Airplane! makes air traffic control out to be an exciting adventure full of poisonous food and glue sniffing. Air Control is not the substance addiction simulator I was hoping it would be, but it does suffice as an entertaining puzzle game.
Air Control is a top-down puzzle game where you must draw flight paths for incoming planes and helicopters. The three maps have a mix of runways and helipads, and only certain colored planes can land on certain areas. Gameplay involves pressing a plane and dragging a path to its destination. The catch, of course, is that if a plane hits another one, you lose.
The game’s graphics are simple but crisp. The controls are tight and responsive, which is good since they are the cornerstone of the game. Sound is limited to rudimentary beeps and boops when clicking and guiding a plane. There is no music.
Monthly high scores for each level are available. Looking through the leaderboards made me feel incredibly inadequate, so if you are prone to low self-esteem, avoid looking there. I can only assume that there are real air traffic controllers playing.
The game comes with only three levels, two of which are boringly similar. The stage set around aircraft carrier is particularly fun, despite my low success rate. It goes something like this, only set to the Benny Hill theme song:
Pros
Only $2.15, give or take
Engaging (but not addictive) gameplay that eventually falls flat.
Cons
Only 3 levels, and 2 of them are mostly the same
No airplane sound effects
The game is available in both a Lite and Paid variety. Lite is limited to one level.
I’ve always found myself to be fickle when it comes to the pacing in a movie. A film usually has 20 minutes to hook me, or I’ll just be a negative nancy the rest of the time. Get Him To The Greek took 19, but that’s less than 20, so I guess it wins.
Russell Brand reprises his role from Forgetting Sarah Marshall as caricature-rock god Aldous Snow. The premise of the flick is that he was once the top of his game, then came out with an album called “African Child” that sucked. Many jokes are made comparing the album to the worst things in Africa (famine, disease, war, apartheid, real humorous stuff). There’s some weird subplot about his lover/wife thing leaving him but that ultimately ended up being a pretty minor distraction.
So here’s our washed-up rock star. Que Jonah Hill as Aaron, an agent at a record studio. Naturally, he is a huge fan of Aldous Snow. We know this because we are introduced to Aaron while a Snow song plays in the background. Five seconds later, there is a Snow poster on his wall. When record exec Sergio (P-Diddy) asks for ideas on how to revitalize the industry or some crap, Aaron suggests a reunion show. “It’d make millions of dollars!”
Jonah Hill isn’t very believable as an intern or agent for a record label, but that’s okay, he doesn’t need to be. The dialogue feel a bit forced and doesn’t have the same heart as his other films. This is where the “19 minutes” bit comes in. Fortunately these scenes are early and get out of the way.
Consider yourself warned: the movie isn’t all wacky adventures of a rock star and his label companion; there are two subplots involving the love lives of Aaron and Snow. Aaron’s girlfriend is apparently an Ambien-addicted (I’m drawing conclusions) med student who works horrible hours. Aaron wants to go see the Pixies, she wants stay at home and watch Gossip Girl. Maybe it’s because my girlfriend is a nurse who works horrible hours, but I found this a cute plot. It pops up throughout the story, but it never really becomes a drag on the story. Not like Snow’s relationship with his ex-wife.
So the foul-mouthed, eccentric Sergio/P-Diddy (who is a surprise highlight of the film) sends Aaron to bring Snow to Los Angeles. All sorts of hijinks happen in the next 72 hours. The movie trailer gives the gist of it. Of particular note is the bit where Snow does a performance on the Today Show. The audience laughed when Meredith Veira showed up. I laughed when New York Times columnist Paul Krugman makes a cameo (I don’t think anyone else in the theater got it).
So we’re treated to a series of hilarious scenes as Aaron and Snow jet from London to New York, to Las Vegas, then finally to Los Angeles. Highlights include an absinth trip, now one of my favorite drug-induced montages ever (this was when I realized P-Diddy is hilarious in this movie) and a particularly awesome scene in Las Vegas, which is the comedic highlight of the movie (and cemented P-Diddy’s role as breakout star).
Jonah Hill has another hit film on his hands, and Russell Brand (who I thought was a bit shaky in Sarah Marshall) really picked up the slack. The two make for an interesting duo- they are more dynamic than the Hill/Cera combination in Superbad. Anziz Ansari makes a cameo, but only for five seconds, which was disappointing. P-Diddy was especially good (who knew?) I could have sat through another 20 minutes of this film, and judging by the trailer, there was a lot cut out. I wasn’t a fan of Russell Brand’s “outrageous rock star” character in Sarah Marshall, but he has a certain charm as the main catalyst in this film.
Get Him To The Greek probably will be the best comedies of the year (I could be wrong). It is definitely worth seeing as soon as possible.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: This is the clearest example yet of Tim Burton making a film for the sake of ‘Burtonizing’ them. You know what I’m talking about: the art style and direction that lends itself to ‘Hot Topic’ merchandising.
If you can put that fact aside, which I could, you’ll find Alice In Wonderland to be a good waste of two hours. I specifically use the word waste, because this isn’t a ‘movie for the ages’ nor is it a particularly standout effort, despite the impressive names attaches to the flick.
Tim Burton’s film is not a retelling of the classic story, a fact that seems to have eluded many moviegoers and critics alike. His film is a sequel, a continuation of the classic story. We are introduced to a nineteen-year-old Alice who doesn’t quite fit in with the aristocratic, Victorian lifestyle laid out for her. The first half hour of the movie is especially dry and runs on a tad too long; if you’re running late for the movie, I wouldn’t fret.
The opening act gives us some useless backstory about a snobbish redhead proposing to Alice and how she doesn’t quite fit in with the aristocratic company she keeps. It’s a waste of film that could otherwise be spent exploring Wonderland; the real world setting is used to typecast Alice as an independent woman who stands out from the crowd. Real informative, Tim. Thanks for clearing that up for us.
Eventually Alice finds herself in Wonderland, but it still takes a while for the film to pick up. We’re introduced to a cast of characters familiar to anyone whose read or seen the original book or film. It isn’t until maybe an hour into the film when it really starts to find its pacing. It’s tragic, because the second act of the film is truly spectacular; if only the first and third acts could match. Here’s a spoiler for you: there is a CGI-enhanced Johnny Depp scene, and it is god-awful.
I’ll spare you the plot details. The short of it is that Alice is ‘The One’ who must slay the Red Queen’s generic CGI monster (yes, this movie has an action sequence. Remember what I said about the third act?). The story in and of itself wasn’t as bland and terrible as some people make it out to be, not that I was really expecting a deep and engaging plot. I mean come on. Tim Burton, Alice in Wonderland, 3D. What were you expecting?
Since this is the first major 3D film to release since Avatar, I figure a few words should be reserved for the visuals. The 3D was largely wasted on Alice. I don’t know if this is a result of the conversion from 2D to 3D (a process which Cameron soundly knocked) or if Avatar just spoiled us all, but the 3D was a waste of time and money in this case. Burton had to stoop to ‘cheap 3D tricks,’ mostly things like “objects fly at the camera!”.
The 3D in Avatar was subtle; you could tell the film was built around the 3D effects. In Alice, it was distracting and you could tell Burton built the 3D effects around the film.
Burton created his own dark, demonic version of Wonderland to match the dark, demonic backstory. Some of the visuals have been knocked by the Twittersphere. That issue probably could have been avoided if the audience was given another token flashback sequence or two to contrast the ‘White Queen Wonderland’ with the ‘Red Queen Wonderland.’ All in all though, it’s about what you’d expect from a Burton flick. It isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, but damn if it didn’t look good.
The acting is what makes AND breaks this film. Johnny Depp got top billing for this film and subsequent interviews show he put the same level of research into the characters that he usually does, despite the write-offish appeal the Mad Hatter presented him. Depp does his best with he was given. Especially noteworthy are the scenes between the Hatter and the Cheshire Cat; it hinted at a far deeper relation I wish would have been explored.
Unfortunately, the Mad Hatter character was not given as much room to develop as he should have been. You could see the longing for character development in Depp’s eyes when he went into a spat of twitching or when he asks for words that start with ‘m’ (an allusion to mercury).
Mia Wasikowska is the title character, and I could not be more meh about her performance. I really, really, really wanted to like her. She has the kind of goofball look and attitude that is perfect for Alice, but so many of her lines have such a monotonous, drab delivery. I don’t think this is an issue with her skills as an actor, I’m more than happy to blame the script and directing for her shortcomings.
Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen more than makes up for the Depp/Hatter strangling. Whereas the Hatter was a one-dimensional character with an actor yearning to break free, Carter is more than happy to act within the realm of her one dimension. She’s utterly fantastic and probably the most redeeming quality of the film.
As a random sidenote, something felt not-quite-right about the editing of this film. I don’t know if it was the actual editing, the directoral pacing, or just how the actors delivered their lines, but every once and a while a scene would leave me scratching my head, wondering what had just happened.
Alice In Wonderland is a good way to spend an afternoon if you have the time, but it isn’t worth running out the door to see it as soon as you can. The lackluster 3D effects means you’d be perfectly fine waiting for a DVD release.
