Movie Reviews with halochief996: Movie Reviews with halochief996: Dark Shadows

Well so far I've enjoyed summer alright. I've been catching up on some video games that I haven't finished. I finished Prototype 2 on Xbox 360

Finished Mass Effect 2

And been playing some Call of Duty, Battlefield, DOTA 2, and Max Payne 1.

Yep so far I've had a productive summer. Anyway moving on.

Dark Shadows

Johnny Depp is dam good actor. I like him. He always can make a movie funny yet serious. When he is with Tim Burton, the guy behind Corpse Bride, and The Nightmare before Christmas, it seems that they make a good combo. Lets just say this movie is not one of their finest.

Plot: The film is based off an old TV show/Soap Opera. In the 1750s there was this family called the Collins. They were powerful, rich, and had built a city in America. Anyway the son/heir to the Collins fortune, Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp), lived an awesome life. He then found his one true love. However there was a jealous witch (Eva Green). Barnabas slept with her once, but she never let that go. Anyway she put a curse on the family. He lost his one true love, his family, and became a vampire. And he was locked up in a coffin by the witch. Now about 200 years later, in the year 1972, Barnabas awakes from his coffin by luck (some construction workers were building a McDonalds). However things are not what he expected. His family's business is almost in ruins, the family is dysfunctional, and the witch has taken almost complete control of the city. Its up to Barnabas to reclaim what is rightfully his, restore his family, and restore his family's business. Its not going to be easy since he has to fight his control his vampire instincts and abilities, and also deal with the seduction techniques and charms from the witch. It sounds like an interesting story. And its good concept and idea. Crazy magical creatures and people in an era full of hippies and drugs.

Genre Its a comedy film with vampires, witches, ghosts, and magic. Its a good story, but the movie poorly executes the story. I mean don't get me wrong there are some funny parts. Johnny Depp makes some good jokes here and there. For most of the movie, you hear Johnny Depp sounding all shakespeare like with his English vocabulary, and metaphorical sayings. I mean its funny hearing him speak all proper in an era where its OK to not be overly proper. Its also funny seeing him try to adjust to the modern lifestyle. For the most part you will see him try to control his vampire urges, not really, talking with his family, restoring the family's business, trying to woo the governess of the house, and also fighting the seductive witch. Out of the whole movie, I thought the parts where the witch was trying to seduce Johnny Depp were the funniest parts of the whole film. Other than that, I didn't really laugh so hard throughout the movie. I chuckled a lot. The ending I will say is very random too. Spoiler:It suggests there will be a sequel but I highly doubt there will be one

Overall Its an OK movie. I mean Johnny Depp does a descent performance in the film. This is probably not his best film, nor the film he will be remembered the most about. The comedy is funny but not laugh out loud funny. And the story could have been told better. The ending as I said before is random. For this movie, if you have the time and the money go watch it in the theaters. Otherwise just skip it, rent it, pirate it, or grab it in the bargain bin.

6.2 out of 10

First Impressions for Video Game High School

Now this is special post for my blog. I've been waiting for this to come out, and finally it has come out. So for now pretend this is Film Reviews with halochief996.

So I'm sure some you have heard of Youtube sensation, freddiew. He's well known on Youtube for making awesome action videos relating to video games and always involving guns, insane stunts, and awesome special effects. So anyway its been known for a while that he's been working on a big project called Video Game High School, aka VGHS. Well finally its here. And so far I'm impressed. The first episode is out, so I will focus mainly on the first episode, and just letting you know its my first impressions. And I understand there are more episodes. THIS IS NOT A TROLL OPINION.

So in the first episode you get a cool intro scene and then it gets you straight into the action. You get to know the characters. Also Justine Ezarik makes an appearance.

Yep what a hottie. Anyway so besides that the first thing that people will start to notice is a scene typically seen in freddiew videos. An action scene with guns. A good Battlefield spoof. The action is intense, amazing, and very much like a video game with people that really look real instead of 3D computer generated images, not that many special effects. The characters are also funny, well crafted, and are believable. I'm going to give kudos to the actors of the film. The Law for example is funny and the perfect bad guy/badass punk player. Pub stomping games. Also the kid, Brian, is the perfect good guy/hero to battle this obnoxious villain. Just from the first episode you can kind of tell where this miniseries is going. Brian is a hero after he defeats the Law, one of the greatest video game players in the world, and gets accepted to the most prestigious school, Video Game High School. And thus begins theJoseph Campbell's monomyth, or the hero's journey. Even the acceptance video is funny. I like it. The world and settings are really nicely constructed to be believable, and nicely told and presented in an understandable manner to the audience.

However I have some concerns. I've seen all of freddiew's videos, and I like pretty much all of them. I'm an action junkie. However I treat video games as an art. And this goes for movies too. Every single video game and movie in my opinion is like a painting. That's why I don't like to see hollywood try to make movies about video games. More or less they disgrace the painting. I know freddiew has done a great job making videos about video games. However the one thing I noticed about the first episode of this film is that a lot of the action and focus was on a shooter video game. There was though a funny reference to strategy games with the K-pop (Korean pop music) pretty boys. ;) But pretty much all of it was on a video game that was a shooter. I know its the first episode, and don't get me wrong its an awesome episode. But from what I see in the video is that the main character and villain have a rivalry in a shooter video game. The point I'm trying to make is, video games are not just only shooters. That's just one genre of video games. What I hope to see in later episodes of VGHS is different genres of video games presented. In movies, there is not one genre of movie, there are many genres of movies. Video games are the same way. Its not just shooters, there are RPGs, fighting games, sports games, strategy games, etc. That's why in my eyes I see video games and movies as art. Basically what I'm trying to say is I hope in the laterVGHS episodes, they do not just focus on shooters, instead having episodes where they show some kind of RPG or platformer game, etc. Because this mini series really could be an awesome film about video games, unlike those hollywood fails. And the trailer does show that they are going to bring in different genres of video games and make references to video game pop culture.

Overall I'm really impressed with the short video, and I can't wait to see the next episode. On the current youtube rating scale, I give it a thumbs up. On my scale for movies, I give it a 10 out of 10.

Here is the trailer for the series

http://www.youtube.com/wa...all-u

and here is the first episode

http://www.rocketjump.com...ode-1

Enjoy.

Again this post is my first impression. This is not a Troll post, and in no way I am trying to offend freddiew.

Asian Star of the Week

It's freddiew.