VIDEO GAME: Pokémon X (2013)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Pokémon X Year: 2013 Rating: E Time Played: 36.37 hours When I finally bought a 3DS, one of the games I had missed (that I quickly rectified) was Pokémon X. I appreciated all the legendary Pokémon given out as part of the 20th anniversary of the Generation 1 games. Still, I didn’t get around to playing through this game until after Pokémon Sun came out. For the first game in the series to be fully 3D, I certainly enjoyed the look and polish of it, even if the stereoscopic abilities of the 3DS weren’t used as much as they should have been. After all, with everything rendered with 3D visuals, I want the full game to use the ability of the hardware to display in 3D. After playing the much more difficult Generation 5 games, I did enjoy how much easier they made Pokémon X. Granted, they kind of overdid it with the sharp drop in difficulty. Still, I also think they were trying to...
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MOVIE: Enola Holmes (2020)

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Enola Holmes Year: 2020 Rating: PG-13 Length: 123 minutes / 2.05 hours When a character like Sherlock Holmes is already written, you do the next best thing: write fanfiction. Enola Holmes (2020) feels like an author-insert fanfiction of the famous detective stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. While this would be a mark against any other story, it works here and creates an amusing plot that was fun to watch. Sure, the mystery wasn't at the level Sherlock Holmes would normally solve, but Enola isn't necessarily Sherlock. Of course, I don't know if this story would have worked as well if there wasn't the tie-in to Sherlock Holmes. As for the actors, no doubt on retainer from their other Netflix projects, Henry Cavill (The Witcher) is a passable Sherlock but wasn't given quite enough screen time to really show his talents. The star of the show is definitely Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things), who has certainly shown that she's not only good at playing...
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BOOK: Blood of Elves (1994)

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Blood of Elves Year: 1994 Author: Andrzej Sapkowski Length: 655 minutes / 10.92 hours I’ll admit that I had a bit of a head start understanding the Witcher universe when I picked up this book. I’ve played a few hours of The Witcher 3 on my Switch, and I watched the first season of the show on Netflix. Would the lack of this prior knowledge have hurt my chances of understanding this high fantasy? Not likely. Arranged as a series of vignettes, Blood of Elves reveals its characters and setting based on a collection of almost everyday scenarios. While this approach made understanding the overarching goal of the series difficult to discern, it did make the characters quite a bit more realistic and relatable. When it comes down to it, this book is about its characters. Geralt, Ciri, and Yennefer all stood out to me as unique and well-rounded individuals who each had their own stories to tell and plotlines to follow. And while their...
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MOVIE: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Sonic the Hedgehog Year: 2020 Rating: PG Length: 99 minutes / 1.65 hours As someone who grew up with the original Sonic video games, I was highly skeptical of this film adaptation. There's not much plot behind a game that's basically: move right as fast as possible and defeat a robot-making madman. Granted, Sonic has developed a little more depth to its lore over the years...but not much. The appeal of the character in the '90s was his attitude, and I have to admit that his movie does capture that attitude quite well. For a video game adaptation, Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) isn't terrible, which is saying something. I can only imagine the nightmare-inducing original design for Sonic, though. However, it's still not the greatest movie ever for the genre of video game adaptations. I did appreciate the little "slow-motion" moments, as well as the practical use of the rings as teleportation devices. Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik was passable, if not a little too goofy/sinister...
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VIDEO GAME: Pokémon Sun (2016)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Pokémon SunYear: 2016Rating: ETime Played: 115.37 hours While I grew up with the original 1st Generation Pokémon games, I had lost interest in the series just after Gen. 3. This was around the time I headed off to college, so I didn’t have as much time for video games as I did while in high school. Fast forward to the 20th anniversary of Pokémon and the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon. There were plenty of legendary Pokémon being given out at the time, so I found it was as good a time as any to get back into the series. A lot had changed since I left, and Pokémon Sun carried over plenty of these changes. I appreciated a lot of these tweaks, including the removal of HMs and unlimited-use TMs. And while adjusting the “experience share” to give experience to all the Pokémon in my team made the game a little easier, it also reduced the amount of grind that...
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MOVIE: Birds of Prey (2020)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) Year: 2020 Rating: R Length: 109 minutes / 1.82 hours I will admit: Margot Robbie is perfectly cast as Harley Quinn. The fact that she even got her own movie after her debut in Suicide Squad (2016) is a testament to this. That being said, she's a bit of a shallow character past being "Joker's girlfriend." Look no further than Birds of Prey (2020) to see what I mean. If it were truly a Harley Quinn standalone film, it wouldn't have needed the sub-plots of a handful of other characters to make the running time long enough. As it stands, Birds of Prey is meant as a sort of "origin story" for this titular team of female heroes. The fact that it needed Harley Quinn to make it marketable is a bit of a disappointment in the ability of the writers to create a story that would give these women agency without resorting to...
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BOOK: Ringworld (1970)

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Ringworld Year: 1970 Author: Larry Niven Length: 675 minutes / 11.25 hours It can be difficult to judge a book, especially one as critically acclaimed as Ringworld, with 50 years of scientific and societal progress between when it was written and today. On the one hand, there are many scientific concepts explored in this book that we almost take for granted in modern sci-fi. On the other hand, the stink of 1970s misogyny doesn’t age very well, and this book is a prime example. Even today, sci-fi authors are still trying to dig out from the sexist tropes that books like this perpetuated throughout the genre. It’s a complicated, uphill battle, but we’re trying to be better than this. For 1970, I do have to admit that the science presented here is relatively revolutionary. Unfortunately, the descriptions were occasionally a bit dry and felt more like reading a textbook than a sci-fi adventure. I could appreciate how Niven described the indescribable scale of something as...
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MOVIE: V for Vendetta (2005)

by benmweilertNo Comments
V for Vendetta Year: 2005 Rating: R Length: 132 minutes / 2.20 hours It's a little weird watching a dystopian movie like V for Vendetta (2005) in 2020. I watched this film each year around the 5th of November, but life eventually got in the way and made it difficult to continue the tradition. At the time, I enjoyed the "underdog" of V (Hugo Weaving) protecting art and freedom of thought from the tyranny of an oppressive government. Having gone back and re-watched it in the current global climate, I'm honestly shocked at how prescient it was in predicting a lot of our future. Hopefully, things don't become worse to the point of completely fulfilling this prophecy. I think part of the reason this film remains timeless—other than the flawless performances of Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving—is how it shows the amount of freedom people in society give up in the name of "safety." Fear-mongering is a common political tactic to get individuals to vote...
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