Should We Write A Superman Review?

They had us from the second the film started, from the moment Marlon Brando eerily spoke to us once more...

you will travel far my little kal-el
but we will never leave you
even in the face of our death
you will make my strength your own
you will see my life through your eyes
as your life will be seen through mine
the son becomes the father
and the father the son

The camera slowly pans back from the all too familiar planet Krypton with its accompanying theme and we see a clearer destruction of the planet. We can't wait to get 5.1 on this baby, in fact this may finally be the film that makes Wratty go Hi Def.

Even the DC logo at the beginning bloody rocks! The film is all we could ever have asked for, but we are biased - Bryan Singer has us by the balls on this one. It has so many memories for everyone that is so fond of the Donner original, the score, the art direction, the opening credits, the dialog, and the small homages to it. We giggled like fools when we saw the empty cabinet that Lex stole the Kryptonite from had "Addis Ababa" written on it. We could hear Otis somewhere saying "it looks like a Burnoose".

This is what some may find annoying, that Singer has tapped into our memories and is simply riding the waves of Donner. We disagree, we want to feel the same we do about the previous films, we want to link them up, we don't want a reboot. This is what we wanted. This Superman gives us the same degree of love and emotion that the previous gave, and everything has been treated with the upmost respect. We've never felt this level of emotion in a film before, as the attendees will know that went with Wratty that day.

Lex is much more of a bastard in this film, Spacey has simply expanded upon Gene Hackman's character - you still have the camp and there are less wigs. But he's been hardened now, and he's determined, but he still has his blind arrogance. The rest of the cast are great, we had our doubts about Kate Bosworth but we truly believed she was Lois Lane, we never thought twice about her.

But what about Brandon? Millions screamed out when Singer went for an unknown, but we just kept cautiously quiet... This was the man who found our Wolverine remember. Routh is fantastic, he has taken the cape and flown sky high here. He plays a wonderful Kent and he plays a heroic Superman.

We have so many favourite scenes we can't wait to watch again, like where he floats above earth just listening, where he flies off with lois like he did in the first movie, his standing applause in the baseball stadium, EVERYTHING! Even the way the film ends the way it begins, with Routh echoing Brando's speech.

We understand the problem with Superman having a son because of the way the younger superheroes have been treated in the past, and generally kids in films like this. However, its nice to have such a big risk like that being taken, we can't wait to see what happens in the next film. We imagine Superman will have issues not being able to see his son as much as he wants, and of course Richard White finding out that he really isn't the father.

There's so much possibility now that Singer has opened up to explore, we just hope someone else doesn't get their hands on this film. It would be great to see if the original plan of one day leading to a Batman VS Superman film will pan out, we were reminded of this when we heard the name "Gotham" over the news broadcast in the Daily Planet. Christian Bale VS Brandon Routh? DO IT.

Scouring the forums we can't help but notice people still criticising the film for the use of Parker Posey, or the storyline being rubbish, and so on. All we can say is that you've got it now, Posey provides a strange and great female sidekick for Lex in the same way Teschmacher did. The storyline isn't at all bad, and I can imagine someday we'll see it as a great bridge between the Reeve's films and the next set we hope to get from Singer in the next few years. Singer's already mentioned some ideas for the next films at comicon, with talks of Braniac and what could happen to the growing Kryptonian island that Superman pushed out into space that is still housing all of Supes' crystals.

If you can get to one of the few IMAX 3D cinemas in the UK, go now. Run and see it. It is amazing what they've done here with the selected scenes - seeing young clark learn his abilities or watching the plane soar down from the sky is inexplicable. Its worth the money, just go and do it! We were actually shocked to find out that some of the scenes we thought were Routh as Superman were actually CG, like when he pushes the spaceship out into space.

Thankyou to everyone who had anything to do with the making of this film. We can't wait for the many DVD's you will throw at us, and whatever method you decide to use to show us the return to krypton scenes.

Venom IS In Spider-Man 3

Though for how long, we just don't know. But here's some stuff ripped completely from AintItCool:

"There was a montage of quick clips of Tobey Maguire at the top of the bell tower ripping the black suit off him. The SPIDER-MAN 3 logo comes up and you think that's it... but then we saw some unfinished effects of the symbiote dripping down, falling towards Topher Grace who is looking up. One drop falls and hits his right hand, immediately wrapping around his hand. The bulk of the symbiote hits him and wraps around him, pulling him to the ground, totally engulfing him. A cut and the camera is low to the ground a good distance away. It Raimi-cams EVIL DEAD style towards the black bulking mass. As it gets near the mass, Venom's head whips up looking straight into camera, which doesn't slow down and ends up rushing into his mouth where it goes to black.

Venom's face. Exactly what you want to see. Big, big toothy mouth, bright white eyes. Looks just like the later McFarlane Venom face.

The design looks great, Topher was great in the church sequence as Brock... Count me totally psyched... I'm updating this story with the rest of the footage, but wanted to share the Venom stuff right away! Stay tuned!"

 

Kewl Spider-Man 3 Poster!

Kevin and I must go poster dogging again sometime soon, we need to catch us a Superman poster and now we need to bag us one o these...


Dont expect us to be posting anything more taxing than this, Wratty's spending the company's money on Chinese girls and Kev is probably packing his bags now...

New Pictures Of Eliza Dushku!!!

Erm. This is a slight departure from our regular reports on stuff that is gaming or maybe films. Yet it's important news nonetheless.

Eliza's been to something called the 944 magazine party and she looks lovely. We believe that anyone reading this site needs to know this.

wratty's still a bit miffed that no one got him an Eliza for his birthday

Check out more wonders here

We were thinking of just running a fake guitar hero story instead of what we wrote, but there's no point. These pictures sell themselves.

If you don't know who she is - where in the hell have you been? If you need a videogame related reason to know who she is, she's in the upcoming Yakuza game for the PS2. YES.

Nintendo's Best PR Stunt Yet!

With our recent stories we're starting to sound like we're making a catalogue of Nintendo's best moments, however this latest promotional stunt isn't some age old advert...

Nintendo have sent George Bush a DS! "Suck up!" you may shout, but consider what they actually sent to the man who is the sole creator of "bushisms" like:

"You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you're gone."

"The point now is how do we work together to achieve important goals. And one such goal is a democracy in Germany."

"I aim to be a competitive nation."

"If the Iranians were to have a nuclear weapon they could proliferate."

"You took an oath to defend our flag and our freedom, and you kept that oath underseas and under fire."

We'd love to go on, there are so many! So come on? What do you think they sent him?


Brain Training! It's absolutely hilarious! If you were Bush and you're obviously aware that you've made your fair share of blunders, would you be slightly insulted by this or glad for another freebee to help prop up your table.

Either way it's a gutsy move on Nintendo's part.

The Greatest Nintendo Advert In The World

"Your parents help you hook it up"

Here's your chance to look back at the day when Nintendo was focussed on "nice graphics".

How did this ever appeal to anyone? Mind you it actually looks pretty similar to the types of adverts that Sony roll out these days, E3 conference anyone?

And where is our Nintendo newsletter?

See Back To The Future At The Cinema Again!

GREAT SCOTT!


For an entire week the Empire cinema in Leicester Square (yes, that's in London) are showing our favourite film, Back To The Future. The timeless 80's classic will be on each day at 10.45am in the newly upgraded cinema and will only cost you £5.50. It's starting this Thursday, the 7th of July and finishes up next week before Superman starts. What a fantastic deal!

Check it out here butthead

NEW MARIO BROS

We haven't bought it yet.

probably sometime this week, I would imagine.
We know it's something we should be excited about in ludicrous amounts, we should have been clamoring at the door of game(station) at nine last Friday. But we weren't.

but we'll probably get it this week. Probably.

Giving Up World Of Warcraft... Again

Wratty began playing World Of Warcraft after he broke out of university last year. It was a period of letting go and a time to do very little until he began his new job.

Those two or three months were great, he didn't spend the hefty amount of time on it as others do - when the account was put on hold, his character was a mere Level 23. Wratty simply spends too much time exploring the universe instead, and isn't obsessed with making his character the best there is. In reality he's probably not the right man for the game.

What inspired this gent to put his account on hold? Well it was many things, at the time Wratty saw his PC as the root to all evil. It became a social distraction, a means to gain weight, and completely dissolve any perception of time that he had. The major reason was to remove this addiction before the lovely XBox 360 came out before Christmas, and to enjoy the summer that Bournemouth brings.

So that was that. The account was dropped, the game was uninstalled and put to rest amongst the small pile of PC games he owns. A stack that simply contains some copies of Diablo, Diablo 2, Project IGI, Half-Life 2, No One Lives Forever and a few Star Wars titles.

"But wait a minute!" we hear you ask. Didn't you say you gave it up again?

Indeed we did, and who knows we shall probably be writing the exact same thing again next year.

Wratty picked up a 90-day card for the game earlier this year sometime around February. He'd played a few RPG's around this time and it game him some form of nostalgia. However he didn't use the card straight away, he had his (newly repaired) 360 and didn't need any other distractions. The 90-day card simply sat for a while, for a few months and found itself unused, much akin to his DVD's that he's never watched. They're there for the day that you need them.

That day was soon to come.

March 2006.
Something fantastic happened to Wratty, the single most amazing thing that has ever happened to him. Details will not be divulged as they're not necessary and Wratty wishes simply to be known to most of the world as half of the embodiment of GO:Yeah, his Superman to his real world Clark Kent. Needless to say life was different, better.

April 2006
Work whisked Wratty away on a mission to India for two weeks. Two weeks of pure hell. Again, you don't need to know the details, except that Wratty was for the first time in his life homesick. The final two weeks of April were wonderous, no complaints there.

May 2006
OK we're going to include a few days of April in this one because it's all a bit of blur from here. Obviously the 90-days of Warcraft had to start here because we've told you it just ran out. What May brought was a very different time for Wratty. The great thing that changed his life had been sadly and abruptly ripped out of his life which just left him dazed, confused and lost.

Warcraft is like another world, a place where thousands of faceless people can meet up and forget about real life. It's not like the regular internet, it's not like taking a stroll through Yahoo chat. There's something different about this world. The difference is being able to achieve something in this world. You can achieve status like you can on the internet, but you don't have to. You don't have to socialise with a single person, yet this helps. It helped me. Even the loneliest person in the world will forget that horrid feeling when playing Warcraft. You have a seemingly endless amount of people that share in your passions, and a surprising amount of people who are prepared to listen to and support someone who they've never met.

From the outside, from lets say a normal person's point of view the whole thing seems sad, and stereotypically geeky. That's fine with us, as Wratty is a self confessed geek. It doesn't worry us in anyway either because some of the finest people we've ever met are all crammed into the many realms that Warcraft hold. These people show each other that they're not different, that they're not alone and some wonderous friendships are forged here.

We've heard of love being found here, people finding their soulmates. It is a place rich in communication and it is all because Blizzard have found a way of making a common ground for these people while breaking the rules of normal communication. There are no uncomfortable introductions, no nervous chats. Each person has an equal opportunity to succeed in this world. There is no perception of appearance or race or anything else that has plagued mankind's vanity.

This became Wratty's fortress of solitude. His place to escape from the world and to discuss his thoughts with the great minds from around the world. These people showed Wratty once more how to play the game and how to get the best out of it. So even though he was there to escape the world, he was still getting something back. When leaving the computer to rejoin the real world, he didn't feel as bad as he did when logged on as he had achieved something. If he were to have gone to a quiet spot on the beach for a while to escape the world, his mindset would not change by the time it got cold and he had to go home again.

So here's what we got out of it. What do you get out of the game? We would love to hear if you think we're lunatics, or if you too feel the same.

What is the reason we now have left the game? Where did we get to?

We left the game for two reasons. The first is that our 90-day card ran out, this doesn't mean much because we could easily have renewed this. The main reason is that we didn't need the game anymore, it had done what it needed to for us and we wanted to come back to the real world and enjoy the weather.

Much to many people's annoyance we left just as we were about to hit Level 40 and get our special magic horse. Yes it's a crucial point of the game, this however symbolises one fact alone. That we were never there for the achievements and to reap the rewards of the world. We were there only to discover that we are not alone.