12/18/10

GAME REVIEW: Marvel Ultimate Alliance (T)

STORY:
A squad of superheroes go to save a giant hover-ship from it's destruction, and find a big problem created by Doctor Doom.

POSITIVE ELEMENTS:
The superheroes go to save the universe from all the evil-doers who wish to do it harm, and they also go to the Skrull homeworld to save them from Galacticus even though they tried to conquer the Earth several times. Uatu also helps the heroes even though it will mean that his powers are stripped away temporarily, and Senator Kelly (who hates mutants and meta-humans) after being saved; starts to think that maybe he was wrong about them.

GAMEPLAY:
Pretty much the only thing that you'll be doing in the game is pushing the X button to attack your opponents. There are a bit of puzzles, but most of them are solved rather easily.

SPIRITUAL ELEMENTS:
Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider and Thor show up on your superhero roster, and use their magic to stop Doom's lackeys. There is also a world called Mephisto's Realm, that looks a lot like Hell and has demons show as the enemies. And Mephisto himself looks like a giant version of the devil. And you also have to go to Asgard and help to rescue Odin, Asgard looks like you're on another planet instead of in heaven.

SEXUAL CONTENT:
Girls show up in their comic book outfits and most of them are a bit skin-tight, and both Elektra's and Storm's costumes show quite a bit of skin.

VIOLENT CONTENT:
The only thing that you do in the game is attack your enemies until they fade away, and leave red and blue orbs that you can use for your health and power. During Mephisto's Realm you will have to fight Demon Leapers that jump on the back of your characters, and try to bite the character's neck.

PROFANITY:
Nick Fury says hell about four times during the game, damn also shows up a couple of times.

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS:
Near the end of Mephisto's Realm, you have to pick what hero you're going to save; Nightcrawler or Jean Gray, and when you save one the other will fall to the ground and disappear for the rest of the game. There is also another time when to free Ghost Rider you have to sacrifice one of the members of your team to set him free, but you get him/her back afterward.

CONCLUSION:
If you like games where you just hit the same button over and over again, then this game is for you. It is fun when it begins but when you realize it's the same throughout the game, you start to hope that the game ends soon. I give this game a 1.5 out of 5 stars.

11/30/10

MOVIE REVIEW: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I (PG-13)

STORY:
Harry finds himself hunted by Death Eaters, and he must find the other Horcruxes before he's found by Lord Voldemort.

POSITIVE ELEMENTS:
Ron and Hermione help Harry no matter the size of the problems he faces, and Harry's other friends take a potion to look like him to act as decoys from the Death Eaters. And after the death of a friend, he gives him a proper funeral with out any use of magic. Dobby once again saves Harry Potter from the clutches of evil, and Ginny asks Harry why they're holding a wedding during all of the attacks by Voldmort; Harry's reply is that they must hold on to good things like weddings and family.

SPIRITUAL ELEMENTS:
Magic is abundant here, wizards and witches use magic for pretty much everything; reading a will, using it as a weapon, and making protective barriers. Not as much magic is used like the other Harry Potter films however.

SEXUAL CONTENT:
Ginny asks Harry to zip up the back of her dress for the wedding, and the audience sees quite a bit of her back and they later kiss. After Fleur take the transforming potion, "Harry" is wearing a bra for a second. After they open one of the Horcruxes, a ghastly monster comes out and shows Ron, a vision of Harry and Hermione kissing passionately and later naked even though steam clouds cover most of them it's still a pretty freaky shot. Harry takes off his clothes excluding his underwear to dive into icy water for something. After Hermione takes the potion, she tells Harry that he's much tastier than Crabbe and Goyle and then says 'Oh, you know what I mean!' (She drank the potion for Crabbe in the second movie)

VIOLENT CONTENT:
There are loads of battles between Harry and Voldemort's henchmen, the first battle starts in the sky and goes on for a quite a bit. The battle takes a couple of Harry's friends, and we later see one of his friends ear cut off and blood covering his neck. Another attack claims the life of a friend who's on the receiving end of a thrown knife. And in still another melee, Ron's arm gets badly shredded by an enemy. Arguably more disturbing than these scenes are several that imply torture and cold-blooded murder. A sobbing teacher is suspended above the table where Voldemort and his lackeys strategize. In the end, Voldemort 'shoots' and kills her with his wand, and his giant snake, Nagini—it's implied—eats her. (The snake shows up in another frantic battle as well.) There's a incredible chilling scene were Hermione screams while Bellatrix carves the word "MUDBLOOD" into her arm. We don't witness the cutting, but we see its bleeding results. Harry sees plenty of small shots with Voldemort killing/torturing people. And in the animated 'Three Brothers' one of the brothers gets stabbed but you don't see the actual stabbing just a knife above his shadow, and another brother hangs himself.

PROFANITY:
Moody says that the potion will taste like goblin p---, and the words hell and damn shows up once or twice.

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS:
In the 'Three Brothers' Death looks like something from a Tim Burton movie, the monstrous creature from one of the Horcruxes looks rather freaky as well. The audience sees quite a bit of blood throughout the movie, and when during the opening scene Nagini's mouth is shown open and looks it ate the camera. In a sad scene; Hermione erases all the memories and pictures of herself from her parents.

CONCLUSION:
If you don't mind quite a bit of violence, this will make the perfect movie for teens and adults. I give it 5 stars out of 5

9/24/10

GAME REVIEW: Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes (T)

STORY:
The game is set between season 1 and 2 of the TV show: The Clone Wars, it starts with Anakin and his new padawan Ahsoka searching the planet Ryloth for separatist droids. They later find themselves involved into a larger plot orchestrated by Count Dooku's latest minion named Kul Teska.

GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay is basically involving Jedi using their lightsabers to cut up droids and taking down pretty boring bosses, and then theirs Clones who uses their blasters, grenades, mega-blasters, and sometimes even their bare fists to destroy droids.

POSITIVE ELEMENTS:
Jedi and Clones risk their lives to defeat the separatists, and Obi-Wan tries to turn Dooku back to the good side. (SPOILERS) Anakin and Ahsoka go to save Senator Padme, even though they could have just left her behind.

SPIRITUAL ELEMENTS:
The Force is used during the game, but is basically just used as a tool instead of belief.

SEXUAL CONTENT:
Ahsoka wears her usual outfit showing off her stomach, and Ventress shows up with her outfit that exposes a bit of cleavage. And Padme shows up in her Episode II pre-ripped outfit.

VIOLENT CONTENT:
It's all about killing droids with your lightsaber or blaster, but after a droid would get killed it would just break apart and disappear after awhile. But after you finished fighting the bosses most of time they just vanish.

PROFANITY:
nothing

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS:
After your first fight with Kul Tuska, he unexpectedly smashes against the door which may frighten kids. Kul Tuska says that he will kill the Jedi slowly.

CONCLUSION:
It's a pretty fun game that doesn't take that long to beat it, but you could go back and then get the artifacts but they don't really do anything. Playing as the Jedi got really boring after playing as them almost through the whole game, but when you play as the clones it's pretty fun to play as them but it can be kinda hard to get a hang of using the weapons. I give this game 3 out of 5 stars.

8/3/10

MOVIE REVIEW: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (PG-13)

STORY:
It's 45 years after The Last Crusade in the films, and Indy still getting himself into deep trouble but instead of the Nazis, he finds himself in the hands of communists.

POSITIVE ELEMENTS:
Indiana has learned a couple words of wisdom, and gives them to Mutt for example: Fixing motorcycles for a living is fine as long as you truly love it. Indy tells Mutt to be nicer to his mom because 'You only get one, and sometimes not for that long.' It is shown that you shouldn't be greedy or else, Indy also tells someone that 'To be a good archaeologist, you gotta get out of the library.'

SPIRITUAL ELEMENTS:
since I don't want to spoil the movie for people who haven't seen it, I'll just say that near the end of the movie there are talks about gods.

SEXUAL CONTENT:
You see Indy naked in a radiation-banishing shower from his waist-up being scrubbed by people in radiation suits.

VIOLENT CONTENT:
There's quite a bit of violence in this movie, however if you were fine with the violence in the other movies you will be fine. There is a time where one of the villains get eaten by giant ants, but nothing is shown happening but ants swarming all over his body and into his mouth. There is a sword fight between Mutt and Irina, and Indy gets into a multitude of fights. Mutt gets smacked in the crotch many times. (SPOILER) At the end, Irina's eyes burst into fire, and she becomes sand and disappears into the spaceship.

PROFANITY:
Shia (Mutt) uses his favorite word; the s-word a couple of times though not as much as Transformers. People say son of a b----- a little bit, and some other milder words.

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS:
A couple of teens race against a truck, in the wrong lane.

CONCLUSION:
This was one of the best movies I have seen for a while, the only problems I found was the swearing and the ants. So I'll give it a 3 out of 5.

7/25/10

MOVIE REVIEW: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (PG-13)

WARNING: THIS MOVIE IS FULL OF SEXUAL CONTENT AND PROFANITY!

STORY:
The Autobots and a group of humans have created an organization called NEST, that tries to destroy all the Decepticons on Earth. Meanwhile Sam is going off to college, and tries to have a normal life there but of course something goes wrong. Megatron's master; The Fallen has risen once again and will stop at nothing to destroy Earth.

POSITIVE ELEMENTS:
Optimus still tries to protect the humans, while he's fighting the Decepticons.

SPIRTUAL ELEMENTS:
nothing

SEXUAL CONTENT:
There is a girl named Alice that Sam meets in college, and that's when the trouble begins. She tries to seduce Sam, but since Sam already has a girlfriend it doesn't work. When that doesn't work, she straddles him on his bed and starts kissing him. Then Alice reveals a metallic appendage that snakes out of the bottom of her dress (we see Alice's underwear) and later out of her mouth (her tongue is still attached to the end). She's a Decepticon with rather freakish intentions. Then there's Mikaela who is still wearing short shorts and cleavage-bearing tops throughout the film. And while she's trying to get Sam to say the he loves her, she takes off her motorcycle outfit and reveals that there is a skimpy dress underneath. Sam's college roommate has posters of girls that are hardly wearing nothing. There is an robot named Wheelie that is very...odd...

VIOLENT CONTENT:
The violence is not as bad as in the first movie, as they focus more on the faces of the robots while they fight. The humans fight with machine guns, while the robots are too busy cutting each other up with their knives to care. Later Megatron and a 'doctor' droid starts to give Sam brain surgery, and the 'doctor' goes into Sam's brain before it's stopped by Optimus.

PROFANITY:
They say the F-word once, but Mikaela says it almost inaudible. We also hear a bunch of barely disguised f-word variants, including "freaking," "frigging," "frick" and "eff" And one of the characters starts to say mother------- but is stopped right after he finishes saying mother. They also say the s-word a lot as well. They also say the b-word about three times.

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS:
It is revealed that one of the characters; Simmons wears a thong. Leo walks out of a bathroom with his pants down (but boxers on) and asks a security guard for toilet paper (a ruse to lure him from his post). Leo also gets tasered in an interesting place twice. Jetfire seems to burp a parachute.

CONCLUSION:
I can't recommend this movie to anybody, Even those people who liked the first one! I give this movie a 0 out of 5 stars.

7/19/10

MOVIE REVIEW: Men in Black (PG-13)

STORY:
There is a shadowy organization called the Men in Black, who take care of all the aliens that have landed on Earth. While they're welcoming a new arrival, a giant bug alien lands and eats the inside of a farmer's body and goes along inside the farmer's body.

POSITIVE ELEMENTS:
The Men in Black (aka MiB) always use a memory eraser to make sure that the civilians don't remember the aliens. and start a worldwide panic. And even though Agent J could easily quit the MiB, he keeps fighting these aliens. The MiB only use their weapons when necessary.

SPIRITUAL ELEMENTS:
At the end of the movie, (SPOILER) there are some aliens playing marbles with galaxies making some people believe that they're gods.

SEXUAL CONTENT:
It looks a doctor is pointing to her skirt and saying "I'll let you look under there." to Agent J, but actually she's pointing to underneath the table with the alien underneath it.

VIOLENT CONTENT:
The whole movie is full of aliens get blown up, with their blue blood ending up everywhere. The alien that's inside the farmer, threatens to kill the doctor with a gun. The alien kills two aliens in human disguise, by stabbing them in their necks with his sharp tail. The alien kills a person who kills bugs, and he kills him and sticks him on the ceiling with green goop.

PROFANITY:
The s word is used quite a lot of time and they say damn sometimes, but that's the worst of it.

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS:
Agent J calls K & Zed 'old guys' to get their attention, and the farmer before he gets eaten yells at his wife.

CONCLUSION:
I would recommend this movie only to mature teens and adults. Even though it was full of hilarious moments, it would have been better if the movie didn't have all the swearing. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

6/9/10

MOVIE REVIEW: Transformers (PG-13)

STORY:
An object called the AllSpark drops to Earth, and two alien factions go to find it. The good guys are Autobots, and the bad guys are Decepticons and they are about 28 feet tall robots. And they try to find someone called Sam Witwicky, whose grandpa's glasses shows where the AllSpark is.

POSITIVE ELEMENTS:
Even though Sam looks like he's about 5 feet, and his enemies are 28 feet that doesn't stop him from helping to save his world. Sam stops Bumblebee from shooting all the humans who zapped him, and one of the Autobots recommends that they should kill Sam's parents because they're getting in the way of their quest but Optimus Prime tells him not to hurt any humans. Optimus later mentions that freedom is the right of all sentient beings.

SPIRTUAL ELEMENTS:
Optimus Prime says that the AllSpark created life on Cybertron, (their home planet) but that's the only thing.

SEXUAL CONTENT:
One of the characters named Mikela and Sam love each other, and there are a few scenes where the movie could have done without. For example, there is a scene where Sam tells her to sit on his lap while they're in the car, because the only seatbelt is on his side of the car. And there's a scene with Sam's parents talking to him, about what he's doing in his room and his mom says that he must have been ma------ing. At the end of the movie, Sam and Mikela make out on Bumblebee's hood.

VIOLENT CONTENT:
There's a scene at the beginning where one of the Decepticons destroy an air base, and kills most of the people there. And then at a scene near the end, there is the BIG battle against the Decepticons where both humans and robots are killed. And also when Sector 7, gets a hold of Bumblebee they zap him with lots of electricity causing the poor 'bot to moan in pain. And during the battle at end, when one of the Autobots Jazz asks Megatron if he wants a piece of him, Megatron replies saying "No, I want two pieces!" and rips Jazz into two pieces

PROFANITY:
There are about several times that they say s---, also one of the characters starts to say mother------- but is stopped before he says the f-bomb. And Sam says that Mikela p----- Bumbebee off.

OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS:
There is a scene where a dog relieves himself on an Autobot, and later an Autobot 'relieves' himself on a human's head. And an older woman flips her middle finger to her adult son, and Sam's dog has a broken leg and Sam gives the animal prescribed pain pills. Later, the police find the pills for "Mojo" in the boy's pocket and ask, "Is this what the kids are taking nowadays?" A policeman interrogating Sam sees the youth look at his gun and says, "You eyeballing my piece? Go for it. I will bust you up!" And a government agent holds his badge up to Sam and Mikaela, saying, "This is my do-whatever-I-like-and-get-away-with-it badge."

CONCLUSION:
I would recommend this movie only to mature teens and adults. It is full of swearing, and lots of robot vs. human battles. I give this 3 stars out of 5.