Medium Mashup

Category: Reviews

Reviews of Movies, TV, and Games

  • Rise of the Tomb Raider Review

    rise-of-the-tomb-raider

    2013’s reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise was much stronger than just about anybody would have expected. After Tomb Raider had faded into many gamers’ memories as a relic of the past, Crystal Dynamics decided to start fresh by creating an origin story for Lara Croft and rethinking many of the game’s mechanics. Borrowing liberally from the Uncharted series (which, in truth, borrowed significantly from Tomb Raider in the first place), they managed to create a very solid platformer-shooter with a more open-world feel to it. Combined with a strong arc that saw Lara grow from a scared girl with potential into an army-decimating badass, Tomb Raider really stood out from the crowd and even got “Game of the Year” consideration from a number of publications.

    So if 2013’s Tomb Raider was a risky and innovative renovation of the brand, then 2015’s Rise of the Tomb Raider is the “victory lap” game. It’s still engaging, and the combat and traversal mechanics are generally solid. But it’s also a pretty safe entry into the series, with few innovations and little to truly get excited about. There’s a feeling that Crystal Dynamics created it as something of a stop-gap release while they really think about how to elevate the series in the future.

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  • SPECTRE Review

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    (This review is split into two halves. The first section is spoiler-free. Then, below, I will delve into some specifics for those who have seen the film)

    SPECTRE is a continuation of the look, feel, and character-centric storytelling present in Skyfall, and on that level, it is a roaring success. Everything from the stunts to the cinematography to the editing to the set pieces are terrific, some of the very best in the series. Despite its 2 hour and 30 minute runtime (long even for a franchise that is notorious for 2-hour-plus entries), SPECTRE flies by, never feeling like it’s wasting your time.

    But before we start talking in-depth about all that SPECTRE does right, the elephant in the room needs to be acknowledged: yes, SPECTRE has some narrative issues. As I’ll go into further below in my “Spoiler” section, quite a number of story elements don’t hold up to scrutiny. It’s not difficult to pick SPECTRE apart, as one plot hole or illogical plot string just leads to another, and soon the whole thing is unraveling like a ball of yarn. It can really make you wonder if the screenwriters were paying any attention to these issues at all.

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  • The Leftovers Season 2 Part 1 Review

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    (This review contains no explicit spoilers)

    Last year, The Leftovers was an interesting show with a terrific premise, which featured moments (and full episodes) of brilliance amongst a sea of depression and tonal monotony. The concept, in which 2% of the world’s population disappeared without a trace, is engaging enough to let it coast for a number of episodes, but it ultimately grew stale by the last stretch of episodes. Without any indication of who the characters were BEFORE “the departure” until the penultimate episode of the season, their behavior became redundant rather than illuminating, and a number of the subplots, including Kevin Garvey’s dangerous sleepwalking and the appeal of the white-clad chain-smoking Guilty Remnant cult, were never given enough clarity to become meaningful.

    There was a sense during the season that, with just a few tweaks, The Leftovers could have been transcendent television. If only we had understood the central characters sooner, or had more focused narratives (like the two best episodes of the season, “Two Boats and a Helicopter” and “Guest”), or a more diverse and unpredictable tone. Then news came out that not only was The Leftovers getting a second season, but it was leaving behind its source material (Tom Perrotta’s book, which was fully adapted in the first season) AND its central location to start anew. Was this a desperate gamble to remain relevant in a second season, or a creative opportunity to recenter on the elements that worked the best in season one?

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  • The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt Review

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    You read the headline right: I am just now getting around to reviewing The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt. It’s not that the game went under my radar. I actually went against my “never pre-order” rule to support GOG.com, which is completely DRM-free and handed out discounts to anybody who owned previous Witcher titles. So I’ve had The Witcher 3 since its release on May 19th, and yet I just finished it. My final gametime clocked in at exactly 100 hours, and I still had a couple of treasure hunts left unfinished.

    Given the above, I don’t have to elaborate on how much time you can sink into The Witcher 3. But just because a game is lengthy doesn’t mean that the time you spend within it is worthwhile. I have 200 hours logged in Destiny, yet the vast majority of that time was spent re-playing the same old missions ad-infinitum. Similarly, I spent almost 80 hours in Metal Gear Solid V, but the majority of that was in Side Missions, which re-use environments that are already present in the main game. Even in other huge-scale RPGs, like Dragon Age: Inquisition and Bethesda’s RPGs (Elder Scrolls, Fallout), a handful of quests are interesting and memorable and the majority are fetch quests or “go here and kill this monster” missions.

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  • Anomalisa Review

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    (Anomalisa is unreleased and does not yet have an official release date. Therefore, this review will remain light on story details and spoilers)

    Anomalisa, the first film written and directed by Charlie Kaufman since Synecdoche, New York seven years ago, is a brilliant and wholly unique piece of work. Co-directed by Moral Orel animator Duke Johnson, Anomalisa tells the story of Michael Stone (David Thewlis), a businessman who suffers from a mental disorder which makes him see everybody else outside of himself as the same person. The rarely-mentioned illness gives a narrative reason for the movie’s presentation, in which all men and women share the same face and voice.

    However, the framework also serves to visualize the feeling of boredom and over-familiarity that tends to come with age. As the film progresses and we follow Michael through beautifully detailed yet somehow depressing locations and witness the repetition of various thoughts and ideas (including some hilarious asides about the Minneapolis Zoo, which is apparently “zoo-sized”), we empathize with him, sharing the feeling that everything and everyplace is inherently the same. When he begins seeking out somebody special, whether it be an ex or a local fling, we understand what he’s striving for on a human level.

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