Moonshot: Borderlands Adds a Dark Middle Chapter with 'The Pre-Sequel'

Jack's back! And he's still a tool. In fact, according to the new Borderlands he was always a tool – no personal tragedies or cruel twists of unbiased fate needed here, as jerks are born - not made - in whatever galaxy Pandora is located (actually, that's pretty universal, isn't it?). Gearbox's latest trip to the trippiest planetary system in known space isn't exactly Shakespearean tragedy – Jack's hubris serves him unbelievably well and there's no downfall to be found here – but at least we get to see the bad guy's journey from wisecracking A-with-a-capital-Hole to the mass-murdering malfeasant we've come to love. And hey, it's a trilogy now!

I asked a friend not long ago if he was excited for the 'new Borderlands' and he scoffed, saying “It's not really a new Borderlands”. In a way he was right, though I think perhaps he meant it in a manner less cordial than this game deserves. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel certainly does not reinvent the wheel, but it does thicken the series' already lively mythology and offer up a generous new helping of all the things that makes Borderlands so damned good – guns, explosions, jokes, and fun. Perhaps inevitably, it also strong-arms the audience into a darker, more deranged place thanks to the downward trajectory of the characters, not to mention a handful of disquieting scenes that sent me to bed early with a glass of warm milk. Alas, TPS tends toward gimmickry and falls a bit shy of it's predecessor's highest of high water marks quality-wise, but the quibbles are largely forgivable when weighed against the sheer volume of shoot-'n-loot that is Borderlands' beloved hallmark.

Honestly, we should be happy Borderlands even made it this far. When Gearbox Software released the original in 2009 it was largely an experiment – a hybrid shooter/role-player that mixed non-stop gunning with level grinding, skill trees and meticulous item management. It might have crashed and burned, or bulwarked the $5 bins in your local game store for years to come. But Borderlands found an audience in people who enjoyed the irreverent tone of the game, the glitzy action, and the ability to tailor chosen characters to their own play style. Add to that the thrill of the LOOT: thousands of weapon combos and the tantalizing carrot that every item recovered was potentially rare, potentially kick-ass and potentially never to be seen again and you had an addictive brew for sure.

Borderlands 2 was a master class in doing a sequel right: Gearbox did everything bigger and better, tweaking the controls, exponentially expanding loot potential, incorporating an actual story and sending us into Pandora's more diverse and colorful environs (a welcome change from the first game's monochromatic trash fields and wastelands). It also introduced one of the most memorable villains in gaming history: motormouthed psychopath Handsome Jack, a genius with a grudge against the entire planet and an unhealthy obsession with Pandora's mysterious energy-spewing Vault. Though he is physically on-screen for less than five minutes, Jack's God-like omnipresence (and ceaseless goading) drove you to the final showdown and the jerkbag's deliciously satisfying defeat.

 The Pre-Sequel takes us back a few years to when Handsome Jack was simply Jack (or 'John' to his hated superiors) and had not yet donned his facsimile face mask or displayed a proclivity for pure evil. Little breadcrumbs from the last game – mostly in the form of audio recordings and the dialogue of supporting characters – had maybe suggested Jack's past was muddled and his descent into villainy not the result of mere megalomania. Eh, not quite. But TPS treats players to a backstory that shows Jack in a (kinda) sympathetic light and makes his hateful mein in the last game (almost) understandable. It also fills in the gaps of what is probably the most interesting time in the series' mythology, the period shortly after the Vault is opened but before Jack uses it's vast Eridium reserves to become the mad tyrant of Pandora. If there's a tragedy here it is the infection on prequel-itis and the sense that we missed out on a more interesting Pandora-based chapter in favor of an entirely new setting; the developers debuted some new toys but told a more cookie-cutter tale in the process.

The action shifts to Pandora's volcanic moon of Elpis, loaded – nay, brimming – with Aussies, as well as the Hyperion Corporation's Helios space station, the H-shaped monstrosity ever-looming in the skies no matter which direction you turn. Jack, a lowly and unappreciated Hyperion engineer, has summoned Vault Hunters to him in secret to exploit what only he knows to be the vast potential of the Vault's contents. The Dahl Corporation has other plans, however, and invades Helios with an armada of ships and an army of space-suited commandos. As Jack's new hire it falls to you to help liberate the space station and strike back against Dahl before proceeding toward the riches of the Vault.

What follows is standard Borderlands fare: blasting from one waypoint to the next with Schwarzeneggerian zeal while ticking off a list of little chores in service to the larger story. Do not EVER expect a switch or lever to work correctly the first time, and if you think you're going to cross any stretch of land or – God help you – a bridge uncontested then you don't know Borderlands and you might, truthfully, be happier playing Mario Kart. It's cool, though, because you're going to need all those kills to level up one of four new classes of playable characters, each for the first time an actual participant in the story with a history – or future role to play – in the series. Veterans of the DLC The Secret Armory of General Knoxx will remember Athena, the assassin from the defunct Atlas Corporation, while Borderlands 2 devotees will recognize both Nisha, the foul-tempered pistolero, and perhaps most famously Wilhelm, the cyborg enforcer who earlier appeared as an evil boss. Rounding it out is Claptrap, the beloved, bumbling trashcan-on-a-unicycle robot that is the unmistakable mascot of the series. How did it take this long to make that dude a playable character?

Something else fans will remember from prior games and DLCs: pacing, which continues to be a problem despite the more focused story and the best efforts of developer 2K Australia. The character's elaborate skill trees demand prodigious leveling – more than can ever be achieved in one playthrough – which most of the time is achieved with long, sloggy slow parts during or between missions where respawning minions are mowed down like wheatgrass and seemingly mundane tasks are arbitrarily stretched to absurd time-chewers. Side missions help push the XP up considerably, but in the case of TPS they seem truly extraneous and forced in what is otherwise supposed to a be beat-the-clock

kind of story. But padding your level becomes indispensable since the story quests surge up in difficulty and you find yourself more overwhelmed and outgunned than usual if you try bulling through the main campaign in one shot. The effect is that so much time elapses between the milestones of the narrative you often forget what it was you were supposed to be doing and – more importantly – why you were doing it. By the end of the second act it is apparent the game is suffering from Phantom Menace-like symptoms as it burns hours telling a story that doesn't need to be a told, a systemic problem of ALL prequels despite the industry's love of them. The requisite 'big villain' is of little consequence ultimately and her evil scheme never comes to pass anyway. Yet Pandora hangs like an overripe grapefruit in the background, the split in her southern continent visible from space as it spews magenta energy from the newly breached Vault. It's mocking us, reminding us of just how much story there is just over there...if only you can make it past still another jammed door or blown bridge.

There's a steeper learning curve on this title courtesy of Elpis's low gravity, one of the 'gimmicks' to which I referred. Players can bound high into the air, soar across otherwise impassable gaps with ease, and incorporate some offense with the 'gravity slam' – basically smashing your ass down on the ground – for an area-of-effect attack that can be souped up with status mods and bonus damage. The downside of this is that it is a bitch to master – if mastering is indeed possible – and all the while you're struggling to control

your wild flight you're being judiciously peppered with enemy ordinance and schooled mid-air by foes who can outmaneuver you as an F-22 might a balsa plane. It gets easier with practice and any Vault Hunter worth his salt will soon learn to incorporate the new attack into every fight (it's practically a necessity), but while it amps up the challenge it also adds a strange chore-like aspect to every battle, as seeking and winning the highest ground often takes priority over using your guns and skills to maximum effect. Much of the play environment, and indeed many of the mission requirements, utilizes the reformed mobility as a prerequisite to achieving your goals, something casual shooters may find maddening early on. I myself died more in the first 5-7 hours of gameplay than I ever did my entire first playthrough of Borderlands 2. Your first go at the story is always bound to get you turned around looking for a mission-sensitive item or out-of-the-way door, but with the addition of truly 3D combat Borderlands unrefined 2D maps are more of a hindrance than ever. Expect some gettin' lost time, and don't count on any of the locals giving you helpful directions.

The visuals are eye-popping and often bombastic – the last-gen platforms are definitely getting a workout – but with the caveat that we're in a more truly 'alien' environment than we're used to seeing in this series. Gone are the scintillating glaciers and windswept highlands of Pandora, the rocky coasts and sun-baked mesas. Elpis is a dark-skied place veined with garish stratum, snowy fissures and bizarre colors; only the bright yellow Helios station an exception. It can be bleak and decidedly 'foreign' at the same time and it made me yearn for the more naturalistic environments of past games. Fortunately the gameplay is smattered with familiar faces and references enough to stave off the worst homesickness – ex-Vault Hunters Lillith and Roland are here again as Jack's allies, an ironic turn that Borderlands players know won't last long. Noticeably absent is the most familiar face – a real face – in the Borderlands series, that of actress/model Britanni Johnson as Angel, the Artificial Intelligence guide whose ethereal live-action close-ups keep you company throughout the first two games. A puzzling omission, as this story takes place after Angel's first stint (and a tantalizing hint that she isn't really a computer) but before the stunning revelation in Borderlands 2 that she is, in fact, Jack's super-powered daughter, brutalized and enslaved by him for his evil purposes. Where on Earth (or Pandora) is that story???

In the end I still had a lot of fun despite my quibbles (and really, that's what games are about and Gearbox understands that). Kudos to voice actor Daemen Clark (sp) for once again playing Jack with such cocky abandon, and to the developers for probably the coolest and most inventive skill trees to date – Claptrap's VaultHunter.exe action skill alone is worth a second playthrough. But I couldn't stave off my long-standing animosity toward pre-anything to enjoy TPS perhaps as much as it deserved. Jack was the most interesting character of Borderlands 2 precisely because he was mysterious, his crazed take on the universe and his utter amorality a slap in the face of simple decency and a challenge to one's natural sense of order. But really, folks, when you ask 'Where did that loony come from??', you're speaking rhetorically. Having the question actually answered, especially in a plodding, piecemeal fashion, detracts from the character just as all excess of backstory detracts from any hero – or villain – worth your time.  

Bright Lights, Dark City - 'Gotham' (A Polite 'N Prefatory Review)

Riddlers, Penguins and maybe-Jokers (oh my!), but not a Two-Face to been seen. Odd, really, considering the schizophrenic nature of Gotham's premiere episode; ex-D.A. Harvey Dent would definitely be of two minds on the subject. On the one hand there's a passable cop story of corruption and betrayal (soft-boiled but pushing the 8 p.m. envelope for sure), focusing on young Jim Gordon, a newbie do-gooder, and his partner Harvey Bullock, a nihilist drunk, chasing the man who killed the Waynes. On the other you've got a Batman story that does not actually feature Batman, nor will it even should the show run many seasons. On the surface Gotham is a transparent try by DC Comics to milk more cash from their one sure-fire property and to win a timeslot with a wider draw than Arrow can offer. Underneath, however, I detect a genuinely good-hearted attempt to put old wine in new bottles by repackaging the Dark Knight's sacred canon, melding comic mythos and serial sensibilities into a show that wasn't awful and may very well get better.

So, back to the past we go. Just like Smallville, just like Star Trek, just like Terminator, just like the hated Prequels, to scratch the surface. Comedian Patton Oswalt lambasted Hollywood's baffling obsession with backstories with a theory called Jon Voight's Ballsack, i.e. if you like looking at something (Angelina Jolie), it follows that you will equally love the forbearer of that thing (the pink, glistening ball sack of actor Jon Voight from which Ms. Jolie emerged). Ergo, seeing where the things you love came from is just as good as seeing the things you love. Obviously Mr. Oswalt is a detractor, as am I, though I am willing to acknowledge those few exceptions that have proven the rule such as Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and, yes, Batman Begins. But if Begins was a retelling of Batman's origins, what is Gotham?

In as much as it can be judged from a single episode, it is less of a strict retelling of a pre-Bats Gotham and more of a selective re-imagining of the events and people that birthed him, a sort of 'what if...?' scenario fueled by the grimmest kind of whimsy. If you're a member of the Orthodox Church of the Batman and pillory any departures from immutable Dark Knight lore, this series may be more trouble for you than it's worth. I admit over 48 minutes to eliciting many a harumph myself and rolling my eyes more than a little. There are too many liberties both big and small for this to be considered an adaptation of existing work and the show rips it's britches more than once reconciling the ages, roles, backgrounds and personalities of the characters. Neophytes won't complain, but traditionalists will likely balk at the fuzzy math and blunt characterizations. 

Rather than expound for paragraphs on each detail I thought I'd share a sampling of my notepad from the debut episode - truly, first impressions are the most telling:

• “Rich city detail, furbelows and visual flare of Gotham – grit, lights, color, sound, steam, skyways(!)...how many composites, how much CG?”
• “Interesting: Wayne murder off-canon - deliberate handing of pearl necklace, shooting is COLD, INTENTIONAL, not panicked but calm and calculated...”
• “Gordon's cocky, has a backstory (ugh!), shouldn't have made him a soldier – PTSD bordering on trite...tells B. Wayne 'I know how you feel right now'...NO! NO, HE DOESN'T – HE NEVER HAS – THAT'S WHY JIM GORDON NEVER BECAME BATMAN HIMSELF.” [original caps and underlines from notes]
• “B. Wayne child actor seems very good.”
• “Alfred as a Guy Ritchie caricature-slash-soccer hooligan ('Mate' and 'oy!' with a RAISED VOICE!?!?) Not the lessons B-Man needs to learn from him..."
• “Dire need to hook audience ASAP...abandons subtlety, straight for the carrot – Riddler especially...slow down boy, we've got more episodes...
• “Jada P. Smith terrible as usual, chewing – gnashing – every goddamn scene...overdone...overdone...3 accents in 3 lines, or just awful at her job?"
• "Fish Mooney: understand need for non-white faces but Falcone employing non-family turf bosses is way outta character...”
• “Why is Cobblepot tall? Funny nose/milky complexion not half as important as small stature, dammit!!!”
• “Good job putting various cops at loggerheads...this is the most believable part...not overbearing, smart...”
• “They use old cellphones...BECAUSE IT'S THE PAST, GET IT???”
• “Supermodel wife, free r&b in a high-rise apartment w/a Hell of a view...how much of a sympathetic everyman is JG really??”
• “End: Don't think Gordon would've played Bullock's 'game', but can see the need to stretch conflict, tension, shows, and was that shot of TOXIC WASTE barrels at the docks supposed to be a hint???"

There's little I despise more than armchair quarterbacking – except maybe premature armchair quarterbacking – so I'll leave it at that. One episode is hardly enough to render a final judgment much less come down on the series for anything worse than quibbles. I will say I am a huge fan of showrunner Bruno Heller's series Rome, and it shouldn't be lost on anyone who followed that series how Heller vaulted the narrative ahead ten years from one episode to another almost without a wrinkle. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw something similar with Gotham should the show survive the ratings crucible; audiences will want to see the seeds sown in these early episodes bear fruit in less time than it will actually take for Wayne to don the cape and cowl. How long do you let a super-villain simmer before he's ready to pop?  We'll see.

And I'll be watching.    

'Destiny' Fulfilled? Slick Action, Jaw-Dropping Visuals Redeem a Surprisingly Shallow Shooter

Views like this make it all worth it...

Abraham Lincoln said 'You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time'.  Replace the word 'fool' with the word 'please' and you have an accurate summation of Destiny.  Not that folks who brought you Halo and its wildly successful sequels didn't try to be all things to all people, but it's easier to mention what Bungie Studio's new nine-figure opus isn't instead of what it is.  It ISN'T a role-playing game, it ISN'T an MMO, nor is it a plain vanilla 'shoot-the-bad-guy-bad-guy-falls-down' splatterfest.  It's like your first plate off the buffet line: a heaping mix of all those elements pureed with starchy post-apocalyptic flotsam and a heavy squeeze of arena combat slathered on top.  It fails to master any one of these elements but compensates for it by offering carpal tunnel-caliber quantities of everything on the menu.  It looks incredible and it's a lot of fun but, like even the best buffet in town, I wouldn't want to eat there every night.

Gameplay can be parsed into four categories.  Story Mode takes you through Destiny's narrative such as it is and presents you with a series of gradually more challenging scenarios, mini-bosses and end-level foes.  Progress here opens the map to new areas of the solar system for you to explore, from your starting point on Earth to Earth's moon, Venus, the asteroid belt and Mars.  Each of these settings is essentially a giant, highly detailed arena to which you will return again (and again) many times as you complete story-driven tasks.  Patrol is free play, a chance to romp over hill and dale killing as you go from the endlessly respawning supply of enemies. Here you can complete side missions for additional XP, cash and bonus loot.  Strike missions are three-man jobs that pit a fireteam of real dudes (that's you, and maybe your buddies) against high-level enemies and obstacles crafted specifically for this mode of play.  The XP and bonuses are big, but you have to play as a team (ugh).  Finally there is the Crucible, Destiny's all-purpose fight club where players engage in that timeless measuring of dicks known as PvP.  This is for people who enjoy the human aspect of a shared world game but won't get their money's worth until they've cornered an 10 year-old from Saskatchewan and shot him in the face with a space revolver.

If you couldn't tell, I'm a bit of a humbug when it comes to the more social aspects of the Destiny experience.  I dabbled in Massive Multiplayers, found I didn't care for them, and generally subscribe to the tenet that video games are best for escaping real people, not for bumping into still more of them.  I know many would argue that human players offer a different sort of challenge from computer foes, of which even the smartest remain pretty predictable.  No argument there, and at least as concerns the Strike missions I know I should be more of a participant.  But dueling random dudes and dudettes has never interested me; I fight enough such specimens when they merge into my lane during morning commute.  On the battlefield you're likely to stumble into a fracas-in-progress between a squad of goons and fellow Real Person.  Whether you join in is up to you, but as a lone wolf I know I wouldn't want anyone doing my fighting for me, so I tend to give my fellow Real People plenty of space.  I'm not much of a sharer, and if you're reading this for greater insight on Destiny's interactive elements, you might want to look elsewhere.

[ADDENDUM: Before posting this review I did participate in one of Destiny's 'Public Events', sort of communal free-for-all missions with big enemies and high-risk, high-reward combat.  The job here was to take down one stubborn foe with a lot of HP. Initially only myself and one other chap participated and we were badly outclassed, but Public Events are announced to all players in the area and in moments backup had arrived in the form of five other players.  We dog-piled on the guy and killed his ass, winning a 'Gold Tier' commendation and some fancy loot.  This constitutes only my second online interaction of my Destiny experience, the first being when I waved to a guy.]

So what's an antisocial scoundrel like myself to do?  There's grinding off course, hosing bad guys left and right purely for the purposes of leveling up and scouring better swag. Here at least Bungie provides ample incentive to put in the hours.  Your Guardian – either Titan (bruiser), Hunter (rogue), or Warlock (wizard) can equip a generous compliment of weapons that fall into broad categories – Main, Special, and Heavy – but there are no restrictions on which class of character can use which weapons; you are free to use what you like and pawn what you don't.  Weapons you do favor often attain special modifications and performance bonuses you can activate for a modest one-time fee, ensuring your tried-and-true armaments won't be overshadowed by the every shiny new thing.  The same goes for armor, which in a shared social game like Destiny is as much a badge of honor as the number over your name – players with the most tricked out threads are generally the most badass, and for myself (a Hunter) I confess a certain pride in achieving Level 10, ditching my beginner's scarf and donning a full-fledged cloak. I mean, c'mon...people are looking, after all.  Your character's skill trees are large and require patience to unlock all the way, but the upgrades are (mostly) worth the wait and you're even allowed to swap between certain skills depending on your style of play.  It's a thoughtful system that keeps you hungry, humble, and on your toes.

Bungie further pads the grind aspect by integrating other forms of currency with correspondingly awesome rewards.  Vanguard Points are awarded for completing Patrol bounties and Motes of Light – awarded for dispensing enemies with your special attack – can be redeemed for special gear.  The problem with ALL these currencies is that they are hard to come by, slow to accumulate, and a bitch to remember which goes where.  The developers clearly recognized the need to give the player a reason to keep picking up the controller once the story was done.  The varied coinage – and the glacial rate at which bonuses accrue – dangle just enough carrot over the average gamer to keep him coming back, bleary-eyed and stiff-backed, chanting the ceaseless mantra “one more mission, one more mission”.  I know because I'm guilty of this myself, which is a testament at least to how well the Halo makers know their audience and how to keep them hooked.

'Okay, now I KNOW this isn't the line for Comic Con...'

So what is Destiny about, anyway? Good question. I'll let you know when I figure it out.

I jest, but only kinda.  If there's a weak link in this title's presentation it is definitely the thin and utterly baffling plot, a hazy soup of disjointed backstory, foggy technobabble, and muddled sci-fi tropes. What I do know is you (good guy) must discover the mysteries behind the benevolent Traveler (big floating sphere guy) and it's arch-nemesis the Darkness (bad guy) by exploring the ruins of humanity's once great civilization before it was destroyed by evil jerkwads. Sounds like a lot of stuff you've heard before, only Destiny attempts this without a single fleshed-out character or passable line of dialogue.  Your hero begins a blank slate and remains so throughout, barely uttering three full sentences during the (rare) cutscenes as he/she (passably) interacts with a supporting cast of monotone dullards.  Considering the caliber of the script, however, reticence is probably a good thing.  Here's my favorite doozy: “They're so evil they even despise all other evil.” Well shit, I'm no expert but that sounds really evil to me.  Add to that a disembodied central villain with no face or voice and a horde of terra cotta enemies that never feel threatening and it becomes damned difficult to stay engaged. This is the Star Wars prequels with shaken baby syndrome.

Story missions are light on red meat and heavy on the breadcrumbs, as in the trail of breadcrumbs you follow mission after mission, killing hordes of underlings then waiting for your floating eyeball AI named Ghost (Game of Throne's Peter Dinklage) to tell you why you're here, at which point Ghost spouts some flummery about decoding signals and ancient evils. Shoot some stuff, get some loot, mission ends, good show, ripping job...now do it again. It is repetitive, it is predictable, and though it provides more variety than Patrol mode, like Kathy Griffin, it can't avoid getting old forever. Dinklage gets a decent selection of lines, though we hear them through a tinny filter and can glean only a flutter of emotion.  Much was made of the 'woodenness' of his performance during Destiny's alpha and beta testing, but considering what Mr. Dinklage is made to work with I think he does just fine; he's also the closest thing you're going to get to a real performance in this game, making it akin to a damp sponge in the midst of a barren desert that feels like a gushing oasis.

But at least your eyes will be entertained.  Come what may, Destiny is a joy to look at. On a PS4 the light, shading, textures and colors are all sublime, with a degree of fine detail probably not seen on the next-gen systems thus far.  Action, in particular gunfights, are varied and seamless with no noticeable lag or chop even when the screen is afire with warriors and ordinance.  I wish there was more time to just gawk at the scenery but a shared world waits for no man, especially when the bad guys can shoot you even when you hit 'Pause'.

Around hour five or so the thought will likely hit you (as it did me): what's missing? Were we swindled by Bungie, who promised us the world and failed to deliver? Why does this review join a chorus of others expressing a similar sentiment – that we signed up for filet mignon and ended up with ground chuck?  If we were promised a vast and expansive world, why do the various settings eventually feel like cages?  Why the repetition? Why the emotional disconnect?

Well, Bungie surely did what any game developer would do, which was market their game as aggressively as possible – a $500 million price tag doesn't leave a company many other options for securing a RoI. Looking back on the trailers and demos, the E3 showcase and the beta feedback, it was easy to be hornswaggled into thinking the finished version would be an epic of never-before-seen proportions, a Lord of the Rings meets Firefly with a liberal dash of Elder Scrolls.  Alas, if anyone can be accused of having head-in-clouds syndrome it's us, the players.  I believed the hype, too, and I was prepared to surrender a considerable amount of free time to mastering the world of Destiny in much the same way I did Skyrim: with a measured, methodical approach that allowed me to explore the whole of the virtual world, wander at a Gandalf-ian pace and see the sights. Alas, you can't do that.  The virtual world is a coliseum of carnage dressed in pretty gems and the stark plains and rolling hillsides are drenched in alien goo.  We'll have to wait another day for a truly immersive space story in the next-gen. Until then all we can do is shoot.

Bungie promises added replay value in the future. This isn't just a shared world, after all, it's an online one, constantly growing, updating, and refining itself.  Scheduled events called 'raids' offer Woodstock-like gatherings of Guardian faithful for the chance to participate in epic showdowns, and the currency system ensures there's reason to grind even after hitting the 'soft' level cap of 20. Is Bungie covering it's butt, stung, perhaps, by the lukewarm feedback?  Or have we really come in on the ground floor of a new paradigm in gaming, that of a collective universe where developer and player(s) interact continuously and the best is yet to come?  It's possible that a year or two from now the initial Destiny experience may be just growing pains on the way to a game-making revolution that may, among other things, leave curmudgeons like myself in the dust.  In the meantime I plan to enjoy Destiny for what it is and not dwell on what it isn't. I may not like sharing my world, but I am an eternal optimist.

Ludicrous Speed - Break-Neck Plot Propels 'Guardians of the Galaxy' to a Win

Sorry, the other maid service was booked solid...

Guardians of the Galaxy is the tale of a ravenous, despotic power forced to overcome a stubborn, slippery foe and achieve the unachievable.  

Yes, let's talk about the Disney Corporation for a moment, and the odds stacked against it with the release of this thoroughly fun flick.

Okay, the House that Mickey Built seems at times like the Third Reich of American Media, having gobbled up ABC, ESPN and LucasFilm Ltd. to namedrop some of their juiciest booty. But while 'Castle', 'SportsCenter' and a little start-up called Star Wars will no doubt bear fruit for years to come, Disney's chief child soldier is and will remain Marvel Worldwide Inc. and its vast lexicon of eminently popular, eminently bankable characters in this, the golden age of super hero cinema.

But space is cold, hostile and cruel, and the milieu in which space movies have been forced to compete for the box office is hardly better.  Survival, much less profitability, is a dubious prospect if it isn't from a grandfathered franchise with serious name recognition. Serenity and Avatar come to mind as the last truly noble efforts to entice John and Jane Public to a film set among the stars that didn't have Wars or Trek in the title. Serenity, despite a built-in cult following, petered out. Avatar...did a little better.

Point is, Guardians of the Galaxy faced an uphill battle against a generally uninformed public that is historically apathetic when offered a sci-fi joint filled with unfamiliar faces and a bevy of technobabble. No lightsabers? No funny droids to dither and chirp? No Leonard Nemoy to smear gravitas on the lens and explain the plot with a clarion baritone? Not interested. Could even the Olympian might of the Marvel Machine overcome such an implacable nemesis? After all, Robert Downey Jr.'s coifed gourd poking out from the gleaming Iron Man armor is one thing. But a movie poster with exactly zero recognizable faces and no capes, no masks, no Hulk SMASH! and not so much as a glimpse of Scarlet Johannssen's...um...eyes? Another thing entirely.

Or so it seemed. As I write this, Guardians of the Galaxy appears to have conquered the foe. A $37.8 million dollar opening day began a weekend run that capped at $94 million by Sunday afternoon. That's better than Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Thor: The Dark World. Yes, Disney has beaten the odds yet again.

And I'm not going to begrudge them for a moment. Not this time. Because Guardians is more than just a crowd-pleaser; it's a damned entertaining, old school adventure that keeps you riveted and giggling, often at the same time. It is also a dyed-in-the-wool comic book movie, a whip-smart adaptation of a more obscure (but no less beloved) Marvel property, steadfast to its source material, totally reverent in its irreverence.

Meet Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), ordinary Earth boy abducted by space pirates (you know: pirates, but in space) practically from the foot of his mother's death bed to parts unknown for reasons unknown. A couple decades later he's a cocky, pistol-toting outlaw/thief/puckish rogue known by the oft-mocked moniker 'Starlord'. Quill makes his living desecrating alien tombs for unscrupulous treasure brokers, which he does with gusto and class and an arsenal of groovy dance moves. Though he's spent most of his life in deep space, the awesome might of 80's America clearly lives on in his punchy, pop culture-suffused slang and his use of a Walkman for his musical accompaniment. Quill's latest score, a chrome-ish sphere called simply 'the Orb', is coveted by the tyrannical Kree Empire (looking a tad too much like the s & m antagonists from The Chronicles of Riddick) and its mysterious benefactor, the mad despot Thanos. Why? What for? Does it matter? It's a thin excuse for ceaseless action and mayhem on a biblical scale, and that's the only kind of excuse you need. At some point we'll get to the pesky reasons for everything, but until then it's just a matter of hanging on for the ride.

And what a ride. Starlord quickly runs afoul not only of the blue-skinned Kree but also the green-skinned killer hottie Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and a pair of wonky bounty hunters: Rocket, a short-tempered cad who also happens to be a genetically reconstituted raccoon, and Groot, an eight-foot tall humanoid tree - imagine Swamp Thing's good-natured younger brother. The former is an acid-tongued motormouth, the latter a monosyllabic simpleton (and it will take a better man than I to manage all the Vin Diesel jokes here) who can only say 'I am Groot', albeit with a multitude of subtle inflections that convey volumes of meaning. The early scramble and subsequent melee to secure the Orb results in all four heroes-to-be captured and jailed, thereby ensuring ample opportunity for them to bond, come to terms with stuff, and collaborate on a harebrained jailbreak that cements their loyalty to one another. Gosh, what are the chances?

The quest for fortune and glory takes a turn for the heavy when it is revealed that the Orb is a containment device housing one of the Infinity Gems, a revelation guaranteed to elicit an “Awww, yeah!” from anyone who read Marvel comics in the 90's (these hypothetical readers of the yore would happily tell you the Infinity Gem is actually one of a set of six which collectively imbue the user with powers at a level only God himself is supposed to have...but I'm getting ahead of myself). A minor demonstration of the little purple stone's titanic energies is plenty for Quill and his new friends to get serious and take the fight straight to the Kree, in particular the psychotic Ronan the Accuser, a standard S/F douche tired of taking orders from the aloof Thanos. Throw in loads of teeth-jarring action, some serious sibling rivalry, and a fifth hero in the form of Drax the Destroyer, a vengeful tank of a man too stubborn to lose, let simmer for two hours and you've got Guardians of the Galaxy.

What impressed me most about the film was its ceaseless momentum, a sort of focused hyperactivity that kept the plot plunging ahead and to Hell with whoever got lost along the way. This was accomplished thanks to a huge amount of narrative negative space: virtually all backstory is implied, assumed, or just outright ignored in favor of sheer kinetic thrust. Exposition is rare in this flick, and when it does become absolutely necessary it is fileted like fine oro tuna, leaving only the choicest bits for consumption; everything else is discarded as extraneous. Quill's twenty lost years and his transformation into Starlord are never once explained; it is merely presented to you as fact that he not only survived his ordeal but came away pretty badass for the experience. Similarly it is taken as a given that the Marvel Universe, previously grounded mostly on a real-ish Earth, is indeed rife with alien beings, cosmic entities, a corps of cosmic lawmen, and entire civilizations of humans not actually from our galactic cul-de-sac.

It's a bee, right?!  Oh, God, I hate bees!  Get it!  Get it!

A bloated script, a boorish cast or a compulsive insistence to explain everything would likely result in disaster with such an approach. But director James Gunn, whose previous credits include the horror-parody Slither and who shares credit for the abomination that was Movie 43, hurls Guardians like a guided missile towards the end credits and trusts the audience will simply be buoyed along in the updraft. He was right: generally you're having so much fun you never notice the (rare) misstep, which for me manifested primarily in Saldana's beige-plain delivery and general wooden-ness. It is not omnipresent – she gets some base hits here and there – but it is more noticeable when contrasted with an otherwise seamless cast. Offsetting it is that fact that the camera seems to adore Ms. Saldana and her glorious cheekbones, which motion-captured her way to our hearts in Avatar when her skin was blue instead of green (mind = blown). Color seems to be one of Gunn's strong suits; he even manages to make space itself look interesting, splashing the starry backgrounds with radiant nebulae and exotic cosmic décor that looks not unlike backlit sewage drifting through Waterford crystal.

Two other things help immensely: despite the frantic pace, Guardians of the Galaxy never fails to be funny and many times it also manages to be sweet. The low moments, those very brief pauses in the action, are reserved not for cosmic history lessons but for endearing character moments that humanize the otherwise invincible heroes and make each one of them feel less like archetypes (bruiser, assassin, thief) and more like people, good dudes you'd delight to swap stories with over warm beers at two in the morning. Groot gets the best of these moments, but a surprising runner-up is Dave Bautista's Drax, who manages pained contrition and a handful of wicked, low-key zingers with equal skill. And speaking of which...

Yeah, Guardians is freakin' funny. Granted, there's a bit of a shotgun approach to the humor, a sense at times that they were throwing every potential gag at the wall and seeing what would stick, but the yucks are pretty much all decanted from the same bottle: wry, sardonic, subversive and shit-eating. Rocket gets the best of this – in particular a time bomb-style gag involving a prosthetic leg that had my theater in stitches – and the delivery of Bradley Cooper as Rocket's voice is a welcome asset. On the whole I'm not a fan of Mr. Cooper – even in starring roles he always seems like he'd rather be somewhere else – but here he does much more than just phone in a quick buck from the sound studio, infusing the little rodent with equal parts Bill Murray and Andrew Dice Clay.

So it looks as though Marvel has unveiled the other end of it's Grand Unification Plan, having firmly established the Avengers and expanded comic universe Earth-side and now starting at the other end with Guardians and working toward the middle. The idea, presumably, is for the heroes of the last decade's worth of films to stretch out into space and confront the 'cosmic' threats that have so long been a part of Marvel's biggest arcs. We've already got a brief scene featuring Thanos (a comfortable Josh Brolin, effectively sporting stubble on his purple chin) and will no doubt be seeing more of the Infinity Stones, too.

Until then Marvel and proud papa Disney can once again sit pretty.

Those jerks. 

World Enough and Time - 'X-Men: Days of Future Past'

Bryan Singer knows “X-Men” movies.

If you can take away just one thing from near-on fifteen years of mutants on celluloid, that seems a safe and solid observation. There's conservation of movement in the way Singer directs, a Bruce Lee sort of approach that is precise, efficient, and beautiful without being showy. Best of all, he can take a Jenga tower of a subject like the X-Men and trim its gangly, teetering, awkwardly complex universe down to two hours of red meat without ruining it. And he's had practice. After all, it was Singer who started us on this road in the first place; we've come so far down the now-illustrious superhero cinema trail people tend forget that fact. Fully two years before Sam Raimi's Spider-Man made it okay for normals to like comic book movies, Fox took a gamble on a cast of second-string actors, a pair of aging British thespians and one Australian soap opera hunk and plopped an afterthought of an X-Men film in the hands of the young director who many considered to be unblooded (though his trophy wall already boasted The Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil). By today's standards the first 'X' film must seem a spit varnish affair – short, structurally basic, heavily reliant on old-school stunts and utterly standalone, free of franchise considerations, tie-ins or long-term contracts. I remember opening night well; it was a tense couple of hours, myself and my closest friends in the world waiting to see if our faith in the inherent awesomeness of comics on the big screen would be validated or if our hopes would be dashed in a farcical showcase of cheese, ineptitude and apathy to the source material.

Things turned out pretty well, with Singer largely to thank for it. With X2: X-Men United he proved his slick, stylized approach wasn't a fluke, making an altogether better film that improved on every aspect of his freshman effort and enriching the mutant mythology a hundredfold. Now with X-Men: Days of Future Past Singer's back, a decade older and with at least one stinging failure under his belt. But did the turgid 5-bean burrito dump that was Superman Returns teach Singer some valuable lessons, or did it merely embitter him and tempter his exuberance with an excess of caution?

As to the latter, the answer is no. DOFP is vintage Singer: a smart, taut, compulsively watchable flick that is a winner both as a comic book film and as a top-notch addition to the X saga. It stands as at least as good an effort as X2 and oftentimes even flirts with being the superior film. It's a familiar-looking effort, no question – Singer finds his old groove and sticks to it – but it reminds us of all the things that made his vision of the X-Men so damn enjoyable in the first place (and lays bare how boorish and facile a job the other X-directors did in his absence).

We come into this film from a damnably strange place, the last few X installments having been bandied hither and thither by studio jockeys who – gosh, brace yourselves – seemed more concerned with pumping out money-makers rather than actual stories. Wolverine got two sub-par efforts in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (bad) and The Wolverine (meh), both star vehicles for Hugh Jackman that did nothing to enhance the subtle, complex Logan character and hopelessly muddied the myth/chronology of the X-world. The much better X-Men: First Class had loftier goals story-wise and the added challenge of carrying itself without the likeable Mr. Jackman (save for a blisteringly funny cameo), but it suffered from the syndrome so effectively described by comedian Patton Oswalt as 'Jon Voight's ballsack' – that is, do we honestly care where the story started, why Xavier and Magneto are enemies, how they came to be at loggerheads? Like the beautiful Angelina Jolie, do we really need know where it all came from? Point is, thanks to X-overload the average viewer at this point probably doesn't know a Morlock from an Ewok from a Deathlok.

With DOFP Singer attempts to sweep the table clear of narrative clutter and knock the franchise back into alignment, ignoring or outright eliminating many of the most egregious evils wrought by his understudies (killing Cyclops, anyone?) and putting the timeline back on True North. And to do it he delved into one of the most iconic and beloved X-stories of all time.

Days of Future Past was originally the brainchild of “X-Men” co-writers Chris Claremont and John Byrne, as potent a comic-making duo as ever there was (sadly, disagreements over the story contributed heavily to their eventual schism). It postulated an early 21^st century in which Xavier's dream of human-mutant coexistence ended in spectacular failure due to the assassination of a prominent anti-mutant senator by the shapeshifting terrorist Mystique. Instead of cowing humanity into accepting mutant rule, the brazen murder only validated humanity's worst fears of mutants as a threat to their species. Cue the arrival of the Sentinels, automated killing machines designed to hunt and execute all mutants everywhere. In the comics the Sentinel's broad mission parameters caused them to go all SkyNet, expanding their pogrom first to all super-powered individuals and then finally to the humans who built them. The Sentinels take over the whole show, obliterate Earth's governments and infrastructure, and turn our world into a giant prison camp. Fortunately the mutant phaser Kitty Pryde hatched a plan that allowed her to warn the disco-era X-Men and stop the assassination from ever happening, saving the world. The film largely mirrors this story, albeit with some franchise-sensitive adjustments, and weaves a parallel narrative in which future and present actions occur simultaneously. The result, thanks to an intelligent script and a no-egos ensemble cast, is a damn good yarn that keeps the pressure up and the action at full blast.

Wolverine takes center stage yet again, assuming the time-traveling role originally meant for Pryde. This would be one of the franchise considerations I mentioned, as the X-films live and die by their star, Jackman, and the need to cram as much of ol' Canucklehead onto the screen as possible. No argument here – this is Jackman's best effort since X2. The plot device used to explain why Logan is needed for the time-jaunt is clever enough, although the writers play it fast and loose with other considerations, such as how Pryde (Ellen Page) can utilize her power to manipulate time in the first place (hint: they don't bother explaining). Suffice to say after a brief, violent introduction to the nigh-unbeatable Sentinels of tomorrow (and a fight/massacre scene that will NOT please the young 'uns) Logan is blasted back to the days of bellbottoms and promiscuous sex faster than you can say “Austin Powers joke!”. Any number of amusing Wolverine-as-a-clueless-time-traveler moments follow.

The would-be victim of Mystique's murderous intent this time is weapons scientist Bolivar Trask (a scene-stealing Peter Dinklage), inventor of the Sentinels and occasional mutterer of an anti-mutant slur. Trask mongers fear amongst the Washington elite, salting the wounds of the recently ended Vietnam war by comparing the South East Asian debacle with the coming race war between humans and mutants. This war, Trask insists, is winnable...if only the top brass has the balls to greenlight his controversial giant robot program (and when have giant robots ever NOT worked out great for all concerned?). Wolverine is tasked with reuniting the morose-but-mobile Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and a younger Magneto (Michael Fassbender), a chore made even chore-ier by the fact that Xavier has been (conveniently) denuded of his psychic powers and Magneto remains a violent ideologue who has a hard time seeing the problem with Mystique's methods. The majority of the middle act is devoted to the patient build-up to the crucial moment when Mystique (the always enrapturing Jennifer Lawrence in all her body-painted glory) takes her fateful shot, but prior to that we are treated to two stellar sequences that are extreme crowd pleasers: the introduction of mutant speedster Quicksilver and the liberation of Magneto from his Pentagon holding cell courtesy of the most improbable – and hilarious – prison break ever.

But nothing is ever as it seems, nor should it be. Instead of stringing the audience along toward a single climax that might fall flat after two hours of anticipation, Singer and crew complicate Logan's mission in unexpected ways and turn what seemed like a cut-and-dried time travel joint into 'whoooa' territory worthy of Keanu Reeves. A classic destiny paradox intervenes – Mystique's initial effort is stopped, but the hero's actions only precipitate the course of their disastrous future rather than prevent it, setting up an infinitely more satisfying third act at the President's doorstep where Trask's “classic” Sentinels – the ones we geeks all know and secretly love – make their debut. Young Xavier, who spends most of the film moping, must ultimately sacrifice his legs and reclaim his mental powers in order to change the fate of the world. 

As with EVERY other X-film, the writers are forced to scramble for ways to alternately stymie, forestall or outright remove Xavier's vast telepathic powers from the mix because they are a story-killer: the man can literally do anything with his brain, prompting thousands of “why can't he just...?” scenarios that would bring a swift end to any conflict. But it's handled better here than before by giving Xavier an ethical quandary: though he has the power to simply “shut down” Mystique he doesn't want to, as he has a long and loving history with the misguided metamorph whom he still believes is capable of doing the right thing. Therein lies the heart of the matter: the dream of peaceful coexistence can't be won with superpowers; it has to come from the heart of every ordinary person. The conflict between universal acceptance versus forcing everyone to simply “see it your way” is revisited many times with many characters, heroes and villains, each time giving us a glimpse into the other guy's worldview but never plating up a simple black-and-white answer. Add to the brew the idea that “time is a river” as Hank 'Beast' McCoy suggests and that the Sentinel's rise might indeed be unalterable and you've got a film that has weight as well as muscle.

Fortunately Singer uses the future narrative to keep things extra-lively. The post-Sentinel apocalypse is indeed a bleak thing to behold, but it's rife with X-cameos and doesn't let up the tension for an instant. The handful of mutants still free are a hunted bunch, constantly running from the next-gen Sentinels who have chameleon-like adaptive abilities that cannot be overcome (a tribute to the 'Nimrod'-class machines from the comics). Old Xavier and Old Magneto have long since buried the hatchet and now lead these stragglers from New York to Moscow to China while desperately trying to keep Logan tethered like a balloon spider between present and past. But the Sentinels are always hunting, always running them down, and that the heros will be overcome yet again is inevitable. There's ample hand-wringing to go around.

I can imagine comics purists balking at some of the future stuff. The script leaves a yawning gulf between the assassination of Trask and how all of Earth – or at least two of its most important cities – became a desiccated wasteland. A few snippets of dialogue fudge the explanation as best as possible, trying, I assume, to avoid too many comparisons to Terminator (i.e. the Sentinels became self-aware) or delving too far into comic book mythology (wherein the Sentinels become foot soldiers for the over-the-top harpoon-wielding villain Ahab and things get very Claremont very fast). There is also a great deal of fast-and-loose play with mutant powers, chemical serums, and the general capabilities of many of characters in order to shove the plot along; many times we're asked to just accept the fact that certain people can do certain things without any context or rationale – it's simply “Well, they're mutants. Go with it.” But by the time you raise your hand in protest the action has moved on and you have to keep up or get left behind, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

So does Singer ultimately succeed? Largely, yes. The climax is thrilling and the wrap-up, while guilty of some wonky time-generalities, does indeed scrub away much of the cloudy continuity, eliminating the misguided developments of X3: The Last Stand and bridging the ten-year gap in Singer's contributions. The 'future' to which Logan returns is altogether different, if a tad confusing, but leaves us in a place where the franchise can essentially launch anew in an entirely different and (mostly) logical direction. Stick around for the end credits to see where that direction is mostly likely to go. Or just read it on the Internet.

Speaking of clean-up, some X-tra observations:

• Days of Future Past is probably one of the most fan-friendly comic book films ever. The movie is loaded with tiny tributes and extraneous flairs only longtime readers could love or appreciate, from the inclusion of mutant merc Bishop to the iconic “M”s carved over the eyes of interred victims to Xavier's hover chair. Also on the “didn't need it, but it's there anyway” list are Logan's gray sideburn streaks, something an ageless man in excess of two centuries old isn't likely to have...but he had 'em in the original comic, so there they were. Nice touch.
• I would kill to know how much Halle Berry was paid for her part, as she has about three minutes of screen time and approximately two lines.
• I would kill again to know how long Kelsey Grammar had to sit in a makeup chair to become the Beast, as he is onscreen for less than five seconds and the camera never actually focuses on him.
• Anna Paquin has no lines and even less time than Grammar, proving there is a God and He doesn't like Anna Paquin either.
• Lawrence deserves all her hype. The girl just knows how to work it. Though speaking of Paquin, I maintain that in a fair and just universe Lawrence would have been cast years ago as a much more assertive and much better Rogue.
• Though there was ample temptation to shoehorn in some line about mutations and deformities in Dinklage's role, the writers avoided the obvious and elected not to do so. That Dinklage happens to be a dwarf is never once mentioned, nor should it have been. The guy's just a damn fine actor.
• Poor Daniel Cudmore. He's appeared as Colossus – one of the most beloved X-Men of all time – thrice now and the guy's gotten to talk a grand total of twice. He's the Maggie Simpson of X-Men.
• Iceman's 'ice-form' looks way cooler when he's got a beard.
• It's amazing how as Logan's leadership role in the X-Men has increased his use in a fight has decreased. Jackman hardly throws a punch in this one but you don't really care; he has more lines in the first twenty minutes of DOFP than he did in ALL of The Wolverine and it works really well. Strong and silent has always been the character's modus operandi, but as his face time increases so too should his contribution to the dialogue. For better or worse he's a worldly character now with wisdom to share. Jackman probably agrees, as he seems to enjoy himself more when he's talking and scowling instead of just scowling.
• I remain very Switzerland about Michael Fassbender, as I've never seen him off his “INTENSE” setting and can't rightly judge whether I like him or not. And don't give me this “Oh, but he was so good in Prometheus!” crap. There was NOTHING good about Prometheus.
• Singer's decision to show key snippets of the Paris Peace Accord action through the lens of 70's era news cameras was truly inspired. One wonders if the grainy, out-of-focus footage was actually shot using period hardware or if the digital wizards had to 'age' the material artificially. I could look it up, but frankly I don't care to know – the effect was perfect regardless.