Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut?

                Not 30 seconds after I posted myMass Effect 3 rant, I noticed my RSS feed had mentioned something about an EA and Bioware announcement. It sounds like they are making an extended ending of the game to clear up some confusion and bring some closure to the story arc. It won’t address most of my complaints the series has presented over the years, but at least it may address some satisfaction on seeing some familiar characters again.

                The DLC which will be released over the summer will be free and available on all three platforms, Origin, Xbox Live and PSN.

To be continued…

Review: Mass Effect 3: What Bioware Should Have Done

The following Contains ****SPOILERS**** for all three Mass Effect games. Read at your own discrepancy.

I’ve been emotionally invested in the Mass Effect universe since my first play through in November 2007. It had been my most anticipated game for quite some time (with the exception of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 / Half-Life 3). But developer Bioware managed to take a promising RPG franchise and strip away key elements to what made the franchise thought provoking and dumb the series down to a linear action game by the third installment. This write-up suggests ideas on what Mass Effect 3 could have been and my disappointments on the franchise. 

Mass Effect was one of the best action RPGs I had ever played; it introduced an entire new universe, with a dozen new races, technology, planetary worlds, back stories, a feat that is not easy, cheap or quick.

It combined dialogue and morality with in a conversation system that resembled Knights of the Old Republic, giving players the option to be a dick or a nice guy. The same “good” and “evil” approach resembling the dark side or light side of the force in Star Wars. In Mass Effect it is called Paragon and Renegade. Your choices in dialog and decision making with critical events altered the storyline that would affect future events in the game’s inevitable sequels. This involvement with player decisions brings a sense of control that typically isn’t felt in most linear video games. Mass Effect also combined a 3^rd person shooter styled view, that brought together action gamers with RPG lovers; allowing players to level up their character, upgrade their abilities and weapons, buy new equipment and make your character look however you want. One of the more interesting sides of Mass Effect was using your space ship, the SSV Normandy, to travel to undiscovered planets in the galaxy, discover distress signals, mine planets for upgrades or just explore new worlds.

                The first Mass Effect brought players up to speed with the universe, introduced the new races, new threats, gave players the choice to fight against the universal evil, the Reapers, and become a hero… a legend. Sure there were flaws, long loading times which depicted the main character Commander  Shepard, standing in elevators EVETYWHERE he went. The in game economy was a bit broken which made it very easy to collect funds and buy tons of upgrades. But these were tiny problems with highly promising franchise. It could only get better from here right? 

The second game needed a way for the player to stage through the leveling techniques a second time, something that puzzles most RPG developers. So Bioware killed off Shepard in the opening scene, rebuilt him and sent him off yet again to explore the galaxy, to scout out a team for one last suicide mission to attack the Reapers head on. You spend the entire game essentially recruiting a team, which causes each team member will ask a favor of Shepard in return for joining the fight. If you succeed in helping your teammate, you will be rewarded with their loyalty. If you fail at winning them over, they will most likely die in the final mission and therefore will not make an appearance in the third game. Failure and success is decided on the choices you make throughout the game. A big factor in surviving the final mission is collecting upgrades for your ship. Every piece adds to the probability of success as well as real time decision making during the final fight. It was a great way for Bioware to showcase effort and time put into the game, with plenty of satisfaction in the ending. It measured how closely players played attention to character skill sets and would involve not only Shepard saving the day (again), but everyone on your team surviving. The main complaint of Mass Effect 2; you spent very little time actually fighting the Reapers during the primary story arch, and the vast majority of the game doing side missions involving your team. Still even with these falws- I’m still deeply invested in the fight against the Reapers, Shepard and all of the characters you encounter.

But Mass Effect 3 was different from the start. Not only are there much less dialog trees and decision making , for some reason Bioware could not extrapolated the building blocks of the first two games and incorporate it into the third game. Like the 2nd game, you spend roughly the whole game building up war assets to ally with the human alliance to fight off an ongoing Reaper invasion of Earth (much like you spent the whole time during ME2 building your team). This time around you encounter many more Reapers for they have finally invaded the galaxy and are gradually taking over worlds, swallowing the Milky Way. But for some reason, regardless of how many war assets you acquire, Bioware decided to make this building block completely redundant in the finale. Whether you get 30 warships to help you or 3000, the finale battle carries out the exact same way. What makes matters worse, in the finale confrontation with Shepard and the Illusive man, you are required to use a Renegade context-sensitive interrupt. Even if you have decided to go full Paragon for the whole game, failure to use this Renegade interrupt will end the game. GAME OVER. When has Bioware ever allowed this to happen?

What Bioware should have done?  ****SPOILERS****

                After collecting war assets throughout the game which takes between 30-40 hours, after recruiting the Krogan, Turians, Quarian and Geth, after arriving at Earth and the Commander gives the signal to attack the Reapers, the choices you make throughout the game and series start to go into effect.

                 Shepard could be tasked with sending in the first wave of attack.  He could choose the Quarians, who could either by backed by the Geth alliance or weakened from the war with the Geth. Whatever decision you made in Mass Effect 3 would affect how the Quarians battle.  Shepard could send in the Turians with their advanced fleet, or Earth’s Alliance fleet, which based on your Mass Effect 1 choices on whether or not you chose to save the council or attack Sovereign would decide whether the Alliance fleet was weak or strong.

                Moving on with the ground assault on Earth,  Shepard could decide to send in whomever is left. Again based on your first decision above, you could send in the Quarians, allied or not with the Geth, and if you completed the side mission could be backed by the Geth Primes. Or the Turians who are newly alliance with the Krogan after curing the Genophage, a decision from earlier in the game. Or The Salarians could team up with the Humans and fight together on the ground.

                As  Shepard  makes these two important decisions, he finally reaches the Citadel, where you again use the remaining forces that were not chosen to help  Shepard battle forces to get to the Illusive Man. Depending on the Citadel side quests you completed throughout the game the Citadel would either be full of dead bodies (if very little quests were carried out) or a decent defense force.

                Finally at the command room with the Illusive Man indoctrinated and fighting like Saren did in the first game, (adding a little bit of nostalgia here) if  Shepard has enough Paragon or Renegade points, he can either convince the Illusive Man to help him turn on the Harbringer or have  Shepard take control of the Reapers. Either decision has The Harbringer appear and begins to fight  Shepard . Depending on who you chose to fight in the space battle and the foot battle, will determine how easily or hard it is to fight the Illusive Man and Harbringer. Once defeated, the Catalyst appears; if you convinced Illusive Man to turn on the Harbringer, the Catalyst decides the cycle is broken and no longer needs the influence “the decision”. Otherwise,  Shepard will have the choice between the A, B and C endings.

                But the most important piece to the ending; Seeing how each race comes out of the battle, where each member of  Shepard's team is and their health, and finally, seeing a final shot of  Shepard ; alive or dead.

Other Disappointments ****SPOILERS****

                Part what connects players to the game are the characters. Mass Effect 3 contains characters from all three games, but many of my teammates were killed off during ME3 in completely unrelated events. Kelly, Legion, Mordin, Thane… and many you see for only a brief moment. In Mass Effect you have the option of selecting from six squad members. In Mass Effect 2 you have the option to use 13 squad members! The natural evolution of video games tells us you should be able to select from 18 squad members in Mass Effect 3, but the number actually is reduced back to 6 with Ashley (in the hospital for a good chunk of the game which brings it down to 5).

                Although the controls of Mass Effect 3 appear to be much less stiff than the previous two installments, the addition of the new melee mechanic might be the worst afterthought in the series thus far. This is an action shooter now. It’s not an RPG anymore. It stopped being an RPG in ME2. Everyone in space has a weapon that shoots some kind of ammo. Every room has an obvious barrier Shepard can hide behind. Why do I need a virtual sword on my arm? The AI should not be getting close enough to me where I would need to use a melee attack in the first place. Every enemy in the game, and sometimes even your AI allies, has horrible instincts. Enemies appear behind Shepard and your allies are useless in helping you defend areas. But what game actually does have intelligent AI?

                Loading times have not been improved at all. We have gone from annoyingly long elevator sequences to annoying long schematics sequences to annoyingly long animated art. You even need to pass through a “scanner” to get from one side of the Normandy to the other. The scanner, which Shepard needs to go through even though he’s Commander of the freakin Normandy, is put in place as a loading screen.

                Finally the biggest disappointment of Mass Effect 3 the lack of familiarity throughout the series. I was bummed when they reduced the exploration area at the Citadel from Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2, in Mass Effect 3 they give you a whole new area to explore. Nothing is familiar yet again. You also cannot travel to other spots that you could have in any of the previous Mass Effect games. Sure the planetary systems are the same, but you cannot travel to the Urdnot clan on Tuchanka, there’s no Omega, No Illium, No Shadowbroker Ship, No Freedom Progress, No Eden Prime… It could have been interesting to see how some of these familiar establishments were affected by the pending Reaper invasion.

                Any any rate, my disappointment in this franchise started with ME2, and was completely dissolved by ME3. The ending given to us felt too rushed, too uninspired, and completely unsatisfying. I’ve been let down before with games, but the amount of hours put into this trilogy made the disappointment  feel different than before. It felt magnified. I felt no sense of satisfaction; I once thought Bioware had great vision, but today they feel like another infected developer under the EA umbrella. 

I am attending PAX East this weekend. I hope I get to speak to someone from Bioware. 

Review: The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012)

It’s no surprise that the next Twilight, the next Da Vinci Code, the next Harry Potter was going to be the Hunger Games. This highly anticipated adaptation has had the masses lusting over the movie for months after the success of the trilogy. I read the first book in a weekend; It’s a quick read but you can tell the author Suzanne Collins did not want the book to appear too gratuitous so it could appeal to younger readers. The movie took the same approach with a PG-13 rating. My first impression of the book was fairly flat- uninhabited and missing something. The Hunger Games shocked the American audience by portraying a futuristic world where kids fight other kids to the death. Unfortunately this is not a novel concept; Japan was fortunate to get a novel and a movie out of Battle Royale back in 1999 and 2000 respectively, which like most concepts in the U.S. appeared to have been ripped off by Collins, but Collins maintains her innocents in never hearing about that story until her book was turned in. It’s almost been 10 years since I saw Battle Royale, but its moments were so vivid and etched in my memory, that after reading and watching Hunger Games, there’s just not enough creativity to think the movie is anything special.

The Hunger Games is number 8 (out of 20) on my anticipated movies of 2012. I wish I had put it lower or had replaced it completely. Director Gary Ross paid very close homage to the original works by not straying too far from the source material. In an effort to satisfy fans of the book, you will know every next scene in the movie, possibly even the next lines.

Where the Hunger Games comes up short is through the storytelling. The book is narrated through the 16 year old mind of Katniss, who explains every emotion, every thought, and every bit of her excruciating experience through the Hunger Games. Every single death is felt by Katniss no matter how brutal, which she describes through fear and humility. The movie cannot depict this. Instead, it adheres to a PG-13 rating where the deaths happen quickly, sometimes in slow motion with off camera shots. We never know about most of the kids aside from the snarling looks we are given before the Games begin. From the audience perspective, those are the bad kids and then there is Katniss, so it’s OK that these other kids die in the meantime. The supporting characters are completely undeveloped and it hurts the emotion on screen, especially if you have read the book.

Overall, I suppose it is not a terrible adaptation. It’s hard to overlook the huge marketing strategy of the trilogy’s followers- The studio of course wanted Twilight boxoffice receipts out of this. They sure got it with $155 million weekend opening, almost breaking the Dark Knight’s record of $158 mil. The average movie-goer will probably enjoy it. I just can’t sit back and pretend it’s anything special while this story has been done before (and better) over 10 years ago. Watch Battle Royale instead. 


Grade: 43

Review: John Carter (Andrew Stanton, 2012)

Every year I make a top 10 or 20 anticipatedmovie list and every year there’s at least one or two movies I regret to put on the list, because I don’t expect to enjoy it. This year I already missed the Grey on my list, although in my defense I did not know about the movie’s existence until after I made my list. In this case, I regret this movie was not higher on my list. John Carter exceeded my expectations by quite a large margin and looking back, there are plenty of clues that could have suggested I would enjoy this movie quite a bit.

First, director Andrew Stanton, having little but great success with directing Pixar’s animated movies such as A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo and WALL-E.  The ladder two are in my top 100 Films of All Time List. Stanton is the second director we’ve seen in the last 3 months making the transition from animated to live action with great success. The first being Brad Bird with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which I also enjoyed.

Second, John Carter is a Disney produced movie. Disney of course owns Pixar but Disney is also responsible for bringing to life Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (I pretend the other three movies don’t exist). Disney was a afraid the dark themed PG-13 Pirates of the Caribbean would deter parents from taking their kids, and be a scar on their reputation but the movie ended up grossing $654 million worldwide.

And lastly, I knew nothing of the source material before viewing the movie therefore I had very little attachment to the character John Carter. When I asked people at work whether they were interested in the movie, a buddy of mine joked; “They made a spinoff of Terminator?”

John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is mysteriously transported to Mars to which there is oxygen and two races living on the slowly dying planet. One of the races looks human while the other race has green skin and four arms. The human races are in the middle of a civil war and John Carter meets the beautiful Princess of Helium, (Lynn Collins) who requires the help of Carter to defend their city Helium from a pending attack. Carter is reluctant to fight for anyone, but eventually sees the good of bringing peace to the planet of Mars.

I was initially afraid the overwhelming use of CGI would be a huge distraction as it typically is with movies that need giant exotic set pieces. The trailer reminded me a lot of what Attack of the Clones looked like, but I was surprised at how fantastically rendered the effects were. The space ships did not seem implausible, the giant white apes did not look fake, the green Martians moved and acted alien and John Carter’s ability to jump great distances did not look unrealistic. Because John is accustomed to the gravity on Earth giving him greater bone density, John is much stronger and has the ability to jump great distances.

Having casted Johnny Depp so well as Captain Jack Sparrow in Curse of the Black Perl, I feel Disney may have got away with casting Taylor Kitsch  (who?) as John Carter. In hindsight, the film only made $30 million domestically in its first weekend so they probably are debating whether they made the right choice whereas maybe a bigger named actor could have drawn more people to see the movie. Kitsch does not bring anything special to the table and merely carries out his lines in verably bland fashion. The comic relief is typical Disney styled humor, mostly revolving around a dog-like Alien creature that follows John Carter around and Lynn Collins is stunning ly beautiful in her role. John Carter of Mars is a uniquely complicated plot from Disney, but overall gives a fairly enjoyable story and respectable action set pieces sequences. My guess is the debate to turn this series into a trilogy or more will ultimately depend on the final gross and how well DVD sales turn out so do not expect any sequel announcements soon. 

Grade: 89

Review: The Grey (Joe Carnahan, 2012)

We’re about two months into 2012 but let’s chalk this up to surprise of the year. Director Joe Carnahan, coming off a terrible A-Team adaptation and before that, a disappointing Smokin’ Aces has stunned me with The Grey starring Liam Neeson. I was already deeply invested in the coolness that is Liam Neeson as of late. After all, he’s Qui-gon Jinn, Ra’s Al Ghul, Zeus, Admiral Shane, Bryan-the-kickass-dude-from-Taken and turns out he also has a sense of humor. The roles he has selected have been from a perspective of power, leadership and knowledge and he has continued this trend as John-the-kickass-dude-from-the-Grey.

John is a wolf hunter; He is hired by an Alaskan oil company to rid the area of wolves that feel threatened by the human presence. It’s noted early that John is depressed and attempts suicide by pointing the rifle in his mouth. He hears the cry of a wolf in the distance which stops him. John then boards a plane to presumably return home with the rest of the oil team but the plane crashes in a snowstorm. John awakes in the snow (in a very Lost-like sequence) with a few survive crew members. It’s not long before John is giving orders, telling the survivors to search for fire wood and keep watch from threatening wolves and trying to figure out a way to survive the cold and the wolves

The tension is felt immediately from the start of the movie even during the predictable plane crash. The violence is brutal enough without trending too close to a horror sub-genre, which would not have been necessarily a bad thing, but it works better as a psychological thriller. An example of this would be a scene where the survivors are huddled around a fire in the in the middle of the night. Cries from wolves lead the survivors to believe they are surrounded- there is an act of defiance from the survivors before the Alpha Male of the wolf pack lets out a bellowing ominous howl. From the perspective of the survivors, they see darkness… and at the top of the hill, they see only the breath from the Alpha Male with what little light is emitted from the fire. Well done Carnahan.

A lot of the terror is implied like in the example above, and not show on screen and I give credit to Carnahan for being able to portray this dramatically. The Grey feels like a different director from his prior work. The movie projects urgency to fight off the wolves as well as battling the elements of an Alaskan winter. There are also several other internal fights the survivors must face to escape their nightmare. The Grey is an exhilarating satisfying experience, not to be missed if you’re a Nesson fan; Be sure to stay after the credits for one final scene.


Grade: 89

Review: Hard Candy (David Slade, 2005)

Hard Candy: A movie I should have watched years ago. I remember the acclaim behind it when it was first released which should have been a reason to watch it then, but even years later as my love for Ellen Page platituded with her performances in Inception, Super and Juno, I should have watched it on general Ellen Page fanboysim. I’m glad to have spent time with Hard Candy over the weekend as it might be Page’s best performance; so early in her career too.

Hayley Stark (Page) gains the attention of Jeff Kohlver (Patrick Wilson, also best known in Insidious and Saw) from an online chat room. It is quickly brought to attention that Hayley is 14 years old and Jeff is over 30 and later we find out Hayley is gaining the attention of Jeff because she beliefs he is a pedophile. She gains access to his home and for the next 70 minutes, viewers will be stricken with a convincing performance from Page and some chilling (and shocking) revelations.

The shock factor and adrenalin rush is what made the movie so enjoyable, but it was not filmed-to-shock like other movies like the Human Centipede or Hostel. Those movies were specifically created for the sole purpose of gratuitous shock values. In Hostel, there’s a scene where there is torture being performed on a young girl and when the torturer turns around the camera specifically focuses on the violence. Hard Candy shocks from mostly dialog and what isn’t shown on screen. But what makes it so believable is Ellen Page’s on screen presence, her brutality, maturity but yet still holding on to a teenage innocence. She was 18 when Hard Candy was filmed (maybe 17) but her maturity as an actress shines through.

It’s unknown what multiple viewings will do to my appreciation of this movie; there are a few twists and turns that would draw away from a second viewing. But one thing is certain, Hard Candy with a cast of 5, is among some of the best dialog driven thrillers I have ever seen.

REVIEW: Hobo With a Shotgun (Jason Eisener, 2011)

I am all for “camp” in movies. Drag Me to Hell, Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness pull off some of the best genre specific camp in cinematic history. It worked well because Sam Raimi understands how to immerse the audience with drama, create tension and finish scenes with a combination of humor and stylized hommage. Even the Spider-man trilogy has plenty of instances where Raimi can create campy situations out of a relatively serious synopsis. I enjoy tongue-in-cheek movies that strive to deliver exactly what is advertised, but Hobo With A Shotgun’s attempt at humor falls apart as the audience realizes the camp feels more like cheese.

Hobo vs Slick

Hobo With a Shotgun takes place in a decrepit city with a crime presence worse than Robocop, Batman Begins and Predator 2 combined. A nameless Hobo (Rutger Hauer, who’s also in Batman Begins) walks the streets, dreaming of buying a lawnmower and constantly witnesses excessive violence, police corruption, prostitution and drug dealing. People live their lives in fear of a crime boss named Drake (Brian Downey) and his two sons Slick (Gregory Smith) and Ivan (Nick Bateman). After witnessing Drake and his boys decapitate a man and stick the head on their front of their truck in the first minutes of the movie, Hobo becomes aware of just how bad things are. He later saves a prostitute Abby (Molly Dunsworth) from Slick’s attempt at rape but in the process gets assaulted by Slick and thrown out in the street to be left for dead. Abby takes in the Hobo after his act of kindness and rests him back to health.

A victim of the crime boss - decapitation by barbwire attached to a truck

Hobo is about to finally buy his lawnmower at a pawn shop when the shop gets held up by three robbers. Instead of spending the money on his dream, the Hobo reaches for a shotgun conveniently loaded and displayed right next to the lawnmower. The result is massive killing spree where the Hobo transforms into an justice wielding anti-hero, killing anyone associated with the waves of crime over the city. The news of the Hobo’s rampage reaches all media outlets (as if people still get their news on the street from TVs stacked together in a store window) and it is not long before the Hobo is infamously known.

Hobo with his shotgun

The gritty gratuitous violence doesn’t come close to looking realistic, so Hobo With a Shotgun won’t turn your stomach. It’s really hard to take scenes seriously that involve getting on a school bus with a flamethrower to burn children alive or sawing someone’s head off with a hack saw while they are screaming for help (and oh by the way…surviving). These scenes are of course over the top, but there is nothing holding them together from the rest of the movie. Most of the scenes look like they were shot and edited (thrown together) in a weekend.

It should be known that Hobo With a Shotgun was not an adaptation of another screenplay or book, but rather an adaptation of a fake trailer that was made specifically for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse. This may explain the choppy screenplay but doesn’t explain the poor excuse for dialog, especially the lines delivered by Bateman, who come off as a bad Stifler (Seann William Scott) clone. As mentioned, the attempts at humor fall flat in most instances, except for a few clever Newspaper Headlines: Hobo Stops Begging, Demands Change and Parents Smile as Bodies Pile.

Hobo mad

With a budget of $3,000,000 it’s hard to imagine the final product comes out as amateurish as it does. Hobo With a Shotgun is close to being unwatchable and to put this movie in perspective; barely beats out the level of film quality found in Uwe Boll’s films.

Grade: 46/100

REVIEW: Rubber (Quentin Dupieux, 2010)

If there has ever been a movie made for “no reason” it would be Quentin Dupieux’s Rubber. Simply put, the movie is about a tire (like the ones on your car) named Robert that goes on a murderous rampage after discovering he has telekinetic powers. From afar, an audience watches the bloodbath unfold through binoculars. This is the movie’s entire synopsis.

Robert rolling down the highway

It’s hard to rave about a film that takes its time like Rubber does but there are some interesting things going on. Robert has an infatuation with a girl he sees drive by in a Jeep, whom he cannot seem to go through with killing her. Instead Robert follows her to a small town where the havoc begins. Scenes unfold awkwardly with very little sense of motive until they finally end. Most of the events that take place, the audience will try to associate directly with the plot (of what little plot there is) or by the movie’s excessive representation of things happening for “no reason”. Once the audience gets past this theme, which will occur over and over and over again, Rubber feels dry. If only Quentin Dupieux could add dialog like Quentin Tarantino, Rubber would be worth multiple viewings.

The police are no match for Robert

Some of the highlights of Rubber include scenes with Stephen Spinella (Milk, 24) who plays a Lieutenant in charge of the murder investigations in the small town. Spinella pretends to break the 4^th wall in several instances, but he’s really just talking to the California audience. Spinella brings comic relief to the monotonous screenplay but he doesn’t appear enough to carry the load. What works and what drives me to be so interested in watching Rubber again is the questions left unanswered. If I listed them, they would ruin the movie, but they are so bizarre, so intentionally out there, even behind all the subtle jerks of “no reason” symbolism, I cannot wonder if Quentin wrote those scenes for a reason.

Spinella at a stakeout tracking Robert

At 85 minutes, Rubber should definitely be experienced at least once. If not to see a tire implode people’s heads but to see how Dupieux creates a parody out of his own movie, feeding the audience exactly what they want but leaving little satisfaction in the end. Did you see what I did there?

Robert walking away from a tire fire

Grade: 84/100

Side Notes:

1. If you wait until the movie ends, you will see the opening scene from another angle.

REVIEW: The Good, The Bad, The Weird (Jee-woon Kim, 2008)

Not to be confused with another western with a similar name, The Good, The Bad, The Weird a Korean film set in the 1930s desert wasteland Manchuria. Even though this movie was inspired by Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the two movies do not share themes, styles or motives even with the similar titles so please don’t consider GBW to be an adaptation. In fact, the screenplay is more original than most of what Hollywood puts out today. Hollywood should probably stop remaking movies, adapting screenplays and stealing European sitcoms and really try to pump out something interesting. [/small rant]

Park Chang-yi (the bad) and his gang

Park Chang-yi (the bad and a bandit hitman), is hired to retrieve a map from Japanese officials traveling by train. Before he can get there, Yoon Tae-goo (the weird and a thief) steals the map first. Before fighting it out against Chang-Yi’s gang, Park Do-won (the good and a bounty hunter) accidently helps Tae-goo escape. Tae-goo believes the map will lead him to a buried treasure and tries to keep the map a secret. But the Ghost Market gang overhears a conversation about the map and is now also interested in the treasure. Tae-goo now must avoid, Do-wan, who is tracking the map knowing it will lead to Chang-yi and reward money, Chang-Yi will stop at nothing to get the map for himself, the Ghost Market gang is equally persistent AND the Japanese forces want the map back in their possession.

Park Do-won (the good)

Director Jee-woon Kim does an excellent job balancing the pacing between action, comedy and downtime, with the exception of one overdrawn desert chase scene. The western spin is a nice change of pace from his darker films such as A Tale of Two Sisters and Three Extremes II. What stands out is Kim’s consistent use of Long Takes, which is particular hard to do in action movies due to a high margin of error and having to reset the entire scene if not shot perfectly.

Yoon Tae-goo (the weird) with his dueling pistols in a firefight with Park Chang-yi

Not only is The Good, The Bad, The Weird a change from Kim’s resume but also for Song Kang-ho (The Weird). More commonly known for his role in Thirst, Kang-ho shows both his action hero side mixed with his comedy persona. The use of comedy works well and is usually capped off with Kang-ho’s on screen charm. At 129 minutes the film might be a bit long but there is enough action and comedy to hold interest as well as a satisfying end to the story.

Park Do-won (the good) is approached by a bandit with a large mallet

Rating: 76/100

Side Notes:

1. Yoon Tae-goo (the weird) never reloads his dueling handguns once in the entire movie. He shoots his gun ~500 times.