E3 Gears of War Judgement en vidéo

Après avoir dévoilé deux premières images, Gears of War : Judgement a fait une apparition vidéo lors de la conférence de Microsoft. Rien de bien nouveau en soit, mais c'est avec plaisir que l'on observe ainsi nos héros en action, toujours en proie avec les Locustes.



Pour rappel, il s'agit d'un prequel à la série mettant notamment en scène Damon Baird et Cole Train, deux acolytes de Marcus Fenix lors de la première trilogie. Sans surprise, le jeu reste une exclusivité Microsoft qui devrait débarquer sur Xbox 360, et c'est People Can FLy (épaulé

Blizzard communique sur le Projet Titan

Alors que World of Warcraft : Mists of Pandaria vient tout juste d'arriver sur nos machines, Blizzard profite de l'occasion pour communiquer sur le toujours très mystérieux Projet Titan. Officialisé pas plus tard que l'année dernière, le jeu que l'on nomme déjà comme le successeur de World of Warcraft refait parler de lui aujourd'hui.

C'est en effet Rob Pardo, Vice Président du Game Design chez Blizzard, qui s'exprime à ce sujet lors d'une interview donnée au site communautaire Curse. Si l'on en croit les paroles du bonhomme, le Projet Titan en serait à la moitié de son développement (lequel a débuté en 2008). Il précise également qu'une équipe forte de plus de 100 membres travaille actuellement sur le jeu. Et si vous espériez en apprendre plus, il faudra attendre au minimum jusqu'à la BlizzCon de 2013, sinon plus longtemps, puisque le géant californien ne tiendra pas de salon cette année.

· Forum Projet Titan

Rumeur Un nouveau Mana dans les cartons

Les fans de la licence Mana, connue aussi sous le nom originel de Seiken Densetsu, commencent à être aux aguets. En effet, Square-Enix vient de déposer plusieurs noms de marques et parmi elles, on retrouve un certain Circle of Mana. Pas de quoi sauter au plafond donc, mais voilà qui est particulièrement intéressant sachant que la série n'a donné aucune nouvelle depuis 2007.

Il s'agissait alors de la sortie du dernière épisode de la saga, nommée Heroes of Mana. S'écartant du genre action-RPG pour rallier un système de stratégie en temps réel, il avait déçu de nombreux fans. Beaucoup espèrent donc un retour aux sources pour la série, reprenant le concept de base initié

Games Workshop, SEGA et Creative Assembly main dans la main

En bon geek que tu es cher lecteur, tu connais certainement ces trois grands noms du loisir ludique. Games Workshop n'est autre que le créateur de Warhammer, jeu de plateau médiéval fantastique à succès. Quant à SEGA et Creative Assembly, leur association a déjà donné naissance à l'excellente série des Total War.

Via un communiqué de presse très enthousiaste, ces trois entités déclarent avoir conclut un accord. Ainsi, Creative Assembly se fait fort de développer un jeu (de stratégie sans doute) aux couleurs des petites figurines à monter soi-même. Vu le passif du studio britannique, on est en droit d'attendre un jeu de grande qualité, ce qui redorerait le blason de Warhammer sur le plan vidéoludique (aucune adaptation jusque-là n'a convaincu les foules). Reste à savoir si le jeu verra le jour sur d'autres plateformes que le PC, qui est le terrain favori de ce studio de talent.

Patience toutefois puisque le communiqué proclame que le jeu ne verra pas le jour avant 2014 au plus tôt.

documentary sidebar “collapse”

Let’s face it — we, as a species, are completely, hopelessly, unequivocally, irrefutably fucked.

You know it. I know it. And Michael Ruppert sure as hell knows it. And while we may not have the guts to admit to this basic truth in polite company, Mike’s got no such hang-ups.

Ruppert is a former LAPD narcotics unit detective who was run off the force when he refused to play along with CIA drug running into his district in the early 80s. Thus began a remarkable exodus of sorts for Ruppert that lead to attempts on his life, homelessness, and finally, independent investigative journalism.

Documentarian Chris (American Movie) Smith ran across Ruppert when researching a project on The Company’s involvement in the crack cocaine trade, and eventually abandoned that project in favor of Collapse, an 82-minute soliloquy wherein Ruppert sits down in front of the camera, chain-smokes, and lays out the whole score on everything. Prepare to be scared. Damn scared. In fact, Collapse is easily the most frightening film of 2010, and probably the flat-out scariest movie we here at TFG have thus far reviewed.

It’s also as close to an absolutely essential piece of filmmaking as you’re ever likely to witness.

According to ex-detective Mike, as well as countless geological experts, the oil on planet Earth is running out, and at a rate much more rapid than our leaders are willing to admit — even though they certainly damn well know it. And that’s essentially the cause of every major geopolitical grand scenario we say playing out before us today, from 9/11 to the turmoil in the Middle East to the economic meltdown to — well, you name it.

Oil, you see, is about a whole lot more than oil itself. It’s also about transportation, food, jobs, and the underlying social order itself. Notice how at the stores these days it’s not just the price of gas that’s going through the roof? I paid nearly six bucks for plastic trash bags the other day. What’s plastic made of? You got it — petroleum.Even more importantly,? what’s the key ingredient in most pesticides and fertilizers that enable mass food production? You got it. Petroleum.

When the price of oil goes through the roof, as is the case these days, the price of food goes up, the price of? transportation of any and all goods goes up, the price of everything goes up. Welcome to the end, my friend. Pull up a seat and catch the show.

Ruppert doesn’t pull any punches in this interview-cum-monologue, and frankly he says exactly what we all need to hear. We’re hopelessly hooked on oil for the very survival of our civilization, and pretty much none of the alternatives are going to work, even if we got way more serious about implementing them than we apparently have the political will to. Ethanol’s a joke. Hydrogen’s a joke. Hydroelectric’s a joke. Wind and solar have some potential, but on the scale we’d need them to be up and running it’s already too late. Nothing will replace oil because nothing can. It’s the most public secret in the world, but it’s one nobody’s got the guts to face. It’s so damn scary to contemplate that we just plain can’t do it.

And therein lies the rub — because if we want to survive, we’ve got to. Plain and simple. Ruppert lays out an interesting comparison between two countries that were completely dependent upon Soviet oil imports, Cuba and North Korea, both of which ended up SOL when the “evil empire” collapsed. North Korea had no plan in place and as a result, they’re still completely fucked. Cuba, on the other hand, didn’t exactly have a plan, but adapted on the fly and, after a few rough years, not only survived, but thrived. The grow food on every piece of arable land. They practice sound crop rotation. They save driving for absolutely essential occasions. They decentralized, and localized, their food production and economic trade. And so far they provide the only possible model of success for society as a whole to build on in the trying times to come.

There’s just one rub, though — Cuba is an isolated, self-contained island. On the other hand, there are over six billion of us out here, all dependent, to one extent or another, on oil for our survival.? It’s not gonna be pretty when it all comes down, folks, especially for those of us that live in major metropolitan areas. Ruppert lays out some potential strategies for long-term survival for those of us willing to listen, but frankly, there are no guarantees, and all bets are off.

Collapse got some limited theatrical burn, but if you missed it, now’s your chance, since it’s just been released on DVD from MPI Media Group. While the only extra to be had is an updated interview with Ruppert on his life since the film’s release, the fact is you’ll be so shell-shocked after watching the main feature that you won’t care about silly things like DVD extras anymore. You may not want to face up the reality of what our guy Mike’s got to say, but your one overriding thought from start to finish while watching him go at it will be “Holy shit, this guy’s absolutely right.”

Ruppert boils down his message to humanity in stark and simple terms — it’s time to either evolve or die.

What’s it gonna be?

2012-12-21-240

3D Printer prints cartilage for implants

Many afflictions, including Osteoarthritis, are largely caused by the degradation of cartilage in the joints. Unfortunately, cartilage has very limited healing capacity - once its damaged, or gone, theres usually little the body can do naturally to replace it. In recent years, science has found ways to compensate, and efforts have been made to regrow the tissue using a variety of methods, including a bio-active "hydrogel" which induces tissue regrowth, and biodegradable nanofiber spheres which can carry new cells to wounded areas of the cartilage to help it heal properly. Now, scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina, have created a new method, by way of a 3D printer which can make artificial and implantable cartilage.

This is how the cartilage printer works

3D bio printers have already been implemented to create artificial arteries, but the process of creating cartilage is a little different and has to use a combination of technologies in order to manufacture a material that would properly fulfill its function. The unique technology which must be implemented is called electro-spinning, where an electric current is used to create fine strands of polymer fiber. The fiber acts as a porous base, a sponge to put it simply, into which cartilage cells can be injected and stabilize as a solid structure. The fiber also acts as a reinforcement for the finished cartilage structure, lending it more stability than previous efforts.

The team of scientists, led by Professor James Yu, extract the cartilage cells from rabbits ears, and then inject them into the electro spun material by means of inkjet printing. As with other 3D printing technologies, thin layers of electro spun mat and cartilage cells are layered on top of each other, until a finished structure has been completed. The resulting cartilage disc, which is completely implantable, is 10cm in diameter and 4mm in thickness.

The finished cartilage pieces were stress tested to see how they would handle wear and tear. Some implants were also tested on mice. After several weeks, the implants had assumed properties expected of natural cartilage. It may thus one day prove successful in humans as well.

has the world finally run out of interesting people

Well, no (although it certainly seems that way sometimes!), but the fine website “Comic Book And Movie Reviews” chose, for whatever reason, to interview me — rather than numerous other far worthier subjects — anyway. Here’s the link for your edification and/or amusement :?

Jay, who runs the site, is a good guy and a darn fine internet scribe in his own right, so do yourself a favor if you follow the link and “choose to peruse,” as they say, the entire contents of his burgeoning cyber-enterprise, you’ll certainly be glad you did! Other than that, all I can say is that never having been “interviewed,” per se, before, I hope I don’t come off as too big a dweeb, douchebag, or some even-less-tolerable combination of the two. It was fun to answer Jay’s questions, even if some of them made no sense to me at the time (and still sorta don’t, but hey, it’s his show, not mine!), and it gave the opportunity to sit down and think about things on a really concrete and reductive level in a way that I haven’t done for some time. When somebody asks you a question like “what are your five favorite movies?,” or “what are your five favorite comics?,” you really do have to stop and think about it for a good few minutes — at least, if you’ve seen as many films and/or read as many comics as I have (and I’m sure this distinction applies to most of you, my dear readers, as well) you need to. So the experience was interesting, new, and it made me sit back and think for a bit, so I must say, thanks again Jay, and to any and all of you reading this, once more, please give his very high-quality site a look-see — you’ll thank me for it later, I promise!

2010 halloween 12-pack “the hamiltons”

An old college buddy I’ve recently re-connected with through the auspices of facebook (he now lives in Spain, a fact of which I’m officially envious) recently turned me onto this 2006 indie horror feature from the pseudonymous writer-director team of “The Butcher Brothers” (in reality Michell Altieri and Phil Flores, who would go on to helm the dismal April Fool’s Day remake) in a rather roundabout fashion — he’d seen a chunk of it on TV and didn’t know the name of it, gave me a rundown of the premise, and asked me if it rang a bell with me. I had to admit that it didn’t and thanks, I’m guessing, to the modern miracle of Google he was? able to figure out what it was and let me know. So he sort of answered his own question, I was just a (useless, as it turns out) intermediary.

In any case, I was sufficiently intrigued by the brief run-down he was able to give me about it to add it to the ol’ Netflix queue and give it a go. I don’t know whether my friend has been able to catch The Hamiltons in its entirety yet, but he seemed drawn enough into its quietly menacing vibe that I hope for his sake he’ll be able to see the whole thing one of these days if he hasn’t yet.

Not that it’s some unrecognized masterpiece or anything. In truth, it’s got some pretty serious flaws that almost wrecked the whole thing for me (and for some viewers they may indeed prove to be insurmountable), but it’s got a mood and atmosphere all its own and, though it drags (and drags, and drags, and drags) in spots, the payoff at the end is solid enough to make sitting through the film in its well entirety worth it.

It’s something of a tricky movie to review because the less you know about it, the better, so while there are, in fact, a couple of big-time “spoilers” in the short synopsis I’ll provide, I’ve left the biggest one out entirely so as not to spoil the aforementioned strongly surprising, and entirely logical, ending.

The titular Hamiltons are a family of four who have lost their mom and dad under circumstances that are never explained, and we learn that since their passing they have moved from town to town with no small degree of frequency.? The de facto head of the family is older brother David (Samuel Child), who’s struggling to come to terms with his homosexuality while trying to keep a leash on the rest of the brood, particularly twin siblings Wendell(Joseph McKelheer), who we learn early on just got out of jail, and Darlene (Mackenzie Firgis), a goth-chick femme fatale. When these two get together, they have a way of causing a lot of trouble, to put it mildly.

Rounding out the family unit is 15-year-old Francis (Cory Knauf), an alienated teenager who’s like a horror-movie version of the boyfriend in American Beauty in that he doesn’t really have any roots in his community, doesn’t really have any friends, doesn’t get along with the rest of his family, and carries a hand-held high-def video camera with him everywhere (there’s plenty of POV-style handheld shots in this flick, and the entire movie was shot on HD video, but it’s not strictly a “hand-held/YouTube horror” in that the main action is shot in a typical third-party? perspective, with Francis’ video camera shots just providing the occasional break from the norm). Francis is our narrative point of entry into the family and serves as, for all intents and purposes, the film’s central character, but he’s a tough nut to crack in that Knauf’s performance (the only one in the film that could probably honestly be called “good” by generally accepted standards) is withdrawn and isolated not only from the fictitious world around him, but from the audience itself. You don’t empathize with him so much as wonder what the fuck is up with the guy, which works when you’re trying to convey a sense of alienation and isolation, but a more professional actor would have found some way to allow the audience “in,” so to speak — even just ever-so-slightly.

It doesn’t take long to learn that the reason Francis is so troubled by the rest of his family is that they have a habit of picking up stray late-teens/early-20s youths and keeping them prisoner in the cellar for reasons not made clear until about halfway through the film, when it’s revealed that the Hamiltons are a clan of vampires who are bleeding their victims out over time so as to maximize their — uhhhmmm — nutritional value. Or something.

The twins, though, as I mentioned a moment ago, have a habit of getting out of hand, and aren’t above luring in a “snack” for the two of them to gorge on privately (by the time this particular aspect of their relationship is revealed it’s no big surprise because we’ve already learned that they’re not above engaging in some incestuous foreplay, if not out-and-out incestuous intercourse — a revelation which oughtta be a biggie but feels pretty natural given the way the two of them behave from the outset of the movie).

As the story progresses, Francis’ dilemma moves from the realm of the abstract to the concrete as he attempts to forge a friendship (or something) with one of their caged-up female victims and struggles with whether or not to rat out the rest of his family to their clueless social worker. It makes for a pretty interesting situation rife with tension, but therein lies the problem.

Dramatic tension, you see, is not exactly the Butcher Brothers’ strong suit. The whole movie is presented in a low-key, almost monotonous tone, and everything, even the occasional flash of humor, is presented in such a straightforward and deadpan manner that it almost feels like all they’re doing with? their HD camcorder is pointing and shooting. The uniformly amateurish quality of the acting (apart from Knauf’s believable, but in no way involving, turn as Francis) doesn’t help matters much, either.

All that being said, amateurism has never been a strike against a flick here at TFG, and the whole student-movie feel does create a strangely lulling vibe that draws you in if it doesn’t turn you off within the first few minutes. Simply put, The Hamiltons ends up with a pace and mood all its own that demands you meet it on its terms because the filmmakers don’t know how to do anything else.

The script is talky and short on the blood and gore (don’t let that grisly poster art fool you), but what carnage there is does, in fact, work, not only because it’s effectively done for such a low-budget effort, but because it breaks the almost droning type of rhythm the movie has established and really comes as a shock to the system. Imagine long stretches of style-free dialogue scenes all shot in the same sterile suburban house punctuated by a bloodbath three or four times before returning to bland nonchalance and you’ll get the idea.

Incongruity both of subject matter and settings (the house and the cellar look like they’re in entirely different parts of the country, even though the narrative establishes that one is, as you’d expect, right on top of the other) is one of the strengths of The Hamiltons, and whether or not this juxtaposition is achieved by intent, by accident, or just by low-budget necessity (I’m betting on the latter) really doesn’t matter, the fact is that is just plain works.

As I said, though, this movie is a tough, slow slog if you don’t find yourself drawn in by its singularly droll style and can’t get past the student-film feel of the semi-pro acting (the only face you might recognize is Brittany Daniel in a cameo as one of the victims) combined with the always-cheap look (in my view, at least) of HD video. Even then, though, you might find it worth your while to stick it out for that slam-dunk of an ending I mentioned a few paragraphs back. Altieri and Flores really pull out the stops with that one, and manage to wrap things up in a way that makes both perfect sense, yet also surprises the hell out of you at the same time. The one burning unanswered question that nags in the viewer’s mind throughout the film — one which I won’t even spell out for fear of dimming the surprise conclusion — is answered in the only way that makes any kind of sense once you think about it, but trust me when I say you still won’t see it coming.

The Hamiltons was part of the After Dark Horror Fest of 2006, which sports the tag line “8 Films To Die For,” and frankly I’m glad I didn’t know that going in because all the other After Dark flicks I’ve seen, both from that year and all years subsequent,? have pretty much sucked and I probably would have passed on it. Like the other movies in the series it’s been picked up for DVD distribution by Lionsgate, and the disc contains a pretty nice selection of extras that includes a smattering of deleted scenes (most of which were excised because they would have given away the ending early), some typically inane bloopers, a really solidd commentary track from The Butcher Brothers and Cory Knauf that really gets into the guts of the movie’s production, and a bunch of trailers for other After Dark films. The picture is presented in a nice-looking anamorphic widescreen transfer and the audio can be checked out in either a very solid 5.1 surround mix or standard two-channel stereo.? So it’s a pretty solid presentation for a low-budget indie that’s only going to appeal to a pretty small audience.

If you’re willing to make allowances for The Hamiltons being — well, what it is? — namely an ultra-cheap, obviously crude first effort from a couple of filmmakers who are learning on the job filled with a cast of actors doing much the same — and you can appreciate the work of people whose heart is obviously in the right place but whose ambition exceeds their technical ability, then you’re in for a pretty enjoyable ride. And even if you can’t forgive its shortcomings, you’ll still probably find the ending ultimately both startling and extremely satisfying, since it’s good enough in and of itself? to salvage the rest of the flick even if you’ve found it to be excruciatingly dull.

For my part I found it more weirdly listless and sterile than actually boring, and its (probably unintentional, but so what?) mellow atmosphere really drew me in after awhile —then I got walloped good and solid a couple times by the visceral-but-quick gore scenes and really pleasantly thrown for a loop by the last few minutes. The Hamiltons has a weird but ultimately satisfying rhythmic structure that goes mmmmmmmmm—–bump! —–mmmmmmmmmm—-bump!—–mmmmmmmmm—-bump!—-mmmmmmm—-holy shit!

It’s not a terrific viewing experience by any means, but it is a unique one. If you’re the sort of person who likes buying a candy bar or sandwich or something for $2.50, giving the cashier a 20, waiting for a damn long time while they drop the bill in the safe and count the change out slowly, then finding one of the fives they gave you back is actually two fresh, crisp bills stuck together, so they ended up giving you back more than you actually paid,? I think you’ll dig it.

“legion” clips its own wings

I don’t know about you, but God has always struck me as being one sadistic SOB. I mean, who but a true sadist would create such an inherently flawed species a humanity to begin with? Then send his own son to live amongst us knowing full well from the get-go that we’d end up killing him?? And that his death, supposedly meant to “redeem” us through blood sacrifice, would quite obviously backfire, since it didn’t change human nature one bit? Think about it : I could see plopping your son down here and letting us kill him if it meant we’d get our shit together, but the supposed death and resurrection of Jesus didn’t bring about any change for the better on our part whatsoever : war, greed, depravity, selfishness — all the problems that plagued our kind before God’s purported son was sacrificed to save us all didn’t exactly go away after Christ (again, supposedly) died and was resurrected, did they? We’ve got as much of all that today as ever — hell, we’ve got MORE of it than ever. So if God’s only begotten son dying was supposed to have some sort of profound effect on us all, I’d say it’s “mission unaccomplished” all the way.

Of course, basic biology is God’s cruelest trick of all, is it not? I mean, who but the ultimate sadistic mastermind would trap us in living, breathing tombs that deteriorate? and decay more the longer we’re here? The more we learn, the less time we have to use that knowledge, since every passing moment brings us one small step closer to our inevitable end. I would think a TRULY loving God would have created humanity to age in reverse or something, so that the longer we’re here, the healthier, stronger, and more vital we become. So me, I think God’s had it in for us from day one, and things like killing his kid probably just added to the animosity he had for us from the very beginning (not that he seems to have been in that big a hurry to take his revenge on us for that one — and again, he apparently saw it coming the whole time anyway), and according to visual FX guru Scott Stewart’s feature directorial debut, “Legion,” (not to be confused with William Peter Blatty’s fine third “Exorcist” film, also titled “Legion”) he’s finally had enough.

The Lord of Hosts has sent a plague of angels to wipe our sorry kind out once and for all, but there’s a catch : the Archangel Michael? (well-portrayed by Paul Bettany), a respected? General in God’s army, still thinks we’re worth keeping around for some reason, and he’s come down to Earth to try to save us from his the destructive horde unleashed by his boss.

The scene of the final battle of the biblical apocalypse is a suitably curious one(even if the name of the locale in which it takes place is almost painfully obvious : “Paradise Falls”) : a crummy truckstop cafe on the outskirts of the Mojave desert, where a pregnant waitress named Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) is about to give birth to a child that will supposedly save us from God’s wrath. With her in this last stand are the cafe’s owner, Bob Hanson (Dennis Quaid, who’s sure been doing a lot of genre work recently), his son Jeep (Lucas Black), who’s sweet on Charlie even though the kid’s not his (in fact, the exact identity of the father is never mentioned — but we’ll get to that shortly), short-order cook and Bob’s best buddy, Percy Walker (Charles S. Dutton, who it’s always great to see), a guy with a purportedly “Shady” past fleeing the devastation in Las Vegas (probably the first place I’d destroy if I were God) named Kyle Williams (the ever-odious Tyrese Gibson), and the seemingly well-to-do Anderson family of? father Howard, mother Sandra, and quasi-rebellious teenage daughter Audrey (Jon Tenney, Kate Walsh and Willa Holland, respectively), who are moving to a new town and have gotten lost along the way.

Our guy (errr—okay, our angel) Michael has showed up in a cop car he “appropriated” when he first landed in LA loaded with a veritable arsenal of formidable automatic firepower, and intends to see that Charlie gives birth no matter what, but lined up against our ragtag band of survivors-who-are-not-all-destined-to-survive is an endless horde of murderous zombies (well, technically they’re people possessed by the spirits of avenging angels) lead by another archangel we’ve all heard of,? Gabriel (Kevin Durand).

So essentially what we’ve got going here is another new twist on the zombie genre, one that’s unique enough in its own right, I suppose, but hardly makes for super-compelling viewing for a variety of reasons. While the CGI effects are uniformly effective and at times even downright creepy, and the same can be said for the atmospherics of the film in general (for instance, when an ice cream truck driven by a possessed zombie good-humor man comes driving up the lonely dirt road to the cafe in the black of night with its headlights shining and that annoying ice-cream truck music blaring, it’s genuinely unsettling), but these small saving graces (no pun intended) can’t make up for the fact that the movie itself is a rather discombobulated affair with too many ideas that go unexplored and too many that are explored giving way to cop-out explanations.

Which brings us back to the unmentioned father of Charlie’s baby and why its birth is supposedly going to save us all. In a movie wearing this much religious iconography on its sleeve so blatantly, you’re probably thinking “aha! Virgin birth!” or something, but no — this is no second coming she’s carrying in her womb, and the baby isn’t going to save us all because it’s the new messiah and that’s what messiahs generally do — you see, Charlie was thinking of having an abortion, decided against it, and now is determined to give the kid up for adoption. However, her going changing her mind and going ahead and having the baby will supposedly change everything in terms ofthe whole universal equation because the baby “wasn’t supposed to be,” and hey, ifshe decides to keep it and raise it herself, that REALLY screws up the natural running order of the universe! Oh, and as for who the dad is — they never say, but it stops really mattering, anyway, once you realize he’s probably just some interchangeable white trash bar pickup.

Another big cop-out lies in the fact that this super-powered zombie horde powered by the very wrath of God’s avengers themselves can be killed just by being shot. And not even shot in the head like ordinary zombies, just kind of shot anywhere. Come on, God can do better than that if he really wants us out of the picture!

Yet ANOTHER magnificently huge cop-out comes at the end of Michael and Gabriel’s big head-to-head battle royale that the whole movie’s been building up towards, but I’ll skimp on the details of that one so as not to be too much of a “spoiler jerk.”

Then we’ve got the finale itself, which we get too after some seriously befuddlingly nonsensical plot acrobatics that see Jeep inheriting some of Michael’s powers and taking over the role of Charlie and her baby’s protector from him now that the child has been born. I seriously have to wonder if this is a new, tacked-on ending that was shot after preview screeners gave a thumbs-down to the original finale or something, because for a movie that’s relatively high-quality CGI effects and suitably authentic sets for its first 90 minutes or so, suddenly we find ourselves on an all-too-obvious sound stage standing in for a high cliff (even the boulders look visibly phony) and the standard of the visual FX goes from pretty-near-top-of-the-line to the digital equivalent of painted Hollywood backdrops. The dialogue starts to seem pretty forced and rushed, as well — not that it’s ever too terribly realistic at all, but exchanges like Jeep to Michael “Will we ever see you again,” Michael to Jeep : “Have faith,” feel like they decided to tack on an opening for a potential sequel almost as a quick afterthought. So yeah, all in all the ending feels like a do-over that they shot in one afternoon after all the money had run out.

All that being said, I didn’t hate “Legion,” or anything close to it. There are a lot of neat ideas in here, even for a non-religious guy like myself, but it feels like they’re trying to load too many concepts on us in one go and haven’t really thought any of them through, at least not in a way that has any teeth. the gore effects are solid and there are some genuinely grotesque kills for those of you interested in such things (as most readers of this blog probably are), but all in all I have to say its somewhat frustrating that the best thing about this film turns out to be the window dressing, because Bettany delivers a solid turn in the title role and there are a lot of intriguing concepts at the core of the proceedings here, they just either go nowhere at all, or go nowhere interesting.

“Legion” is a movie with lots of wings, but it doesn’t really end up flying anywhere.