Moff Tarkin at the end of the film with Darth Vader and the Emperor?... In a sense, Revenge of the Sith was George Lucas' big "I'm sorry" to the fans, trying to suck up to his fanbase to keep us sucking on his titties like a whore some more...

Star Wars may not be Shakespeare when it comes to the script. But dammit, when I go into a theatre to see a movie called "Star Wars", I ain't expecting Hamlet... and Hamlet sucked ass, by the way...

I go into a movie to be entertained. And to be honest, I was definitely entertained by Revenge of the Sith... Sure, most of the best moments were simply nostalgic fly-by's for long time fans. Seeing the precursors to the X-Wings, A-Wings, B-Wings, Tie Fighters, and I think even the Millennium Falcon down below (unless that was the Falcon itself) was literally the highlight of the opening space battle for me... Having the first Imperial Shuttles and AT Walkers show up on screen, not to mention the return of the Clone War Star Destroyers, definitely hit the right mark and got me all riled up, now huh kid?... or something like that...

Revenge of the Sith had two main goals: to show the inevitable downfall of Anakin Skywalker... and to set up the galaxy as we see it in Star Wars: A New Hope... and while the film does neither job perfectly? I gotta admit... I was satisfied nevertheless on both accounts...

Since geeks just love ranking systems, I might as well rank the Star Wars movies as I see them... although considering I hate the Star Wars trilogy as a whole (afterall, I am a Trekkie)? Then I guess my two cents won't even be worth one...

Return of the Jedi was by far the worst of the flicks. The only thing to even come close to redeeming that film from Ewok insanity, was the Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker final 'bout. And even that was barely worth it... Episode I comes in a close second to last place, saved only by the pod race and the stellar fight with Darth Maul near the end... Episode II takes the next place up the hierarchy, as it was entertaining. Horrible romance and all, and I definitely overrated it in my review, but it was still entertaining... Empire Strikes Back comes next. I do love the pacing and music in the film, but the plotline just didn't hit the mark for me... A New Hope rounds out the list as second best Star Wars film of all time, and probably would be higher if it didn't feel so outdated nowadays...

... yeah... well, you got it right... considering there's only one film left to name...

The script was horrible. And I was definitely disappointed by the lack of space battles... The only real one in Revenge of the Sith was the big clash over Coruscant at the start. And besides some turboblaster fire from a Star Destroyer, we really got nothing... And of course, the wooden acting throughout the film was accompanied by big ass CG scenes everywhere. Most of the time, the actors seemed like they were talking to walls. Because literally, that's how they filmed pretty much the entire damn film... The CG backgrounds were near seamless though, and miles ahead of anything in Attack of the Clones. But I still miss the good old days, of filming in actual locations, you know?...

I've already complained about how much of a bitch Padme was. I just loved how she named her children on a whim at the end, and didn't even bother looking at Leia after she was born... Choosing suicide over raising her own children, eh? What a nice mother she turned out to be...

And I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Jedi Order absolutely sucked Darth Balls in the film... I'm hoping that this was what Yoda meant by a lack of balance in the force. Because was it me, or did all the Jedi Masters act as arrogantly bastard-like as you'd expect from a Sith?... First of all, during Order 66, all the gunned down Jedis seemed so trusting of their clone soldiers, that they didn't even sense the backstabbing coming... And WTF was up with Mace Windu? Not only did he show no mercy to the Chancellor, but he acted as a total pompous ass to Anakin as well! You could almost blame him for the fall of Skywalker, being the ass of a teacher as he was...

And you gotta love Obi Wan at the end. Instead of trying to get Anakin back on the light side of the force, Kenobi just whips out his light sabre, and tells him it's time for him to die. Nice friendship there, mate...

And yes, the birth of Darth Vader (contrasted with the birth of his children) was cheesy as hell. I couldn't help but laugh at the infamous "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" scene... Now, I know all about the damage control excuses out there, that the creation of Vader was a supposed throwback to a similar scene in the 1930's Frankenstein film. But that doesn't excuse just how damn badly the scream was done... Even in Empire Strikes Back, when Luke screams out the same words, it doesn't sound nearly as half bad. Because seriously, Anakin as Darth Vader seemed to care so damn little in his little whelp of pain, that it felt like he was crying over a lost Diet Coke or some shit like that... and to that and the entire scene, I can really only say...

Yes, Revenge of the Sith was definitely nowhere close to the perfect film Star Wars fanboys like Kevin Smith were frothing over...

But as a Trekkie?... I must admit... despite all my misgivings, the film did exceed my expectations, however low they may have been...

I mentioned that the script wasn't Shakespearean... But from a certain point of view, the story certainly was...

This was a tragedy. And I love my goddam, Greek tragedies... Anakin lost everything. Thanks to the same kind of self fulfilling prophecy that almost got Luke in Empire Strikes Back, Anakin ironically killed his wife (and his child, or so he thought) by trying to save them... By trying to save democracy and protecting the Republic, he turned on the Jedi, and was lost down the path to a galaxy-oppressing Empire... He lost his career. He lost his social status. He lost his hero status... He lost his best friend. He almost lost his own life... If that ain't a goddam, Greek tragedy, then I don't know what is...

The film had a sort of Shakespearean poetry to it, though definitely not in prose... In my opinion, just like the great tragedies of the past, the true climax of the film came in the middle. With the second half as the denouement... The scene where Anakin turns on Mace Windu and joins the Dark Side of the force, may be the most argued about scene in the entire film. And I admit, from a human and movie making perspective, Anakin did seem like he shifted sides way too quickly. From being the peacemaker, to slaughtering little annoying kids in about five minutes flat...

His turn wasn't perfect. But I definitely felt something there... And combine that with Order 66?... Sure, all those Jedis were too damn stupid to defend themselves. It bugged me to hell that they weren't even looking over their shoulders just in case... But there's no doubt about it, that Anakin's turn and the destruction of the Jedi Order, were two of the most emotionally impactful scenes in the history of the series. They served as the true climax of the film, an almost surreal kind of Shakespearean tragic moment if you will...

... and besides... I cheered when Anakin shut the mouth of those annoying, cock sucking, little "younglings"... but that's besides the point...

One of the reasons why those Dark Jedi scenes were so powerful, was because Revenge of the Sith had arguably the best soundtrack in the history of the series... I wasn't a fan of the new additions to the musical score. But thanks to being the no-name nostalgic, even I have a soft spot for all the Star Wars tunes of the past... From the return of the Episode I fighting melodies, to everyone's favourite Empire march, John Williams just did an outstanding role in creating a soundtrack that blended seamlessly with the film. It was one of the most beautiful, epic scores I've ever heard, to be honest... and kinda makes me jealous, as the Star Trek fanboy that I am...

The pacing of the film was near perfection. I had heard that Anakin's turn to the dark side was rushed (which was partially true), but as for the overall film itself? I was really never bored once... For once, a prequel trilogy film didn't feel schizophrenic by constantly switching between subplots and scenes. For once, a Star Wars film felt natural in its progression of one battle to the next, for the first time since Empire Strikes Back at least... Some say there were too many battles in the film, and that none of them were memorable. But really, I wasn't bored once throughout the film... and how the hell can I be, when there were just so many shiny little lights on screen to dazzle and keep me company?...

And every single scene that the Emperor was in, was a scene worth watching more than once... His 'seduction' scene at the water opera, where he tempts and baits Anakin with the powers of the dark side? As a nerd of all things sci-fi, I just loved the script and the atmosphere in that scene... All the talk of Darth Plagas, the supposed former master of Palpatine (if rumours of the next prequel trilogy are to be believed), had me gripping on the edge of my seat... I mean, were his powers real? Could he create life and bring it back from the dead? Or was Palpatine just lying to Anakin, using his fear of losing Padme against him?... Hell, the power to control life was almost tempting for me to take. I love the seduction of the dark side of the force, luring you in with promises of the greater good... Take me, Darth Sidious! I want to be master of the undead or some shit like that... And just the hypnotic tone of his voice that Palpatine was using in that scene, made me almost feel sorry for poor helpless Anakin. He didn't stand a chance against the lure of the dark side of the force, and I somehow literally felt it...

And the revelation scene, where the Emperor admits that he's the Sith Lord that the Jedi Order was looking for? I admit, I was kinda shocked and caught off guard by how candid he was being... Palpatine was a master manipulator. He brought back the dark side of the force in Anakin, by forcing him to give into his vengeance against Count Dooku. And now he was forcing Anakin's hand, to choose between the arrogant Jedi Order that was pissing him off, or saving Padme with the Emperor's supposed powers... It just shocked me that Palpatine would just admit everything so calmly to Skywalker, sort of like a father really (...), and then just let him run along to make the right decision. But somehow, it all worked out in the end... You could literally sense Anakin's confusion through the screen throughout that scene. Hayden Christensen may not be able to act worth a damn, but at least he can definitely look confused...

I really didn't like the fight scenes in the film much though... Count Dooku got his hands cut off nicely, but the entire fight scene was just a let down compared to his one against Yoda in Episode II... General Grievous had a kickass intro with the four light sabres and all. But he got his ass kicked by just one blade and a gun to his chest, which kinda made the useless toy of a character into more of a tool... I really hated the Jedi Masters' fight against Palpatine. I mean, I was hoping he was making everyone dumbass using his supposed Battle Meditation powers or something, because why the hell could the first three Jedi Masters not even raise their damn swords to parry once or twice? God, those morons deserved to die... And there is a huge debate whether Mace Windu actually won that battle, or whether Palpatine was just playing possum to lure Anakin to the dark side of the force. The battle sucked either way, but I loved the scenes that followed... Palpatine really was an insane, inhuman like creature in this film. And he almost made me want to rewatch Return of the Jedi...

But the real star of the film was Ewan McGregor. It took him three films to get it down pat, but he really immortalized (and typecasted...) himself as the true Obi Wan Kenobi this film...

In Episode II, he didn't feel connected to Anakin Skywalker whatsoever. But it all changed in Episode III... Hayden Christensen and his ass were dragged into having decent conversations and actual jokes, that just somehow flowed with his Jedi Master. Both characters talked about saving each other's asses, and of the trust they had as best friends... And the dialogue was all delivered so well at times, that it really does bring new meaning to Obi Wan's comment, "he was a good friend", in Episode IV...

I'm sure it all looked hokey on paper... but I just loved this exchange between the two of them:

Ewan McGregor nailed almost every single one of his lines, no matter what kind of wall or green screen he was actually staring at... And while he certainly will be 'rewarded' for his efforts, by thousands of lunatic Star Wars fanatics on the streets and at conventions, at least he can get two relatively normal, Trekkie thumbs up from me, the no-name whiner...

His fight with Anakin was alright. The lighting and CG effects of the lightsabres clashing on a volcanic planet were decent, but nothing really happened during their battle to make it stand out compared to Episode I. Except for that ever dubious "high ground" speech, but let us never speak of that again...

The Yoda and Palpatine fight was also lacking. Yoda was holding his own, yet he just decided to wuss out in the middle of the battle? Not to mention the fact, that the Emperor just looked damn silly doing backflips everywhere on screen...

And I'm sure we'll never hear the end of it from Star Wars fanboys, that the prequel trilogy was just awful compared to the originals... Thanks to horrible scripts, wooden acting, romances worth gouging your eyeballs out, gung-ho lightsabre battles fueled by pez, and characters that just weren't as likable as they were in the original trilogy...

But Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith did something that really no other Star Wars film has ever done...

... it made me actually want to watch the rest of the Star Wars trilogy for once...

Y2kk Update: - Lost: Exodus (Parts 2 & 3) and Alias: Before the Flood (Season Finale) Reviews (Spoilers...) -

Okay, I know this is a tired and grossly overused cliche by this point, but it's true... oh, it's true...

I admit that I haven't watched every single episode of Lost out there... Hell, I don't even know why Locke was in a wheelchair in the flashbacks, and how he's walking now...

I'm not a fan of the show. As far as I'm concerned, Lost is just another crappy X-Files wannabe, where it keeps baiting the viewers into watching the next cocktease of an episode and a season, simply by constantly giving tiny little timbits and hints to something, to just anything, that simply can't live up to the wild expectations out there on the net...

Then again, I have been impressed by the writers on certain occasions... Pissing off the fans all obsessed with the big "black rock", and then making it just some creaking, old ship ironically named the "Black Rock", was a brilliant touch in my opinion... So far, Lost has had a way of doing exactly to its fans what you'd expect the human mind to do to a person on a deserted island. Our imaginations and fears run rampant, with ideas of monsters and magic and Lord of the Rings crap like that... and Lost has a very nice way of making the discovery of the logical truth, into something worth watching at times...

I admit that for now, I really only watch the show for the plot. And unfortunately for me then, Exodus Part II relied far too heavily on cockteasing us for season two, then it ever did with truly revealing stuff... I mean, explain to me why the "monster" of a security system on the island is capable of moving around as a black wisp of smoke? Explain to me the significance of the "bad numbers" in the end?... Then again, some decent things were revealed as well. I mean, the Others turned out to be nothing more than hicks with a boat. Kinda anti-climatic I know, considering all their did was pillage the raft for Walt, but... Why Walt? Why not the baby boy? I read on the internet something about psychic powers and Polar Bears in the boy. I know nothing of that though...

Lost is mainly watched for its character development, or at least its personalities. But to be honest? I just can't seem to give a damn about any of the characters... I literally laughed at Artz getting blown up by the dynamite at the start. He had it coming, and my only regret was that it wasn't Smallville's Lana Lang on the receiving end then and there...

Evangeline may be one of the most lovely actresses on television today, but I just can't care about her criminal of a character. Sure, I appreciated when Artz told her to take off her shirt. Who wouldn't, right? But after that, all we got from her was a bunch of running around in her tight tank top (as always... not that I'm really complaining...), disappointed that Jack didn't trust her with the damn dynamite in her knapsack... Jack himself got to play the hero, saving Locke from his own sense of destiny I assume. But then we got this crap talk about religion vs science, which may sound convincing to all the new age teeny boppers who watch the show, but it only made me roll my own eyes... And Hurley? I admit that his flashback scene of the morning of the flight was decent comic relief. I mean, if I had an alarm clock that fucked up, had a car that died on me, had to buy two damn tickets for a flight, and had to waste $1600 on a rental scooter, I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to make my flight anymore. Too many Titanic-sized omens for a superstitious guy like me... But Hurley, for all the other episodes I've seen him in, has been nothing more than annoying in his comic relief. And he bugged me to hell here as well, with his constant whining of "bad numbers", without saying anything about what they truly mean...

... heh... the guy hasn't even begun to lose weight after being stuck on an island for a damn month...

Locke pissed me off with his eye rolling speech about faith, religion and destiny. I think I heard better lines from goddam Star Wars Episode III and its love subplot, to be honest... The rest of the characters on the show didn't contribute much at all. The Mike scenes at the airport pissed me off to no end, because the guy should've been bright enough to know the GBASP DOES NOT use standard batteries. And the kid was just so annoying along the way, bugging Sawyer on the ship, that I was happy that I was almost happy when he was taken by the hillbilly rapists to be... Sawyer was nothing without his criminal buddy Kate to keep him company. He tried to play the suicidal hero at the end, but did I actually care?... And seeing Gavin the Korean guy, barely able to speak English? Considering the actor played a goddam English lawyer in Angel, I just have never been able to take him seriously in Lost. Although his wife is certainly hot enough to keep me company until Enterprise's Linda Park finally gets a new show... And as for the stolen baby side-story, with Charlie finding God and a bunch of extra heroin with him? Well, at least the gun power scene was decently cruel. It shows that poor Pippen at least really does care for his fellow Australian... and why not? Claire's still hot as hell after being on that island with no soap to bathe with... though I don't get why her accent sounds so off (when the actress is damn Australian...)...

... well, at least I liked how the season came full circle, essentially ending with a nice little, converging montage harking back all the way to the series premiere...

I respect Lost on a lot of levels. I can see that it has strong writing, though not the writing that I personally enjoy... I can see that it has a plotline that people would get interested and perhaps even obsessed with. But it's the kind of story that demands far too much patience for my tastes, if you ask me...

I did not actually enjoy Exodus much at all, and it did not make me want to see the next season whatsoever...

But hey... without my precious Enterprise to keep my warm at night?... guess Kate and Claire and that Korean chick will have to do it for me...

... because Jennifer Garner and now zombie-eyed Nadia just ain't gonna cut it...

Because yes, despite everything cruel and unholy that I said about the Alias season finale last year, I still watched most of the fourth season of the show. And regretted pretty much every single minute of it... I mean, there were some clever things along the way. The Buffy season 5 demon as Arvin Cloane had its moments, and having Sloane as the leader of the crappy APO group, at least created some sort of dynamic with Jack...

To be honest, there were only two episodes that I enjoyed throughout the whole season, and they both aired back to back last week... I figured Irena Derevko wasn't dead, despite the bitchiness of the actress along the way. But her discovery (and her death scene) were done so damn well last week, that I really was surprised in the end... Sloane seemingly betrayed his friends and APO, and it made me roll my eyes watching the rest of his group, not even remotely believing that maybe Sloane was still a good guy pulling one over their eyes... Still, The Descent or whatever that episode was called, did one thing that truly made it automatically one of the best Alias episodes ever made. Or two things, really... 1) It didn't suck ass. And 2) it did make me want to watch the season finale...

The season finale, Before the Flood, takes the worst elements of the flood from Halo, and made the damn episode into Resident Evil Alias...

Having to watch Nadia get swarmed by Russian zombies, wasn't painful to watch because Nadia is too damn hot as hell to become a zombie... But because I fucking hate zombie shows and movies! And honestly, in a show about hi-tech EMP bombs and other-worldly tech shit like that, why the hell would the supposed Rambaldi "Endgame" be about turning men into stupid zombie-like creatures?...

... uggh... I'd rather be watching Voyager's "Endgame" all over again... and that episode really sucked...

I've always hated the characters in Alias. I'm not afraid to admit that... Nadia has definitely had her moments of looking damn fine in a dress with that damn fine hair of hers, but besides that? She along with the rest of the cast, are just not the type of characters that I want to watch... And Before the Flood definitely showed off why...

Jennifer Garner's only real strength on the show, is donning a pair of geeky glasses and turning me on. But that's about it... What the hell did she do in Before the Flood anyways? There was that stupid look on her face when leaving Nadia behind in that Resident Evil subway scene. There was the god-awful "yes" moment when it came to Vaughn's proposal. There was all the pointless roaming on the Russian zombie streets, which obviously lead to nowhere but more pointless zombie scenes. And then there was the final showdown with Nadia, which hardly could be considered the climax of the past two seasons of Alias... Whenever the final showdown between the supposed Chosen One and the Passenger was mentioned in the past, it sounded like Nadia would actually be evil, and not just a moron. So I expected Sloane to truly be good in Before the Flood, while the big twist came from Nadia turning out to be evil... But in the end, she became a frickin' zombie. What the fuck is up with that? And besides just getting fucking red eye from a bunch of Bullseye and smoking joints, what the hell did my favourite Nadia do? She was dumb enough to stay behind in a zombie infested tunnel without backup. And she didn't even get any more moments with her newly rediscovered mother...

Jack and Irena shared a lot of decent moments in the episodes prior to this finale. And at least in Before the Flood, Irena stayed season 2 nice enough, to actually put some feeling into her kiss with Jack near the end... Altogether though, Irena was useless this episode. She got to shoot her sister in the head (bet that was a helix copy of her though), and got to be part of the Spy Family on the streets once more... Jack was much more subdued and in the background this episode than he was in the last. But at least he got one decent moment in. I mean, you gotta love it when he puts the words "fun" and "torture" into the same sentence...

Dixon had about zero lines this episode. Nice to know that the black man is getting his due again, always being the first to die...

Marshall didn't piss me off for once this episode. For once, he didn't just hack his way through heaven and hell, but actually had to get a real password for once. Wow - something remotely realistic from my computing counterpart for the first time in the series... And Eric? Maybe I missed an episode or something, but wasn't he Nadia's girlfriend for the first half of the season? Why did he not show any concern for her?... and it's kinda sad really, when the only decent thing that guy's done all season long, is pull off magic tricks in front of Mia Maestro. Although I'd do that in a heartbeat, to steal he heart...

... and Vaughn... oh dear God, where do I even begin with him?... I thought last year's cliffhanger was a complete cop-out, coming out of literally nowhere, just to try to make the summer interesting for no real reason whatsoever... and now we get this?...

Seriously, what the fuck kind of cliffhanger was that? Vaughn says that Michael ain't his real name. He's probably some follower of Rambaldi as well... and then he gets smashed by a car on the side, because he's too damn dumb to keep an eye on the road? WTF?...

... Seriously! I was half expecting him to take off some face mask, and reveal that he's really fucking Ben Affleck or some crap like that...

Elektra 2. Give it to me. I'd prefer that a hell of a lot more than this shit, at least...

Because honestly, if you're going to do a cliffhanger, make it make sense with the rest of the season, alright? Don't just go off with some gimmick that will be irrelevant well into the second episode of the next season, 'kay?...

Before the Flood was just an atrociously embarrassing episode in the end. The action was Resident Evil Apocalypse at best, without even the nuking of my precious city of Toronto to liven things up (unless that was TO that we were seeing in this episode...)... The cliffhanger wasn't even a WTF moment. It was a "you're a stupid hack, Abrams" moment, just like the whole of the season has been for me...

The only decent thing that the series had going for it was Nadia. And while I'm sure they'll bring her back, having her as some crazy lunatic of a monster this episode just didn't fit the bill of what I at least was expecting from the big prophecies...

... oh dear God... I'd rather be watching Monster in Law... now that's just sad...

Y2kk Update: - Charmed: Something Wicca This Way Goes (Season Finale) Review (Spoilers...) -

I mean, seriously! I know that I shouldn't have listened to the rumours... but goddammit, last year's season finale was actually good! Good!... A good Charmed episode was unheard of, yet last year's finale was actually good... And despite how god-awful atrocious the seventh season of Charmed has been up to this point, from the pointless introduction and finish of the Avatars, to Zankou being a complete pussy of a demonic enemy, I still had high hopes for the season finale... and why?...

The rumours all said that Future Wyatt would be back... More importantly, the rumours all said that Drew Fuller would be back as Future Chris... And hell, even some were hinting that Gideon might return in some fashion or another... These were the core three that made the sixth season finale of Charmed into perhaps the only episode of Charmed in history worth watching even once, let alone twice... or P three times, as I ended up doing in the end...

So how the hell did the writers fuck up Something Wicca This Way Goes so damn much?...

It was an hour long episode, and not the two parter I was hoping it would be. That's alright though, considering I don't think I could've put up with two hours of this crap...

What did Piper do the whole episode? She hugged her two sons goodbye, freaked out her father by dressing like a whore, and then holed herself up in Magic School for pretty much the entire sum of the parts of the episode... We got barely any interaction between her and Leo. We had absolutely no sightings of the future versions of her two boys. And unfortunately for the episode, we only really saw Piper as a witch this episode, and barely as a mother. Besides the fact that baby Chris looked like he completely didn't care about his mother, did we really get any moments with the true Piper Halliwell in this season finale?...

Paige to me is the most sexy of the Wiccan trio (though not attractive... her face just doesn't do it for me, but her body definitely does...). So of course I'd be pissed that as soon as her stint with Agent Brody was done in the season, she basically vanished off the face of the planet... The season finale had almost nothing to do with her new white lighter status. Her time at magic school was completely forgotten as well... I was hoping that Agent Brody as a white lighter would show up again at least to help, and yet he wouldn't even take the time to just take a second to orb in?... Paige was just there in the season finale as a witch who could orb. Her powers were the only ones not to be stolen by Zankou, simply because Paige's only point in the episode was to get her sisters from point A to B...

And Phobe? Well, at least she didn't dress as a Freebie for once. But really, what did she do?... Hell, she didn't even notice that her powers of premonition were stolen. That's how out of sync with everything she was... I guess she had the most personal issues with Zankou, and thus at least helped in the end by knowing him the best. I just found Zankou as such a ridiculous villain though... not just because I rewatched Resident Evil Apocalypse on DVD the other day, but because there just wasn't anything really original in his grand master plan. He wanted power from the Book of Shadows and the Nexus, yet he made all the overconfidence mistakes of everyday demons along the way... So what if he attacked Phoebe as a woman? Didn't I see that enough over all the bad seasons of Buffy I endured?...

Was any character worth mentioning this episode?... Leo without his powers has had its moments over the season, with the return of his medic status and all. But he contributed absolutely nothing to his episode, sans his ugly new age look at the end thanks to magic... And Darrell? It was nice that he showed some backbone for once, especially after a season where he started out as a regular cast member, only to have absolutely zero memorable script lines throughout the whole of the season... Now, on paper, I'm sure Homeland Security and Inspector Sheridan exposing the witches to the world seemed cool. But since exposure would ruin the series, we all knew it wouldn't happen... and thus we got a whole big bang of a switcharoo in the end, that just had me rolling my eyes at the sheer stupidity factor of it all...

... especially at the sight of Darrell, actually worrying that beings who can orb couldn't somehow make it out of an explosion in a basement...

I'll tell you one thing though - the three sisters with their new age looks at the end were pretty damn hot. With the exception of Piper, the sisters were actually now much hotter than they were before. Can we have a new series with these new gals, please?... I mean, with Phoebe now looking goddam irresistible, as the blonde that I wish my obsession looked like back in high school?... then hot damn, I wouldn't mind admitting that the only part of the episode that I did watch twice, was seeing Phoebe's new freebie ass in that damn fine skirt of hers...

Charmed sucked all season long. The seventh season had absolutely no focus whatsoever, except for the simple pursuit of a normal life outside of witchcraft for the sisters... at least that part remained consistent with the finale...

... I just can't believe that I actually found (and watched...) a show worse than goddam Smallville...

... WB canceled Angel... and renewed Charmed for seventh and now eighth seasons... for this?...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Commencement small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers...) -

Commencement kicked all sorts of ass... WTF?... I couldn't believe what I was watching...

I mean, season four has been so damn turgidly awful for Smallville overall. Though there have been a few bright exceptions, with characters like Lois and the Flash being in the mix and all...

I mean, seriously! From now on, I should just watch season premieres and season finales of the show, because everything in between has a much better chance of just being pure filler of the week crap than anything sweet and holy like this episode was... Why the hell can't the writers write like Commencement all the time? Why the hell do they make us put up with 20+ horrible episodes a year, just to actually give us a ray of hope at the very end?...

All the actresses gave and were given superb jobs in the finale... Lois' little shock and awe moment (at seeing the devastated town of Smallville) was a bit overplayed. But damn, no matter how corny her dialogue got, I just loved all her farewells to the Kents and all... She did the sort of Michael Rosenbaum thing, underlining her true feelings beneath script lines that are obviously meant to mean something else. Because I mean, the way that she almost seemed in tears when making fun of Clark in a suit and tie? I don't know... Lois Lane alone made the show bearable to me all season long. From her acting too, and not just her cleavage... And just like Clark Kent said, how the hell are we supposed to survive without her now?... Erica Durance better be back on the cast next season...

I was terrified that Chloe would be the one to die in Commencement. The thing is, not only was she spared, but she got to play the hero as well... You gotta love how tiny little Chloe shoved Lex's evil ass right into a cave wall. And I almost wanted her to scream out to Clark when he was at the wailing Kryptonian wall. But I guess she really does have so much respect for his secret, that she still wouldn't say anything when the sky was literally falling... Acting wise, maybe Allison Mack was a bit off. She spoke way too quickly when trying to convince Clark to find Lana amidst all the panic and chaos. And the comic relief of her sneaking past a soldier as Lois was dressing him down, just didn't seem to work in that scene... But damn, does Chloe ever have loyalty to Clark. The way she lied outright to a threatening Lex, gave her the kind of balls that really make me hope that she makes a full fledged return next season...

But it's true, oh it's true... Sure, I balled out laughing at the ridiculous bitch cat fight between her and Genevieve at the start. And maybe I only enjoyed Lana this episode, because I actually had hoped that she would be the one to get killed off or something? I dunno... Either way, Kristen Kreuk actually proved that even if she can't act worth a damn Edgemont, that at least she can play a pivotal role from time to time. The guilt on her face after confessing to Lex what had happened in her apartment was simply priceless. And the return of the bitchy look when Lex stole her handbag like a thug was just as memorable... And WTF? I even enjoyed the romantic scene between Clark and Lana? Seriously, WTF?!... Maybe it was just because she sounded like she was going to leave the cast in that scene or something, but I actually found her goodbye speech to be somewhat touching. Kreuk really did sound like a person terrified of what the future would bring, and guilty of what she now bears of the past... She finally showed trust in Clark by giving him the rock instead of a hard place. And even the final kiss between him and her didn't seem that damn forced for once...

... for once, Lana Lang and her goddam teen angst actually felt... appropriate?... real?...

Every cast member on the show really got some great, memorable scenes in the finale... The Kent parents weren't bitchy like they've been all season long. And they weren't invisible in Metropolis, as they've conveniently been from time to time... Mrs. Kent was lovable with the loving, motherly tears and all. She also really seemed to be fond of Lois, bringing me high hopes for some Elektra lesbianism next season around... And sure, it kinda felt weird how quickly Pa Kent became supportive of his son's suicidal tendencies. But he made up for it, with some goddam nice ass whoopings on the ever returning prodigal son...

This guy really is Jason X. I mean seriously, I can't believe how hard I laughed at seeing him just trot out of a truck, totting a goddam shotgun in hand!... This guy was literally shot in the shoulder, pushed off a cliff, left to rot and die... lost the only love of his life to his newfound sworn enemy... and then somehow makes it back to Smallville, complaining about a "bad day"? How the hell could I not love this episode, with something as ridiculous as that?... Not only that, but with Clark nowhere to be found, Jason's return was actually done pretty decently. We learned that he may not know what Clark exactly is, but he knows enough to know how to get his mommy a nice funeral present. And he did it all with style, even shooting a few shotgun rounds into Clark's ol' bedroom for good measure... Now, I never thought I'd be saying this, but I almost hope that Jason does return for at least the season premiere next season. I've hated his character for being boring all season long... but how the hell could I not love a French, shotgun wielding hick come back from the grave?...

The Lex's were the real villains of the story, however... Now, I was disappointed in Lionel. He was probably the only character who did disappoint... Sure, his evil nature was clear as mud when it came to threatening his son with Lana's arrest and eternal imprisonment. But really, it was just eye rolling ridiculous how Lionel got his ass kicked by a fucking rock in his goddam pocket. And not only that, but the irony of the stone setting off right after he swore he didn't have it, made the scene into more of a mockery of a cheesy comedy than anything feeling tense and epic... Still, I was probably most disappointed in the fact that Lionel still didn't seem to remember his time in Clark's body... But considering that little Matrix signs were flashing left and right in his eyes near the end? Then maybe there's still hope for the old man Luthor afterall...

But damn, was his son ever evil... Now, it's kinda weird how Lex never really had a moment over the course of the season, where you could just tell that he had gone over to the dark side of the force. He rarely seemed to show his father's obsession for the Kryptonian stones, and Michael Rosenbaum normally didn't seem any more devious than he was in season three. But damn, did he make for some damn fine devilish scenes in Commencement... The subtle, smug look on his face when he realized Clark had just flat out lied to him about the cave walls was perfect. And the solemn, deranged look of obsession on his face, whenever he politely asked Lana for the stone for safe-keeping, was absolutely a pure personification of evil. You gotta love when he claimed with a smirk, that he would never take the stone from her without permission... Lex morphed over the course of Commencement alone, from the guy who just wanted to sweet talk his way into Lana's pants, into practically a rapist who wanted to force his way into power at any cost. If only he didn't look pathetically weak when Chloe kicked his ass into a wall, then Lex really would've been the true villain of the story for once...

I loved his chemistry with Lois once again. You could actually sense a bit of mutual longing between the two of them, even if there isn't an attraction just quite yet... And the way his voice would just terse and dry up just a tiny bit, whenever talk of Lois' departure was brought up? It all just gave me so much hope for the future of the series... Now, his scenes with Chloe did flat out suck at the graduation ceremony. Then again, maybe I was just a bit disappointed that Minister Mayor Wilkens from Enterprise didn't show up and morph into a giant snake or something, but I digress... Now, Clark was a bit of an idiot around his parents as well, not even securing their own safety before he went off on the mission that Jor'el sent him on. And God, was that stupid ass kid (who just wanted back his truck) a complete and utter waste of time, as I was actually hoping the moron would get crushed by some kryptonite meteor rock rather than Clark going in for the save...

But damn, whenever it came to the actual Superman aspects of Commencement? When it wasn't about silly graduation ceremonies, or dumb ass moments were soldiers just stand there as giant meteor rocks get hurled at their heads?... But damn, whenever it comes to the true running arcs of the series, and true running arcs of the Superman story as a whole?... Smallville actually delivers. I'm man enough to admit it... and I'm man enough to admit, that Tom Welling did a near perfect job in this episode...

As for the plotline itself, I think it's safe to conclude that that's not Jor'el in the wall... It was amazing to see the Fortress of Solitude (most likely filmed in Banff...). And I think that seeing all the ice and all, pretty much concludes that one of Superman's enemies from the comic books, has really been the one pulling Clark's strings over all these years... We all know the stones weren't really meant for Clark. The Jade Kryptonite mask, and perhaps even the witch inhabiting Clark's body, are strong indications that maybe something just isn't right... And while yes, I was pissed off as hell that Lana somehow didn't die from that helicopter crash. At least all was forgiven, when that giant Kryptonian ship opened up... only for us to see...

The writers finally make an amazing episode, filled with astounding special effects for the meteor show, incredible acting performances, and some completely hilarious countdowns ripped right from 24... They finally make an episode, where Clark not only has superpowers - but rather, he is Superman, living as the superhero that we all know him to be...

... and then the writers give us a big FUCK YOU, and leave the conclusion up to a new season that I know they'll fuck over as much as the fillers of season four?...

Smallville came through, with not just one of the best episodes they've ever made. But seriously one of the best television episodes I've seen all year...

Y2kk Update: - Star Trek Enterprise: Terra Prime and These are the Voyages... Reviews (Spoilers...) -

... either that, or just spontaneously decide to suicide myself like a certain other engineer did, but I digress...

Nothing will ever replace Star Trek in my eyes. Nothing. I don't care what the critics say.

Star Trek Enterprise was the best damn Trek, and perhaps the best damn sci-fi entertainment, that I've ever had the privilege to enjoy since at least Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Terra Prime will forever go down as the "true" finale to Star Trek Enterprise, or so the fans will surely make sure of...

I admit that I loathed Demons for everything it was. Even after watching it over a second time, last week's episode was still purely at fault for entirely being a set-up for this week's episode. There was absolutely nothing in Demons worth redeeming the episode for...

... but thank God they saved all that is good and holy in the universe for the sequel...

I loved Terra Prime. It had a great plot, a great pace, a great musical score, and most importantly, great characters and acting.

Paxton as the Robocop-like villain just never grew on me, but I admit that he was definitely fleshed out a lot more than he was in Demons... So, he got the Hitler treatment, eh? With the Rigellian genetic treatment, he became the ever hypocritical cliche... He also became a vile murderer. He essentially brought the Vulcan-Human baby (Elizabeth) to life, knowing that the child was destined to die. And for that alone, he was a true villain... Of course, all his sanctimonious talks of Trip being the one to choose between destroying Star Fleet headquarters or half of San Francisco, sort of made him an asshole as well... I never really cared for Paxton's wooden, robot like acting. But completely unlike Demons, Terra Prime truly established his motives as ones that we can really relate to here in the real world... Given more time, he would've become a Hitler, thanks to his desire to conquer the stars in humanity's name. You could actually see that in his wooden acting... almost like an older Anakin Skywalker from Episode II, actually... with sadly better acting of course...

And you gotta love that World War 3 conspiracy theory, from the ironically racist black man in Terra Prime... brings back the Jane fondest memories of all those anti-American and anti-Catholic conspiracy theories I've thankfully avoided since the end of high school, thank you very much...

Now, Terra Prime did explain to annoyed viewers like me, as to just why Enterprise can't or shouldn't destroy the weapons array on Mars. Afterall, you wouldn't want comets to accidentally hit the planet anytime soon, now would you (although can't ships divert comets until a new array is made...)?... But it still irks me to no end, that the damn idiots on Mars didn't even have security protocols to prevent their precious weapon from being taken over in a heartbeat...

Thank God that Terra Prime made me forget all about that shit, thanks to some rather damn clever action sequences... Mayweather finally got to show off his piloting skills, and he even got to bring back memories of his first season encounter with the huge ass comet. And the new comet chase in Terra Prime was exceptionally well done, if only because of Reed and his beloved barf bag... And hell, Manny Coto and Stevens even threw us modern space trek lovers a bone here. The memorial to the Mars Rover was just perfect for the end of Trek... and who amongst us didn't love the Total Recall look of the Mars landscapes? The CG backgrounds were absolutely breath-taking (pun intended)... my only complaint was that poor Paxton's eyes didn't bulge out, Arnold style, once the crack in the windshield opened up. Goddam Martian terraformers with their half assed, air pressure normalizers...

Every character on the show had truly something meaningful to do in Terra Prime... Hoshi had absolutely the least, but even she got to show some balls when she stood up to the orders of the Buffy Mayor Minister. In the first season, she was terrified of a warp reactor. And yet now, she wouldn't even budge when a giant snake was about to eat her? Nice job, Hoshi the Hottie... And Mayweather? Sure, he still has absolutely zero acting skills as an actor. But damn, can the guy pull a nice Galaxy Quest 'pedal-to-the-metal' impression when it comes to piloting CG shuttlecrafts... His romance with Gannett wasn't forced in Terra Prime, allowing me to actually enjoy her beauty with her damn fine hair for once. She became a useless prop though, with her only memorable line being about working for Star Fleet intelligence rather than the radicals. But hey, at least I actually found Mayweather's chivalry, of giving her a free ride home, as something remotely cute between the two of them... No acting is needed when you have an actress that damn hot.

Phlox was criminally underutilized as always, but damn does John Billingsley do an amazing job with whatever script lines he's given... Under any other actor, his speech about Enterprise becoming his new family would've simply been hokey and cheesy as hell. But given the moment, with Trip and T'Pol tearing up in the background, somehow the scene just plain worked brilliantly... Malcolm Reed was also underutilized for the most part. But finally, Section 31 seemed like it had a purpose, with Arvin Sloan Jr. trading barbs with everyone's favourite Brit. Once again, Malcolm was at his best when showing his shady side of San Francisco... and if only Enterprise hadn't been canceled, I would be looking so damn forward to future incursions from Section 31... or at least Area 51, either one...

Archer brought back horrid memories of Gazelles, with his absolutely atrocious speech to the alliance delegation at the end. And Soval clapping like a moron on weed certainly didn't help things out either... But for the most part, I thought Scott Bakula did a great job in Terra Prime. He kicked Paxton's ass and took his name, and made it all look good with his gasps for air and loyalty in saving Trip and all... Now, I think we really could've done without that random ensign guy going all Tripish there with the suicide in front of Archer. Besides, we all would've preferred if Kelby had taken the metaphysical bullet instead... But Scott Bakula even made that scene look decent. He actually looked like he cared in Terra Prime, about earth and the future Federation that he was told about in season three. He actually acted as if the meeting with all the different races on earth was the most important thing in history, because it sort of was... His conviction was what helped Terra Prime truly stand out from the rest...

I stated last week, that the artificial baby made from Trip's and T'Pol's DNA in a lab was absolutely pointless. And to some degree, I still agree with that, if only because I have no clue what Paxton was hoping to achieve by just showing a Vulcan-Human baby on television...

But damn, did Terra Prime truly bring to light the fact, that Jolene Blalock perhaps is the best damn actor on the entire show... Her maternal instincts with the child weren't just adorable - they were perfectly in tune with how a new mother would react... From her awkwardness of "I'm your mother", to holding the child and cradling her in her arms, everything just seemed perfect between the two... Trip was the distant Hick father, appropriately so I suppose. But he did his hardest to earn a living, sabotaging weapons arrays on his way back to sweet home Alabama... He didn't have a mother's touch with the baby. But he definitely had a father's concern, especially when him and T'Pol were just staring at their child, all misty eyed at naming her Elizabeth after his late sister... Now, I admit that Trip's tears were a bit over the top at the end, pulling me out of the moment. But damn, I just can't seem to get enough of the Trip and T'Pol romance somehow... even knowing what happened in the following episode, my heart still melted from the sight of them both holding hands and sharing tears...

... now, Rick Berman and Braga had both called their series finale as a "Valentine" gift to the fans...

... most on the internet however, spoiled as they are, preferred to call it a "Valentine Day's Massacre", long before the episode ever aired...

After watching the episode itself with my own eyes and ears, I will readily admit that These are the Voyages was not the greatest of episodes that I had hoped it would be... and from a pacing point of view, it probably was nothing more than average compared to the rest of the fourth season at least...

It felt like an epilogue to Terra Prime. Not a true story or finale in itself, but a pleasant little footnote at the back of an epic novel... telling us how the characters and story end six years down the road, long after all the true stories have been told...

... six long years that I wish I could see with six full seasons of Enterprise, I might add... but I digress...

Now... since I don't want to end my Star Trek Enterprise weekly reviews on a sour note, let's get the bad crap from the series finale out of the way first...

Commander Riker and Counselor Troi were just plain awful. They felt like perverts, constantly peeping in and out and ruining a good movie, with all of their constant appearances in the background of the episode...

I mean seriously, I am one of the hugest Star Trek: The Next Generation fans I know. And I seriously did squeal in delight like a little school girl, at the mere fucking backside of the lookalike Picard actor in the Ten Forward background (if that sounds good, I mean...)... Hell, I even found Data's cheesy comment about rain checks to be mildly amusing, but...

Riker's face looked fine, but his gut sure didn't seem like a season seven TNG episode to me. And poor Sirtis' chest was already starting to sag...

As a TNG fan, I absolutely loved seeing the old TNG sets recreated, especially the conference room (even without all the Enterprise models TNG used to have on the wall before that season). The spinning CG spot of the Enterprise-D in the asteroid film was simply perfect, and brought back the best memories of Star Trek nostalgia... And Riker and Troi had a bit of a purpose. They immortalized the NX crew at least, comparing Reed to a larger than life man, talking about grade school field trips to the NX-Enterprise museum, and memorizing Archer's speech for little elementary school plays...

But still, even so, the whole holodeck thing completely ruined any flow that the episode had. Every single time actors were getting into their thing, either Riker or Troi would freeze the program, or end the program and completely remove the illusion of grandeur the episode was finally getting to... Riker as Chef turned out alright, considering Jonathan Frakes was always brimming with his people and culinary skills. But it just bugs me to no end, that while the major events that we saw in this episode were all true and canon, that the conversations that we heard were not... First of all, how the hell did the NX-Enterprise log every single conversation, or record enough psychological data to recreate perfect replicas of the crew on a holodeck? It couldn't - there weren't quantum computers logging everything on that ship... and as a long time Trek fan, I know that whatever was said by the Enterprise crew in These are the Voyages, could've been nothing more than a random holodeck fabrication...

... which gives hope to T/T fans, that Trip and T'Pol were still having horny Vulcan sex in secret at that stage... but I digress...

And while I'll always enjoy Jeffrey Combs and his character of Shran, the Andorian incident this episode was just so randomly "Smallville Freak of the Weekish", that it was seriously embarrassing to have it in a series finale... I mean, sure it was a nice nostalgic touch to return to Rigel X, the first planet from the Broken Bow pilot episode (though the Suliban were replaced by Stargate Atlantis Wraith clones, I see...). And sure, it was nice to see Shran's daughter, a half Aenar it seemed, along with her cute little comment of "thanks, pink-skin" to Archer... But I could've done without the random phase fight of the week (although Riker definitely was enjoying himself up there perhaps a bit too much). I could've done without the random aliens of the week... I could've done without that blinking crystal thing wasting all of the episode's time. And if anything, it pissed me off to no end that even six years into the future, we still didn't get anything from Berman and Braga about the goddam Romulan War...

And Trip's death? Golly gee, it's like he just woke up that morning, and decided that it would be fun to kill himself...

I mean seriously, his death made absolutely NO sense whatsoever. I mean, he's been in a hell of a lot harsher situations before. Hell, he even die-harded his way against an entire ship of Ferengi with that same damn room we saw him die in this week... And yet after all those close scrapes in the past, the engineer just decides not to wait for security teams to finally show up, and blows himself up just for shits and giggles? What the fuck?!...

Where the fuck was Reed? How the fuck did the aliens board the ship and find Archer in a matter of seconds? Why the hell didn't the Wraith just suck Archer's bones dry anyhew?... And why the hell didn't Trip just at least stall the aliens?... Berman and Braga have always loved their cheap Trek deaths... I was hoping for something different this time, but I guess that was hoping for too much from the killer B's...

... then again, compared to the rest of the Trek deaths I've seen (besides Spock's)? Suddenly Trip's untimely demise doesn't seem so bad...

Tasha Yar literally died from a random, overpussing blob of tar. I see there was a pun intended by Roddenberry there ("T" + "yar = "tar"... har har...)... Captain Kirk was too damn dumb to even to use the Nexus to his advantage before dying a random death to some random Trek villain... Jadzia Dax got her ass kicked and name taken by a fucking Darth Vader clone and a cheap jedi choke trick... And Data? Our beloved Data? While his death wasn't pointless (yes, I kinda liked Nemesis...), it bugged me to hell that the TNG crew simply didn't give a damn about it afterwards...

That's where These are the Voyages finally started to find its purpose... Trip's death, as pointless as it was, actually created a purpose... That's why I ended up enjoying this episode in the end, for what it was worth...

Even with only ten minutes to spare in the series, Trip's death had meaning. That wink and smile he gave Archer the moments before he died, was perhaps the best damn acting I have ever seen in a death scene before. It showed true trust between the two characters, which was perfectly highlighted by Trip's conversation with Chef. I loved his lines of what true trust really meant, of what loyalty to his captain and best friend really meant. Those will be the lines I forever remember from Trek...

And T'Pol and Archer's scene memorial together was close to perfection as well... Sure, Scott Bakula didn't seem nearly dramatic enough about his best friend's demise, until the bitter end of the scene at least. But Jolene Blalock nearly put me in tears, even going so far as to smell the poor hick's shirt out of love, respect, and hopefully eternal Vulcan horniness... I dunno, but there were just so many Enterprise nostalgic moments in that one scene alone, that it really was perhaps the most emotional scene in the entire damn series for me. You had scuba diving pictures from his Hick Florida upbringing, you had talk of T'Pol's late mother and Trip's southern sense of humour... You had a Frankenstein doll there to remind us of Trip's love for movie nights on Enterprise. And I dunno... you had the two actors there moved to tears... It just worked for me, somehow.

Now, for a series finale, most of the characters were unjustly underused. But that's not to say, that each character had a least a small moment to shine... Every character at least got a chance to talk to Riker in the kitchen. With the "were you attracted to him" transition being the most hilarious of them all...

I forget what Mayweather said. So he came out of the series the same way he went in, I suppose... Hoshi looked even more adorable than ever with her new hair. I liked her little bit of an attraction to Trip, as we all saw it throughout the series. Unfortunately, her universal contribution of the universal translator was not highlighted at all... Now, Reed was a complete mystery. Not only was he a complete dunce in not getting there in time to save Trip, but he doesn't even mention his best friend's death when arguing over seating arrangements at the Birth of the Federation? WTF?... Still, I did like his earlier conversation with Tucker. It showed how close the two of them were, not only with each other, but with Enterprise as a ship herself... And thanks to our knowledge of the future, the forgotten trio of Mayweather, Hoshi, and Reed definitely provided some comic relief with their talk about the captain promoted to Admiral. It reminded me a lot of the old conversations about Kirk and Picard being promoted as well...

... though speaking of promotions... Why the fuck were Mayweather and Hoshi still ensigns? Why was Reed still a lieutenant? Why the hell was everyone stuck with their Harry Kim promotion complexes here?... What the fuck?... but I digress for now...

I've already mentioned Trip. I haven't mentioned all his scenes with T'Pol though... It'll bug me 'till kingdom come, that their conversation on the shuttle about missing each other never really happened. But it was sweet nonetheless, how the two of them would forever be star crossed lovers, no matter how far apart they travel beyond the stars... All the talk of moving on, to new jobs and new positions, really got me reminiscing about the impending end of my own university career. I never had a girlfriend or any sorts. But damn, if I had one like Jolene Blalock? Or Hoshi the Hottie preferably? Then I'd definitely miss them too... The Vulcan and human couple was cute in These are the Voyages. We never learn why the two split apart after Terra Prime, but still... True, I can never respect this episode in the end as a 'shipper, since the NX Enterprise for sure never actually recorded the two's conversations in private. But still, the script for what it's worth, wasn't so bad in the end...

Phlox was criminally underutilized yet again, for about the twentieth fox time this season so far... But dammit, we got that infectious alien smile of his again at the end. He put so much sentiment into his words of good luck to the captain, that it was almost impossible for me not to get a little misty eyed myself... And it was nice that he was the one that Archer confided in there along with T'Pol. Seems he was next in line after Tucker on the actor hierachy list. John Billingsley definitely deserves the credit, amazing acting and all...

And Archer?... he was really hit or miss the first 40 minutes of the show, once again putting himself at risk by going on some half assed mission... He never really cared about Shran, neither from the fact that his old Imperial Guard friend was still alive, nor from the mention that he still owed him one. I expected more of a reaction from everyone's favourite boy scout, at least...

But I dunno... unlike Terra Prime, Scott Bakula really nailed his speeches this episode. The Whisky sharing with Trip, moments before his death, felt memorable, if only because of yet another nostalgic mention of everyone's favourite drunkard, Zephram Cochrane... And if there's any reason to remember These are the Voyages in a good light, it's because of the final ten minutes. Sure, we never got to hear Archer preach about Gazelles again (thank God... especially after his eye rolling sermon in Terra Prime...). But dammit, there was just something so special about that Birth of the Federation moment... about that hug out of hard-earned respect and mutual love between Archer and T'Pol...

... that just reminded me of the best moments of Trek in history... and made a new one, actually...

These are the Voyages was a decently good episode, or a good epilogue to Trek as a whole I believe...

Was it a great series finale for Enterprise? No... maybe it wasn't even a good finale in the end... but that's what Terra Prime was for...

Was it better than All Good Things? Not at all, considering nothing can ever replace that final shot of the Enterprise-D in my heart...

But I did enjoy These are the Voyages far more than I did DS9's What We Leave Behind, since that finale's religious fundamentalist crap was a huge disappointment to me... And God, was this episode ever better than Voyager's Endgame. Fuck, anything is better than fucking Endgame...

Y2kk Update: - Nintendo's Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat Nintendo Gamecube Review (Spoilers?... eh, not so much...) -

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat is perhaps the absolute, most embarrassing game to play in front of other people...

Now, I guess it shows something about Nintendo's "kiddie" image, when I brought Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat (complete with bongos and all) to my cousin's house for a party. And keep in mind, that these cousins of mine have absolutely no qualms loving the Mario Party and Super Smash Bros series...

The rest just shook their heads after giving it the shortest chance I ever thought they would...

... but meh... guess they'll never know the uber-joys, of bashing an ape with an ugly stick then?...

... sure, I would've preferred some female bongos over those that we got, but...

I mean, who wouldn't?... this is sadly probably the closest I'll ever get to a girl's... well... you know... but I digress...

Now, I admit. I haven't quite beaten Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat just quite yet... I'm too anal to allow myself to play the next stage if I don't already have the gold medal from the location beforehand. So despite how short this game has a reputation for being, I still have only unlocked 12 stages so far, and completed about ten... Don't know how much farther I have to go...

But that's alright, I guess... Sure, I at times tossed Jungle Beat aside for games like Jade Empire and even Doom 3. But I always kept going back to Jungle Beat in the end, and why?...

Meaning it's an old school kind of platformer, with no real plot, no real purpose...

I never did like Donkey Kong Country for the SNES much in the past... but I did love the music...

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat is the true spiritual successor to that SNES success. And it brings the music back from that game, taking it to a whole new level... While I could never quite get into the remixed tunes in Donkey Konga, I just can't get enough of hearing the old DKC theme in Jungle Beat... All the sound effects and soundtracks in this game are some of the best damn crap I've heard outside of the Zelda series, in terms of getting stuck inside my head, I mean. It brings me back to the good ol' days of midi music... when games didn't try to impress you with their epic scores or whatnot. They just tried to be fun... and memorable...

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat is probably the most therapeutic game I've played since Super Punch-Out... I mean, seriously. Sure, you look like an idiot to everybody else, whenever you keep banging on those bongos against an enemy Kong, or clapping your hands away at the sound of music (although I admit, I choose to do the lame 'tap-the-side-of-the-bongos' thing instead)... But once you get past the whole kiddie image factor of it all, it's just amazing how quickly the minutes and hours can go by as you desperately try to keep up with the DK rhythms, never failing or falling down to the ground, alas you lose your running jungle beat combos...

On the one hand, I've always hated scores in games. Or in this case, banana "beats"... Collecting them all is a whorish obsession of mine. A bit too much of an obsession, in my honest opinion at least...

But scores just keep on driving me to play more and more... My record of beats in a single stage is still just above 1000... and then I check the net and figure out that there apparently are at least 1200 beats on every single level? WTF?...

... which simply highlights the fact, that Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat is incredibly deep in gameplay...

Some on the net can complain about how short and easy the single player game is. And I do admit, I just wish there was some sort of multiplayer aspect to the whole Jungle Beat thing...

But really, Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat is the epitome of old school gameplay, when games were not about being 30 hours long with an epic CG climax or some Final Fantasy dribble like that...

Jungle Beat is pure and simple fun for all ages. And it's 30 to 40 to even 50 hours of gameplay, comes from the simple fact that it's one of those games, that you may never get bored of... one of those rare games (no pun intended... nevermind...), that you just can't get enough of replaying as the years go by...

I mean, Jungle Beat has already proven itself to be the game that I always go back to in 2005...

Now, I do have one major complaint about Jungle Beat: it hurts the heads... badly, if you play too long...

One of the reasons why I haven't beaten this game yet, is because I'm always so damn tired. Either from doing chores around the house, gardening outside, or driving my mother all across town for errands... And because bashing on the bongos and clapping on the sides really does tire a person out after a couple of stages or so, sometimes I really don't have an incentive to play this game. I admit it, at times I do wish that Jungle Beat could be one of those relaxing games you just pick up and play after a long, hard day of work... but it ain't...

Guess what game was the first one I picked up and played, right after failing my fucking university exams this term?...

Jungle Beat was the best damn stress reliever of a game I've played in years... I didn't give a damn about the beat scores I got, or whether or not I was playing the game right. All I cared about at the time, was smashing things with my hands out of frustration, killing everything in sight in the game... And you know what? Not only was it fun, but I actually felt better when it was all said and done...

Jungle Beat is by no means the simple, basic, quasi-little game it may appear to be in commercials... The overall presentation is simply astounding, with the true kind of Nintendo Seal of Quality that we all used to know back in the good ol' days of gaming...

The graphics are simply gorgeous. The fur shading on Donkey Kong beats out any modern game but Conker on the Xbox, the lighting on bosses like the second stage vulture still looks better than any of the crap Xbox 360 shots I saw tonight... and the water rushing right past you as you're getting your ass kicked by Ninja Kong? Puts pretty much every other game to shame...

I've already mentioned the sound effects. All the clapping and monkey grunts just flow seamlessly and rhythmically, with all the beats and clapping you do with the drums... And the soundtrack? While perhaps not quite as memorable as Donkey Kong Country's was, it still puts to shame pretty much every other platformer released this generation of gaming...

Hell, Jungle Beat literally is the best 2D platformer of this generation of gaming.

Sure, that ain't saying much, considering it's only real competition is the Viewtiful Joe series... and I hated the VJ series, but still...

... or the goddam 'coolest looking' of the games released this generation of gaming...

It's embarrassing at times, yes... kicking ass and taking names with the bongos, I mean...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Forever small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers...) -

Let the IvanFian records state... that Forever will forever stand, as perhaps the absolute best and worst Smallville episode at the very same time... because, well?...

"Let me get this straight... Smallville decides to try to one-up House of Wax?... excuse me as I...

On the one hand, Forever will forever be remembered for just how stupid it was... I mean seriously, you have a freak of the week who wants to collect high school students as statues, simply because he got rejected by the colleges he wanted to go to? Wouldn't it have been easier to just threaten the college staff members instead with his powers?...

I mean seriously, Brendan as a villain was just so over the top, that how I could I not find this episode hilarious?... I mean, you have one scene where he literally decapitates the girl we all knew was going to die, then tosses her head down a flight of stairs? Oh dear God, that scene was just so bad, that it actually was hilarious in the end!... And Brendan's fate? He turns into a Medusa statue himself, then conveniently rips off his own leg, just so that he could fall down to his House of Wax doom in his rip off of the school?... Seriously, this episode was just so stupid, that how the hell could I possibly not love it?...

I feared for Chloe for a moment there. I mean, I was terrified that with her being captured and all, that she wouldn't have much to do this episode... But the thing is, she still got her moments to shine. I just loved how eerily she smiled in front of the cameras all the time, which kinda reminds me of my own goddam failed smirks in front of any sort of lens out there... Her plan to get rid of Brendan was just completely a joke though. Why just hit him with a pole once, when you could kinda kill or something with another hit or two?... though I'd fall for Chloe pretending to fall for me anyday of the week too...

But bah, as for her stupidity - I didn't care that much. Because for the first episode in the longest of times, even Lana Lang was mostly bearable... When she was with Chloe, Kreuk's usual cluelessness and bitchiness actually worked, considering she should've been fucking clueless and bitchy about her capture and all... And thank God that for the rest of the episode, she was turned into a stone cold statue, like the stone cold bitch she always seems to be. As long as nothing comes out of that mouth of hers (except if she's gonna give me a goddam blow-job or something), then how the hell could I not love an episode as ridiculous as Forever was?...

The original trio of Clark, Chloe and Lana actually worked well in Forever, something that I haven't felt in the series since.... well?... forever, actually...

Clark was his usual sleuth self, following the bread-crumbs leading to Chloe's disappearance. And once again, he had great chemistry with Lois, as you gotta love that roll of the eyes Erica Durance gave at the comment about the missing key and all... But probably the sole reason why I actually kinda liked Forever, was because I only hit myself in the head once from the usual Clark and Lana romance crap... To be honest, their romance for once was actually kept quite subtle. We all knew it was there, and it was all hinted at by the looks the two gave each other about their choices for college... But really, for once the writers got it right. Instead of bitch slapping us with a sledgehammer of teen angst each episode, we actually got it in small, separate Smallville doses tonight. And while I still hated Lana for the bitch she was, at least I didn't hate Clark for being the pussy he normally is...

Forever pretty much had every cast member on the show doing their thing. Hell, even Pete probably had his best episode of the year (...)... The Kents were a bit too pissy for my tastes at the start. But it was all made up for by the end, when you could actually almost feel good acting in the show, from Jonathan Kent's revelation about his own choices at the end of high school... I already mentioned that Lois Lane's sarcasm was once again more than welcome. And hell, even the Teagues weren't so bad this episode... besides being so damn evil, that is...

... at least he brought out the true villains of the series back into the fold...

Lex wasn't his evil self in Forever. He was back to being his victimized, "I hate my father" sort of Luke Skywalker sort of role. And it mostly worked, since Michael Rosenbaum is such a brilliant actor. I mean, you could tell he never believed his father's concern for him once, and yet Lex wasn't a regular whiny pussy either. He kicked Jason Bourne's ass near the end, and if only it wasn't for Lionel?... If there's one truly saving grace for Forever, it was Lionel Luthor. Because c'mon already - not only did he rat Lana Lang out (which I give two thumbs up to, by the way), but he killed Jason in cold blood, right before Teague was conveniently gonna tell Lex the truth... which means what really?...

... which, I pray to God, means... that Lionel Luthor does remember what happened to him when he was in Clark's body...

... I had feared all this time, that Chloe would be the character to die in the season finale... but it ain't gonna be her anymore, now will it?...

Well, it might as well be her... How else can Lois Lane start moving in on her Smallville turf? It'll also feel weird, with Chloe being in Metropolis U all the time and everything...

Now, there's one thing I just don't get... Why the hell can't Clark just commute to Metropolis? Even if homework or witnesses and all that sort of crap prevent him from racing home every five minutes or so, what the hell is the big deal anyways? He can always slip back to Smallville in the night... it's not like he'll have any of those freshman, experimenting nymphos in his bed holding him back or anything (oh, I wish...)...

Either way... as forced as it felt this episode... I still kinda related to the core trio, as they were awkwardly sharing their end of high school teen angst with each other near the end...

Because?... I mean, except for my design project, I've officially finished my fourth and final year of university... I'm sort of done. I never have to take a test or exam ever again, if I don't want to...

And yeah, as clueless as Clark looked at the end?... as innocuously jealous as Chloe seemed?... and as distant and bitchy as Lana Lang was being, by just being there with her goddam eyes wide shut?...

... because no matter how bad this episode may have been? I still definitely enjoyed it...

... that for better or worse, I'll actually choose to remember for a very long time...

Y2kk Update: - Activision's / id Software's Doom 3 Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers...) -

... revolutionized a genre, made it widely successful, got his name into the history books...

I mean honestly, which gamers amongst us hasn't at least heard of Wolfenstein 3D?

Hell, who here amongst us, gamer or not, hasn't at least heard of the Doom series in the first place?...

John Carmack indeed became the rock, and the very rock star foundation of the FPS industry. He became a living legend...

Carmack, just like his game of Doom, has become one of the most widely controversial names in the entire industry...

On the one hand, he made such instant classics as Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake II, and Quake III. He was revered by graphic whores and the FPS addicted alike across the globe...

The thing is though, in my honest opinion at least, Carmack hasn't created a single game that I've actually thought had good gameplay. Not since Doom II and Quake, at least...

Quake 2 was merely a showcase for the id Software graphics engine of the time, as the single player game itself was one of the worst damn campaigns I have ever played in my life... Quake 3 did have a better multiplayer aspect than its predecessor, by far. But where the hell was my single player campaign?... And with console FPSes finally on the rise at the time, why would I ever bother with Quack 3 for anything but video card benchmarks?...

John Carmack has always been the benchmark for graphical engines... but never gameplay... not for a long time, at least...

And you know that I'm the no-name nostalgic as well, when I literally bought Doom 3 Limited Edition for the Xbox the other week, mainly for the emulated versions of Doom 1 and II... with Doom 3 on the side as an extra for me...

Now, I admit, I've followed the legacy of Doom 3 long before it ever started. From the first ever jaw-dropping screenshots, to the leaked Alpha release (not that I ever downloaded it, mind you...), to the early release of the final Doom 3 code on the net thanks to Bittorrent (not that I could ever run the game with my crappy AMD K6 computer, of course...)...

I can't even begin to count how many forum threads I read, all claiming and clamouring before the game was ever released, at just how it would be the absolute best game ever made... simply because of the graphics...

Of course, Doom 3 didn't meet expectations, both mine and perhaps the general gaming public's as well... Because once again, Carmack and his graphical whoreness shone right through...

The game was utterly beautiful, both in screenshots and in motion. Just not in gameplay, however... And Doom 3 on the Xbox highlights this even more than a mouse and keyboard did...

After smirking my way through the nostalgic versions of Doom 1 and 2 on the Doom 3 disc, I finally opted to play the main game that I actually bought... And I admit, for a short time, it was fun. The enemies were all amazingly designed, the 5.1 Dolby Sound was simply incredible for the overall atmosphere, and the stages weren't designed that frustratingly either. Except for a few colourblinded ladders, I never had a problem finding my way through things... it was mostly all above average FPS level design, actually...

Many on the internet claimed the problem with Doom 3, was that it was the same ol' exact gameplay that we had with the first Doom...

The problem, as I see it, is that Carmack took all the boring fundamentals of the gameplay from the first Doom's... and forgot about everything that made those two games fun in the first place...

Now, this may sound silly, but I just loved the auto-aiming in the first Doom games... Because there was no mouse look back then, you could literally aim your rocket launcher at one side of a room, only for a fired rocket to just magically zero in on an Imp on the complete opposite side of the room... It was great, really. As long as you kept hoarding all the ammo, you could just fire at will, taking out countless enemies and barrels as you please... It was non-stop, therapeutic relief from all of life's endless complications...

... I'm sorry, but the flashlight gimmick was just plain painful to play through... Please tell me why guns in the future do not have flashlights built in? Please tell me why our Marine just couldn't duck tape the damn flashlight to his fucking gun?... The entire Doom 3 formula boiled down to this: you walk into a dark room, you whip out your flashlight, you see zombies there waiting in the perfect dark, and then you take out your shotgun and keep friggin' shooting into the dark until the blood splatters all prove that they're gone... Then of course, some Imp transports into the room behind you. You strafe, shoot him, strafe again, and then finish the job... That's about 90% of the game for you right then and there.

And it was fun, for the first few stages of it or so... But constantly tapping the white button to change flashlights was just so grating in the end, that I eventually even chose to just begin pounding away at the slow movie zombies with the bunt of my goddam flashlight, just for shits and giggles... I mean seriously, after experiencing the incredible AI of Halo and Halo 2, why the hell would I want to go back to enemies that literally are STUPIDER than they were back in the original Doom days?...

That's the second thing wrong with Doom 3... the enemies are just not as distinct and special as they really once were...

Now, I'll gladly admit that the Doom 3 engine is a graphical marvel... I would've considered the Imp and the new Hellknight as absolutely the most jaw-dropping character models I've ever seen in a game, if only I hadn't already been wowed by Resident Evil 4 this year... And while I don't necessarily like the new look of the Pinky demon, I must admit that the animation of its skin and skeleton is just amazing compared to every other game out there... The graphics of the Cyberdemon still managed to wow me on the Xbox, even after all the games I've played on consoles and the PC in 2005... And hell, all the fire and brimstone effects of the enemies you find in hell, really made that lone stage into something that almost made the entire game actually seem fun... simply thanks to appealing to the graphic whore and warrior within...

But c'mon already, must every single enemy act the exact same way in the game?... Imps just hurl plasma balls at you. You run, you strafe, you shoot, and you repeat. At least in the original Doom, I had all the cool rocket launcher auto-aiming and hordes of enemies to keep me company... And Hellknights, amazing as they look, simply are stronger versions of Imps. They toss plasma balls, they walk towards you, and then you just cut them down to size with the chainsaw... Pinky demons may never have been intelligent in the first place, but at least they had numbers before. And yet now? You face maybe five or six of them throughout the whole game. And all you have to do is keep shooting them as they just walk right up to you ever so slowly, like puppies out of Nintendogs really... And hell, even the Cyberdemon somehow proved to be a complete disappointment. You couldn't even shoot him with anything but the Soul Cube! I mean seriously, what the fuck kind of lame-ass final boss was that?...

And that's the third thing wrong with Doom 3... the weapons were just so much better in the original, that I still have more fun with the emulated versions of Doom 1 and 2 than I ever do with their technologically superior sequel...

Probably the only weapon that's actually improved in Doom 3 was the machine gun, as it actually does a wealth of damage at mid-range now... But the pistol is just a waste of ammo. And the ever trusty shotgun? It just reminded me in looks and sound too much of the crappy space shotgun from Quake 2, rather than the ever awesome vintage one in the Doom games. And WTF? Why the hell did they remove the double barrel shotgun?... The plasma gun was made more realistic, but the weapon itself just feels useless now, without dozens of enemies to spray energy bolts with in a room... The chainsaw is simply overpowered now. Not to mention the fact that the sound of it hurts my teeth... The BFG may have made it mostly intact, but WTF did they do to the rocket launcher? Sure, the rocket launcher was completely not realistic in the original Doom's. But c'mon already, with all the old skool auto-aiming?... dammit, it was actually fun...

John Carmack and id Software sacrificed all the huge epic battles of the original games, and all the catchy midi soundtracks of their series as well... to make a bloody hell, survival horror, first person shooter... that would've been innovative, if this was still 1998 at least...

... and I'm sorry... but after playing through Resident Evil 4?... I just can't help but feel total indifference, the umpteenth time that some ugly Cacodemon just transports into the room behind me, or some crap like that...

Loading times were a complete bitch, seemingly at a near even ratio in terms of time with the actual gameplay... And while controls were decent for a controller, they're just nowhere close to Halo-quality... Movement was just plain tankish without the L button run constantly on. Switching weapons was a chore, not only because the D-pad is so limited in weapon choices, but because the goddam menu systems themselves (needed to remap weapons) surprisingly showed a ton of lag for every single goddam menu choice... And even loading your PDA was a problem, as I simply don't want to go through three or five seconds of loading times every single damn time I want to find a single, goddam storage code...

Still... no matter how I feel about the Doom series, or what the Doom series has become, I will admit one thing...

I mentioned the amazing character models, even on the Xbox... But what about the environments? If there was anything that Doom 3 should truly be acclaimed for, it's the technical achievement of making a truly horrific environment... With blood splattered all across the walls, and little baby demons making snarling wasp noises from my rear speakers and all, I simply cannot deny... that if only the gameplay was actually interesting in the game? I would've been engrossed... or just grossed out, really...

... and maybe a little bit of humour like that would've helped the game as well...

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if you want your jaw to hit the floor... if you want to feed orgasms to your inner graphical whore, then Doom 3 is all you need...

Even on the Xbox, where the 64MB of system RAM limited Vicarious Visions into splicing and mincing apart stages into three or four separate sections each, I will 100% completely admit that Doom 3 is one of the most amazing looking games I've ever seen. Second only on consoles to Resident Evil 4, in my honest opinion at least...

... and yes, I know my repetitiveness is starting to really grate as much as Doom 3 itself, but still...

... I just wish the graphics could've been accompanied by some actual gameplay, you know?...

The survival horror feel to it all, just plain detracts from the fun factor that the series used to have... Doom went from being about huge battles against endless foes, to being about one-one-one encounters with enemies that you would rather stare at for polygon counts, then actually fight or be afraid of...

The rocking midi soundtrack of the past games are completely gone, replaced by moans and screams from porn actresses trying to sound like they've actually been sent to hell and all...

And while the storyline of the game is now far more fleshed out than it ever was before, what the hell was the point of hiring a writer, when we got exactly the same damn story we had in Quake 2?... What's the point of bringing back all the Doom weapons, when id Software simply made them exactly as they are in the Quake series?... What's the point of the newly designed enemies, when they play almost identically to those in the goddam Quake series as well?...

Seriously... what's the point of giving the name of Doom... when John Carmack simply remade Quake 2 instead?...

... which was simply a remake of the Doom series in the first place, but I digress...

And the gaming industry has changed a hell of a lot since Carmack made his first game from hell...

Of course, considering Doom 3 has sold already about 2 million copies out there, I don't think I can get away with claiming that the Doom series is 'd00med' and all... but...

Alien sucked. Blade Runner really sucked. And Black Hawk Down kinda sucked as well...

And yes, I've always been the biggest fan of motion picture epics that I've ever doth known...

Troy sucked. Alexander obviously sucked. And the Lord of the Rings trilogy can kiss my ass for all I care....

I've been watching epic film after epic film since then, just trying to rekindle that feeling I got while watching Gladiator for the first and second times... But every film has failed me... King Arthur and Last Samurai certainly had their moments (especially the latter), but they just weren't Gladiator...

Kingdom of Heaven was my last damn chance to taste once again the kingdom of heaven... when it comes to motion movie quality, I mean...

Ridley Scott directed the film. And regardless of whether I believe he's ever done a good movie or not besides Gladiator in his lifetime, I still had faith that his vision could be faithfully recreated in his new film...

But there were a lot of things going against this epic from ever becoming legendary in the history of movie making...

Ridley Scott complained that over 40 minutes of the footage he wanted to keep was cut, just to make the film seem more summer blockbuster like in length... All the early reviews started to trickle in, claiming the film was alright, but just not the film that they were hoping for... And then I realized that fucking Orlando Bloom was in the film. I hated him in Lord of the Rings, and he was just god-awful in Troy and whatever other epic films he Jude Law'ed his way into... But I did enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean. And I was hoping that the little Legolas that could, wouldn't fuck things up here...

The problem is, the sum of all the fears that I had for this film eventually did come to fruition... Let the record state, that while Kingdom of Heaven is still absolutely the best epic film since The Last Samurai, it just doesn't come close to the quality and epicness that that film and Gladiator both seemed to have...

Kingdom of Heaven definitely felt rushed. It feels weird to write though, that a film spanning two hours and a half felt short, but it's damn true and everyone who watches the film will damn well know it right off the bat... Orlando Bloom's introduction was so undeniably torn into pieces, that it almost felt like the movie trailers went more into the depth of his character than the film did...

I mean literally, this was the entire start of the movie - Liam Neeson shows up, says some fatherly words to Orlando Bloom... Bloom then kills a priest for literally no good reason but a good beheading, and then follows Neeson into the woods to repent his sins... That about sums up everything we learn about our little Legolas blacksmith. And the editing was just so subverted and choppy throughout all this, that it really felt like the entire damn film was introduced in less than five bloody minutes...

The love romance was just absolutely atrocious in the film. I mean seriously, this is how it all went... Minute one - Orlando Bloom meets the sister of King Edward Norton. Minute two - she makes up some half assed reason to visit him on his land... Minute three - they end up in bed together... Minute three and five seconds - they're done smoking cigars in bed... And minute four - their romance is all forgotten until about an hour and a half later in the damn film...

I mean, wow... can you feel the love tonight?... you'd think a guy could last at least five minutes, you know?...

The casting in Kingdom of Heaven did partially make up for the horrible pacing and editing in the film... Orlando Bloom wasn't the huge mistake that I was fearing that he was, but his character definitely was (more on that later)... Still, I was actually satisfied with his portrayal of Lord Balian. Sure, it never made sense how he could master the high guard stance in just under three minutes, but the actor helped make it feel convincing enough... Legolas has always had that naive, boy-like feel to him, and I think it worked well in Jerusalem. He was just a young explorer in a completely foreign land and environment, and Orlando Bloom's usual cluelessness actually worked wonders in that way...

Liam Neeson played Qui Gon Godfrey, teaching Orlando Bloom about how to wield a light saber, warning him about the light and dark sides of the Crusades, and popping up now and again in voice over narratives after his death, screaming "No, Anakin!" at the camera... But in all seriousness, the film probably needed a lot more Liam Neeson if it wanted to feel epic. For all the short and brief scenes that he was in, Neeson was the man. Godfrey was absolutely the best character in the film, being both remorseful over his bastard son, and wise enough after years of battle to know the value of peace... It kinda sucked that the best scene in the entire film, the knighting of Balian, was given away by the trailers. But even so, Liam deserves all the credit in the world for making that scene what it was, and then bitch-slapping me to make sure that I remembered it...

I just wish the rest of the Christian characters in the film weren't such caricatures, you know?...

Eva Green not only looked paleish and ugly in the film, but she acted the same way as well. Sibylla's only decent scene was when she gave the "greater good" speech to pretty-boy Legolas. But for everything else, she just plain sucked... She tried to be flirtatious, but just came off as a whore. She tried to look concerned about the people of the city when she cut her hair, but she instead just looked like an alien from War of the Worlds... And hell, her sex scene with Legolas lasted only five damn seconds! Or less than that, actually... Even Troy got two thumbs up from me, from having Rose Byrne show off her breasts in bed for a minute or two... So why the fuck were we reduced to mere politics with Eva Green, in a world full of ugly and one-dimensional men?...

Renard and Guy de Lusignon were just completely worthless villains. They were completely one-dimensional, simply there to give the film a clear distinction between good Christians and religious fanatics... Renard's lines were literally all in the trailer, as all the guy ever did was nod to orders to "give me war", and then get his head chopped off... Brendan Gleeson's one decent scene, was when he was forced to kiss the hand of the leper King. He kinda went overboard with that moment, but at least he actually had a moment... Guy de Lisgnon did not... I mean, is this guy a complete moron or what? He leads all his troops far into the desert, where they all die of vultures pecking at their dicks before they ever get to the battle itself... He was a religious fanatic, who knew nothing of war. And while some of the Crusaders in the past were certainly like this guy, why did Ridley Scott leave a complete idiotic like him in the film, when he went overboard with the holy goodness of everybody else?... the overglaring contrast just didn't work...

Tiberias and King Baldwin were probably the only two characters that had any depth left to them in the film, thanks to politics (more on that later...)... Tiberias was an intelligent man, with a nice and lovely scar down his face. And King Baldwin? The leper thing make him stand out far more than he would've just for his personality... But either way, Edward Norton did a good job, of playing a dying man repentful of his sins of vanity... Their real moment to shine, was when Tiberias and Adam Baldwin contrasted so damn darkly with pretty-boy Legolas, about killing Gui de Lusignon to make sure the bastard never made it to the throne. Because unlike pretty much every other character in the film, Tiberias and Baldwin actually had both light and dark sides of the force in them, like real people in the past did... or at least, like every character in a film should probably have these days...

Even without anybody ever seeing this film (if its box-office sales are to be believed), Kingdom of Heaven has already become one of the most controversial films of the entire year... It deals with the Crusades, so obviously you have the anti-Americanites out there all blaming the movie for inciting hate against Muslims. And then you have the anti-anti-Americanites all screaming back, that the Muslims weren't all so good and holy during the Crusades as modern revisions of history would like one to believe...

To avoid inflaming both Christians and Muslims alike, Ridley Scott lost all of his backbone, and made a film about perfect characters on both sides, forced into conflict by the two or three idiot caricatures that should've been killed a long time ago, if any of the holy characters knew what was smart to do...

Godfrey and Orlando Bloom's Balian were just so fucking 'good guys', that it grated on the nerves. They were everything that a knight was meant to be - always telling the truth, never sinning, and protecting the helpless. As far as the film depicted, they were "perfect knights"... Perfect beings are just not real though, not now and certainly not back during the Dark Ages. And even if by some chance revision of history, some real knights back during the Crusades were really this damn friendly and tolerant of all peoples and religions, it still doesn't make for good movie entertainment...

The Muslim side was just as arrogantly 'perfect', however... Saladin got his sister beheaded and maybe even raped as well. And this was after two of his armed caravans were surprised and slaughtered... And yet when he finally takes Jerusalem, he somehow respects Balian so much, that he nods that awful "nothing... Everything" line with a smile to him? And then sets back up a fallen cross out of reverence for the late King Baldwin? It just didn't sit right... And Dr. Julian Bashir playing Saladin's right hand man, Nasir? First of all, it's kinda sad when the only comic relief I got from the film, was imagining the Muslim lord beaming back to Deep Space 9... And second, Bashir of Nasir was just too 'good' of a person... Sure, it makes sense that Balian earned his respect, both with that sword fight at the start, and with the freeing of the slaves bit. But c'mon already, with Saladin having to be a perfect gentleman thanks to modern politics, couldn't Ridley Scott at least have written in a 'bad' Muslim to offset their army's overwhelming pureness? Sure, there was that one scene with that one semi-evil Muslim in the foreground, but that was about it...

For the most part... for nothing, and everything... We had two perfect Christians on one side, and two perfect Muslims on the other side...

It just didn't feel like a good movie in that sense... let alone a great epic...

... as, well... I might as well mention the only thing that truly matters in repeat viewers of an epic film...

As yes, even though they were chopped into edited hell, I was quite satisfied with the battles for what they were worth...

The Christian versus Christian battles were the best of the show, for obvious political reasons... After Legolas kills the priest for absolutely no good reason whatsoever, the local army tries to take him back. As a result, we got a shower of arrows through the throat, and probably the only great swordplay of the entire film... Later on, when Legolas in contemplating his own, wholesome-good-boy stupidity of not taking the throne through evil means, Guy sends five or so idiots to try to kill Bloom with maces instead of sniper arrows... Once again, we got some good violence in there, with swords through helmets as if they were butter... Those were the two satisfying battles in the film, as short as they were...

The siege of Jerusalem was mostly well done. It was just that, it was cut so damn short, and almost felt too damn G-rated, as if not to offend the Muslims of the world out there with all the carnage... You'll know it when you see it - the final battle, with hundreds of swords clashing, is covered over by convenient fog of war and muffled sounds you'd expect only from a crappy Saving Private Ryan WW2 clone... That part was definitely a disappointment, but the siege itself was not... The catapults in Kingdom of Heaven were probably the best done catapults since I first watched Gladiator in true DTS sound. The impacts against the walls of Jerusalem were extremely well done. And the siege tower moments outshined every single comparable scene in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, even if some would boldly claim that Kingdom of Heaven somehow ripped off LOTR (as if siege towers never existed in reality...)... Either way, all I do know, is that watching the Dark Age joy of pouring tar, lighting some fires, and slamming down towers with roped ballistae, really made this film worth the price of admission alone... well, almost...

Ridley Scott really knew what he was doing with the film, I know he did... Some of the landscapes and camera angles he chose are truly breath-taking at times. And the musical score, while lacking the impact that Gladiator's had, was still one of the best epic scores to come out of any film as of late... And yes, oh yes, Liam Neeson kicked Jedi ass every single time he was on screen...

... poor Scott's hands were tied... his film's length was butchered, to the point where almost every single scene felt at least one minute too short...

And goddam modern politics ensured that we could never have a truly epic film...

What I mean is, Ridley Scott realized with Gladiator that epics really aren't all about the battles, or the music score, or even just the coolness factor of living out the most epic moments of the past...

... and as sad as it is to say, modern controversy will never, ever allow a true epic film to be ever justly made, with both Christians and Muslims alike at least...

Y2kk Update: - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Theatrical Review (Spoilers...) -

Not everybody knows the stories that made that answer in the first place, however... and sadly enough, that list of ignorants includes me...

I've never read the Hitchhiker books. And after seeing the film, I definitely don't plan on doing so...

Because I admit it... Even as a fan of "stupid comedy" (Anchorman was great... and hell, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was simply genius...), I just can't give a damn about "smart-stupid comedy"...

Life of Brian and the Monty Python movies were just so goddam ridiculous, that they simply weren't even funny to me whatsoever...

And The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was just such "stupid, smart-stupid comedy", that I don't think I laughed even once throughout the entire film...

A lot of the fans of the books at least got a chuckle or two out of the introduction song, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"...

I guess having Dolphins as a smarter race on the planet that we humans are, seems to give a bunch of social-political nerds out there their follicle jollies...

Not for me, unfortunately... The song was just so frickin' stupid, that it even makes Disney's recent non-Pixar animated movies into something that seemed smart and intellectual...

I think every geek out there, nerdy enough to read off the interweb thingy, knows about the basic premise of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...

Earth gets destroyed by a bunch of aliens planning to build a hyperspace expressway through our solar system. And Arthur Dent of somewhere in Britain manages to hitch a ride into the cosmos, thanks to the alien Ford Prefect on earth that he befriended... One of the things that fucking social-political nerds seem to love, is the fact that the bureaucrats of the galaxy seem to think of earth, like our own bureaucrats think of those little rural areas out in the boonies of nowhere...

The thing is though, regardless of the moral irony of the Hitchhiker situation, I just couldn't stand the fucking fact that our planet was destroyed for an interstellar highway. I mean, seriously... Space is immeasurably vast. A single planet, or even an entire solar system, takes up absolutely zero space in space, even compared to a house in the middle of nowhere on earth. Why the hell do they need to plow a highway through our exact planet alone?... And hell, it's a hyperspace highway. With no off-ramps in the area, why the hell do the Vorgons even need to destroy planets, when hyperspace is sort of?... you know... NOT in real space?...

Regardless of how nit-picky my little suburban opinion may be, it definitely didn't bode well for the film when I was already shaking my head at its stupidity just ten minutes into the film... I mean, like I said, I like stupid comedy. But smart-stupid comedy deserves to be critiqued if it actually thinks or tries to be smart... and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy definitely thinks it's smart, at least from the fact that you can almost sense some political undertones buried somewhere beneath that underwear...

Some of the aside moments with the Guide itself were decent. Surprisingly enough, the translator guppy in the ear makes more sense to me than the universal translator ever did in Star Trek... But there simply wasn't enough of the quirky parts of the Guide shown inside the movie for me to really care about... Probably the best thing about Ford Prefect was how essential his damn towels were. But in the film at least, we never figured out how or why he fought off a whole army with the damn thing draped around his neck... and we really didn't learn anything about the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy either, besides the fact that it has written brightly on its cover...

Martin Freeman was a decent choice as Arthur Dent. He had the patented bathroom wardrobe look down pat, but it's just unfortunate that he had pretty much nil memorable lines in the end... I expected some more British humour from a British humour sort of film. But probably the only line of his that I did chuckle at was, "I'm British. If there's one thing we know, it's how to queue"... But as for the rest of the film?... uggh...

I'm sorry, but the sofa transformations and the yarn spewing? Just plain stupid...

The Darwin and Livingston romantic subplot, I presume? Had me gagging more than yarn, that's sure...

And probably the only decent scenes that Arthur Dent even had throughout the whole film, were on the planet Vorgon... The flap jack things hitting him in the face whenever he came up with a thought, was actually so stupid that it actually came out funny... And when it came to the blue forms to release Tricia from imprisonment? Maybe it's just because I recently rewatched The Terminal, but I actually did find the queuing scenes to be somewhat amusing...

But seriously, even if I did enjoy some of Martin Freeman's performance, how the hell could I ever take this non-serious movie seriously, when the rest of the characters were given absolute crap to work with?...

I never thought I could ever hate Sam Rockwell and Alan Rickman together, especially after they amazed me with Galaxy Quest... But Sam Rockwell's Zaphod character was just so over the top, that I groaned every time his second head popped up on screen. He was just so damn stupid, that he wasn't even a rock star kind of stupid character like I thought he would be. Instead, he was literally just a guy with a brain fueled with lemons. And as funny as that may sound on paper, his constant childish antics were just plain grating on screen... And on paper, I'm sure Marvin the Robot sounded funny as hell. I mean, how many times do you actually get to meet a maniacally depressed machine, right? But even his tirades got so damn boring near the end. There was obviously no variety in his voice, but why wasn't there variety in his script as well?... Over and over again, he just shook his big ass head and complained about something, without ever giving a good, unique punch line to actually make the scene funny...

Stupidly enough, Marvin the depressed robot actually made this film... depressing?... WTF?...

All the subcharacters were pretty much wasted as well... Mos Def as Ford Prefect had absolutely nothing to do but guzzle down pints of beer, and brandish his awesome weapon of a towel. But hell, when his car handshaking scene reminded me too much of Herbie: Fully Loaded? You know that ain't good for business then... John Malkovich as Humma was wasted as well. The special effects of his eyes and mechanical legs were spectacular. But what was the point, when his entire villain plot was suddenly dropped half way through the film? They never even returned to him to get Zaphod's second head. Which was more than welcomed, since I hated that goddam second head and third arm in the first place... And the Vorgons? Their premise was alright, being bureaucrats who follow their forms and releases more than they ever do common sense. But I just couldn't stand their Star Wars-esque accuracy when firing weapons. I just couldn't stand their voices, or how Star Trek Nemesis their costumes looked in the light....

Now, I do have one good feeling to report, at least... Zooey Deschannel as Tricia/Trillian was absolutely adorable.

But girls with nerdy glasses, with perfect hair while wearing nothing but boxers for underwear?... Oh dear God, bloody hell, were my pants going to implode then and there...

Either way, the fact that she was no longer cute (yes, not even in the shower scene... something is wrong me with, I know) allowed me to concentrate on the fact, that the romantic subplot of the film was absolutely terrible... She had some chemistry with Arthur, or at least when she was pining in secret over him, I admit it. And contrary to popular belief, I actually liked her supposed character development that happened with Zaphod, whenever she shot him with that Point-of-View ray gun. The tears on her face were perfect. And kinda sexy, actually...

But whenever she was with Arthur? I don't know, but the two just didn't mix... Not only that, but this is a nerd film, right? The fucking romantic crap got in the way of all the better stuff we wanted to see, like giant computers watching cartoons for millions of years, and the fact that not only was Rome built in a day, but that the earth was as well...

See, fanboys of the original books seem to hate the 'cop-out' at the end, that earth was rebuilt like a computer backup at the end. Disney had to have a happy send-off for the film, afterall... The thing is, that was probably the only part of the film that I did like. It was the only portion of the film that actually had life (pun intended) and imagination to it... The only character that I did love in the film, was the company owner who built custom planets. I mean seriously, who the hell couldn't enjoy a threatening line like, "Come with me, or you'll be late... late I mean, as in The Late Arthur Dent..."?... And I dunno, just all the special effects of the mine cart going everywhere across the planet in space, really almost made up for the fact that the film was completely ruined and spoiled, by stupid inside geek jokes and romantic interludes for the first hour and a half of the film...

Let's face it. I'm not a Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy fan... I've never had an interest in the books, and I still don't give a damn about them, especially after watching a film that was pure British boredom for two bloody hell hours...

Hell's bells, I'd rather watch British porn... of two British blokes not having sex, but I Future Guy digress...

Because I was expecting something hot from this film, you know? Something fresh...

Everyone knows that it's the fucking cows who are going to take over the world!...

I've sure as hell had my fair share of demons to sort out these past few weeks...

My close friend (and probably my only close friend) has been hounding me lately, for giving so many goddam, overly positive reviews to my precious Enterprise all the time, and then giving the shit stick on a rope to all the shows that he actually does like... Hell, he even loved Smallville's Ageless somehow. Now, WTF? Please explain to me how that's even possible?...

So to pay back my friend, tonight I had planned to make up a whole bunch of fake, shitty reasons why tonight's episode of Enterprise would absolutely suck... That the pacing would be all wrong. That none of the characters would have any memorable lines. That the special effects were subpar. That the plotline was virtually non-existent. That the actors all seemed confounded and dumbfounded in their roles. And oh yes, that the show sadly comes close to matching the atrocious awfulness that can only be known as Ageless...

... the problem is... when it comes to Demons?... sadly enough, all the above does ring true...

Well, truth be told, maybe some of the reasons why I seemed to have so many personal demons against Demons, was the fact that it starred at least two characters that I still remember all too well from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer... I don't even remember what his name was in tonight's episode. All I do know, is that Mayor Wilkens playing the Federation Minister in Demons, was just so damn boring and so damn grating, that I really wish the monotonous freak would just crack an infectious smile or two like he did before, or morph into a giant snake... And then there was the baby's caretaker. You know, that guy with the funny brow... Most wouldn't recognize him, but I still do from Angel's fourth season. He was the conspiracy theorist turned Firefly arsonist, in a lovely episode where Winifred looked adorable above all else... But my precious Amy Acker wasn't in Enterprise. And as a result, I just couldn't help but shake my head at how damn, demonically strange this whole episode felt, Buffy reject characters and all...

I guess it's official then: every episode with Mayweather at the helm has just got to be bad... I mean, I enjoyed season one's Horizon or whatever for what it was worth at the time. But damn, the actor just can't act, now can he?... Once a year, the writers throw the poor bastard a bone in the storylines. And having been mostly ignored during even the Mirror Universe episodes this season, here they decidedly threw him a boner... one that was far too large for his own good, I'm afraid...

Now, I'll admit that Gannett or however you spell her name, sure as hell looked hot with that hair and headset and all... But maybe it's just my glasses complex or something, but as soon as she took that headset off and let down her hair? God, she looked ugly... and having Travis of all people on her arm just didn't sit right with me somehow... Since when did the guy who zero lines per episode average, suddenly get a hot looking bitch like that?... sigh...

She did have chemistry with Mayweather a bit however, although I immediately groaned as soon as she pointed out the Shuttlepod (and the sexually phallic obviousness of it all, of course)... She also brought in far too much predictability to this episode. I mean, it was obvious from the way she kept skimming past questions, that she was inherently a spy or some stupid shit like that. Mayweather was too dumb to notice, so I as part of the audience just couldn't help but keep rolling my eyes the whole way through, as Travis just kept on sitting blind to the truth for 50 odd minutes or so...

... but sigh... I miss evil Hoshi though... I don't care if she'd kill me like a Black Widow. I'd fuck her anyday of the week still...

Of course, after getting the true spotlight for two episode straight, Hoshi was demoted back to being the little Ms. nobody in the corner, playing with blocks. Or universal translators, in this case... Phlox didn't have much to do either. I mean honestly, sure he's had his moments throughout the season, but why the hell didn't he ever get an episode of his own? Why wasn't he ever thrown a bone? Instead, Mayweather just to stink up the joint in Demons, when Phlox really could've been used for his medical expertise... And Malcolm Reed? He did get to return back to his Section 31 roots. There just wasn't any tension in the scene though, as Sloan Jr. or whatever his name was, just didn't seem tough or pissed off enough to make the scene work out... I did like all the skyline landscapes in the background though. But what good are skylines, when the characters have no good lines?...

Hell, even Trip and T'Pol were embarrassingly bad this episode... I mean seriously, who the hell would infiltrate an alien hating community, as a Vulcan with blindingly obvious ears? Hell, who the hell infiltrates a terrorist camp, being two of the most famous people in the whole frickin' planet?... There was no romance between T&T tonight. Or at least, none that I could register... I admit that some of the friction caused between them about the baby and possible abortions did have a certain modern charm to it. But the baby idea was just so damn stupid in the end, that if the child was really just made from synthetic, cloning means? Then quite possibly, Trek would have found its dumbest ever plotline since Threshold... and that's saying a hell of a lot...

Scott Bakula did a fine job with what he was given in Demons. Too bad he wasn't given much to work with... Whenever he was talking to Minister Mayor Wilkens, Archer either sounded too bored (such as when he was telling the ol' snake about his alleged past with Terra Prime) or simply far too obnoxiously loud (drilling him in the Enterprise briefing room, for example). It's like the captain couldn't control the pitch of his own voice throughout all his speeches, which brings me to quite possibly the worst part of Demons as an episode...

My friend actually thought Paxson or Paxton or whatever his name was, was an actually decent villain... and to that, I simply say...

All Paxton did was whine and gripe and complain, about mice and men... All he did, was sermonize and preach about shit, with god-awful script lines that would make Colin Farrell in Alexander or even Lana Lang on Smallville cringe in embarrassment... And his whole plan, to take his little mining colony to Mars and take over some comet smashing, giant frickin' laser beam? Not only was the 'Death Star' cannon a complete Austin Powers rip-off homage, but it was the dumbest damn plan in hell!... Where were the Mars defenses to block the damn mining base from coming? Why the hell can't Archer just destroy the damn weapons array with one little photon torpedo? Why can't the weapon just self-destruct or be remotely deactivated? Why the hell are we supposed to be afraid of some xenophobic lunatic that really has no advantage over the situation whatsoever?...

Demons was supposed to be relevant to today's interests, with the whole xenophobia topic hot after 9/11...

... more like irreverent though... and I don't even know that meaning of that word, so...

Because I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I just can't stand when Trek episodes make it so damn obvious as to what they're preaching...

I enjoyed Dear Doctor, even if I disagree with the morals at the end... I enjoyed Similtude last year, if only because of Trinneer's amazing performance that episode...

But Demons? Oh dear God, if it wasn't for Home and Daedulus, I'd declare it absolutely worst episode of the Enterprise year, by far...

And considering Demons is said to be the 'real' finale for Star Trek Enterprise (and Trek as a whole), then I suppose this episode will haunt me for a very, very long time...

I mean, really... at least they could've thrown in some naked Hoshi, to appease fans like me on V-E...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Ageless small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers...) -

"Oh dear God, the pain! The pain! It hurts!... It's like watching the whole four seasons of Smallville at once, crammed into one frickin' hour!... Oh dear God, it hurts!"...

It's almost like Erica Durance tells the Smallville writers which episodes she refuses to be in. Because from the looks of things, she tends to stay out of all the episodes that suck so damn hard, that it really would even get a cock sucking girl pregnant over night...

Chloe was barely in the episode. That's not a good sign either... Almost nothing from the past episode of her heroics were mentioned. Actually, nothing from her past heroics were mentioned whatsoever. The only thing I do remember from her in Ageless was her "speedy" line, which at least reassures us that a) she remembers Clark's secret and everything she learned in Blank, and b) she is so gonna die in the season finale of the year...

But please, PLEASE! Please just kill Lana! Please kill Lana! PLEASE JUST FUCKING KILL LANA!...

Oh dear God, did anyone else's eyeballs pop out at how goddam fluttery Kreuk was playing with her goddam bitch brows this episode?... She tried to look cute, and she tried to look caring at the same damn time. And yet all I get from her instead is, "YOU BITCH! YOU WHORE!"...

Tell me again why she isn't on some rundown soap opera with Sarah Michelle Gellar?...

First of all, I hated all her lines. I especially considered committing suicide when she predictably bitched out, "Where have you been? I've been worried sick!" when talking to a talking, frickin' A-bomb... And yes, I know all mothers are bitchy. But add that on-top to Lana's usual performances, and then you're left with one grade A nutcase instead... I mean, sure the biological father should've never left the mother. But c'mon already! He had a glowing baby being born after just one week! And yet Lana just decides to condemn his ass for being too chicken to go down in a blazing blast of meteor rock glory?... And every single time that Evan did something strange or weird, like read Clark's books without ever being taught, her damn "I'm shocked - oh shit" looks were always there, and they were just driving me insane... She tried to sound all sad and convincing when she brought Evan up to the windmill. In the end though, she just looked fucking clueless, not knowing how to act, not even knowing how to fucking stare at the camera properly...

I mean, WTF is the writer's problems? Why must they torture me so?... Ageless was just timeless pure cheese, and they knew it. They fed us the past four years of Smallville in a nutshell, starting from am ugly baby in a crater, all the way to Evan and his goddam teen angst...

I mean seriously, I was waiting for the damn bastard to just explode already. Because Evan sure as hell wasn't the poster boy for pure Evian holiness or any sort of crap like that... The death of his father scene was just so ridiculous, with whats-his-name impaling himself out of utter stupidity. I mean, wasupwidat? ... And yet nobody even goddam cared about it?... I sadly laughed at that entire scene throughout the whole damn commercial break, because who the hell is dumb enough to just impale themselves out of nowhere?... And then predictably, we got a ton of Tom Welling-cloned teen angst from Evan. He whined, he complained about his father, bitched about the new Star Wars trilogy, and then sobbed some more - which pretty much summed up the entire Smallville series so far...

And the saddest part of it all, WAS THAT THE EPISODE TOOK ITSELF FRICKIN' SERIOUSLY!... I mean, where was the Lois Lane sarcasm? Where were the goddam jokes?... Probably the only things that were even remotely funny in Ageless, was a) the urine fountain from the baby, and b) THE FRICKIN' FACT THAT THE EPISODE ACTUALLY TOOK ITSELF SERIOUSLY! I mean honestly, WTF?!...

Tom Welling and his damn fatherly instincts just got on my nerves so much... It was obvious how cheesy his lines were, telling Evan that he's a special kid, as if he was rooting him on in the Special Olympics or something like that. And yet Clark said all of his lines so earnestly and dramatically (even after looking like he just had sex with Evan after the poor bastard finally had his big bang), that I couldn't help but ball out laughing at how goddam awful Ageless really was... Every single scene with Lana was like a root canal in my mouth, overflowing the Grand Canal and the Grand Canyon at the same damn time. Clark and her just have absolutely zero chemistry, and all their constant exchanges of "oh shit" looks about Evan turning into Jonathan from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, definitely put Ageless into the same category as such classic Smallville episodes as Fear...

Even the Kents couldn't muster anything out of the horrible script that will forever be known as Ageless... Martha and Jonathan sure seemed sincere about what it means to be blessed with a kid who gets himself almost killed pretty much every week... But even so, I just couldn't help but just keep laughing at their scenes, for how ridiculously angsty and anal Tom Welling was being in them all... He kept talking as if he was a father. But he was a frickin' father for three frickin' days! He's talkinga bout having meaning in his life, and of Evan being his favourite child or some shit like that... Maybe if the episode actually took place over three damn days, I'd get that feeling too. But it didn't... Evan blew himself up in 30 minutes as far as I'm concerned! I've cooked stuff in the microwave longer than that! Seriously...

The only redeeming moments that Clark had were with Lex... Lex continues to gain on the dark side scale each and every day, taking advantage of Clark and the memory wipe last week, and lying flat-out to his friend's face this week about Evan's legacy... The handshake. I like it. I like Lex. He's a good kid, you know... He just seems to have that perfect balance, of looking sincere one second, and then turning away to reveal his true self the next. My only complaint with Michael Rosenbaum this episode, was that his conversations with his father went absolutely nowhere...

... but then again, there was also really only one spectacular thing about Ageless itself... something that will truly stand the test of time...

... one - was it me?... or did that pregnant girl at the start really sound hot as she was imploding?...

Finally, the episode and all its crap sentimental talk about parenthood, actually resulted in something that we the viewers would actually care about...

Lionel Luthor was ruthless with Genevieve, something that I completely did not predict after such a boring episode like this one... He poisoned the hell out of that bitch, took her gall, took her stone, and even got to look good in a power suit while doing it... John Glover's return to form was the one damn thing that Ageless actually got right. And I'm sure it's the only thing that we the viewers will actually choose to remember from Ageless as the years go by...

Y2kk Update: - BioWare's / Microsoft's Jade Empire Microsoft Xbox Review (Spoilers...) -

... but despite how much I enjoyed Jade Empire in the end? I still walked away disappointed with a clenched fist when it was all said and done...

I mean, as a Canadian Chinese nerd, I'm always looking forward to video games that actually do my Chinese culture and heritage proud... Now, I may not even know my own country's history very well. But I do know what our people are like... And Shenmue II for the Dreamcast/Xbox really gave me hope that finally, maybe finally, Chinese culture could be fully represented in a video game without all that Chinese-wannabe crap found in movies like The Matrix and ridiculous shows like Firefly...

... I had high hopes for Jade Empire... and then I realized, the game was goddam made by Chinese-wannabes at BioWare...

I mean seriously! It's like those assholes just looked up a bunch of shit on the internet, watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Shit a dozen or so times, and shopped at fucking Hongcouver for a day or so as their Chinese research for this game... The atmosphere was just plain wrong in Jade Empire. I mean, for one thing, cities like the Imperial City were dangerously underpopulated!.. And they didn't even get the look of Chinese people right! Sure, they got our squinty, bad driving eyes in there alright, but the rest of the faces just paled in comparison to even how damn exact they looked in games like Shenmue II. It's like the idiots at BioWare couldn't tell the difference between a Chinese and Japanese bitch, or some crap like that. And any Chinese wannabe who spends a day at Hongcouver should've been able to figure that out...

There's lots of things that I think BioWare got wrong in their pathetic attempt at creating a genuine Chinese world... For one thing, except for all the ghosts (or even including the ghosts), all the enemies in this game seem like they were ripped right out of D20 Dungeons and Dragons books, and then given a semi-fresh coat of paint to somewhat resemble Chinese legends... Something just seemed wrong with the designs of the Elephant, Bull, and even the lowly Rat demons, and it's hard to place exactly how. It just seemed far too Westernized for me... And all the weird technological things that BioWare latched and leeched onto Chinese culture just felt off somehow as well. The DragonFly looked more like something Leonardo Da Vinci or the Renaissance would invent, and the flying Imperial Palace seemed ripped right out of BioWare's own Knights of the Old Republic game...

Hell, most of Jade Empire seemed somehow ripped right out of the company's first Star Wars RPG for the Xbox, actually...

It's ironic really, coming from the makers of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic that is... Probably the biggest reason why the Chinese atmosphere felt just plain wrong in Jade Empire, was because of the horrible script and voice acting... While Knights of the Old Republic had some of the finest voice acting and dialogue I've ever witnessed in a game before (with Bastilla still being on the top of the list of hottest video game accents of all time...), Jade Empire had absolutely zero Chinese accents, and had absolutely zero Chinese authenticity in the script... I mean first of all, why the fuck did BioWare actually invent a fake Chinese language for the game? Even worse, without any Chinese accents whatsoever, the Tho Fan language sounded more like one out of Star Wars than anything I've ever heard from Asia... And really, BioWare just couldn't get past their Star Wars and D20 fanboyisms, could they? Their hokey dialogue about "open palm" and "closed fist" philosophies, tries to sound Chinese with all its comments about respect and loyalty. But just somehow, the way they worded it made it sound more like Native Americans talking about their past in Sonic the Hedgehog casinos or some crap like that...

... or hell's bells, even something as cheesy as the Star Wars: Return of the Jedi script...

... and yet that's what the Chinese atmosphere in Jade Empire really reminded me off... licking fucking balls...

And hell's bells, you couldn't even buy fucking bull balls for candy and food in the markets in this game!..

Jade Empire disappointed as a Cultural Revolution for Chinese gaming... and in a lot of other ways as well, which I'll get into later...

But one thing's for sure: Jade Empire is definitely still an addicting and fun RPG... even if it pales in the darkness of the Shadow of the Empire, that is...

In Knights of the Old Republic, I loved the combat due to the geek factor of light sabre battles. But thanks to all the D20 rules, if it wasn't for all the shiny laser lights, game combat would've really felt like a chore back then...

Jade Empire tried to fix this, and for the most part, they made the combat fun. With so many different styles of fighting to choose from, Harmonic Combos are just kick ass and amazingly fun to pull off... The arena battles in the Imperial Arena were definitely my favourite (aside from the god-awful loading times, that is), especially when characters like The Ravager would keep pissing me off by healing themselves with chi whenever he got a free second or two... Possibly the only enemies that I didn't enjoy fighting were Lost Spirits, thanks to their goddam annoying projectiles. But for every other character? It was just so goddam addicting to jump like a loon, take my Fortune's Favourite Long Sword, and slice their Imperial bastard heads clean off...

But alas, the combat in Jade Empire was far from perfect... It was fun, yes. But so damn shallow in the end... I mean literally, every single battle in the game can be beaten by just jumping behind the enemy, slicing them three times with the sword, then jumping again, rinse, and repeat. As long as you manage to stun the enemy with your somersaults, so that they can't pull off a wide area attack, then it's even easy to beat the last damn boss in the game without taking a single hit... The only time that I lost a battle in Jade Empire, was against the first Emperor. And that was only because I didn't realize at the time that he was a fucking Borg Cube clone, who kept adapting to whatever fighting styles I was using... And except for that one battle, there was never any need to develop all the countless different fighting styles you collect in the game...

In the end, I used Legendary Strike or White Demon for ghosts, and Fortune's Favourite for everything else... then there was a flock of seagulls and a gas shortage, but that's about it...

Jade Empire's fighting system was built with so much variety, and so many delicate intricacies... and yet it was all quite wasted in the end, thanks to the fact that none of it was necessary to even beat the game without trying...

Now, the boys at IGN loved Jade Empire, even claiming that their score of 9.9 was "underrating" the game. Then again, those psychos at Xbox IGN even loved Wreckless and Fable, so that ain't saying much from them then...

But part of me wonders whether those burnt out, bought out reviewers over there simply loved Jade Empire because of how damn short it was... I mean seriously! I wasn't even trying to speed through the game! Hell, I even wasted hours going in literal 360 circles, trying to find every single damn sidequest that I could...

... and yet I still beat the game on my first try in just 14 hours? And 11 hours the second time through?

Didn't Knights of the Old Republic take me 25 hours at least? 22 for the KOTOR sequel?

The game was definitely too short and too easy... I mean, you know something's wrong when it takes me 40 hours to beat Tales of Symphonia, and yet only a third of that to beat Jade Empire...

The good thing though, was that Jade Empire was fun. And lot of that had to do with the stellar overall polish and presentation...

First things first, thank God BioWare actually got some decent beta testers this time. While both KOTOR games were plagued with crippling bugs (though Obsidian is to blame for the latter), I only experienced two minor ones in Jade Empire... One was near the start, when a sidequest that I was doing literally disappeared on me until I reloaded an old save... And the other bug was more crippling. Near the end, when you're facing Doubt, the game wouldn't continue when I approached the pillar to end the scene. I promptly reloaded an old save however, and the game was back on its merry way... And while any visible bugs are an annoyance in a console game, at least I didn't have to restart my entire campaign, like some people were forced to with the Carth bug in the first Knights of the Old Republic...

Second, the graphics in the game are outstanding for an RPG. The backgrounds are full of lush and vibrant colours... and the framerate? While not stable at 30 fps like I was hoping, it was still worlds ahead of the 5 fps I'd occasionally see in either of the Star Wars RPGs. Hell, I don't think I ever saw Jade Empire dip below 20 fps in a battle, which is amazing considering the translucent effects on those ghosts... Now, I admit that I was not a fan of the look of any of the characters in the game. Sky looked like a retarded moron, Black Whirlwind looked like something out of a rejected Disney Cartoon, Dawn Star looked like Darth Maul to me, and dammit, I still think they should've named Radiant Zen Li as "Mi Wan Wang", or something kinky like that... But I will admit that these Western-bastardized Chinese characters, did at least match the beautiful landscapes of the Western-bastardized backdrops for the game. The Imperial, Infomercial City was simply gorgeous with all its Chinese lanterns... and while Tien's Landing wasn't nearly as impressive, even that area looked better than pretty much any RPG that BioWare has ever done before...

Loading times were awful, just like they were in KOTOR. I mean, when it takes you five minutes of loading time to complete a two minute sidequest, then you know something is wrong... But it was more bearable this time around than it was in KOTOR, thanks to some on-the-fly loading times in the huge, hub-like areas. And a lot of the little tweaks and dweaks that BioWare added as well definitely helped... Pressing B to shut Dawn Star the hell up whenever she made a random comment, definitely would've only been better if B stood for backhand bitch slap, or "flying dick, my ass", or some silly Chinese fortune cookie shit like that...

And yes, I will forever complain about the atrocious voice acting and dialogue in Jade Empire... But as for the rest of the sound effects in general? Well, I've always loved the sound of martial arts bitch slapping and the soft melancholy of Imperial soldier decapitations, so obviously I was in love with Jade Empire there... The real test for any epic RPG though is the music. And for the most part, I do have to admit that BioWare disappointed. Most areas (like the cannabis, Cannibal caves) were just boring in the soundtrack scale of things... But just like with Shenmue II, the music in the game really did end up growing like weed on me. There's still only two worthwhile songs in the whole game: the Jade Empire theme song, and the music in the Imperial City market square... but damn, even if those two tunes are Western-bastardized versions of Chinese music, they're still goddam music to my ears... The Jade Empire theme song may not be very hummable, but from time time to time, I still just rewatch the ending credits to the game, just to get a feel for the epic score of it all once more...

Now, I'm sure that Jade Empire will eventually get ported to the PC, like all BioWare RPGs do. But I must admit, that unlike KOTOR, Jade Empire definitely has the kind of feel in its design, that makes you really believe that it was specifically meant for consoles. In mostly a good way, I suppose... I mean, for one thing, BioWare simplified the item and armament systems, even to the point of almost removing them completely. I mean, except for stuff you build in Kang's Furnace, there is absolutely no item inventory system in this game whatsoever. And while some might welcome that simplicity, it sort of did make the RPG feel more shallow compared to its brethren in the end... You do get a ton of weapon styles to choose from. And you get do a ton of worthless gems for your amulet to empower you with... But I dunno. While simplicity allowed me to get more involved with the game than character management in the end, I'm not sure if that's exactly a good thing when it comes to an RPG... Jade Empire by far had a much more basic leveling up system than KOTOR had. And maybe if I wasn't so used to the old system, I'd like the new one then... not so right now, however...

But while Jade Empire once again seems to fail as an RPG, it still delivers a paralyzing palm blow as one of the funnest RPGs I've experienced in a long while... The controls are just perfect for an RPG on the Xbox. Switching fighting styles mid-combat is made ridiculously simple thanks to the D pad. And I never once got confused between the jump, attack, and block buttons in combat, as they were all mapped properly and intuitively to the buttons on the controller... The L and R focus-switching systems were a bit more awkward than they were in KOTOR (probably to save the programmer's some grief when it comes to bugs, like getting stuck in bad guys or walls). But they still worked perfectly as far as I'm concerned... And for the few times they didn't? Well, the ridiculously easy combat (possibly thanks to the controls) kept me from ever getting frustrated once in this game...

... the thing is, sometimes the fun factor just isn't enough to impress in a role playing game...

RPGs stress the role of the key word "role"... and without a strong plotline or characters, every RPG is doomed to failure...

... massive spoilers... for those who couldn't figure out the small hints I already gave to the story up above...

Okay, first of all... call me jaded if you will after playing the first Knights of the Old Republic, but I just knew there would be a big plot twist in the middle of the game or so...

And just from the facts that a) my Master Li was going all shifty eyed when I said, "I still think that's odd", when it came to the location of the Spirit Cave, and b) he willingly left all his students to die at his school... that either my Master was evil? Or he wasn't really my master anymore...

"... oh... wow... he's pulling a Kill Bill on me... how nice... and unexpected...

I'm sorry, but while the twist was good, I've seen too many martial arts movies with the same idea... and I've just become too perceptive to twists in games, ironically because of BioWare themselves, after missing every single fucking clue about the stunning twist in Knights of the Old Republic...

However, there were a bunch of little things about Dirge and the history of the Spirit Monks that I did find interesting... I never once thought that Master Li was really the original Death's Hand. And having the minor twist, that Death's Hand was actually the good guy in the game (and not the supreme bad guy) was more surprising to me, than having to whoop Master Li's ass in the end without getting hit once... Despite the predictability of the big ass story twist, I still found the sibling rivalry between the three royal brothers to be well thought out, and probably the strongest part of the story of the game overall...

I never once made a connection with "The Glorious Strategist" name and what was going on with my obvious fighting weakness. And after I was sent packing to the spirit realm, the plotline really started to knit tightly together... It was kind of a cool plan and all, pretending to be a nice martial arts teacher for 20 years, just so he could eventually rule the Empire with an iron closed fist when the time was right... Too bad he didn't have a decent strategy in the end, when I kicked his ass and took his name, without getting bloody hell hit once...

After the major cinematics that showed what really happened at Dirge, I was all pumped up for the "real game"... I mean, I had only visited two or three locations in Jade Empire thus far. And if KOTOR was any indication? The big twist in the game was simply a signal that the mere halfway point of the game had been reached... I was 10 hours into the game by then...

... and then... three or four hours later... just when the game was finally picking up?...

I mean, I finished every single frickin' sidequest that I could find... Yes, I know I must've left something behind, considering there's still two Kang mini-games that I have left to unlock... but still?...

And to be honest, except for the royal family feud, the rest of the characters in the game were pretty disappointing as well...

Black Whirlwind had a few decent stories, about killing his brother and family-in-laws at dinner. And Hou initially seemed interesting, with the stories about his bitchy, whipping wife and all... But as interesting as the core of both of these characters were, they were just too one-dimensional in the end for me. They never really changed during the storyline. They just kept talking about the same kinds of slightly amusing stories that they had all game long... until they ran out of stories to tell... And after KOTOR2? It was kinda disappointing, that you couldn't even affect the allegiances of these two characters one damn bit with all your dialogue choices...

Sky was just a fucking moron. Cam Clarke was given a role that could've been decent, as the Robin Hood of the story. Instead, he just whined so much about his lost daughter, that even my open palm character eventually decided to tell him to shut the fuck up. Too bad he never betrayed me to Death Hand's, because I personally would've enjoyed whooping his ass then and there... Kang was useless. His voice was just grating on the ears... And Wild Flower? Just like it's become cliche to use Drunken Boxing in a game (Hou, I'm looking at you...), it's become so damn cliche for Western developers or movie makers, to make the innocent looking girl into someone possessed by a demon. I really didn't care which of the two demons won inside of her... She was a useless fighter anyways, and she really had nothing interesting to say.

Sagacious Zu played the "conflicted, anti-hero" of the story, as he put it. More like Sagacious shit though... Too bad I never got to see his other movies that he mentioned, to really see him branch off into the non-conflicted, anti-hero kind of anti-type-casting kind of role... He was a useless character though. I wanted to affect his allegiances, so that maybe I could bring him back to the dark side of the force again. Instead, he chose to shut up on me, and he never even told me who was the child that he saved when Master Li's family was being slaughtered... although it's kinda obvious in the end just who that daughter was...

Dawn Star was just fucking ugly in this game though. She sounded like a porn star too, which she even makes mention of during the end credits... How IGN could ever find her sweet and hot, I will never understand. She looked like a Chinese Ho at best, to me. And I ain't just talking about last names here... I never got her to open up about her past, and figure out that she was Master Li's daughter. Although I did get her and Silk Fox to both fall for my closed first character at the same time... I'm just so disappointed in the end though. I binded Dawn Star to me, so why the hell couldn't I make her my sex slave? Goddammit, the only thing that consoled me in the end, was the fact that while my character was dead, Dawn Star and Silk Fox "consoled" each other...

And I'm so fucking pissed! First time through the game, I played as an open palmed Radiant Zen Li or something. Because, you know... I'm a horny geek who likes staring at her ass all day and all...

But goddammit! I was building up the sexual, lesbian tension with Silk Fox throughout the game, like I was always hoping I could with Bastilla back in KOTOR... And then I fucked up the "previous love" of your life question, and couldn't get Silk Fox to ever finger me again! WTF is wrong with you, BioWare! You made me goddam kiss Sky instead of Silk Fox in the end! I HATE YOU, BIOWARE!...

... and yet still, if only because of the outlandish Outlander, I still thought Jade Empire was pretty damn cool...

... end massive spoilers... although I'm sure nobody will ever read my spoiler warnings, or my Y2kk updates, per usual...

Jade Empire is definitely not one of the top RPGs of this generation of gaming. And not even one of BioWare's top RPGs really, despite their tiny portfolio of modern gaming... The game was too short, had a butchered storyline, had woefully written characters, was too damn easy in combat, had the worst loading times ever since KOTOR, and left me wanting so much more in the end... although the latter could be construed as something good, for a potential milked franchise at least...

The game was definitely no true follow-up to the majesty that was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic... hell, even to my Chinese ears, it still couldn't match their first Xbox RPG, even in terms of an epic musical score. Although I guess in retrospect, it is kinda hard to match wits with the Star Wars music we've all come to know and love, even for a hardcore Trekkie like me...

And yet? Jade Empire will still go down as one of my favourite games of the year at least, if only because of how damn addicting all the battles and sidequests ending up being, causing me to complete the game twice without ever really getting bored once... There were just so many little touches to Jade Empire, that kept giving me hope for the game and the potential franchise in the end...

I'm still laughing out loud when I just walked up to a common peasant, asked if she had her purse with her, and then snatched it like the lovable loser that I am... And I'm still smirking at the little 'bout that ensued, when as an open palm kind of guy, I just accidentally told Al Ling in Tien's Landing to have a death to a duel for her husband to be, only for her to end up killing him instead... Oh, it's just so fun to be evil in this game, maybe even more so than it was in either of the Star Wars RPGs...

Hell, there was even hot and horny lesbianism! And how the hell could I not love the game for that?...

The graphics are just jaw-dropping at times in this game. I dare you to take just one good look at the water effects in this game, and tell me with a straight face that this RPG isn't one of the most beautiful video gaming sights you've ever seen... The fighting styles were innovative. The enemies were inventive enough... And hell, I'm still trying to hum the theme song to Jade Empire as we speak. I can't hum worth a damn, but dammit, some songs are just hum-worthy...

Jade Empire was truly a solid game... that if only it wasn't a pure mockery of Chinese culture as I know it, I probably would've enjoyed it and respected it a hell of a lot more...

... if only the game didn't feel like a Matrix rip-off, Chinese wannabe kind of action film...

... and if only BioWare hadn't set the bar so damn high with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in the first place?...

... then maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have been disappointed with Jade Empire in the end...

I mean, Jade Empire is a great game. Definitely one of my favourites of the year so far, but...

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