Blogcritics

Graphic Novel Review: Unbeatable by Matthias Wolf

Sibin Mohan — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 05:00:44 EST

Matthias Wolf's first effort at a graphic novel is a impressive, with well crafted images and great start with the plot.
Is a nightmare just a dream gone wrong, or does the cause lie somewhere else? What if you wake up in a padded cell and then slip into endless nightmares day after day? Nightmares that don't make sense. Nightmares that have you dying day in and day out. How do you get out of the cycle and try to make sense of what is going on? How do you stop...

Graphic Novel Review: Clive Barker's The Great and Secret Show by Chris Ryall and Gabriel Rodriguez

Sibin Mohan — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 08:40:47 EST

The artwork and visual images evoked in the adaptation heightens the understanding of the original story and also makes us involved.
Did you ever get the feeling that there is something other than what seems "real"? A vague feeling of undercurrents in everyday life? That something lies beneath the surface, and yet cannot be seen, heard or touched? What if that something is a source of unimaginable power and yet we cannot know of its existence?The real scary part --...

Book Review: Graphic Novel Adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend

Sibin Mohan — Sun, 9 Dec 2007 05:09:34 EST

This book shows that quality graphic novels can achieve a level of storytelling that is often hard to beat.
So who decides if you are human? Is it enough that each person holds on to the unshakeable belief that he or she is human? What if everyone else thought that you were not one of them? Does that shake your beliefs or do you hold onto them with a vice-like grip -- afraid that your last attempts to stave off insanity must mean that you must hold these...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Movie Review: Transformers Doesn't Disappoint... Much

Sibin Mohan — Tue, 3 Jul 2007 18:53:03 EDT

I have, of late, been reading the webcomic "Least I Could Do" by Ryan Sohmer and Lar DeSouza. It is quite funny and really hits the spot, especially if you are a twenty-something who has grown up in an urban environment. I had particular reason to think about one recent strip as I was heading off to watch the "Transformers" movie by Michael Bay. It starts with the main character Rayne kneeling next to his bed and praying:Hey God. It's me, Rayne.Listen, I know you're probably not too fond of me, seeing as to how I don't believe in you.And tend to use your ten commandments as a checklist of things to accomplish in my life.But I need you now.PLEASE, PLEASE let the Transformers movie be good and don't allow Michael Bay to rape our collective childhoods!My thoughts exactly! Having watched a lot of the Transformers cartoon series when I was young, I was really apprehensive about the movie, especially since the trailers didn't seem to be really very interesting. And the part that I was most worried about -- it's being directed by Michael Bay! Come on, he has Armageddon and Pearl Harbor to his credit! Even though the former was a huge hit and collected millions at the box office, I found it to be a dismal joke. So while expectations were not very high, I was hoping that my pre-analysis would prove to be wrong and that the movie would blow me out of my seat, and luckily for me, that did turn out to be the case.First off, let me say that the movie is an out and out action blockbuster - the action hardly ever lets up and makes for one thrilling joy ride after another. It starts with a bang and then keeps up a breakneck pace. The only reason you would get bored is if your idea of a night at the movies is sitting at home watching a Freddie Prince Jr. movie marathon in your pink pajamas with a batch of tissue paper!I was pleasantly surprised by this movie because it has all the ingredients for a great summer blockbuster -- great action, fantastic special effects, fast storytelling, nostalgic memories of weekends spent watching the Transformers cartoons in our childhood, hot women, great cars and a bit of wit! Yes, that's right - they have some intentionally funny moments, at least in the first half of the movie. Most of the funny incidents and one-liners come from the unwilling protagonist played by Shia LaBeouf. He's a bumbling idiot who is always picked on by the jocks and can't seem to make women notice him, even if he spent many years studying in the same classroom with them. He gains center stage attention because he unwittingly obtains the directions to a source of great power - something that two robot armies, who have been waging war for millennia, have been seeking for a long time.The Automatons and the Decepticons are the good and bad guys, respectively. The former are trying to prevent the latter from achieving their goals -- of taking over the Universe, presumably. Earth becomes the staging point for their battle because Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons, has crashed here thousands of years ago and he and a vital instrument are missing and are the central objects of an intense struggle and search by the others. They have the ability to transform themselves at will and take on the looks and behaviour of any machinery -- from cars to stereos to army vehicles to aircraft to even cell phones. Some of these robots have been on Earth for many years, trying to understand the nuances of human civilization all the while searching for their objective. One, Bumblebee in particular, has the mission of protecting our hero.So this is the perfect setup for robot armies to invade the Earth and then start pounding each other without any regard for human life or property. What results is a carnage of intense violence and breathtaking action and special effects sequences. The camera work is also a delight to watch and some of the slow-motion sequences add a nice touch to the movie. There is one particular scene, shot in slow motion, of a car transforming itself into a robot while jumping over a shocked woman and at the same time trying to avoid missiles being fired at it. The scream of the woman, slowed down while still retaining a high pitch, brings in a touch of humour to the entire situation.The second half of the movie starts to become a bit cliched though; while the action still remains at a top level, the storyline and dialogues seem to take a serious nosedive, often times bordering on the nonsensical. The dialogue between Optimums Prime (the leader of the good guys, Automatons) and Megatron (the leader of the Decepticons) becomes cheesier and cheesier as the action seems to get hotter. Its look as though the scriptwriters and directors got caught up in planning and writing up all the action sequences that they seemed to have forgotten that a movie must also have dialogue and at the last minute patched in cliched, typical dialogues from various disaster movies. Lines akin to "these fragile humans do not deserve to exist", and "they must make their own choice", or even the spiel about how we are a "young race" who must "find our own way" and "our way of life needs protecting", etc. are uttered far too often. Then there seems to be the whole idea of all the bad guys disguising themselves as authoritarian vehicles - either police cars or military vehicles (helicopters, tanks, military trucks, etc.) while the good guys get to be cool sports cars, road trucks, pickups, etc. In fact, most of the bad guys are military vehicles. Is Michael Bay trying to send "subliminal" messages about the current war and political situation? Is he trying to state that the military and the government are bad? Is this a dig on the military-industrial complex, perhaps? Oh, the subtlety! Surely no one noticed this as it was not thrown on their face a few hundred times! While directing good action sequences seems to be Bay's forte, subtlety and smartness surely don't seem to be. Of course, the cast and their so-called acting wasn't very great either. Except for LaBeouf, everyone else seemed to be labouring through their roles and acting in a bemused sort of way - since they must now act with non-existent actors all around them (the special effects, robots, etc.), they seem to be finding it difficult to adjust eye and body movements to obtain a natural effect. What results is a loss of sync between the live actors and the CGI. While Megan Fox was the eye-candy for the movie, she did have a decent role and performed admirably well. Rachel Taylor, with her thick Australian accent, was a bit irritating as the "special advisor" to the defense secretary. She doesn't seem to know anything about the tech stuff that she was talking about, which kind of lets her off the hot seat a bit, as much of the tech stuff didn't make sense anyways! Okay, okay, I agree-- in a movie about self-transforming robotic aliens waging war on Earth, technical correctness may not always be the thing to look for -- but lines like, "can you hotwire this computer to connect it to that ancient morse code generator so that it could send morse code" and then pointing to and picking up the computer monitor was not even funny - it was plain pathetic!There were also definite gaps in the storyline and it seemed like they were in some sort of a rush to get the movie done and out this summer. Seems like they couldn't "transform" a bad script into a good one.Of course, the most glaring point of the movie was the garish product placement - from the Panasonic SD card to all of the GM vehicles. Phew! It was in-your-face and hard to ignore. I'm not against product placement if it is done in style. Hey, they need money to make the movies and if companies will shell out money so that they get a couple of seconds of showtime, then let that be the case. But there must be some limits -- in once scene, Rachel Taylor's character removes the SD card from a computer and holds it for a second while showing it to the camera instead of doing whatever she intended to do with it. Oh, then there was the over-abundance of GM vehicles. One would think that the only vehicles that the world ever had were made by GM! But the plus side of this was all the cool cars that were shown - especially the new Chevy Camaro and the Pontiac Solstice. Both transform into some really cool robots, and the transformations are as much fun to watch as the action sequences.Well, I could say that this movie is worth a watch and it does provide sheer entertainment - at least for the guys and geeks everywhere. If you were a fan of the original cartoon series and action figures, then it is a must watch, but be prepared to switch your brains off for a while, and ignore the bad acting. Apart from that, you might enjoy it, thoroughly.

I'm a PhD student working on worst-case timing analysis in the field of real-time systems! Actually to make it simple - Computer Science...have a keen interest in writing, reading and a wide variety of other topics/issues...

I have been blogging at Context Switch since 2003...

[My research page lists my academic/research interests]

Movie Review: Spider-Man 3 Falls Flat!

Sibin Mohan — Fri, 4 May 2007 07:36:18 EDT

Well, it was bound to happen. After the first two movies made over 1.6 billion dollars at the box office, one would expect that the egos of the director, the stars, and even the writers would spin out of control. It did and it resulted in a sub-standard movie that seems to have been created by committee.I am a big fan of the Spider-Man comic books and really like the way the characters are presented, especially the protagonist. He is nerdy, dorky, and has awesome super-powers, but he also possesses a biting sarcasm which he uses really well to frustrate his opponents as well as a defense mechanism when things start to go wrong -- both in his "professional" as well as personal life. That sarcasm and humour, the quintessential traits that set Spider-Man apart from the rest of the comic universe are completely lacking in the movie versions - all three of them. And that tarnishes the character quite a bit. But to be completely honest, it's just as well. Considering the acting abilities (or lack thereof) of Toby Maguire, one must understand that there is no way that he can carry of a funny Spider-Man.Anyway, that apart, I went into the movie with a lot of expectations. I even believed that I would go back and watch it in a day or two at the local IMAX theater, simply to see the obvious, awesome graphics. Yes, that's right obvious! In a world where CGI has progressed to being indistinguishable from reality, one can see what is real and what isn't in this movie. Sometimes the graphics are tardy and overdone. The action sequences are too fast and all over the place for ordinary humans to follow, make sense of, or even be in awe of. Things rush by so fast that one can easily get bored. Hey, if I can't follow what's going on with the fast blurry stuff zig-zagging on screen, then I might as well concentrate on the popcorn at hand and the pretty girl sitting next to me.And to think that they spent close to a half a billion dollars on this movie! Most expensive movie on the planet and all of it down the drain. Well if they spent even a small fraction of that money on expensive graphics to fix Tobey Maguire's complete lack of talent, then this movie would have been ten times as good. Let's get this straight -- the only expression he can put on is one of a dopey, goofy character. Anything more complicated seems to be well out of his bag of tricks. By the way, there are two attributes that he should never attempt and he seems to overdose on them in this movie: one is trying to be emotional/sad, and the other is trying to be cool/suave. And not surprisingly, he fails miserably on both counts.We see a sad Peter Parker on two occasions: first, when Mary Jane claims to break up with him and again when his friend Harry Osborne has been critically injured. On both occasions he is in tears and let me warn you, it is not a pretty sight. Its like watching something horrible but being unable to turn your eyes away. In fact the audience was gasping in horror at the pathetic exhibition of emotion from Tobey Maguire. The other disturbing aspect of the movie is when Venom takes over Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Venom, an alien parasite, is supposed to bring out the worst characteristics in its host with the dark side taking over the host's personality. In Peter Parker it is supposed to make him more angry, more of a womanizer, more deadly, more powerful, less moral, etc. Well the problem is that in this movie, the character of Peter Parker is played by Tobey Maguire and angry, immoral, and suave he is not. He is supposed to walk with an air about himself, make random passes at women, dress in a more dark, more stylish way, wear his hair differently and cut the rug in a mean way with some stylish dance moves at a jazz club. To be very polite, Tobey Maguire is not a John Travolta or a Patrick Swayze. He completely lacks the panache required to exhibit a "dark side" and it comes off as being extremely funny and comical. Unfortunately that effect was not intentional.Topher Grace (That 70s Show) plays his rival for a job at the Daily Bugle and subsequently becomes infected by Venom. Suffice to say that acting was never his strong point. He seems to be just another Tobey Maguire - able to play the dorky goof-off in the sitcom but not quite making the cut for the big screen, especially in action flicks. Well, at least he is better at humour that Tobey Maguire. Hmmm... maybe Topher Grace as Spider-Man would have been an interesting experiment; at least he can carry off that sarcasm part well.Of course, my biggest gripe with any big-screen adaptation (which wasn't as evident in the first two movies) is a distinct divergence from the comic book (Spider-Man universe) storyline. For example, the reason Peter Parker meets Gwen Stacy (in the books at least) is because she studies with him and then is taken in by Aunt May when her father is killed in the line of duty. Both Gwen Stacy and her father receive about five minutes of footage and might as well have never been in the movie to begin with; their roles are pointless as far as Spider-Man 3 goes.Of yeah, I almost forgot -- the overdose of drama and soap-opera-like storylines. This movie has just too much of it, and considering that this is an action movie, that is unacceptable. In fact, if someone had walked in to the movie about 15 minutes in and then watched the next half-hour, he would be puzzled and would think, "Did I walk into the the wrong movie? I thought this was an action blockbuster. This looks and feels like a chick flick." This is especially relevant, because as I mentioned above, most of the actors in the movie fell flat while trying to carry off the serious "acting" stuff that they're supposed to do when they are in front of a camera.Two other big problems with this movie: the direction and screenplay. There is no flow between the various events and scenes. A lot of unrelated and unnecessary parts made the cut. It seems like the entire package was put together in a hurry. Not hard to believe considering the enormous budget -- I guess it must have been ballooning at an alarming rate and the studio must have put its foot down and forced Sam Raimi's hand to finish it in a hurry. Or, perhaps he was just bored with the entire thing. As a friend put it, maybe the actors, the director, and crew were so tired of the entire thing that they decided to kill the movie franchise by doing a bad job!Perhaps the guy who made (and markets) the Dyson vacuum cleaners might sell more of them if he changed his tagline to "Dyson -- sucks as much as Spider-Man 3"!

Movie Review: 300 Is A Visual Treat

Sibin Mohan — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:48:05 EDT

Frank Miller is a genius. I guess that fact is obvious to those of us who have read his graphic novels over the years. He created what is arguably the best Batman series ever -- The Dark Knight Returns. The rest of the world came to know of his genius when Sin City hit the big screen a couple of years ago and became an instant hit. The dark story lines and the imagery conjure up precise ideas and feelings -- probably the ones that Frank Miller wanted everyone to think of in the first place with his Sin City graphic novels. With Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller crossed that hallowed line - adapting a great graphic novel into an even better movie while still retaining that essential touch which made the books special.While not directly involved in the production of 300, Miller's fingerprints are all over the movie version of his graphic novel, which he created in collaboration with Lynn Varley. Although the movie version has been directed by Zack Snyder, the visual imagery, the storytelling, and the composition of sequences tell a story that was exquisitely framed by Miller and Varley.The movie is visually stunning and that is an understatement. As Sin City used color prodigiously, so does 300, but to the other extreme. While Sin City had just one or two colors embossed on an otherwise black and white canvas, 300 shows a riot of colors, but in a dim, blurred sort of way, almost apologetic that color seems to exist. Yet the dimness and the grainy camera work shows sweeping scenes that capture your imagination and force you to gape at the screen like a 5-year-old on his first outing to the movie hall. Based loosely on the events surrounding and leading up to the battle of Thermopylae, Miller presents the brave sacrifice of 300 Spartans, led by their king Leonidas I, who faced the million-plus Persian army of Xerxes (as the movie and book put it, "the collected armies of over a thousand nations") on their way to conquer Greece, and through it the rest of Europe. Relying solely on their grit, determination, bravery (what some might even call stupidity), and superior military tactics, they fought to the last man and were able to hold off the vast hordes of Asia until the rest of Greece united and decided to take on Xerxes's might.Miller has crafted in politics, corruption, greed, anger, fear, mysticism, sex, hubris, endurance, violence and war in ways that don't do anything but mesh in well with each other. The storyline presents the Spartans in a special, noble light - almost godlike in their adherence to their ideals and belief in their abilities. But it is Xerxes who believes himself to be a God among humans while the Spartans just consider themselves to be supremely conditioned, but humans nonetheless and holding on to their highest ideals of freedom and liberty.If you thought the rest of the movie was spectacular and stylish, then wait till you see the battle sequences. They grab your attention, and not since The Matrix Revolutions or Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King has a battle sequence been this good, and in my honest opinion, this tops them all!While there is blood and gore all round, you cannot turn your eyes away for fear that you might miss the tiniest detail of the work of art which is being painted in front of you. Every single sequence in the battle scenes looks like it has been choreographed, but has that complete unscripted feel to it -- like a real battle might have. I do believe that the actors were chosen for a) being over six feet tall and having sculpted bodies and b) being able to maintain a stoic facial expression. There is no other reason to explain the lack of expression and sometimes dull acting that is visible in some parts of the movie. Gerard Butler seems to have some sort of multiple personality disorder, as different Gerard Butlers turn up in different parts of the movie -- in some he is plain ordinary, while in others, he is able to carry his own.Lena Headey as the queen and Rodrigo Santoro as Xerxes were superb; they acted like they were completely in character and showed that in an epic like 300, there is a place for good acting.On the flip side, some sequences from the book were missing in the movie, like the raiding party that the Spartans undertake to burn the encampments of the Persians, but that does not matter; for whatever reason, the movie had a shorter script and sometimes one has to live with that.All in all, a fantastic movie, and being a comic book fan, I am thrilled at the (more or less) faithful adaptation of the book. This is a movie which I would be proud to own on DVD.But before that happens, I forsee myself watching it multiple times on the big screen.

Graphic Novel Review : Beowulf by Gareth Hinds

Sibin Mohan — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 18:52:01 EST

"Take warning by him O Beowulf.Wondrous it seems when Almighty God gives a man fortune and fame and a wide dominion - power over great parts of the earth, an empire so ample that he can comprehend no end to it. But it ever comes that the frame of the body fragile yields, fated falls, and there follows another who joyously thy jewel divides, the royal riches, and cares not for his predecessor.Take thou, therefore, good head, O Beowulf, against pride and arrogance. choose the better path; profit eternal. Now, indeed, thou art in the pride of they strength and the power of they youth; but there will come of surety, sooner or later, either sickness or the sword; fire shall consume thee or the floods swallow thee up. Be it bite of the blade or brandished spear, or odious age, or the eyes' clear beam grown dull and laden.Come in what shape it may, death will subdue even thee, thou hero of war."This is the friendly advice given to Beowulf by King Hrothgar of Denmark. Grim though it may be, it is sound. Gareth Hinds' graphic novel adapts the classic Norse myth of the legendary warrior named Beowulf. Originally self-published by Gareth Hinds as a series, it has been released again, by Candlewick Press as a single graphic novel, albeit with a new text which is based on a 1904 translation by A J Church.The book follows a poetic approach rather than using prose and at first glance the text may not seem to be directly linked to the images around it. On careful inspection though, the reader finds that the images tell a story by themselves, often times embellishing details that the poetic text glosses over; the details of battle, for instance. Hinds does not intrude on his visual story-telling by putting in unnecessary words - words that may take away from a reader's comprehension of events.Beowulf is initially shown to be god-like in his stature, strength, reserve and ability to take down mighty monsters. The first part of the book builds on the legend that was the mythical Beowulf in his youth. On conquering Grendel and his troll-mother, Beowulf is showered with gifts by King Hrothgar of the Danes. Perhaps the most important "gift" given is the advice quoted above.Until this point, one might be led to believe that this is another story of an all-conquering hero, who with his great abilities and strength is able to perform many great deeds, but this is where Hinds' vision comes into play. We see Beowulf again, but in old age! He possesses a similar stature, but his visage is that of an old man - one who has seen a lot in his life. He is almost resigned to impending death when he sets out, again, to take on a monster/dragon that has been tormenting his people. Interestingly, the book traces Beowulf's life in just two events, in both cases dealing with monsters that are troubling his friends or his people. In the first half, he is full of vigor, confidence and agility and is able to easily take on monsters at will. In the second half, though regal, he is old and doubts if he will return alive from the dragon's lair. Interestingly, while the first half is resplendent in color, the second is illustrated in grim, gray tones. Compare these images of Beowulf from the two stages of his life in the book... The story comes full cycle with the death of Beowulf and the homage paid to him by his people. On a grim note, the story-teller who has been reciting the saga of Beowulf also forsees the end of Beowulf's people - the Geats. The Geats were people who supposedly occupied the lower half of Sweden and were either killed or driven from their homeland by the Swedes. Many claim that the Wuffing dynasty of Denmark was set up by fleeing Geats, but nothing is known for sure.Hinds' storytelling style is really interesting...he is able to make us aware of the fickle nature of life using the story of the rise and fall of even a great, mythical warrior. He evokes wonder and pity for the same character by judicious use of imagery that will stay with us long after we have put down the book.The story of Beowulf has seen numerous adaptations and is supposedly set to appear on film, to be directed by Robert Zemeckis. Then there was Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead"/"The 13th Warrior, which was a farcical take on the Beowulf mythology. But I find Hinds' graphic novel adaptation to be one of the best so far...