dronebot.org

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light (2010)
Developed by: Crystal Dynamics / Nixxes Software
Length: ~6.1 hours

The Tomb Raider series has always been terrible plotwise. It started off as a female Indiana Jones then veered off into Lara Croft following in the footsteps of her father, who disappeared trying to find her mother, who disappeared into some portal created by a magical sword in the mountains that they found after a plane crash. That may not be exactly right, but it’s long been about Lara’s own quest to find her mother. Tomb Raider: Underworld should have ended that plot line (hopefully), and it seems Eidos is trying to do something different with Lara here in The Guardian of Light.

Well, the plot is still awful. You would think at this point Lara would be a little more careful about making sure people aren’t following her. Everytime she finds some ancient relic, dudes show up and cause problems. In this case, Xolotl gets released, and you spend the whole game chasing after him to stop him from spreading darkness. The game relies entirely on the gameplay, because there’s no depth to this plot at all.

They’ve completely done away with the old third-person action/adventure style gameplay from the Tomb Raider series. It’s been replaced with fixed camera isometric style, somewhat similar to the Diablo games. Combat is done in a dual stick shooter style; the left stick handles movement and the right stick handles aim. You can quick switch between three different weapons, although you could go into the menus and swap out weapons at any time. There’s a surprisingly large number of weapons, although most are variations on pistols, shotgun, rocket launcher, and Uzis. Aside from the weapons, Lara has the ability to throw spears, drop bombs, and her stand roll dodge ability. There’s also additional relics/artifacts that you’ll find and earn that will increase/decrease these abilities.

The combat system works well enough, although sometimes getting the right aim angle using the stick can be slightly annoying. Maybe having a line along the ground to show exactly the angle you’re currently aiming at would have helped, but it’s not a big deal. There’s a group of skeleton monsters you start running into midway through the game that come back to life after you’ve killed them. You can kill them off eventually, but they made certain sections of the game drag on as I always feel the need to kill everything. They’re harder to kill than some of the much larger monsters and they start showing up everywhere. I’d have preferred less combat and more of the puzzles. The optional puzzle temples that give out relics/artifacts had some fun/clever puzzles. I didn’t try out the co-op mode, but it seems like a slightly modified version of the single player (so puzzles require the two players to work together to solve them).

It’s nice to see Eidos do something with Lara Croft that deviates away from the standard Tomb Raider format. As a smaller, indie style game, it’s pretty good. There are a few things I didn’t like, but nothing that really broke the game for me. However, I don’t think I’d want to see another one of these. If I had someone else to play it with, the co-op would probably be a ton of fun, but the story just isn’t there to make this really enjoyable as a single player experience for me.

마강호텔 / Magang Hotel / Hotel M: Gangster’s Last Draw
Directed by: Seong-cheol Choi (최성철)
Running time: 01:17:58

South Korean cinema has no shortage of gangster films. If reality is anything like cinema, every alley in Seoul must have gangsters beating each other with whatever solid objects happen to be laying around. Magang Hotel, or Hotel M: Gangster’s Last Draw, whichever you prefer, is a more comedic look into the world of Korean gangsters. Two rival gangs are having economic troubles, so the suggestion is for the two groups to combine into one. Shortly after the merger, the head boss is struck by lightning while hitting golf balls off the roof of a skyscraper. The truce between the two groups becomes antagonistic when one of the top guys in one clan takes over the club of the other. Not wanting to sit idly by, the other man attempts to take his club back, but ends up getting arrested for being part of a protest that coincidentally happened right when they were about to storm the club. And that protest happened to be injured, former gang members protesting the gang for refusing to pay their medical fees. In order to get back in good standings, he’s sent off on a mission with a few other gangsters to collect debt money from a hotel.

Magang Hotel is a wacky movie. In trying to get to the hotel, the gangsters crash their car because of an ostrich. Then there’s the strange hotel staff, who have become so fed up with gangsters trying to get money from them, they’ve hired a professional anti-gangster guy to get rid of them. One staff member seems to carry a gas tank with him wherever he goes and is constantly threatening to blow himself and everyone else up with him. This sort of brash craziness is all through the film. It sometimes doesn’t make sense but it doesn’t need to. This is not a film you want to see for its plot. The serious gangster content drags the film down and isn’t really important to the main purpose of the film.

The theme of the film is family. The main gangster was alone as a kid growing up and the owner of the hotel lost her parents in fourth grade. Neither had an close, immediate family, but both developed surrogate families. The hotel owner has her unusual hotel staff and the gangster has his gang. These are people that will fight for and with them through anything. We find that the villain of the film, the head of the other gang, is someone that betrays the family. Even the odd gangster protest near the beginning of the film has the injured gangsters protesting the gang not treating them as family by not helping with their medical treatment.

If you’re interested in a wacky comedy about gangsters in a hotel that’s all about being a family, Magang Hotel isn’t bad. It’s often funny, if a bit juvenile. The gangster drama side of it isn’t that good, and it’s not the most well made film, but it’s okay.

Mennesker i solen / People in the Sun (2011)
Directed by: Per-Olav Sørensen
Running time: 01:17:58

Two Norwegian couples decide to take their summer vacation in Southern Sweden. One is a slightly older couple with a child. They’ve obviously had trouble with their relationship, and are hoping this vacation will help things. While they enjoy the great view from their cabin and the warmth of the sun, the younger couple argue. This is their usual vacation spot, but Ingrid forgot to make the reservations early and Stig, her husband, is angry about the poor view they have because of it. The two couples run into each other and find out they’re both from Norway. They agree to eat together to celebrate midsummer, but then the world begins to end.

The first half of the film is an awkward comedy. Neither couple really wants to hang out with the other, but they’re too polite to completely blow them off. And both couples have private issues that they would rather not have to address in front of company but they’re in this awkward situation. This changes when a female Danish retiree shows up. She brings their already bad party down even further talking about cancer, concentration camps, God, and the end of the world.

The film seems critical of those that would rather push away or ignore the great problems of the world and instead focus on their own small, selfish ones. Stig is dying of cancer, but hides it from his wife; and rather than making the most of his little time, he badgers his wife about minor things. The elder couple are so caught up on trying to make their own lives more enjoyable that they push away, ignore, and lose their child. The film seems to present the Danish woman and the child as the ones that are truly saved for their innocence and recognition of what is happening. This does come across as a bit like proselytizing. The selfish and godless are punished.

People in the Sun at least looks good. Set almost completely outside along the beach in clear, sunny weather, it has a bright, vibrant look. The characters interesting in all their flaws. Its brisk running time makes it an easy watch. It feels like it probably should have been fleshed out a bit more. The Danish woman seems out of place and the issue with the child seems unresolved. Some of the special effects are noticeably bad, but acceptable given this isn’t a big budget film. In all, it’s worth a watch for its uniqueness.

長屋紳士録 / The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947)
Directed by: Yasujirō Ozu
Running time: 1:11:32

Set during the aftermath of WWII, most of the film is set in a small, rundown, communal neighborhood. None of the people here seem to have any stable form of income. They all rely on each other and seem more like a large family than a neighborhood. When a small, stray boy, who was somehow separated from his father, happens to wander into the neighborhood, they pass around the responsibility before dumping the boy on Tané, an elderly widower, who is none too happy about it. Try as she might, she can’t get rid of the boy. No one else will take the responsibility of taking care of the boy, she can’t find the boy’s father, and every attempt to get rid of him fails humorously.

The film ends with a little speech by Tané about what she learned in having to take care of the boy.

Being selfish like we are now, won’t do. Like pushing people away to get on the train… Eating our fill, ignoring others who are starving… We worry too much about our own lives.

This is the overreaching philosophy of the film. The communal neighborhood functions like this. When one of the neighbors’ kid wins the lottery, everyone is invited over for dinner and drinks. They help each other find items they need, and even help themselves to Tané’s dried persimmons. With Tané new found philanthropy, she hopes to be less selfish and help raise another kid. A neighbor points her to Ueno Park, where many homeless children hung out around the Saigō Takamori statue.