Tidal Wave (2009)

Continuing with the theme of water here, we go from Los Angeles, America to Haeundae, South Korea, and we also go from lack of drinkable water to lots of water. Though I wouldn't recommend drinking it. Yeah, we go from a terrorist attack to nature, and we also dive into what is South Korea's (Where it's called 'Haeundae', after the location) first ever disaster film.


I can't really dive into the plot (Pardon the pun) because, like 'Waterborne' and 'Contagion', the film has multiple plot points. They're becoming more and more frequent those kind of films aren't they? The ones I've mentioned, 'Crash (2004)', 'Valentine's day (2010)', and 'New Year's Eve (2011)' as well. It's weird.

Anyway, let's see if I can remember all the plots. But first the introduction. We're first reminded of the Indian Ocean Tsunami which occurred back in 2004. For those who don't know, an earthquake in the Indian Ocean caused a tsunami which hit fourteen different countries and killed nearly three hundred thousand people, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in history.

In the film's introduction, we're introduced to Choi Man-Shik (Kyung-gu Sol), who is on a fishing boat during the middle of the tsunami disaster. He makes a mistake which causes a shipmate to be trapped on a boat, and Man-Shik is forced to watch him go down with the boat. Okay, now I can go into the multi-plots.

1. The guy who goes down asks Man-Shik to look after his daughter Yeon-Hee (Ha Ji-won). Yeon-Hee fancies Man-Shik and Man-Shik tries to overcome his guilt over her father's death so that he can lover her back.
2. Dong-choon (Kim In-kwon) deals with some shady business with Man-Shik's nephew, gets caught by the police, and gets moaned at by his mother.
3. Kim Hwi (Park Joong-hoon) tries to persuade high leading officials that a mega tsunami which could threaten South Korea is possible. He then comes across his ex-wife, Yoo-jin (Uhm Jung-hwa) and his daughter, and learns that his ex has never told their daughter who her father is.
4. Choi Hyeing-Shik (Lee Min-ki) saves Hee-mi (Kang Ye-won) from drowning, elbowing her in the face at the same time. Angry at this (Though I'm pretty sure it was a cover), she follows Hyeing-Shik around the city. As time passes love blossoms between the two, though they're hampered by a random jerk Hee-mi's sisters are trying to set her up with.

I think that's it.

The plots can get so intertwined with each other that they can be hard to distinguish. You have to really remember who's who. Once you've got the hang of who's who, the individual stories can be intriguing. The problem is that I went into this expecting a serious piece of film, which it does deliver, I can't deny that, but there are slapstick and comedic moments throughout the film. It does seem intentional, such as Dong-choon at the start being knocked down four times by different people, and yes, it is actually funny. But, in a way, it made the film a bit awkward to watch, knowing that the title threat will be hitting this beach resort soon, destroying pretty much everything in its way. Am I supposed to take this film seriously? Am I suppose to find it hilarious? How can I find it funny, knowing that there will be death and destruction later?



But in all honesty, it does add a certain...feeling to this film. It makes you feel more for the characters, it's actually slightly more realistic. No-one is perfect, and that's what the slapstick...um...emphasis's  I suppose. But love them or hate them, you can't help but care about them when the great disaster does happen, mainly because when the wave does hit, the characters we don't feel anything for suddenly become heroes. SPOILERS. Dong-choon saves thirteen people after the tsunami, basically surprising everyone and earning a citizen bravery award. Dong-choon however doesn't feel like a hero because his mother died during the tsunami. This was really sad and touching. Hyeing-Shik meanwhile sacrifices himself so that a jerk character is saved, while Hee-mi has no choice but to watch. Alongside that, Man-Shik, after pouring out his heart and soul to Yeon-Hee since he thinks he's going to die, but he is saved by his estranged uncle, which appears to repair the relationship. His uncle is then killed two seconds later. Shockingly depressing scene follows.


That being said, the structure of this film was weird. Most drama films basically put the drama right out there withing the first half hour, and then spend the next hour surviving. 'Tidal Wave', does it the other way round. It spends the first hour going over the characters, and then the tidal wave has come and gone in ten minutes, then twenty minutes is spent surviving the aftermath. This was both good, and bad. It's good because it allows the audience to get to know the characters and care about them. It's bad, because the audience start to wonder where the tsunami is. And then it's gone in a matter of minutes, which is actually understandable, a real tsunami would be halfway inland in ten minutes after hitting the coast. But then after the twenty odd minutes of survival, the film glances over the aftermath. I didn't really like the glancing. Sure, some of the characters it was enough, but then there's others where you want a bit more info.


Let's get to the actual tidal wave now. Again, going into this I wasn't expecting much, mainly because I wasn't expecting a high budget (Apparently the film had a budget in the region of $10-15million), and I hate CGI. I think you know that by now. Oh yeah, a film like 'The Avengers/Avengers Assemble' may come along and make me think "Oh my God the effects are awesome", but most of the time I think it looks too fake. The effects here, aren't actually that bad. Could they be better? Yes. But the effects aren't awful, they're actually pretty damn good, the tidal wave actually looks like its made of water, while the scenes of the city being destroyed are truly immense. In my opinion anyway. A shot of Hwi saving his daughter from being swept out of a window was truly brilliant.

Acting wise, yeah, it could have been better. While I do think the actors and actresses were pretty good at times, they were pretty bland in others. I didn't really find it that bad though, like 'Green Lantern' it was more because of the script rather than the actual actor.


Overall, I love this film. In fact, my DVD collection is slowly being invaded by the Asian market. 'Battle Royale', 'Heaven's Soldiers', and 'Dragon Wars' to name a few. Yes, I like 'Dragon Wars'. But whatever you think of 'Tidal Wave', while the build up was a tad too long, I have to respect the makers behind this film for taking a risk and producing South Korea's first disaster film. I found the film charming and creative, I found the character development great, the effects terrific, the chaos tremendous. Did I go into this film with low expectations? Yes, and that probably helped, but I really did love this film. I'd definitely recommend you to at least see if you'd like it, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Waterborne (2005)

So with the recent heat here in the UK and the lack of hero related films for this month, I've decided to go over some water related films. The first up is the 2005 film 'Waterborne'. Here, a terrorist attack has infected the water supply to Los Angeles, leaving the population unable to drink the water.



Now, the plot was what intrigued me, the idea that terrorists have cut off the water supply and that we'll be watching society break down. And whilst IMDB has a rating of 5.7 at the moment, Rotten Tomatoes currently has a 100% approval rating. Yeah, I've never seen that before, but this film has a 100% approval. I have no idea why. Then again the only information on Wikipedia is a brief description, a brief snippet of whose in it, who did the score, how it was the first feature film for Google Videos (Which will be shutting down in August), a list of 28 cast members, the one line about Rotten Tomatoes, and external links. That's it. As of the 28th July anyway.

There will be spoilers. I'll try my best, but I don't think I can avoid it. It's plot related so I'll leave that to last.

One things that stands out straight away, is the camera work. It is constantly moving around, even on shots where the character is just sitting there. It's just not professional. Then there's points where Bodi (Jake Muxworthy) starts beating on a guy, and the camera shows that the guy is obviously not hitting him. And then we have the news reports, where the quality is so bad, static is the only way it can get worse.


The acting is pretty meh, there aren't really any bad things to say, but I'm saying that they were any good. The main cast which you may recognise include Christopher Masterson, who you may recall from 'Malcolm in the Middle' and Mageina Tovah, who you may remember playing.......'Ursula' (The landlord's daughter) from 'Spider-Man 2' and 'Spider-Man 3'. And, alongside Ajay Naidu, who plays Vikram Bhatti, they are the best acting talent in this. But everyone in this are basically just 'there', there's no special scenes, nor are there any bad scenes. But this relates back to the plot so I'll come back to it. Right now.

Like I said, the whole idea that a city like Los Angeles, a city with nearly four million people, were told that they can't drink the water supply. The problem is, it barely features in the plot. I can't help but compare this film to 'Contagion', since both films focus on a disease and focus on multiple plots. The major difference, is that 'Contagion' actually shows us the devastation, it shows us how desperate people really can get, mainly because the film flashforwards at certain points. Then there's the game 'I Am Alive' where you play a character in a post Apocalyptic world where water is rare, and you certainly get that feel, especially if you play survivor mode where resources are even more rare.

Again, the whole problem with this film is that the main concept barely features in the film at all. Oh sure, they may mention it a couple of times, but overall, no-one really seems to have noticed, and when they do it's glanced over. I was watching this film go over three days of events, waiting for riots and looting to start, but no, nothing happens. A small crowd may yell at the army who are giving out supplies, like one gallon of water in half litre bottles, and one shoplifting incident may occur, but again, we don't really see the huge impact that cutting off the water supply would cause.

In fact, we see, what, three points when the lack of water affects people, and two of those aren't attributed to water. One point a customer tries to buy four jugs of water at the shop Vikram works, but Heera (Shabana Azmi) has restricted sales to two jugs per customer, therefore Gulu (Sarabjit Singh Kaloti) refuses to sell him more than two jugs. This of course pisses of the customer, who decides to racially abuse Heera and Gulu and saying that they shouldn't be in America at all. The American customer then sets fire to the American flag before assaulting them. That had nothing to do with the water, it was just racism. Anyone else would be pissed off and leave it at that, they wouldn't go to this extent. Especially since this is only the second day! People shouldn't be THIS desperate already!

The other point came when Bodi holds Zach (Masterson), Lillian (Tovah), Vikram, Jasmine (Lindsay Price) and her daughter hostage in a shop, begging for water. This happened on the third day, after drinking milk. Point one, okay, it's not water, but milk is a perfect substitute you idiot! Secondly, he's gone nuts after a day of going without water. Yeah, he had bottled water on the first day, he should still be fine at this point, therefore this incident wasn't about water! I'm still pretty sure that it was because of an earlier scene where Bodi tries to drink water from a tap (After being told it was infected) and Zach knocked the water out of his hand, where I'm pretty sure he still got some water in his mouth, so I think he was suffering from effects from the infected water.


The third point was when two soldiers, Ritter (Jon Gries) and Carlton (Chris Berry) stop some thieves from stealing a truck load of water. Carlton kills one of them, despite the fact that the kid was unarmed and was only driving away. Why does he do this? He expresses hatred towards different countries like Iraqi or Kazakhstan as well as threaten some Hillbillies who are taking water from an aquaduct, saying America should bomb whoever did it, but why did he shoot an unarmed American youngster? Couldn't he shoot the tyres? Fire a warning shot? He expresses regret and guilt later, but then it's never mentioned again.


This film was essentially influenced, not only by the paranoia that can be caused by a terrorist attack, but also deal with the racism that Muslims/Islamists  now get after 9/11. It's a bit of sensitive subject to touch upon, with some films going over it quite effectively, examples even including 'Armageddon of the Dead'. This film...really doesn't touch the subject. Okay, it does with the racist customer attacking Heera and Gulu, putting Heera in the hospital, and when Bodi randomly racially insults Vikram towards the start of the film, as well as when Vikram claims the police are racist when an officer is investigating Heera's assault (Though the description given to the officer doesn't really narrow the field down. Also why doesn't their shop have CCTV that they can simply give to the police?). But, like the infection of the water, again, this doesn't really feature in the film. It's mention a few times, but again, no real detail is given to the viewer, none that the audience shouldn't already know anyway.

The thing is, this film isn't bad, but, it wasn't good either. What would have made this film really good, fantastic maybe, was if it delved into the characters and the impact of the lack of water. Like I said, the characters are just there, they don't have any special or unique personalities (Except for Bodi, but his personality makes me hate him) which enable them to shine. For what was a low budget production (According to IMDB the budget was roughly one million dollars) maybe they couldn't fund a riot scene or two, but we don't really see any consequence for the water being turned off. If it fast forward a week or two or three and shown/told us a significant death toll, but again, virtually nothing happens, and whatever does happen seems too incomprehensible to happen after just three days. At one hour and fifteen minutes (Some of which was pointless imagery which amounts to nothing) we don't get a lot of information, but if they pushed the mark to a hour and, let's say thirty or forty minutes and gave a lot more depth and much more anarchy and chaos, but for what it is, it's pretty much meh at the end of the day.

Green Lantern (2011)

Continuing with the hero theme for this month, we come across the Green Lantern, a human who, originally, was a railroad engineer who came across a green lantern, which had been crafted by a patient at a mental institution which was derived from someone who originally made a magical green flame into a lamp.


Yeah I didn't really follow the Green Lantern. In all honesty I didn't really follow any comics until recent years, and any comic characters I did follow was mainly Batman from the animated series, and whoever was in the animated Justice League television series.


And in this film, we follow neither of those characters, as we look at Hal Jordan, the character DC used for the Silver Age of comics. Here Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is chosen by Abin Sur's (Temuera Morrison) ring to become a new Green Lantern, a form of space police, you know, like the Judoon. The reason why Abin Sur's Ring (of Willpower) needed to chose a new bearer, was because a creature called Parallax (Voiced by the Highlander Clancy Brown) has broken free from a prison-like place, and is seeking revenge against the Green Lanterns and the Guardians of the Universe (The leaders of the Lanterns).


Okay, I'll start with the main problem I had with this film; the effects. Okay, some effects looked great, Parallax actually looked scary and threatening, while the Green Lantern's ring powers actually did look the way I expected them to be. Well, most of the time anyway. However, the rest of the effects, are bad. Seriously bad. The lanterns suit looks fake, the other Lanterns looked fake, the Guardians of the Universe looked fake, Oa looked fake! I just can't take the other characters or Oa seriously. Except for Tomar-Re (Geoffrey Rush). He was awesome.


Then there's the story. It just felt rushed and yet slow and disjointed at the same time. Jordan travels to Oa numerous times whilst Parallax seems lost, especially since he seems to go out of his way to Earth rather than destroy the greater threat, Jordan quits only to enlist then quit again before rejoining the Corps, Sinestro (Mark Strong) constantly whines that something needs to be done with Parallax, and then when he finally leads a group of Green Lanterns at Parallax, he effectively does nothing while they die. Then Sinestro convinces the Guardians that they need to create a Ring of Fear to combat Parrallax, despite the fact that using the power of Fear was what created this problem in the first place. And while I didn't follow the Green Lantern, I did for some reason recall a giant forehead villain, which turned out to be Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard). Introducing him as a major villain in this film felt out of place.

But in all honesty, this isn't really a bad film. I mean, I know from my extensive research (Five seconds on Wikipedia), Parallax wasn't a former Guardian of the Universe, he was in fact a parasite who had reality warping powers and originally used Hal Jordan as a host. Hammond meanwhile became a supervillain by exposing himself to a meteorite from outer space, instead of gaining his powers from Parallax. But hey, at least Hammond and Parallax in this film proved to be actual threats, Hammond himself killed quite a few people while being sympathetic at times, whereas Parallax consumed planets and pretty much killed everything in his path up until Jordan on Earth. People did complain about the design of Parallax being a cloud, but hey, at least this cloud actually did something

unlike this Goddamn cloud!

The acting meanwhile, is pretty much the fault of the script. No-one was bad per se, but it wasn't the best in the world. Again, I believe this was the fault of the script. People complain about Reynolds acting in this, and yet as we've seen in other films like 'Buried' or 'Smokin' Aces', he can pull off a great performance. Sarsgaard meanwhile does portray a great character, making us feel sorry for him as well as see his emotions as the power of fear slowly corrupts him. Everyone else...was okay, again.

Is this film the best? Oh no, far from it, but is it as bad as they all say? Well, no, not really, I don't see why people get so worked up over this. Maybe it's because I'm not that big a Lantern fan, so I wouldn't get that frustrated at certain changes. Like I said, it's not the best film, but it's certainly not the worst.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

And now we have come full circle. Christopher Nolan has released his third and final Batman film, Christian Bale has worn the cape for the last time, Anne Hathaway won't be wearing leather any time soon...or will she...hope so.

Anyway the most highly anticipated film this summer, if not the year (Though 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' is a high candidate for that), where mercenary Bane (Thomas Hardy) takes on Batman/Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), beating him down and taking over Gotham. I didn't really give anything away there, the trailers show us what Bane does.


Story wise, it is fantastic, yet bum numbing. At two hours forty five odd minutes, it's almost as long as Peter Jackson's 'The Lord of the Rings' films. And it is justifiable. You have the villain's compulsory opening scene, his origin, what happened to Wayne since the last film, his recovery, Batman's return, the first fight against Bane, Batman's second recovery, Bane taking over Gotham, Batman returning, and the climatic battle. You can't squeeze all that in the normal hour and a half, or the run time that the previous films had.

The acting is of course brilliant. Christian Bale delivers a great performance as a man who has lost the love of his love...um...whatsherface, then as a person who has to recover from that and being given the worst beating of his life, while Anne Hathaway delivers a great performance as Catwoman. Thomas Hardy delivered a great menacing performance as Bane, even if the voice did make it hard to understand what he was saying half the time. Supporting acts from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Morgan Freeman and cameos from Liam Neeson and Cillian Murphy were great, however Michael Caine didn't have much screen time after being written out for most of the film, which was quite shocking. Marion Cotillard delivers a slightly better than bland performance as Miranda Tate.

The effects are stunning as well, the aerial scenes involving the Bat (A.K.A. the Batplane) and Bane's tumblers are truly the speaking point of this, as well as Catwoman on the Batpod. Um, to be honest I think that's everything. Terrific characters, great story, brilliant acting, fantastic effects, yeah, go see this film.

Well, okay, it's not everything I want to say. It's everything I can say without giving away spoilers. I now want to go over the stuff containing spoilers, so if you haven't seen it yet, leave this post now. If you want to read my more in depth view, please continue.

In all honesty, there was something missing from this film. If you look at 'Batman Begins', it was a good film, but not great. It set up the origin story to great effect, but it wasn't really a brilliant film. 'The Dark Knight' was, in my new trademark phrase, in-fu*king mense. It had everything really, brilliant villain/performance from Heath Ledger, terrific story, great action, it was a truly spectacular film. So, when you line the films up, 'Batman Begins' is...7/10, 'The Dark Knight' is 10/10, 'The Dark Knight Rises'...is 9/10.

Don't start sending me death threats like people did with the critics who gave negative reviews, I still think the film was brilliant, it's just, 'The Dark Knight Rises' lacked something which 'The Dark Knight' had. Let's just put this out there, I think it was mainly the villain. Yes, Bane was a fantastic villain, like I hoped the Christopher Nolan film has made the villain menacing again after the debacle in 'Batman and Robin', but Bane was less memorable than Heath Ledger's Joker. Heath Ledger's Joker, let's be honest, made 'The Dark Knight', he made catchphrases out of lines which shouldn't be catchphrases, like "Why so serious?", "Poor choice of words", and "And here we go,", whilst also having some of the most memorable scenes, such as Joker chasing the police convoy carrying Harvey Dent, the magic trick, and Joker gate crashing Wayne's fundraiser for Harvey Dent.

Bane's most memorable line in 'The Dark Knight Rises' (TDKR) was "Your punishment must be more severe", and that's mainly because it featured in pretty much every single trailer. Bane was a fantastic villain, but he was less memorable  And then there's Miranda Tate. Like I said this bit contains spoilers. Going into the film, Marion Cotillard was facing claims that she was in fact playing Talia al Ghul. Cotillard denied the claims, and this turned out to be 'TDKR's worst kept secret. Cotillard was in fact playing a dual role, she was Talia al Ghul, using 'Miranda Tate' as an alias.

While I went into the film ignoring these claims and seeing what the film throws at me, it did become painfully obvious that 'Miranda' was working with Bane when Batman defeated him and asked him where the detonator for the nuclear bomb was. Actually it was becoming more and more obvious that she was Talia since the film kept referencing Ra's al Ghul and the Legion of Shadows. Looking at it, Cotillard couldn't confirm she was Talia, otherwise we'd be watching the film all the while going "when's she going to betray them?", the producers behind the film were in a lose-lose situation; though they went with the better option.

The other thing, yes, this film was focusing on Bane and Talia, so there shouldn't have been that many references of the Joker. Then again Cillian Murphy reprised his role as Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow and the film kept mentioning Harvey Dent/Two-Face. Yes Bane released the inmates of Blackgate Prison, but I was kind of hoping that he'd do the same with Arkham Asylum (Though I do admit that that would most likely interfere with his control of the city). But, I did kind of hope for some reference to the Joker being out and about in Gotham, like, a burning smiley face, or some graffiti. It would have most likely been a two second clip, but to be honest, it probably would have made the film. Yes, they couldn't show the Joker because of Heath Ledger's passing, but like I said, something that referenced him, maybe even an actor hidden in shadow, that would have actually been brilliant for me. It's a personal thing really.

Apart from that, 'TDKR' did seem to be a copy of 'The Dark Knight'. Like I said 'Batman Begins' set up the origin story, and 'The Dark Knight' created a great anarchy feel to it. 'TDKR'...creates a great anarchy feel to it. Then again, Bane did only bury them underground, effectively only taking them out of the equation until later, whereas Joker didn't really care, he just found it more fun with the police trying to stop him. Joker's method kind of made the public feel more fear, because he was saying that the police couldn't help, no matter how hard they try, while Bane's method sort of gave less of an impact since the public knew straight away the police couldn't help them, except for a small resistance group.


Then there's Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, John Blake, where, like the Miranda Tate character, you just had one question in your head, "Why are you here?". Like Miranda Tate, he had a payoff; Miranda was Talia, and John Blake inherited the Batcave, whilst also...somehow knowing Wayne was Batman. The thing was, the John Blake character was surprisingly great, making you forget that he was a new character. And then they added a scene where John's full legal name was 'Robin John Blake', of course referencing the Robin character. But, it felt like they were building up to something, and then the second they revealed his real name they hit a brick wall, and then they turned a ninety degree angle to continue onto him inheriting the Batcave. It actually would've been fine if they kept out the bit revealing the legal name, but it just felt out of place.


Now, there's all this talk about them rebooting the Batman franchise so that they can incorporate it into a possible 'Justice League' film (Following the success of Marvel's 'The Avengers'), but with Blake inheriting the Batcave, I really don't see why they should. They should just continue the story with Blake, rather than reboot one of the most successful film series ever.

Again, don't be put off by my views here, the film is still fantastic, it's just missing the sparkle that 'The Dark Knight' had. Maybe my expectations were too high, seeing as how, well, it's 'The Dark Knight Rises', seeing as how it's the final film in Nolan's trilogy. But again this film is brilliant, it's not my favourite, but I not going to say "don't go see it", no, definitely go see it, it's still one of the best films this year, just don't expect it to be the best film of the year.

An Hour of: Lego Batman 2 DC Super Heroes

So both Lego and Batman are awesome, but what's better than Lego and Batman? Why Lego Batman of course! If you've been living under a rock, here's the basics of the Lego (Insert name here) games. It all started off with 'Lego Star Wars', which was truly a fantastic game, as was 'Lego Star Wars 2'. Then along came Lego Indiana Jones, the first Lego Batman game, Lego Harry Potter, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, and Lego Rock Band. Now, while the games have been enjoyable, they had been starting to strain; 'Lego Pirates of the Caribbean' started to get boring around the third film, while 'Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7' just felt forced.


But there was something different with this game straight away; the figures are going to be voice acted. And, to be honest, that has breathed new life into this game. It makes such a change after hearing the characters say something other than "grunt" and "sigh" after all these years. It gives the...miniatures more personality, more emotion. And while I was disappointed that they could not persuade Mark Hamill to do the Joker again for the sake of Lego, they did get the Highlander himself Clancy Brown to reprise his role as Lex Luthor, which was pretty awesome.

And I do love how the Riddler is portrayed in this. Actually, before I get this started, I do love how all the characters are portrayed in this, how they are written, how they interact with each other. Especially the relationships between Joker and Luthor, and Batman and Superman, I love the relationship between them. The game appears to have kept their relationship to how we'd expect it, Superman respects Batman but can't help that his powers enable him to do everything better, whilst Batman also respects Superman, but he keeps up his isolated personality while being annoyed as to how everyone craves Superman. It also keeps the relationship between Batman and Joker.

Loading up the game we're introduced to Vicki Vale (Who does a news report for each level) announcing that Bruce Wayne is up against "some bald guy from Metropolis" (Reinforcing my belief that all bald people are evil simply because the rest of the world has hair). However the Joker (In typical Joker fashion) crashes the party with the Arkham choir group, including the Penguin, Harley Quinn, the Riddler and Two-Face, with Joker claiming the award for himself and mugging everyone else, including Lex's watch.

Batman and Robin, who has suddenly appeared from somewhere, then fly through the wall. Joker, Two-Face, Penguin and Riddler escape under the stage whilst Harley Quinn stays to be our first mini boss. First of all though I used this opportunity to get used to the controls once again, by beating up henchmen, collecting studs, saving a citizen in peril, destroying stuff and building things. Once we finally get to Harley, she's fairly easy to beat, you just throw your batarang at her three times.

Going under the stage we find the musicians are still playing. They are dedicated. You can destroy their instruments to collect more studs and to advance onto the Riddler mini-boss. Wow, I can only wonder what goes through those musicians minds after that. I mean, Joker, Two-Face, Penguin and Riddler leave these guys alone, and then Batman and Robin come down and destroy their instruments! They must think Batman is a real jerk now.

Anyway, Riddler decides to play hide and seek, so this is effectively a puzzle room. We need to get past a camera without being seen. This involves using the grappling hook, travelling across the platforms, and knocking over a box so that we can build a suit pad, giving us the sensor suit; allowing us to turn invisible and  to see other characters as skeletons. Upon getting past the sensor, we then come across a point where both characters have to use their grappling hooks to progress onto the next part.


Now it's here that I noticed something off with the A.I While I did the first one, I was expecting the other character, played by the A.I, to automatically go onto the other hook, since I recall the previous games doing that, to an extent. The A.I. did not. It was a minor thing, but annoying. Now, while I am going over the first hour of gameplay, I have played beyond that. And, the A.I is one of the worst I've ever seen. Even worse then Sheva from 'Resident Evil 5', at least she moved to the other place where you needed her to use the co-op function. In 'Lego Batman 2' (LB2), the A.I doesn't even fight, it just allows the henchmen or boss or whatever to attack it. There's a later level where Batman and Robin are separated, and you need to do something with each character to help the other to progress, however, you will find that when you swap characters, you'll be sent all the way back to the last point you swapped. Sometimes the A.I may follow you,  but it is generally useless most of the time.

Back to the level, we'll eventually come across a point where Batman needs to use the x-ray vision that the sensor suit provides him, on a section where the Riddler is hiding. This reminds me of one of the Riddler's puzzles in 'Arkham City', but I'll come back to that later. After finding him three times we get to fight Riddler who, like Harley, is quite simple to beat.

Moving on we come across a bit where we unlock Robin's acrobatic suit, which enables us to get to the upper level where Two-Face appears. He then annoyingly shoots at you while you help Batman get up. Using the Batman sensor suit to destroy some things beyond the two sensors, we unlock a bit for something which requires Robin to become bubbleboy. After taking on Two-Face, who was slightly tougher than Harley and Riddler, we see Joker at the top of the stairs.

We then take on Joker (Apparently Penguin got lost) who uses his patented joy buzzer against us. Again, fairly easy, but it does end differently since you need to use x-ray vision again to send Joker flying through a wall. Upon using the zipwire however we see Joker is making his escape. Oh there's Penguin!...oh, never mind. And that's the first level.

After seeing how stunning Gotham looks in this game, we come across Batman and Robin on top of the building, whilst Joker goes round in a circle in the water in his boat. Now, unlike the previous Lego games, albeit the Lego Harry Potter games, LB2 is open world. Again, it's referencing 'Arkham City' again, and, as stated earlier, it isn't the only one. LB2 does reference 'Arkham City' numerous times, from one of the opening into logos for Telltale and Warner Brothers, the x-ray mini-puzzle involving the Riddler, a news report later, and of course the open world, heck, even promotional posters spoofed 'Arkham City'. While this was used in 'Lego Harry Potter', it does still need some getting used to. The ghost studs returning to tell you where to go though is a big help. There are mini-boss battles as well in this open world, the first being Captain Boomerang as far as I'm aware,where they can be available for purchase upon defeat. This, really was a great addition I feel, it makes you want to explore the open world.

After collecting studs and changing Batman and Robin into the sensor and acrobatic suits, we can finally unlock the terminal which allows us to use Robin's helicopter. Yeah, in a Batman game I really want to use Robin's helicopter first and not the Batplane. Doesn't matter though since Robin crashes it a few seconds later due to a searchlight. So this level involves fixing his helicopter, and once again the level starts off with the henchmen beating up the already damaged vehicle. I suppose they think they can do more damage to the vehicles than the flesh and bone Batman and Robin.

And in this level, I really got annoyed with Alfred's voice. His cough and "excuse me sir" are to draw your attention to hints throughout the game, but they also come up to tell you when you can't do things, and they kept popping up telling me I couldn't destroy the shiny objects for the time being. Well, at least not until you unlock Batman's power suit, which is in a television trailer. For some reason. Anyway after blowing stuff up we can unlock Robin's magnetic suit, which allows us to climb up the building.


And this was one of the most frustrating bits of the game, since every single time I tried to go round a corner, Robin jumps, which means he drops back to the ground and I have to do it again. It took some getting use to, but eventually I got the hang of it. Which is good because it's so easy to drop off the ledges, meaning you need to climb again. Then again climbing up the side of the building was more fun than it should have been. After doing that and getting the bits for Robin's helicopter, we see a cutscene where Batman gets his batplane, and apparently the waters surrounding Gotham have sharks. Since when did the water surrounding Gotham have sharks? Wait...Gotham has the likes of Batman, Joker, Killer Croc, Mister Freeze, Ra's Al Ghul, etc, and my main complaint is about sharks............

Anyway we then enter a vehicle type boss battle, and it's really good, I can't really remember a boss battle like this since the old Lego Star Wars games. There have probably been vehicle boss battles in the other Lego games but I can't think of them right now. It is fairly straight forward, just shoot anything that moves. We then get another boss battle with Joker, this time on land, and this one is a lot more tricky, since it involves building things, aiming, and using suit powers, while not being helped by the AI and while being shot at by Joker's missiles.

And upon defeating the Joker and hearing that Superman had fixed the hole in the wall and had put the batboat back in the water, making Robin starstruck and Batman slightly annoyed, the hour is up. And this is a great Lego game. Sure, some of the mechanics, especially the partner AI, need some work, but apart from that this is a truly enjoyable game. The voice acting delivers some new and much needed humor, the characters personalities and attitudes are brilliant, the graphics are fantastic and the story is captivating. Is it the best Lego game yet? Maybe, but it's definitely a strong contender.