Star Fox 64 3D

Following the release of the original Star Fox on the SNES, with Star Fox 2 having been shelved despite being fully completed, the series was rebooted for the then-recent Nintendo 64 system in 1997, aptly named Star Fox 64. In 2011, as part of a series of 3DS remakes of older Nintendo titles, Star Fox 64 received one as Star Fox 64 3D, which aimed to be faithful to the original release while adding new content. I had become curious about playing Star Fox 64 after playing Star Fox Adventures, which was made as a sequel to it, to get a better hang on the story, but didn’t actively attempt to do so until the Nintendo 3DS eShop was shutting down, at which point I went for a physical copy of Star Fox 64 3D both for convenience and to get the best experience possible. After finally getting around to playing it, I can see why it’s considered a classic game in terms of gameplay and story.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011) (PS3)

Note: This review contains spoilers for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009).

With a game as successful as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) (CoD:MW2), making over $1 billion within three months, the future of the Call of Duty franchise would be surely be guaranteed. However, that future would not include series creators Jason West and Vince Zampella. It’s a very infamous and well-documented story, but the short version is that West and Zampella wanted more creative control over Call of Duty (CoD) following Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s (CoD4) success, though Activision CEO Bobby Kotick included a loophole in the agreement that control would revert back to Activision if the duo were ever fired. Soon after, Activision did everything in their power through an internal campaign dubbed “Project Icebreaker” to find a reason to replace the duo during development of CoD:MW2, which included plans to stage a fake fire drill to copy Infinity Ward employee emails. After CoD:MW2 came out and proved a massive success, West and Zampella were fired after renegotiations fell through, with Activision accusing them of “insubordination”. About 40 of Infinity Ward’s employees, numbering around 100 at the time, would quit and leave with West and Zampella to form Respawn Entertainment, who would develop the Titanfall series in partnership with Electronic Arts before later being acquired wholly by EA and making both Apex Legends and the Star War Jedi series. In the meantime, however, Infinity Ward was in the midst of developing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (CoD:MW3), now put in jeopardy without the studio’s founders, and the publisher was in a legal battle over unpaid CoD:MW2 royalties. As such, Activision would seek assistance from Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software to help with development on CoD:MW3, which would see the light of day in late 2011.

That brings us to now, as I now finish my journey through the original Modern Warfare trilogy. I didn’t remember hearing too much from other people around the release of CoD:MW3, but I did remember hearing about the drama around West and Zampella (especially the fire drill story). I was already planning on playing CoD:MW3 to round out the trilogy, but after enjoying Infinity Ward’s work on CoD4 and CoD:MW2, even with whatever criticisms I may have expressed, my curiosity grew about how the studio would handle CoD without any involvement from its creators. Although Sledgehammer and Infinity Ward did their best given the situation, it’s impossible to ignore the effect of West and Zampella’s absence in the final product.

Gnomeo & Juliet

Romeo and Juliet, one of the most well-known English language plays of all time, has inspired and influenced countless stories and received countless adaptations of its own. Since the setting doesn’t really matter for telling this story, it was perhaps inevitable that someone would have the idea of reenacting it with garden gnomes, as is the case with Gnomeo & Juliet. Although the film didn’t have the smoothest development, starting life as an Elton John passion project rejected by Disney until Miramax (under the same company) greenlit it in 2006, it did see the light of day through Disney’s Touchstone label (following a distribution shuffle) in 2011 to middling reviews, but a profitable box office run that earned nearly $200 million against a $36 million budget. In the years since, I had avoided watching the film based on the somewhat negative reputation that it and its sequel had developed. When I finally watched it through a 3D Blu-ray, however, I actually found it at least a bit more entertaining than its 55% Rotten Tomatoes score would suggest.

Stubs - X-Men: First Class

X-Men: First Class (2011) starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon. Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Screenplay by Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn. Based on X-Men by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby. Produced by Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer, Simon Kinberg, Gregory Goodman USA/UK, Color, Run time: 132 minutes. Superhero.

Following a trilogy of X-Men films and a rather disappointing X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), 20^th Century Fox, which had the license for the franchise, decided make X-Men: First Class. While viewed by some as a prequel, it is really a reboot of the series. We’ll get to more of that later but the film is a sign of a franchise in free-fall. Unlike the MCU, which was planned out for nearly a decade of films, X-Men seemed to be making it up as it went along.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (2011)

Note: This review contains spoilers for Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010) and Rodrick Rules.

As the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney proved to be popular, so did its 2010 film adaptation, leading to an annual sequel based on the second book, Rodrick Rules. Although I have not actually read any of the books, the first film turned out to be a lot better than I had expected after I watched it to see what the fuss was about, which got me interested in seeing the sequel. After having done so, I feel Rodrick Rules improves on the original enough to make it possibly the best of the original trilogy.

Puss in Boots (2011) - Somebody Once Told Me...

Only a year after the release of Shrek Forever After, DreamWorks began releasing a series of spin-offs starring the supporting character Puss in Boots, who more or less took over the franchise for over a decade. The first entry, simply titled Puss in Boots, came out in 2011 during the studio’s partnership with Paramount, who notably distributed Kung Fu Panda, a film that influenced them to focus more on strong storytelling over celebrity cameos and pop culture references (among other aspects brought on by the success of Shrek). While I was aware of Puss in Boots, I didn’t actually watch it until the strength of its sequel, The Last Wish, fueled my curiosity in how well it stacks up by comparison. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the original isn’t as good, though it’s still pretty good on its own merits and helps demonstrate that even early on, DreamWorks’ pivot was for the better.

Winnie the Pooh (2011)

Since its release in 1977, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, a compilation of three theatrical shorts based on the Winnie the Pooh book series, has proven itself a timeless classic from Disney’s body of work. In 2011, a sequel film based on other stories from the books, simply titled Winnie the Pooh (2011), was released to theaters, however it had the misfortune of coming out the same weekend as the highly anticipated Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, leading to the shutdown of Disney’s traditional animation department and the movie to seemingly become largely forgotten as a result. While I did not see the movie when it first came out, revisiting the 1977 film and seeing Christopher Robin made me curious about actually watching the 2011 film, though I would not end up actually doing so until much later. From watching it through Disney+, I found it to actually be quite enjoyable, though a victim of unfortunate timing in its release.

Second Look - Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure + Adventure Packs

Following the end of the Legend of Spyro trilogy with Dawn of the Dragon in 2008, a second reboot of the Spyro the Dragon series was announced for 2010, known as Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, which utilized physical toys that you could place on a Portal of Power to summon it in-game. “Toys to life” was in fact one of the slogans on the box, which was quickly adopted as the Toys-to-life genre to describe other, similar games. I wasn’t fully aware of the game until its launch and at first ignored it, though I quickly became curious about it and found the toy concept interesting, enough to get the Starter Pack as a gift. I ended up liking it enough to try and complete as much of my collection as I could, and later ended up playing the other main games in the Skylanders series while noticing how little Spyro was actually part of it.

After Skylanders: Imaginators, I began to lose interest in the series, eventually selling off a bulk of my collection due to how much space it was taking up, with some harder-to-find toys among them. However, one collection I still held on to was my Spyro’s Adventure collection due to having more sentimental value to me, plus I knew that one day I wanted to revisit the game to see what about the concept made it so magical to me in the first place. After deciding to look back on it for the franchise’s 10^th anniversary, I found that spark was still there, despite showing its age and having a handful of technical issues.

No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise

A few years after the release of No More Heroes, it received a home console port for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (PS3), though only the PS3 version made it stateside. This port, subtitled Heroes’ Paradise, served as an upgraded HD version of the base game, complete with extra content and, notably, standard controller support. As I didn’t own a Wii at the time, and wouldn’t for a few years, I intended this version as my entry point into the world of No More Heroes, but certain statements in reviews of the time put me off. However, when Sony originally announced the end of PS3 store support in 2021, until they reversed it, I snagged a sealed copy before its price could climb out of my reach. As part of our buildup to No More Heroes III, I finally broke the seal and found myself enjoying an overlooked port of an already great game.

Second Look - Cars 2

Note: This review contains spoilers for Cars 2.

I will admit that when I first saw Cars 2 in a theater, my expectations weren’t that high because of how generally underwhelming I found the original Cars film in comparison to Pixar’s output at the time, however I didn’t expect to walk away feeling disappointed at the time for what felt like a poorly-executed storyline for Pixar. This even led me to outright skip the original theatrical run of Cars 3 due to my reaction to Cars 2, though in the years since then I decided to give Cars 2 another chance after watching Cars 3 on Disney+ and finding it surprisingly good. Unfortunately, however, I still wasn’t that impressed by Cars 2, though now I have a better understanding as to why.

Resistance 3

Note: This review contains spoilers for Resistance 2 and Resistance 3.

Three years after Resistance 2, Insomniac finished off the Resistance trilogy with Resistance 3 in 2011, with no plans for any future installments. When I decided to play through the main series, I noticed that while Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2 both have digital options available, Resistance 3 does not for whatever reason, leading me to have to actively seek out a physical copy as I had done for Fall of Man. Fortunately, I was able to find a new copy of the game at a local game reseller for a reasonable price, allowing me to experience the Resistance trilogy to the end. Overall I found it to be an improvement over its predecessors in several areas, perhaps even the strongest entry, and a fitting conclusion to the series.

Batman: Year One

Of the many writers who have penned Batman stories over the decades, Frank Miller is one of the more interesting ones, if only for singlehandedly writing some of the most famous (The Dark Knight Returns) and most infamous (All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder) takes on the character. One of the highlights of his career, however, is Batman: Year One, published in 1987 with artwork by David Mazzucchelli, a story that was considered the official origin story of Batman until 2013’s Zero Year. I actually read this story myself for a comics class in college, though it was a version where they inexplicably recolored the original artwork. Though this story would get an animated film adaptation in 2011, I didn’t view it until a 2020 Toonami broadcast, after which I wondered why I didn’t watch it sooner.

Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension (PS3)

Note: The following review contains spoilers for the Phineas and Ferb game and movie Across the 2nd Dimension.

We have talked about High Impact Games before on this blog; made up of former Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog employees, their first three offerings were based in Ratchet & Clank (Size Matters, Secret AgentClank) and Jak and Daxter (The Lost Frontier), though their Ratchet & Clank games would later be officially confirmed as non-canon as of Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus. Following Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier and coinciding with the premiere of Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2^nd Dimension, a video game adaptation by High Impact Games known as Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2^nd Dimension was developed for a number of platforms, including PlayStation 3. Though I acquired this game shortly before watching the movie it was based on, I decided to hold off until after watching the movie in order to avoid spoiling myself on the movie. Now that I have played it, I can say it was enjoyable and worth waiting until after the movie to play it, though I did have some small annoyances with it.

Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension

Since its first official airing on Disney Channel in 2008, Phineas and Ferb has become one of Disney’s biggest animated television series, with 222 episodes across four seasons released over eight years. The franchise also proved popular enough to spawn a few video games and several albums collecting the show’s music, among other merchandise, along with a full-length TV movie, Across the 2nd Dimension, and an upcoming Disney+ movie, Candace Against the Universe. Since we had only recently gotten into Phineas and Ferb, we made it a point to watch Across the 2nd Dimension while catching up with the show. Aside from the necessity of watching it to make a later episode watchable, the movie is fortunately worth the investment.

Second Look - Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Note: This review contains spoilers for Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

After taking another look at the storytelling mess that is Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen, I decided it might be worth taking another look at Transformers: Dark of the Moon, in light of how the Bumblebee film’s high quality got me to reevaluate the previous films. Though it was difficult finding the right time to do so due to its length, I managed to find a long-enough period of time after I finished revisiting the video game prequel to the movie. While the film itself is still a vast improvement over the previous film and has some great moments in it, there are some issues with its pacing that prevent it from being more enjoyable than it actually is.

Second Look - Transformers: Dark of the Moon (PS3)

During my efforts to look back on the Transformers games set in Warfor Cybertron’s continuity to celebrate its 10^th anniversary, I decided to also take another look at the video game tie-in to Transformers: Dark of the Moon, one of my favorite Transformers games and arguably one of the better representations of the live-action film continuity. Things got off to a rocky start, however, since the game somehow managed to render itself literally unplayable on the PlayStation 3 I originally played it on. Fortunately, I happened to have another, separate PS3 that our family uses to watch movies, and upon the initial install, the game ran without issue. After getting to experience the game for the first time again, I thought it held up well after nearly a decade, even with some imperfections in the storytelling.

Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur

Note: This review contains spoilers for Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur.

On this blog, we’ve covered films that we watched for their reputation, either good or bad. However, we haven’t covered many where just a specific iconic scene drew us in. Such is the case with 2011’s Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur, the 16th installment of the long-running series of direct-to-video Scooby-Doo! films. While this one scene in particular, which I’ll go into later, was worth watching, the rest of the film felt very uneven.

Sonic Generations (PS3)

I would consider myself more of a casual fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, though when I was younger I was really into the character despite not being able to play many of the games, thanks to other media such as The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) via rental, as well as the Sonic X anime series (yes, the 4Kids dub), Archie comic and an official website that kept me up to speed on everything prior to the infamous Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) (Sonic ‘06). Fast forward to 2011, the announcement of Sonic Generations seemed intriguing to me, primarily in its goal to celebrate 20 years of the franchise’s history. Though it came out that year, I wouldn’t get to actually play it until 2012 due to receiving it as a Christmas present, though I didn’t get to actually finish it after finding the final boss fight to be a horribly-designed mess. Eight years later and almost to the day, I replayed every level of the game for this review before finally taking another shot at the final boss and actually won, allowing me to finally see the ending. Overall, I find the game to be a good representation of the franchise, though not without some issues.

Second Look - Catherine

Note: The following review contains spoilers for Catherine.

In 2011, Atlus, developer behind the Megami Tensei series and Persona sub-series, released an odd-sounding game called Catherine in 2011, which detailed the story of a man going through an affair, with some block puzzles mixed in. The ideas presented in the trailers intrigued me and the result turned out be more interesting than I expected. Eight years later, a re-release with extra content dubbed Catherine: Full Body was announced, among its new features being a new character that leads to new story paths. While the game is already out in its native Japan, the announcement of the English version’s release date led me to play the original game again, both to see how it holds up and to have a comparison point for the Full Body version. After playing the game three times to view multiple endings, I can say that the game is just as good as I remembered it being, though it doesn’t quite hold up as well in some areas.

Stubs - Second Opinion: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand. Staring the voices of: Peter Cullen, Hugo Weaving, Leonard Nimoy. Directed by Michael Bay. Screenplay by Ehren Kruger. Based on the Hasbro action figures. Produced by Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Ian Bryce. Run Time: 154 minutes. U.S. Color. Science Fiction, Action

With the fourth installment of the most successful toy-inspired film franchise about to be released on the big screen, and in the case of IMAX, bigger screen, we thought it was a chance to take a last look at the third in the Witwicky trilogy, Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011). The review at the time of its original release can be found here.

While the welcomed departure of Megan Fox allowed for the franchise to move forward, she is not the only thing that was wrong with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), which while not as well received critically, still managed to outperform the original live-action film, Transformers (2007), at the box-office. Some connected to the production would blame the writer’s strike, which disrupted the rewrite of the script, with the film’s shortcomings, but it was probably more to do with having a set in cement release date, even if the film wasn't quite ready for public consumption. With profitability attached to summer blockbusters, there is no way a studio can afford any delays in getting the product out the gates.

Dark of the Moon starts with the premise that the Apollo moon landing was a government conspiracy to explore the lunar crash site of an alien spacecraft. In this case, Sentinel Prime’s (Leonard Nimoy) spaceship, shot down in the last days of the war for Cybertron between the Autobots and the Decepticons. On board the ship are pillars which, used together, can create a space bridge for teleporting weapons, troops and supplies. NASA doesn’t know what’s found when the astronauts get to the site.

The moon landing was just a government conspiracy.

The conspiracy idea never gets shaken as those connected with it, including Jerry "Deep" Wang (Ken Jeong), a programmer who works at the same company Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) lands a job in the mail room at. Wang is acted out in Jeong’s usual over-the-top anything-for-a-cheap-laugh-style (better suited to the Hangover films), but he is not the first over-the-top character Witwicky comes into contact with, nor is he the last. Pretty much every human character is portrayed as a caricature, from Sam’s first boss, Bruce Brazos (John Malkovich), to his parents, Ron (Kevin Dunn) and Judy (Julie White), to old nemesis, now turned ally, former agent, Seymour Simmons (John Turturro). Include in there Seymour’s personal assistant, Dutch (Alan Tudyk), and Charlotte Meaning (Frances McDormand), the Director of National Intelligence, and you pretty much have all the main “human” characters. All have done better work in other films, so this is not a high point in their acting careers with the possible exception of paychecks.

The only humans who are in any way believable and likeable are the Army personnel, led by U.S. Army Lt. Colonel William Lennox (Josh Duhamel), and retired U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sergeant Robert Epps (Tyrese Gibson). Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey), who is working on Earth for the Decepticons’ cause, is also, sadly, quite believable, but I wouldn’t say likable. He represents all that we think is wrong with the rich and privileged in that they will do anything for their own success and survival despite what happens to the rest of us. Gould is the embodiment of the financial top 1% all those protests were about a few years ago.

Replacing Fox as Sam’s love interest is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as Carly Spencer, who works for Gould managing his large car collection. A model, Dark of the Moon marks Huntington-Whiteley's first film acting gig and while she is good and good-looking, one wonders why her savvy and successful character would settle for Sam except for as a plot device.

Sam (Shia LaBeouf ) saves Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) from Gould and the Decepticons.

In this film, Sam is portrayed by LaBeouf as angry, whiny and feeling like he is owed something for past events. He either seems to be screaming in anger or screaming in fear throughout most of the film before finally stepping up to save Carly’s life. While he is not quite the messenger in the previous films that Meaning makes him out to be, I’m not sure he is deserving of the special treatment he thinks he is. Nor is he deserving of his parents’ disappointment at not having landed a job on their time table, while they drive around the country in their oversized RV.

Frankly, I’m happy to see the Witwickys in the rearview mirror of this franchise as the films always seem to stop dead when they are on screen, especially the parents. They are supposed to be comic relief, but this film is crammed full of such characters that it makes the few who are not stand out as approaching normal.

The big switch-a-roo in this film is that Sentinel Prime, who is brought back to life by the well-meaning Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), is actually working with the Autobots' nemesis, Megatron (Hugo Weaving), not to end the war as much as to ensure that Cybertron survives. The film toys around with, but never actually resolves whether or not Sentinel Prime would have turned the tables on Megatron and ruled as the leader of the Decepticons.

All throughout his reign over the franchise, director Michael Bay has been tweaking fan expectations. While the special effects have been really great throughout, it seems at times that corporate interests and Transformers mythos have been at odds. As an example, the cars the Autobots transform into have been open to the highest bidder. Bay's Transformers film have also added characters to the universe as well as bathroom humor. Who can forget Bumblebee urinating on Simmons in the first Transformers and I’d like to forget Jeong pulling plans out of his underwear in the toilet stall in the men’s room in this one. One can hope that closing the door on the Witwickys will lead to a different and more uplifted approach to the humor and to the storytelling.

Come for the robots and stay for the action, Bay's strong suit.

I’m told that four years pass between the end of this film and the opening of the fourth installment, which I will let tell me what happens rather than speculate. I can’t believe I’m actually writing this, but I have to imagine Mark Wahlberg will be a huge improvement over LaBeouf as lead actor. I think that says something more about LaBeouf overstaying his welcome than it does about Wahlberg, as a lead actor, or myself as a viewer.

While every die-hard Transformers fan and their families has no doubt seen this film already, one would imagine they will flock to see Age of Extinction. But here is hoping, as a more casual observer and viewer, that they someday make one film that is just about the robots. These are the more interesting and compelling characters. No one is playing with a Witwicky action figure. They are what the people come to see and why they keep coming back.

All we need and all we want are the Transformers.