How odd is it to realize that the Fast series is about the have its sixth movie release? Paul Walker should definitely be thankful because I am pretty sure it has paid his mortgage for the past ten years. While I was never a huge fan of the first four in the series, the fifth (Fast Five) was undeniably fun to me because it got away from the street racing scene (which I officially give zero cares about) and turned it into a Oceans 11 heist movie on steroids.
Now the gang is all back together again in the new trailer for Fast & Furious 6 which sees them offered full pardons for their help in catching a new big bad played by Luke Wilson and assisted by Michelle Rodriguez who has died in more movies and shows than I care to count.
Maybe Adam Sandler has found his new niche in Hollywood. While the actors live action movies have been hitting a brick wall lately, Hotel Transylvania is his biggest hit since Grown Ups almost two and a half years ago. And while it doesn’t exactly blaze new trails in animation or even come close to touching Pixar’s unquestionable quality, it does serve as a mostly enjoyable Halloween romp.
Count Dracula (Sandler) has built an immense castle dubbing it Hotel Transylvania, a place where all monsters can come and vacation away from the real world and be human free. Drac really has a secondary reason for the hotel being so well hidden. His daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) lives with him and he never wants her to leave the castle so he has spent her entire life filling her head with all the reasons why humans are the most horrible creatures in existence. Now it is time for her 118th birthday and on the eve of her huge party, which will be attended by all of Dracula’s (and Sandler’s) friends Frankenstein (Kevin James), the Wolfman (Steve Buscemi), Invisible Man (David Spade) and the Mummy (Cee Lo Green), her father has promised her that she may leave the castle and explore the village closest to them for a few minutes.
After she realizes that humans are terrible creatures, thanks to Dracula’s horde of zombie bellboys playing humans, Mavis promises to stay at the castle forever. During her party a human named Jonathan (Andy Samburg) happens upon the castle. Dracula thinks quickly and dresses him up as a long, lost relative of Frankenstein to keep the guests of the hotel unawares that a human is in their midst. For them to find out would be the end of the hotel.
As is expected, Mavis and Jonathan fall for each other and he shows her and all of the guests that there is a lot more fun to be had in life if you just open yourself up more.
What did you expect? It is a kids movie. It is not like we are dealing with Inception here.
Photo courtesy nydailynews.com
While all the voice performances are good and the animation is serviceable, Hotel Transylvania does play it safe plot wise. We get the boy meets girl, boy leaves girl, friends band together to get boy back story. The jokes are more kid based and don’t have quite the adult bite as some other animated features, but that’s OK. This movie wasn’t made for the fat, cynical, Adam Sandler weary crowd like yours truly.
That is not to say there is no fun to be had in Hotel Transylvania. I had more than a few chuckles with jokes involving the zombie bellboys and Jon Lovitz’s performance as Quasimodo, who plays the foil of the movie as he tries to catch Jonathon and make a human pot pie out of him.
Also fans of Samurai Jack, Dexter’s Laboratory and Star Wars: The Clone Wars should take note and give this a watch because it is directed by the legen-wait for it- dary Genndy Tartakovsky and his certain vibe can be felt throughout the film. It is a good start for his feature film directorial debut and hopefully the film’s success will get him looked at to handle more animated features.
Hotel Transylvania has some good stuff going for it. A solid voice and quality director keep this movie from dragging into the Ferngully’s of kids films. It has its share of laughs and can easily be a Halloween movie to enjoy with your family. Your kids should have a great time with it and as an adult you can take it from me, you can watch a lot worse movies that have vampires in lead roles. Much, much worse.
Ouya, the console that helped put Kickstarter on the front page by garnering over $8.5 million in donations, will see its release in June. The system has over 200 titles in development for the Android based system including the hugely popular Minecraft.
Ouya will cost $99.99 and come with a console and one controller. Extra controllers will be made available for $49.99. Gamestop, Best Buy, Target and Amazon are among the leading retailers that will be carrying the system. If you backed the Ouya Kickstarter then you will be able to buy the system in March.
Pre-orders are now being taken for the June release. Will the Ouya truly start a console revolution or will it join the eternal closet of damnation with the Jaguar, 3DO and Virtual Boy?
Only a few weeks ago CD Projekt Red was front and center with their stunning reveal trailer for Cyberpunk 2077. Now they are back with a huge announcement. As you can see above from the newest issue of Game Informer The Witcher 3 exists. It will also be coming to next generation consoles. Over five million copies of The Witcher and The Witcher 2 have been sold.
The Polish developer took the wraps off of their newest adventure and how this will be a much more personal journey for series hero Geralt in a short video below. No gameplay was shown but there are shots of concept art as well as motion capture sessions and swordplay.
It was refreshing to hear them say that they want to stay independent from big publishers so that only fans can have a say in what defines the series. Bioware is probably wishing they still had that ability.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt releases in 2014 for next generation consoles and PC.
Benedict Cumberbatch was apparently talking to all the other movie trailers that were shown at the Super Bowl because this newest one for Star Trek Into Darkness is thirty seconds of goosebumpy, nerdy feels.
Can I just say how awesome it is to get Chris Pine in the yellow Starfleet uniform, which we really only got a glimpse of it at the end of 2009’s Star Trek. It also looks as if the Enterprise has see better days as we see it plummeting to Earth.
We are still taking bets on Cumberbatch’s role. Khan? Possibly. Gary Mitchell? Unlikely since the monthly comic series that bridges the two movies has already had a re-telling of that tale. Maybe he is playing a chryogenically frozen Sherlock that has been thawed out in the future and embraced his madness. The possibilities!
Star Trek Into Darkness releases on May 17th……NOPE!!
People that downloaded the official movie app were given the announcement first that Star Trek Into Darkness will now open on Wednesday, May 15th with showtimes beginning at 8PM.
[amazon_link id=”B002I0J5UQ” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]L.A. Noire[/amazon_link] may have been delayed more times than a George R.R. Martin novel and gone more over budget than Waterworld, but there is no denying that it was a damn fun game (even if the ending sucked). Now Depth Analysis, the company that headed up the revolutionary facial scanning technology used in the game has released a gag reel that has the actors screwing up their lines. There are a few chuckles from this video and is good to hear voice actors having fun in the studio.
Small thought: maybe one reason L.A. Noire was way over budget is because they used some money to create a five minute gag reel using the game’s engine and resources. Oh well.
If you were like me then you spent a good part of last night’s Super Bowl waiting for the Iron Man 3 trailer. And also, if you were like me, then you were a little disappointed when it was a snippet of an airplane rescue.
Fear not true believers!!
The extended trailer (which the Super Bowl ad shared the link to) completely makes up for it. For all you ladies, you get thirty straight seconds of Robert Downey Jr. then we get to see more footage including Happy not looking so happy, Rhodey in full Iron Patriot armor and more Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin. I really don’t see why Disney didn’t foot the bill and put the full trailer up last night.
IGN Entertainment has a new owner. After being on the auction block for six months J2 Global (parent company of Ziff Davis) has purchased the internet gaming giant for an undisclosed amount from News Corp.
News Corp. bought IGN back in 2005 for $650 million and rumors suggest that the sale was for much, much less than that amount. The sale will include all of IGN’s other networks and sites like 1UP.com.
This new video from the developer diary of Capcom’s newest IP Remember Me interviews composer Olivier Deriviere as he explains the inspiration for the sound in this futuristic tale. The score will be played by the historic London Philharmonia. You also get some new peeks at the gameplay.
[amazon_link id=”B008XMSR6G” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Remember Me[/amazon_link] releases in May.
Baird, Cole and the rest of Kilo Squad are on a mission to clear their names in the prequel [amazon_link id=”B002I0H2AG” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Gears of War: Judgment[/amazon_link] which releases on March 19th. Now the list of achievements have been revealed to show all of you (us) achievements whores what we will have to endure for our 1,000 points.
They Called Him Karn (10 points) – Completed Museum Of Military Glory
Open Arms (10 points) – Completed Halvo Bay Military Academy
The Real Thing (10 points) – Completed Seahorse Hills
Take Back This City (10 points) – Completed Onyx Point
I Told You (10 points) – Completed Downtown Halvo Bay
This One’s Not Over (10 points) – Completed Courthouse
Friends (10 points) – Completed Aftermath
Determined (10 points) – Completed all Campaign Chapters on at least Casual difficulty
Steel Nerves (10 points) – Completed all Campaign Chapters on at least Normal difficult
Iron Fist (25 points) – Completed all Campaign Chapters on at least Hardcore difficulty
Lion Heart (50 points) – Completed all Campaign Chapters on Insane difficulty
Party People (10 points) – Played any section in 4 player Co-Op
Blood Brothers (50 points) – Completed all Campaign Chapters in Co-op
Challenge Accepted (5 points) – Completed your first Declassified mission
Never Give Up (10 points) – Completed at least 20 Declassified missions
Quality Soldiering (50 points) – Completed all Declassified missions
A Peek into the Future (10 points) – Watched Aftermath teaser
The Aftermath (20 points) – Unlocked Aftermath
Rising Star (10 points) – Attained 50 Stars on at least Casual Difficulty
Shooting Star (20 points) – Attained 75 Stars on at least Normal Difficulty
Star Struck (50 points) – Attained 100 Stars on at least Hardcore Difficulty
Superstar (50 points) – Attained all Stars on Insane Difficulty
Never Forgotten (10 points) – Recovered 10 COG Tags during the Campaign
Veteran Remembrance (10 points) – Recovered 25 COG Tags during the Campaign
Respect for the Fallen (20 points) – Recovered all 48 COG Tags during the Campaign
Ribbon Master (10 points) – Earned 3 unique Ribbons in any section
Proud Wearer (5 points) – Equipped your first Medal
Ready for War (20 points) – Earned at least one Onyx medal
Sybarite (50 points) – Earned the Onyx “War Supporter” medal
Seriously Judgmental (75 points) – Completed all Declassified Missions on Insane difficulty
Level 5 (5 points) – Reached level 5
Level 10 (10 points) – Reached level 10
Level 20 (10 points) – Reached level 20
Level 30 (15 points)- Reached level 30
Level 40 (25 points) – Reached level 40
Level 50 (25 points) – Reached level 50
Let’s Do This (50 points) – Achieved level 50 and chose to re-up for another tour of duty
Fearless (50 points) – Achieved level 50 a second time and chose to re-up for another tour
Unstoppable (50 points) – Achieved level 50 a third time and chose to re-up for another tour
Death to Locust (10 points) – Killed with all classes of COG in Overrun or Survival
Death to the COG (10 points) – Killed with all classes of Locust in Overrun
Survivor (10 points) – Completed wave 10 on all maps in Survival mode
Globe Trotter (10 points) – Won a match on every map in all Versus modes
Jack of All Trades (10 points) – Won 10 matches of Overrun
Team Leader (10 points) – Won 10 rounds of Team Deathmatch
All Rounder (10 points) – Won one match in Free For All, Team Deathmatch, and Domination
Roaming Free (10 points) – Won one match on every map in Free For All
Team On Tour (10 points) – Won one match on every map in Team Deathmatch
Overran (10 points) – Won one match on every map in Overrun
Dominator (10 points) – Won one match on every map in Domination
