ANIMATED MOVIE REVIEW: BATMAN AND HARLEY QUINN (2017)

The DC cinematic universe was known for being mostly a failure. However, there animated offerings tend to be quite good. I have watched a few of them and I'm not sure if I just got a bad lot, but the results for me have been mixed. This is definitely in the mixed bag.

This movie is about Batman teaming up with Nightwing and Harley Quinn. Their goal is to beat Poison Ivy and Floronic Man who want to turn all humans into plants. The majority of the voice work and animation is servicable to good. However, the problems all abound in the script.

The first thing is that it doesn't know if it wants to be an adult movie or a kids movie. This leads to weird mixes such as children's action scenes and a plot, but then you have them playing up Harley Quinn's sexuality with some BDSM or a particularly gory kill of a security guard. It can't decide whether to be serious or joking.

The characters don't even know. For example, with the whole world at risk and them being outgunned, they still refuse help from other heroes. That and the ending and how they win is the very definition of anti-climaxes. 

There are other problems as well, but that is the main one. One pet peeve I have is how they keep trying to make Harley not so bad to fill in as an antihero, instead of the mass murderer she is. But that is just a bit of background. At the end of the day, the inconsistent tone prevented any build-up of tension, which made this show feel like it just dragged on too long.

2 out of 5 swampy waffles. 

MOVIE REVIEW: JOURNEY 2- THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (2012)

Journey 2 is the sequel to Journey to the Centre of the Earth (I think, it is never really referenced in the movie). In this movie, Dwayne Johnson stars as a step dad to a teenager from the first movie. THe teenager is trying to decode his grandfathers message to find him on the Mysterious Island.

This is definitely a movie aimed at the younger audience. There is no real blood and gore. Similarly, there is no real scientific or long-winded explanation for allot of what happens in the movie (such as the big is small and small is big rule). It is intended as a fast-paced sequence moving through set-pieces. And in this, it mostly succeeds.

However, where the movie falls apart is that the characters themselves don't treat anything like any real danger. In one part of the movie, they are racing against time to get off the island. However, then the kid is upset when he isn't allowed to take a day-long detour to look at a unique mountain. The movie is filled with a bunch of little moments like this that try to feel like force drama.

This wouldn't be a problem if it didn't have moments where it is trying to make the audience take it seriously. A nice popcorn-flick where you can just relax throughout the movie is fine. However, you can't make a movie both ways. You can't have nothing feel like it has any consequence and also randonly have tension when you want to. There needs to be a consistent tone throughout the movie. At the end, this is just a forgettable movie.

2 out of 5 mysterious waffles.

MOVIE REVIEW: TAU (2018)

What do you get when you start with a pretty interesting premise. Then, in small but painfully abrupt steps, it then proceeds to insert every stupid cliche until the story is mercifully put out of its misery. Well, I am starting the think the answer is pretty much Tau.

Tau is the story of a down-on-her luck girl who is making ends meet by stealing small things and pawning them off. She is then kidnapped and, along with a bunch of other un-missable people, she is subject to experimentation in order to get her brain patterns. Of course, she ends up being a genius.

At some stage in the movie, the actual plot kicks in with an AI being assigned to guard her. She quickly bonds with the AI using the usual cliche's. What is friendship? What is death? What is laughter? Etc. Eventually, due to increasing stupidity from the characters and plot contrivances, things eventually end.

This movie is pretty bad. Bad acting, bad story, bad effects, bad pacing. There is no reason to really watch this. This feels like someones first draft for a story that just got made without anyone considering if it actually makes sense or is even worthwhile watching.

1 out 5 artifical waffles. 

MOVIE REVIEW: LIFE OR SOMETHING LIKE IT (2002)

Life or Something Like It is a movie that feels like it is going for Oscar Bait. Instead, by the end of the movie, it manages to undermine its own message while playing into every bad romantic movie cliche that is know. Some spoilers ahead.

Angelina Jolie stars as a hotshot reported. She seems to have the perfect life- dating a famous baseball player and being successful in her own career. However, the plot kicks off with a fortune teller telling her she would die in a week and then predicting some other stuff correctly to make her believe him.

This leads her on a journey of self-discovery. She predictably goes through the motions of realising her relationship is shallow when her boyfriend tries to help her out. I'm still not sure why. She then gets together with a guy she had a one night stand with years ago. She then gets drunk and makes a fool of herself on television, which (of course) gets allot of exposure and a promotion for her.

At the end of the day, the movie just plods along with a generic plot. Even at the end, the whole message is undermined when she interviews a celebrity. Then, for some reason, the celebrity has a break down on air when she is reminded she isn't married. 

This undermines the message the film is trying and failing to send with being happy with yourself. The final message is that, if you aren't in a relationship, you can't be happy. Which makes her even more hypocritical as she is literally getting together with her two-night stand guy.

1 out of 5 waffles or something like them.

BOARD GAME REVIEW: HARVEST DICE

Harvest Dice is from a genre of games that seems to be gaining in popularity recently. These are Roll 'n Write games, where you roll some dice (or draw cards or some other randomizer) and then use the results to mark a sheet of paper depending on different criteria for final scoring.

Harvest Dice has a farming theme. In it, you are drafting dice to fill in a grid with three vegetables. Atternatively, you can feed unusable dice to the pig to build up a bonus track to manipulate dice. At the end of the round, one unused dice that is left increases the points earned from that type of vegetable.

It is a pretty simple game. It is a spatial optimisation puzzle on your paper. However, the market mechanic means there is a good amount of interaction. This also leads to some good decisions because to increase the scoring of a vegetable means (by necissity) having less of that vegetable on your pad.

This is a very simple game. Even the "advanced" variant isn't too hard. In addition to this, the game is fairly inexpensive. My normal complaint here is I would prefer laminated sheets and dry-erase markers over sheets of paper. However, for the price, I am quite happy to simply laminate my own when my supply of game sheets runs low. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this game. It had a nice market mechanic that gives indirect interaction and led to hard decisions, even in the solo mode. While not the deepest of games, it is easy to teach and set-up and is allot of game in a small package. It is also a great travel game to take around.

4 out of 5 harvesting waffles.

BOARD GAME REVIEW: GAIA PROJECT

So Terra Mystica is a game I am not too fond of. I think it is okay, but after playing it a handful of times, it just isn't that interesting to me. All the pieces are there, but I think the sum of its parts is greater than the whole. Terra Mystica is a very well regarded game, however, and it has a sequel of sorts in Gaia Project.

Gaia Project is set in space. The goal of the game is to increase your races technology while you terraform and colonise planets on the board. You do this to form federations, get income, and score points. At the end of the game, most points is the winner.

Gaia Project is a very fascinating game. Each of its systems is tied together and feels like it has a good give-and-take. For example, the technology levels don't only give you points and technology, but also make things cheaper and give bonuses. These bonuses can increase your income and make you more efficient, which then let you do other things (such as increase technology) to keep the cycle going.

The changes Gaia Project makes over Terra Mystica makes the game a bit more exciting and gives  a bit more freedom. It is still a tight optimisation puzzle, but you can chain up moves allot easier to pull off big plays. The actual board (having blank space between planets) also reinforces this, as it is harder to block people off completely but the focus is still on stealing their planets. 

The only downsides are that the rulebook should have a glossary of key terms. The difference between neighbouring, neighbouring area or neighbourhood are huge and take a bit of finding if you need to look them up. The other thing is that the components are plastic. While they are nice, they don't quite have the same timeless wooden feel of Terra Mystica. Analysis Paralysis can also easily set in for players.

This is a very fascinating game. The more I play it the more I enjoy it as I explore the systems. As times is going by, it is slowly climbing its way higher into my favorite games.

5 out of 5 Terraformed Waffles. 

MOVIE REVIEW: RIDICULOUS 6

Ridiculous 6 is a spoof title, playing on Magnificent 7. In the story, a father of 6 different children (all to different mothers) is kidnapped. In order to rescue him, the sons band together (after finding out about eachother), with each bringing their unique skills and talents to the table.

And it is also an Adam Sandler movie. So you know what that means. It is a bunch of cameos, low brow humour, and no real consistent character motivations or story. I know that is what I should expect, but I also know that it should be funny. I expect better than the occasional chuckle.

So that is what you get. Adam Sandler is a white man raised as an Indian. One of his brothers can't talk but can mime things. One of the brothers is really dumb. Etc. Just think of all the stereotypes and think of how to make their interactions nearly devoid of humour or entertainment. 

And that is it at the end of the day. The Ridiculous 6 travel through America, meeting characters from history and trying to be funny for the lowest common demoninator. The story makes nearly no sense. The plot twists and reveals are pretty obvious. And the best it ever gets is the occasional chuckle.

For a comedy, that isn't good enough. And should never accept these type of movies as being "good for what they are" or with a "what did you expect" without calling them out for it.  

1 out of 5 ridiculous waffles.