Hello
and welcome to a new week, complete with a brand new installment of
Eccentric Spheres.
Today
I'm in the mood for reviews, so to start off, I'll complete my review
on Sniper Elite 3.
Having
now completed the game, I'm still very satisfied. There's nothing in
the last two missions that would make me change anything I said two
weeks ago.
The
last levels are just as good as the six previous, but I want to bring
up three things that did bother me a bit. First off, in one level you
get tons of re-spawns even if you carefully clear out the entire area
like I did. It would have been nice if they arrived as reinforcements
instead of just appearing out of thin air.
Secondly,
there is a pretty bad cliché towards the end, not game breaking in
any way, but totally cringe worthy.
And
finally I witnessed enemy soldiers blissfully patrolling an area that
was under heavy machine gun fire. They just calmly walked around
while being shot to pieces. Saved me some ammo I guess.
These
three tiny things are my only real complaints in Sniper Elite 3, so
over all, I'm both pleased and impressed. So pleased I've already
started a new run through on higher difficulty.
Next
up, we're go from games to film. The other day I watched Dredd (2012)
with Karl Urban in the title role.
Now
I've never been a huge
Judge Dredd fan, but I've read some of the comics and liked them well
enough. Back in the nineties I watched Sylvester Stallone take on the
same role in Judge Dredd (1995), and although I liked the beginning
of that movie, they quickly wrecked the whole thing by removing
Dredd's helmet. It's a thing in the comics that you never
see Dredd without his helmet. So I
was apprehensive about watching the new attempt. In fact, I wouldn't
have bothered, except I saw a glowing review of it, and decided it
sounded good enough. And you know what? It's actually pretty awesome.
Sure
it's lacking some of the comic book flair the 95 film had, and Karl
Urban’s chin is sub par compared to Stallone’s, but in every
other way, Dredd (2012) was an enormous improvement.
It
looks great, the actors are very good and the plot feels like an
actual Judge Dredd story, compared to the 95 version that went
completely off the rails. The pacing felt excellent, and at no time
did it get boring. Seeing Judge Dredd mentor a young inexperienced
Judge Anderson was a real treat. Anderson, while on the subject, was
particularly well written. Going from a determined but rattled rookie
to someone who just wants to get the job done right, made for a good
female protagonist. In essence, her gender was almost irrelevant for
the story. It could have worked just as well with a man, but Anderson
is female and that's that. There were no romantic sub-plots, no “I
can't because I'm a girl” moments, nothing like that.
In
fact, even if you're not a Dredd fan, but you like action/ sci-fi,
this is probably a good movie for you.
Well
there you have it. So until I see you again, have a great week!
