Skyscraper

Like Die Hard but with "The Rock".

Brand new, "modern" building? Check. Squad of bad guys who infiltrate it? Check. Protagonist's loved ones trapped inside? Check. Importance given to duct-tape? Check. Crawling in an air duct sequence? Ch.. oh wait.

 It has something like this instead?

No, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson doesn't fit into air ducts but fortunately he fits well into the action hero role as he goes through some pretty crazy stuff to try save the day and stop the bad dudes.

There's not much in the way of surprises here as everything is heavily lamp shaded right at the start but the action sequences and the decent enough performances are enough for an enjoyable, turn your brain off flick which is great for everyone that enjoys such things. Everyone else, stay away. Not much else to say as the plot is as shallow as the stage is tall. I give it 2 prosthetic legs out of 5.

Command Performance

[Post #22 of the Blaugust Challenge!]

I didn't have high hopes for this movie so I was quite surprised that it started out pretty good... and then it went to the level I thought it would be. :P The gist of the story is that while the Russian president and his daughters are attending a rock concert "for a good cause", a band of angry separatists storm the place and kill all but a handful of people who they then keep hostage until their demands are met. Unfortunately for them, drummer Dolph Lundgren escapes the initial assault and is inadvertently trapped inside with them. He also has a penchant for killing people, because that's how he rolls.

He's a man of many talents.

This "Die Hard" like plot quickly unravels though with some poor acting from the secondary players (the military commanders and the child actors in particular who enjoy looking right at the camera after delivering a wooden line), some really quick and unexplained changing of emotions, and one hilariously bad prop piece when the bad guys are checking out the "escape tunnel".   

At least there is a liberal amount of killing in the movie, and because it actually had some promise before everything descended into comedy, I give it one and a half bullets out of five.

Blaugust Bonus: I come from a very musically oriented family. Personally I play the piano, fiddle with the guitar, try to sing, and once upon a time played the clarinet. It's probably why Mabinogi with features to compose your own songs in game resonates so strongly with us. My proudest (and at the time, most terrifying for me) solo performance was providing keyboard and vocal singing for my cousin's wedding. Kinda glad now that people talked me into doing that. :)

A Good Day to Die Hard

[Post #14 of the Blaugust Challenge!]

The basic story here is that police veteran John McClane has an outing to Russia to find his estranged son and by doing so causes many violent deaths and enough property damage to rival Terminator 3! Unfortunately the plot is a little convoluted and for the first 10-15 minutes you might be wondering what the hell is going on. Fortunately it explains most of it well enough, but there are questions left unanswered such as: "Are there no police in Russia," and "Can you really survive taking x amount of damage and not going to a hospital?"

Instead of Bruce Willis, here's the eye candy of the movie! ;)

Acting wise it's passable but Bruce Willis looks a bit tired, grumpy and basically "been there, done that" which to be fair - his character has. I really disliked him yelling out incomprehensible stuff during the chase scene though. If that was to solidify that he's "a little crazy" then it did its job well. Overall though there are two main problems for me. Firstly, the bad guys are stupid. Yes, bad guys are expected to be stupid to a degree but wow, these guys take it to a whole new level. Some would probably qualify for the Darwin Awards.

The second problem is a bigger one, especially for an action movie of the "Die Hard" franchise. There are not enough BAD GUYS! Especially towards the end, I was wondering what happened to all the hired help. Maybe they were so stupid that they killed themselves off screen? That can't be right. According to the kill count, McClane kills around the same number in the previous two movies (and more than the first) so ... what gives? Basically, he kills them too easily. Too quickly. Possibly even offscreen. You don't even realize they died. Due to this I give it two and a half bullets out of five and would think it is one of the weaker "Die Hard" movies.

Blaugust Bonus: Speaking of Russia I've always wanted to visit Pripyat and Chernobyl, mainly because of the STALKER franchise (No not the rogue tenno in Warframe). That first person game series that put you into the heart of the deadly zone is one of my favourites, as those who have been reading this blog for awhile might know. Of course there aren't any (or should I say, as many) horrors out there in real but I thought it would always be a nice place to explore. In accordance to this, just like my one brother likes anything with a picture or the word "Dragon" on it, I'm pretty drawn to any movies, games or documentaries that take place in and around Chernobyl. Other than concerned family that tell me not to actually go for myself, the main reason I don't is the cold. I don't like the cold, and I've never seen snow in real because of it.

Week #4 - Memory of a Flame

Part of my Explorer of Tyria journal - you can find the rest here!

Yikes, a bit late on this post so expect week 5 to be up in a few days too! Anyways I lost a number of days due to playing Mabinogi this week (AP potions are just too rare to pass up!) but I still managed to clear out the Diessa Plateau, the massive Lornar's Pass and the centaur controlled region of the Harathi Highlands where I helped run major offensives against the four hoofed fools. Also managed to join my guild for another event run, camping Queensdale and the Kessex Hills.

When I was back on my own again I continued up into the Iron Marches which are mostly controlled by "branded" critters I think. However the flame legion did have a massive base there, and during my infiltration I found they had summoned an old friend of mine - a massive fire elemental, just like the one at the Metrica Province a few weeks back! This time I was aided only by a small squad of NPCs (otherwise solo), which turned out to be a good thing - because it meant I didn't lag and could pretty much avoid his attacks. It took me forever but I finally killed that sucker.

Yippee Ki-yay!

 

Erebos has been busy recruiting on Henge of Denravi so I actually lost count of how many new guys we gained. One of them, Rufio is already level 80. I, on the other hand, just reached level 58. Lastly, did you know they are making a new Die Hard? :D

Edit: Forgot to mention the Guild also had enough points this week to get a guild stash and hire a guild armorer! Woohoo!