Duke Nukem Forever: My Thoughts

Yes, I got it.  Here's what I think of it.  You may (not) be surprised.

SC On Rogue Trooper: Quartz Zone Massacre (Wii)

 Oh dear...

Ho boy, where to start with this one.  Let's get a few things out of the way:

-The game is based on a British comic strip series called Rogue Trooper which has been around since the early 80s.
-Quartz Zone Massacre is one of the novels based on Rogue Trooper, released in 2006.  Good luck finding information on it.
-This is the third game made around Rogue Trooper.  The first two were an 8-bit PC game and an Amiga title.  This specific version is actually a port of the Rogue Trooper game on PS2, XBox, and PC from 2006, updated with Wii controls.
-It's apparently popular enough to warrant having a Rogue Trooper skin in Little Big Planet 2.
 -It's an over-the-shoulder shooter.  The last one of those I played was RE5 and I've skipped most of them, including Gears of War (yeah, blasphemy, whatever).
-This song has been stuck in my head since I first played it.

Hey wait a minute...

Everybody got that?  Good.

Rogue Trooper (the game and the comic) centers around the planet Nu Earth where two groups, the Norts and the Southers are in conflict.  They're fighting because... uh... 

WAR IS ETERNAL... I guess?

Actually I think it's because of some "strategic point in the universe" bullshit.  Whatever.  The planet becomes so polluted from all the chemical warfare between the two sides that the Norts have to wear a special breathing apparatus and chem suit to go outside, while the Southers develop G.I.s, or Genetic Infantrymen.  These guys (and girls) are specifically designed to be able to survive in Nu Earth's environment, resist a myriad of toxins, and be able to cosplay Dr. Manhattan with relative ease.  How have the Southers not completely and utterly dominated the Norts with these guys?  Well...

1. The game starts with someone betraying the Southers, resulting in most of the G.I.s being destroyed as they try to land on the planet, and

2. None of the G.I.s wear armor.  Apparently they forgot that the Norts' guns fire, you know, bullets.

Guns?  Bullets?!  IN A WAR?!  Since when?

So after several more parallels between the Civil/Second World/Almost Every War, Rogue lands with his friends Gunnar, Bagman, and Helm.  They all die and their brain-chip-things get attached to his gun, bag, and helmet where they stay alive and serve their own special uses, like acting as a sentry gun, hacking computers or generating ammo.

Yes, they're actually named Gunnar, Bagman, and Helm when they're alive.  They might as well be named Dead, Dead, and Dead.

To the game's credit, it handles decently.  Running, climbing, aiming, scoping enemies, and even getting into and out of cover all work well.  The parts where it gets bogged down in the Wii release are turning, weapon switching, and grenade use.

Turning is done the usual way in Wii games like this; by pointing to the sides of the screen.  This works okay most of the time, but sometimes going to the corners of the screen to look up and to the side or down and to the side are extremely sensitive, to the point where Rogue ends up spinning in a circle for a moment or two.

Will it go 'round in circles?

Weapon switching is done with the D-pad.  Specifically, switching guns is done by hitting up, and grenades are switched with left.  This is an awkward trade-off made during the porting process because down on the D-pad is for switching to the sniper scope.

Why couldn't they make it slightly less awkward by having gun switching be right instead of up?  Because... uh...

YOU AGAIN!

Throwing grenades is, by far, the most awkward thing to do.  While you can easily throw a grenade in front of you or blindly from cover by flicking the nunchuk, To aim a grenade throw you need to hold the nunchuck "vertically" until a throwing line appears, aim with a combination of tilting the wiimote and using the joystick, and flick the nunchuk forward.

I've had just about everything go wrong trying to do this, from badly overshooting a target to lobbing the grenade a whole foot in front of Rogue and having to dive away from the explosion.

Thankfully the other abilities are much easier to use (and abuse).  Gunnar can create a silencer for the rifle or turn it into an automated turret while Rogue runs around with his infinite-ammo pistol.  Helm can hack computers and create a visual decoy of Rogue.  Bagman is a nigh-endless supply of ammo and health packs and can also create new weapons and grenade types as the game progresses, such as shotguns, rocket launchers, chaff grenades and proximity explosives.

These are created using salvage, which can be picked up from damn near everything that dies or is already dead.  Nort soldiers of all types, disabled turrets, dead Southers, and even abandoned droids which are (sort of but not really because you can see them on the radar) hidden away.  The grunts and Souther units don't count for as much, but are still worth picking up for the long run, especially on the two higher difficulties.

Speaking of which, "Normal" is the easy difficulty.  I feel like I've been lied to.

I can explain only about 2% of this image and why it's here.

There are a few sequences where Rogue is either protecting a train or flying around in a ship and trying to keep it intact until it reaches a certain point.  Like anything involving a protection mission, this is a pain in the ass.  There are checkpoints, but they save both progress AND the current condition of whatever you're trying to protect.  If you hit the first checkpoint and the train you're on is about to explode, you need to either be flawless the rest of the way or start the whole mission over.

Oh, and the train blew up and/or crashed once the mission was finished anyway.  What was the point of doing that mission again?

 I swear to God if you do that one more time...

One more thing I should add before I forget is that the storytelling is all over the place.  Like I said, I've never read any of the comic and am not familiar with the story beyond what's in this game.  That being said, the characters that aren't Rogue or the traitor general might as well just not exist.  Gunner, Bagman and Helm are given next to no build-up before there are unceremoniously killed.  

Hell, Helm was captured and poisoned to death by a Nort officer with a Russian accent, (whose name escapes me right now) but she is killed off-screen by Rogue before anything is established about her other than what side she fights for.  The storytelling is single-minded and incapable of building up anyone other than Rogue and the traitor general, and even then I'd say Rogue is an overly-simplistic personality that we're supposed to sympathize with simply because we're forced to follow him for the whole game, kind of like that one other guy...

OH NO YOU DIDN'T!

The biggest issue I have with the game, though, is that it's buggy.  Very buggy.  While I haven't experienced any game-killing glitches or freezes, I have seen the following:

-Being able to shoot through parts of the environment you shouldn't be able to, e.g. solid steel doors.

-Audio for cutscenes getting out of sync to the point where it looks like Steve Oedekerk hijacked Rogue Trooper to make another Kung Pow movie (which I'd be okay with).

-Getting stuck while crouching near cover, causing Rogue's legs to flail around like he's Russian dancing backwards.  Actually, Rogue will do this just about any time he's near any sort of wall or obstacle.

-Having Rogue shake uncontrollably while looking around in cover.  Sometimes it's so bad I want to find him a blanket and some hot cocoa.

-Dead enemies getting stuck in mid-air.

I'm the only person who knows what the music is, aren't I?

This, to me, is one of those games that's just sort of there.  It's not bad, it's not good, it's just sort of there.  It feels like there could have been a lot more done with the source material than what was done here.  There had to be more for the comic to run as long as it did.  The excessive linearity (even by shooter standards) and blandness of the environments, except for places like the petrified forest and the piers, are really underwhelming, even for the time it originally came out.  It was, unfortunately, pretty forgettable.

How do you manage that with what is otherwise a pretty interesting concept?

 

You're dead!

SC On Resident Evil: Survivor (PSX)

How can a review be longer than some speed runs of the game? Let's just say nerd rage is involved...

SC On The Marine (Part 5)

Continued from that part with the 4 at the end of it.

The electricity in the cabin shuts off and the wife, who has been slowly undoing her bonds this entire time with no one noticing, sprints out the door.  As fake hostage chases her down and fights her, John Cena quite literally barrel rolls through another door only to have Patrick point a gun at him.  Here I thought John would have gone after his wife instead of Patrick since that was the whole reason he was chasing them, but what do I know?

Tee hee.

The detective enters and, in a move no one could have possibly ever seen coming by his not cooperating with the other cops at all, he points his gun at Cena too because he was the original buyer for the diamonds!

<gasp>

 This shock doesn't last long as John manages to rush the detective and use him as a human shield against Patrick, who is more than happy to shoot him several times.  The detective may be a bit older, but I highly doubt his reflexes are so slow that he couldn't have just shot John as he was rushing him.

Meanwhile the wife beats up fake hostage (again) only to have her pull a gun.  Why didn't she do that sooner?  Patrick forces Cena to take cover behind a bar before running outside and shooting a gas tank under the house.  His Cena-sense tingling, John leaps over the bar and swan dives out the window.

IN SLOW MOTION!

 Oh look, an actual shot of the movie!

The wife, thinking her husband is dead yet again, screams like a banshee until she is knocked out (again) and loaded into the trunk of Detective Obvious' car, which Patrick and fake hostage drive off in.  Cena manages to swim to shore as a one-man police miniboat tells him to get on the shore with his hands on his head.  John explains who he is as the cop starts to arrest him, but the cop doesn't give a shit.  Cena does an armbar takedown on the cop and handcuffs him before stealing his gun and his boat to pursue Patrick.

First, nice job not reporting that you found a wild John Cena, bad cop.  Second, even nicer job knowing exactly who you're looking for but trying to arrest the wrong person anyway.  Third, John, are you just hoping that the police won't mind you assaulting an officer and stealing a patrol boat?  That's hopelessly optimistic even for you.

Is Wendy's still open?  No?  Damnit.

Patrick and fake hostage realize that driving in what's technically a police vehicle might attract attention.  Fake hostage also takes the diamonds and puts them in her jacket.  I only mention this for the incredibly convenient death later on.

So they pull over and have fake hostage pretend to be a hitchhiker.  When a semi truck pulls over to see what's going on she shoots the driver and they take off.

Cut back to Cena three seconds later hearing a report on the police radio about the trucker being shot and his truck being stolen, as well as where it's going.  Christ, how lazy can a screenplay get?!

Patrick and fake hostage drive to a set location to get their clean getaway car, which just so happens to be at a fucking marina, so of course Cena pulls up to it right as they arrive that night.  The wife, now conscious and with one hand cuffed to the back of the truck's cabin, is somehow able to see John from a few hundred feet away and grabs Patrick as he drives into the marina.  How many times has she done this now?

As Patrick swerves around Cena gets to land, sprints to the semi and jumps onto the back of where the trailer would be hitched.  Patrick and fake hostage notice something hitting the back of the semi, but don't bother to check what it is.  Cena climbs along the side, throws open the passenger door, then tosses fake hostage through the windshield of an oncoming bus, killing her.  How convenient!

Now THAT would be awesome!

The best part about this scene is that, unlike the past deaths which were either dumb or underwhelming, this one, like the one cop at the gas station, is hilarious.  Fake hostage doesn't so much scream as whimper while she sails out the truck door IN SLOW MOTION and has an incredibly stoic look on her face, as though she's trying to do advanced calculus in her head.  It's a John Cena movie, though, so maybe she was just doing basic addition or subtraction.

Cena is then completely unable to open the door he just opened.

Long and hard.

 After an extended scene where Patrick drives around trying to knock Cena off the truck, John falls off moments before Patrick drives through several exploding barrels and tanks despite having ample time to go around them.  He then jumps out of the semi with Cena's wife still handcuffed inside, the truck slamming into more exploding barrels before launching itself through a window and into a lake.  In slow mo- do I even need to add it at this point?

Cena chases after the truck only to get Tanya Harding'd by Patrick, now weilding a pipe.  Cena goes on a no-selling rampage, shrugging off two pipe shots two pipe shots, a metal winch to the face, and pieces of flaming wood crashing down on the back of his neck during the first part of the fight.  He crawls toward the river as he is repeatedly punched by Patrick, then hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer.

Hey, that's HHH's bit!

Patrick then gets a chainsaw and Cena, fearing his no-selling powers might not be enough, blocks it with a wrench he borrowed from System Shock 2.  He knocks Patrick back into some flaming wreckage as some barrels fall on it and...

A) Patrick eats a sandwich.

B) Cena pins the burning wreckage to win the Intercontinental title.

C) Cena runs and dives into the water as the barrels explode, in slow motion.

If you said C, you probably could have written a better movie than this one.

You can do it, John!  Just pretend he's Wade Barrett!

Cena manages to dive to the semi and finds his wife unconscious and not breathing.  Since he doesn't have the key to the handcuffs, John simply rips the bar she's cuffed to off the truck.  If John were actually as strong and invulnerable as he looked is this movie he would have as many titles as the Ultimo Dragon by now.

He drags her up to the burning warehouse (which was clearly the safest place to take her) and performs some obviously fake CPR.  John, you're supposed to do the chest compressions to the heart, not to the stomach.  To be fair John actually expresses part of an emotion in this scene as it goes on awhile with his wife still not breathing.  It would be more dramatic and moving if it turned out she drowned and he has to deal with it for the rest of his-

Oh wait, she's breathing again.  Nevermind!

What, you thought they'd actually TRY in this movie?

As she regains consciousness Patrick comes out of the flames and wraps a chain around John's neck.  Patrick's face is supposed to look burned, but whether it's the lighting or the makeup itself he looks more like Darth Maul.

What follows is the most "Bullshit!" moment of the movie, and that's saying something.

-Cena flips Patrick into the air.

-He twists the chain so it wraps around Patrick's neck.

-He yanks the chain so that Patrick slams into the ground.

-Patrick dies.

Not only is this over-the-top ridiculous and out-of-place for the film (you're a wrestler, not Jackie Chan) but the fight scene lasts all of ten seconds.  Why even bother shooting this?

Cena goes back to his wife and says "We should have gone to the beach" as the cops pull up and the movie abruptly ends.  Thank God.

This was an utter mess of a movie.  It's like they could never decide whether to do straight action or an action-comedy and they kept switching between the two.  As a result the characters are all over the damn place and the entire cast comes off as unlikeable, paper-thin stereotypes of the characters they're trying to portray.

If this is the reason John Cena keeps doing that goofy salute before and after matches, he really needs to stop embarrassing himself.

This blog sponsored by...

SC On The Marine (Part 4)

Continued from part 3, now with more John Cena!

Where was I?  Oh right, a sequence of shots showing the police searching the swamp (alliteration is my form of 'Fuck you, movie!') is followed by John Cena immediately finding dead white guy's knife in the ground and his blood stain against a tree.  Well that didn't take long, did it?

What is the amount of suspense in this movie?

Cut back to the bad guys as Patrick gets another phone call from the guy buying the diamonds.  Patrick says plans have changed and  he's cutting the guy out of the deal and will sell the diamonds elsewhere.  Just when I think Patrick & company can't get any more stupid...

We then see Cena finding footprints of Patrick's group.  For the love of- WHY?!  Why did they go through the swamp to avoid the cops if they were just going to walk in areas where they'd leave clear footprints behind?!  And how come Cena, Warrior Princess was able to find them but the cops are completely clueless?!

Must... resist... Fuck This Company picture... Oh, and Cena's smirking as this happens.  SMIRKING.

Meanwhile Morgan is again doing his black people humor.  And again, it's not funny.  Patrick takes the wife aside for a moment and says they could have had a future if not for fake hostage, whom he indicates by nodding in her general direction.  Wife of Cena is confused and Patrick's head-nodding becomes more seizure-like as comedic music starts to play.

What the fuck, movie?

Here's something funnier than this movie could ever dream of being.

 Stop trying to be funny!  You're not good at it!

More shots of the cops follow, with none of them being able to find a damn thing while Cena continues tracking where they went on the ground.  I know he's a marine, but that doesn't make him the goddamn Mantracker.

I could be watching this, but noooo...

 Insert random shot of two inbred-looking guys staring up as a police helicopter passes by.  I guess they're criminals, too?  What purpose do these guys serve other than to pad out the running time and most likely shoehorn an action scene in later on?

Cena eventually runs into a clearing and gets caught in a massive net.  He cuts himself loose with his new knife and, upon landing, immediately gets a shotgun pointed at his head from a foot away by inbred white guy who says "Hold it right there, cop."

...

Let's make a list of reasons why this is stupid.

#1. If you're trying to avoid the cops, why would you be setting up traps that would tell them someone's in the area?

#2. If you're NOT trying to avoid the cops, why?!  They have an entire department of men with a wide range of weapons at their disposal, you have a net and a shotgun.

#3. Cena isn't dressed at all like a cop!  Unless police recently switched their uniforms to Hanes undershirts and flanal pullovers and traded in their guns, nightsticks and handcuffs for a hunting knife, he's clearly not a cop!

Why do I try to make sense of this anymore?

 John almost immediately disarms the guy only to get hit in the back of the head with a 2x4 and knocked out by the fat black guy.  I don't know what's more surprising: that a fat black man was able to sneak up on John in an area covered with leaves, or that Cena actually sold the hit.

One more pointless scene with Patrick and friends later, Cena wakes up in a shack tied to a chair.  The Super Inbred Bros, are on the opposite end of the shack loading bags of cocaine into boxes.

... Why would they take someone who they think is a cop to their base of operations so he can see exactly what they're doing?

They start to interrogate Cena and punch him in the face every time he says he's not a cop.  Three no-sells later Cena says he is a cop and his buddies are tracking his GPS to their hideout.  This causes the inbreds to flip out and the black guy gets in Cena's face, yelling at him to say where the GPS is.  Cena headbutts the guy twice before flipping (well, spinning in mid-air is more like it) onto his back and shattering the chair.

Let's just pretend that would actually work.

He spin kicks the black guy out of the film and, with his hands still tied, performs a flying, and I do mean flying, shoulder bump on the white inbred guy.  The fight ends quickly with Cena spearing him through a wood support beam.  John then runs out of the shack with the hunting knife that the writers forgot he had before.

Do you remember the knife?

 We now return to Patrick, Morgan and associates near a riverside cabin that the police are starting to leave.  Why are the police leaving the cabin?  Well obviously if Patrick and friends aren't there at the exact same time as them, then they won't ever hide there.  Ever!

Morgan checks the door for any alarms or traps before going in, which is actually a smart move, but other white guy simply barges in to find nothing.  As this goes on John watches from the trees.  Wow, is the smartest person in this movie honestly John-fucking-Cena?

Why not?

Despite the cops just being there for who knows how long, the power is off.  Patrick tells Morgan to find the generator, but before he does Morgan tells the story of how he was at summer camp and one of the counselors gave him rock candy and raped him, making references to Friday the 13th and Deliverance in the process.  And I don't mean just in the guy-rape sort of reference, I mean a portion of Dueling Banjos plays as he explains this.

That was the payoff for the running rock candy gag, folks.  A black kid being raped.  Neat, huh?

Morgan finally goes outside and checks under the cabin, finding the generator and switching it on.  Not long after Cena bursts through a fake wall and proceeds to no-sell a bucket to the face, a glass bottle over the head, several punches, and a shovel to the stomach and face before stabbing and killing him with the hunting knife.

Oh hey, the black guy didn't die first.  Thankfully he's dead so he can't attempt to make a joke about it.

Everybody dance!

 Nobody in the old cabin hears the fight scene going on ten feet below them, even as Patrick steps outside to call the guys from the chop shop earlier in the film and talk about Plan B, which is something he's "making up as he goes."

Somehow I think that's how this movie was written, too.

Patrick goes back inside and says they'll keep 100% of the diamond profits by selling to a buyer in Phoenix.

Wait, you're in South Carolina.  How the hell are you going to get to Phoenix?

Whatever.  Other white guy gets sent outside to prepare a boat (even though the police have been shown in boats patrolling the river) and check on Morgan.  Oh hey, they finally noticed!

Other white guy gets jumped by Cena and, after a brief fist fight, Cena chokeslams him through a set of wood palettes and then knee drops him.  And this somehow kills him!  You can't do that, it's not part of your WWE All Stars move list!

WOOOOOOO!

I can't remember if he did this in slow motion, but I'm pretty sure he did.

While hiding his body along with Morgan's, Detective Obvious meets up with Cena under the cabin.  Okay, let me guess: Detective says not to do something, Cena says something, detective lets him go do something.

Oh hey, I was right!

To be continued.  At least there's more action from this point on...

SC On The Marine (Part 3)

Continued from blah blah blah.

Cena drives in the general direction of where his truck went while reporting the situation via the police/patrol radio.  If there was any response saying how many years in jail he'll serve for stealing a cop car it got cut off by the scene change.

Back at the truck fake hostage finds the wife's ID badge and jokes about how she married a marine for benefits.  Wow, what a necessary scene!

As this happens Cena comes into view behind them.  Morgan loads an uzi and says "I hate cops... and rock candy."

First off, you shot all the cops in that same damn car.  Second, shut up about your goddamn rock candy.  It wasn't funny then, it's not funny now, and I don't give a five-knuckle shuffling shit about why you don't like it.

IIIIIII want a good mooooovie! *dun, dun, dun, dun dun*

John closes in on them as three of the people in the truck open fire on him.  Cena limply raises the bullet-proof vest in front of him with one hand and this blocks all the bullets!  Nice job giving a big ole FU to physics and common sense, John!

They cut through a construction site where there are a few shots of workers diving out of the way of Cena's car.  Wait, so did they dive away from Patrick's truck, then get back into position and dive away from Cena?  Either way the hood of the police car flies off in yet another display of crappy CG.

Cena passes under a low crane which knocks the roof of his car off.  Of course, he no-sells this as well and continues giving chase.  Other white guy sees this and says "This guy's like the Terminator" to Patrick, who gives him a look in the rear-view mirror.

Patrick then stabs him through the head with his finger.

I wish.

We get it.  Robert Patrick played the T-1000.  Why must you consistently remind me that he went from that to playing second fiddle to John Cena?

Now that I think about it, the roof of the car being knocked off?  Knocking out the windshield of the car?  That's all shit the T-1000 did in Terminator 2!  It's like someone tried forcing parts of T2 into this movie and they wanted to make it as obvious as possible.

John's wife, who has been unrestrained the entire time, lunges forward and covers Patrick's eyes as he tries to drive.  Why does she try that now that they're out of the construction area when this might have caused him to hit something and slow down instead of just swerve around a wide open road?  Well, we've already seen she's not the brightest penny in the fountain.

No.

  Patrick crashes through a gate and nearly drives off the edge of a cliff, but throws the truck in reverse and opens fire on Cena as he arrives.  John's car launches off of the truck and over the edge of the cliff.  IN SLOW MOTION!  How in the unholy hell did the "police" car which appears to have been lowered to ground level launch off of a truck?!

Oh, but it gets better.  As the car is soaring over the edge, John jumps out of the car while it's upside-down and lands... somewhere.. in slow motion.  That's twice now that basic physics has been raped by this movie.

After somehow not noticing a 250 lb. man launching himself out of the car, Patrick insists on keeping the wife alive as a hostage despite her almost getting them all killed.  This time, though, he says to restrain her.  And by restrain her, he means just lightly tie her hands together at the wrists so she can easily break loose later on.  If you think this is a spoiler, you're dumber than this movie's target audience.

I give up.  Here are some zebras.

 Patrick says they'll follow the swamp to avoid the cops and stay in the tree line to avoid being spotted from the air.  Fake hostage says something, wife says something, then fake hostage knocks her out and tells Morgan to carry her.  Morgan does his usual forced black guy humor and dear God someone make this stop!

Back at the gas station Detective Obvious appears and gets caught up on the situation.  A radio says shots were fired south of them and the detective goes to investigate.  Alone.  I'll never understand police protocol, especially dumb movie police protocol.

The detective jump cuts his way to where Cena's car launched off the cliff and almost shoots John as he walks out of the woods.  The detective just assumes he's John Triton and says that he can't authorize him to search for his wife.  Okay, why would you say that to someone you have no authority over?

As it turns out it doesn't matter because the detective let's him go after one forgettable sentence of dialogue from Cena, adding that John should be careful because he's "seen what they can do."  What, you mean only be able to kill people who stand perfectly still at point-blank range and fail miserably at comedic relief?  I think he'll be fine.

Ah, much better.

 We catch up with Patrick and friends walking through an open marsh devoid of tree cover where anyone could see them.

Posting this has become a reflex by now.

 The wife eventually regains consciousness and squirms out of Morgan's grasp before knocking both him and fake hostage to the ground.  She is eventually restrained, but it really shows how inept this group is when a waify blonde with her hands tied together can subdue two of them.

Morgan throws a shit fit about being on the run from the cops and how it was their fault for getting everyone in this situation, to which white guy who hasn't spoken in awhile immediately points out it was Morgan who shot both cops at the gas station.  Morgan then says they always blame the black guy for everything.

Excuse me for a moment...

Nope, nothing I can add to this.

This character is so badly and stereotypically written that it makes me wonder if the writer (Michelle Gallagher, who has no writing credits since this movie) was born and raised in shitty early 2000's action films that beat black humor (pun not intended) to death worse than a Family Guy joke.  Even by dumb action movie standards this is buttfuck retarded writing.

Morgan proceeds to pull a gun on white guy with few lines and Patrick pulls a gun on Morgan, trying to talk him down.  Patrick then shoots white guy with few lines and kills him.  Why?  Because he felt like it.  He doesn't say that, but that's basically the reason for it.  I'll hold off on posting the Fuck This Company picture again... for now.

Oh, and the white guy with few lines dies IN SLOW MOTION, complete with a close up of his hunting knife embedding itself in the dirt.  Gee, I wonder if this will become significant later on?

Save me, cat with better screen presence than John Cena!

So to recap, the group is avoiding the cops by walking through an open swamp on the driest land possible and they just fired an unsilenced gun which could be heard from, at the very least, hundreds of yards away.  Makes you wonder how they ever managed to knock off a jewelry store in the first place.

Oh right, bad writing.

A bunch of alligators crawl out of the swamp and eat white guy with few lines' body as Morgan and other white guy make some attempt at a joke about crocodiles and alligators.  Yeah, I'm sure they won't leave any trace of him behind aside from the inedible bits of his carcass, clothes, and random shit he was carrying on him.  Are you guys trying to get caught?

Cut back to Detective Obvious not informing the rest of the police about a wild John Cena going after the gang.  Gee, I wonder why he would ever do such a thing?

I need a break.

To be contin- I'M ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH THIS MOVIE?!

SC On the Marine (Part 2)

Continued from the previous post...

So John and the comedic relief go up to the business woman's office.  Cena grabs the guy and forces him into an elevator and out to the lobby where the guy's bodyguards get in Cena and the shorter, rounder one's face.  Eventually one of them takes a swing at Cena and misses.  Dude, what the hell kind of relationship were you in that you'd openly start a fist fight with the company's ( apparently only two) security guards?

The round one splits them apart and says that sometimes Cena has to let it go, despite the bodyguard taking the first swing.  Someone says something else mind-numbingly stupid and the comedic relief says "this is not one of those times" or something like that before a fight breaks out.  Unsurprisingly, the comedic relief doesn't do much more than swing and miss in the second-and-a-half that he's in the shot.

Oh, if only...

Cena no-sells everything that gets thrown at him and eventually confronts the psycho ex-boyfriend, who he body slams/throws through the front window.  What part of training to be a marine involved learning how to body slam people through breakable environments?

Not surprisingly Cena gets fired, but the comedic relief only gets suspended.  This might imply there are other security guards at Nondescript Business Inc., but since an all-out fist fight in the middle of the lobby didn't bring them out I'm assuming they'll get the janitors to run it or some shit.

Cut to Cena and comedic relief at a restaurant having another bland heart-to-heart.  Being a marine meant everything to me, step back and see what you have, very basic stuff.  The laziness of the writing in these parts is simply beyond words, as in it's beyond me how anyone could read these words and think it would be a good movie script.

Now we see Robert Patrick with the fake hostage in his high-rise apartment... or at least that's what I assume it is.  You might also note that I'm not using the actual names of these characters, and that's because not only are the characters largely forgettable, but most of them have their names said only a couple times throughout the movie.  As such, I'm going to resort to the most recognizable traits about them to name them, much like with comedic relief.

My thoughts on this movie exactly.

After dodging another sex scene between Patrick and fake hostage, Patrick gets a phone call.  It's from some guy who's buying the diamonds who says that Patrick is getting too out of control.  Gee, I wonder what part of killing a clerk (who was somehow working with him) and a police officer to steal valuable diamonds in front of several dozen witnesses would count as "out of control."  In fact, fake hostage says the same damn thing at the beginning of the scene, but Patrick completely ignores her.

No worries, fake hostage.  Apparently the police never think to check Patrick's high-rise abode which he couldn't possibly have gotten into without driving through the rest of the city and passing several more people on the way in.  I don't think it's so much that Patrick's character is a criminal genius that everyone else in the city is so goddamn stupid he looks like a genius by comparison.

Sure, why not?

Cut back to Cena being driven home by comedic relief (how did he get to work?) where he asks the guy to  "not tell anyone what happened at work today."  YOU BEAT UP TWO BODYGUARDS AND THREW A GUY THROUGH A WINDOW!  IF YOU DON'T SAY ANYTHING, THE NEWS SURE AS HELL WILL!

Sure enough after fist-bumping comedic relief and going back into his house, the news immediately plays the clip of him throwing psycho ex through the window.  Amazingly enough they mention that, but not the armed robbery in which a clerk and a cop were killed.  I'll never understand the criteria for what makes the news and what doesn't.

His wife also sees the report and they have another one of those "being a marine" conversations.  Good God, how many times are we going to hear this?  The wife eventually says he doesn't necessarily need to work, but that he can just get out of the house and "do something crazy."

... What do you think he just did?

YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH!

Meanwhile black guy with the bazooka (whose name is apparently Morgan) gets searched on the way into a chop shop... or at least that's what I think it is.  He's searched by Lincoln Kennedy, a former Raiders offensive tackle who plays himself in this movie and doesn't appear beyond this scene.  I know this because Morgan says all of it to pad out the script.  His brief cameo reminds me that I could be playing Madden right now instead of watching this movie.  I'm not a big Madden fan, but that's still far more entertaining than this.

Morgan talks with sort-of white guy from the robbery.  Sort-of white guy offers him rock candy but Morgan turns it down, to which sort-of white guy says "you don't like it because... that one time..." followed by an awkward silence and out-of-place music.

I should note that this is the point where the movie seems to forget it's an action flick and attempts to be some sort of pseudo Rush Hour attempt at comedy.  Guys, pick a direction for your movie and go with it.  Don't cram any bullshit you can think up into the screenplay like this.

You expect me to explain this?

 They go on to talk about how the next crime job will go, specifically what the getaway vehicle will be.  To Morgan's dismay, it's a minivan.  Why does this upset him so?  Because "black guys don't drive minivans."  Morgan, you weren't the driver last time.  We've never seen you drive in this movie.  Why should we assume you're the driver this time, especially for a vehicle type you apparently never drive because of racially-based opinions?

Sort-of white guy says he can have spinners put on it if he wants, to which Morgan says "Fuck you."  Hey!  Watch the language, Morgan!  Most of the people watching this are John Cena fans and therefore not over the age of 13 and/or have no Y chromosome.  Ease off the F-bombs!

"Mr. Cena, what does 'FU' stand for?"

 Sort-of white guy leaves Morgan to think over his dilemma.  Morgan looks around the shop and sees a Lincoln sitting to the side of the shop, completely unattended.  He proceeds to take it out for a drive, complete with a look to the camera and a raise of the eyebrows.

Stay the hell away from the fourth wall, movie.  Contain your crappiness to your own little world.

Meanwhile, after somehow not being slapped with a lawsuit for assaulting the ex-boyfriend (despite his threats to do so), Cena drives through a scenic helicopter shot with his wife as they head for Mt. Cedar.  There's even more smalltalk in this scene, but at least none of it has to do with being a marine.

They stop for gas at a station in the middle of nowhere.  John goes to pay for gas inside while his wife waits in the truck and, as he walks inside, he passes Robert Patrick!  And the rest of his crew are there too!  Okay, why the hell are they there?  On top of this being the mother of all coincidences, why are the bad guys driving the Lincoln and not the minivan as was the plan earlier?  Morgan isn't even driving for this trip so who cares what he thinks about the car?!

 I sympathize with Mike Myers.

A police car pulls up to the pump behind Patrick's, only it's clearly not a police car.  It looks like someone painted a Dodge Viper black and white and glued a siren on top of it.  Oh, and the people in the car look like highway patrol officers instead of police officers.  What zero-continuity parallel universe's ass did this get pulled out of?

One officer gets out of the car and pumps gas, glancing over at a clearly-nervous Patrick.  He eventually walks over to Patrick and strikes up conversation, but never actually does anything that would indicate he knows who Patrick is.  And how would he?  It's not like the guy robbed a jewelry store and killed a clerk and a cop in broad daylight with countless witnesses.

So Morgan walks up behind the cop and shoots him.  Keep digging that hole deeper, guys.

Back with another one of those block-rockin' beats!

The other officer throws the car in reverse and shoots at Patrick and company through the windshield while screaming as he gets shot several times.  This scene is such a clusterfuck that it just comes off as goofy, especially when badly CG'ed bullets fly out of Patrick's gun from an unusual top-down view which contributes nothing to the scene.  How much money did WWE Films put into this?

Fake hostage hears/sees what's going on outside and shoots the gas station clerk (uh, why?) while other white guy knocks out John Cena with a fire extinguisher.  Okay, why didn't they shoot him?  In fact, why did they shoot the clerk?  They had no problem with leaving innumerable witnesses when they robbed a store and murdered a store clerk and a police officer in broad daylight in a major city, but out in the middle of nowhere they're suddenly concerned about witnesses?  And why wouldn't they shoot Cena?  Other white guy couldn't possibly have thought a fire extinguisher to the head would kill a man, unless he thinks human skulls are made out of M&M candy shells.

Dammit, now I'm hungry on top of being annoyed.

Amazingly enough Cena actually sells the headshot as Patrick says to take John's truck because their car could attract attention (even though the cops never reported its description or plate number).  They find John's wife, who is summarily executed.

Just kidding!  They take her hostage.  Why did they kill the clerk again?

John is semi-conscious on the gas station floor as he watches his wife get kidnapped.  Morgan looks back and shoots a puddle of gas on the ground, causing it to ignite (just go with it) and the station pumps to explode, which launches Cena into the far wall as he's trying to stand up.  Cena then gets up abnormally fast and goes outside.  Wait, so he sells a fire extinguisher to the head but not a massive explosion that slams him into a wall and destroys a fair chunk of the station?

Screw this, I could be eating Hogantoni pasta right now.

 Cena runs out of the station and sees the cop car stopped against a small pile of tires.  He runs toward it- sorry, he runs toward it in slow motion, as the station blows up again.

I had to stop watching for about half an hour at this point.

I think they were trying to suggest that one of the cars left at the station exploded, but the explosion is so massive that that would make about as much sense as the station exploding twice.  Either way Cena looks like he's trying not to shit his pants as he runs for the cop car.

When he gets there he drags the cop out of the driver's seat and reveals that the cop was wearing a bullet-proof vest which blocked several of the bullets.  How did they hit his chest when he was sitting in the car so that the only part of him that could be seen was his head and shoulders?  Do you honestly expect me to care at this point?

He tells the cop to keep pressure on his wound (which I couldn't see after rewinding twice).  He takes the cop's extra bullets and a spare vest before using a nightstick to smash out the unusually fragile windshield before giving chase to Patrick and friends.

Dear God, how long have I been talking about this one section of the movie?  Whatever, at least there's finally some action in this action movie.

End of Part 2.  Holy shit, this is going to take a while...