Culture October 9, 2002 Movie Reviews Continued “My Name is Tong. James Tong.” Carla Elm OP Contributor The Tuxedo is a strange brew: it’s like some- one took the plotline from a Three Stooges movie, added action scenes along the lines of The Matrix and threw in a little James Bond atmosphere. The result is a disjointed mix of two-dimensional good versus evil all to the sounds of a spunky soundtrack. Jackie Chan recently expressed his desire to be regarded as a dramatic actor—a Robert de Niro or Dustin Hoffman. His latest offering, The Tuxedo, showcases him more as a modern day Fred Astaire with a little help from the special effects folks. Chan's renowned elaborate choreography is his true creative talent. Unfortunately, he’s chosen to go the route of Charlies Angels and boost his natural abilities with a little digital wizardry. Die-hard Chan fans and purists may cry foul at his decision. If Chan, as Jimmy Tong, is a modern day Astaire, then his Ginger Rogers is a surpris- ingly amusing Jennifer Love Hewitt. She plays Del Blaine, an CSA agent assigned to assist Chan in his attempts to snare a water- baron villain. The plot twists are pre- dictable and never too suspenseful—it’s a hodge-podge of mistaken identity, an evil plot to control the world’s water supply and obligatory sexually suggestive slapstick. If you intend to see this movie for depth or enlightenment, don’t hold your breath. But if you enjoy corny comedy and action faster than the speed of light, this film’s for you. The real star of this movie is the tuxedo itself, a government issue, elaborate piece of electronics that enables its wearer to fight like a kung fu master or groove like the godfather of soul. The highlight for me was watching Chan impersonate James Brown in a hilarious sequence of bump and grind. He’s got the moves, no doubt about that. But an Oscar for dramatic lead? Not this time ‘round. Game Review PlayStation.c 4 MO ¥. Kingdom Hearts Publisher: Square Electronic Art Developer: Squaresoft Genre: RPG Number of Players: 1 ESRB Rating: E © page 16 Nick Hogg OP Contributor If you haven't heard of Kingdom Hearts yet, I'll set the scene. You take one part Final Fantasy, mix in every Disney car- toon you can think of, and the result is a PS2 DVD that begs to be used for target practice. Kingdom Hearts is listed as an RPG, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it that, this is an action game, with limited RPG elements. The battle system seemed nothing more than a typical hack and slash type game. The battles are in real time much akin to Square's Threads of Fate, but with AI controlled allies in bat- tle. In combat, there is a trailing camera angle, which in theory is suppose to keep up with the action, unfortunately it doesn’t really do that. The camera angles were in the most awkward positions pos- sible in every battle, or at least the cam- era facing away from the enemies was. The battles were annoying to participate in because of the camera angle issues and the fact that when committing to an attack you had to aim, very precisely or you would strike beside the enemy. As for the so-called RPG elements, there is too much aimless running around and collecting of various items of ambiguous origin and ludicrous versatility. The music is bad, so very bad. It has been a long time since I’ve played a game with the television on mute. It reminds me of those occasions where you off-handedly memorize those catchy Disney tunes, after a younger relative pops the Disney tape in for the 3rd time in a day. The songs are all well, Disney- like, and just far too annoying to be heard at times. The graphics are probably one of the most redeeming qualities of the game — they look good. The cartoon worlds from Disney's movies are re-created rather well, with nice expansive environ- ments and decent re-creations of previ- ous Disney characters. The voice-acting is another bit of a saving grace. With the other press great original voice-acting and an inter- esting cast for the Final Fantasy-like characters, including Squall, everyone's favorite vampire with a soul and our favorite child actor who “sees dead peo- ple’ as the main character Sora. Which is really a shame because I would have pre- ferred if the final fantasy character would have been an actual playable character along with the Disney one, rather than being NPCs. The game's plot is interesting and one of the few ele- ments that kept me playing during the review. In the end, I really don’t know what to say other than it has an interesting story that looks good, but the sheer amount of frustration caused by the battle system and by the annoying repetitive music was overwhelming. So, in the end, what you have is a story that should be taken seriously, while you fight alongside Donald Duck and Goofy.