Clark | Definitely Opinions

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Review

Jurassic World

I really did not pay enough attention to the marketing for this one. What little I did see suggested that the movie was going to revolve around trying to save the dinosaurs from a self-destructing island. In actuality, that plot point only takes up about 10 minutes. And, unfortunately, those 10 minutes were the best part of the movie. Trying to save a bunch of dangerous, wild animals from going extinct (again) with an active volcano in the background in itself would have been a great story to watch slowly unfold. So I was a little peeved when, in the most cliché of clichés, the military escorts quickly turned out to be the villains who were just there to tranquilize a few dinosaurs and ship them back home to auction off.

Thus, the rest of the movie—you know, the majority of it—takes place on a small, cramped boat and then in the small, cramped hallways of a mansion. What’s the point of even making a dinosaur movie if you’re just going to restrict your dinosaurs to chains, cages, and hallways? It felt like an intentional way to cut costs and manufacture suspense. Ooh, look, there’s a dinosaur in the girl’s poorly lit bedroom! Isn’t that scary?! Except said dinosaur is another GMO dino in the same vein as the Indominus Rex. Come on, people… we don’t go to Jurassic Park movies to see new monsters. We want to see the dinosaurs we memorized as kids come to life. Certainly not relegated to friggin’ chains and cages for 90% of the movie. Yeesh.

Arrested Development – Season 5 Review

Arrested Development

It’s hard watching one of your favorite TV shows grow old. While it’s pretty neat that services like Netflix are willing to resurrect 10-year old properties (and even more miraculous that the original cast and crew are still willing to be a part of it), I think I would have preferred for Arrested Development to rest in peace after three perfect seasons. 2013’s Season 4 was definitely messy. It was a fun experiment and had its moments of greatness, but it clearly struggled to get the cast all in one room and tried too hard to tell a cohesive story. Five years later, Season 5 struggles again to pick up where Season 4 left off, weighed down by some of the plot points the prior season unfortunately set up for it.

Season 5 works best when it’s not trying to be a sequel. Once we get into newer storylines—like Maeby pretending to be a senior citizen or Michael finding out about the family’s beach cottage—glimpses of the original Arrested Development start to shine through. This is also helped by the fact that the cast interacts with each other more. This isn’t a hodgepodge of character-specific vignettes anymore. Scheduling conflicts are obviously still at play, though, since some characters seem to rarely run into each other, and Lindsay is altogether banished to green-screen hell. Honestly, if Portia de Rossi can’t be there in-person, they should just write her out. It was really distracting how fake her presence was.

At the end of the day, Season 5 is a lot better than Season 4 but isn’t nearly as good as the original run. The cast just feels worn out, and the writing isn’t as snappy. Young Arrested Development excelled at setting up jokes in early episodes that paid dividends later on or slowly escalating recurring one-liners until they became old hat. Season 5’s running joke about Michael not knowing about the beach cottage was funny but was the only joke that felt truly “Arrested.” Other times, it seemed like the show was setting something up but would then deliver the punchline during the same scene. In the era of streaming, it feels weird for a once progressive TV show to dumb down its long-game cleverness.

Avengers: Infinity War Review

Infinity War

I had to let this one stew for several days before formulating an opinion. My initial reaction was more negative than positive, and not just because of the abrupt downer of an ending. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a lot of my gripes could be justified away. The unfortunately dumb decisions that drove the plot were still in-character, and while I still feel that Thanos could have been fleshed out more, we have enough information about him to fill in the blanks ourselves. I just wanted more “show, don’t tell” than what we got.

It’s understandable, though, considering how much ground Infinity War needed to cover. We’re rushed through Thanos collecting the infinity stones, which comes across as maybe a little too convenient for him. I feel like some of that could have been accomplished in prior movies. I know Infinity War is supposed to be able to stand on its own, but let’s not forget that the MCU has been building up to this for years now. Not every MCU movie was required viewing to understand what was going on here, but if you missed key entries like Civil War or Thor: Ragnarok, you’ll be thoroughly confused.

If you have been following the MCU, however, then the real fun of Infinity War is seeing all of these heroes finally come together. The interactions between them are great, and the mixed fight scenes are a visual treat. My only standing complaint, then, is that this was still a “Part 1,” and we already know more movies are planned for the MCU. While the ending may have been a shock, it’s only temporary as you realize everyone’s going to magically come back. The lingering question isn’t, “Can our heroes fix this?” but rather, “How are they going to fix it?” I guess it’s still exciting to see how that’s going to get resolved.

Super Mario Odyssey Review

Mario Odyssey

I wasn’t planning to buy a Switch, but it’s hard to say no to flagship games like Super Mario Odyssey. No one knows how to make a good 3D platformer quite like Nintendo, and Odyssey may be their best 3D Mario game since Mario 64. While I also really liked Mario 3D World on the Wii U, that particular game was a bit too linear and implemented archaic time limits. Odyssey, on the other hand, is a more “open world” experience that, at times, feels like an actual adventure game. For starters, you’re not kicked back into the hub after every milestone, the levels are filled with NPCs and shops, and there are secrets galore to discover.

That’s both a good thing and a bad thing, though. There are so many moons to find that they’re no longer special. You’ll obtain several moons by pure accident, and boss battles usually reward you with three moons at once. It’s not as rewarding as working towards Mario 64’s succinct 120 stars and can start to suffer from Rare levels of collectathon fatigue. But the majority of challenges are very fun to find and complete. The hat/transform gimmick definitely helps keep things fresh. Post-game, you’ll still be stumbling across new creatures and inanimate objects to take control of. Hat or no hat, though, Odyssey is a joyful pinnacle of modern 3D platforming.

Sonic Generations Review

Sonic Generations

Allowing the original-style Sonic to stand next to modern-day Sonic just shows how ugly the newer, lanky character designs are. Even in 3D, the shorter, chubbier Sonic looks so much nicer. Character design is about the only thing Sega needs to embrace about its Sonic past, though. I actually like—in theory—the 3D Sonic games. I think it’s totally possible to make a good 3D Sonic, and past games (like Sonic Colors and The Secret Rings) have had their moments of greatness. The problem seems to lie with Sega’s reluctance to drop the platformer pretense and double-down on the “super fast auto-runner” style of gameplay.

There are several instances in Generations where Sonic’s “gotta go fast” mentality is brought to a halt to do precision platforming, and it couldn’t feel more wrong. This happens more often in the 2D sections than the 3D sections, but it’s still pretty much everywhere throughout. I do like the idea of revisiting levels in 2D and 3D, though, but then the 3D sections periodically switch back to 2D. Sega just can’t bring themselves to go all-in on the 3D aspect, and yet those sections were my favorite parts. You can’t run super fast in 2D without fear of crashing into something you can’t see ahead of you.

Fortunately (or unfortunately perhaps?), Generations isn’t that punishing. If you miss a jump, because it came up on you too quickly, that doesn’t necessarily spell instant death. You’ll just fall to a different section of the level and miss out on some secret content. The levels definitely feel very big and branching. If I cared enough, I guess it would be fun to replay them and try to see all of the paths that I missed the first time around. But I don’t and won’t. I had a few hours of fun, but my main takeaway from this game is that I need to go back and play some of the other 3D Sonics to see if they can provide what I’m really looking for.

Nine Parchments Review

Nine Parchments

Nine Parchments answers the age-old question, “What would happen if the developers of Trine made Magicka?” We’ve all wondered that, right? Not surprisingly, the end result is basically the same gameplay as Magicka—a top-down, light action RPG with magical spells—but with the drop-dead gorgeous graphics that the Trine games are known for. It always astounds me how much detail they put in the background, detail that many gamers may not even notice. And, frankly, why would you be looking at the background when you’re getting your butt kicked by a bunch of fire, ice, and electric creatures?

The combat in Nine Parchments is easier to control than Magicka, because you can quickly cycle through set spells, but the difficulty is still there. This is a hard game that absolutely must be tackled co-op. When you do play co-op, however, you’ll wonder why the game wasn’t called Friendly Fire: The Musical instead. More than half the time, I died, or my teammate died, because we accidentally electrocuted or fire-bombed each other. Fights are chaotic, and it’s very easy to get caught in the crossbeams. Healing spells didn’t seem worth investing in, either, because healing can just as easily apply to enemies as they can friends.

Overall, the quest is a nice length, if not fairly repetitive. You run down a narrow path until a group of monsters pops out. You vanquish them and continue down the path until another group of monsters pops out, etc. etc. It’s definitely fun to experiment with new spells, though, and some battles can be almost puzzle-like when you realize the monsters at hand are immune to your best spells. There are also a few spots where you can take on an optional challenge to unlock a bonus character. Alas, you can’t actually use the bonus characters until you beat the game and start over. Considering how repetitive the game is, though, I don’t see myself ever doing that.