Whoah! It's 3D!

So Nintendo have done it again, or at least we all assume they will do it again, and bring out another “game changer“ (who came up with that phrase?). The Nintendo DS revitalised handheld gaming, and introduced a new way of playing games. Take Trauma, one of the most brilliant yet difficult and frustrating games I have ever plated, where you undertake the role of a surgeon, using the stylus to make incisions, suture wounds, and in one case defuse a bomb. Actual surgery must be easier than Trauma. Without Nintendo’s technology this game wouldn’t have been made, and while thousands of absolutely shit awful games have been released on the DS, you still have to take your hat off to Nintendo, even if they do shit in it.

Then they gave us the Wii, which redefined the way the mass public think about gaming. The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 are like the naughty kids at school, where as the Wii is that nerdy little square. Everyone loves the Wii, Ant and Dec say so! What could be more fun than waving your arms up and down?

The Wii is one of the most innovative pieces of technology we’ve seen in the last few years, and has even had Microsoft and Sony desperately clamber after Nintendo with their own versions. Sadly, not everyone is as creative as Nintendo, and as a result there are only about 10 games worth owning on the Wii and DS combined, and the majority of those feature Mario. Not to the mention the Wii is basically just a Gamecube in disguise.

With the announcement of the 3DS, things are actually looking peachy. You don’t need 3D! glasses, Kid Icarus looks pretty darn good, you can watch 3D! movies on it, take 3D! photos, and they are releasing Ocarina of Time on it. Just like the DS and Wii though, you would be sane to assume that there will once again be less than a handful of games worth playing, and once you get over the novelty of 3D! It will stay in a draw until you decide to sell it so you can buy a George Foreman Lean Mean 3D Cooking Machine.

I’ve never really been too keen on 3D anyway. Growing up, it was only ever a gimmick, and one I never got. Ooo, another dimension! We are all fine without 3D, it’s a safe bet that your favourite film is in good ol’ 2D, and may even be in black and white and even in some arty foreign language. In no way does 3D enhance your movie experience, and it is nothing more than a cheap (well very expensive) trick to distract you from an average (or terrible) plot/script.

I wear glasses at the cinema, to wear ANOTHER pair of glasses over mine is beyond a pain in the arse. It’s far from a pleasant endeavour, and it just hurts my eyes, especially if the film is nearly 3 hours long, and essentially just Aliens meets Blue Pocahontas.

Every blockbuster seems to be in 3D now, and while some use it amazingly well (Up and Avatar), some just hurriedly paint it on in a get rich quick scheme, they might as well not bother and just ask you for some money. I fear that this isn’t a gimmick that will fade out, but it will actually replace scripts altogether, and films will just become 3D avatars of film execs reaching out of the screen and taking your wallets, and you won’t mind because it like really looks good and stuff.

It doesn’t stop at the cinema, we are now being shouted at to spend thousands of our pounds to purchase a 3D TV, just like we were urged to buy HD DVDs. It is likely that once Nintendo release the 3DS, other companies will soon come up with their own “no 3D glasses required” technology, and we will be stuck with our obsolete TV’s, and our stupid little glasses.

The next logical step for Nintendo will be a 3D Wii, and then after that 4D, where every time you face Bowser on Super Mario 4D, you’re set on fire, and run around your living room clutching your burnt arsehole.

World Cupping

Football! Watch the football! Watch it! It’s fucking football! Yes! Yes! Yes! EN-GER-LAND indeed! It is easy to “have a go” at football, that the players are morons, and the fans are idiots, but to be honest, I quite like the World Cup, which is strange, because I don’t really like football.

Growing up in England, football is forced upon you at a young age, it’s a bit like guns in America, so it’s hard to escape it. School can be very hard if you’re not good at football, I wasn’t, and therefore I was apparently “gay”, if only my fellow “peers” regarded Star Wars so highly, and I would have been a fucking stud I tell you. This is probably the reason I resent football so much, the fact that you are judged by your football skill, knowledge, and worst of all, which bloody team you support. Then you have fans arguing who the best is at supporting a team. It all gets a bit too much for me.

It works the other way too though, the “anti-fans” are just as aggressive, laughing at anyone who could possibly be entertained by 22 men kicking a ball, “silly little men!”. I don’t want to be in either of these two groups, so I find myself following a sport just so I don’t hate myself…it hasn’t worked.

The World Cup comes as a mild relief for me, it’s football at it’s most exciting. Football has become so repetitive and clichéd, the games are mostly dull, the shock scandals have become so frequent they’re no longer shocking, and almost every club is in debt. The World Cup offers us something new, this year we have the enigmatic North Korea, the return of Maradona, and the vuvuzela. Ah the vuvuzela, the most annoying sound in the world is no longer the vuvuzela, it’s the sound of people complaining about the vuvuzela.

At the time of writing, we are a week into the competition, and while I am still paying attention, there have been very few reasons to keep watching. There haven’t been many exciting moments, and they are using the usual cliché of the ball being shit as an excuse, this time it’s too round! It’s a fucking ball! In four years time they’ll criticise it for being too square, or too introspective.

Not surprisingly, in England, all the news has been about England, no matter how frivolous. We have been given hourly updates like “England players are training” and “Wayne Rooney has a shit“. A truly great philosopher once said “too much of anything can make you sick”, and I am sick of England. There is an unaccountable expectation that “we” will win it, and every time “we” don’t, there is an unaccountable disappointment and mourning. There is a difference between optimism and expectation, and this is something we haven’t been able to grasp. It doesn’t help that 1966, 1986, and 1990 are mentioned every 15 seconds.

If “we” were to win it, what would happen? “We” would probably get drunk and then get on with life. If “we” didn’t win it, “we” would probably get drunk and then get on with life. “We” like it when we lose anyway, “we” love to complain, look at me, I’m complaining right now. The nation will have more joy if “we” crash out than if “we” win it. Think about it, no one talks about football if England win, because it’s boring when things go well. If “we” had any perspective, “we’d” all be hoping that “we” lose every match so “we” can celebrate our misery.

Jisney

Having just seen Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film Ponyo, it bewilders me that his films aren’t more popular in the western world. While there is a devout cult following of Miyazaki, and his company Studio Ghibli, and I am one of them, they will never be nearly as big as Disney films are. When explaining what a Studio Ghibli film is, you inevitably have to use the phrase, “It’s the Japanese Disney”. I hate this phrase, but it’s the simplest explanation, and one that I will now dub Jisney. Jisney films are insanely popular in Japan, and the English versions are in fact produced by Disney, it’s an ever increasingly annoying uphill struggle to refrain from saying “It’s the Japanese Disney”.

They also pretty much share the same story structure, the protagonist goes through a journey of discovery, and becomes a better person at the end of it, usually pointing a finger at us, the audience for not being better people, the smug bastards. Take Ponyo, a retelling of the classic tale, The Little Mermaid. Other than the basic premise, that a girl who lives underwater, wants to live on land, Ponyo is very different to Disney’s take. Ponyo focuses on life above the sea, rather than under it, and doesn’t have a Caribbean lobster singing a song about it (not sure where I stand on that).

A young boy names Sosuke finds a strange looking fish, and names it Ponyo. Eventually Ponyo turns into a girl, and what we are shown is a far more innocent relationship than we see with Prince Eric and Ariel (dirty slut). While Ponyo may have elements that may be complex to a western audience, including a Lost-esque magic well, the heart of the story is much simpler than The Little Mermaid. Ponyo is all about the friendship between a boy and a girl, even the villain is a nice guy, and it’s just a plain old, old woman who is the least likeable here.

Ghibli films are essentially children’s films, and I feel serious contempt at myself for loving these films, just like I do for any adult who reads Harry Potter, “Oh it’s just magical!” I’m like one of those annoying cunts on that Disneyland advert. Despite the critical acclaim, and the Disneyfying, with all the A-List voices, it looks like these films will stay cult. People don’t like different. Most people won’t watch a film because it’s in black and white, or because it’s got subtitles, or even if it’s dubbed. You throw a Japanese animated film in their face, they will turn away and run. Different doesn’t have to mean bad, and in this case, it means better, and I could sit here for hours writing why.

Ponyo is Miyazaki and Ghibli at it’s most accessible, though no doubt Danny Dyer’s latest film Pimp will fare better commercially over here, so I guess any fans worried that they will lose their favourite films to a wider audience can sleep at night.

Rockstar's Redemption

I hate westerns. I remember watching them as a child and my brains would ooze out of my ears because they were just so damn boring. Funny looking men who weren’t really funny at all shooting each other in the middle of nowhere, I’ve never understood them. Of course I’ve grown up since then, but I still don’t get them. Perhaps my generation isn’t supposed to like them, but we are constantly told that they are brilliant. Watch Deadwood, it’s amazing, they said. I felt genuinely stupid when I watched it and didn’t like it. To me it was just funny looking men who were kind of funny because say said “cock sucker” and “cunt” a lot, shooting each other in the middle of nowhere.

Westerns aren’t my thing. So it’s come as a complete surprise to me that I am hooked on Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar’s latest sandbox game. I had no interest in this game, I didn’t like GTA IV, and mixing the format with the wild west seemed as appealing as watching an episode of Hollyoaks, which isn’t.

Giving into peer pressure, I went on an epic journey to purchase this game (it being sold out in every shop on the weekend of it’s release). It felt like an achievement just buying the damn thing. After what is the now standard Rockstar opening 10 minutes of doing absolutely nothing, it was time to kick some western ass…well not quite. Storytelling has become much more important in today’s games, and as a result, more and more games have you playing out the exposition for the first few hours (or 20 if you’re Final Fantasy XIII). While this can make it much harder to get into a game, and can be very dull, usually it is worth it in the long run.

In RDR, after a confrontation gone wrong, you are saved by some pleasant farmers, and the first few missions have you doing menial farm jobs, like chasing rabbits, and herding in cows, while your character explains his past through dialogue, nicely cutting out a hundred cut scenes you would otherwise have to sit through. Shortly after these fairly dull farm jobs, you get into the real stuff, shooting people. After all these years Rockstar are still struggling with combat, or maybe it’s just time to admit that 3rd person shooters are never going to completely work. Even after several hours, I still find myself spinning around like an airplane during close combat, resulting in the word DEAD sprawled across the screen. The cover system is pretty terrible too, apart from sliding on the floor like you got served, it just doesn’t work as well as it could, and should. No one knew what a cover system was until a few years ago, it’s compulsory to have one in every game now, even you Cooking Mama, so lets get it right OK?

I should stop here, I said I was hooked on this game, and despite all it’s flaws (I forgot about the horse controls!), I am still having fun. The most significant difference to GTA IV is the setting. Yes, I don’t like westerns, but what they have created here is a true spectacle, and something you don’t see everyday, unless you live in a desert. While it is pretty void of, well anything, it’s much more fun to ride about than it is to drive about in GTA. If I want to drive in a city I can just get in my car and drive, I can’t get on my horse and ride into the sunset.

This is why I like the game so much, I’ve never been one to just explore in games, but I have spent hours riding about with no direction, just shooting animals. I like animals, but it’s ok, they’re only pixels. I like to think that this is a game that can prove all those squares wrong who think video games are a bad influence. Yes, this game is violent, but you’re kind of a good guy. In one mission, I picked flowers for a man to give to his wife, she was dead, but it was still a good deed. You are a service to the community in RDR, and it’s certainly refreshing to play someone who isn’t a total bastard (you can choose to be one if you so wish).

The upcoming DLC doesn’t look like it will be offering anything totally new other than a fistful (see what I did there?) missions, guns, and ooo different coloured horses, so it looks like we’ve had our fun in the wild west for this year.

Lost's most annoying characters

So as we go another week without Lost, it leaves me with more time to dwell on the shit storm it left us with. Now we have perspective on the whole endeavour, it's changed my opinions on some of the characters. Some of them seemed relevant back when we didn't know what it was all about, but now it's over, we have learnt that they didn't matter in any of it, and that if we ever want to watch it again, we can just skip their flashbacks/forwards/sideways all together. Below is a list of these annoying characters.

Kate

For such a central character to a TV show, it is strange that she is one we care about so little. There are reasons a many for this however. Number one, from the start, we learn she is a criminal, we later discover she has killed her own father, lovely. Number two, she is intent on having both Jack and Sawyer, leave one for us! Number three, she wants to get involved in everyone’s problems, but goes mental when asked about her own life. This makes her a harassing murdering slag, and is why I didn’t care about her.

At the end of the show, it became clear that all these characters were on the island to redeem themselves, but even at the end, Kate never really did that, hell, she didn’t even show much remorse for her crimes. How were we supposed to empathise with her struggles of being a fugitive when she was guilty? Yes, other characters killed, but their actions were understandable to an extent, where as I can’t even remember why Kate killed her father. And she stole a lunchbox when she was a kid!

Another “annoying Kate moment” came in the last season, when Sawyer opens up to her about his feelings for Juliet. Sawyer walks away, and it is Kate who bursts into tears! Why is she crying? And why are we supposed to be sad that she is sad for Sawyer? It just made me dislike her even more.

It was originally planned for Jack to die at the end of the pilot episode, with Kate taking over as the "leader", thank your gods that didn’t happen.

Rose And Bernard

For all the brilliant multi dimensional characters in lost, it is these two characters who have the least dimensions. They don’t work individually, and they hardly work as a couple. What gets me about these two dicks is their persistence, they never leave! We only saw Rose in the first season, who was a moody bitch who sat on the other side of the beach, NOT HELPING. There’s been a plane crash! People are injured, hungry, thirsty, and most likely lost loved ones themselves. The cynic I am, I just saw her as lazy and selfish, and excluding a rare moment of empathy for when she and Bernard are reunited in Season 2, it turns out she’s a complete bitch to him, and he’s better off on the other side of the island.

As the series went on, it became clear that they had no direction, and no impact on any of the several hundred plots, so why were they always there? And they just didn’t want to help, there were people dying, and they just sat there eating all the Dharma food. Again, lazy and selfish. I suppose they looked after Vincent, you have to start with something small I guess.

If there were to be Lost spin-offs then a shit sitcom featuring the two would probably be made. Bernard does something stupid (perhaps in the style of Larry David) and then Rose just insults him for 20 minutes.

Walt

Now let’s get this clear, Walt wasn’t a bad character, the writers just didn’t think it through. My one biggest question at the end of Lost was “Why did you waste all that time making Walt appear to be so integral to the whole fucking thing?”

Walt had special freaky X-Men powers, and remember when Locke saw him after he had left the island already? I wanted these questions answered, and they never were.

The explanation for this is no doubt that the actor had a growth spurt, but for all the stupid shit they did put in the show, they could have no doubt managed to find a way around this. More than likely, they just got bored with him. It’s a shame, because I really liked the direction the show was going in the first few seasons, and I was looking forward to a massive revelation involving Walt and the others. When you think about Walt, it raises so many unanswered questions, especially the polar bear.

Jacob

Another intriguing character who was ruined. I know we got to find out who he was but remember when he was first mentioned? In Season 3 Jacob is referred to as the Other’s leader. Everything Benjamin does is because Jacob has told him to do it. But this seems pretty inconsistent with the Jacob we know in Season 6. The “first” Jacob, was mysterious, he was unseen, and unheard. We saw that strange Clockwork Orange style room, and then the cabin Locke and Benjamin visit. When we find out who he actually is, it’s a bit of a letdown. Why is he completely different to that thing in the cabin? What the hell was that all about? To me, it’s just another case of the writer’s “making it up as they go along”.

I was expecting quite an evil character, who was manipulating everyone, ordering the death’s of several people, but in the end, he was really just this naïve man who wanted to prove that mankind wasn’t all that bad. Like Walt, they could have really built on the mythology, and made a very evil character, but instead Jacob was the good guy, and the man in black was the bad guy. It just didn’t make sense.

The man in black

Why? What was the point? “What do you mean people won’t watch a tv show that’s just about a plane crash? Let’s have a monster? OK!” What we all thought was just an “ordinary” monster, right from the very first episode, was in fact just a man, and they didn’t even explain that very well.

The black smoke was one of the biggest mysteries of Lost, and it was a bit of a letdown to find out that it was just a man who wanted to get off the island, but for some reason couldn’t. If we were to believe this, then it would have helped if we were told why he became black smoke (I‘m not buying magic light!), and why he couldn’t leave the island.

Why could Benjamin beckon him? Did that mean he was taking orders from the man in black and not Jacob? That would have been plausible, but it’s explained that this wasn’t the case. As the man in black and Jacob ultimately became the two most important characters (to the plot anyway), it would have worked better if they had more time to develop. Across the sea is not acceptable in any form, and had they been unravelled throughout the season, they may have been more believable. To me, it looks like they ran out of ideas, and the man in black was the best they could do.

The Mother

Across the sea is one of the worst Lost episodes, and as it came so late in the series, it was even more disappointing. It’s intent was to explain Jacob and the man in black, but in the end it just confused us more. Everything about this episode was confusing, especially the introduction of a new character, their mother.

Where did she come from? How was she different to people? Why didn’t she like them? And why did she steal babies? She wasn’t likeable, she didn’t have a point, and she died at the end of the episode, so why raise all these questions so near to the finale? This was the point in the show where I knew none of my questions would be answered, I had hoped for some, but after seeing this episode, I knew that NONE of them would be answered (and they weren’t).

The mother was a typical “other” character (ragged clothes and stealing babies), so it may have worked better in a flashback about how the others came about, and maybe at the beginning on the season as opposed to the end.

Claire

By far my least favourite character in the series. From the beginning she was just there to flesh out the cast, like Hurley, Charlie, Michael, Rose, Boone, Shannon, Sun, Jin, Vincent. Hurley liked food, Charlie liked drugs, Michael liked shouting, Boone liked Shannon, Shannon hated everything, Sun liked her English teacher, Jin liked shouting, and Claire, err, liked giving away babies.

For all the other character’s issues, they were pretty much inconsequential, Claire’s pregnancy made her more involved than she should be. We had to go through the whole tedious flashback (with the psychic), and then the whole kidnapping kafuffle, and then the actual birth, all in the first season. No one really cared when she was kidnapped apart from Charlie, and he was a heroin addict.

Maybe I just never connected with the character, but for someone who was giving her baby away anyway, why didn’t she just let the others have it, and save everyone the trouble. Could have saved a lot of lives too, get in the corner with Rose and Bernard!

She disappeared towards the end of the series, and again no one really cared. When she did come back, she was mental! It made her twice as annoying, but delivered one of the funniest moments of season 6, when everyone kept trying to ditch her. They should have in season 1.

Nikki and Paulo

There were quite a few stale periods in the series, especially during the third season, and Expose was Lost at it’s most stale. Stand alone episodes worked in most science fiction shows, the X-Files, Buffy, Star Trek, etc, but not in Lost. Lost was all about the plot, and characters, so to introduce two (not entirely) new characters into the foray, and tell a story, that is not only cheesy, but does nothing to expand on the plot, went against everything the show stood for. This was season 3’s Across the sea. Just downright awful.

Driveshaft

Since the show began, every now and again, a song comes into my head, and it won’t leave. That song is Driveshaft’s “You are everybody”. It’s not even a real song! I am not saying that Charlie was a bad character, because I liked some of his story arcs. He was integral to Desmond’s fucking brilliant storyline, and for that, Charlie is ok in my mind, Sure, that period where he went evil was very very silly, and in the flash-sideways-purgatory-doo-da he was a total prick, but the way he left the show (initially) was perfect for his character. My beef is not with Charlie though, it’s with Manchester based rock band Driveshaft, and yes, they count as a character!

Ilana

So they have to go back to the island, but take some other non important (or so it would seem) people with them. They are split apart, and Illana takes control of this new group. She is essentially Ana Lucia 2.0, not because they are both Hispanic, but because they are angry shouty ladies who like to take control. Illana does nothing of any consequence when you think about it. We find out that Jacob was like a father to her (if you say so) so she’s out for blood for the man who killed him, and then she blows up. Vincent was more vital to the plot, she was totally pointless, and I assume there were cheers when she exploded.

John Locke

John Locke would also be on my list of best characters, as he has a genuinely interesting side to him, however, the other side to him is just so fucking boring. The Daddy issue is used so many times in the show, and as Jack had it first, Locke should have had a different problem...which he did, he had no legs, that woman he kept calling didn't love him, he got chased out of some hippy village, it just goes on and on. Your opinion of Locke depends on what version you see of him, and this is why he makes this list, because there is always a good chance you will get boring Locke, instead of interesting Locke. Had Terry O'Quinn not been so good as Locke, they probably wouldn't have used him for the man in black, and we would have had someone like Charlie.

You and he were buddies

Everyone loves a buddy cop film, Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys, Rush Hour, hell, even Cop and a half. Let’s make more of them, I’m fine with that. What? Change the formula? What these films are missing is a good romance storyline? Let’s change one of the cops into a lady! Guys will love the action, and the chicks will love the romance! Ooo he’s so dreamy, he can handle a weapon but he’s so sensitive. WRONG WRONG FUCKING WRONG!

There has been a horrific trend in these movies, I have become aware of three of these in the past year, yes three! Now, these are not strictly buddy cop movies as there are no cops in them, but it looks like they are trying to go for the same sort of thing. We have already been graced with The Bounty Hunter, where new Mel Gibson (the go to sleazster) Gerard Butler abuses Jennifer Aniston until they inevitably fall in love and live happily ever after even though they hated each other only 20 minutes ago, at least I presume that’s what happens, I have only seen the trailer (The Italian version makes Gerard Butler approximately 1000 times sleazier). So with this setting the mark, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are going to have a crack with Knight and Day. I thought the trailer was one of those joke trailers, like the Orange ones, you know, it’s so bad it’s funny, but that Kevin Spacey looking dude never came in at the end with a mobile phone, and I realised it was a real film. Shit!

Someone shouldn’t have told Tom Cruise that his cameo in Tropic Thunder was funny, it’s gone to his head, and it wasn’t even that funny. All I heard was how funny his dance was at the end of the film, and you know what, it has nothing on Napoleon Dynamite, or even Sean William Scott in American Wedding 3 band camp boob fest pie. It’s all gone to poor little Tom’s head, and now I guess he wants to do more comedy, starting with this movie, and people will see it, love it, they will do a sequel, which will further fuel his ego until he does nothing but comedy, sort of what De Niro does now, but shit. As for Cameron Diaz, I cannot sympathise with any character she plays because she looks like a drunken whore.

Finally we have Killers. The trailer would have you believe it is just another boring rom com where the poor single lady who can’t find a man suddenly finds a man, but it turns out he has a secret, and they can’t be together, but in the end they get married anyway. I genuinely thought they were going to reveal they were brother and sister, turns out it was worse, he’s a spy! This looks like a carbon copy of Knight and Day which makes me want to punch myself in the face twice as hard because it turns out no one noticed the first time I did it. I’m sure Ashton Kutcher is OK in it, but as a rule of thumb, anyone from Grey’s Anatomy makes me want to cut myself, kind of like a Marilyn Manson album, only I can’t turn it off, I’ve never even seen Grey’s Anatomy, it just looks so damn annoying, look at all of them with their faces, they make me sick.

Rinse of Persia

I need a shower. That was my immediate thought after seeing the new motion picture brought to us from the producer of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Will they just shut the fuck up about that? What about any of the good films he has been involved with? Why do they have to remind us that he produced the pirates of the bloody Caribbean?

My main gripe of the pirate films is that they essentially avoid all things piratey. Yes, Captain Jack Sparrow is a pirate, yes, there are other pirates in it too, but why did we have to spend so much time listening to terrible wooden dialogue from the non pirates? I wanted more pirates, something akin to Monkey Island. To me, it seemed like they were relying on Johnny Depp’s mildly amusing movements so they didn’t have to write a good script. Sadly this is a formula that works, and as Johnny Depp donned his magical tomfoolery shoes on in Alice in Wonderland, it makes the film studios very rich indeed. £10.50 to see that crock of shit, I’m still not over it.

So here comes Disney’s next project, Prince of Persia. As video game adaptations are generally god awful, they opted to market this as a Pirates of the Caribbean kind of film. Yay for me. Like pirates, you have a posh twat orphan child - Jake Gyllenhall, who is only slightly less annoying than Orlando Bloom - who is whisked on an adventure that takes mild peril to a whole new extreme. Watching someone handle paper is more perilous, “I hope for his own safety he doesn’t get a paper cut!”. Throw in a posh girl as a love interest, and a well respected actor as the bad guy, interlope the terrible plot with massive stunts, and you have your very own blockbuster movie.

There shouldn’t be a formula for making movies like this, because not only is it repetitive, it makes for an awful film. Jake Gyllenhall isn’t Persian! Yes, Ben Kingsley isn’t Indian, but was great as Gandhi, but Jake Gyllenhall is one of the most American looking men in the world. An American audience would obviously prefer this. To them, a Persian protagonist would look like a terrorist, and rooting for a terrorist would be unpatriotic, so we’re stuck with Prince fuck face Dustin. I would have preferred it if Kingsley reprised his role of Don Logan, that would have made for a more tense confrontation.

All in all we are made to go through the same motions we did with pirates only with much more sand and far fewer pirates, and we are gifted at the end with the notion that the prince can just go back in time so the last 2 hours never happened, which to me is pissing on a wound, because I can’t do that. To make matters worse, I spilt Pepsi Max all over me during the trailers, and somehow I now consider it to be the best video game adaptation ever made.