Unless you’re wandering the vibrant forests of Pandora, devoid of Human contact, you’ve by now heard of and seen James Cameron’s long awaited and incredibly publicised movie, Avatar. The film has been met with almost unanimous applause from critics and audiences alike. But it seems, what people failed to predict, was that the exotic fantasy would become a double-edged sword, leaving many of its fans depressed in its wake.

I was made aware of this when I came across an interesting article at CNN.com that has been doing its rounds on the internet; receiving much commentary. Jo Piazza of CNN writes,

“James Cameron’s completely immersive spectacle “Avatar” may have been a little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora.”

Why is this so interesting to me? Because I get to say this to the disillusioned Avatar fans: Welcome to the club, movie-going masses, you’re experiencing what many gamers have been experiencing for years. Only feeling now what I felt 9 years ago after completing Final Fantasy VIII. It’s significant, because only today is there a massive scale of people — who don’t play games — that can relate to the level of immersion gamers experience from playing video games. Albeit, such experiences do not necessarily result in suicidal thoughts. Personally however, I can totally empathize with such thoughts, and can see how they may become self destructive.

Obviously, some people are more susceptible to being sucked in than others, and not all games are capable of captivating their players in this way. In fact, a games ability to keep me in a state of immersion, is how I gauge how good a game is.¹ Whether or not I can lose myself in it. Finely crafted games that successfully create and maintain the illusion of an alternate reality I dub, “experiences”, because the word “game” does not fully honour what they provide. Titles such as Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy VII, Half-Life, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Dino Crisis and Silent Hill; transcended from being “just-a-game”, they blurred the lines between the real and surreal. Their consuming atmosphere was tangible. And in Final Fantasy VIII’s case, the emptiness that followed in its absence, real.

I would just like to emphasize that, although there are quite a few games out there that are immersive, Final Fantasy VIII specifically left me feeling depressed. I was like, “What do I do now?”. When I finished the game, I couldn’t believe it was over. That it was done, finished, no more. That that would be the last time I saw Rinoa and friends. The last time I would enter a world I was tremendously attached to.

When I was a kid, the original DOOM showed me that I could experience fear while playing a video game. Final Fantasy VIII however, made me come to the dawning realization that a whole cornucopia of emotions could be evoked. I experienced love and strong emotional bonds between the characters. I lived a second life, in the midst of an elegantly beautiful world that I was in no hurry to leave. Like Final Fantasy VIII, Avatar had a love interest; and it’s that element specifically that leaves people with that empty feeling. An overall happy overtone that contrasts real life. You come from doing the spectacular, back to the ordinary and dull. You realize life doesn’t quite play out as magical as in a game or movie. There are no “moments”.

Having played games for many years, I’ve learnt to deal with this. I’ve become hardened to it. But as disheartening as it may be, there’s a positive flip-side. It’s an awesome thing knowing that there’s more out there. Personally, I crave and seek out games that can offer this experience to me. That I can buy a ticket to a different place. It’s like buying a dream. One of the best things ever is purchasing a good video game. On that note, Dr. Stephan Quentzel, a psychiatrist and Medical Director said in that CNN article:

“Virtual life is not real life and it never will be, but this is the pinnacle of what we can build in a virtual presentation so far”

He obviously has never played video games. Which are interactive, as opposed to passive viewing. Not to take away from Avatar, the CG was freaking insane. The facial expressions, perfect. I would go so far as to say, that Avatar was one of the only movies where I truly experienced video game-like immersion.² Watching it in 3D certainly helped. It really did feel like it physically took you along for the ride. The setup was perfect. You experience Pandora and the Na’vi with Jake Sully (the main protagonist). Every time he went to sleep and his conscience possessed his Na’vi body, you were seeing things for the first time as he did. You learnt and discovered with him. When he woke in shock, to a cold reality, it hit you as well. I was actually quite jarred and confused after seeing Avatar, as straight after watching the evening show, and because it was a long movie, by the time I got home I immediately went to bed. As I laid on my bed, I thought I was Jake, about to sleep and wake-up in an alien body. It was pretty bizarre but exciting too.

Somehow James Cameron has also managed to make it possible, for a person to find a blue female alien attractive. Moving on.

Immersion is one of the key pillars of why I deem video games a superior form of entertainment, and it’s quite interesting to finally see it emerging within the world of cinema. Immersion is a vitally important topic to me, and I’ve contended at length to retain its integrity.

Neytiri is hot.

1. Certain exceptions apply. Realism and immersion isn’t necessarily every games goal. Puzzle games for example. ↩
2. The only other movie I can think of — as of this writing — where I really felt incredibly immersed, was Cloverfield. ↩

I realize that in saying Wolverine is one of my all time favourite characters doesn’t make me incredibly unique, but it does mean that when you make a movie about him, it better be good.

I’ve been keen for X-Men Origins: Wolverine since I first laid eyes on some promotional shots and teaser footage. So it was great, as always, to finally get to watch it but be warned, this article contains spoilers.

I must say, the beginning had an incredibly cool intro. It showed Logan’s life through the ages, from World War, right through to Vietnam, alongside his comrade and brother Victor, who we know is in fact Sabertooth. As the intro plays out, you witness the evil side of Victor’s character and the steady decline of his humanity, contrasting that of Logans’. Victor’s unbridled feral nature inevitably causes him and his brother to be incarcerated on accounts of treason. After they are imprisoned, Logan and Victor are given a second lease on life and are both invited by Stryker to join, a “special team, with special priviledges”, to which they accept. Soon after, Logan leaves the team as it becomes clear to him that the group are willing to do anything it takes to achieve their goals, even if it means killing innocent people.

The movie moves on to Logans new, quiet and slow life with his wife in Canada, which I appreciated. It was done well and didn’t feel rushed. It’s classic Wolverine really. Reminded me of the X-Men cartoon series which I loved so dearly. I have to say, the woman who played Silverfox, Logans wife, looked absolutely gorgeous. Lynn Collins has such a great smile, suiting imagery for Logans new perfect life. Then of course the turn happens. Sabertooth loses the plot and helps stage the death of Logans wife, thus destroying his new life.

Here’s where things start getting a bit fucked up. Logan then reunites with Stryker — in the hopes of avenging his wife by killing his brother whom he thought was responsible — and takes part in the Weapon X program. Where “X” is the roman numeral for 10, because Logan is the tenth experiment. I don’t remember that being the case in the comic or cartoons storyline. Especially since there were other characters involved in the Weapon X program, such as Sabertooth and Deadpool. Which kinda blows the whole numeral system out the water. Nevertheless, this was where Logan’s skeleton was laced with Adamantium and Wolverine was born.

Hugh Jackman is a near perfect Wolverine, albeit a tad too tall. In fact, Hugh is getting better and better for the role as he ages. You can see Jackman devoted himself to the role. He buffed up, worked on his rage induced growls and naturally pulled off saying “bub” a couple of times. Also, I noticed the hair stylists did some fine tuning. His hair was more rough, less squeaky clean like in the X-Men movies. Even the minor raises of unshaven hair that occur when the sideburns meet the moustache. A level of detail I really appreciated. Furthermore ‘ol Hugh is a talented actor.

Wolverine had more of a heated temper in this film when compared to the other X-Men movies, barring a few scenes from X-Men 2 where they really let him loose. But it’s all kinda useless because he’s all bark and no bite. Throughout the film he’s “holding back”. I understand that Wolverine wrestled to control his temper, but he didn’t always win. It’s one thing to say he has a temper and have him growl with an awesome scowl, but if you don’t display his failures every now and again, it’s kinda moot. This gets so chronically bad that, after hell bent on revenge and stating and I quote, “I’m coming for blood, no code of conduct, no law”, when he finally finds Styker he… walks away. Wow, fierce. Atta go tiger. Sure Stryker proves his wife was not, in fact, murdered and was still alive but who gives a shit? Fabrication or not, he only ruined your life. Not to mention he hunted you down and killed everyone around you. Lets not forget that a moment ago he just told you, while standing next to the operating table, that he’s creating a new experiment called Weapon XI with the sole purposes of killing all mutants. That he admitted he captured mutants and was conducting experiments to combine all their powers into this one über mutant. That it would be a drone, following his commands unconditionally. The only reason Wolverine turns back from his pleasant meander away from the mad scientist, was the fact that he heard his love, screaming while in the clutches of Sabertooth. This brings me to the next fail.

The film makes it known that Sabertooth has somewhat of an edge over Wolverine. During the course of the film, Wolverine had a couple encounters with Sabertooth, with Sabertooth walking away with the victory. So when the moment finally came for the now Adamatium infused Wolverine to fight Sabertooth, I was psyched. This was the moment I had been waiting for, the epic fight between two arch enemies that has been chronicled through cartoons, comics and trading cards. This, was the fight I had been waiting for. X-Men Origins: Wolverine had another idea though. Wolverine and Sabertooth exchange a few blows, Wolverine then tackles Sabertooth sending them both flying through a window. Wolverine then quickly recovered after the hard fall, with Sabertooth still lying in pain. Wolverine, now filled with anger, readies himself to stab the crap out of Sabertooth’s face. But, once again, Wolverine holds back his anger and spares Sabertooh’s life. Another anti-climax. The scene was so brief, that I hadn’t even finished getting amped before it ended. So much for the epic battle finale I’m sure everyone wanted to see.

The film had a knack for building up momentum and then going nowhere with it. Always with the damn anti-climaxes. A veritable roller-coaster. I haven’t experienced so many in a movie before. Without exaggeration, I would say the trailer brought me to a greater adrenaline high than the movie did. The movie felt to a large degree, pointless. Additionally, many critics have noted it’s an action soaked, full of ’splosions and special effects movie. What they don’t mention though, is that the special effects in Wolverine are terrible. Wolverine’s claws couldn’t have appeared more CG if they tried. There’s this one scene where Wolverine is in a toilet, staring at his new Adamantium claws that will have you covering your mouth with your hand at the horrible craftsmanship of the CG effects.

Moving along, you come to find out that Wade, now Deadpool, is in fact the major bad guy fight scene. Deadpool, instead of being this cunning, smart-mouthed mercenary, was a horror with no mouth. The movie had previously done so well to bring Deadpool’s humour to the table, so what do they do with that, they take away his ability for utterance. Deadpool, who is now Weapon XI, becomes your generic, vacant of all personality, science experiment gone wrong. No awesome ninja-esque suit, no wicked mask, just a half naked guy that looks like he ran off the set of Silent Hill much to Christophe Gans’ dismay. I’ve since read up on the character and understand that in the comic book story, he was disfigured, but you never see him like that in the comics. Not often anyways. Furthermore, instead of wielding samurai swords, a single sword-like blade comes out of each hand in the same manner as Wolverine’s claws. This pissed me off. Hollywood has this fetish to make all bad guys in these comic book movies have all the attributes, and more, than the heroes abilities. Also, General Douche who’s responsible for everything, controls Deadpool via a computer, typing commands such as “DECAPITATE”. Seriously, are you kidding? No, really, come now.

Together, Wolverine and Sabertooth end up kicking Deadpool’s ass. The young band of mutants, the captured ones that Wolverine frees, finally escape the facility and are met by Professor Xavier, who arrives in a helicopter with rescue in mind (see what I did there). If you have to see this movie, watch it simply for Patrick Stewart’s brief appearance. You can’t help as the viewer think, “what the hell”, when he stares at the camera with skin so tightly stretched around his skull, I thought it was going to fold in on itself. Either that or propel his skull into orbit.

Wolverine’s story is one of solitude, he’s a loner, and instead of trying to fill a roster of characters they could have focused more on the few important ones. In my opinion, Stryker had far too much camera time, he’s merely the architect, from there, the consequences of his actions form the tragic stories of everyone involved in Weapon X. Instead of adding nonsense fluff like Emma Frost, Gambit and Scott Summers, more time could have been used for longer and more awesome fight scenes. The fact that Scott Summers (Cyclops) appears in a Wolverine origins movie is beyond me. Cyclops brings images of Wolverine’s well established future in the X-Men and his path in attempting to work in team. The mere fact that Scott Summers is in the film feels like a major time clash. This goes for Gambit as well, whom Wolverine is only supposed to meet after he joins the X-Men. The only purpose he served in the film was providing Wolverine transport to the super secret island. Which I’m sure they could have figured out some other alternative without including Gambit.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine reminds me of Tab or any variant of those fake colas out there. As you take your first sip and continue to drink it fast, it tastes just like Coca-Cola, but once you’re done, you get this nasty after taste. That’s what this movie was like for me. As it ended, I thought, at best, X-Men Origins: Wolverine was fantastically average. But as I pondered about it more and more, I became increasingly more disappointed with the movie.

I’ve become quite disillusioned and depressed with the film industry lately. There’s just been such a long line-up of disappointing movies that should have been great. Cinema is a graveyard. Silver screen is where all good things go to die. To be honest, I actually had more fun watching Dragonball: Evolution.

I was really excited to hear they were making a live action movie of Dragonball. Like most fans of the series, I always wondered what Dragonball would look like with real people. It’s just such a fascinating translation. What actor would suit Goku? How would they pull off his hair style?

The thoughts rambled on. Fortunately, after much anticipation, a slew of teaser shots, snippets of video and tons of rumours, Dragonball finally hit cinemas. Now I’ll have to admit, although I watched Dragonball Z religiously, I never did watch much of Dragonball. I knew the basic outline of the story, which I picked up mostly from Dragonball Z, and various media scattered around the web. I do still plan to watch Dragonball when I have some time. Having said all this, I don’t think I’m unqualified to give a decent opinion of the movie. I didn’t go in with very high expectations, instead, I was expecting the movie to have good parts, and bad parts. I didn’t think it would be excellent, but, I didn’t think it would be crap either. A sober attitude that I think was lacking among the black and white mindset of the online community. Mind you, this isn’t just a review, but more a post-mortem. Offering suggestions parallel to the criticisms and praises. Be warned, this article contains spoilers.

Strong Foot Forward

Dragonball starts out strong — barring some seriously cheesy elements — in the opening scene, with Goku training with his grandfather Gohan. Not only was the choreography creative, but the scene simultaneously introduced humour and character into the mix as well. Goku’s character is then developed as the movie moves on to his troublesome life at high school. A social outcast, Goku is emotionally bullied and is unable to fight, due a promise he made with his grandfather. The whole social dynamic introduced at high school was really entertaining. Goku, while staring adoringly at Chi Chi, loses himself to a hallucination. You couldn’t help but chuckle at Goku’s grossly exaggerated imagination. A classic Animé moment which plays out brilliantly. The directors definitely didn’t hold back. I found myself — probably because I was subconsciously critiquing the movie as it played along — getting nervous that the scene would get cut short and not go far enough, thankfully, that wasn’t the case. Thereafter, some cool interplay between the shy Goku and confident Chi Chi.

I laugh every time I see part where Goku tries to cope with Chi Chi’s confrontation, after he opened her locker using chi. Justin Chatwin acted so well in this movie. He made Goku such a likeable character. For someone who received so much criticism pre-launch of the movie, he really did an awesome job and makes a great Goku. Good job chap. It’s also worthy to mention that Jamie Chung (Chi Chi) was also good throughout the film. The previous two facts are made abundantly clear with Goku’s inevitable pair up with Bulma (Emmy Rossum) and Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat), who’s performances were less than stellar. Emmy tried way too hard in her role as Bulma. In her efforts to sound cool and “bad”, she put on a laughable and cheesy low tone of voice. Then Chow, forgivably mediocre throughout Dragonball, failed to bring Roshi’s eccentric nature to the film a couple of times. Then, then there was… Yamcha.

WTFSTFUGTFO

Look it him, terrifying, isn't it?

In retrospect, Yamcha plays a pivotal role in Dragonball, for he marks the decline of the movie. Yamcha was played by Joon Park, who failed miserably in every conceivable way imaginable. I gritted my teeth every time Yamcha reared his ugly head onto the silver screen. For the first five or so minutes of his appearance — which felt like an eternity — I was in shock. My mind was racing and I didn’t know what to do. I was panicking, and wanted to leave the cinema, but at the same time I was telling myself, “No, no, this can’t be happening, he’s going to ruin the entire movie. Maybe he doesn’t feature much”. Desperately grasping to any hope I could muster. From what had been a rather exciting experience up to this point, was being butchered by Joon. He failed in several categories as Yamcha. For one, he didn’t really look the part. He looks incredibly sleazy and creepy. I’m sure mothers everywhere hugged their daughters when he spoke his first line. Secondly — and most importantly — he epicly over-acted with a ridiculously put on voice. In fact, you will fail to come to terms with it. Unlike Emmy, his voice is not something you can overlook. As noted by my friend David, the only explanation for Joon’s voice acting is, that he really thinks Americans speak like that, “BODACIOUS. AWESOME. WHOA!”. Mixed in with a way too literal adaptation of the cartoon characters voice. Joon Park’s performance brings to mind many offensive internet acronyms. Specifically, WTFSTFUGTFO. This movie doesn’t say much for his acting ability (because there’s nothing good to say), but it doesn’t say much for the director, editor, casting director and sound staff either. How Joon got the OK without at LEAST re dubbing the movie, is beyond me.

It’s amusing to me now to mention one of my least favourite scenes, which happens to come straight after Joon’s introduction. Coincidence? No. The freshly grouped band of adventurers, Goku, Bulma, Roshi and Yam$@! continued their quest to find the Dragonballs in hopes to stop Piccolo from making his wish. This lead to an necessary event, that happens inside the earth, where there was lava… yes, lava. It was here that my eyes were treated with terrible CG and a lacklustre fight scene that was very much a non-event.

Starring Justin Chatwin, Jamie Chung, Chow Yun-Fat, Emmy Rossum… with James Marsters

Which is what the poster and intro text should have read, because there really isn’t much to say about Piccolo, simply because he didn’t feature much. I wasn’t too phased by his looks, he just didn’t really feel otherworldly or mystical. Which is what Piccolo from the cartoon felt to me. The film fails to establish him as any real threat. I never feared him once during the movie. Simply stating he’s powerful and scary simply isn’t enough. The only point where there was a show of power, was when Piccolo crushed grandpa Gohan’s house. There was this other scene where he burned a village, but it was quite abstract and ineffective. In fact, as pointed out to me by a friend, Mai, his henchwoman, played a more pronounced role than the supposed “villain”. The portrayal of an impotent Piccolo was further amplified by the fact that Goku, with little training from Roshi — what was it, two days? — made quick work of Piccolo.

Bang and it’s Over

Dragonball felt like it gained acceleration after the first half of the film. I was waiting for an epic finale battle between Goku and Piccolo that never came. They exchanged a few blows while being blatantly pulled up by cables “flying” in the air (they really need a new wire-fu guy). The moment came when Goku shouted the words I had longed to hear, “KAME-HAME-HA!”. Ending off with a “power struggle” that seemed to forget it was supposed to be a struggle. To make matters worse, they committed what I would consider blasphemy. Goku, not letting us relish in the moment of chi goodness, leaps forward towards Piccolo as unconvincingly as you can being pulled by wires, into his own Kamehameha, instead of being crouched with his feet digging into the sand, maintaining his beam. End. What a let down. I have to be honest with myself and say that there wasn’t even really a “fight” as it were. No cool moves, no Kung Fu. The best fight scene was at the beginning of the movie! I also found the special effects for chi a bit weak. As a friend put it — as you many have noticed, there was a lot of discussion about Dragonball with my friends after the movie had ended — all the chi / energy effects appeared way too wispy. There was not enough differentiation between techniques. Also, I’m not sure where this whole “air bending techniques” description comes from, perhaps Dragonball, but the Kamehameha as far as I know, was always a beam attack. Pure energy. I don’t remember it being multi-purpose either. It wouldn’t hurt the franchise if they created greater distinctions between the different techniques. This would then create familiarity with the viewers, who could then be psyched up when they see a trademark technique coming and can call it out.

Surprisingly, there’s more to be said about this movie that I haven’t mentioned above. Although I’ve mainly focused on the bad, there were other good aspects. I liked Piccolo’s voice and really enjoyed the plot device they used to introduce Goku’s trademark hairstyle. Which I thought looked great. Initially, when I first heard about Dragonball going into production, Goku’s hair was what concerned me the most. It’s what makes Goku, Goku. It’s so distinctive and I’m glad they put the effort into it, and didn’t try “re visualize” it for the real world, like the movie industry does with so many fiction to live action adaptations. The crew also seemed to fix the scenes that were released on the internet during the movie’s production. All the complaints I had about specific moments in the teaser footage were edited and done differently (tastefully) in the actual movie. Watching Justin bring to life Goku’s little idiosyncrasies was a pleasure.

Despite it’s flaws, I couldn’t ignore its merits. Dragonball was still a fun and an ultimately enjoyable watching experience.