Vantage Point - Film/DVD Review

Vantage Point is out at the cinema right now, and after seeing it earlier this week, I came away very impressed by it.

The acting is very good and generally quite convincing. Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver and William Hurt are the main cast and although there isn’t one central character, each plays a very important part, as will be explained later.

The premise is simple; The President of America (who else) is giving an anti-terrorism speech in Spain when there is an assassination attempt on him. The plot as you can see is the most clichéd one around, and must have been done a hundred times over with slightly different circumstances, but always the same outcome. What makes Vantage Point different from other thrillers is that the story unfolds in front of you from multiple perspectives. First, you see the events unfold from the view of a bodyguard, which doesn’t give much, if anything, away, but after each showing from a different viewpoint, you find out a bit more about what is really going on, and the plot thickens each time with twists and turns. Needless to say, nothing is as it seems and the plot twists and turns at every opportunity, although some are predictable, most will leave you surprised. It’s also a good film for those (like me) who try to figure out what might happen next, or who is behind what.

What I particularly liked about the film was that the first scene (the attempt to kill the President) shows all the main characters in some way (you have to look carefully, but they are all there), but shown from a different point of view so it slowly explains why they are there, and what they are doing, or planning to do… I imagine it was all filmed in one take, as the timing would be impossible to recreate over and over again - I think this is easier to understand if you have seen the opening scene.

I was slightly confused and disappointed to find out that Vantage Point has generally received a lot of negative press and generally poor reviews, and I find it difficult to understand why this is. I can only assume it’s because of the somewhat repetitive ‘must save the President’ attitude, and the annoying flashback scenes which separate each section of the film. There are more slightly negative points, but these would be major spoilers for those who haven’t seen the film.

The special effects are decent enough, although most of it is in the initial explosions, there is one superb car chase which takes place (not unlike the chase in The Bourne Ultimatum) through crowded streets and has the usual crashes and power slides. I would recommend the film for it’s originality and the way it keeps you guessing right until the end. The cast is good, the acting solid and while the plot ending is somewhat predictable, the way it gets there certainly isn’t. If you like thrillers, or even twisting story lines like Lost, then I would highly recommend it.

Overall: 8/10

The Bourne Ultimatum - Film Review

The Bourne Ultimatum was on over Easter, and after seeing Bourne numbers 1 and 2 I knew it would be worth a watch. The film continues from The Bourne Supremacy (film number 2 of the series) although it isn’t necessary to have seen the previous films. While it would obviously make the film more interesting, I think you could watch them all in any order and still enjoy them. The continuing plot while intricate is not too complicated, so unlike some spy thrillers, the Bourne films remain interesting throughout and you don’t lose interest half way through.

Specifically in Ultimatum, the story revolves around Jason Bourne trying to piece together the final remnants from his early memories, when he is reported in a newspaper (The Guardian or The Times, I can’t remember which) to be working for the CIA (incidentally, you can catch a glimpse half way through the film of the CIA using Norton AV to protect their computers, which gave me and my brother a chuckle). He meets with the reporter who wrote the article, and they quickly get deeper and deeper into the organisation which trained Bourne. The tempo of the film is quite high throughout, and even flashback scenes or communicative plot filler parts are kept tense and somehow nerve racking.

The trademark Bourne action sequences however are were the film really excels. There is a motorbike and a car chase (similar to the one in Supremacy) which take place on the streets of real cities, through crowds of people at top end speeds, so it’s mind blowing just how they did it when you think about it. I didn’t think the combat scenes however were up to scratch. The fighting was blurry and the camera was far to shaky and jumpy to actually see what was going on most of the time. The camera position switched almost on every punch or throw, and it just made me dizzy. It might just be the style of the film as in the earlier films, but the director needs to look at the Matrix fight sequences - make it one or two longer scenes done in one take from one camera. Maybe that’s a bit picky on Ultimatum because it doesn’t spoil the film or anything, I just think it could have been done better.

Background music is very good, as are the special effects, and I can’t really find too many faults with the film or the trilogy as a whole. I like how Ultimatum is very realistic (alright, as realistic as a spy/thriller can be) and it uses real life cities, in crowded places, it makes the film more believable than say, James Bond in the Arctic being chased by a giant *insert Dr Evil voice* “laser”. The chase scenes of Bourne leaping through windows, Motorbike sequences, music, sound, settings, and characters are all top notch, and the plot drives on and on without getting tiresome or boring.

The only downside I can think of is if you don’t like action/spy thriller type films then you might want to avoid the trilogy. For everyone else, it’s a must see.

Rating: 9/10

WipEout: Pulse - PSP Review

Following on from 2005’s WipEout: Pure, the series continues on PSP with WipEout: Pulse, but before the full review, a little background info. The WipEout series first appeared on the original Playstation way back in 1995, and quickly established itself as a fast and furious style racer/shoot ‘em up, where players piloted futuristic craft around various tracks, using power up’s such as shields, and firing missiles and other weapons at each other, all while trying to finish first. This unique blend of racing, shooting and flying remained fresh for many years, and the jump onto PSP was both inevitable and welcome. In fact, a WipEout for PS3 is in the works as well. So then, onto the review.

There are some games on PSP that feel like they belong there. One is the WipEout series. This is because everything just feels right, and it feels as polished as any game. The controls are kept simple, which is fortunate as your travelling so damn fast that you don’t have much time to look behind you. One key difference between other race games is that because you are flying you can’t just turn left or right unless it’s a very slight turn. For tight corners and U-bends you need to use the airbrakes (L1 and R1), which does take some getting used too, but once learned, they actually make it much easier than braking totally, and then accelerating away again. It keeps the cornering smooth and means you don’t lose much (if any) speed, gaining vital seconds in the Time Trial races.

Graphics look slick, smooth and really make the game come to life. Actually, the improvement from Pure is marginal, because the effects were so good to begin with. The key changes to the game will come a little later on in the review. The colours in game are bright and the best effect is the engine jets spewing out plasma, or whatever it is, which is proportional to your acceleration and speed. Another thing I’ve noticed is that the game has never lagged, even with 8 different ships on screen, the action remains as high tempo as ever.

Sound is the only area of the game that could still be improved, as while the music in game is great (it’s a mix of techno and futuristic drums, which actually sounds far better than how I just described it), the voice over which announces your upgrades or when a rival is about to fire is too quiet and blurry, so you rarely hear about the imminent rocket which is about to blow you out of the sky. Thankfully, in addition to the audio warning, there is a visual one as well. A tiny icon of the weapon being fired at you appears above your ship so you know what’s coming.

As with most racing games, there are multiple teams (twelve, although you can download additional teams if you want) with respective strengths and weaknesses. For example, some ships will have good acceleration but a low top speed, or an average balance of both. This keeps the game fair and it also makes it more enjoyable if you prefer one type over another. I have always gone for a nippy car/or in this case ship, with good handling/turning and acceleration, but that’s just me. Think of it this way, in real life terms; would you rather have a Lotus Elise (agile, but not as fast) a Ford GT (powerful, but less nimble round corners) or a Porsche 911 (a balance of both). You also receive loyalty points for racing with a team, although I’m not too sure of the reason for this.

The game modes are vastly improved over Pure, and it shows when you start playing. Some changes are subtle and some are completely new modes. In Pure, it was more of a direct port from Playstation with few new elements, still a good game, but it was designed to be very safe and felt more like a testing ground on the new hardware. Pulse however is very much a new game. There are 12 new tracks, which can be played forwards or in reverse, and most tracks now have a magnetic strip on the track which keeps your ship glued to the track, enabling loop-the-loops in the tracks, as well as 90 degree vertical and horizontal sections which is just amazing to play, although it might make you dizzy if you don’t concentrate, or if you concentrate too much. This alone makes the tracks much more varied than before, and add to this 2 new weapons, 3 new game modes (Speed Lap, Head-to-Head, Eliminator) and you have a sequel well worth purchasing even if you already own Pure. There is also online play available if you have Wi-Fi access, custom music in the background if you have music stored on your memory card, in-game screenshots, Pulse really has got so much content and features crammed into it, it’s amazing that the game doesn’t suffer in other areas as you might expect. In some games, you might lose a feature which has been replaced by another, but that’s not the case here.

So, overall, Pulse is an excellent game and surpasses Pure. It doesn’t do anything drastic in terms of actual game play and it doesn’t change any of the key elements; they have kept it straightforward yet challenging, fast but manageable, and the numerous and more importantly, substantial, tweaks and additions in Pulse make the game even better than ever before. WipEout: Pulse comes highly recommended to everyone, and if you’re already a keen WipEout fan, you’ll love it.

Rating: 9/10