Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Review

Ever since the Guardians of the Galaxy movie was announced, I have been interested in finding out more about it. I had never heard of the Marvel comics that the movie is based on, but a story about a ragtag bunch of ne'er-do-wells helping save the universe sounded pretty good to me. Fast forward to the trailers coming out with "Hooked on a Feeling" blaring in the background and I knew I wanted to see it as soon as I could. Each subsequent trailer has increased my interest. Yes, I know you can be burned by good trailers being made from bad movies, but luckily Marvel has a built up a bit of credibility via their string of solo superhero and Avengers movies.

I can rip the band-aid off right now, Guardians of the Galaxy, co-written and directed by James Gunn, is as good as the trailers led me to believe. It is a lot of fun, visually stunning and has a little bit of a plot thrown into the mix. All good things. The start of the story is Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, (played by Chris Pratt) a human abducted from Earth in 1988 is seen in the future recovering an artifact from ruins on a desolate planet. From there we have lots of people trying to get hold of the artifact. Along the way, Peter gets involved with a colorful cast of characters including a sentient plant, Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), an angry bio-engineered raccoon, Rocket (Bradley Cooper), a muscle-bound inmate, Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), and an assassin, Gamora (Zoe Saldana). Action, mayhem, destruction and fun ensues. To say anymore would ruin the experience of watching the movie for yourself.

Rocket and Groot

What Guardians does well is mixing completely out of place in space 1980s pop-culture references, 1970s music and more than a bit of humor in with action and spaceship battles. The special effects are top notch and the story is more than serviceable at introducing the various characters without being slow and boring. Each of the main characters are distinct visually and emotionally that you can easily keep up even if you have no background in the Guardians of the Galaxy universe from the comic books. Plus you get a number of stunning locations in the film, oh and some space ships and space battles too. Having just re-watched 1984's The Last Starfighter last night before seeing Guardians of the Galaxy it is amazing how far film-making and special effects have come.

I am glad that the movie is doing so well at the box office so that we will get to see more Guardians in the future. Unlike other comic book inspired movies, this feels more space opera and fun than the current run of gritty violent films we typically get. If you like science fiction movies, or generally like action-comedies then jump on over to the theatre and watch this one, you'll be happy you did. Or be like my family and wait for the DVD (which is fine with me 'cause I will get to see it again). Guardians of the Galaxy gets 5 Mick Happies. In my mind Rocket is basically what I think my chihuahua would be like if he had been engineered to talk and hold weapons…lots of fun. As always, stay until the very end of the credits to get a little extra snippet.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie  has received several awards and great acclaim since its release in October 2013. Having won the Nebula Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award and tied for the BSFA award, the Sword & Laser Podcast were pretty glowing in their praise of the novel when I first heard of it from on their show. It was then a pleasant surprise that iTunes was offering the book for $1.99 and made it really easy to pick up a copy and I am glad I did.

Ancillary Justice is the first book in the Imperial Radch trilogy. The book opens with the main character Breq coming across a body in the snow on some planet on the fringe of the galaxy. It turns out Breq knows the person (who turns out only to be injured) and decides to help Seivarden even though it may compromise Breq's mission. From there we are taken on a journey that jumps from Breq's present to the past where we are given insight into the Radch empire by following the story of Lieutenant  Awn and her troops during the annexation (occupation) of a planet 19 years ago.

Through the story in the past we learn of the ship Justice of Toren and the empire's use of ancillaries as part of their military. Ancillaries being the humans from conquered planets that have been put into cryogenic storage until thawed and connected to the ship's AI when they become a "segment" of the ship's ancillary groups with no part of their original personality remaining. The whole practice is both intriguing and repulsive at the same time given that these people, rather than being killed during an occupation by the empire are instead essentially killed and used as host bodies for the ship's AI.

What Ann Leckie does well in this story is give us the viewpoint of the ancillaries and help the reader have some understanding of what it might be like to think and be 20 people at once (or more). Through this viewpoint, Ann Leckie also raises questions of what it means to have free will and what makes a person unique. Overall, Ancillary Justice is a political thriller and quest novel rolled into one with a unique setting and great world building. Luckily there are two more books coming since we only get to scratch the surface of the setting.

One aspect of the book that will be a little jarring is the lack of gender specificity in the characters. The empire doesn't distinguish between men and women and thus the reader can be left guessing the gender of the characters we meet. The interesting thing is that ultimately it doesn't matter to the story. Well done. Ancillary Justice is good science fiction space opera-y stuff and gets 4 Mick Happies. Probably the best compliment I can give it is that it has made me focus my reading on Sci-Fi books as I don't want to leave the vastness of space that was introduced in the story (so now I am reading more Honor Harrington books by David Weber to pass the time until Ancillary Sword is released in October).

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Last weekend the whole family went to see Transformers: Age of Extinction. This is a big deal since I can't pay the wife or kid to go to an actual theatre and I really don't blame them. We went to the luxury theatre nearby and paid $21.50 a person then a boatload more for popcorn and Icees. Then there is the uncomfortable seats (compared to home) and the inability to pause the film when you have to go, etc., etc., etc. We thought it would be worth it to see some Transformers action as we have enjoyed (most) of the previous films and I am of an age where I remember watching Optimus Prime and crew growing up.

Transformers: Age of Extinction (T:AoE) is the latest installment in Michael Bay's big screen franchise based on the classic cartoon, Transformers. I won't bother explaining the backstory since most people who are reading this have likely already seen or heard of the previous movies. T:AoE picks up 5 years after Transformers: Dark of the Moon and finds all Transformers on the run and in hiding. They are being hunted down by a covert operations team run by the CIA with the goal of ending alien activity (and protecting the country/world). Needless to say they aren't discriminate between Autobots and Decepticons and many of the robot characters from the previous films are dead. The CIA team is also working with others for specific goals that are directly related to the plot (so I won't spoil them).

Okay, so this isn't a great film. It is long, repetitive and tries to pack too much into one story. T:AoE runs about 2 hours and 45 minutes (more if you count the 20 minutes of commercials and trailers we had to sit through). There are several points in the movie where they could have stopped and it would have been a tight, compact story. Instead you get a bloated action fest that leaves you tired, physically tired, when it is done. At times it seems that fight scenes were just going on to provide an opportunity to throw more visual effects at you.

On the plus side, there are Transformers and we get to meet some new ones who are interesting - like Hound (voiced by John Goodman). There are also some nice comedic moments in the film that are laugh out loud and meant to be. Stanley Tucci is pretty good in his role and Mark Wahlberg was better than Shia LeBeouf is the last film or two in the franchise. Though I do miss MoJo.

Oh yeah, Dinobots.

I think my major problem with the Transformers films is that they all end up being about saving the world or stopping some major bad event from occurring. If I could do one thing with the franchise - assuming we want more Transformers - I would reboot the whole thing. I would keep most of the first film but rather than having the aliens come for the Allspark, the Decepticons would come to take over Earth because their planet was used up or have them come because the Autobots are here hiding. Then have the whole movie just be about the fight between the Autobots and Decepticons with humans trying to help the Autobots. Would be a much more interesting than wasting time with all the chasing around for an Allspark or a Matrix of Leadership or Seed or whatever.

Anyway, Transformers: Age of Extinction gets 2 MickHappies. Too long, repetitive plot, too much trying to shove new shiny things in and not enough clever. Watch at your risk. Or watch if you just really like watching robots fighting robots.

Hollow World Review

A year ago or so I read The Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan and enjoyed them quite a bit. Recently I had a chance to pick up a copy of his latest novel, Hollow World, as an e-book on Amazon for next to nothing, so I jumped at the chance. Hollow World, for those who didn't hear about it before via its successful Kickstarter campaign or other means, is a recent past/far-future time travel tale - think H.G. Wells' The Time Machine but without quite so bleak a future.

In Hollow World we are introduced to Ellis Rogers, a married man who is going to die and has little to hold him to his current life. Lucky for him, he has built a time machine and if he is willing to roll the dice, he may be able to find a cure in the future to save himself. we are given a very interesting view of the future indeed. That's as far as I will go into the plot as this story holds suspense and mystery and asks a number of social questions and I don't want to ruin it for you.

Anyone who has been reading my recent posts knows I like time travel or stories when people from our world go to a new one. This fish-out-of-water scenario is always interesting when it involves the future and we get to see the author's speculation of what the future might hold for mankind. Mr. Sullivan's take on the future in Hollow World is interesting and thought-provoking and will force the reader to question what the purpose of life is and how do sexuality and religion play a part in it. Luckily it doesn't beat those topics over your head, after all there is still an interesting story going on in there as well.

One thing I did find with Hollow World is that a few of the big reveals were possibly too heavily foreshadowed meaning they didn't have quite the impact that they could have. On the other hand, it was nice to actually guess a few events in the story rather than just go along for the ride. Either way, it doesn't detract from Hollow World being a good book and rating 4 Mick Happies for me. I recommend you give it a shot and if you buy it in print form you can get a free e-book copy from the author. Additionally, the e-book comes with two versions of the book, the explicit language one and the clean version. See you in the future.

Enigma Express Game Review

Hidden object and free-to-play games are not usually high on my list of interesting. However, hidden object games are something that my wife seems to enjoy so when I saw that Relentless Software released Enigma Express for iOS devices and it was free, I decided to give it a test drive. Enigma Express is set in the same world as Relentless Software's other mystery puzzle game, Murder Files. You are a junior detective trying to help Hannah Dakota of the Blue Toad Agency figure out why mysterious objects have been stolen from the bank deposit box of a notorious criminal.

The game is played out by finding hidden objects at various locations. Press on the object hidden on the screen to earn points. The higher points total you have when time runs out, the better. Points help unlock clues that are then used to unlock the next location in the game. A total of 5 clues can be earned at each location - earning additional clues also gives you more time to find objects the next time you play through that location. Some locations have you searching for up to 4 objects at once, adding a new object to find for each one you have already found. Other locations have different variations where you are looking for a single object at time and have to find it before being given another object. There is also a hint system that is on a timer, so you won't be able to use it more than once or twice a try. In the background you have the cut scene (somewhat) interactive story bits that tell you the underlying story of Enigma Express. 

Those are the nuts and bolts of the game, but then you run into the free-to-play elements. Each time you go to a location, you use 20 energy to begin the object search mini-game. Energy is replenished over time with 1 energy coming back every few minutes. If you need a quicker influx of energy, you can always buy some with coins. You earn coins periodically through the game or can buy them with actual $$. When you use clues to unlock a new location, there is a timer while train tracks are being laid to get you there (typically a few minutes) or if you don't want to wait, you can use coins to finish the track instantly. 

What works well with this game is the quirky story, art and voice acting. There is a lot of polish to this game and finding the objects within the 1 - 2 minutes you get for a level can be a challenge at times. This certainly could have been a premium game on the App Store and no one would have blinked an eye. They also have allowed the ability to login into Facebook and have leaderboards with your Facebook friends. 

Where things breakdown for me is in the Facebook integration, loading issues and free-to-play elements. I would much rather have paid a few dollars to have the game without the timers than to be kept from playing the game every 10 minutes or so when I run out of energy. I also don't like that I am asked to connect to Facebook after I finish any hidden-object mini game try - I don't have a Facebook account and don't need to see that pop-up every couple of minutes. It would be nice if there was an option to turn off all of those pop-ups. It would also be nice to be able to pay to remove the timers and coins so that the game can just be played and the story enjoyed. Probably the hardest thing to get over is how long it takes for the game to load up when you first open the app. Sometimes it seems to hang and you have to clear it from memory and re-open the app to get to play. This may just be due to the capabilities of my gen 1 iPad mini being on the weak side for the game, but it is compatible back to iOS 4.3, so there may be a lot of older devices trying to run it. 

You may see this for a while.

I think all the elements for a fun little game are here, but the timers and pop-ups and loading times are killing it for me. Hopefully some of these items will be addressed in updates down the road. For all the quirky polish that goes into the Murder Files games, I would like to see them succeed. I give Enigma Express 3 Mick Happies as a free-to-play hidden object game, just know what your in for before spending too much time with it. Now I need to go spend some time with all of the other games I just bought during the Steam Summer Sale. 

Quick Movie Reviews

Lately I have seen several documentary, I mean historical fiction, based-on-a-true-story and/or fantasy movies. Sometimes I like to think that they are documentaries and that is how things really happened, but alas…no. However, that doesn't mean that you can't have a good time with some of them anyway. Here's a roundup of quick reviews for those movies.

47 Ronin: The latest retelling of the classic Japanese story about the Samurai code of honor, bushido.  This version of 47 Ronin stars Keanu Reeves as Kai, a half-Japanese/half-English outcast, and is directed by Carl Rinsch. The story is about treachery and loyalty and revenge in feudal Japan as 47 Ronin, or masterless Samurai, seek to avenge the death of their master. Overall, the movie is beautiful and Keanu Reeves is visually believable as Kai. Where the movie fell down a bit for me was in the weaving of mystical/magical elements into the story and the use of hyper-fast CGI in some of those instances. It took me out of the story and basically the source material probably didn't need the extra punch of the special effects. If you are interested in Samurai movies that have modern special effects instead of the classic Samurai movies, this one is probably a good one to watch. I give 47 Ronin 3 Mick Happies.

50 to 1: Continuing the theme of movies with numbers in the title is the based on a true story tale of the racehorse, Mine That Bird. The film is directed by Jim Wilson and stars Skeet Ulrich and Christian Kane. We found out about the movie by following Christian Kane, who we are a fan of from his work on Leverage as well as his singing efforts. This is a classic underdog story of a horse trained in New Mexico that no one thinks has a chance but goes on to great success. As with any underdog story there are ups and downs along the way, but it all works out. This is a low budget film, but it has a lot of heart and it is clear that everyone making it was having a good time and enjoying what they were doing. Plus, who doesn't like an underdog story? There are some weak acting moments by some of the supporting cast that may seem a little off, but overall this is a feel good movie. 50 to 1 gets 4 Mick Happies.

Christian Kane as Mark Allen in 50 to 1

Pompeii: This epic of the destruction of the Roman city of Pompeii stars Kit Harrington (Jon Snow in Game of Thrones) as Milo, a celtic slave forced to fight in the arena. Along the way he falls in love and must fight for his life in the games for the amusement of the citizenry of Pompeii. There is politics, great scenery and landscapes. Again a lot of abs, blood and fighting, oh and destruction. Keifer Sutherland is frustratingly evil as Roman Senator Corvus. This isn't a bad movie at all, but anyone with a bit of historical knowledge knows that things aren't going to end well. Overall, Pompeii probably falls into the category of depressing more than anything else. I give it 2.5 Mick Happies. I hope that Kit Harrington gets another starring role in something other than a fantasy setting to show what he can do.

I, Frankenstein: I know, not based on a true story, but what if it was! That would be great. This take on Frankenstein finds the monster still alive in modern day and caught between two factions that have warred for centuries and look to Frankstein's monster to give them an edge in the battle. I don't want to give anything away as I think this is a film worth seeing. I will say I have always thought there was more to gargoyle statues than just ornamentation on buildings - glad to see them getting into some action. If you like supernatural action films that have a bit of the Underworld films feel to them, check this one out. I give I, Frankenstein 3 Mick Happies.

Magic Kingdom For Sale - SOLD!

Been a while since I posted anything mainly due to life happening. That doesn't mean that I haven't been consuming movies, books and playing games. One thing I did before life started to take over was download the first 3 books in Terry Brooks's Landover series from Amazon (link here) and start reading it (again). The book, The Magic Kingdom of Landover Volume 1 consists of Magic Kindgom For Sale - SOLD!, The Black Unicorn and Wizard At Large all for $9.99 on Kindle. The first novel, MKFS-S! was first published back in 1986, which was about the time I first read it.

The book is about a dissatisfied Chicago widower lawyer who decides to take a risk on an offer in a department store catalog to buy a fantasy kingdom and become it's king. For the rest of the story we follow Ben Holiday and see how his purchase works out for him.

Not as well known as Brooks's Shannara series and possibly not as good as the Sword of Shannara, MKFS-S! reminded of a particular sub-genre of fantasy that I really like, the kind where seemingly normal people are transported to another world. A sub-genre best known by classics like The Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia , A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Alice in Wonderland, I personally have found The Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg to be my favorite example. There is something great about the idea that we (any of us) might someday stumble into another world (and hopefully survive).

Some of the things that Terry Brooks does very well in MKFS-S! is give us insight into Ben's doubts and concerns as he questions his sanity for even buying into the idea of this kingdom for sale. Plus Landover is interesting in it's own right, but I don't want to spoil the surprises. Luckily I originally read it so long ago that I didn't remember all of the twists (of which there are a few).

The book probably best falls into a young adult age range, with nothing too violent (more suspenseful) and nothing too sexy. I read it at 16 or 17 and anyone 13 and up would have a good time with the story. I haven't read books 2 or 3 in the series (which currently spans six novels) and am looking forward to reading them as well. I give MKFS-S! 3.5 Mick Happies and highly recommend you go out and grab a copy of the 3 book set if you like Brooks's other novels or want a decent fantasy story with nearly all the trappings of the trope.

Back again soon with a roundup of all the movies I have seen lately.