Rocky

Unconventional. Unexpected. Unforgettable.

I was, and still am, a fairly indifferent fan of the previous Prince of Persia games, including the original that started it all. I’d rented The Two Thrones—or rather, the Wii port Rival Swords—and tried my hand. It was enjoyable, but without much longevity or impact.

My anticipation for Ubisoft’s next original venture into the mythical land of ancient Persia rose and fell dramatically. I was, at the onset, indifferent. As more footage was released, I became interested, and then invested. As more info was released, I began to see holes, discrepancies, illogical choices. But then my interest once again began to build, until it reached an apex I never expected.

Prince of Persia was set at the top of my Christmas list, even though the game was released almost two weeks prior. At that point, I did something I’ve never done before: once, and only once, did I contemplate even renting the game. I wanted to wait; to enjoy what I felt was going to be a totally unconventional experience.

So, one could imagine my pleasure as I unwrapped the Limited Edition on that morning. It wasn’t the only game I received, nor was it the only form of media entertainment. Despite having also received the hotly anticipated Call of Duty: World at War, I found myself at the end of the day realizing that I’d watched none of my gift movies, and that I’d only played one of the levels from the CoD 5 campaign.

Most of the day was spent playing Prince of Persia.

From the onset, I was hooked. The artistic style is the first thing that grabs you. Simply put, there’s not a video game on the market that looks this stunning. There are complaints that this game looks like a “cartoon”, and I’m here to tell you that’s complete bull. The visuals—graphics, artistry, design—are astounding, and they lend a very timeless, mythical feel to the game. It’s presented as an epic experience in every sense of the word.

The game is truly presented as an open world experience, boasting five huge areas, each interconnected and halting for absolutely no load time (aside from teleporting). Portions of each area are cleansed of the darkness that has spread, and even as you progress through the dark, trap-laden pathways, you’ll almost always be able to look around and see the light beaming on the portions of land already purified. It’s easy to get both a sense of completion and a sense of duty. You’ve cleansed one area. Now on to the rest.

The sounds of this mythical place are also of a high caliber. Master composer Inon Zur has managed to weave a magical tapestry of his own with a musical score that captures the adventurous, ominous, and peaceful moments of the game. The highlight is the core theme: a simple, yet elegant piece of music, simultaneously lush and harsh, beautiful and haunting. Likewise, the sound design is great. For all the flak the voice acting is getting, I’ve not once been removed from the game experience; the voice acting is splendid, from the cocky Prince and the enigmatic Elika, to the snarling, sly, and thunderous enemies they face. And you’ll feel the entirety of the world through the local machinations, the Prince’s actions, Elika’s spells, and the enthralling battles (more on that later).

The acrobatics and combat are two other high points. A staple of the Prince of Persia games, the acrobatic elements do not disappoint; they’ve just been simplified a bit. Now, “simple” controls don’t imply ease, just fluidity. There’s still the challenge of timing and direction, but pulling off amazing feats of agility and acrobatics in the Persian realm has never been so enthralling or visually appealing. You are given an “Acrobatic” button (for jumping), a “Gauntlet” button (for grabbing objects like rings), and an “Elika” button (for your double jump and magic plates). The acrobatics are just plain fun.

The combat likewise has been simplified, but is in no way easier. It follows the same interface set up as the acrobatics. The right trigger is your most important button; it allows you to block and make properly-timed deflections. The A button allows you to unleash an acrobatic attack, the B button for a gauntlet attack, the X button for a sword attack, and the Y button for Elika to attack. There are also several quicktime events in each fight, keeping you on your toes. Despite the one-on-two odds of the fights, they’re tense, nerve-peeling affairs designed to maximize potential for strategy, timing, and efficiency. And while you cannot actually die, you’ll want to master some form of strategy, lest you fight until your thumbs wear down to the bone.

But the best part of Prince of Persia, in my opinion, are the two central characters. And to those of you who completed the game without using any of the On Demand Dialogue, shame on you.

From the very beginning, both the Prince and Elika genuinely feel like wholly complete characters, comprised of different ideals, motives, and desires. They present, maybe not the entire spectrum of human emotion, but very human emotion and personalities nonetheless. It’s interesting to see these two characters meet, but the real treat, and the real core of this game, is watching them two of them growing stronger, and closer, through their epic adventure. Their banter is playful, humorous, poignant, and emotional. Their progression, and their chemistry, is something that grows over the course of the game and never once feels forced.

Prince of Persia is an oddity in my video game collection. It represents an unconventional presence in a fairly repetitious library. As I’ve played through it, I discovered something unexpected. When I picked up Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare last year, I couldn’t put it down; it was simply amazing, and still is to this day. Prince of Persia is like that, and my hours already spent are a testament to the fact that this game is difficult to put away.

But the truly unexpected surprise was how I found myself trying to resist completing the game. As much as the game completer in me wanted to beat it, I found myself not wanting to rush through it. I didn’t want the Prince and Elika’s journey to end. They proved to be such an eclectic and charming pair of characters, I found myself torn between wanting to see the outcome of their adventure and trying to keep them locked in the moment.

That is the strength of Prince of Persia. A solid adventure platformer, filled with breathtaking visuals, a visually impacting progression of story, enthralling combat, slick acrobatics, and most of all, two characters that, together, have made this a journey that is unconventional, unexpected, and unforgettable.

Comment [25]

Don’t you ever get sick of talking to people that gab on and on and on and on? The sort of person that simply has to yammer about everything under the sun? You stand there, politely holding your tongue, nodding as if to convey a continued sense of interest, until you can’t stand it anymore, and you shout the first and only phrase running through your mind:

“WILL YOU JUST GET TO THE POINT?!”

It’s annoying, right? Well, why exactly do writers think they’re allowed to similarly waste our time? How do so many authors think they’ve become so poetically endowed that they can wax boring by plopping thesaurus chunks in our laps for half a book at a time? (Excuse the purple…it slips in during high levels of stress.)

This is the 21st century; time isn’t so much a river these days as it is a waterfall. No one wants to get involved with a conversation that’s going to waste time, and no one wants to sit down with a book that’s going to do the same thing.

OK, ROCKY, YOU’VE YAMMERED ON FOR THREE PARAGRAPHS—GET TO THE POINT ALREADY.

A few months back, the University of Arizona (soon to be my Alma Mater) held its First Annual Festival of Books, which I attended. Of the ten or twelve classes and workshops I attended, I managed to take away one very short, very simple piece of advice.

“When in doubt, lower your standards.”

The heck? What’s that supposed to mean? Well, it’s referring to your written work, or, more specifically, your rough draft. Simply put, it means you just sit down and write. But, being the beneficent soul that I am, I’ll elaborate.

Lowering your standards refers directly to the way your story is written. What this does, when you get it hammered into your head, is force you to think in simple terms. Don’t sit there trying to explain what a rainstorm is. We already know what it looks, sounds, smells, and feels like, and 98% of readers aren’t interested in a meteorological report. That’s what the weather channel’s for. What we want to know is what it does. Well…the sky is covered with clouds, the winds pick up, and the rain falls over everything. End of story.

Guess what? You just lowered your standards and kept it simple. Now move on. This isn’t a major set piece, so don’t treat it like a climax. You’ll be able to concentrate on what the story requires of the rainstorm rather than making the story about what the rainstorm is. And the reader will love you for it.

Another important area for lowering your standards is with your characters. Wait…what? Lower my standards for my characters? Yes, but only in how they’re written. When you see a screencap of the cast from any of the Indiana Jones films, how do you know which one is the titular character? Because he’s wearing a leather jacket and fedora.

When you’re writing your characters, describe them in simple terms. Know what that does? It’s going to force you to distinguish between the characters. You can’t have an old, grey-haired doctor and an old, grey-haired doctor running around in the same story without generating mass confusion. You need to describe each of those old doctors unique to each other in just one or two sentences.

Um…why just one or two sentences? Well, readers will usually only absorb and/or tolerate so much detail at a given time. Not only are they going to not remember each of your six main characters’ height, weight, hair color, parents’ year of marriage, sixth grade report cards, and their individual number of flu shots since birth, but they’ll zone out, lose interest, and shelve the book altogether.

Give them a single, colorful sentence that is different from the other characters, something they can latch on to. Give them a setting, an object, or a motion that they can sense immediately. When you do that, you won’t be dragging out the detail of the mountains or the exact cut of a character’s facial hair, but you’ll be telling a story about how the mustachioed man was able to cross those mountains.

And most importantly, you won’t be wasting the reader’s time.

Comment [24]

There aren’t enough adjectives in the English language to properly describe how Christopher Nolan is going to warp your mind. Even after the monstrous success of The Dark Knight, he’s managed to present us a film that’s just as ambitious, intelligent, and masterfully constructed.

In fact, I daresay it’s better.

No. You’re not dreaming. I actually said that.

We have no timeframe as to when this story takes place—for all we know, it’s an alternate reality—but it’s understood by the affluent of humanity that technology exists to allow several people to share dreams. It’s explained how the technology is used in the context of the film in most of the trailers and promotional videos released; I’ll not regurgitate that bit of information. Just know it’s not a spoiler, but the cornerstone for Nolan’s daring premise. And of the many possible uses of such technology, corporate espionage just so happens to be one of them.

Enter Dom Cobb, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character. He’s the center of this story, in terms of exposition, exposure, and emotion. He’s assembled a team of the best at what they do in order to fulfill the classic “one last job” heist scenario. His reasons are personal and very potent in the film. They bear a legitimate amount of gravitas early on, but later unfold into something poignant and powerful. The story is his journey, and it’s both personal and grand. The supporting characters are all well-drawn, and I’ve got to say, their roles in the film are just plain cool.

In fact, you know what the best thing about Inception is? It’s entirely self-sustaining. The concept and rules for Inception drive the characters and their roles. They punctuate their dialogue. They drive the unfolding problems and necessary solutions. And they dictate the absolutely mesmerizing action sequences in ways that will have you grinning ear-to-ear.

But it goes even deeper than that. Cobb’s personal story is tied to the concept and the rules in an astonishing way, and it’s an issue that cannot be solved without following those same rules. There’s no way to transplant the backstory into another film and make it work. Try it, and it will either fall apart or end up a solid clone of Inception. Cobb’s turmoil affects us on a personal level, but it never betrays the terms set down by Nolan. And yet it never feels forced. For two-and-a-half hours, you’ll be plunged into a completely different world, watching cities fold and physics warp—and you won’t even notice the seams.

The actual story is better than your standard fare, but I won’t go into detail about it (you have no idea how hard it is to try and justify all this without referencing portions of the film). Even at a runtime that outpaces your standard film, you’ll be pressed to constantly check your watch. In fact, once you pass a certain point in the film, you’ll forget about time itself, even as the film toys with that very notion. The story is lengthy, yet lean. I couldn’t pick out any fattening moments that needed trimming. It’s a story that starts off with a slow burn, naturally picks up the pace, and then reaches a layered climax that will leave you breathless. It’s the only ending conflict in five years that genuinely got my heart racing.

That brings up another strong point of the film: the score. Hans Zimmer is on-hand to provide the sonic tones for the film, and he does an outstanding job. He captures the requisite heart and anguish in the intimate moments, but he also manages to unleash a beast. In the high stakes moments, he reinforces those stakes with his score, a monstrous assembly of haunting poignancy and thunderous tension.

For those of you that have been coasting through the summer fare, brace yourselves. While the season hasn’t been terrible, I think, if we’re to be honest with ourselves, we’ve left theaters feeling simply entertained. Inception isn’t satisfied with such a tepid aftertaste. I walked in with all the expectations conjured over the last…well, year, simultaneously fueled by the deluge of glistening reviews for the film, and my mind was still unprepared for Inception. There’s not a single area of the film that’s lacking—acting, dialogue, pacing, visuals, action, emotion, continuity, direction, production value—it’s all presented in top notch form. This is the best film of the summer and the year, thus far. If the Academy continues their trend of nominating ten Best Pictures, I’ll be floored if Inception isn’t found in that category.

Ok, so I might be going a bit over the top with the praise; I personally don’t put much stock in initial observations, especially my own. But I haven’t walked out of a film so jazzed in years, enthralled to the point I couldn’t get to sleep afterward and excited more by the experience than the anticipation (how often can you honestly say that’s happened?). Whatever I say about the film, the bottom line is this: go see it for yourself. Grab a snack, sit back, and keep your mind wide open.

You’ll be rewarded with an experience that’ll have you pinching yourself. I certainly was.

Comment [18]

First off: this isn’t a review. More and more I find myself lacking the proper critical lenses to analyze a film free from my personal preferences, much less in a timely manner. I tend to visit the theater very infrequently, and only when I’m almost assured of what I’m going to see. The bottom line is that this is little more than a recommendation, so take from it accordingly.

- clears throat, assumes epic stance –

Looking back on Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, it’s interesting to see where the focus of each film lies. Batman Begins was undeniably a film about Batman, both in and out of the cowl, running from his rage and facing the fear that festered inside him since the murder of his parents. The Dark Knight, by contrast, was a story about Gotham, encompassing not just Batman and his circle of accomplices, but also focusing just as heavily on the city’s political arena, interior of Wayne Enterprises, media presence, law enforcement strata, mob hierarchy, and even a cadre of Bat-imposters.

Now we arrive at The Dark Knight Rises, the last film of the trilogy. The focus has once more shifted, this time to illuminate Bruce Wayne. The story is less concerned with Batman as a character than with the Dark Knight as an entity, and from start to finish it feels more as though we’re watching Bruce both in and out of the cowl. There’s very little playboy to contrast the brooding crime fighter, and vice versa. What we’re actually watching for roughly half the movie is a character very different from any previous incarnation. The downside to that is it leaves you feeling as though you’re not really watching a full-on Batman movie, but the benefit, I found, was in how it gained a truly tangible sense of emotional weight.

Unfortunately, The Dark Knight Rises doesn’t quite, erm, rise to the same level as its immediate predecessor. The narrative is murky and unsteady throughout, there are a few more characters than the story can comfortably manage, and there’s a moment at the end that drives an entire story point into head-scratching territory. There’s just something about it that doesn’t feel as self-assured and methodical as its predecessors, despite it very deftly combining material from “Knightfall” and “No Man’s Land”. To go into greater detail would be to spoil things, especially for those of you maybe not so invested in this trilogy to have spent your wee morning hours at the premiere, but still having avoided trailers, TV spots, and other coverage at all costs.

This doesn’t mean you won’t necessarily enjoy it, because I certainly did. And yet what I, and others, noticed was how enjoyable it was in the thick of it, but how particular things didn’t stand up to scrutiny afterward. As I mentioned, the source material is very well blended together, and yet it seems to have come out missing something. It’s extremely difficult to put a finger on any one or two things. Still having only seen it once, I’m left with the impression the parts work better than the whole and ambition may have gotten the better of those involved. A second viewing stands the chance of rectifying that.

But enough with all the vague conjecture. Let’s make like a stormtrooper under Obi-Wan’s influence and move along.

The worst thing you can do is sit your bum in the theater and expect this to top The Dark Knight, or expect Bane to outshine the Joker. Because that didn’t happen. That’s nothing to do with one actor being better than the other, or one role being better written than the other. We’re talking about the Joker, Batman’s ultimate nemesis, the most popular character from his rogues’ gallery, and arguably the most popular comic book villain of all time. In no other circumstance will you find Bane’s character outpacing the Joker’s character, so to expect that in The Dark Knight Rises would be setting yourself up for multiple degrees of disappointment.

But that doesn’t sink the movie. Oh, no. There’s much to love therein.

Every actor with a line to utter puts their A-game onscreen, and the focus on Bruce rather than Batman brings an added level of gravitas to the film (…I said that already, didn’t I…). Michael Caine especially has two scenes that may or may not have wet my eyes (speculative, cannot be proven). Acting-wise, Christian Bale is given even more range to cover, and I think he actually provides his strongest performance (as Batman/Bruce Wayne) on both emotional and physical fronts. Gary Oldman is ever-reliable and enjoyable to see disappear into his role as Gordon, though I didn’t find his character carried as much weight as he did in The Dark Knight. And what can I say about Morgan Freeman? The man always manages to enliven any scene he’s in.

Beyond the returning cast, there were two standouts. Tom Hardy was quite possibly the perfect choice for the character of Bane, and for many reasons. What he brought to Bane was a man that seemed to have been a lifelong philosophy buff who discovered the magic of creatine. Hardy absolutely sells Bane’s articulate nature and fuses that with a believable physicality. He’s not hulking, but he carries himself with a sense of empowered weight—the brutish body language from Bronson and the pinpoint fury from Warrior. You feel his power, and it goes a long way to making his presence so daunting. I was, however, disappointed with one small aspect of his character.

Anne Hathaway was a surprise. She nailed the slinky, sly, opportunistic traits we’ve all seen in past portrayals. She also lends the character of Selina Kyle a layer of vulnerability that could’ve been cheesy and completely forced. But I bought it. It makes her feel less like a crazy cat fetishist and more like a streetwise jewel thief. And she’s not just a treat for the panting men, either. Her physicality ties to her attitude, and watching Hathaway morph from one mode to another gives her character her own sort of dangerous. Her development over the course of the film, and especially her relationship with Batman, really makes her a standout character in the film. You might leave wishing there had been more of her in the movie.

Unfortunately, there’s not too much to say about Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, John Blake. He handles the role admirably well, and though he proves pivotal, he doesn’t have much to do aside from portray noble idealism in the face of particular circumstances. It’s a bit of a predictable, thankless role, but he shoulders it without breaking stride. The character may not be as slick or memorable as Arthur from Inception, but that’s not Joe’s fault by a long shot.

I definitely recommend seeing this at least once. As had been promised, it comes to a definitive end, though perhaps not in the way many of you might expect. And don’t be discouraged by its runtime; it takes a little while for things to get moving, but the second half is solid and the third act especially is a pounding thrill ride of an ending.

Christopher Nolan’s work throughout the series has been, to me, exemplary, even to a trend-setting level. I don’t think he ultimately broke the curse of the third superhero movie, but he didn’t really fall prey to it, either. Whatever your preference for Nolan’s Batman, I believe he started something special back in 2005, and you really owe it to yourselves to witness its conclusion.

Comment [3]