Haiku Review: Team Brawl

Critics fighting Gamers.
Too many to count.
Like maybe, nine.

Twitter and Facebook.

Did you know I now have Twitter and Facebook? Well I now have Twitter and Facebook.

http://twitter.com/

http://www.facebook.com/

Yes, I'm giving into the peer pressure.

Awesome Covers: Amazing Spider-Man 625

This one I just love! The Gauntlet saga has brought back most of Spidey's more famous enemies, and they have all taken a level in badass. For some this is a bit different, they have become legacy characters. Namley, Vulture and Rhino. The New Vulture is a snarling mutant out for revenge, and the new Rhino is a technological warrior who must defeat the old Rhino to gain his title. Here we have a somewhat basic image of the two Rhinos going head to head, but it just looks kick ass! This wouldn't look nearly as good if it were other villains, but Rhino's main attack plan is to charge at his opponents, so having to Rhinos doing that is pretty cool. And it's also Old vs. New, which is almost always good.
We also see that the New Rhino is much larger than the Old, giving him an advantage, but the Old Rhino dosn't seem detered from the fight by it, that is how you draw a still image of a badass.

This is the sort of cover that grabs you and drags you in and makes you want to read the story inside. This is why I like these sort of covers, I often don't care for basic group shots, or extreme face close ups.
As for the story inside, it's pretty damn good, which makes the mission of the cover a massive success. It even gets a little tear jerking. My only complaint is that it gives us an example of that lifelong comic book cliche, that heroes villains always have to come back. They retire, they return, they die, they're revived. This is also a problem when you kill them off for good, because then you don't get to enjoy the character being around any more, it's a freaking paradox.

Oh, that and I don't really like the art that much.

Predators

"If it bleeds, Arnold Schwarzeneggar has killed it."

If you think I am going to give you a full review about this movie, you are sorely mistaken.

What I will say is that it starts out quite poorly. The characters are brought in one-at-a-time, meaning that we get at least seven moments of someone attacking, then having it worked out. Then after everyones in, we get about thirty minutes of learning about the area and then going off as if it were nothing, as well as numerous oppertunities for Avatar jokes.

Things finally pick up half way through just before Fishburne shows up, giving us Peewee's Playhouse and Matrix jokes. If you ignore half the stuff before then, the film should go up a star. When the Predators themselves show up, the film officially becomes awesome. We get Yakuza vs. Predator!

We also get a little bit of justification in calling this a reboot (I think). We learn that their are two kinds of Predators, the 'Big Ones' and the 'Smaller Ones.' The Big Ones hunt the Smaller Ones and basically kick them around as they wish. It just so happens that the Smaller Ones are the classic Predators, as in the Arnold Schwarzeneggar (Gah! Spelling!) film and the Big Ones are slightly redesigned (they're uglier, if you can even begin to believe that).
We eventually get a stand off between one of both. Spoiler Alert!: The Big One wins. I guess this is to show us that you don't mess around with these new Preds, though personally I felt this was somewhat of a Fan-Punch. It's sort of like having Englund's Freddy Krueger and Haley's Freddy Krueger face off, ending with Englund's dead and Haley declaring that he was always pathetic and didn't deserve a film series. Though of course knowing how well the film was recieved, chances are Haley would have been booed out of reality.

There are a few plot twists that come off as genuinley surprising too, but I won't spoil those for you.

All in all I'd say it was perfectly decent, 7/10 stars.

Announcement of a Miracle.

Ladies and Gentlemen. We live in a strange world. A world wrought with evil and pain. But it is not a world of complete horror, as sometimes, albiet rarely, it is host to special miracles. These miracles come in many different forms, sometimes they are so well hidden, we actually have strong distate for them, until we realise they are in fact a miracle. That is not the case here. Sometimes unexpected things happen, and when they do, you have no choice but to question their existance, and refuse to acknowledge them until the proof is undeniable. That has happened today.



It's out! The first episode of the new Emo Rangers is out! Holy crap, I thought he was just taking the piss! My god!

So how does Episode 1, Weed Better Sober Up, hold up? Who the hell cares, it exists! Okay, well the qaulity has increased tenfold, the CGI is pretty damn good, and the fight scenes are alright.
However, don't expect anything too good, the voice acting could be much better, the fairly short length of eight minutes leaves the whole episode appear rushed, so the actual non-parody jokes don't really get the chance to give much of an impact, though it did give us this little gem.

All the cool kids do drugs, and you don't do drugs, so you're not cool.

But I personally didn't expect the highest quality ever, and the opening was enough to convince me that this was awesome, so there you go.

On a whole I'd say, Hell Yeah, and Welcome Back.

Doctor Who Finale Part 2

We now return you to the season final of Doctor Who.

You may remember I showed much dislike regarding the previous episode of the Doctor Who finale. Well I'm happy to announce that the second part of the two-parter was significantly better. Not to say that it was perfect, but it was definatley an improvement and much more enjoyable.

We start out with the opening of the season, with young Amelia Pond praying to Santa (on Easter, so she's extra polite) for someone to help her out with the ominous crack in her wall. However, unlike that episode, the Doctor dosn't show up. Poor Amy, nobody is going to eat all the food in her fridge and break several plates before scarring her for life and then leaving for about a decade.
She is then visited by a therapist who worries about the fact that she keeps drawing night skies full of stars. This would be odd normally, but due to the events of the previous episode, all the stars around the Earth have been extinguished.

One day someone pops a brochure to the mueseum, where the Pandorica from the previous episode is being held for all to see. She goes there and touches it, opening it up to reveal herself from the future. Yay!

Okay, I'm not going to review every single aspect of the episode like that. Basically, The Doctor travels back in time to tell Centurion Rory, who has recently fatally shot Amy, to use his sonic screwdriver to open the Pandorica and set things up so that he can reclaim it in the future. In the future, The Pandorica opens as stated above and the Doctor arrives. The funniest part of the episode is the inclusion of a Dalek as a fossilised creature. Which is then promptly revived by the light of the Pandorica, and fixes the main problem with the previous episode by have a constant threat. Yes, we had the imminent destruction of the universe and a half dead Cyberman, but the Dalek had then running, giving us an actual sense of 'We aren't stretching this episode out.' Rory appears, having gained a level of immortality via being an Auton, and briefly wards off the Dalek.

This episode finally cemented Rory as a good character. He is still sort of Mickey.2, and even though he is technically a clone, the series pretty much stated he had the real Rory's soul, so I'm just happy to see him back. The story of him defending the Pandorica over the course of two thousand years was actually done pretty well, and I was actually able to see Rory with a certain level of badass.

The Doctor appears via Vortex Manipulator (the same way he's travelling through time so quickly) and dies. The Doctor then realises the plot has some Fridge Logic in that if there are no stars, what's keeping the planet illuminated? As it turns out, the crashing TARDIS is illuminating the planet while the universe is being ripped apart. He is shot by the Dalek and teleports. River kills the Dalek in a moment that should be awesome, but just had me facepalming because Daleks aren't cry babies, and this one was screaming for mercy.

We then learn that the Doctor did not die, with untangles the Fridge Logic as to why he didn't regenerate shortly after, when we've clearly seen him do so in the Series 4 Finale. No, this was just a lie so he could strap himself into the Pandorica and launch it into the crashing TARDIS's, which would then illuminate the entire universe with it's restoring light and fix everything. He does this even though he will be stuck inside The Void for the rest of eternity...along with all those Daleks from Series 2 (yes, there WERE Cybermen, but chances are they've all been Exterminated by now). The Doctor then explains to Amy that the Crack in her wall (the cracks with can absorb objects and people and make them never have existed) had apparently been eating away at her life for years, erasing her memories of alien invasions and causing the disappearance of her parents.

The Doctor uses the Vortex Manipulator to launch the box (it's too complicated for normal teleporting) and sends River one last message on her Technodoohickey, "Geronimo," say what you will, I personally would expect nothing less from any incarnation of the Doctor. It works, and everyone wakes up where their lives should be, Amy has her parents again and she and Rory (who I am assuming is no longer an Auton) are preparing to wed later in the day.
But first, The Doctor has to slowly trudge back through his life, and returns to Amelia on the night where she met him and waited for him to take her on adventures through time, before deciding he'll skip the rest of his past to avoid needing to bring back David Tennant. So basically...


After the Wedding, Amy notices River walking by, and starts to feel strange. Rory gives her a Wedding Present apparently left by River, and opens it to find it is an empty book. She then realises that someone is missing from her Wedding, her good friend The Doctor. And then all the viewers at home clapped their hands and chanted, 'We believe in Doctor Who, we believe in Doctor Who,' and the TARDIS materialised right the at the Wedding, and suddenly everyone remember all the amazing adventures, and those who didn't know about them aren't too concerned about the Police Box that just teleported into the room from nowhere.

At the wedding party, the Doctor Dances...Oh, I see what you did there...and eventually decides it's time for him to leave and meets River outside, revealing the book is now full again (this has to do with Silence in the Library, but I missed that episode, so I don't fully understand). Rory and Amy then enter the TARDIS and ask if he's leaving. This is affirmative. They ask if this is good bye. This is affirmative. So then, Amy heads out of the miraculous Blue Box...and promptly yells goodbye to everyone outside as the TARDIS dematerialises and sends the trio on another adventure, and finally gives us another multiple season companion! Thank You!

And that's the second half of Series Finale. Is it better than the previous episode? Hell yes. I especially liked how they got out of the silly Legion of Doom concept by having the strange universe causing event erase them from time, though it was pretty predictable that if any were to get revived and chase the team around, it'd be a Dalek. Unfortunatley this also brings up how very wasted the idea of bringing in all the Doctors enemies truly was.
Second, I may have missed something, but what exactly was causing the whole universe collapsing event, anyway? I'm assuming the idea is the crashing TARDIS's, but that really came across as more of a steroid for situation as opposed to the castalyst. But I don't really mind, this episode did not feel as stretched out and was much better.

The A-Team.

I love it when a decent film comes togethor.

I had heard of the series multiple times in the past, but never really batted an eye beyond Mr. T. When I heard the film was coming out, I didn't really care all that much. But then I saw the trailer, which included the awesomest line of dialogue I have ever heard.

"Are they trying to shoot down the other drone?" "No, they're trying to fly that tank."

Fly a tank? That was enough to make me say, hell yeah I'm gonna see this movie. So I did. What is the verdit?



OH MY GOD THIS IS THE GREATEST FILM I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE! I cannot begin to tell you how awesome this was. My face was hurting from how huge my smile was during the whole thing. The story is pretty darn good, the action kicked ass, and the characters were awesome. Okay, maybe I should talk about it a bit better than just summing it up like like that.

The film basically follows the team as they try to clear their names for apparently stealing a series of US treasury plates, which were destroyed in an explosion, along with the only man who can provide evidence of their innocence. Within this we get to see some of the awesomest things ever. For example, the leader of the group Hannibal is played by non other than the God of Lightning. That's cool on it's own, but he gives as much awesomeness as you'd expect (a lot).
The first thing every character does is get a CMoA. For Hannibal, he manages to avoid getting shot by stealing the firing pin from his own gun, then using said pin to unlock his handcuffs, then use the handcuffs to restrain a pair of attack dogs. Damn.
B.A. gets in on the action by beating up everyone in a garage (and kicking a man into a window) to get his van back. And he has the words Pity and Fool on tattooed onto his knuckles.
Faceman dosn't get to beat anyone up, but he is trapped inside several car tires, having gasoline poured onto him and about to be burned to death, and the whole time he's just verbally bitchslapping the guy doing it.
Finally Murdock arrives. The first thing he does is stitch a lightning bolt into B.A.'s arm after they mistake him for a doctor (he is dressed as such) then set Faceman's arm on fire. That officially made him my favorite character.

Then we get the entire Helicopter scene which I have to call freakin' sweet. So, the opening of the film is one of the most awesome things ever. Does it go down hill from there? Not really.

My complaints are very few, so I'll just say them now. The film gets a little slow at a few points, which can be annoying considering how awesome the action is. Murdock is insanley Crazy Awesome, like I said, the first thing he does is stitch a lightning bolt into B.A.'s arm, so it is very annoying to see him mellow out as the film progresses. He's still awesome, it's just that you won't really be able to believe this is the same guy who set Faceman on fire.

And that's pretty much it. But what really makes me love this movie is that it is good! It's a genuinley good movie, and latley there have been WAY too many crappy ones. Take for example, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Last Airbender, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Iron Man 2 (okay, that wasn't bad enough to be called crappy by any stretch of the word). This is what made me happiest about the film.

Also, I won't be able to do a review of the A-Team movie without mentioning the Tank Scene. Yes, it was awesome. Unfortunatley I went to the toilet just before it started so I missed the part where they decided to do it. I got the 'No, they're trying to fly that Tank' line though. Annoyingly I was asking my friend if I had missed it, so...yeah.

All in all, I give it 9/10.