Haunted by the ghost of unoriginality....

For some reason I have a morbid affinity for movies that freak me out. I'm not talking about slasher films - I've never really cared for or been scared by those - but movies that send me home with a creeped-out feeling that makes me want to hug a teddy bear and sleep with the lights on. Such was my experience watching the Haunting in Connecticut. When her son begins an experimental treatment for his cancer, Sara Campbell (Virginia Madsen) moves her family to an old house in upstate Connecticut so that they can be closer to the hospital where her son is receiving treatment. Unfortunately, the former funeral home has a dark history that includes corpse desecration, necromancy, and ectoplasmic séances (sounds like Never land Ranch). True to form, the family begins experiencing the classic symptoms of a haunted house (self breaking plates, disappearing figures, and homicidal shower curtains), all culminating in a fiery climax that reveals dozens of mummified corpses being used as wall insulation. Although loaded with several wet-your-pants level "boo" moments, Haunting is disappointingly mediocre and predictable and comes off more as a low budget Poltergeist meets the Messengers. Two stars for the creepy, but woefully unoriginal "The Haunting in Connecticut."

Fablehaven Grows Up

A shining star among the recent proliferation of Mormon fantasy novels has been Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series. And now with the release of the fourth installment, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary, Mull raises the stakes of his story, as well as the quality of his writing. In Dragon Sanctuary, Kendra and Seth Sorensen spend most of their time away from their grandparent's preserve for the protection of magical creatures, as Kendra is kidnapped early on in the book and then ventures to the forbidden Dragon Sanctuary, Wyrmroost, to search for a key to finding one of the artifacts that can unlock the great demon prison. As with the previous Fablehaven novels, Dragon Sanctuary hooked me from the first chapter, but this time I was pleasantly surprised to find that Mull's writing had significantly improved. There was a noticeable decrease in the embarrassingly silly character banter that has afflicted the series, the narrative was smoother, and the overall feel of the book was more professional. Dragon Sanctuary is also more intense and exciting than its predecessors - Mull throws a dramatic curveball toward the end that I didn't see coming, but which I thought worked surprisingly well. It’s been a while since I enjoyed a book as much as I did Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary earning it a 9 on a scale of 1-10.

Love isn't supposed to hurt, that is unless you're dating a vampire.

First, let me start by apologizing to my readers (all three of them) for not posting anything for a few months. I've been occupied with two important projects which I am happy to say are about finished, which should give me enough free time to again afflict the blogosphere with my rants and raves.

So what do you get when you mix 1 part Romeo and Juliet, 1 part Smallville, 2 parts clever Hollywood marketing, and a whole bucket full of estrogen? The answer of course is the movie adaption of Stephanie Meyer's hit vampire novel, Twilight. With all the buzz, hype, and millions of dollars generated by this movie (as with Phantom Menace I know these things aren't a guarantee of quality), I honestly expected something a little better. The premise is interesting enough - a forbidden human/vampire romance - but the movie never seems to rise above its basic plot line and achieve any kind of depth. Robert Pattinson does a quality job of playing the conflicted vegetarian vampire, Edward (I can just hear the collective female sigh), but Kristen Stewart doesn't quite find her footing as the uncomfortably co-dependant Isabella Swan. The appearance and mood of the film is effectively Gothic, but I was surprised by the cheap TV quality look of the special effects (what is up with that constant fast motion crap?). The bad vampire, James - played by Cam Gigandet from The O.C. - made a serviceable villain, and the end fight was exciting, but overall this movie just never seemed to draw me in. Fans of the book will no doubt love it, but any serious vampire enthusiast will probably find the film's departure from traditional lore conventions irritating. Two and half stars for this two dimensional 120 minute book promotion.

P.S. - To any teenage girls or twenty something housewives who might stumble across this review, please don't send me any threats or letter bombs - I really am a decent guy, I promise.

Indiana Jones and the Retirement Center of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was the first movie I ever saw on opening night. I was ten then, now I'm twenty nine, and Indiana Jones is old. Too old perhaps to be cracking his whip and escaping from Nazi's, or was it Russians, or does it matter? George Lucas is credited as being the driving force behind this story, and once again we see that this man is a menace and needs to be stopped. However, his multimillion dollar creative rant is a bit tempered for this film, no doubt by Spielberg who is actually a good film maker (does anyone else get the feeling that Spielberg only hangs around Lucas out of a sense of buddy pity?) Crystal Skull starts out strong, but seems to get lost along the way in its own nostalgic vanity. Unlike some critics I didn't mind the alien theme, but the whole plot just falls apart in the third act. And what is Cate Blanchett doing in this movie with her ridiculously cliche Russian accent. This movie was entertaining, but not a worthy conclusion to one of film's iconic series. Two and half stars for Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. By the way, whatever happened to that short Chinese kid that used to hang around with Indy?

Brisingr means fire...

Brisingr is the sequel to Eldest and the third installment in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance trilogy, oops I mean Inheritance cycle...(I wonder how many early editions of Eragon were published with that subtext). Despite Paolini's amateur predictability, lack of originality, and the transposing of his weird quirks onto his fictional characters, Brisingr was compelling and very enjoyable. Mind you, it's nothing special, but as I've said before, I'm a sucker for swords and sorcery and dragon action (that sounds a bit sordid). And there's plenty of that in this novel, climaxing with an exciting battle between the ancient rider Oromis and his gold dragon Glaedr against the traitor Murtagh and his red dragon Thorn. And for the first time we get to encounter the infamous dark king, Galbatorix - albeit through his possession of another character viewed at a distance by means of a psychic link. Hmm that seems unnecessarily complicated. Anyway, the book is better paced than its predecessor Eldest, but still falls into stretches of irritatingly boring chapters this time concentrating on Varden and Dwarf politics. The scenes with Roran's rise to prominence among the Varden are compelling and well done, but all of the focus on the Varden leader Nasuada is little short of worthless (she is really one of the most uninteresting characters that I've ever read in fantasy fiction). The battles and scenes of magic are sufficiently exciting, and the plot feels well planned. But what is up with Eragon's wussy, momma's boy relationship with Saphira? Makes me wonder if Paolini feels his mother didn't give him enough attention when he was little. And you gotta love the awkward attempts at humor personified in the character of Angela the fortune teller, all of which reinforce my conclusion that home schooling your children socially retards them. In spite of its weaknesses (probably more apparent to me because I am insanely jealous of the author's quick success at such a young age) Brisingr is an enthralling story which I very much enjoyed. On a scale of 1-10, Brisingr scores an 8.

I confess, I was disappointed...

To be fair, I haven't read this entire series. I loved Wizard's First Rule (I'm really pumped for Legend of the Seeker) and Stone of Tears, but Goodkind's bizarre obsession with graphic sadistic rape and his self righteous philosophical rants really put me off. So I skipped volumes three through seven (I wiki'd the stories), and resumed with the Chainfire trilogy (I actually started reading Goodkind with Naked Empire). I believe what makes an author stand out among his/her peers is the ability to deftly wrap up an epic in a way that harmonizes with the plot details of previous stories and makes the audience say "that ending felt right." Unfortunately, that is not how Goodkind ends the Sword of Truth series. This book was compelling and exciting pretty much up until just before the end, where it's thoroughly established rules for the boxes of Ordon (the talismans of ultimate power) that were so central throughout the first book and in the first two installments of Chainfire are pretty much just thrown out the window and the heroes win simply by being passively lucky. And in each previous novel, one of the Wizard's rules is explained. In Confessor the Wizard's eleventh rule, the rule unwritten, is introduced but NEVER explained. At least if it was, I didn't catch it. Jigang's death was clever, but Kahlan's compelling rising plot was extinguished just before it got good, and Zedd, Nathan, Nicci, and the other regulars were pretty much reduced to jumping off agents for Richard/Goodkind's rants about the fallacies of faith and the value of your one and only life. That being said, Confessor was still a good read, containing some of the intense feel of Goodkind's brilliant first novel, and the Jala (a lethal version of football) scenes were some of the most exciting scenes I've ever read. In spite of its let down ending, I would recommend Confessor and the Chainfire trilogy to anyone who loves fantasy. On a scale of 1-10, Confessor gets 7.5. (I give Phantom an 8 and Chainfire a 9).

Star Wars the way it ought to be!

The recipe for creating a great Star Wars story is to take the settings and characters that Lucas created and let someone else run with it (so I hear about the Timothy Zahn sequel trilogy to R.O.T.J.). Such is the case with Star Wars the Force Unleashed. In this hack and slash game, you play Darth Vader's secret apprentice, a Sith called "Star Killer" (I guess Sky Walker was already taken). As part of proving to Vader that you are ready to aid him in overthrowing Emperor Palpatine, you are assigned to hunt down the Jedi that escaped the infamous "order 66." In an ingenious Star Wars plot twist, you turn from the dark side and eventually become a Jedi and are actually the one who founds the Rebel Alliance. I could sum up my feelings for this game by simply saying "IT ROCKS!" From the time I was little, I always wished I could wield a light saber and blast things out of my way with the force. While that isn't likely to happen anytime soon, this is the next best thing. Force lightning, sweet light saber duels, and throwing storm troopers out into space with a wave of your hand make this one gaming experience one you do NOT want to pass up. And being released on five different systems (each game a little different), you won't have to. The only negative thing I thought about this game was, why didn't we see this kind of Jedi/Sith action in the movies? Learn what a force warrior really can do by playing the Force Unleashed! In my not so humble opinion, this game gets a perfect 10! Oh yeah and the story and acting are great for a video game.