Sometimes you pay $60 for a game, and play it for a week. Sometimes you pay $5 for a game, and play it for years.
Beach Buggy Racing is basically a discount Mario Kart. In fact, I'd say it's the closest thing to Mario Kart the PS4 has. It costs $10, but it goes on sale a lot. I got it for under $5 during one of the Playstation sales. My wife and I have been playing it every night for months. It's one of those games that we just don't get tired of.
It only has 15 tracks, and a small selection of characters and vehicles. But it's just so much fun! It was a tablet game before it came to the consoles, which is usually a recipe for disaster. But somehow it manages to get everything right. It controls well, has a ton of weapons, and a fair amount of depth. The tracks are creative and full of shortcuts.
My biggest complaint is that I want more content. More tracks, more characters, more vehicles. If they were to release DLC, I would buy it. I don't think that will happen, though, because they are working on a sequel. I will say that when the sequel hits the PS4, I will buy it immediately.
If you like kart racers, buy this one immediately. It's worth it.
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Injustice 2, Mortal Kombat X, and My Dream Fighting Games
I'm a little late to the party here - both of these games have been out for a long time now. But after how much I loved the original Injustice: Gods Among Us, I had to post something about Injustice 2, if only to complain about the gear system.
But let's start with Mortal Kombat X. It's more of the same, but it's impressive how it takes advantage of the newer consoles to realistically render gore. The fatalities are absolutely sick now, and much more organic looking than the static fatalities in the older games. Brains and hearts and tongues now look like separately-rendered objects, and they look fantastic. Some of the fatalities and X-ray moves are very clever; I especially like Cassie Cage's "selfie" fatality.
I love the guest stars - the DLC characters from horror movies. Jason, Leatherface, Alien, and Predator are excellent additions, though I miss Freddy Krueger from MK9. It would have been nice to be able to pit Jason vs Freddy. And so it occurs to me that what I really wish they'd do is an all-horror game. I'd rather have that than an MK11, really.
My Dream Horror Fighting Game:
1. Start with the MKX engine, including fatalities, X-ray moves, and so on.
2. Use every horror guest star they've used before: Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, Alien, and Predator.
3. Get the rights to every additional horror movie villain they can get, like Michael Myers, Chucky and Pinhead. Don't forget classics like Dracula, the Wolfman, and the Mummy.
4. Add a few horror heroes like Ash Williams, Buffy Summers, or Ellen Ripley. Maybe even some meta icons like Elvira or the Cryptkeeper.
5. Design a few original monsters to fill out the roster, and have a couple of MK characters be the DLC guest stars this time.
6. Skins, skins, skins! Original and reboot versions of each famous villain. There's probably a dozen versions of Jason they could tap for inspiration.
I would play the hell out of that. Okay, so getting all those rights could make the game cost more than it's worth, I don't know. MK is owned by Warner Bros, so that should give them access to a couple of them.
Now, about Injustice 2...
I love the graphics. I love some of the new characters, especially Supergirl. The multiverse events are kind of neat, much better than the first one's STAR Labs crap. Beyond that, I liked the first Injustice better. The difference? Skins and levels.
They released a ton of skins for Injustice 1. Neat stuff like a TV-inspired Arrow, classic Harley Quinn, Killing Joke Joker, anime-inspired Catwoman, and so on. Injustice 2 has a few "Premium Skins", but not nearly enough. Instead they concentrated on the new gear system.
At first, the gear system sounds really cool. You get gear from winning matches and earning virtual "blind boxes" from multiverse events. This gear alters both your appearance and your stats. You can use these to create custom characters. It's fun to mix and match different heads, torsos, legs, and other parts to create unique looks for your favorite heroes. You can even change the colors.
The problem, of course, is that the gear changes your stats. So you're probably just going to use gear with the best stats, which keeps you from having the look you want. If you have a favorite piece of cool-looking gear and want to give it better stats, there is a way to do that, but it costs in-game resources.
Wearing powerful gear and leveling up your character only makes sense for the single player mode. If you're playing against another human, you're going to want the game to be as fair as possible. The basic versus mode gives players unfair advantages over each other, by letting level 30 characters fight level 1 characters, and letting you choose powerful gear loadouts.
This is a fighting game! It's a genre that usually puts a lot of stress on balance. Most fighting games put hundreds of hours into their playtesting just to keep any characters from being more powerful than the others. These games are constantly updated for balance purposes, and certain characters are banned from tournaments for being too powerful. Injustice 2 throws that concept out the window.
The good news there's a "Tournament" mode, which is a versus mode that keeps things even. The down side is that you can't use your gear loadouts, even for cosmetic purposes (I think there's a way around this by adding match rules, but it's a hassle). You can use the Premium Skins in the Tournment mode, but again there aren't very many of them. I tend to play the same characters a lot, so I'm a big fan of skins to break up the monotony.
So the biggest problems I have with Injustice 2 could be fixed with a few minor updates. Unfortunately they're done updating Injustice 2, and they're probably already working on MK11. But Injustice 2 is so close to being the perfect fighting game for me, it drives me crazy that it fell short.
My Dream DC Fighting Game:
1. Start with Injustice 2.
2. Make more premium skins. The Injustice 2 mobile app has tons of cool skins in it, and if all they did was import all of those, I would be satisfied. Importing the ones from Injustice 1 would be cool too. I would also like it if Green Lantern had more GL Corps members as skins.
3. Make the default Versus Mode more like the tournament mode, in that all characters are the same level. Let us still use gear loadouts, but make them cosmetic only. The current Versus Mode can still be there as an option, but the default should be the most balanced version. That's what Versus Modes are for.
4. Bring in some (if not all) of the missing characters from Injustice 1, specifically Hawkgirl, Zatana, Batgirl, and Lobo. I like it when a fighting game makes the older games in the series obsolete. Some of the later Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games did a great job in making sure they included nearly every character from the previous games.
That's really about it. Basically, if you could just combine Injustice 1, 2, and the mobile app into a single game, it would be a few tweaks away from being my all-time favorite fighting game. In its current form, it's just okay.
But let's start with Mortal Kombat X. It's more of the same, but it's impressive how it takes advantage of the newer consoles to realistically render gore. The fatalities are absolutely sick now, and much more organic looking than the static fatalities in the older games. Brains and hearts and tongues now look like separately-rendered objects, and they look fantastic. Some of the fatalities and X-ray moves are very clever; I especially like Cassie Cage's "selfie" fatality.
I love the guest stars - the DLC characters from horror movies. Jason, Leatherface, Alien, and Predator are excellent additions, though I miss Freddy Krueger from MK9. It would have been nice to be able to pit Jason vs Freddy. And so it occurs to me that what I really wish they'd do is an all-horror game. I'd rather have that than an MK11, really.
My Dream Horror Fighting Game:
1. Start with the MKX engine, including fatalities, X-ray moves, and so on.
2. Use every horror guest star they've used before: Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, Alien, and Predator.
3. Get the rights to every additional horror movie villain they can get, like Michael Myers, Chucky and Pinhead. Don't forget classics like Dracula, the Wolfman, and the Mummy.
4. Add a few horror heroes like Ash Williams, Buffy Summers, or Ellen Ripley. Maybe even some meta icons like Elvira or the Cryptkeeper.
5. Design a few original monsters to fill out the roster, and have a couple of MK characters be the DLC guest stars this time.
6. Skins, skins, skins! Original and reboot versions of each famous villain. There's probably a dozen versions of Jason they could tap for inspiration.
I would play the hell out of that. Okay, so getting all those rights could make the game cost more than it's worth, I don't know. MK is owned by Warner Bros, so that should give them access to a couple of them.
Now, about Injustice 2...
I love the graphics. I love some of the new characters, especially Supergirl. The multiverse events are kind of neat, much better than the first one's STAR Labs crap. Beyond that, I liked the first Injustice better. The difference? Skins and levels.
They released a ton of skins for Injustice 1. Neat stuff like a TV-inspired Arrow, classic Harley Quinn, Killing Joke Joker, anime-inspired Catwoman, and so on. Injustice 2 has a few "Premium Skins", but not nearly enough. Instead they concentrated on the new gear system.
At first, the gear system sounds really cool. You get gear from winning matches and earning virtual "blind boxes" from multiverse events. This gear alters both your appearance and your stats. You can use these to create custom characters. It's fun to mix and match different heads, torsos, legs, and other parts to create unique looks for your favorite heroes. You can even change the colors.
The problem, of course, is that the gear changes your stats. So you're probably just going to use gear with the best stats, which keeps you from having the look you want. If you have a favorite piece of cool-looking gear and want to give it better stats, there is a way to do that, but it costs in-game resources.
Wearing powerful gear and leveling up your character only makes sense for the single player mode. If you're playing against another human, you're going to want the game to be as fair as possible. The basic versus mode gives players unfair advantages over each other, by letting level 30 characters fight level 1 characters, and letting you choose powerful gear loadouts.
This is a fighting game! It's a genre that usually puts a lot of stress on balance. Most fighting games put hundreds of hours into their playtesting just to keep any characters from being more powerful than the others. These games are constantly updated for balance purposes, and certain characters are banned from tournaments for being too powerful. Injustice 2 throws that concept out the window.
The good news there's a "Tournament" mode, which is a versus mode that keeps things even. The down side is that you can't use your gear loadouts, even for cosmetic purposes (I think there's a way around this by adding match rules, but it's a hassle). You can use the Premium Skins in the Tournment mode, but again there aren't very many of them. I tend to play the same characters a lot, so I'm a big fan of skins to break up the monotony.
So the biggest problems I have with Injustice 2 could be fixed with a few minor updates. Unfortunately they're done updating Injustice 2, and they're probably already working on MK11. But Injustice 2 is so close to being the perfect fighting game for me, it drives me crazy that it fell short.
My Dream DC Fighting Game:
1. Start with Injustice 2.
2. Make more premium skins. The Injustice 2 mobile app has tons of cool skins in it, and if all they did was import all of those, I would be satisfied. Importing the ones from Injustice 1 would be cool too. I would also like it if Green Lantern had more GL Corps members as skins.
3. Make the default Versus Mode more like the tournament mode, in that all characters are the same level. Let us still use gear loadouts, but make them cosmetic only. The current Versus Mode can still be there as an option, but the default should be the most balanced version. That's what Versus Modes are for.
4. Bring in some (if not all) of the missing characters from Injustice 1, specifically Hawkgirl, Zatana, Batgirl, and Lobo. I like it when a fighting game makes the older games in the series obsolete. Some of the later Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games did a great job in making sure they included nearly every character from the previous games.
That's really about it. Basically, if you could just combine Injustice 1, 2, and the mobile app into a single game, it would be a few tweaks away from being my all-time favorite fighting game. In its current form, it's just okay.
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
My standards for Jurassic Park movies are pretty low. I know none of them are ever going to match the majesty of the original, and that's fine. At this point, I'm mostly into them to see dinosaurs eat people. I like each of the series, even the bad ones, for different reasons. But Fallen Kingdom is hard to love.
My biggest complaint is the large amount of animal cruelty. Take all the "capture and torture dinosaurs" scenes from The Lost World, but stretch it out for half the movie, and you have my problems with Fallen Kingdom. As an animal lover, these scenes are not fun for me, I don't care if they're CGI.
The JP series is full of shallow characters, but Fallen Kingdom's characters are particularly paper thin. Honestly, my favorite character in the movie is Blue the raptor. Her performance was much more believable than that of the human actors.
Most of the JP movies have straddled the lines between action, drama, and horror, but this one in particular felt like a horror movie (if relatively bloodless). The new dino in this one was definitely the scariest dino in the series. It felt like a significant tone shift in a series that usually feels somewhat family friendly.
That means that I don't really feel comfortable holding it to the benchmark set by the original Jurassic Park. It feels more appropriate to compare Fallen Kingdom to movies like Halloween or Friday the 13th. It's not as gory, but it fits right in IMO.
There's a plot twist toward the end that feels completely pointless, unless it's a set-up for future movies (which may not even happen given this one's reviews). In fact, the entire ending felt like it was putting something big into motion. There's several loose threads, and future sequel writers have a couple of strong options for the direction it takes.
The problem is, I'm no longer sure I care.
...Eh, who am I kidding, as long as there's people getting eaten by dinosaurs, I'm probably in.
My biggest complaint is the large amount of animal cruelty. Take all the "capture and torture dinosaurs" scenes from The Lost World, but stretch it out for half the movie, and you have my problems with Fallen Kingdom. As an animal lover, these scenes are not fun for me, I don't care if they're CGI.
The JP series is full of shallow characters, but Fallen Kingdom's characters are particularly paper thin. Honestly, my favorite character in the movie is Blue the raptor. Her performance was much more believable than that of the human actors.
Most of the JP movies have straddled the lines between action, drama, and horror, but this one in particular felt like a horror movie (if relatively bloodless). The new dino in this one was definitely the scariest dino in the series. It felt like a significant tone shift in a series that usually feels somewhat family friendly.
That means that I don't really feel comfortable holding it to the benchmark set by the original Jurassic Park. It feels more appropriate to compare Fallen Kingdom to movies like Halloween or Friday the 13th. It's not as gory, but it fits right in IMO.
There's a plot twist toward the end that feels completely pointless, unless it's a set-up for future movies (which may not even happen given this one's reviews). In fact, the entire ending felt like it was putting something big into motion. There's several loose threads, and future sequel writers have a couple of strong options for the direction it takes.
The problem is, I'm no longer sure I care.
...Eh, who am I kidding, as long as there's people getting eaten by dinosaurs, I'm probably in.
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Ant-Man & The Wasp & Introspection Illusion
This past weekend we saw Ant-Man and the Wasp. Fun movie! It goes about where you think it would, not a lot of big surprises, but it has a funny script and lots of eye candy. The writers put a lot of work into finding creative applications for the shrink/grow powers.
Really, though… If I was to actually write out a list all the things I liked and disliked about the movie, I think the list of bad things would be longer the good. It’s a bit shallow, there’s a lot of Deus Ex Machina, and it tends to handwave a lot of the hard-to-swallow details.
It also had one too many villains. The FBI and the supervillain were enough of a threat to carry the movie, but the writers decided to add a silly black market tech dealer to pad the movie’s runtime. But my biggest complaint is probably the abundance of spoilers in the trailers. I can’t tell you how many times they’d do a cool shot and I’d think, “That was awesome, I wish I hadn’t already seen it in the previews.”
But you know what? I still love the movie. It’s flawed, but fun. On paper it almost looks like a failure, but the film is more than the sum of its parts. Some people won’t like Ant Man & The Wasp, and if you ask them why, they’ll list everything I said above. So why do those flaws add up to a bomb to them, while I can look past the movie’s shallowness and have a good time?
I have a theory that people actually have no idea why they dislike things. You watch a movie and hate it on a subconscious emotional level, but your brain won't accept "I hate it because I hate it", and has to fill in the logical reasons you feel that way.
For example, I know someone who hates the sitcom Friends. Her reason? “Everyone is always so mean to each other!” I’ve never actually noticed that about Friends, but I suppose it’s there if you really look for it. Snarky comebacks are a big part of the humor, though I’ve never seen it as mean; if anything it’s part of the bond that holds the group together.
But here’s the thing – this same friend likes several other shows where the main characters are flat-out jerks, all the time. So that’s a big part of my theory: Whatever someone tells you they don’t like about a movie/show/book/etc, you can find examples of media they enjoy that contain those elements.
Her real reason for disliking Friends? Probably the show simply isn't in sync with her sense of humor. Humor is far from universal, and everyone has a unique funny bone. If Friends made her laugh, she'd like it. Not laughing gives her more time to notice the show's flaws. Her brain won't accept the vague "it's just not for me", so it gave her the flimsy excuse she uses.
Now, if I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s that you can’t talk people into liking things, any more than you can talk them into liking a food. You can shoot down all their complaints one by one, doing extensive research to prove why the plot holes they found weren't really plot holes, but it won't help. So I’m not posting this to convince anyone to watch shows they know they don’t like. I’m just pointing out your reasons for not liking it may not be what you think they are.
I used to know a couple who hated anything mainstream. Their logic was that most people are stupid, so if most people like something, it must be stupid. Except… some things really do become popular because they deserve to. And what if you see a sneak preview of a movie, before it has time to be popular? Do you have to wait until the box office results are in before you decide if you liked it?
I had one friend who hated Forrest Gump because she didn’t like the ending – she wasn’t sure Forrest was capable of taking care of a child by himself. Even if I shared her concern, that’s only a reason to hate the ending, not the entire movie. Surely, while watching the movie in the theater, she’d already decided whether or not she liked the movie by that point. If she'd had an emergency and had to walk out before Jenny died (um, spoiler alert I guess), would she have felt differently about the movie? I doubt it.
Titanic gets a lot of haters because it was so overhyped. As I’ve said before, that may be an excuse to hate the advertising department, but don’t take it out on the movie itself. I’m not saying I’ve never been annoyed by hype (See Ant-Man & the Wasp above), but I do try to keep a movie and its marketing as separate entities in my mind.
One thing I’ve heard people say about both Friends and Big Bang Theory – “They don’t talk or act like real people!” This one sets me off for a couple of reasons. First off, nobody in Star Wars talks like real people either, that’s why it’s fiction. I can’t remember the last time I went to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters. Behaving like real people is not a requirement in fiction, in fact, making dialogue too realistic makes shows hard to watch. Real people clear their throats, start sentences and change their mind, use the wrong word, stutter, and display all kinds of verbal tics that would make me change the channel.
That said, the characters on Friends and BBT remind me more of my real life friends than the people on most sitcoms. Maybe you’re just hanging out with the wrong people. Chandler Bing’s snarkiness is practically the foundation of my marriage. And BBT characters actually make specific references to current media, while other sitcoms seem to be vaguely aware that Star Wars might have had robots in it or something. Yes, these characters sometimes do unrealistically dumb things to move the plot forward, but the alternative is a plot that never moves forward.
I do it too. If I were to give you a list of things I hated about Batman & Robin, it would probably include things like Batgirl not being Commissioner Gordon's daughter, or Bane being a mindless henchmen instead of a criminal mastermind. But to be honest, I probably would have ignored both of those details if they had occurred in a better movie. Would I whine because the Joker wasn't chemically bleached in The Dark Knight? Of course not, so obviously messing with comic book continuity alone doesn't make a bad movie.
I could even go on to mention the flashiness of B&R, and how it wasn't as dark and broody as the other Batman movies, how it hyped up the cheesiness and had a lot of bad acting and silly dialogue... but a lot of these problems were present in Batman Forever, which I loved. A lot of the goofier points of B&R were an homage to the 60s TV series, which I also loved. Is the world no longer ready for a humorous Batman? Well, that "Brave and the Bold" cartoon series was pretty popular, so that's not it.
I know one guy who hated 2012 because he thought he saw a plot hole. He was wrong, and I explained it to him... he still hates it, but at least now he hates it for the right reasons. But plot holes shouldn't be dealbreakers anyway. There are some pretty popular movies with well-publicized plot holes. Citizen Kane, My Cousin Vinny, Ocean's 11... and yet people still love them. But they see one continuity error in a bland movie, and suddenly that's the sole reason it sucks.
And some people simply go into a movie with the wrong expectations. I know one guy who hated Revenge of the Sith because it didn't explain the existence of the evil cave on Dagobah. That's like the very definition of "I hate it because they didn't make the exact movie I would have made." I knew a woman who hated "There's Something About Mary" because... and I quote... "They never did explain what it was about Mary." ...You can't argue with that.
Typical fanboy review:
That movie was terrible, it wasn't enough like the book/comic/cartoon, the director didn't use any of my ideas, and anyone who liked it is an idiot. That one scene where they showed the watch on his left wrist, then when the camera angle changed it was on his right, just ruined the entire movie for me. Doesn't the director even read my blog? Why can't they make a serious movie about a guy who shoots cufflinks out of his ears? I felt like the director wasn't taking it seriously. Has the director even read this comic? Issue #193 clearly states that Captain Cufflink is allergic to shellfish, and yet they show him eating lobster?
A couple of those might be genuine concerns, but the truth is that you would accept all of those issues if a good movie was wrapped around it. There are some legitimately bad movies out there, ones that earned their 0% rating on RottenTomatoes. But the movies that are well-liked, that just don't click with you? It's okay that you don't like them, I just wonder if you really know why.
Really, though… If I was to actually write out a list all the things I liked and disliked about the movie, I think the list of bad things would be longer the good. It’s a bit shallow, there’s a lot of Deus Ex Machina, and it tends to handwave a lot of the hard-to-swallow details.
It also had one too many villains. The FBI and the supervillain were enough of a threat to carry the movie, but the writers decided to add a silly black market tech dealer to pad the movie’s runtime. But my biggest complaint is probably the abundance of spoilers in the trailers. I can’t tell you how many times they’d do a cool shot and I’d think, “That was awesome, I wish I hadn’t already seen it in the previews.”
But you know what? I still love the movie. It’s flawed, but fun. On paper it almost looks like a failure, but the film is more than the sum of its parts. Some people won’t like Ant Man & The Wasp, and if you ask them why, they’ll list everything I said above. So why do those flaws add up to a bomb to them, while I can look past the movie’s shallowness and have a good time?
I have a theory that people actually have no idea why they dislike things. You watch a movie and hate it on a subconscious emotional level, but your brain won't accept "I hate it because I hate it", and has to fill in the logical reasons you feel that way.
For example, I know someone who hates the sitcom Friends. Her reason? “Everyone is always so mean to each other!” I’ve never actually noticed that about Friends, but I suppose it’s there if you really look for it. Snarky comebacks are a big part of the humor, though I’ve never seen it as mean; if anything it’s part of the bond that holds the group together.
But here’s the thing – this same friend likes several other shows where the main characters are flat-out jerks, all the time. So that’s a big part of my theory: Whatever someone tells you they don’t like about a movie/show/book/etc, you can find examples of media they enjoy that contain those elements.
Her real reason for disliking Friends? Probably the show simply isn't in sync with her sense of humor. Humor is far from universal, and everyone has a unique funny bone. If Friends made her laugh, she'd like it. Not laughing gives her more time to notice the show's flaws. Her brain won't accept the vague "it's just not for me", so it gave her the flimsy excuse she uses.
Now, if I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s that you can’t talk people into liking things, any more than you can talk them into liking a food. You can shoot down all their complaints one by one, doing extensive research to prove why the plot holes they found weren't really plot holes, but it won't help. So I’m not posting this to convince anyone to watch shows they know they don’t like. I’m just pointing out your reasons for not liking it may not be what you think they are.
I used to know a couple who hated anything mainstream. Their logic was that most people are stupid, so if most people like something, it must be stupid. Except… some things really do become popular because they deserve to. And what if you see a sneak preview of a movie, before it has time to be popular? Do you have to wait until the box office results are in before you decide if you liked it?
I had one friend who hated Forrest Gump because she didn’t like the ending – she wasn’t sure Forrest was capable of taking care of a child by himself. Even if I shared her concern, that’s only a reason to hate the ending, not the entire movie. Surely, while watching the movie in the theater, she’d already decided whether or not she liked the movie by that point. If she'd had an emergency and had to walk out before Jenny died (um, spoiler alert I guess), would she have felt differently about the movie? I doubt it.
Titanic gets a lot of haters because it was so overhyped. As I’ve said before, that may be an excuse to hate the advertising department, but don’t take it out on the movie itself. I’m not saying I’ve never been annoyed by hype (See Ant-Man & the Wasp above), but I do try to keep a movie and its marketing as separate entities in my mind.
One thing I’ve heard people say about both Friends and Big Bang Theory – “They don’t talk or act like real people!” This one sets me off for a couple of reasons. First off, nobody in Star Wars talks like real people either, that’s why it’s fiction. I can’t remember the last time I went to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters. Behaving like real people is not a requirement in fiction, in fact, making dialogue too realistic makes shows hard to watch. Real people clear their throats, start sentences and change their mind, use the wrong word, stutter, and display all kinds of verbal tics that would make me change the channel.
That said, the characters on Friends and BBT remind me more of my real life friends than the people on most sitcoms. Maybe you’re just hanging out with the wrong people. Chandler Bing’s snarkiness is practically the foundation of my marriage. And BBT characters actually make specific references to current media, while other sitcoms seem to be vaguely aware that Star Wars might have had robots in it or something. Yes, these characters sometimes do unrealistically dumb things to move the plot forward, but the alternative is a plot that never moves forward.
I do it too. If I were to give you a list of things I hated about Batman & Robin, it would probably include things like Batgirl not being Commissioner Gordon's daughter, or Bane being a mindless henchmen instead of a criminal mastermind. But to be honest, I probably would have ignored both of those details if they had occurred in a better movie. Would I whine because the Joker wasn't chemically bleached in The Dark Knight? Of course not, so obviously messing with comic book continuity alone doesn't make a bad movie.
I could even go on to mention the flashiness of B&R, and how it wasn't as dark and broody as the other Batman movies, how it hyped up the cheesiness and had a lot of bad acting and silly dialogue... but a lot of these problems were present in Batman Forever, which I loved. A lot of the goofier points of B&R were an homage to the 60s TV series, which I also loved. Is the world no longer ready for a humorous Batman? Well, that "Brave and the Bold" cartoon series was pretty popular, so that's not it.
I know one guy who hated 2012 because he thought he saw a plot hole. He was wrong, and I explained it to him... he still hates it, but at least now he hates it for the right reasons. But plot holes shouldn't be dealbreakers anyway. There are some pretty popular movies with well-publicized plot holes. Citizen Kane, My Cousin Vinny, Ocean's 11... and yet people still love them. But they see one continuity error in a bland movie, and suddenly that's the sole reason it sucks.
And some people simply go into a movie with the wrong expectations. I know one guy who hated Revenge of the Sith because it didn't explain the existence of the evil cave on Dagobah. That's like the very definition of "I hate it because they didn't make the exact movie I would have made." I knew a woman who hated "There's Something About Mary" because... and I quote... "They never did explain what it was about Mary." ...You can't argue with that.
Typical fanboy review:
That movie was terrible, it wasn't enough like the book/comic/cartoon, the director didn't use any of my ideas, and anyone who liked it is an idiot. That one scene where they showed the watch on his left wrist, then when the camera angle changed it was on his right, just ruined the entire movie for me. Doesn't the director even read my blog? Why can't they make a serious movie about a guy who shoots cufflinks out of his ears? I felt like the director wasn't taking it seriously. Has the director even read this comic? Issue #193 clearly states that Captain Cufflink is allergic to shellfish, and yet they show him eating lobster?
A couple of those might be genuine concerns, but the truth is that you would accept all of those issues if a good movie was wrapped around it. There are some legitimately bad movies out there, ones that earned their 0% rating on RottenTomatoes. But the movies that are well-liked, that just don't click with you? It's okay that you don't like them, I just wonder if you really know why.
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