The completion of this task, the so-called “inception”, is vital for team leader Dominic Cobb; unable to return home to his children because of legal complications, he is forced to stay on the run, taking jobs to attempt to buy his way back home. Client Saito’s job offer is irresistible: a powerful figure in the energy market, Saito promises to use his connections to let Cobb return home, presuming the inception is successful. What is already a difficult task is complicated by the presence of Cobb’s subconscious projection of his dead wife Mal, seemingly intent on sabotaging his missions to convince him to stay in the dream world with her forever.

Cobb and Mal’s relationship and the circumstances surrounding her death are key plot points in the film; explained through dream sequences, snippets and emotionally charged flashbacks, Nolan does an excellent job of teasing us with the details and leaving us to guess the rest as he returns to the mission. Perhaps most interesting about the situation is that Mal is only a projection of Cobb’s subconscious, and her anger and attempts to trap him are influenced primarily by the guilt with which he is wracked over the notion he is responsible for her death. His physical conflict with her in the dream world represents his internal turmoil; reconciliation would be akin to coming to terms with her death, and the plot accurately depicts the difficulty involved in forgiving oneself.

A definite master of intrigue, Nolan’s primary policy appears to be that of hiding the secrets until the very end; he lets the film become serious and dark before adding a dash of humour to bring the audience back into the action. There’s no break for thinking: in flashbacks, you’ll be lost in the plot, deeply analytical and trying to guess the meaning; then you’ll be thrust back into the action and the accompanying state of awe as we enjoy fast-paced, gravity-defying fight scenes rivalling those unreal, carefully choreographed scenes seen in The Matrix. His preference for practical effects over computer-generated is admirable; even the most complex fight sequences were patiently shot over and over, take after take to match his artistic vision. There’s nothing trivial about the 100-foot motorised hallway set built in-studio, turning at a speed of eight revolutions per second to simulate shifts in gravity; this is the way special effects should be done.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt skilfully navigates the spinning set, throwing his armed assailants against the wall as gravity changes to his advantage; his character is Cobb’s curiously-mannered point man; perhaps even more curious about the character are the similarities in his mannerisms to those of Gordon-Levitt’s last role, Tom in Marc Webb’s (500) Days of Summer. Undoubtedly a unique and talented actor, it is somewhat interesting to note that he isn’t engaging his full potential here. The fight scenes are awe-inspiring and epic, but in brainstorming sessions it’s easy to forget you’re meant to be watching a trained extractor and point man, not a smitten greetings card writer.

A better example of acting talent well explored is in the case of Ellen Page, perhaps best known for her role as the eponymous heroine in 2007’s drama-comedy Juno, who portrays architect Ariadne, hired to design the levels within the dream to create the impression of realism for the subject they are attempting to deceive. Nolan’s idea here is wonderful; the world, designed by the architect, is populated by projected manifestations of the subject’s subconscious after they are drawn into the dream. However, if the dreamer changes the world of the dream too much, the subject will subconsciously attempt to find and eliminate the dreamer through whatever means possible. In some cases, the subconscious projections are militarised thanks to training by another extractor, making the process more difficult.

Inception is, without a doubt, the best film of the year so far, and is far more impressive than Nolan’s last work, The Dark Knight. Combining a clever plot with strong, emotionally-charged acting and some breathtaking action sequences, Inception will probably go down as one of my favourite recent films. If you haven’t already seen it, see it now; if you have seen it, you’ll know exactly why I’m such a fan of this film.

Matthew Vaughn, someone I’m totally unfamiliar with, does a good job directing. The action scenes are colourful and inventive in a way that’s awesome rather than just silly — though it is a bit silly in a way that’s appropriate for a film that’s mostly a spoof of the superhero genre. The film has a very modern look without turning its action scenes into an incomprehensible series of blurry close-ups like so many movies do nowadays. It also features a voice-over from the main character (a narrative device I’m in love with for some reason, so bias ahoy). The movie is technically very well-made: Big Daddy’s big action scene, in which the camera zooms through a security recording and smoothly pans across a large rectangular room, is particularly memorable both as a technical achievement and as an ingenious storytelling device (allowing us to see the entire room without being confined to the security camera we’re supposed to be looking at, without losing coherence).

The story takes a leaf out of Christopher Nolan’s idea trough, following Dave’s transition into the masked vigilante Kick-Ass, how he gets known across the city, and how he takes on the mob first and a supervillain second. Like Batman, the movie keeps to a sketchy sort of “realism” which is just barely realistic enough to fit the theme. Kick-Ass gains worldwide popularity through a MySpace page and a shaky YouTube video, becoming famous in the course of a few weeks.

If you asked Bruce Wayne how he picked his costume, you’d get a vague, “Well, bats are kind of scary I guess.” If you asked Dave Lizewski, you’d get the more succinct, “I dunno.” Keeping in mind that the movie is not supposed to be especially serious, I give it points for cutting the crap and getting right to the point. In fact, that’s the main thing I like about this movie. It really doesn’t mess around at all. Dave becomes a superhero less then fifteen minutes into the film, flatly cutting through that “first hour of the movie is an origin story” bullshit that every other superhero movie does.

The only thing that bugs me about it is the last fifteen minutes. After a startlingly effective tonal shift from comedy to drama during the rising action, the actual climax of the movie is very disappointing. Instead of resolving any of the movie’s themes or being at all consistent, we have a huge fight scene that isn’t even focused on the main character — instead, it’s focused on Hit-Girl, now playing the role of Steve Urkel. It’s okay until the last few moments, when the movie suddenly remembers that Hit-Girl isn’t the protagonist, at which point Dave spontaneously appears out of nowhere, having now gained the superpower of not going deaf when firing two Gatling guns on either side of his head.

Funny? Sure. Awesome? Okay, sure. Consistent? No. Annoying? Very much. I know I’m probably in the minority here, but this climax is so paint-drinkingly stupid that it completely stops the movie from being “great”, in my eyes. Don’t get me wrong: it’s fine for a movie to be stupid. The problem here is that, even though the movie is a comedy, it isn’t that kind of comedy. This isn’t Spongebob Squarepants. The movie, except for this scene, sticks to that aforementioned barely-plausible realism that gave it a very specific theme: “If people tried to be superheros in real life, they would suck.” It’s fine to show Hit-Girl being an unadulterated badass and mowing down legions of mobsters with assault rifles — precisely because she’s Hit-Girl, the character we all know to be completely unrealistic and silly. Dave Lizewski — even when he’s Kick-Ass — is supposed to be this ineffectual nerd who gets his ass handed to him in every scene. Turning him into a badass totally ruins the theme of the movie; at least, it ruins the theme I thought the movie would have.

With the climax taken into account, what is the theme of the movie? “Be a superhero because superheros are totally awesome”? Might as well watch The Dark Knight.

Even when it derails Dave’s character for the sake of a great action scene, it squanders the potential that could have had. Watching Dave murder a bunch of people with his testosterone guns is cool, but not nearly as cool as any of Big Daddy’s or Hit-Girl’s action scenes. His later fight with the supervillain is flat-out boring, basically amounting to a couple of sissy punches in a small nondescript room. Nobody even gets injured; they just knock each other out and fall asleep together like a couple of gay lovers.

There’s a lot of nits to be picked if you’re into that sort of thing. Many references are dated in a very head-scratching way. I understand that the movie is based on a comic book written by a 40-year-old man, but surely someone in the cast and crew must have used the internet in the last five years and realized that no one uses MySpace anymore. The film’s story takes some rather huge liberties in adapting the story as it is, so a minor change like that should hardly be a problem. And what world do these characters live in where everyone has YouTube and iPhones, but comic books are considered a huge phenomenon? The comics industry is dead and has been for a very long time, as much as the writers would try to deny it; the fact that the movie doesn’t even attempt to acknowledge this fact is sort of a missed joke.

Overall, you probably think I hate this movie, but I really don’t. If I was asked to review my favourite movie of all time, I’d still find something to complain about. At the end of the day, Kick-Ass is hilarious, exciting, and very much worth your money. I just think it could have been a bit better.

This article will take a look at various video games from their earliest roots to what they have evolved into today. From humble beginnings to graphically amazing some of these franchises are older than me!

The Zelda series started off on the NES in 1986 with The Legend of Zelda. The latest game The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks (not pictured) was released at the end of 2009. I chose to picture Twilight Princess as graphically it looks better than Spirit Tracks

Super Mario Bros. was the very first game in the Mario franchise. Originally released on the Famicom in 1985 Mario has been the icon of Nintendo ever since having multiple games on every console and handheld they have made. The latest in the franchise is Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii released last month.

The original Prince of Persia was developed for the Apple II in 1989, it has been ported to various consoles and systems since then and has even had a movie loosely based on some of the later games. The most recent game in the series, Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands, was released for all seventh generation consoles and handhelds earlier this year.

The original Metal Gear was one of the first stealth-action games ever. It was originally released for the MSX2 in summer 1987 and later that year for the Famicom. The latest game in the series Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots was released in 2008 for the PlayStation 3. It is often considered one of the greatest looking console games ever released and supposedly makes full use of all the PlayStation 3′s power. Though the game is dated there have been very few that have surpassed both graphically and technically.

The first Ninja Gaiden was released for the Famicom in 1988 it had many ports some of which featured upgraded graphics. The latest in the series Ninja Gaiden 2 was released only for the XBOX 360 in 2008 but a graphically improved port was released under the title Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 in 2009 for the PlayStation 3.

Fallout was released on both Windows and Mac OS computers in 1997, it was considered by many to be one of the greatest RPG’s of all time. The latest in the series Fallout New Vegas is still in development but is supposed to be released later this year. Although graphically it’s not so much more advanced than the previous title, Obsidian has promised to deliver a brand new experience.

Resident Evil made its way onto the PlayStation in 1996 and was later released ported to the Sega Saturn and PC. The series has since then had plenty of spin-offs, and more than enough movie adaptations. Resident Evil 4 which was originally released in 2005 brought the series back to life with it’s new take on the old franchise. It’s probably been ported to more systems than almost any other game with versions for the PS2, PC, Mobile Phone, iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, Zeebo, and Wii. The latest game in the series, Resident Evil 5, was released in 2009 for Windows, XBOX 360, and PlayStation 3.

Street Fighter made its debut in arcades in 1987, and since then its been praised as one of the greatest fighting series of all time. The latest game in the franchise, Street Fighter IV was released in Japanese arcades on Taito Type X2 hardware. In 2009 it was brought to the XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3 as well as the PC. The upgraded version Super Street Fighter IV featuring a host of new characters and content was released earlier this year at a discounted price of $40.

Pokemon Red, Green, and Blue Version were originally released in 1996 in Japan. The Blue Version featured more than Red and Green Version and was consequently used in the port of Red and Blue Versions to the US and Europe in 1998. Ever since its release Pokemon has started a multi-billion dollar phenomenon all over the world with the latest versions Pokemon Black & White for the Nintendo DS to be released in Japan this year and everywhere else the following. With the release of the latest games the PokeDex has surpassed 500 Pokemon, and with each new iteration it continues to grow.

Final Fantasy was initially released on the Famicom in 1987 and didn’t reach U.S. shores till 3 years later. Each game tells a new tale so the need for gamers to have played a previous title is unnecessary. The ever expanding and ironically never ending “Final” Fantasy series continues to grow with a brand new online game Final Fantasy XIV to be released for PlayStation 3 and PC later this year.

Jesse, however, did not have children. He lived alone and had always lived alone since the day he moved in. The bar-dwellers would say, “Isn’t he about marrying age by now?” Still Jesse lived alone, never going to the bars, and the people there had to make their own conclusions. But this was a year ago, after all. This was before that chilly Christmas morning when Jesse pulled himself out of bed, looked out his window, and saw the strangest sight he thought he would ever see:

It was a long expanse of short black hairs stretching across the whole Anders property, only stopping neatly at the borders. Jesse couldn’t believe his eyes. He left his house for the first time in almost a month, running to meet the first passer-by he could and asking, “Do you see them? Can you see my hairs?” And every person Jesse asked would conclude yes, he did have some hairs, but they were no longer than hairs normally are.

The Anders family were not quitters, however. Jesse took one look at his hairs and made the decision then: the hairs had to go. Jesse wouldn’t quit until his property was smooth again.

Jesse took his lawnmower and replaced the steely blades with oversized razors. He added a vacuum to clean out the hairs, and a hose to spread shaving cream ahead of him. Jesse called his new invention the Lawnshaver, and used it to shave the hairs that very day. When he was finished it was already suppertime. He left his smooth property behind to eat and sleep alone, leaving the Lawnshaver outside.

The next day, Jesse rose out of bed, looked out his window, and saw that all the hairs had grown back overnight – thicker and longer than the day before.

Soon Jesse Anders fell into a routine. He would wake every morning to longer and longer hairs, shave them all with his Lawnshaver, then eat supper and sleep alone. It wasn’t a month before the hairs grew so thick and strong that Jesse had to start upgrading his invention: the Lawnshaver 2000, the Lawnshaver XP, the iLawnshaver. By the half-year mark, Jesse’s Lawnshaver was as big as a monster truck, with twelve eight-foot razors and a propane tank of shaving cream.

Passers-by started stopping in the mornings to ask, “Whatever happened to the old Anders house?” The hairs were higher than the roof. The bar-dwellers didn’t want to gossip about Jesse Anders anymore; to them, Alan had no son.

Jesse grew more and more obsessed with his hairs every day. By September he stopped eating regular meals. By October he was an insomniac, lying awake to stare at his ceiling every night. By November he thought he could hear the laughter of children echoing through the halls.

This Christmas, exactly a year after the hairs started growing, Jesse Anders decided to put a stop to it. The hairs were already so long he couldn’t see the tips without a helicopter, tangled and packed so tight and thick that he couldn’t leave his house without shaving. He knew they were growing during the night whether he was sleeping or not, so Jesse decided to just stand outside and wait.

Nothing happened for a very long time as Jesse waited through suppertime, through bedtime, through midnight. He was already so skeletal that he couldn’t eat solid food, so he couldn’t see this as much of a loss. He just had to see what was causing those hairs to grow and grow.

The malnutrition must have gotten to him, though, because when the hairs did grow, they seemed to do it in an instant. He just blinked and suddenly he was surrounded on all sides by pure black hair. He couldn’t see his family’s house anymore. He found himself spinning around in a daze, searching desperately for an escape; his clouded mind unable to comprehend when the atrophied muscles in his legs gave out and he collapsed onto the ground.

This is how Jesse Anders died just one year ago. The official record will claim that he starved himself to death through insanity, but that’s only what it appears to be. In reality, it was the billions upon billions of black widows living in the tangled jungle of hairs that had been the Anders family property. They used no poison, but they murdered him nonetheless.

Ben Affleck stars as Holden McNeil, an uptight comic book artist who makes his living on “dick and fart jokes” while he tries to think of better comic ideas. He lives with his inker, Banky Edwards (Jason Lee), who is totally satisfied with the dick and fart jokes. A running subplot in the film concerns Banky’s desire to turn their comic books into a cartoon series, which Holden is reluctant to do because he feels it will make him into even less of a “true artist”.

During all this, Holden falls in love with fellow artist Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams), who draws a less successful but more artistically-fulfilling comic book. Unfortunately for Holden, he only finds out after falling in love that Alyssa is a lesbian. They can only be friends, so Holden tries to let it go and do just that. He fails, as anyone would, but so does she. Even though she’s supposed to be a lesbian, Alyssa falls in love with Holden and the two start dating.

The rest of the movie is a really harsh and realistic look at relationships, sexuality, and art, which I won’t spoil here. The characters are engaging and relatable while still being very funny; no one person stands out as being “comic relief”, as everyone gets their fair share of punchlines and witty dialogue. The plot is excellent and treads some serious ground without becoming too angsty — an important quality in any story. It all works very well to provide a satisfying experience — a movie with deep characters, big laughs, and a plot that should leave an impact on the audience, no matter how they interpret it.

There are minor gripes to be had with the execution, however. The script drags at times and loses a lot of its humour as the film goes on. There are a few too many dramatic monologues from the characters, especially in the third act. Although the acting is very good for the most part, some of these are a bit too on-the-nose to make sense.

One monologue that does work especially well is given by Alyssa about two thirds of the way into the movie. As she lies in bed with Holden, she talks to him about her sexual identity and experimentation – in such an insightful way that it makes me wonder how a straight man could have written the screenplay. This dialogue in particular is what makes Chasing Amy worth watching. You’ll have to watch the movie to understand — a quotation simply doesn’t have the same impact.

Still, there is one huge problem that looms over the movie and almost ruins it for me. This is a problem I have with the film’s message. Chasing Amy is a movie about a lesbian who falls in love with a man, but the movie excludes a certain word entirely from its dialogue-heavy script. Not once does a character use the word “bisexual” in the entire film — even though Alyssa clearly is.

Alyssa’s self-identification as lesbian is all because she doesn’t want to be ostracized by her gay friends. It’s an unfortunate identity crisis brought on by our society’s implicit acceptance of monosexuality over bisexuality. It’s a bad thing. The only thing worse than being gay in a straight world is being bi in a gay world, which is a message that the character of Alyssa conveys quite well — but only in implication. The film refuses to use the b-word.

Bisexual erasure exists — to many, many people, bisexuality is a “phase” that people will eventually snap out of. Sometimes being bisexual is seen as a cheat, like an unfair advantage that should be discouraged. Attitudes like this cause people to be pigeonholed into the discrete categories of heterosexuality and homosexuality, all depending on the situation. This is shown clearly in the scene where Alyssa tells her friends that she is dating Holden. To Alyssa’s friends, she is “selling out” by allowing herself to be attracted to men — as if she’s straight now and everything previous was just a lie.

Chasing Amy seems to be making a deal with the audience to accept Alyssa’s sexuality for what it is — and to combat bisexual erasure. But by leaving out the b-word entirely, the film paradoxically supports this attitude. Many people — gay and straight alike — misinterpret Chasing Amy as a movie that shows how the right man can turn a lesbian straight. By obfuscating the real meaning and refusing to make its point clear, Kevin Smith panders to audiences who only want to see this misinterpretation.

It’s still a great movie that has a lot to say about sexual identity, but it doesn’t really make an effort to teach the audience anything. It just preaches to the choir. It could have done more than that with minimal effort.

I’m not going to talk about gaming as an art form, or how hardcore gamers are no longer the target market; no, I’m going to talk about how the morals of the gamer – you and I and everybody else reading this – have changed. Let’s take a look at some classic games which I’m sure you’ll all remember. I’ve picked a wide range to illustrate my point in the most cohesive way possible. I’ll start with an old favourite: The Legend of Zelda. Alright, here we go, it’s a basic enough premise: you’re a hero called Link, there’s a princess called Zelda that needs saving, so you gotta go do what you gotta do. You can’t just stroll up to the castle and demand her back, however. First, you’ll need to collect weapons, talk to wizards in caves, defeat bosses and traverse some fairly treacherous terrain. It’s all very epic.

Let’s cycle back in time a little bit and go to Space Invaders. It’s a very basic game in all respects; visually, it looks like nothing more than some squished flies descending from the top of the screen to the bottom of the screen, with a green triangle throwing rectangles at them to block their progress. Of course, in your head, you’re defending planet Earth from invading aliens. You are a hero, saving the world from these little bastard sky-bugs. Right on. Of course, nobody plays Space Invaders any more. You want to save the world from aliens, you’ll play Half-Life 2, which puts you in the shoes of physicist Gordon Freeman, defending the world from the Combine, who have appointed Dr Breen as ruler of the now very dystopian Earth. Once again, you play the hero, and you’re killing alien invaders to save the world.

Do you see what I’m getting at yet? The most traditional form of narrative in video gaming sees you play the hero, saving the world, a village, or even just a petty little princess. The gamer feels empowered. Virtual people are praising him for his deeds, and that’s a great form of escapism: you’re escaping to a world where you’ve done something impossible, and everybody loves you for that. Let’s go accelerate into the future and take a look at Red Dead Redemption. You’re an outlaw in the Wild West, but not the loveable anti-hero type you’ve seen Clint Eastwood play. In fact, you can earn an achievement for successfully killing a woman by tying her to train tracks. That’s not heroic at all, that’s bloody villainy.

You couldn’t get away with that back in the ’80s; what kind of gamer back then would want to play a game where you can slaughter innocent people without remorse? Games have continued to evolve to the point where they’re beginning to attract a completely different kind of audience, one that is perfectly willing to break their moral code in a virtual world, and that has created the demand for games like Red Dead Redemption. I’m not in any way damning games like this – hell, Grand Theft Auto is one of the finest sandbox series ever, and the latest instalments have a much stronger narrative than most people give credit. In fact, this new evolution of gamer has given us a wider range of games to play, so for that, I reckon we ought to give credit to these depraved souls. Next time you play BioShock and come to the point where you can choose to harvest or save your Little Sister, remember that someone, somewhere, always chooses to harvest, and it’s thanks to them we have Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, All Points Bulletin and Manhunt.

5. The Zombie Survival Guide
As I’ve stated before, I love zombies. It’s a guilty pleasure at this point. The zombie subgenre really shouldn’t continue to be around; at its best it’s a huge cliche that keeps getting retreaded, and at its worst it’s an insult to the original films by George A. Romero. Yet, I still think zombies are awesome, and I’m really glad that they’re still popular.

The zombie comedy, however, is coming to a close. I really think Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland have run through all the humour a pure zombie comedy could have, and a film adaptation of The Zombie Survival Guide would only be yet another comedic zombie movie. It’s possible that the screenplay could make it over-the-top in the same fashion as the book, which hasn’t been done for a zombie movie yet as far as I know, but that sense of humour would get tiring really quickly.

4. Monopoly
What would be better than a film based on the most popular board game in the United States? Almost anything, I’d think. As if the game wasn’t boring enough as it is! Who wants to watch an old man make super exciting retail estate dealings for two hours? Though I admit, I look forward to seeing that thimble playing piece as a cute CGI mascot. Besides, don’t we already have a movie about how much monopolies suck?

And Citizen Kane was kind of good, so the Monopoly movie is going to have a hard time competing. Besides, do you really want to see rule 34 applied to the thimble even more so than it already is? I don’t.

3. The Magic School Bus
Wouldn’t life be better if there existed a hardcore action movie based on the Magic School Bus? The film takes place twenty years after the events of the TV show. Liz has been kidnapped by an evil corporation bent on destroying science education forever. The movie follows the students as they reunite under Obi-Wan The Frizz and battle the evil Ben Stein, who has used the kidnapping as an excuse to lead our heroes into a deathtrap!

Our protagonist is Arnold Schwarzenegger as “I shoulda stayed home today” Arnold, who has somehow turned into a muscle-bound Austrian politician in the last twenty years. Seriously people, this movie writes itself. Someone get Michael Bay on the phone.

2. The Sims
Has The Sims ever been more than a voyeuristic dollhouse/murder-simulator? How do you turn that into a movie? The way I see it, there are two options:

a) A reality show in movie form, with a twist ending. The first act introduces all the Sims and establishes their various motives, desires, fears, etc. The second act shows the Sims sleeping for an hour or so, sped up to run eight times as fast as it was filmed. The third act is when God comes down and sets fire to everything.

b) A Truman Show rip-off, with Truman’s fear of water replaced with Truman’s fear of fire.

Either way, the movie might actually have a chance at the box office thanks to all the searing flesh that will be included — but I’ll give it a scathing review on my blog, and that means it’s bad.

1. Twitter
Do I even need to explain this one?

The question is, does the enormous price tag help make Avatar something worth seeing? Or is this just an expensive tech experiment?

The film follows Jake (Sam Worthington), a marine tasked with exploring the surface of an alien planet, Pandora, and communicating with the natives. Jake gets this position because he has similar genetics to his twin brother, who was a scientist initially picked for the job. To visit Pandora, the scientists and Jake use artificially-created alien bodies as avatars (thus the title).

The aliens – blue-skinned cat-people made out of advanced CGI and motion capture technology – are known as the Na’vi (with an apostrophe for decoration). The Na’vi are very spiritual beings who live in a giant tree, worship a god who actually exists, commune with the animals, etc. They are cliched nature-loving aliens through and through.

Humans are the bad guys who want to destroy the aliens’ big tree, which is located on a large deposit of valuable “unobtainium” (probably the funniest joke in the movie). The whole avatar program is in place so that scientists can communicate with the Na’vi and tell them to move out of the tree. Why the government would spend billions of dollars developing the avatars instead of just killing all the aliens is never explained.

From there, the film turns into Pochahontas. Jake falls in love with one of the aliens, they have a PG-rated mating ritual, and he turns against the evil humans. Some other sympathetic scientists help Jake to stand up for the Na’vi while a generic antagonist with literally no personality whatsoever rides around in a manga-inspired mecha and tries to destroy the big tree.

It’s an environmentalist film, if that was too subtle for you.

Still, even if the story is nothing special, that doesn’t mean Avatar is a bad movie. The delivery is a big part of it, too. And with this much money on the table, it’s clear that the delivery of this film was a big deal to Cameron. He waited twelve years because 1997 couldn’t deliver.

The acting is good. No performance really stands out, but that’s the story’s fault. Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana do most of the movie in motion-capture, which is pretty impressive – it’s hard enough to act in the film industry when you have to do the same scene dozens of times, even harder when you’re working against computer-generated creatures that you can’t see on the set.

The imagination and design put into the setting is also pretty impressive. None of it is particularly original, but there’s clearly been a lot of thought put into fleshing out what’s there. The human technology looks very mechanistic and grey, which is played for contrast against the blue-and-green alien motif. The Na’vi themselves are nicely designed. The filmmakers cheated somewhat by making them very humanoid, but it’s necessary to make the human-falls-in-love-with-alien plot work. If the Na’vi were any less human, the whole film would have crashed because the audience would no longer be able to believe that Jake could fall in love with one of them.

The CGI is gorgeous, of course. Nothing to complain about there.

I’m torn on exactly what to think about Avatar. It has an incredibly trite story that I find very annoying, but the delivery is actually pretty solid. It is a very well-made film that might be worth seeing for the effects alone. It still leaves me with a sour taste, though. Titantic, at least, had something worth delivering, and that made the delivery much more satisfying. Avatar is frustrating because it has good effects that it doesn’t even deserve. It’s a very boring and uninspired movie that isn’t worth 230 million dollars by any stretch of the imagination.

Had the film been made in a realistic setting – not as a fantasy with sci-fi flavour – it wouldn’t be half as annoying. The aliens aren’t necessary, and the special effects only serve to distract. Just watch the trailer and you’ll get the same effect. All the eye-candy without the condescending tree-hugging nonsense.

“Condescending” is the word, really. The aliens and humans are both totally one-note and boring: humans are all evil for no clear reason, and aliens are perfect paragons of good. I find myself rooting for the humans to kill everyone just because the aliens are so perfect and infuriating, and that’s where the story really falls apart. Even with the cliche story, it could have come to life with some engaging characters. Avatar doesn’t have characters; it has archetypes.

Watch Avatar if you want to see some really cool motion-capture. Don’t watch Avatar if you want to see a good movie.

Ross actually has a real bed, but it’s in the tiny bedroom of this apartment. I’m over almost every day now, so he just leaves the spare out in the living room so we can sleep together. The single mattress in his real bed isn’t big enough for that.

I smile to myself as I walk into the kitchen.

We didn’t get to do anything last night, though. Ross always wants to watch the news before bed, and there was an extended report last night about some kind of new virus that was going around. I was tired and not really paying attention, but it seemed to really shake Ross. He just… wasn’t in the mood at all. That’s weird for a boy.

“Good morning,” Ross says. He stumbles up to me, eyes still half-closed. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for your oatmeal,” I say. He wraps his arms around me from behind.

“Sorry about last night,” he whispers into my hair. “You know this whole quarantine situation has me worried. I can’t help it.”

“It’s okay.” I turn around to give him a proper hug before returning to the cupboards. He points me in the right direction. As I start making a pot of oatmeal, he goes quiet. I think he’s still a bit spooked.

“When did you go to sleep last night?”

He runs his hand through his hair. “Sometime past one, I think. I couldn’t sleep.”

“What’s got you so worried?” I ask. “You need to stop watching the news. They’re scaring you for no reason.”

“I’m just concerned about the quarantine,” he says. “And we haven’t had internet access in this city for the past week, so I need to watch TV. Even if it’s garbage, I need to have some idea of what’s going on.”

“I know, I know,” I assure him. Sometimes he gets worked up over things like this and I have to calm him down. “Here, your oatmeal will be done in a second.”

Soon we’re eating together at the small kitchen table. Ross’s spoon clanks against his bowl as he eats slowly, his mind elsewhere.

“Why don’t we go buy you a new bed today?” I say, trying to sound cheerful. “We’re going to need tetanus shots if we keep sleeping on that mattress.”

Ross cracks a smile. “Yeah. I’m just being silly about this whole thing. Sorry for getting you down.”

“Whatever. You can get me down whenever you like,” I say, winking.

Ross starts to laugh, but he’s cut off by a crashing sound downstairs. He jumps to his feet immediately, staring at the front door.

“What was that?”

He lives in a decent neighbourhood, but stuff like this is still bound to happen at times. I’m the voice of reason when I answer:

“Sounded like glass.”

“From what?”

“It’s none of our business, Ross.”

He ignores me and walks to the door. He looks through the peephole. After a moment, he opens the door to look up and down the hallway.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Look, I… I don’t know,” he says, still looking. I can see cold sweat on his forehead as he looks back at me. “I heard reports that there were some… killers on the loose. That’s why we’re under quarantine.”

“What? Why would we be quarantined over that?” I start to get up from the table.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“I don’t know!” he shouts. “I think something’s going on that the government isn’t telling us about. Just trust me, okay?”

I shake my head, but Ross ignores me. He looks genuinely scared.

“I’m going downstairs to check it out, just in case,” he says. “Stay here until I get back.”

“This is stupid. I’m coming down with you.”

“No!” I back away from him, insulted. “Stay up here. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I roll my eyes. “Alright, Ross, be my knight in shining armour. See if I care.” But I didn’t really mean it. I’m used to stuff like this. Ross got himself fired once for punching out a coworker who insulted me. It’s not charming exactly, but I’m not seriously insulted.

Ross gives me a kiss before leaving the room. I shut the door behind him, then turn around to face the room, fidgeting slightly. I can’t help it. Ross’s paranoia is starting to spook me a bit. I go over to the window and pull the curtains.

At first everything seems fine, and I relax a bit. It looks like a typical busy day, cars driving through throngs of people who don’t know how to use the crosswalks. But when I look a little closer, I see that the cars are moving quickly – far more quickly than they should be, given the traffic congestion.

One elderly man seemed to be crossing the road, until a truck started driving up to him. He turned around to face it like a deer caught in headlights, but the truck didn’t stop. It plowed right into him and just kept driving, mangling the man’s body as the tires peeled off from the bloody mess.

I’m seeing murder on the streets in broad daylight.

And just at that moment, I hear a thumping out in the hall. Footsteps.

I whip around, letting the curtains fall behind me. Ross is right; there really are killers on the loose! How could something like this happen in broad daylight?

I try to keep a cool head as I lock the door and grab a knife from the kitchen. Ross doesn’t have a gun, so this will have to do. But as the footsteps draw nearer, I can hear the sound of Ross’s voice, booming down the corridor:

“Kaitlyn! Let me in!”

He’s panicked, I can tell. He reaches the door before I have a chance to unlock it, pounding against the wood with his fists. “You have to let me in, Kaitlyn! Come on!”

I fumble with the lock for a moment before he bursts into the room, nearly hitting me with the door in his haste. As soon as he comes in, he slams and locks the entrance behind him. He runs to the kitchen, panting heavily. This apartment is on the nineteenth floor, and he must have run up every one of those steps from the way he’s breathing. The handle of my knife is soaked in sweat.

“What’s going on?” I ask as calmly as possible. Ross just shakes his head at me, looking through cupboards. He grabs a large frying pan – cast iron and heavier than some people – before turning back to me.

“They aren’t killers,” he says.

“I saw someone get hit by a truck outside! How aren’t these killers?”

He pauses for a moment. “They are killers, I guess. But they aren’t human.”

“Wha–?”

“They’re zombies.”

I blink.

“What?”

“There’s no other explanation for it,” he says. “As soon as they saw me, they tried to attack. Some of them were running, some of them were shambling, some were just… groaning and not doing anything else… I don’t know, Kait. They’re all torn up and violent, and their eyes…”

“This is stupid!” I yell angrily. “How can they be zombies?”

“Just trust me,” he says. “Whatever they are, they aren’t the good guys. That’s for damn sure.”

He sets his pan down and starts pushing the couch.

“Help me set up some barricades. They have a hard time with stairs, but they’ll be up here soon.”

I stand still for several long moments as Ross pushes the couch across the door. This is too much. He doesn’t look like he’s joking, but this can’t be true. It doesn’t make sense.

“Stop standing around!”

“I don’t– I don’t know what to do!” I say, and it’s true. I don’t know where to start. I’m overwhelmed. This is too much.

“You need to help me, Kait! Come on!” Ross yells. With a final grunt, the couch is in place. I can hear more thumping from outside. Ross looks at me seriously.

In some ways, I still think this might be a joke. But the old man outside getting hit by a truck? Something is going on here. I help Ross throw the mattress against the couch, just as the footsteps approach the door.

They stop just outside, for a brief moment. Then we hear a loud, piercing screech. The blood runs from my face; I look like I just lost a fight with a bag of flour.

“It’s calling for others,” Ross says. He runs into the kitchen before I can respond.

He braces himself and kicks a leg out from under the table with all his strength. It collapses on one corner, and it barely has time to land before he’s kicking down the other side. Within moments, Ross has the entire table in pieces, bracing the door closed. I run for nails and a hammer so we can block the door the way they do in zombie movies.

I don’t know what else to do.

“How long is this gonna hold?” I ask Ross when he finishes nailing the table into place. On the other side of the door, I can already hear the scratching of claws. None of the zombies can open doors. Not yet, at least.

“I doubt it’ll be around for long. Just long enough for us to get out of here.”

“How are we going to do that?”

Ross looks around the room.

“We’ll have to use the window.”

He tears the curtains right off the frame and pulls up the glass. A cool early-autumn breeze enters the room and makes me shiver reflexively. Now that I know what’s going on, I can see what’s happening outside.

All the people wandering the streets, getting hit by the occasional vehicle as it drives through at top speed… these are the monsters. These are zombies. I shiver again, and it has nothing to do with the cold.

The city is infested.

I can barely remember anything after that point. Ross threw two hundred feet of nylon rope out the window and we started the climb. Eventually, Ross fell. I’m not really sure how it happened, but it was close enough to the street that he wasn’t killed immediately.

Every time I draw back my arm to hit another nail, I feel the hammer slip from my hands a little more. The handle is coated in sweat – my cold sweat of fear, panic, and whatever other emotions I’m feeling right now. I don’t have time to name them all. Hundreds of walking corpses are right outside this window. I have to nail things over it. Whatever I can find.

We’re in the bottom floor of someone’s house; I don’t know whose. Ross is lying behind me, barely alive. At some point while I was dragging him to the first house I could find, he went unconscious. There were already people here when I broke in.

I hear broken bits of a table fall to the floor behind me. Sam dusts off her hands.

“My arms hurt,” she says. “Whatever happened to collapsible card tables?”

“I think that’s enough wood,” I tell her. I back away from the window, rubbing my biceps. “Can you finish this window?”

“Finish?” Sam raises an eyebrow, inspecting my work. “Those are service-sector workers out there, not zombie lumberjacks. How great do the barricades have to be?”

“I don’t know!” I yell. “I just don’t want them inside, Sam. Please…”

I lay down on the floor next to Ross, trying to calm myself down. After so many hours in this house, the moaning really gets to you. I rest my head against Ross, trying to hear his heart instead of the zombies.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

Well, he’s still alive at any rate. I close my eyes, focusing on this sound like a lullaby. But I can still hear the moaning and scratching around me, relentlessly. I know that Sam isn’t doing any work; she’s sitting in the corner, resting. I can hardly blame her from my position.

Another body enters the room from the stairwell. He doesn’t speak a word, so I know it’s Bippers. I reluctantly raise myself off the floor to see him. Ross is still alive for now at least – I’m not accomplishing anything by lying here.

“Bippers,” I say. “Is everything okay up there?”

His eyes dart around the room, nervously examining every detail. He nods slowly, not looking me in the eye. From most people that would be unusual, but for him it’s just par for the course. Bippers is always watching, never talking. Sam tells me that he was in this house when she got here, and she has no idea how or why he’s around. When she asked him his name, he just told her and hasn’t spoken a word since. He seems harmless enough to her.

But what kind of name is Bippers?

I just think he’s sketchy. But we need all the help we can get.

“How’s Ross?” Sam asks.

“He’s alright,” I say. “Still bleeding.”

“Like a vampire water fountain?”

I ignore her.

We sit in silence for long minutes, just trying to keep ourselves calm. I guess that’s an effort in futility, though, since the silence only ever emphasizes the sounds from outside. The wood covering the windows and doors remains firmly in place, but that’s not as much reassurance as I’d like.

As soon as Ross gets better, I’m getting out of here. We’re both covered in his blood, so I’ll find a place with running water first. Then we’ll make a break for it. This city can’t be totally quarantined – there’s going to be a hole somewhere that we can scurry out of. We just need to find it. As soon as Ross gets better, everything will be okay.

I’m fighting to keep tears out of my eyes now.

“I think these ‘cades will last us another hour or two,” Sam says, standing up. “Let’s go back upstairs. There’s still a few chairs up there.”

“We need to stay with Ross,” I tell her.

“Just let me and Bips carry him up there,” she says.

“We don’t know what’s wrong with him. He could have broken his back and now the slightest movement will kill him.”

Never mind the fact that I dragged him to this house already. But he’s getting worse by the minute and I really don’t want to risk it. Why did this have to happen?

Before Sam can answer, we hear a loud crash from upstairs. I jump to my feet immediately, my heart pumping. Sam freezes, eyes on the staircase. Bippers stops looking around the room for once. There’s another crash, and what sounds like boots stomping around. Something is definitely upstairs.

Sam scowls and runs up the stairs. I just stand there, listening hard. Her footsteps stop at the top of the stairs. I can hear her voice demanding something, then an indistinct reply from a male voice. I let out a sigh of relief.

Zombies can’t talk.

I look at Bippers, but he doesn’t meet my eyes right away. He’s still watching the ceiling intently, ignoring me. After a moment, he turns his head to look at me. His eyes are widened in terror. I’m about to ask what’s wrong when he grabs me by the arm and starts pulling me towards the stairs.

“Hey!” I yell. “Let go! I need to stay here!” What if the zombies break in while I’m gone? Ross can’t defend himself.

Bippers doesn’t listen. He seems panicked, like some sort of animal, putting all his adrenaline-fueled strength into pulling me. He practically drags me up the stairs. I’m watching my boyfriend disappear around the corner of the stairwell, tears of fury welling in my eyes as I scream at Bippers to stop.

He doesn’t.

By the time we reach Sam on the next floor, I’ve rendered myself silent. My throat and eyes are burning. Bippers sets me down gently next to Sam, then stands behind the both of us. Sam is sitting on the only chair in the room, glaring at the intruders furiously, but she has the decency to pat me on the shoulder when I sit next to her.

The people who must have entered through the windows are two men in military uniforms, flanking a woman in a lab coat. All of them are soaked with blood.

“Is this everyone?” the woman asks.

Sam nods.

“Excellent,” she says. “I’m Dr. Euel, working for the Necrotech division of the federal government. Necrotech is doing a systematic sweep of all solanum-infested areas in the Midwest. We received a report from our agent here, Mr. Sauvé” – she gestures to Bippers – “that there were infected individuals in this building.”

“Only one,” Bippers says. This is the first time I hear his voice; it’s gruff and manly, the way you would expect the voice of a man with two names to be.

That liar.

“There’s only one infected here, in the basement,” Mr. Sauvé continues. “Take him and leave the rest of us alone.”

I want to scream at them, “He’s not infected! He’s mine and he’s just sick!” But I can’t bring myself to speak a word. My throat is too raw and there are too many emotions running through me. Too many for me to name.

“Bippers,” Sam says, watching her feet. “You betrayed us.”

Dr. Euel laughs.

“Still doing that secret identity thing, Sauvé? You can’t think of a better name than that?”

“It’s not a secret identity, Euel, and you know it,” he growls. “Leave these women alone and do the job you’re paid to do.”

“This is the job I’m paid to do,” she responds. “You’re the traitor, always letting the infected escape. How do you think this whole virus is spreading? These areas are under quarantine; if we let people free, they’ll only infect more people.”

“You don’t know that!” he yells.

“That’s why we need to do this,” Euel responds. She keeps her calm throughout, smiling falsely. Her guards start to make a move for the stairs, and I fall to the side as Bippers pushes through me to stand in their way.

There’s tense silence for a moment as he stands there, blocking the two guards. Sam hasn’t moved an inch. I can’t draw the strength to pick myself off the floor. I feel like I’m melting through it, watching the world underneath.

Through the floorboards I hear wood begin to crack. I hear glass shattering. I hear nails being ripped from the walls as hundreds of living dead push and shove their way into the bottom floor. But I’m the only one that hears this, my head pressed against the floor.

Sam jumps from her position and throws the chair at Dr. Euel. It hits her square in the face, knocking her back near the broken window. She teeters on the edge, so close to falling through. One of the guards punches Bippers in the gut and tosses him aside. He falls to the floor beside me.

“You’re an inhuman bitch!” Sam screams. “Necrotech kills people! Your science is a slaughter!”

She’s about to push Euel out the window when one of the guards intervenes. He tackles her to the ground and pins her there as his boss moves herself out of harm’s way.

“Get rid of them,” she says coldly. “We have enough people who won’t cooperate.”

She and the other guard walk downstairs.

Bippers is out cold. He hasn’t moved since he hit the floor.

I don’t know what to do.

“Please,” Sam begs as the guard lifts her to her feet. “Please just let us go. We haven’t done anything. You can take the man in the basement. We’re not stopping you.”

The guard shoves her towards the window. She shuffles precariously over the edge, about to fall. From my position on the floor I can clearly see shards of glass cutting into her feet as she stands there.

“Please,” she says. I think I can see a tear in her eye.

The guard pushes her out the window. I hear a scream; a long string of curses that fall on deaf ears. We’re only on the second floor – the zombies will kill her before the fall can.

The guard isn’t even paying attention. He moves towards Bippers and me.

Beneath the floorboards I can hear gunshots mixed with yells. Are they shooting at Ross, or are they shooting at the zombies? I don’t have time to figure it out.

The guard shoots me in the head.

My emotions start fading away one by one.

Goodbye fear, panic, hopes, and dreams. Goodbye Ross. You were right all along.

I hope the zombies kill you before the government can.