The Good and the Bad: Two Films

This weekend I managed to fit in watching two films, which were in quality terms at completely opposite ends of the scale. The first was the somewhat hyped Man with the Iron Fists from Wu-Tang Clan rapper RZA. The second, Indie Game: The Movie.

Whilst I did not exactly have high hopes for the first, it still surprised me simply because it was so bad. To be fair to RZA, it was his big screen directorial and acting debut with previous experience staring in a somewhat major role in a season of Showtime's Californiacation, where he essentially played himself but entertaining and funny nonetheless. How he managed to convince the producers (Tarantino no less) to support him to make his own film though is a mystery. The story is truly awful, and in some ways, completely unnecessary. It serves merely as a tool for moving the film along from one action scene to another with bland and uninspired acting in between, not helped by a script seemingly written by a six year old. The characters are incredibly shallow and other than the motivation for stealing the gold bullion - the main object of the plot, have no real reason to be there. I would probably preferred it if the whole story had simply been RZA and a few other Chinese warriors fighting there way through hordes of enemies. Instead though we are presented with motivations of love, loyalty, greed and so on, none of which really need to be there, especially as other than greed, none of them are believable.

The action is definitely the strongest part of the film. The fighting choreography was ambitious in some cases but on the whole seemed to work, with some brutal yet awe inspiring battles. Though they tended to be the ones that didn't feature RZA, or Russell Crowe for that matter, a normally decent actor who must be going through a bit of a crisis at the moment. Either way, this is a film to miss. You can probably catch the best scenes on Youtube... The music is pretty god awful too.

Indie Game: The Movie may be one of the best films I've watched in a while. Other than End Of Watch which I caught recently which is thoroughly enjoyable, Indie Game is an interesting and emotional ride.

A documentary, it follows the lives of the independant game developers behind Super Meat Boy and the one behind Fez, with interviews with other developers and journalists.  It starts off with both developers some way into the making of their games, with all of them explaining their motivations and aspirations. Some are even quite heartfelt admissions of difficult childhoods looking for means to express themselves, and now having found that in video games. It then tracks their progress right up to the launch day of Super Meat Boy, and Fez's second unveiling at the PAX show in Boston.

It's a incredible journey where I felt really attached to the interviewees as the film progressed. The film makes did an excellent job of really getting the developers to open up - meaning I could easily relate to them despite leading completely different lives. It also made me realise the difficulty and energy that is required to go into game development as well as the constant fear of failure that the developers feel. Considering that both games came out well it the end, it made me think about the number of indie developers that put and equal amount of effort in without the same success.

The beautiful world of Fez

 
Perhaps my biggest surprise though was the amount of themselves that they invested in the game, and by that I don't mean the amount of time and energy, but parts of their personality and feelings. A part of them was in those games.

Indie Game: The Movie is well worth a watch, especially for those that have an interest in games or enjoy a well produced documentary.