Movies That Suck: The Crazies (1973)

I can already see the fire in the eyes of all devoted George Romero fans when they read this title. If you've been following my blog from its inception, you would know that I think very highly of Mr. Romero. His Living Dead series was the first thing I ever reviewed on here and his original Living Dead trilogy was part of my 101 Favorite Horror Films. I also think that his 1982 anthology Creepshow is a very fun movie as well. But, as with all great filmmakers, the guy has made some turkeys along with his indisputable classics and, in my opinion, The Crazies is one of them. I first heard of it when it was briefly mentioned in the documentary on the Ultimate Edition DVD of Dawn of the Dead in order to shed light on the films that Romero made in the time period between that film and Night of the Living Dead. They showed a brief clip from the trailer, with the guys in the white bio-suits with gas masks gunning down a bunch of people in a field. It looked interesting but I didn't anything more of it until I started listening to Deadpit.com. CK and Uncle Bill told me personally that The Crazies might be one of Romero's non-Living Dead movies that could be worth my time. I finally saw it when I got a used DVD of it at McKay's in Chattanooga. It was only $11.00 but I still felt ripped off. I can safely say that when I watched this movie one night shortly after getting the DVD, it was one of the most excruciating 102 minutes I have ever spent watching a movie. This movie really lives up to its title. It goes way too fast to the point where you have no time to get invested in the lead characters and it ends up being a very painfully boring sit.

One night in the small town of Evans City, PA, two young children are messing around when suddenly, their father goes mad and begins tearing their house apart. They also discover that he killed their mother before he eventually sets the house on fire. Two firemen and the pregnant nurse girlfriend of one of them get the call to come to work when the fire is reported and soon, the military rolls into the town and all of the soldiers are wearing biological containment suits with gas masks. It is revealed that a plane carrying a secret biological weapon developed by the military crashed near the town just recently and the virus, codenamed Trixie, has infected the town's water supply. The virus either eventually kills its victims or renders them incurably insane. The military does everything it can to both contain the virus within the perimeters of the town as well as try to find a cure but the hastily put together operation leads to the deaths of many soldiers and civilians and mayhem engulfs the town. The two firemen and the nurse are briefly captured by the military but they, along with a man and his teenage daughter, manage to escape and attempt to take cover in the hills since they don't trust the actions of the military, particularly the firemen, who are ex-Vietnam veterans. The rest of the film centers on the group's attempts to get away and keep from becoming infected and the military trying to stop the virus from spreading throughout the rest of the country.

This was made in the period between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead where George Romero was attempting to establish his identity as a director who could do other things besides strictly horror films. Funny thing is that The Crazies, up until Dawn of the Dead, was the closest thing to a sequel to Night of the Living Dead that Romero ever produced. It is similar to his zombie movies in that it focuses on people being turned into murderous creatures, a group of people trying to escape the carnage, and, as with most of Romero's films, it has a good amount of political commentary, particularly on the military and the government (although it's much more blatant here and is more in line with his later films rather than his early work). Unfortunately, as we'll get into shortly, I don't think Romero succeeded in that aspect with The Crazies as he did with his original Living Dead films. With the failure of this film, along with his two previous films, There's Always Vanilla and Season of the Witch, with the exception of a couple of documentaries, he wouldn't make another movie until his vampire film Martin in 1976.

My biggest problem with The Crazies is the pace. This thing moves like a car rolling out of control down a hill. It opens with a quickly with an already infected man trashing his house, murdering his wife, and finally setting the house on fire. From there, we're hastily "introduced" to the characters and the situation and the plot is set in motion. You would think that would make the movie exciting and fun but it doesn't. A movie can be boring because it goes too fast as well as because it's too slow and that's what happens here. Moreover, we're introduced to the lead characters so quickly and learn only the basics about them, if that, before they're thrown into the situation. I know Night of the Living Dead had the situation start off quickly from the beginning but we still had lulls to get to know the characters so we could root for them as they tried to face down the zombie menace. This movie's pace is so frantic that we don't have any time to grow close to the characters and therefore, what happens to them means nothing to us. On top of that, after the opening cemetery scene, Night of the Living Dead let us see how dire and serious the zombie outbreak was becoming, with more and more zombies showing up at the farmhouse that served as the main setting of the film as well as news reports on the radio and TV about how the outbreak is happening everywhere. We don't get anything like that in The Crazies. Before we know what's going on, the military takes over the town and starts hunting down and killing the infected people while we only learn about the gravity of the situation from fast-paced, hard to hear dialogue from the military and government officials. Show us, Mr. Romero, don't tell us. On top of that, as if the pacing of this movie wasn't enough to make it completely batshit insane, the editing is nuts too. Most of the cuts don't seem to last longer than ten seconds, if that, and there are also moments where there is insane inter-cutting between a government official describing something and what he's describing being put into action. There is a way of doing that and making it work but it just comes across as clumsy here, as if the editor, which is Romero as well, is having a stroke. The structure also gets monotonous and tiresome after a while. A reviewer on IMDB said it best: the movie repeats scenes of the leads trying to escape the military, the army officers arguing with each other about how ass-backwards the operation is and how nothing is going right, the lead scientist who is trying to find a cure arguing with the Army officers that he doesn't have enough resources or time to do his work properly, and government officials in Washington trying to keep themselves from being publicly embarrassed over and over again to the point where you feel like the story is not progressing at all. In short, the film is just an incomprehensible, fast-paced mess.

Not only are the characters so hastily introduced that it's hard to care for them but it doesn't help that the acting isn't the best either. Lane Carroll (who never worked again after this movie and before it, appeared only in Hercules in New York, Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film, and Romero's There's Always Vanilla) and W.G. McMillan (who's actually appeared in a lot of stuff, mostly TV work, since although this was only his second film) play the film's lead couple, Judy and David. There's not much to say about them. David is the most level-headed member of the on the run civilians whereas Judy really doesn't do much except act as a nurse at the very beginning of the movie before they go on the run (her doctor actually advises both her and David to try to escape the military). Judy is pregnant with David's baby, they're very much in love, and they're determined to make it out alive. But, Judy eventually succumbs to the virus and is killed by a posse, dying in David's arms. Also, in an ironic twist of fate, David develops a natural immunity to the virus but at the end of the movie when he's finally captured by the military, they don't bother doing an immunity test on him. I did find that to be a wonderful bit of sad irony: a potential cure is right under their noses and they don't even know about it or care to check. There's also Harold Wayne Jones (who only appeared in a few other films and TV stuff, including Romero's Knightriders, after this) as David's friend, Clank, who is part of the same fire brigade that David is and also served in Vietnam, same as him. He kind of looks like David and I wonder if that was intentional, that it was meant to be another link between the two, even though their personalities are different. It's hinted at in his first scene that Clank also has feelings for Judy and is maybe a tad bit jealous that she didn't pick him as a lover. He's also much more hot-headed and impulsive than David, which is acerbated when he contracts the virus. He starts gunning down soldiers left and right and acts in a kind of schizophrenic way. He even goes so far as to attack David near the end of the film when he realizes that he and Judy tried to leave him behind. He's eventually killed by the military. Again, while the acting by these three characters is not bad, it's still amateurish and, again, coupled with how hastily they're introduced, makes it hard for me to really care for them.

Now Artie and his daughter Kathy are two characters that I can honestly say I didn't like. Artie is played by the late Richard Liberty, who would go on to play the mad Dr. Logan in Day of the Dead. While Liberty's performance in that movie is wonderfully entertaining in how over the top it is, here he's playing a creepy, sleazy man who has lost his wife and is left with only his daughter, whom it is revealed he has sick sexual feelings for. I don't know if it's because he thinks she's his wife in his delusional mind, judging from how he calls her by his wife's name at one point, or if he just harbors sick fantasies about her period, although it's probably as a direct result of the virus, but whatever the case, he actually attempts to have sex with her. He's stopped by Clank but still, that's just messed up. Personally, I wonder if Artie already had these sick thoughts and the virus just brought them up to the surface. In any case, he hangs himself after his rape attempt is foiled. Now, Lynn Lowry (who appeared in stuff like I Drink Your Blood before this and would go on to be in David Cronenberg's first feature film, Shivers, and Paul Schrader's remake of Cat People) annoyed the crap out of me as Kathy. This virus makes men go crazy but it seems to make women childlike and annoying (it does the same thing to Judy near the end and her death is her own stupid fault as a result). Kathy just aggravates me in this film due to her annoying, childlike way of speaking, her almost getting them shot by the soldiers, and her death is her own fault because she wanders out in a field in front of a bunch of soldiers. You just can't make me care about someone if the virus they get makes them act annoying and stupid. She also has one of the most hilariously bad death scenes ever. She gets shot, spins around, and simply says, "Oh," before keeling over. I don't know what Romero was thinking when he had her act like that but I just couldn't take it seriously.

I thought Lloyd Hollar was fine as Col. Peckem, who's trying his best to maintain order in the chaos-ridden town but knows that the chance of this town surviving the situation is slim to non-existent. By the end of the movie, he's completely disconcerted and despondent when he's called away to another town that's possibly infected with the virus. The way he reacts, you know that he feels that it's probably never going to end no matter what he tries to do. The ending scene with him being airlifted out of the town and looking down upon the chaos that has completely devastated it is quite well done and would be even more powerful if the rest of the movie had been as effective. Another character that I also kind of enjoyed was Richard France (who would go on to play the eye-patch wearing scientist on the TV in Dawn of the Dead) as the frustrated Dr. Watts. I found him to be funny and he kind of unintentionally sounded like me voicing my complaints about the film itself. In his introductory scene, he's complaining about how the army is forcing him to go to Evans City even though he's confident that he could do more productive work at the base and when the soldiers say that they can't do anything about it, he yells, "This is so random!" I was thinking, "Tell me about it, man!" Even later, he's saying stuff akin to, "This is a mess!" and so on and, again, I'm like, "Right on." I also laughed at how, after being unable to look through a microscope with the helmet of his bio-suit on, he decides to heck with it and takes it off, even though he could be risking infecting himself. His last scene is also another one of the few I actually liked, where he finds a cure for the virus but when he tries to get out of the building, the soldiers think he's one of the infected because he's not wearing a bio-suit and they try to quarantine him. He's trampled by a stampede of the infected and is killed as a result and the cure is destroyed. It's another bit of sad irony that the military have unknowingly helped to destroy what chance they had of stopping the virus. The last character of note is Harry Spillman as Maj. Ryder, the initial man who is in charge of the operation until Col. Peckem arrives. He's just doing his job and himself is unaware of the true nature of the situation until Peckem actually tells him. When he is told, he feels like a fool that he bought the cover-up story of the situation. Not much else to say about him. I also must briefly mention Will Disney (I doubt he was related to Walt) as Dr. Brookmyre, the kindly doctor who tells Judy that she and David must get away from the army for the sake of the baby. He's not that noteworthy of a character but he's obviously a decent person due to his concern for the couple.

It's obvious that the film is meant to be about how one can't trust the American government and the military. The original script for the film by Paul McCollough only focused on the military aspect of the story at the beginning of it but the producer of the film, Lee Hessel, asked Romero to re-write it to where it focused much more on that aspect. For me, this is another problem about the movie. They should have focused on the characters who are trying to escape the military occupation of the town or focus on a heroic member of the army who is trying to find a cure for the virus (like the movie Outbreak) instead of going back and forth between the two subplots because, like I said, it gets monotonous and repetitive after a while. Also, when Romero attempts to do political statements and social satire in a subtle way while focusing mainly on making a good movie, it's entertaining; however, when he makes it so blatant that it feels like you're being beaten over the head with it, as in his later Living Dead films and Bruiser, it can be insufferable. While the obvious commentary in The Crazies didn't aggravate me too much and I didn't think it was the film's biggest problem by far, I still think it's one of the examples of Romero being unable to do it subtly. There are so many scenes with the military and government officials trying to find a way to cover their ass about the bio-weapon that I was like, "Okay, I get it. You feel that we can't trust the military and that our government officials lie." I felt the same way about his criticism of the media in Diary of the Dead: "Okay, the media can be bad and corrupted. I understand." Romero even makes the president of the United States look like a Bond villain or something, with his back to the camera, smoking a cigar and speaking in a voice that sounds shady (but then again, this was during the era of Richard Nixon so maybe it was justified). I thought the best part of the commentary was the scenes I described where the military unknowingly helps destroy a potential cure for the virus and later, they ignore another one. That was nice and subtle, that the military doesn't realize that it's doing more harm than good. I also thought the images of the soldiers in faceless, bio-containment suits would have been a subtle enough jab at the military. So, while I do see potential in the political statement that Romero is trying to make here, I think the blatant nature of it ultimately overrules the more subtle and well done aspects of it.

The makeup effects in this movie are fine and do their job. This was before Romero started working with Tom Savini so the effects here are not quite up to the standard put forth in the movies they would do together but since this isn't a zombie movie, there's no need for graphically over the top blood-splatters and the like. It's mainly consists of squibs with blood packs in them that result in some fairly graphic gunshots, some corpses getting burnt, a priest setting himself on fire which is fairly gruesome and disturbing, and, most gruesome of all, ripped open necks and head getting blown off. The effects are fine but they're really quick and the blood is that bright red, almost orange, blood that would later turn up in Dawn of the Dead that isn't very realistic when you get down to it. The infected people themselves don't look much different than normal people. It's all in the way they act. So, while there are some makeup effects here, they're just standard but simply serve their purpose in this type of movie.

Like the structure of the movie, the music by Bruce Roberts is very repetitive and monotonous. The bit that is repeated over and over and over again is the sound of these marching drums used to signify the military. You hear it so many times over the course of the movie that you really get tired of it. There are also some instrumental versions of military themes that play over the music as well as some bits with a singer vocalizing. In all honesty, the score is nothing to write home about in the slightest. There is a song called God Help Us that plays over the ending credits, though, that I felt was effective in showing the hopelessness of it all as Col. Peckem looks down on the town and sees how it is now in absolute shambles. As I've said, it's too bad the rest of the movie is so unremarkable because if it had been more powerful, that song would have hit home even more so.

Some may feel that The Crazies is an overlooked gem in George Romero's filmography but to me, it should have stayed obscure. It has some good points to it but for the most part, it's a fast-paced, frantic, confusing mess of a film that doesn't give you enough time to grow close to the lead characters, doesn't build the situation up well, has a monotonous, repetitive structure, and has some political commentary that is so blatant and in your face that it overshadows the more subtle and well done aspects of it. Every director, no matter how good, is going to make some bad movies and in my opinion, this is one of Romero's, made in-between two of his truly watershed films. Though, as I say, you can sort of see The Crazies as a cousin to Romero's zombie films as well as a precursor to 28 Days Later and the like. But, the reason the zombie films work is because they're simple whereas this is far too complex. Bottom line, I know this movie has fans and I respect that. I would never try to take that away from you. To me, though, The Crazies is just that: it's way too crazy for its own good and it cripples what could have been an interesting movie.

Stuff I Grew Up With: Star Fox 64 (1997)

This is yet another game that I doubt I would have ever owned had I not played a demo of it at Wal-Mart. I never played the original Star Fox for the Super NES (and to this day, I still haven't) so I had no expectations when I went into this game. Also, the controller for the demo was messed up when I played it. I couldn't keep the Arwing very high in the air for very long and I never finished the first level because I kept crashing. And yet, despite that, what little of the game I played at the Wal-Mart was enough to let me know that this was one I was going to play in-depth the first chance I got. What really sold me were the characters' distinct, likable personalities as well as the fact that there was much more dialogue in this game than I had ever heard in any game before. I just thought that was so cool. In any case, I rented the game many times from my local video store and finally owned it when I received it as a Christmas present in 1997. While there are some things about the game that irked me as a kid and still kind of get under skin now, I feel that, on the whole, this is one of the N64's most well put together and fun games.

The story of Star Fox 64, which you can hear on an opening crawl when you first activate single player mode, takes place in the Lylat System. On the fourth planet, Corneria, a brilliant scientist named Andross goes mad with power and nearly destroys the planet before being exiled to a distant planet called Venom. Five years later, when strange activity is reported at Venom, the mercenary Star Fox team is sent to investigate. One team member, Pigma, betrays the team, resulting in the other two members, Peppy Hare and the leader, James McCloud, to be captured by Andross. Peppy manages to escape but James is killed by Andross. A few years later, Andross declares war on the Lylat System and a new Star Fox team headed by James McCloud's son, Fox, is contacted by General Pepper of the Cornerian Army to defeat the power-mad scientist.

From my research, it seems that Star Fox 64 came into being when master game-creator Shigeru Miyamoto decided to shelve the proposed sequel of the original Star Fox in favor of using the more powerful capabilities of the Nintendo 64 to create a much more striking and advanced game. Star Fox 64 is a remake of the original game that also combines elements from the canceled sequel. Miyamoto himself said that 60% of the game is remade from the original while 30% is from the sequel and 10% is completely original. Looking at existing screenshots of Star Fox 2, you can definitely see that a lot of it was incorporated into Star Fox 64. While I've never played the original game, I've always found Star Fox 2 to be a fascinating curiosity piece. It was covered extensively in Nintendo Power and other gaming magazines (I didn't have a subscription to any gaming magazines at the time but I've learned about this after the fact) and there were many screenshots from it but it was never released. It's odd because the Japanese version of the game, at least, was finished (it's unknown whether the English version was ever completed). I don't see why they just didn't go ahead and eventually release it. Nowadays, I don't see why they couldn't put it on the Wii Virtual Console if it's at least playable. Just one of those mysteries of video games, I guess.

The gameplay is interesting. In each level, you control one of three vehicles being operated by Fox McCloud. Most of the time, you're flying a jet-like vehicle called an Arwing but there are a couple of levels where you pilot a tank called the Landmaster and in one level, you operate a submarine called the Blue Marine. Most of the levels are in a rail-shooter corridor mode where your vehicle goes down a fixed path and you can maneuver around to avoid obstacles and shoot at enemies. A few levels as well as certain sections of various levels are in All-Range mode, where you can move around freely to engage an enemy in combat (the Arwing is the only vehicle you can operate in All-Range mode). Nearly every level has a boss you face at the end of it. In fact, both levels on the planet Venom have a secondary boss that you face before moving onto the battle with Andross. Where the gameplay becomes atypical is in its non-linear series of levels. Depending on what path you take in a level or whether or not you succeed in achieving a certain objective, the path you take throughout the Lylat System in order to reach Venom tends to be different through each playthrough. The planets along each path vary in difficulty: the bottom row of planets is the easy path, the middle one is the medium, and the top one is the hard path. On top of that, you get a different game ending depending on which path you take to Venom. There's no save feature so you're intended to finish the game in each playthrough and if you don't or get a game over, you have to start from first mission on Corneria again. While I personally prefer the normal fixed series of levels in a game, I won't deny that this does enable the game to provide you with a different experience each time you play it.

The three vehicles share some aspects such as upgrades and weapons but are also different in what they can and can't do. The Arwing has the largest number of different maneuvers. It can brake and boost, perform a somersault so you can flip around behind a pursuing enemy, and in All-Range mode, it can perform a U-turn. There's a maneuver called the barrel-roll you can pull off by pressing the Z-button twice. This move deflects enemy fire. You can also pick up a maximum of nine smart bombs and fire them with the B-button in order to clear out huge clusters of enemies (you can wait for them to explode on their own or detonate them by pressing the B-button again). By holding the A-button, you can charge your laser as well as lock onto enemies and fire upon them. The Arwing starts out with a single laser blasters but you can acquire laser upgrades strewn throughout the levels. Flying into one enables you to fire two blasts and flying into a second upgrades your two blasters up in power. Your upgrades do carry over from level to level. However, if you get killed or lose one of your wings, you downgrade back to one. You can repair your wings by flying into another laser upgrade or a special wing repair item.

The Landmaster tank has many of the same capabilities as the Arwing: boost, brake, and barrel-roll (however, the barrel roll here is for avoiding enemy fire and doesn't deflect it). The Landmaster can also hover in order to get over obstacles. You can also lock on to enemies and fire smart bombs with the Landmaster but you can't upgrade your laser. The Landmaster tends to be my least favorite vehicle in the game because it's difficult to hit airborne enemies from the perspective you have while being stuck on the ground. The Blue Marine sub is basically the Arwing except underwater. In addition to boosting, braking, and barrel-rolling (which does deflect enemy fire here), the Blue Marine can also upgrade its lasers and lock on. In place of smart bombs, the sub has an unlimited supply of torpedoes which light up the darkness as well as destroying enemies (trust me, you'll be glad those torpedoes are unlimited because the level where you use the sub is choked with enemies). All the vehicles encounter the same items that enable you to regain health, which are these rings that you have to fly or drive through. Silver rings recover a little bit of damage but you usually encounter a lot of them to make up for it; there are some rare silver star-shaped rings that appear in the later levels that recover much more health than the normal ones; and finally, there are gold rings which recover the most amount of health. On top of that, if you get three gold rings, your life bar becomes longer and another three gold rings gets you an extra life.

As I said, what really struck me about Star Fox 64 were the characters and the actual use of voice-acting. It seems that in the original game, the characters spoke in gibberish that was supposed to be the actual language of the Lylat System (also, it seems like the PAL version of this game has a feature where you can enable that Lylat language among the dialogue). Here, though, the characters talk and act like real people. The dialogue may not be exactly Oscar-worthy, mind you, but at the time, this was quite impressive for a game. During each level, there is a lot of com-chatter between the characters as they relay to you gameplay advice, technical information on the strength of the bosses you come across, alert you to hidden paths in some levels, or just bust each other's chops, as you would expect members of a mercenary team who've known each for a long time to do (like the members of Dutch's rescue team in Predator). While I do enjoy the characters most of the time, they do tend to grate on my nerves in all-range mode levels where they're constantly getting chased by enemies and always call on you to help them. Even after you help, they tend to get in trouble again (especially Slippy Toad). It's like they can't do anything for themselves in those situations. Also, if their life-bar is drained completely during a mission, they're forced to retreat and have to sit out the next mission while their ship is being repaired. That makes you really paranoid when you're flying through a huge cluster of enemies and shooting constantly because your team members have a bad tendency of flying right into the line of fire and if you accidentally shoot them, they will admonish you for it. That can get old really fast. In All-Range mode, if you're not careful, you can fly into them but even though you can lose a wing, I do like hearing them complain: Peppy Hare yells, "Watch where you're flying!" and Falco Lombardi goes, "Get out of my way!" I also like hearing them complain when you shoot down an enemy that they're pursuing. Bottom line, I do think it's a very cool feature but there are times where the characters can get on my nerves.

Let's get this out of way: my least favorite character by far is Slippy Toad. I could just shoot down this little pissant myself if I could. And I know I'm not alone in my thinking. Now, I will give Slippy credit that you need him around when you're battling a boss because he brings up its lifebar but that's about all he's good for. He sucks as a pilot and he can't shoot for crap. The most annoying thing about him is that he's constantly getting pursued by enemies and always whining, "Fox, get this guy off me!" (in fact, he does this within a few seconds of the first mission of the game!) He'll keep whining, yelling, "Oh no!" and "Slippy's hit!" until you help him but even if you do, he'll more than likely get into trouble again and you have to bail him out a second time. That makes his cockiness in one level where he's being followed by enemies even more annoying. He says, "You want a piece of me?" and when you destroy those those enemies, he says, "Take that!" Oh, shut up, Slippy, you stupid, annoying wart-hive! Lyssa Browne's voice acting is irritating as hell too. You have to wonder about his gender because he's supposed to be a guy but there's a woman doing his voice. While women usually do voices for children, including you male children, Slippy isn't supposed to be a child. In any case, the voice, and the character, is just really grating.

The other two characters are much more tolerable, even if you have to bail them out of danger as well from time to time but not nearly as often as Slippy. I like Peppy Hare's role as the oldest, most experienced member of the team who gives you gameplay advice throughout the levels. My favorite voice actor for him is Isaac Marshall who did him in this game because the voice does sound middle-aged but it doesn't sound like somebody who's about to keel over at any moment, as Peppy tends to sound in later games. I just like the personality that comes through the voice: gun-ho but knows he has to rely on his friends and acts primarily as a mentor to Fox, perhaps feeling like a surrogate father to him in light of what happened to James McCloud. On top of that, he utters the popular line, "Do a barrel-roll!" which has become an internet meme in recent years. My favorite team member is Falco Lombardi, the hotshot bird pilot of the team. Granted, he is like the Raphael of the group in that he's a hot-headed smart ass and constantly gives you crap, even when you save his hide from enemies (though, to be fair, he almost never actually asks for help) but he's the most skilled fighter of the group and really tends to help you when you're confronted with a lot of enemies. Plus, I like Bill Johns' voice acting, with all the sarcastic remarks that he throws in. I know some find his attitude to be really annoying but I just love this character. As for Fox McCloud himself, I thought Mike West's acting fit the character well: a confident, young leader who begins to become like his father. Nothing else I can say about that since Fox is the character that you control. Finally, even though he's technically not a member of the team, there's ROB 64 (voiced by David Frederick White), the robot pilot of the team's mothership, Great Fox. Although he stays out of the action for most of the game and mainly gives you technical data, he often calls you and when you respond, he'll send you an item (if you're not missing a wing or you have all the laser upgrades, it's a smart bomb). He does, however, join the action during a very tough mission where he has Great Fox fire its lasers in order to destroy big, Star Destroyer-like crafts that you come across in that level.

The game also has a nice supporting cast. General Pepper, the leader of the Cornerian army, is the guy who informs you of each mission at the beginning of the levels (although, in some instances, he tries to dissuade the team from going if he feels it's too dangerous). Not much say to about him though you have to wonder, though, why he doesn't send his armed forces to help you in the most difficult missions. I do prefer the voice given to him by Rick May in this game to the others (the one in Star Fox Adventures sounded a little too bombastic to me). There are two supporting characters who actually do join you in one specific mission for each of them and appear in another one afterward. Bill Grey, an old friend of Fox's, first appears when you have to help his squadron stave off an attack on a planet called Katina. Whether or not you manage to stop the attack, Bill appears briefly in your very next mission to assist you. Another character is Katt Monroe (voiced by Lyssa Browne), a pink cat with a crush on Falco who appears out of nowhere in one mission and also assists you briefly in the very next mission just like Bill. While I do think Bill is a cool character, I feel that both he and Katt aren't all that useful in the subsequent missions they appear in, especially Katt. But, at least Bill's first appearance is tied into that level's actual mission. Katt just comes out of nowhere. But whatever. I also can't be certain if James McCloud is really dead or not because after the real battle with Andross you engage in on Venom, James appears to guide you out of the rapidly exploding base. Once you escape, he disappears without a trace so you're not sure whether he was a ghost, an illusion, or if that really was him. In any case, he's given a deep, commanding voice by Mike West that is quite striking when you first hear it, especially when you consider that it's the same guy who does Fox's voice.

The look of Andross has always kind of perplexed me. Each time you encounter him, not only in this game but in Star Fox Adventures as well, he's always a gigantic floating head and hands. I'm sure that's not his real form and he just became that in order to battle you but it just never looked aesthetically useful in the long run. How could he have become such a great scientist and created a huge empire if he's just a floating head and hands? In any case, in this game, Rick May gives him a booming voice that sounds almost mechanical, kind of like Darth Vader. By the way, Wikipedia noted that he kind of looks like Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes and now that I think about it, he does. Other than Andross, the main antagonists that you come across at least once during every playthrough of the entire game are members of the Star Wolf team. They're basically an evil counterpart to the Star Fox team in that they're a mercenary team that Andross has hired. The leader of the team, Wolf O'Donnell (voiced by Rick May), has a cultured, sophisticated voice (in this game, anyway) but nonetheless, is an evil character who thinks he's a better pilot than Fox. Pigma Dengar (voiced by David Frederick White) is the member of the original Star Fox team who betrayed James McCloud and Peppy. His main character trait is that he's a greedy, sadistic pig who only cares about getting a huge paycheck from Andross. Leon Powalski (voiced by Rick May) is a chameleon-like character with a calm, classy, and sinister voice who seems to be a bit arrogant since he sometimes refers to himself as, "the Great Leon!" Finally, there's Andrew Oikonny (voiced by Bill Johns), the young nephew of Andross. He's like Slippy in that he's the youngest member of the team and is the most inexperienced at piloting. He's also not very smart. Every time you encounter the Star Wolf team, the various members will each target a specific member of your team: Wolf targets you, Pigma goes after Peppy, Leon tries to shoot down Falco, and Andrew chases Slippy. Worse, if any of your teammates gets so damaged that they're forced to retreat, whoever was chasing them will join Wolf in pursuing you. You can't avoid the Star Wolf team in this game because no matter what path you take, you'll eventually run into them.

Here's an interesting story concerning myself and the voices in the game. As I said, the voices was something that astonished my ten-year old mind at the time and was what attracted me to the game. However, I kind of grew to hate the game's voices because of the annoyance they unintentionally caused me in my personal life. There was this kid at my elementary school who found out that I really liked the game and once he found that out, he would aggravate me mercilessly during recess, asking what I said when this character said this or when this character said that. What really tore it, though, was when the guy somehow found out my phone number and started calling me and asking those idiotic questions at home. I got so annoyed that eventually, there was a time where he called and my mom picked up the phone but when she called me, I refused to talk to the guy. She was immensely embarrassed and kept yelling at me to talk to him but I was like, "You can threaten me all you want, Mom, I am not talking to that idiot." That kid had been a thorn in my side all throughout elementary school, always annoying me to end. I guess maybe he sincerely wanted to be friends with me at this point but he went about it the completely wrong way. He refused to leave me alone, even when I told him he was driving me crazy. I eventually went to a different school so it didn't matter but I was kind of resentful towards Star Fox 64 for a while afterward. Anyway, that has nothing to do with the game itself but I just some people would be interested in that.

The game is very well designed. Granted, the character designs do have that polygonal look to them that was common with games around that time but the environments with the planets and the enemies especially are quite imaginative in their designs. The enemies don't consist of just typical spaceships, although those do look good. There are big rolling robots, robotic fire birds that drop exploding eggs on you, bizarre-looking crafts called tripods that hover right in front of you while firing, long eel-like creatures that slither through space, bee-shaped enemies that fire swirling multi-colored blasts at you, and a whole lot of others. The most interesting living creatures that you encounter are on the planets Aquas and Zoness, which I will elaborate on when I discuss the actual levels. The bosses are also interesting creations. The first couple of bosses are standard robots and ships but as you progress through the game, they become more complex and imaginative in how they look, as well as much tougher to beat because you often have to hit them in a certain way in order to make them vulnerable and finish the job.

To make the game's replay value even more interesting, there's an Expert mode that you can activate by receiving a medal on each level. You get a medal when you destroy a certain number of enemies as well as if all of your teammates being with you at the end of the level. As you can guess, Expert mode is a much harder version of the typical single player campaign. There are more enemies in each level and your vehicle is much more vulnerable (your Arwing will lose wing if you run into anything). Interesting thing to note about Expert mode is that Fox wears dark sunglasses much like his father, James. In fact, a strategy guide for the game (not the one published by Nintendo Power, mind you) described it as being able to play as James McCloud but that's a big lie. Apparently, if you obtain all the medals on Expert mode, you get a new title screen for the game. Big whoop. (Fun thing you can do with the title screen, though, is that you can move around the 64 in the title and the four characters will actually watch it in curiosity and amazement.) Other stuff you acquire from getting medals include a sound test where you can listen to the game's soundtrack and activate new vehicles to use in multiplayer mode.

As I've said before, being an only child I hardly ever bothered with the multiplayer sections of any games as a kid unless I had friends over. While my friends and I did play the multiplayer of Star Fox 64 every now and then, it wasn't nearly as much as the multiplayer modes of games like Goldeneye or Mario Kart 64. As with most N64 titles, this game's multiplayer can support up to four players and there are three modes of play: Point Match, where the winner is the player who shoots down the other player the largest number of times; Battle Royal, where the winner is the last player who isn't shot down; and Time Trial, where you have to destroy a large number of enemies in a certain amount of time. You start with the Arwing being the only available vehicle but after earning medals in Story Mode, you can use the Landmaster (which can upgrade its lasers here) or have your character walk around on foot with a bazooka. There were only three arenas to play in, though. To be honest, I barely remember anything about the multiplayer on this game. I don't remember it being awful, I just don't remember much of it since we hardly ever played it but that, in and of itself, should say something. I wonder why they didn't have it to where you and your friends could play in Story mode and the team members who weren't being controlled could be handled by the computer? Just saying.

This game was also the first N64 title to make use of the Rumble Pack, which it came packaged with. The Rumble Pack, for those who don't know, was this large peripheral that you would attach to the back of your controller and every time you get hit by something or when there was a gigantic explosion in the game, the controller would vibrate. It was an attempt by Nintendo to make you feel like you were part of the action, like you really were flying along in a huge space battle. Personally, though, I almost never used the Rumble Pack. It was an interesting idea but when I'm in the heat of a huge battle or an intense race (I'm personally referring to Diddy Kong Racing, which also made use of the Rumble Pack), I find the vibration to be more of a distraction than anything else. Unfortunately, games for next generation consoles are now almost guaranteed to have a rumble feature and the controllers for said consoles had the actual mechanism built into them. Some games are good enough to give you the option of turning the rumble off but some don't (I find that to be true mainly with games for the Wii) so you're stuck with it. Didn't mean to go off on a tangent there and if you enjoy the rumble feature in this or any other game, Rumble Pack or not, that's fine but it just bugs me.

The music, composed by Koji Kondo and Hajime Wakai, is pretty good. The main title has become the recognized Star Fox theme and it has a nice, grandiose sound to it (I'm not sure if that theme was in the original game). Some other bits of music that I like include the eerie theme in the Sector X level, the music that plays during the Landmaster levels, the Katina music, the Bolse Defense Outpost music, the Zoness theme, the Sector Z music, the music during the Easy route level on Venom, and the triumphant music that plays after you defeat Andross. It may not be one of the best scores ever created for a video game (to me, at least) but I think it's pretty good and serves its purpose well.

Now for my usual overview of the levels. 

Corneria: The first level is a cinch. You must rescue Corneria City from an attack by Andross' forces. Like I said earlier, shows how much of a pest he is going to be throughout the game because he needs you to bail him out of trouble just a few seconds into the first mission. The enemies here include big Garuda robots that throw big steel beams at you as well as push buildings over, sometimes on top of useful items if you don't destroy them quickly; a lot of standard fighter crafts; the aforementioned firebird robots that drop egg bombs on you; mole missiles that shoot up from the ground and head right for you; small tank-like crafts that you'll encounter constantly throughout the game; and ski bots on the water which don't attack you but can get in the way if you try to fly underneath these rock arches. There are two paths you can take to finish this level. The first is to keep following the direction the corridor mode is pointing you in. Completing the level on that path will lead you to the Meteo asteroid field. The other is a bit more of a challenge. There's a point in the city where Falco is pursued by three fighters and his shield malfunctions so you have to help him by taking them down (you'll have to boost in order to get close enough to shoot them). After saving Falco, fly under the series of stone arches on the second patch of ocean and Falco will point towards a different path. This path will take you to Sector Y. Both paths lead you to a different boss you must fight but they're both ridiculously easy. The boss on route 1 is a giant robot who is one of the most vulnerable enemies in the entire game. All you have to do to destroy him is shoot the green panels on his back. You can shoot one of his legs off to make him completely defenseless but that's not even necessary to defeat him. (You get an extra life if you fly between the robot's legs and do somersault without bumping into him.) The boss on route 2 is a huge aircraft carrier that is also very easy. All you have to do is shoot the insides of its three launch bays when they open. After you destroyed them, the actual craft will vulnerable to attack.

Meteo: This level's pretty straightforward. You have to destroy 200 targets to get a medal here but the enormous amount of asteroids (which do give you points when you destroy them) and enemies make it an easy task. Some types of asteroids you can blow up, while others you can't. At one point, you come across these huge, planet-like asteroids and you better follow Peppy's advice on what to do to keep from getting crushed. There are also a couple of long, hollow asteroids that you must fly through. The enormous amount of enemies consist of wedge-shaped spaceships, lasers attached to certain asteroids, a type of robot that hops up and down while firing at you, long, eel-like creatures that shoot fireballs at you, robots that are only vulnerable when their orange backsides are facing you, butterfly-like fighters that cluster together in formations, robots that create webs that you can run into if you're not careful, and the bee enemies that fire swirling blasts at you (you can't lock onto them). As with most, there are two ways to exit this level. The first is to fly through the asteroid field to the end where you battle a huge ship. This ship has several glowing yellow sections that are obviously where you shoot it. The ship does have a shield that absorbs your laser blasts and fires them back at you, an attack that shoots electrical bolts at you, and two laser blasts that are shaped like a series of rings but again, it's so obvious where you need to shoot that it's not that hard. Beating this boss sends you to Fortuna. However, if you fly through the seven warp rings in the area before you reach the boss (which is difficult to do because your ship starts spinning crazily after you go through a good number of them and it's hard to maneuver), you'll enter into a strange dimension with a number bizarre enemies and whole lot of items that will eventually lead you to Katina.

Fortuna: This is the first completely All-Range mode level of the game. Your mission is to recover the base from the enemies that have taken it over. (By the way, doesn't this level remind you of the ice planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back? Heck, even the situation is kind of similar.) When you first start the level, you may think it'll be easy since all you have to deal with are these very vulnerable saucers but ROB 64 will eventually inform you that a time bomb has been planted at the base. And that's when the Star Wolf team attacks. Now you have a time limit to where you must take out the Star Wolf team so you can diffuse the bomb. The problem is that the evil mercenaries' ships are fast and hard to hit. You can lock onto them but they often manage to outrun the charged up laser blast. You can flip around to tag the one chasing you but he'll often take evasive action and it's hard to keep him in your sights. You often have to bank really hard to do so. This is one of those levels where I tend to get annoyed at my other teammates. They're all calling for your help but you've got your own problems with Star Wolf himself baring down on you. Your best bet is to target each member of the team one at a time and shoot them enough to where your teammate can turn the tables on his pursuer. Unfortunately, Slippy usually gets in trouble again even after you help him (of course). You shouldn't be scrapped for health, though, because there are radar beacons that give up silver rings when you destroy them. Where you go next depends on the outcome of the situation. If the Star Wolf team evades you and the base is destroyed, you'll proceed on to Sector X. If you manage to shoot the members of the team down, Fox will fly into the base, diffuse the bomb, and proceed to Solar.

Sector X: This is an interesting level in that you're sent to investigate a rumored secret weapon that Andross has been working on but when you reach the base, you discover that it's been destroyed (if you know anything about science fiction, you can probably guess what the cause is going to be revealed as). Even though it's now a big floating field of debris, the place is still crawling with enemies. There are canine robotic fighters that attack you when you get close, robot fighters that tend to link up in groups of three, more of those killer bee robots, floating space mines that explode automatically when you get too close, and automated lasers on the floating remnants of the base. There are also these floating spy satellites which don't attack you and in fact, are quite useful because they contain items. Besides the enemies, you also have to avoid big floating pieces of debris and there are spots where you have to maneuver your Arwing carefully to fly through openings in the really big pieces of the base. There are three possible ways to complete this stage. Eventually, you'll come to a fork in the path and if you go left, you come across four gateways that you can open by shooting them repeatedly until they turn red. If you fly through all four (which is a bit tricky since they tend to disconnect from the pieces of debris they're attached to), you'll enter a warp zone similar to the one in Meteo and you'll travel to Sector Z. If you fail to open the gates or you take the right path instead, you'll eventually face the boss which, predictably, is the secret weapon which has gone haywire. It's a large, floating robot torso and there are two phases to the battle. First, you have to shoot at its head when its glowing eyes are visible while avoiding laser blasts from its head and its hands which it shoots at you like missiles. When you keep shooting it and blow its head off, you'll think you've beaten it but the robot comes back to life for another round (the thing even wags its finger at you). This time, it has a head that's much smaller and harder to hit and at the same time, you have to dodge faster laser blasts, the robot throwing big pieces of the base at you, and it spinning around while flailing its huge arms. If you manage to destroy the robot quickly, you'll move on to the planet of Macbeth. However, Slippy will charge at the robot early in the second phase and if he gets hit by the robot's hand, he'll tumble towards the planet of Titania and you'll have to go there to rescue him next.

Titania: This is basically the Lylat System's version of the planet Mars with the red sky and red sand everywhere. It's actually an interesting level in design because of the ancient architecture which hints at a long lost civilization as well as strewn about skeletons of some species of large creature. This is one of the two levels where you use the Landmaster tank and while its useful in attacking all the ground-based enemies, it's hard to hit all the enemy fighters in the sky (even when you're in the Landmaster, you still have to occasionally save your comrades, who are in their Arwings, from pursuing enemies). There are plenty of enemies and hazards here. There are gigantic crawling robots that aren't that hard to destroy but you will take damage if you drive into them, robots on hills that throw boulders at you, enemy tanks which aren't hard to destroy but they often travel in groups, and crafts that dump land mines on you. Speaking of which, there are land mines everywhere in this level and they're hard to get a lock with the Landmaster's turret. There are also big explosives that detonate when you get close but if you shoot them, they'll jump away and explode in the air. There are tall, sentry towers that shoot long lasers at you and it's tough to avoid two or three in a row because they criss-cross each other. On top of all that, there are sections where you have to avoid giant pillars which tumble down towards you. There's a valley right before the boss where all of the hazards come out of the woodwork at you and it can get frustrating, especially on Expert mode. The boss here is a bizarre, four-armed, skeletal creature that has Slippy in one of its hands. To free Slippy, you must destroy the other three arms and when you destroy the fourth one, its beating heart behind its rib-cage will exposed. The boss' attacks are laser blasts from its upper arms while it tries to smash you with its lower ones and a Godzilla-like energy blast that it shoots from its mouth. This boss can be tricky but if you keep a cool head, you'll eventually take it down.

Bolse: This space station is the easy route's entry into Venom. This is an all-range mode mission and the first part is simple. You have to destroy the six shield reactors so you can attack the energy core (the enemy fighters flying around the station are shielded as well). You have to fight the station's gravitational pull during this section and the energy rays emitting from the reactors can damage your ship but it's not too difficult. Once the shield is down, a swarm of fighters will come out of the center of the base. There are laser cannons spread along the surface of the station. Worst of all, if the path you took through the Lylat System didn't lead you to Fortuna or if it did and any members of the Star Wolf team escaped that mission, you'll have to deal with them here. The good news, though, is that there's no time limit here and since the station has stopped rotating, flying is much easier. During the dogfight, the energy core will eventually reveal itself. To destroy it, you have to blast the eight yellow panels on the towering center of the core. This task is made complicated by the core's constant turning as well as the fact that destroyed panels start spraying laser blasts. I never found this to be too difficult a level, though.

Katina: This is the first of the three medium levels. To get here, you'll either have to use the warp in Meteo or be redirected from Sector Y (I'll elaborate on that later). In any case, this level is straight out of Independence Day (which makes sense seeing as how it was the biggest movie of the year before this game's release). It's an all-range mode level where you join the squadron led by Fox's old friend Bill Grey in staving off an attack on the planet's base. When you first enter the stage, you may find it difficult to differentiate the enemy ships from those in Bill's unit. The difference is that the enemy fighters are saucer-shaped whereas the friendly ones look like jets. Even with that difference in mind, though, you more than likely will accidentally destroy some friendly crafts. While your targeting computer will only lock onto enemies, the charged up blasts will destroy any friendly crafts that are too close. It's best not to use smart bombs as well. Eventually, an enormous mothership will enter the battle and position itself above the base. It first will spew out more fighters from its four hatches. You must destroy all four of the hatches, which can get tricky because they're constantly opening and closing (Bill will tell you when they're opening). After they're destroyed, the saucer will expose its powerful laser core. You have one minute to destroy it before it charges up sufficiently to vaporize the base. Much like the Fortuna mission, where you go next depends on whether you save the base or not. If the base is destroyed (again, that cinematic comes straight out of Independence Day), you'll be redirected to Sector X. If you succeed in defeating the saucer, you'll proceed on to Solar (Bill will briefly join in both missions when you arrive at them from here).

Solar: This level is basically the Lylat System's sun. Your biggest enemy here is the heat. You have to stay as high as you can because the closer you get to the molten surface, the faster you'll take damage. To complicate that, there are sections where there are huge swells in the lava which you absolutely must keep from touching. There are also large swarms of birds made of lava, some of which will chase your teammates, and gigantic fireballs that spring up across the surface. Fortunately, items are all over the place here, revealed when you blast apart rocks that spring out of the lava. If you come here from Katina, Bill Grey will appear briefly and if you follow him, he'll drop some items for you. This is one of the few levels where there are no hidden paths or outcomes. Your next destination is always the same. The boss here is a gigantic, mantis-like bioweapon that's made entirely of magma. It's not too difficult to beat though. You first have to destroy its arms and after that, just shoot its mouth until its dead. It will create tidal waves of lava with its arms and once you've destroyed them, it will sling its sizzling hot magma bodily fluid at you as well as splash into the lave to create a huge swell. It also spits rocks at you from its mouth but those rocks are filled with items so it's unknowingly helping you on that score.

Macbeth: This is the other Landmaster level. The planet serves as the location of the factories and plants that create Andross' weapons. Your main target here is a supply train that's heading for the main weapons factory. The thing is that the train is not defenseless in the slightest. It dumps enormous boulders in your path as well as sends them hurtling towards at several points and it also has a car with a tower that fires missiles at you or at a nearby hill to put more boulders in your path. The engineer will also activate security bars that you have to hover over and, of course, the sky is full of fighters that your comrades are trying their best to take down (you will have to rescue them a couple of times). The train's cars take a number of hits to destroy but the good thing is that they're big and slow, which makes them easy to hit. Destroying some cars will cause chain reactions that blow up a good number of cars ahead of them (though you'll have to blast the cars' charred remains out of your way). Your next destination depends on whether you manage to take out the main weapons factory or not. You'll come across eight switches along the track that will change the train's direction and send it crashing into the weapons factory if you manage to flip them all by shooting them. If you manage that, you'll head to Area 6 next. If you're unable to flip the switches, you'll have to take out a hovering robot that the train deploys (this thing appears while you're trying to flip the switches and if you manage to flip them all, you don't have to worry about fighting it). This robot has a number of fierce attacks including iron bars that it shoots along your path that you must take out, wide beams of energy that it shoots from its wings, and its tail that it uses you scoop you up. You have to target its head and tail (both of which are kind of tricky to hit, especially the head since it's so small) and once they're destroyed, you must shoot the glowing power panel on the train. That will cripple the robot for a few seconds and it will be vulnerable to laser fire. After taking out the robot, you'll head to Bolse. (I must note that I absolutely love the dialogue by the train engineer in this stage, especially when you defeat him. When you change the train's direction, he yells, "No! Hit the brakes! I can't STOP IT!" When you destroy the robot, it'll come crashing towards him and he'll yell, "No! Get away!" Really funny stuff.)

Sector Y: The first of the hard levels, this has you flying into a sector of space to save a fleet of Cornerian ships from Andross' forces. This level is a war of attrition as you fly through in corridor mode and do battle with enormous, heavily armed battleships (you can destroy them but you can disarm some of them by blasting the turrets on their sides), homing missiles, and a ton of flying, robot warriors with shields and large laser blasters. Your next destination is determined before you enter the boss battle. If you destroy less than a hundred enemies, you'll be sent to Katina. If you manage to destroy over a hundred enemies, you'll head onward to Aquas. In order to get the hundred hits, it's best to take the upper path when this one battleship forces you to either go above or below it. The first part of the boss battle consists of you battling two large robot warriors. These guys are quick, agile, and they constantly charge you and shoot at you with their huge laser pistols. They're annoying but I never found them to be that hard to defeat. After you destroy them, though, the big boy, an even larger, silver robot warrior, comes out to play. Despite its size, it's still very agile, is well protected by its large shield, and a direct hit from its laser gun can really damage your Arwing. You can destroy its shield but it takes an ungodly number of hits. After that, just keep sweeping and blasting it until it explodes (with its pilot screaming in rage and defeat right before it does).

Aquas: The sole level where you use the Blue Marine sub, this can be a very tough stage. There are enemies galore here and it can become really congested. You have to constantly fire your lasers and torpedoes just to clear the way as well as destroy incoming threats. Early in the stage, there are little, normal-sized fish that don't harm you but are attracted by your torpedoes and tend to block them from hitting their intended targets. Fortunately, they disappear when you get further into the level. The design of the enemy sea creatures you encounter is quite inspired, I must say but on the same token, they're all very tough and can take a lot of punishment. You have these enormous, long fish that swim across your path, blocking your way; oversized angler fish that take a lot of hits to destroy, even with torpedoes; these weird creatures that look like floating shells at first but open themselves up to reveal humanoid proportions and you can only damage them by shooting their vulnerable insides; big starfish that explode like mines; clams that fire laser blasts at you; jellyfish creatures that link up in threes to create electrical charges (you can't destroy them at all); enormous squids that don't actually attack you but can get in your way; and these scallop-like things that are armored on one side and are best taken down with torpedoes. You also have to admire the Atlantis-like ruins you come across throughout the level, suggesting that there was a civilization on this planet but it eventually sunk into the sea. The boss is an enormous clam monster that isn't difficult so much as it's just annoying. The thing shoots eels out of the pods on top of its shell (you can destroy the pods), and enormous pearls out of the pods inside its mouth (you can only temporarily put them out of commission rather than destroy them). You first have to shoot the two stalks inside the mouth that are holding up the top of the shell until they turn white and then blast them with torpedoes. Once they're both gone, you have to target the clam's eye. It puts a shield in front its eye that you have to shoot until the eye is exposed and then target it with torpedoes. The more you damage the creature, the more pearls it'll shoot to block your torpedo shots so the last two or three hits can be tricky to score.

Zoness: This is another ocean planet like Aquas only this time, you fly above the water in your Arwing. Also like Aquas, this level is choked with unique and challenging enemies, particularly those that travel in big groups. There are two types of bird-like creatures: one type that drops bombs on you and bigger types that tend to chase your comrades; big water skimmers that can only be taken out with charged up lasers and bombs; clam-like things that leap out of the water and shoot energy blasts at you; squadrons of patrol boats; and, worst of all, enormous heavily armored sea serpents that don't attack you but can damage your Arwing if you run into them. You can't hurt those big serpents at all and they pop up very unexpectedly so you must keep your guard up. Fortunately, there are lots of enemy supply boats that yield items when you destroy the containers on their decks and this is where Falco's would-be girlfriend Katt drops in to help and, like Bill Grey, she'll join you on whatever your next mission is. There are also searchlights strewn throughout the level. If you manage to destroy them all (which can be tricky because some are behind these gates whose rudders you have to shoot quickly in order to open them), you'll move on to Sector Z next. If even one spots you, though, and you just have to fly by one without shooting it for it to detect you, you'll be forced to head to Macbeth next. Either way, you'll have to battle the boss, which is a heavily armored battleship operated by an ape who talks like a stereotypical pirate. At first, it's completely invincible to laser fire and you'll have to use smart bombs (fortunately, it shoots plenty of slow moving iron balls that turn into smart bombs when you blast them). First, you have to destroy the twin funnels on the front and while you're trying to do so, the ship will submerge down into the water and fire a big, spiked ball on a chain at you. Once the funnels are destroyed, you have to blow up one of the launching pads on either side of the ship and once you do, the ship will turn around and try to use its backside crane to recover the lost part of the ship. Destroy that crane and the ship will be completely defenseless (you can now use your lasers on it as well as bombs to finish it off).

Sector Z: This All-Range mode level is fairly straightforward at first. The first part of it has you scramble out of Great Fox to take on a number of enemy fighters. These crafts are fast and more heavily armored than most enemy crafts you've encountered before and there will be instances where you'll have to save your buddies from them. There's also a lot of floating space junk so if you're not careful, you could lose a wing. However, if you get too badly damaged, you can fly into the docking bay on Great Fox's backside, you'll come out good as new (you'll have to reclaim your laser upgrades if you lost a wing yourself, though). Where things get dire is when the enemy fires six big missiles at Great Fox. The missiles approach in ever escalating numbers: the first approaches by itself, the next two approach together, and the last three come at Great Fox all at once. ROB 64 will warn you when they are approaching and how far they are from their target. If you don't have the highest laser upgrade, your best bet is to use charged lasers and smart bombs. The missiles move very slowly so you will have a lot of time but the problem is that you have to wait until they enter your radar area to launch a full-scale attack on them; otherwise, your Arwing will automatically do a U-turn. Your friends, including Katt, will help you take them out (if they're not being pursued by enemy fighters, that is) and if you fire rapidly enough, you will destroy them. If Great Fox is hit by any of the missiles, you'll be redirected to Bolse. If you manage to destroy the missiles, you will proceed on to Area 6.

Area 6: As the last level before you reach Venom, this level is a war of attrition in every sense of the term. It's an absolute endurance with thousands of enemy fighters, more of those bee robots, lots of umbrella-shaped space stations that turn and fire multiple laser blasts at you,  octopus-like missiles that drift toward that you must take as quickly as possible because the concussions from the explosion can still damage your Arwing even if the missiles themselves don't hit you, and two types of battleships: ones with skulls on the side that can be taken down with a few shots and Star Destroyer-like ones that can only be taken down by destroying the bridge. All three of your teammates will need your help at one point or another and at one point, Andross himself will come on the communication line and taunt you (that is, if you answer the call). The good news is that ROB 64 will have Great Fox fire upon some of the battleships if you answer his call. (Weirdly enough, the two characters in charge of operations here are reptiles instead of apes.) The boss is a large saucer-shaped satellite that has metal tentacles with claws on the ends, a warp mechanism, an unlimited supply of missiles and fighters that it can deploy, and worst of all, a powerful laser that it shoots out of its core like the freaking Death Star. You have to shoot the tentacles to make the satellite open up to reveal its core and then you must shoot the three energy balls rotating around the core (the latter segment is hard because the screen keeps shifting, making it easy to miss). Repeat this process twice and the core will become vulnerable. You have to keep shooting the core and the tentacles until the thing blows up.

Venom: There are two different stages on Venom, depending on which route you took to reach it. If you approach it from Bolse, you'll enter a corridor-mode level where you have to battle swarms of fighters, robots, and small tank-like crafts, enormous pillars that jut out of the ground, and big blocks that will either come flying towards you or form a hazardous forest that you have to navigate through carefully (that latter situation depends on which of the many different routes you take). By the way, this level is nearly impossible on Expert mode. You will die so many times there because there's always something that you'll run into and therefore, lose one or both of your wings. After flying through over such a hazardous planet surface, you'll enter a temple where you face one last boss before the battle with Andross: a running statue that is actually a robot. You have to destroy the rock armor on every part of his body until his head starts rotating and then blast it until it blows apart. After that, the robot's mechanical innards will be completely exposed and you can destroy him with just a few more shots. During the chase, the robot will strike the walls and send long bars in your path (after a while, there will so many that they'll be hard to avoid) and there are also falling pillars and big statues with swinging arms along the path. 

After destroying that robot, you head down a long corridor to Andross (fortunately, the game is good enough to give you plenty of items to make up for any damage you received during the level beforehand). This form of Andross with the big floating head and hands isn't that hard to defeat, actually. He tries to smack you with either of his hands and then tries to smash you by clapping his hands together. He also shoots a lightning bolt from one hand and his most damaging attack is when he tries to inhale you into his mouth. When he does that, fire a smart bomb into his mouth or if you don't have any, somersault like crazy to avoid being sucked in. If he does manage to suck you in, he'll spit you back out, causing a lot of damage, destroying one or both of your wings, and disorienting your ship for a few seconds. He also spits out a ton of rocks but fortunately, those tend to have items inside them. His hands are quite vulnerable and so are his eyes. If you shoot him in the eyes, he'll pause momentarily and that will give you ample time to target his hands. Once you've destroyed both of his hands, the brow between his eyes will become vulnerable but only at certain key points, namely after you shoot a bomb into his mouth or when he spits out all those rocks. All you have to do is blast away at those moments until his head explodes. When you've come from Bolse, his head will explode to reveal that, in actuality, you've been fighting a robotic double of Andross. You have to get rid of it quickly because there's no way to dodge it when it charges at you. After you destroy it, you'll get the ending credits but afterward, Andross' head will appear in the sky, revealing that you haven't really defeated him yet.

The real final battle begins when you enter Venom from Area 6. Before you battle Andross, you'll have to battle the Star Wolf team one last time. As if that wasn't bad enough, they're now flying new and improved ships. I've been able to take down their original ships quite easily since I got used to them but the ones they fly here are quite a challenge. They're faster and much more agile than before, with stronger twin lasers (instead of the single ones their original ships fired), the ability to do a barrel roll and create a stronger shield than your Arwing, so much so that even direct hits from smart bombs don't do as much damage. During this fight, your teammates' cries for help are even more annoying than before (Slippy's especially) and I tend to lose most of them, especially if they took a lot of damage from Area 6. Believe me, you don't want to have to face two or more of these improved ships by yourself if you can help it. Even after you manage to turn the tables in your friends' favor, you still have to deal with Wolf himself and a ship that's nearly impossible to get good shots at. This fight will take a long time and you'll lose a lot of lives the first time you try it. My only advice is just to stay patient and keep trying.

After dealing with the Star Wolf team, you'll head to the real final battle with Andross. Getting to him is not very straightforward this time. You have to navigate a maze of corridors until you find him and you have to be careful of the sharp turns or you'll lose a wing. When you get to Andross, the first part of the fight will be the same as the battle with mechanical doppelganger. When you destroy Andross' head, that's when the real battle begins. Andross' oversized brain and eyes will be all that's left. This is a very tricky battle, which is in all-range mode this time. Andross launches his eyes at you on long energy strands that can damage your ship if you touch them and the eyes themselves shoot lasers at you. Those eyes can be difficult to get in your sights because they're on the edge of the field and always seem to get right behind. Your best bet is to keep somersaulting until they're in your sights and blast them away quickly. After you destroy the eyes, it's time to attack the brain itself but this is harder than it sounds. You must shoot the medulla, which is the small section on the back of the brain that's a different color from the main section. The brain moves around quite fast and getting behind it can be tricky because the tentacles underneath it can severely damage your ship and destroy your wings if they get you. To make matters worse, if you accidentally shoot the main section of the brain, it'll teleport right behind you. Tight turns and barrel rolls are your best bets to getting the medulla in your sights.

Even after you destroy Andross, you're still not done. Andross decides to try to take you with him by causing a huge explosion but at the last possible moment, James McCloud suddenly shows up to show you the way out. This last part can be challenging because you can't let James get too far ahead of you and you have to be ready to turn. If you lose James and take the wrong path, you'll fly right into a fiery dead end and be destroyed instantly. Once you make it, you can celebrate because the endurance test is finally over.

Man, that review took a while but it was worth it because Star Fox 64 is one of my favorite Nintendo 64 games by far. It has good characters, groundbreaking use of real voice acting, enjoyable and challenging gameplay, well designed levels and enemies, good music, and a non-linear way of playing that makes for a lot of replay value. If you've never played it before and have a Nintendo 64, I'd say give it a try. Also, if you feel that this isn't your kind of game, remember that I knew nothing about it before I actually played it. In other words, you might just be surprised.

Movies That Suck/Franchises: Predator. Predators (2010)

I'll start this one off by saying that I, like just about everyone else, had been waiting for a third Predator movie for a long time, particularly due to the fact that, since Predator 2, the only other big-screen appearances of the intergalactic hunters were the horrible attempts to bring the Alien vs. Predator concept to the big screen. That idea was ripe for film and there were many who were excited about it, myself included, but, both times they tried, it just didn't work out for various reasons and, unless they came up with a good script and a capable director for another crack at an AVP flick, separating the franchises again and going forward with solitary films for each was the only other way to go. So, in 2009, it was announced that the Predators would indeed return in a film simply called Predators, which would be produced by Robert Rodriguez. I was very happy that another stand-alone Predator movie was being produced and, despite some questionable actions on the part of the filmmakers, like some of the casting choices and Rodriguez's insistence that Predator 2 doesn't exist in this continuity (I'll get more into that presently), I was looking forward to this flick. I didn't see it in the theater, though, and it wasn't until early 2012 when I finally saw it on Blu-Ray... and, boy, was I ever disappointed. This makes me hate Rodriguez's attitude towards Predator 2 even more because Predator 2 is bad-ass, while this is one sorry, dull, miscast joke of a sci-fi/action movie that wishes it could be in the same league as both that movie and the 1987 original.

A mercenary awakens to find himself falling in mid-air with a parachute on his back, which deploys and lands him in a jungle. Upon arriving, he meets up with seven other people who arrive in the same manner, including a Mexican drug cartel member, a Russian soldier, a female sniper for the Israeli Defense Force, a Serra Leoa militia, a death-row inmate, a silent Yakuza, and a doctor. The last thing each of one of them remembers is seeing a bright light before finding themselves in the middle of the free fall. The group then attempts to find out where they are, eventually discovering that they're not even on Earth. They continue speculating why they were brought to the planet but after they're attacked by several strange beasts which retreat after hearing a whistle, they deduce that the planet is one large game preserve and that they're being hunted. Before long, they meet the deadly Predators and learn the full details about them from one of their party, who has heard of them before. From there on out, it becomes a struggle for the group to survive and find a way off the planet.

I can remember back to a summer of 2009 episode of a podcast I used to listen to where one of the co-hosts announced, "We may have a nimrod directing the next Predator movie," and then he proceeded to name the director: Nimrod Antal. I thought it was a joke at first. Just think about that for a second: there's a guy, a filmmaker no less, whose first name is Nimrod and that really is his name. He's of Hungarian descent and I've heard that it's a fairly common name in other countries and, as one would hope, doesn't mean what it does over here, (apparently it's actually pronounced Neemrod), but, again, I can't get over that. Nimord. (In fact, that proper pronunciation sounds a bit worse to me.) In any case, Antal (I'd feel bad if I called him by his first name throughout this review because I'd be snickering in my head, as immature as that would be) has only directed two shorts and four films to date. His first film Kontroll is pretty well-liked and Vacancy is a claustrophobic horror film that I haven't seen but I hear good things about. However, if Predators is any indication as to where this guy's evolution as a filmmaker is going, I doubt we'll see anything worth a crap from him again. (I was going to make a joke that, after seeing this movie, I can understand why everybody calls him Nimrod but I decided that was a little too mean.)

One of the film's major problems is the fact that Adrien Brody is the lead. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Adrien Brody, but he is NOT an action hero. I didn't mind him in Peter Jackson's King Kong but he wasn't trying to be a 80's type of action star in that movie. When I heard that he was the lead in Predators, I was puzzled but decided to take a leap faith, figuring that an Oscar-winning actor who doesn't look the part might be able to pull it off. Nope. There are so many better actors who would have been better choices, like Jason Statham, Thomas Jane, Mickey Rourke, and so on but nope, they decided to be cast against type and go with Brody. Now, I will give Brody credit, his physique in this movie is quite impressive when you finally do see it. He looks good. But, that said, he looks like a geek in the face and does not come across as a mercenary at all to me. I know the reason that they gave for going with him, that they didn't want to cast a big, burly Arnold Schwarzenegger-type of guy because that's not realistic. First off, those guys I mentioned above aren't big and burly but they're a lot more believable as mercenaries than Brody. Second, I am so sick of everything having to be realistic nowadays. Whatever happened to escapism, which is what the original Predator and all of those great action movies of the 80's were all about? Also, Brody's acting in this movie is such a joke. Throughout the entire film, he talks in this raspy, Clint Eastwood-like voice that you hear so many would-be action heroes like Christian Bale use nowadays (I was about to say that I would have rather had Bale as the lead here but I know he would have used that voice as well). When are people going to learn that that kind of voice does not make you sound bad-ass or intimidating but rather makes you sound like an idiot who's trying to compensate for something?

Putting everything that I've already said about Brody aside, I also just plain didn't like his character, Royce (whose name you don't learn until the end of the movie). He's one of two things. First, he's a cliche: the brooding loner who has a troubled past and doesn't want to get close to anybody, is forced to assume leadership through circumstance, and so on. That worked for Kurt Russell in John Carpenter's The Thing because Russell was able to make himself feel like someone with that kind of history and personality but, when Brody tries to do it, I just can't take him seriously. Second, Royce is a prick. He's selfish, really douchey about his need to be alone, uses the people around him simply as a means to an end, actually uses them to draw out the Predators at one point, and leaves several, wounded team members behind to die. I know that those aforementioned wounded team members were, unbeknownst to him either, already dead or turned out to be a psycho but still, the way he treated them and those who wanted to help them really rubbed me the wrong way. I know you can't always save someone who's in danger but he was just a douche about it. By the time he did come back and help the last two survivors, it was too late for me to grow to like him. I didn't care whether this guy lived (which I knew he was going to) or died, whereas I cared about about both Dutch and Mike Harrigan. Not only did those guys have charisma but they were loyal to their comrades. I know Royce didn't start out as their leader but he didn't endear himself to them or to me. The choice of Brody just did not work at all.

I will say that I did kind of like Alice Braga's role of Isabelle, the Israeli sniper. She's a tough woman (like Anna in the original Predator, she's the only female in the movie) but has a good heart. She's the one who's determined not to leave anybody behind, which puts her in conflict with Royce's "every man for himself" type of personality. She feels guilty about not being able to save her spotter in a mission she partook in before being brought to the planet and feels that this is her chance for redemption. Also like Anna, she's the one who knows a little bit about the Predators, telling the group of the events of the original film and explaining a bit about the aliens themselves. (By the way, she tells them how Dutch used mud to mask his body heat from the Predator's thermal vision but do these guys ever do this? Nope.) She's also (predictably) the only other survivor besides Royce. There was a budding romance between the two of them by the end of the movie (which you can see coming a mile away) but it's so contrived and I was just thinking, "Lady, you can do a lot better than him. He didn't even tell you (or us, for that matter) his name until a few minutes before the movie ended!" That was ultimately the only thing I didn't like about her character; otherwise, I thought she was a nicely done character.

The most head-scratching casting choice in the entire movie to me is not even Adrien Brody: it's Topher Grace as Edwin, the doctor who is revealed at the end to actually be a serial killer. Someone said that the very idea of Topher Grace in a Predator movie just isn't right and I agree with that notion wholeheartedly. Throughout the entire movie, I found him to be just unbearable, with his complaining and sniveling and how he's going on with all of this medical jargon, no doubt to reinforce that he's a supposed doctor. Also, when he's revealed at the end of the movie to be a serial killer, I rolled my eyes because, while I figured that there was going to be some kind of catch, I thought it would be more creative. I thought that maybe he was in on it with the Predators and that they took him because he was a doctor and, therefore, could help them figure out how humans' bodies work. But no, he's just a serial killer who's also possibly a doctor or perhaps has such a large amount of medical knowledge simply because he is a killer. It doesn't really matter because, one, I can't buy Grace as a serial killer (he's not scary or intimidating in the slightest when the reveal is made), and two, he decides he wants to stay on the planet because he fits in among the monsters there and is actually the normal one when compared to them, which is so stupid and pretentious. The bottom line is that Topher Grace does not belong in this kind of movie, let alone as somebody who doesn't die until very near the end.

While we're on the subject of the psychos in this movie, let's go ahead and mention Walton Goggins as Stans, the death-row inmate. Among the group, he's the least likable because he's an unrepentant psychopath who threatens Mombasa with a knife to make him give him his gun and, at one point, mentions that if he gets back to Earth, he's going to rape so many women. He's such a creep that even Edwin, the serial killer, feels uncomfortable around him! The problem with his character is the same problem with a good majority of the characters in Alien 3 (even though I don't completely hate that movie): it's hard to grow to like somebody who's an unremorseful killer and rapist. It's akin to if you put those horrible characters of Percy and Wild Bill from The Green Mile in this situation: they're so loathsome and hateful that I'm not going to care one iota about what happens to them. And like Edwin, Stans survives until very late in the movie, so that just makes it even worse.

The rest of the group are characters that I kind of liked but the problem is that they're either dispatched far too quickly or don't do much. I did like Oleg Taktarov's character of Nikolai, the Russian commando because he feels like a very decent, honorable person and I like that when Edwin keeps him from touching a poisonous plant, he promises to look out for him. You get the impression that there is potential for him to be a bad-ass character but he doesn't get to do much other than sacrifice his life to kill one of the Predators as well as to save Edwin (which turns out to be a waste because of what we find out about Edwin soon afterward). I also thought Louis Ozawa Changchien was one of the cooler aspects of the group as Hanzo, the Yakuza. He's awesome because he's the strong, silent type, with almost no dialogue and when he does reveal that he can speak English very late in the movie, he also shows that he's actually missing two fingers because, "I talk too much." But, what should have been his bad-ass moment is kind of botched for a couple of reasons. As the remainders of the group are escaping, he decides for no reason to stay behind and battle one of the pursuing Predators, in an attempt by the filmmakers to make a callback to Billy's last stand in the original movie. That's fine and dandy but here's the thing: Billy decided to stay and fight after he heard Dillon's death scream back in the jungle and knew he had to hold the Predator off so the others could escape; Hanzo, on the other hand, makes this decision to fight one of them out of the blue and with no reason to do so. He makes use of a katana sword to duel with one of the Predators but, while it is a cool scene and is no doubt meant to satisfy those who wondered what went down between Billy and the Predator, I thought it was messed up by the fact that Hanzo actually manages to kill the Predator but gets himself killed in the process as well. I'll explain why I feel like that later on.

One of the biggest wastes casting-wise is Danny Trejo as Cuchillo, an enforcer of a Mexican drug cartel. Trejo is a guy who would have been perfect in this type of movie but he ultimately gets to do little other than have a brief skirmish with Royce at the very beginning of the movie. He doesn't get a chance to battle the Predators and we don't even see him fight with their attack dog-like creatures. He's actually the first one to get killed, with the Predators then using his body as bait to try to trap the other team members, which makes me wonder what the point was of putting Trejo in here and outfitting him with twin submachine guns. Such a freaking waste, and another one is Mahershalalhashbaz Ali (boy, that's a mouthful) as Mombasa, a soldier from Sierra Leone. Like Nikolai, this character had potential to be an enjoyable member of the cast. He has a good presence to him and even though he's sort of a rip-off of Billy given how he's the first one to sense the Predators' presence, I didn't really mind it because I liked the way the character looked and acted. But, that's thrown away when he ends up being the second one to die and, like Cuchillo, he doesn't get a chance to fight the Predators. Yeah, God forbid that one of the cool characters actually lives to the end. It really felt like Antal and Rodriguez had the wrong priorities when developing these characters because they let the lame and unlikable ones live to the end and then either killed the cool ones off far too early or didn't let them do anything. These past few characters that I've been talking about are the ones I wanted to see as the leads, not the star of The Pianist trying to be an action hero or some guy from That 70's Show trying to pass himself off as a serial killer.

The biggest waste of an actor in this movie by far is Laurence Fishburne as Noland, a soldier who has been stuck on the planet for a long time and has been living in a downed aircraft. He's learned all about the Predators' hunting habits and a bit of their culture, explaining it to the group, as well as how to use the Predators' technology for his own purposes, but all the years of living on the planet by himself have taken their toll on Noland's head. He's completely crazy, constantly talking to someone who's not there, and after he gains the group's trust, he attempts to murder them so he can steal their supplies and weapons. I will say it's interesting to see Fishburne play this type of character and he is good... for all of the fifteen minutes he's in the movie. After he attempts to murder the group, he gets killed by one of the Predators. Like Danny Trejo, I have to ask why you would put an actor like Fishburne in a role where you know he's not going to last long. If you're going to have him come into the movie as this character, why not have him be stable and helpful to the group, perhaps even living to the end of the movie? Hell, why not put him in the role of Roye? He'd be much more compelling than Adrien Brody. I know I must sound like a broken record at this point but the casting choices and priorities in this movie just blow my mind.

One compliment that I can give the movie is that the location work is good. As much crap as I've given Antal and Rodriguez for everything else, they at least understand that part of the appeal of the original Predator was that it was shot in real jungles and they decided to follow suit. A good portion of film was shot in Hawaii and the rainforests do look beautiful, especially when filmed in HD. It doesn't feel quite as harsh as the jungles of Mexico that were used for the original movie but it still has the right vibe. They filmed the interiors at the studio in Texas that Rodriguez owns but they also filmed some exteriors at Canyon Lake Gorge, which is where I'm guessing that they filmed the scene where the group falls down a waterfall into a big lake or lagoon after encountering the Predators for the first time. All of my compliments about the location aside, though, there is a missed opportunity here with the movie's actual setting. If this is supposed to be a game preserve where the Predators bring their intended prey in order to hunt them, why don't they run into many other different types of creatures besides that one thing that chases Edwin at one point? What was the point of that moment where they find all these cages that clearly contained other alien creatures when you don't even get to see them? (I actually thought those things contained the Predators' tracking dogs at first but now that I think about it, I guess that wouldn't make sense.) You might argue, "Well, the Predators have already killed the other creatures they brought there," but not only is that one creature still alive, so is Noland. All I'm saying is if you're going to set a movie on an alien game preserve, do something with it!

The questionable casting choices and ill-advised treatment of the really cool characters are bad enough but this movie fails in the action department as well. It's really boring for the most part, which is NOT what a Predator movie should be, with a good section of it consisting of the characters wandering around the jungle, trying to figure out where they are and who brought them there. Granted, Predator had a bit of a buildup to it as well but you spent that buildup with characters that you like, unlike these people. Also, the buildup was well worth it because the action scenes were fantastic; the action scenes in this movie, however, are either very generic or too short. It opens with a skirmish between Royce and several of the other actors but that ends rather quickly and shortly afterward, they trip a booby trap left behind by a deceased soldier but that doesn't last long. After a while, they're attacked by a group of four-legged creatures which are later revealed to be some type of hunting dogs that the Predators use and while that scene is okay, I wanted to see them fighting the Predators, not their pets. After that, they finally run into the Predators but it's not that impressive because all they do is run off as the Predators try to shoot them. From there on, the action scenes consist of brief skirmishes, long periods of running, and a final battle between Royce and the leader Predator that I had lost interest in long before it took place.

Another reason why the buildup doesn't work is because if you've seen the other movies (and you wouldn't be watching this if you weren't a fan of the other movies), you're far ahead of the characters and are just waiting for them to catch up. You know what the Predators are and what they do, so there's no suspense in the buildup and as a result, the jungle, as much as I complimented the way it's shot, isn't atmospheric and the movie as a whole is just dull. Now, that's not to say that this type of sequel can't be done well, because it most certainly can. Case in point, let's take a quick look at one of the best examples of a sequel that there is: Aliens. If you've seen Alien, you already know what the monsters are and what they do but there is still a lot of buildup as you wait for the marines to discover what they're dealing with. But, again, you've spent the buildup with a team of very likable, charismatic characters and therefore, the setting, atmosphere, and anticipation is very effective. Even though the Aliens don't come into the movie until quite a while in, the buildup is worth it and the remainder of the movie after it is so much better for it. There is a long lull between action scenes, yes, but you have the great characters to fall back on. I know I keep going around in circles on this matter but it's the truth: Aliens was a sequel with a structure similar to this that worked, while Predators doesn't.

Rodriguez and Antal love Predator so much (which they should) that not only did they want to give audiences an experience similar to that movie, they also decided to put in some nods of the hat to it as well. While I don't mind sequels or remakes doing that, it can be tricky to avoid doing it to the point where you make the viewer wish they were watching the original movie instead; Predators fails that on all counts, with the references to the original film being so blatant and jarring that I was about ready to say, "To hell with it," take the disc out of the player, and pop in the original Predator. They include Royce saying, "Do it now! Kill me!", Mombasa sensing the Predators' presence before anyone else just as Billy did, one of the Predators (the "classic" one, no less) inspecting Royce just as the original one did to Dutch, the aforementioned fall over a waterfall into a large body of water, Noland whispering "Over here" and "Turn around" when he uses the Predators' cloaking technology (that really made me groan), and, as I mentioned earlier, the scene between Hanzo and one of the Predators is very similar to Billy's last stand. I'll comment more thoroughly on the musical references when I actually talk about the score but I will say now that is distracting as well. One reference that I thought was kind of clever, though, was the creature that chases Edwin through the jungle at one point. Apparently, that was based on the original design of the Predator in the first movie that was abandoned when Stan Winston came in. I have to give them that nice little in-joke for hardcore fans. But, for the most part, the references to the original Predator were very egregious and this movie already has enough problems without that added issue of it wanting to make you watch something else on top of it.

I know that when I reviewed Predator 2 I defended it to the grave but, because certain people involved with this film give it crap, I feel the need to bring it up again. First off, Robert Rodriguez said that when developing the script for this movie, he took all of his inspiration from the original and saw Predator 2, along with the AVP movies, as examples of what not to do. Uh, Rob, to begin with, I think you drew a little too much inspiration from the original given what I mentioned above. The great thing about Predator 2 was that it did its own thing, told its own story, and didn't try to constantly remind you of its predecessor, unlike this movie. Plus, I just look at Predator 2 and then at Predators and think, "You really believe you did better with this movie?" Predator 2 was an exciting, bad-ass action movie with great characters and a wallop of an antagonist; Predators is dull, cliched, with characters that are either lame, unlikable, or thrown away, and the Predators themselves (as I'll get into next) are complete jokes. What Topher Grace said about Predator 2 particularly made me despise his involvement with this movie even more: "I really liked the first Predator but all the sequels haven't been as good. Then when I read this, I thought, 'What Aliens was to Alien, this will be to Predator.' Because Predator never got its due; it never really got that sequel." As if that wasn't bad enough, he even went as far as to compare Antal's direction of Predators with that of James Cameron for Aliens in remaining faithful to the original work but taking the concept in a different work. Predator 2 did that, you moron! But, oh no, to all of them, Predator 2 doesn't exist; this is the real sequel (at least that's how Rodriguez feels)! I will give Antal some credit in that he does acknowledge that Predator 2 does exist in the continuity of this movie and doesn't disregard it as Rodriguez would like it to, although I don't think he's all that crazy about it either. I'm sorry if I sound like such a whiny fanboy here but when I see how badly this movie sucks and yet the majority of those involved with it think they've done better than Predator 2, it just makes me hate this movie even more.

Now let's get on to the Predators themselves and the havoc that they cause. Taking over from the late Stan Winston's studio, as well as from Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis, who handled them in the AVP movies, are Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger and, if there's another thing here that I can't complain about, it's the gore and creature effects in this movie. The fake skinned corpses that the group finds at the camp, the corpse of the dead soldier they find near the beginning of the movie, the dead Predator dog, and the creature that chases Edwin all look really good. In addition, KNB has always excelled at gore and this film is certainly no exception. Mombasa's death where he is impaled by a booby trap looks good and Stans' death, in which a Predator rips his spine and skull out, is quick but looks very realistic and nasty (we could have had more good gore effects but the other characters' deaths are either off-camera or CGI explosion and vaporized deaths). I also would be lying if I said that the Predators themselves looked bad, because they don't. They look top-notch, much better than in the AVP movies, and I really appreciate that they decided to go with suit work again instead of making them completely computer-generated. The design of the "classic" Predator is basically an exact replica of the original movie's design, which is nice, and when you see the faces of the new "super" Predators, they look very cool. The special effects used for their weapons are also top notch but that's a given that their camouflage and laser blasts are going to look better now than they ever have before. And finally, the death scene for the last Predator is also well orchestrated, with plenty of its glowing, green blood spraying everywhere. Never let it be said that I'm not fair because I freely admit that, as bad as this movie is, the practical makeup and creature effects and the effects for the weapons are the best parts by far.

While I love their designs, the conception and characterization of the Predators here is what I have a major problem with. I really don't like the notion of there being two classes of Predators, with the higher class hunting and killing the low-class ones in a blood feud. I realize that this was never officially established before but I just felt that, because the Predators have an honor code, they wouldn't have wars and murder each other. It was made clear before that the Predators are ruthless killing machines and you could imagine that becoming a top hunter among their race is no doubt an arduous ritual where death is probably punishment for failure but I just felt that was the only reason the Predators might kill each other and, in a way, that made them a more civilized race than humans. I know that this is all assumption made by myself alone but that's how I felt and, therefore, I didn't like it when they introduced these Super Predators that prey on the lower class ones because they're weaker. Plus, the Super Predators don't follow the code of honor that the others do, as seen when one of them just wantonly shoots Stans even though he was only armed with a knife instead of some type of gun. The previous Predators would attack you according to what your situation was: if you had a bladed weapon, they would duel with you with their own bladed weapons, like when that one Predator used his wrist blades to duel with Harrigan when he was armed with his own smart disc (he also used his net gun on Harrigan but he didn't shoot one of his laser blasts at him). The same thing goes for the original Predator, who challenged Dutch to hand to hand combat because he was unarmed. And yes, that Predator killed Poncho when he was unarmed but I've always felt that he was aiming for Dutch and missed. The thing is that beforehand, the Predators always had a code of honor that distinguished them most other movie monsters but then along come these Super Predators who are closer to being mindless killers than the ones before them ever were. Rodriguez has tried to explain that the Super Predators simply don't follow the code of honor, implying that they're rogues amongst the Predator society, something I would accept had someone like Noland officially established it but he doesn't, so how was I supposed to know that? And in any case, Rodriguez can't seem to keep it straight because, if the Super Predators don't follow the code of honor, then why did that one challenge Hanzo to a sword fight? You can't have it both ways.

What also really got to me was the film's treatment of the classic Predator. At first, when I heard that Derek Mears was going to play a Predator in this movie, I was very happy because I loved his portrayal of Jason Voorhess in the 2009 reboot of Friday the 13th. But, the thing is he's not one of the Super Predators; instead, he's the classic one. You might be thinking, "Well, you don't like the Super Predators, so what are you complaining about?" I'm complaining because the classic Predator spends the entirety of the movie tied to a post and is only allowed to do something when Royce frees him near the end of the movie so he find out from him where the ship is so he can use it to escape the planet. (I should be irritated that the Predator actually does let Royce know where the ship but at least here, he didn't become his sidekick, as happened between the last Predator and the lead woman in the first AVP.) Even more insulting is the fact that once he's freed, the classic Predator dukes it out with a Super Predator and unceremoniously gets his ass handed to him before being butchered. To add even more insult to injury, there's this well-filmed, awesome moment before the fight where the classic Predator puts his helmet back on, making you think, "Yes, the Predator I know and love is back in action!", which will result in the outcome of the fight pissing you off even more. I just hated how the classic Predator is treated like a dog and, on top of that, you have a great monster actor like Derek Mears put into this thankless role. Worst of all, this movie was meant to distance the Predator franchise from those horrid AVP movies but look what you have here: you don't have Predators fighting Aliens but rather Predators fighting other Predators. All I wanted was to see in another stand-alone Predator was them doing what they do best: hunting down dangerous quarries. I didn't want to see this blood feud that amounts to nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Here's my next gripe (yes, there's more): this movie tries to make the Super Predators look all bad-ass when, in reality, the classic Predators are ten times more awesome. First, they simply bring their quarries to this game reserve, which they've no doubt hunted in before and know the layout of, making them look less daring than the classic Predators, who would hunt their prey on their own turf, on strange planets that they're unfamiliar with. I know you could argue that each individual Super Predator is different and probably hasn't been on the game reserve planet before but I find it a lot braver for these hunters to go after their intended quarries in their own environments. Second, the Super Predators need to use a certain species of alien creature as hunting dogs to hunt their victims? The classic Predators never needed that. And while we're on the subject, those "Predator Hounds" as they're officially called look silly. They look like the end result of some type of four-legged dinosaur mating with that forest spirit from Princess Mononoke. And like I said earlier, I don't want to see the group fighting them off, I want to see them fighting off the Predators! Third, you would think that since they're higher up on the evolutionary chain, they would have developed more bad-ass weapons. Nope. They just have the typical camouflage, shoulder cannons, and wrist blades that the classic Predators do. They do use a bird-like tracking device at one point to discover the humans' location (which is never followed up on) but other than that, no new toys, whereas according to Predator 2, the classic Predators have a hell of lot of different weapons at their disposal. But, of course, since Rodriguez has such a thorn up his ass about that movie, none of the weapons from it make an appearance here. Speaking of their technology, it feels like the filmmakers changed the rules to make the Super Predators look awesome because the last one can still see Royce's body heat even though he's put mud on himself (not much, mind you, but he did eventually do it, unlike everyone else). And don't tell me that the mud on this planet wouldn't act like the mud on Earth because that's really reaching. Finally, the classic Predators can take a whole lot more punishment than the super predators. They've survived explosions, being shot repeatedly with high-powered weapons, falling from great heights, and having heavy objects falling on them, while the Super Predators can't survive a claymore or being cut by an old sword. (I didn't mention the last one being beheaded because I think Royce beheaded him with an actual Predator blade, which I have an easier time buying.) By the way, why is it that when the Predators are on their own, they're unstoppable but when they're in groups, not only in this movie but also in the first AVP, they're wusses?

Not only does this film have a bad habit of making you want to just watch Predator again with its constant references to that movie, its tendency to use variations of the musical cues and themes that Alan Silvestri composed doesn't help either. Silvestri himself was unable to do the music for this film so John Debney stepped in since he'd worked with Robert Rodriguez before but, that said, I don't know if he composed any original music for this movie and if he did, I sure as hell don't remember it. All I remember are his remixes of the Silvestri music, which I will say do sound very cool, and Long Tall Sally playing over the first part of the ending credits as well. It does indeed make for a nice tribute to the music of Predator but, like all the other references to it, it ultimately just makes me want to watch that again instead of Predators (among many other reasons, obviously).

At the end of the day, Predators is nothing more than a very sorry excuse of a follow-up to Predator and Predator 2. It's dull, uninteresting, with lame characters as the leads while the interesting ones either aren't allowed to do much or are killed very early on, it's so in love with the original Predator that its references to it make you want to turn it off and instead watch that again, and it tosses the classic Predators that we all know and love aside for these new "super" Predators who, if you think about it, are feeble by comparison. It's just the latest in a recent trend of some of my favorite franchises being pounded into pudding with bad sequels and remakes, with the others being Rob Zombie's atrocious Halloween movies and the abysmal remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Unfortunately, the film made quite a bit of money worldwide and there is a talk of a sequel, either with Rodriguez and Antal possibly being involved again and Adrien Brody returning as Royce or, as was announced in 2014, Shane Black, Hawkins from the original, returning to direct from a script by Fred Dekker. So, who knows what'll happen next? Bottom line, though, if you like this movie, as I know many do, and are excited about the possibility of more films in this direction, power to you but personally, if that is where the Predator franchise is going, then I'm just going to stick with the first two movies and leave it at that.