Scott Stadt – Google

Worth a watch if you love the trilogy, but not the most inspired “resurrection”. Cons: Getting Neo into the story took way too long and the movie is constantly flashing back to the trilogy. There were several trilogy characters that were just unnecessary, one of which was only justified as a solution to an antagonist that was written as being too powerful to balance the struggle in more organic way. Pros: there were some interesting evolutions of tech inside the matrix and of the relations between machines and humans. Unfortunately this was overshadowed constantly by flashbacks and rehashing of plot from the first movie.

The kids were the best pet of this. I loved the estranged nerd girl in a time when that wasn’t very accepted. The rest of the movie was terrible. The actors were not believable, lots of angry acting. The plot was slow and the action shots were cut in a way that made it hard to follow what was happening. Characters showed up at convenient times, and the script writing leaned too heavily on tropes. Not the worst hour and a half I’ve spent but maybe take a pass if you have another option for the night.

The first half was a tense and creepy creature flick. The latter half was a lot of people yelling and not listening to the scientist that actually knew what was going on and devoid of the tension and mystery that made the first half so good. The bad decision making that defines horror movies generally is present here. And while it’s smart and believable in the beginning it broke my suspension of disbelief in the end when the characters had clearly been through enough to not make such stupid calls. Worth watching if you wanna veg out in the couch but don’t go out of your way for this one.

From the moment you start the game you can tell this a different sort of story from Zelda of the past. It’s a great take on the classic story and the characters really sell it while staying true to the tone of a Zelda game. Instead of getting your weapons one at a time through a dozen or so dungeons you get them all in the first 30 minutes of play and can solve nearly every puzzle the rest of the game has to offer. There are only 4 true dungeons, with 100+ mini dungeons that are your main source of heart and stamina upgrades. This may be fine for some but I was disappointed that there was really only one theme for all the dungeons. I missed the variety and depth of older Zelda games that flavored each dungeon differently. The weapon variety was lovely at first but I quickly grew tired of having to constantly churn through weapons. The only time I ran into an challenge I couldn’t finish was a combat encounter where I used up all my weapons and the boss still had a bunch of health left. The gear system can be tedious as well, needing a set to survive in different environments and losing armor as a result while deep in dangerous territory. Overall still a fun Zelda game, but a little single note while in the dungeons - and not enough of the larger ones for my taste.