Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

I'm really curious how close this game is to what it would have been had Jason West and Vince Zampella not been fired by Activision and taken a lot of the higher level talent at Infinity Ward with them. Was the plan for the game already in place, or did the people left behind have to come up with the whole thing? If there was a plan, how detailed was it? I'm curious because I had fun with the game, but it doesn't do much besides meet the standards of the previous ones without bringing much new to the table. This is the fifth Call of Duty game in this style in as many years, and both the formula and the graphics engine are feeling a little old at this point. At full capacity, might Infinity Ward have brought their A game and raised modern military shooters to a new level? Or was Modern Warfare 3 always destined to be yet another solid Call of Duty game?

There's nothing really wrong with that, I'm just not sure that I need to play many more of them. Modern Warfare 3 has everything you'd expect and little you wouldn't. There's a campaign that will last you five to six hours which features lots of dramatic explosions and firefights. The Spec-Ops mode returns with plenty of new missions and a survival mode, because every multiplayer shooter needs a survival mode. And there's the traditional online which feels basically the same with a few tweaks and additions. If it's worth it to you, there's nothing really wrong with the package. It's just that it's a very familiar package by now.

One thing in the campaign's favor is that it actually manages to bring the overloaded plot of the Modern Warfare sub-series to a mostly satisfying conclusion, as long as you're okay with the series' practice of resolving story threads by killing off every character involved in them. It seems like shooters are always trying to outdo each other now, and MW3 definitely tries to build that excitement by going as big as possible, essentially portraying what a modern World War III would look like. On one hand you'll be playing alongside familiar characters from the first couple games, chasing down the series' biggest villain, but on the other you'll be hopping all over the place, fighting battles in familiar locations and very extreme conditions. You'll start by saving New York City's harbor from a Russian naval fleet, and then hop to various hotspots all over Europe with your squad of celebrity voice acted comrades. At times the plot justifications for each new location will seem thin, but when all you really want is to shoot bad guys and see exciting stuff happen all around you, it tends to work really well. I don't really buy that Russia would be able to cause this much trouble for the US and Europe all by themselves, but it's an easy thing to let slide. The series' ability to create unique, memorable moments is certainly a boon, as it makes the campaign seem a lot more noteworthy than the one in Battlefield 3, despite featuring similar gameplay and a less technically advanced presentation. The Uncharted series might be the only one that pulls off huge spectacle better in the world of action games.

Not everything is great, though. In what might have been a constraint due to the labor issue surrounding the game's creation, you sure spend an awful lot of time in the campaign driving or riding in vehicles instead of moving on your own. It's not that these sequences are boring, but most shooters use vehicles as a way to occasionally change the pace a bit, and here it seems like a design crutch for when they needed you to kill a lot of guys without finding a more clever way to do it. They did manage to avoid the sort of frustrating choke points that have frequently plagued the series in the past, but instead the game seemed almost too easy on regular, until the final mission which ended up being pretty annoying. You gotta get the bad guy! You only have three minutes! But there's a ton of guys between you and him and they can all shoot you with deadly accuracy the second you leave cover! Go faster! No, slow down and let yourself heal! There are better ways to make a conclusion dramatic than the way they handled it. It seemed odd that some of the biggest twists in the story involved a new character that we didn't have time to really learn much about, and it's hard to be shocked by anything the series does anymore. In the past the series has effectively used the deaths of characters to create memorable moments, but when you get the point where you basically assume everyone is a goner, it stops seeming special.

Also, I'll be honest - I haven't tried the other modes. Battlefield's larger, objective-based multiplayer is more interesting to me, and most of my time is being taken up by other games anyway. Some of the things they've added like ways to get bonuses in multiplayer without being skilled enough to earn a kill streak seem neat, and Spec-Ops was pretty fun from what I played before. I know some people only care about Call of Duty for the online, but I bought it because I wanted to see the end of the Modern Warfare story, and I'm pretty sure I got that. It wasn't exactly a unique or inspirational game, but it was a fun one, packing plenty of interesting moments and enjoyable gunfights into the amount of time it lasted. I'd like to see the series do something really different before I try picking it up again, but it's hard to complain about this as a temporary send-off.

Thor

The truth is, Thor is kind of a silly premise for a movie, and it's a bit difficult to reconcile it with the rest of the Avengers project. Marvel characters in general, at least the most famous ones, all have fantastical origins, but at least they're based in some sort of scientific premise. Spider-Man, the Hulk, and the Fantastic Four were all hit by some sort of radiation. The X-Men mutated. Iron Man uses amazingly advanced technology. But Thor is literally a god or god-like being from another dimension. He's part of the grander, weirder, more out-there side of the Marvel tapestry, a side that has gone mostly ignored in major films to this point. I liked the few Thor comics I've read and have high hopes for The Avengers next year, so I was hoping Kenneth Branagh and his cast could pull off some pretty difficult material reasonably well, and I was satisfied by the results. Thor isn't exactly great, but it's a lot of fun, and considering the degree of difficulty one of the most successful comic book super hero adaptations to date.

The key to Thor's success is that it's funny. With the figures of an ancient mythology transformed into extradimensional aliens who wear science fiction plate armor and ride rainbow bridge lightning bolts to other worlds, the whole thing could have failed just by being too silly. But there's a lot of humor intentionally injected into the story, which allows a lot of the goofier moments to slide on by and just be part of the fun. If the movie took itself too seriously, it could have been a disaster, but the tone is just right to get away with it. Most of the significant characters get a chance to tell a joke or two, and while a few moments still come off as funny without trying, they don't do much to harm the story.

The film jumps back and forth between two locations: Asgard, where Thor's allies try to unravel Loki's plot to overthrow him, and a small town in New Mexico where Thor meets a trio of scientists and tries to recover his lost powers. I enjoyed the New Mexico side of the movie more, because that's where most of the fun was, including a lot of solid fish-out-of-water humor and an exciting confrontation with the intimidating and well-executed Destroyer. Chris Hemsworth is surprisingly outstanding as Thor, pulling off his entitled arrogance without making himself unlikable, and gradually realizing what it takes to truly be noble. It's obvious he wasn't cast only because of his looks. The scientists are played by Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgård, and Kat Dennings, and the group dynamic between all four is pretty fun. The romance angle seems a bit forced because of the short time scale the story is operating on, but it works out okay because Portman and Hemsworth make a good team. Thor struggling to understand human society is probably the best part of the movie, and I could have sat through a lot more of that.

On Asgard, the movie is more like a slightly stranger version of The Lord of the Rings. There's a power struggle between Thor and Tom Hiddleston's Loki, as they both wish to prove to Odin, played with enthusiasm by Anthony Hopkins, that they are fit for rule once he steps down. Thor fights a bunch of frost giants with Sif and the Warriors Three, Idris Elba's Heimdall is a complete bad-ass, and the movie's version of Loki's plotting and realization of his past is fairly interesting. The two sides of the movie come together near the end as the action climaxes and Thor ends up back where he was, but of course with a tease that he'll return next year. There's a decent amount of legwork done to continue the set up for The Avengers, both as part of the central plot as SHIELD sets up camp around Thor's immovable hammer and in the requisite tease after the credits. Nick Fury and Hawkeye make cameos, and we learn what classic doohicky will prove important down the road. I thought the movie integrated the overarching stuff with its own plot better than say, Iron Man 2 did, and while the visual effects and action weren't amazing, they were adequate enough. The real strength here is the cast, and the film worked best when the focus was on the actors instead of the more fantastical stuff, which was okay but got in the way just a bit. And now we're only a couple months away from the next step in this crazy journey.

The Wire - Season 3

The saga continues in the third season, which maintains well the tradition of quality serial television. Stringer Bell is even more prominent as he tries to do things his way and makes some uncharacteristic slip-ups while the police try to pin something on him and his crew. The relationship between him and old friend Avon Barksdale is fleshed out, and comes to a head eventually. There's plenty of new stuff happening too, though. Tommy Carcetti is a white councilman who sees the crime problems in the city and decides to run for mayor in a mostly black city with little chance of winning. While Bell has cut a deal to reduce violence among certain gangs as they share good territory and drugs, violence is still at a high, thanks in large part to the emergence of a new, young dealer who won't agree to play nice, Marlo Stanfield. And an old district chief decides to try a new way to fight violent crime in his streets - restricting dealers to abandoned areas and letting them peddle their drugs their instead of causing problems in more populated neighborhoods. It raises an interesting question - can we allow people to do what we know is wrong if it keeps people safer?

The Wire is still a show about how bad things can be for some people in certain situations. It's very unflinching when it comes to the troubles of ordinary citizens who can't afford to leave their dangerous neighborhoods. But despite being strong with its message, it's still great entertainment. It's really impressive how they manage to balance so many characters. Cutty, the old criminal released from jail who decides to start over and help kids by teaching them boxing. Bunk, the homicide detective who drinks a little too much but is still very good at his job. Omar and Mouzone, two very different kinds of men who still find a common cause. It's just enjoyable to watch, even if you don't care about some of today's real problems in the urban environment.

The Wire - Season 2

The saga of cops and gangs in Baltimore continues with the second season, every bit as brilliantly crafted as the first. At first, I wasn't a big fan of the new subplots, but they grew on me. The first season focused entirely on one case, McNulty and some other detectives trying to bring down Avon Barksdale's crew. They expanded it for the next part of the show, bringing in a union of port workers when a bunch of women are found dead of suffocation in one of the shipping containers. When it's discovered that their air was cut off intentionally, it opens a massive case involving corruption in some of the union members, a group lead by a man known only as "The Greek", and continued ties to the targets of the first season. With Barksdale in jail, his best friend Stringer Bell takes more of a spotlight, handling operations and making some decisions that change the complexion of the streets.

With The Wire, it's still all about the writing and the acting. It's a miracle they're able to balance so many great, enjoyable characters. The show is far from stagnant, as people get promoted, arrested, and sometimes killed. It's a testament to the quality when you feel something any time a character dies, even if they were criminal trash. Some of them may seem downright unlikable, but when things go wrong for them, you can't help but get sucked in. It's really a show you absolutely cannot jump into the middle of halfway through. You'll probably still appreciate it for the commendable direction, screenplay, and performances, but you need to follow it with rapt attention to get the most out of it. I've already finished the third season, and so far this one is the most plot driven while the others are a bit more about ideas. It's also the most diverse as far as the locations and kinds of people it covers. That doesn't really make it better or worse, it just means it might appeal to you more if that's what you favor.

The Wire - Season 1

The Wire is the best television drama I've ever seen. It doesn't feature crazy, over the top plots. Rather, it's completely grounded in reality and thrives on that fact. It's a graphic and uncompromising look at the crime scene in modern Baltimore. In season one, Jimmy McNulty, a homicide detective who drinks too much but is great at his job, sets in to motion the slow building of a case against Avon Barksdale, the biggest drug dealer in the west side of the city. The story follows people on both sides of the back and forth battle, and while the dealers are clearly in the wrong, it's not without some nuance. A lot of the focus is on Avon's nephew D'Angelo, who is one of the bad guys, but can seem like a good person who was just brought up in the wrong environment. I think that's what's so great about The Wire, it doesn't do the judging for you I try to frame anyone as perfectly good or evil. It's all shades of gray, and they let you make your own decisions.

The show works so well because its characters are all so good. I could rattle off names of likable characters for a long time, as there are a lot of people in the city and all of them are well-defined, portrayed finely by an actor who fits the part, and entertaining to some degree. Even the biggest jerks around are usually funny in the way they act like jerks. It's a very slowly paced show, time passes quickly but the case develops at a realistic speed. There's a lot of gritty, grinding police work, and if you don't have the patience for some dead ends and disappointments, you might not like it. But I honestly can't get enough. I want to know what's going to happen next with all of these people I've come to like. The first season's resolution isn't as perfect as the cops hoped for. Some arrests get done, but not on all the charges they wanted and people they were after. But that's real life for you. And just like real life, people hurt each other, swear and have sex. It is HBO, after all. If your sensibilities aren't too delicate and you're at all interested in crime stuff, you have to watch The Wire.