Tag: Video Games

REVIEW: ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ squanders fun concept

It’s a tale as old as time, or at least as old as the early 90s. A concept works quite well as a video game, but doesn’t quite translate well to film.

The latest example is “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” a horror game franchise with a lot of popularity that has been made into a movie. The film stars Josh Hutcherson as Mike, who has to spend his nights at Freddy’s, a defunct brand similar to Chuck E Cheese, known for its animatronic mascots.

His stay there is out of desperation, as the security guard role at the dilapidated family restaurant is the only job he can get, and he needs it to continue being a guardian to his sister Abby (Piper Rubio). As Mike soon learns, working at the property can be rather creepy, as it has a dark history that lives on through the seemingly shut down animatronic animals.

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REVIEW: ‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’ is not quite super

The “Super Mario Bros.” movie was a bit of a frustrating experience.

Not as frustrating as some of those secret “Super Mario Sunshine” levels, but still frustrating nonetheless.

In the animated film, the titular brothers Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) set off on a new adventure, which is opening a plumbing business. Their first job doesn’t go well, but determined after a setback, the brothers decide to take another job, fixing a major pipe leak underneath Brooklyn.

In the process, they enter one pipe that shoots them to a whole other world. There, Mario finds himself in the Mushroom Kingdom and meets its ruler, Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), who is determined to stop the invasion of the evil Bowser (Jack Black). Mario decides to help, as Luigi has fallen into Bowser’s clutches.

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Review: ‘Sonic 2’ succeeds where predecessor fell short

Best video game movie made up to this point? The argument can certainly be made with this one.

In the new “Sonic” adventure, the blue blur (Ben Schwartz) is trying to play the role of a hero but is finding out that he still has some learning to do. Meanwhile, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) managed to get off the planet he was banished to in the first film thanks to a new partnership with Knuckles (Idris Elba), an echidna warrior who has a grudge against Sonic.

That grudge is based on a historic conflict between the echidnas and the owl tribe, which Sonic was connected to since he was raised by Longclaw in the first movie. Sonic gets a warning about the new threat of Robotnik and Knuckles from a new friend, though, named Miles “Tails” Prower (Colleen Shaughnessey). From there, the two factions battle with each other with an ancient hidden power on the line.

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REVIEW: Mishandling of characters upend ‘Uncharted’ adaptation

As a person who stays mostly in Nintendo territory, I’m unfamiliar with the popular Playstation series “Uncharted.”

I have to imagine it’s a bit more compelling than this film, though.

Tom Holland stars as Nathan Drake, a young man who’s working as a bartender in New York City, with some side hustles, but dreams of more. As a child, he used to talk about lost treasures and how to find them with his brother, who he hasn’t seen in years.

The film picks up with Nathan being approached by Victor (Mark Wahlberg), a treasure-hunter who knew Drake’s brother. Victor asks for Nathan’s help in finding a specific treasure lost to history, which he agrees too. However, the journey is treacherous, with a rich and powerful man, Santiago (Antonio Banderas), also after the treasure.

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REVIEW: ‘Free Guy’ entertains but has fleeting impact

Movies about video games or films where the reality has elements of video games can be hit or miss. Sometimes you can get a “Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World.” Other times you get a “Serenity” or “Pixels.”

Fortunately, “Free Guy” leans a bit more toward the former.

“Free Guy” takes place in two realms of existence, one digital and one real. In the latter, Jodie Comer plays Millie, a young woman who’s living on hard times after the video game developer Antwan (Taika Waititi) stole her idea. That idea for a game was created by her and her best friend Keys (Joe Keery), who now works for Antwan.

Meanwhile, Guy (Ryan Reynolds), is a non-playable character in the video game owned by Antwan. While Guy is mainly programmed to be a normal bank employee in a violent video game, one day he begins to evolve and becomes self aware of the world around him. With that new knowledge, he begins playing the game himself, getting the attention of Millie. Millie soon learns that Guy’s programming is the key to exposing Antwan.

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REVIEW: Outside of the action, ‘Mortal Kombat’ falls flat

If there’s one thing this movie has in common with other “Mortal Kombat” films, it’s Raiden basically not fighting at all despite being a playable character in the games.

So this is another Hollywood shot at adapting the “Mortal Kombat” game franchise after an alright attempt in the 90s, which was followed by an abysmal sequel. In this latest attempt, the main character is Cole Young (Lewis Tan). Not actually featured in the game, Cole is an original character who gets by as a fighter who’s all about offense with very little defense.

One night after taking another loss, he’s attacked by a warrior well known as Sub Zero (Joe Taslim), who’s hunting him and other great fighters from Earth. Sub Zero is doing this under the orders of the evil Shang Tsung (Chin Han), who wants to eliminate Earth’s best warriors to carve an easy path to a 10th Mortal Kombat Tournament victory, which would allow his realm to conquer the world.

To fight back, Cole is brought into a group with other Earth fighters who are determined to stop Tsung.

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Monday Movie Report: ‘Uncharted’ cast grows with addition of Antonio Banderas

The cast for ‘Uncharted,” a film adaptation of a video game franchise, is growing.

According to Deadline, Antonio Banderas has been added to the cast of the film, along with Tati Gabrielle and Sophia Ali. The trio join a cast that already included Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg.

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REVIEW: Weak story trips ‘Sonic’

One doesn’t need to be as fast as Sonic to catch up on what’s happening in this rather predictable film.

The Sonic character, originally appearing in Sega video games, isn’t a stranger to the screen. There have been six animated series about the Blue Blur, including the 90s series “Sonic the Hedgehog” and the 00s show “Sonic X.” There was also the late 90s anime film, also titled “Sonic: The Hedgehog.”

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REVIEW: ‘Detective Pikachu’ doesn’t have the most interesting case file

I was at one point a Poke-expert. I watched the never-ending anime, read any of the manga I could get my hands on, and of course played Pocket Monsters on my Gameboy, the Yellow-Pikachu edition.

So “Detective Pikachu” was a film where I was able to pick up a lot of what’s going on and enjoyed some of the Easter Eggs for fans thrown in here and there. However, the question of whether or not it’s a good movie is a whole other story.

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