The Bicycle Thief/Bicycle Thieves

Directed by Vittorio De Sica

Written by Vittorio De Sica, Cesare Zavattini, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Oreste Biancoli, Adolfo Franci, and Gerardo Guerriri

Based on the novel by Luigi Bartolini

     If you like dark and depressing movies set in postwar Italy (because they were filmed in postwar Italy), then the Italian neorealism movement is for you. The Bicycle Thief went on to win an honorary Oscar for good reason, showing off how the movement could be both thought-provoking while creating downright hopeless stories.

     Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) gets a job putting up posters around Rome, but he needs a bicycle to do it or he'll get fired. When his bicycle gets stolen, he and his son Bruno (Enzo Staiola) are forced to look all over Rome for it.

     The plot seems almost simplistic, but it's the interactions of the characters that develop the richness here. Antonio is a desperate man, and he so badly wants to do right for his family with this job. He has these small sparks of hope that get destroyed as he gets beaten down by a world he simply cannot win in. And while child actors are always hit-or-miss, Staiola is perfect as Bruno. His expressions tend towards being flat, but the directing makes sure we know exactly what's going through his mind. The more he has to look for the bike, the more he begins to realize that it's hopeless and the more he loses his respect for his father. Wordless scenes still show so much by his simple actions. De Sica actually chose him by how he walked, and it's a simple thing that brings a lot to his character.

     And while we focus on Antonio and Bruno, the movie does not give protagonist focus. This is not a movie where the protagonists alone have some bad luck. This is a movie where we simply focus on two people who happen to be experiencing problems everybody is experiencing. The scene where Antonio gets his job has other men complain that they didn't get a job. A powerful early scene has Antonio's wife Maria (Lianella Carell) trading in the family's sheets so they can get back the bicycle—and we see hundreds of piles of sheets all stacked up. We're always reminded that the protagonists aren't alone in this world, and the tragedy is that Antonio never realizes it. He pushes and bothers people who have their own problems, people praying in church to get meager food afterwards, bicycle sellers trying to make a living. Antonio is in a bad place, but he's one among many.

     The Bicycle Thief is stark and can be a hard watch. There's little lightness here and the ending is bleak. But then, considering the state of things at the time, it creates a completely understandable picture of postwar Italy.

Metro: Last Light

Developed by 4A Games

Published by Deep Silver

     There is something to be said for games which are deeply immersive. Not just attempting immersion, but putting elements into every part of the game. Last Light drops you in the middle of post-apocalyptic Russia, and you never stop feeling it.

     Taking place a year after the events of Metro 2033 and following that game's bad ending, the Dark Ones have been destroyed and the Rangers have taken over the former military bunker D6. However, the news that a single Dark One is still alive leads Artyom in pursuit of it—and along the way, uncovering enemy plans to take over D6.

     Where Last Light immediately hooks you is in much the same way that the original game did so. Your objectives are shown on a clipboard that Artyom carries, allowing you to pull it up at any time (and turn on your lighter in the dark). Trips out on to the surface require gas masks and air filters, and you have to wipe water and gunk off your mask if you want to see. It brings you into the game before you even get to the superbly crafted gameplay. Running and gunning is certainly a tactic, but not a satisfying or smart tactic unless you enjoy dying and watching your resources run out. Meanwhile, it's much more fun to sneak around, turning off lights, hiding in the shadows and darting past patrols. Stealth here is fun and rarely frustrating. If it seems like you can't possibly get past a group of people without getting caught, chances are you just need to look more to find the way on. And it also rarely requires killing.

     Which is good for people trying to get the good ending because, as with the previous game, it's extremely difficult. Even if you do every good action you come across and try for a pacifist run, it's still very likely you'll get the bad ending, thanks to the laundry list of morality points you need with many well-hidden. It encourages exploration and thinking to get them all, but it can still be annoying when you play the game, look around plenty, and still find the bad ending at the end. There's also some serious flaws in the story, the biggest one being Anna. When you first see her, she's a pure badass that immediately became my favorite character. Naturally, she quickly gets shunted to being a secondary character who by the end has completely just fallen into a woman for the male gamers to stare at. Even when there's a big final battle towards the end, she gets left out for the all-male generic soldiers. I get used to games being male-centric, certainly, but it just really rubbed me the wrong way here. This, combined with the often rambling nature of the story (at times it feels like you're just going from location to location), made me enjoy the gameplay more than any time that focused on story.

     Metro: Last Light is worth playing for the top-notch stealth gameplay and atmosphere. It's just a shame that, with a game so obviously built around a story, the story is more cringe-worthy than anything.

Tomb Raider (1996)

Developed by Core Design

Published by Eidos Interactive

      I'm a pretty big Tomb Raider fan, but only a recent one. I've surely committed one of the fandom sins by only coming in with Legend. While I played the originals a little when I was younger, I didn't get them and quickly became disinterested. Playing the original Tomb Raider now, it's easy to see why young me didn't enjoy it: it's slow, methodical, and precise. And that's why it's so much fun to finally play it.

     The plot is there, but not exactly meaningful: Lara gets hired by Natla to retrieve an artifact for her. The little advancement that happens is through clunky FMVs between the acts. It's there for one reason: to provide an excuse for Lara's globetrotting adventure. Taking you from Peru to Greece to Egypt, the environments stand out as a high-point in the game. They feel unique, with the snowy cave of Peru opening into a hidden jungle, and Greece going from a temple to a giant coliseum. The game is limited by only having interior environments, but only “limited” in the sense that you're never outdoors. The levels are huge, sprawling, and atmospheric. There's no witty quips from Lara or cuts to cinematics. It's just you, all sorts of animals trying to kill you (a good alternate game title would be Lara Croft: Endangered Species Killer) and plenty of exploration along the way to the next level.

      The controls can feel odd at first. You don't run and press the jump button right as you hit the edge. You'll just fall if you do that. Lara won't hang on to ledges unless you tell her to. And she'll freely run off ledges unless you're holding down the walk button. It is very easy, especially early on, to find the muscle memory of modern platformers killing you left and right. But then it clicks and suddenly it's perfect. The basic rules of the game never change, meaning that it's easy enough to figure out “Oh, as long as I press jump and then forward, I'll do this kind of jump”, and that will get you through many situations. And once the game starts throwing traps at you, you've gotten the feel for things enough that the traps are tough, but fair. Oh, you'll die plenty, but there's only a few times when you'll die to platforming because the game didn't work right.

     And I want to emphasize “to platforming”, because while the controls have aged well in this charming, clunky way, the combat is awful. Trying to run around enough to avoid enemies while dealing with the tank controls is near impossible. At some point, the strategy is either “stand on a ledge and shoot” or “shoot and keep jumping backwards”, because otherwise you either die quickly or spend plenty of time shooting at walls. In the quiet immersion of most of the game, combat is almost always just a frustration.

     Tomb Raider may show the flaws that a game nearing 20 years old is going to show, but it also shows the big dreams of the time: environments as packed with puzzles and platforming as with action, a heroine able to take down almost any foe who comes her way, and an around-the-world trip without having to leave your computer. For someone who only knows the newer games, it's a lot of fun to see how things were when everything began.

State of the Stuff (aka "Is This Still Updating?")

      It's very likely you may have noticed a sudden lack of content for about a month now. Between starting a job and a general lack of anything within my interest coming out (I seriously haven't gone to the movies since Guardians of the Galaxy, and haven't particularly wanted to with the crop of movies out there), I've definitely used it all as an excuse to slack on content.

     However, don't think at all that I want to stop doing Devi Reviews Stuff. I'll take the last month as a hiatus, but now I'm going to go back into full gear. And I do mean full gear.

     For when, I want to get back into what I was doing when I started the site: reviewing every movie I watch and game I play. I'm still not going to put up a review that I'm unsatisfied with, but I'm at least going to try reviewing things and if I find myself running around with nothing to say, I'll drop it, whereas earlier I simply haven't even tried at reviewing more difficult things.

     The other thing I want to start doing is setting a schedule. At least twice a week, I'm going to be putting up reviews (and hopefully more often than that). And on Wednesdays, I'm going to put up either top lists or opinion pieces. I've always wanted to keep things focused on reviews, but I also want to provide content that can hopefully also give a better look at me and my tastes, starting with going over some of my all-time favorite movies, shows, games, and more.

     So short version: sorry for the delay, but get ready for plenty of reviews and more on the way.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Directed by James Gunn

Written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman

Based on the comic by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning

     In a way, Guardians of the Galaxy is the most un-Marvel movie so far. Not in a sense of tone, but in a sense of location. Earth is barely onscreen for 3 minutes, there's no familiar characters around (besides a couple minor ones, two of which appeared in credits scenes before), and the characters are aliens and rogues—decidedly not super, and barely qualifying as heroic. And all of this makes it stand out higher in Marvel's universe.

     Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is a rogue-type who discovers an orb that he thinks is just a normal artifact, but it ends up attracting the attention of Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) and his Kree army. Peter has to team up with Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), and the alien-tree Groot (Vin Diesel) to figure out what the orb is and stop it from getting into Ronan's hands.

     The comparisons between the Guardians themselves and the Avengers are obvious. After all, the worst the Avengers have is Tony Stark, who's deeply sarcastic but still heroic. The Guardians practically define the ragtag group of misfits, constantly at odds with each other in their goals and morally. They seem like any minute they're just going to turn and kill each other. When the Avengers fight like that, it's a tense atmosphere. When the Guardians fight, it's closer to hilarious. The focus on humor here is big, and there's plenty of bickering remarks as they butt heads, held together by some fine acting all around. Zoe Saldana is still in her niche of “no-nonsense badass”, but it works all the better when she's surrounded by nonsense. Bradley Cooper takes the role of a bitter talking raccoon as seriously as he can, cracking plenty of jokes while showing the small shades of his backstory when you least expect it. And Chris Pratt swaggers on-screen in an opening scene that defines his role better than anything: a quiet trip into a ruin that then turns into Pratt dancing and kicking space-rats to Come And Get Your Love.

     The atmosphere here ties things together. It plays to pure sci-fi. The pristine planet which holds the galactic police corps Nova, the space jail filled with tough aliens that the Guardians have to break out of. And then it plays to the Marvel universe's bigger weirdness with a planet which is actually the head of a long-dead giant alien. If you want the 101 to Marvel Cosmic, this is it: there may be a talking raccoon, but you're still getting an honest love of science fiction that's just done without boundaries. Space battles are huge and fun. An early fight over the orb is humorous while also showing off plenty of sci-fi tech. The CGI is flawless, from the spaceships to Rocket's smaller details and expressions making him actually look like a raccoon is just walking around with a giant gun.

     Guardians is another winner in Marvel's line-up (big surprise), but it's also a huge dose of sci-fi fun. It goes over the top and then some, and it never pauses and says “Should we back off?”, but instead just looks to entertain as much as possible.

Rocky & Bullwinkle Volume 1

Written by Mark Evanier

Art by Roger Langridge

     IDW has done some fantastic revivals of licenses, and with the recent Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie, now's a great time to bring back the Jay Ward cartoons in comic form, right? Sadly, Rocky & Bullwinkle stumbles far too quickly and never recovers.

     The four issues here are all standalone stories, with the moose & squirrel going against Boris & Natasha's various evil plans. The elements from the cartoon are here in essence. There's the omnipresent narrator and the dual “Next time” cliffhanger titles, and just a feeling like these could've been actual stories on the show. But then the comic ends up relying too much on references rather than actual humor. It's funny when Bullwinkle asks a magician “How did you do that?” after he pulls a rabbit out of his hat, it's painful when Bullwinkle starts explaining what normally happens. It gets worse when modern-day references start getting put in. They just don't work in context. You've got a 60s, Cold War style plot of Americans vs. Russian expies, and then suddenly Bullwinkle starts talking about the Kardashians and reality shows. And finally, there's a lack of the self-deprecation that made the series great. Hell, even the movie got that one right. Instead, the comic almost seems to put the show on a pedestal, and that's just not a good place for a licensed comic to be.

     There are a few good points here. The idea of cutting from the main story for a Dudley Do-Right “short” is perfectly in the style of the show, and the shorts tend to be better than the main feature. Sadly, it's nothing BUT Dudley Do-Right. No Aesop's Fables, no Fractured Fairy Tales, just Dudley Do-Right. But I'll take what I can get. Bullwinkle's awful puns throughout are perfectly in style, and they're so bad that they at least put a smile on my face. The final issue here is also fairly good, the closest to what I was hoping for when I started reading, but it was a serious case of too little, too late. And Langridge's art is in top form, a simplified style that works for a similarity to the show. My main question is why he didn't also write the comic. He did an excellent job on the Muppet Show comic, and with how stylistically similar they are, this would seem like the perfect fit for him.

     Overall, Rocky & Bullwinkle is just disappointing. IDW has done plenty of quality licensed work, so to see something that uses the license so poorly just seems out of place for them.

12 Years a Slave

Directed by Steve McQueen

Written by John Ridley

Based on the book by Solomon Northup

     Some movies take the easy way out on hard topics, implying the harder parts or making soft messages like “slavery was bad”. 12 Years a Slave does not go easy. 12 Years a Slave lets you know from the opening that there is going to be nothing held back.

     Solomon Northup (Academy Award-nominated Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a free man living a decent life in New York. When two men give him a job offer and take him out drinking afterwards, he wakes up in slavery, with nobody willing to listen to him. And over his 12 years in slavery, he has to do what he can both to survive and to become free again.

     This is undoubtedly a brutal and intense movie. The fact that there's violence as soon as Solmon gets put in slavery sets the tone for how things will go. And things get worse from there. The shock factor is there in a sense, seeing what Solomon had to be put through, but it goes beyond simple shock to show the kinds of cruel people that were involved. The early slavers seem cruel for having slaves, beating them, and simply treating them as property. This is not a movie that gives a pass to white people or tries to say “But that's what happened back then”, it shows in full that there was simply nobody who cared. But they just barely qualify as generous compared to the eventual slavers of Solomon for the movie's latter half. The Epps (Academy Award-nominated Michael Fassbender and Sarah Paulson) aren't just cruel, they're vicious. Edwin is an alcoholic who will whip his slaves for no reason, while Mistress Epps verbally abuses Patsey (Academy Award-winning Lupita N'yongo). While Patsey only has a handful of scenes, the Oscar for N'yongo becomes obvious in a heartbreaking scene where Patsey begs Solomon to mercy-kill her.

     Everything gets held together by the incredible cinematography. The lush green of Louisiana is directly contrasted with the horrors that happen on-screen. And several silent long takes throughout show more than dialogue ever could. When Solomon barely survives being hanged at one point, it would have been easy to have the aftermath scene last a few seconds. Instead, it's a full minute as Solomon simply stands on his tiptoes while behind him, all the other slaves continue on with their work. And when McQueen does nothing but focus on Ejiofor, his acting ability shines through. A scene of him simply running through emotions at the mere chance of being free is one of the most powerful scenes in the movie.

     Visually striking and incredibly acted, 12 Years a Slave takes the issue and the story on in full and doesn't falter for a second in showing what happened.