This was a pretty good week for video games, as far as I’m concerned. I picked up two new titles that I was very pleased with. Interestingly, the two games are on totally opposite sides of the spectrum. Let’s begin with…

Lego Batman for the Wii

If you played the previous Lego offerings for Star Wars or Indiana Jones, you know what you’re getting into here. Lego Batman’s gameplay follows the exact same formula of simple brick smashing and puzzle solving, but I suppose that’s par for the course. The Lego games are targeted to Lego’s primary audience: kids. This is a pretty easy game. Cross promoting with franchises like Batman and Indiana Jones widens the audience though. What they’re really successful with, as was the case with Lego Star Wars (thought not quite as well with Indiana Jones), is capturing the mood and feel of the original material, through the Lego lens.

Play as The Riddler and confuse the shit out of your opponents!

The cut-scenes, for example, are entertaining in a cute Lego way, but have a humour that plays up the Batman mythos. A few times, after a boss is defeated, Batman will decipher a clue or free a hostage while Robin ends up in a slapstick struggle with the defeated boss. Without taking his attention off what he’s doing at all, Batman will blindly throw a batarang that will loop around perfectly, knock out the villain and, and return perfectly to his hand. It’s a send up of a lot of the moments you see in the comics and the various movies and animated programs. I call them “He’s Batman” moments, where he does something so spectacular the only possible explanation is the fact that he’s Batman. Or as he would put it, if you asked him about it, “I’m Batman.” Another touch I laughed at was having Killer Moth (who’s a lame joke of a character anyway) playing comic relief. While Joker is explaining his grand plan, Moth keeps starting at the light in the room, mesmerized, until Scarecrow smacks him in the back of the head.

Another great touch is the references to the Tim Burton Batman films. The soundtrack is taken entirely from the 1989 film, which adds tremendously to the atmosphere. Levels take place in the art museum, and the cathedral tower, and The Joker’s face even reminds me a little of Nicholson’s Joker. While I’ve made it no secret that I enjoy the Nolan series of Bat-films more, the Burton films are a much better fit for the Lego treatment. That being said, as much as I liked having “tropical” Joker (as in the scene from The Killing joke where he cripples Barbara Gordon) as an unlockable character, it would have been great to have a Ledger-style Joker in there, not to mention a Dark Knight style Batman.

“You ever dance with the Lego Devil in the pale moonlight?”

The one big difference between this game and the previous entries is that the lack of a previously established storyline. There are some heavy allusions to the first series of Batman films, mostly through the distribution of teams throughout the chapters. Riddler and Two-Face (Batman Forever) are on a team with Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy (Batman & Robin), and Catwoman and Penguin (Batman Returns) team up on another, though thankfully, Penguin is not the mutant Tim Burton version. Regardless, not being tied to the plot of a series of films, they changed the layout of how the game is played. When you start, you can choose to begin the first level of either of the three Hero chapters, in which you battle five (wo)man villain teams over five levels. You access the chapters from the central hub of the Batcave, which functions the same way as the Cantina or the Museum in the previous games. Once you beat a chapter, however, you can jump over to Arkham Asylum and access the villain missions from there. Villain missions follow the same story as the Hero missions, but from the opposite point of view. Thankfully, this takes us through different routes and paths around the same landmarks in the Hero missions, rather than simply playing Hero missions with villains. This adds a fun duality to the game, and the atmosphere and look of both the Batcave and Arkham Asylum are great. In Arkham, along with the villains you’ve unlocked, dozens of Joker, Penguin and Mr. Freeze’s thugs wander the halls, starting fights and raising hell.

The villains are a lot of fun to play with. Joker is my favorite right now, as he has the best gun, an immunity to toxins, and a great joy buzzer grapple move. Actually, the toxin immunity is pretty funny, as any character with chemicals involved in their origin at all has it. I can understand Poison Ivy, Clayface and even, to a certain extent The Joker, but I have no idea why Two-Face or Bane are immune to toxic waste. Regardless, while this game has a much smaller roster than it’s predecessors, I find it’s more focused this time around. The characters that are there are more useful. Riddler and Mad Hatter both use mind control on lesser NPCs, Catwoman and Harley Quinn are both great jumpers, in their own ways. Ivy can grow plants and Joker can power some machines with the joy buzzer. Killer Moth and Man Bat have distinctly different flying styles. My favorite might have been Bane’s grapples which include the iconic Bat-breaker move, which actually breaks the Lego victim into pieces (and harkens back to Chewbacca’s arm rip off move in the Star Wars games).

Overall, while not posing much of a challenge (though the “collect and unlock” nature of the game adds to replayability), I find it’s a pretty solid game. If you liked the previous Lego games, you like this. If you like Batman, you’ll probably enjoy it as well. If you like one and not the other, well, you’ve got a fifty-fifty chance. Two-Face would like those odds.

The other game I got this week is the complete opposite in a lot of fundamental ways…

Mega Man 9 for the Wii

This frigging thing caused me no end of frustration. While the spinning column of flowers threatens to knock you into insta-kill spikes, that little flower pecker pops up. I’m not certain, but I think the number of petals he shoots at you corresponds with what clock position he pops up at (i.e. 3 petals if he’s shooting from 3 o’clock).

While certainly doing a fine job with graphic overhauls on their older games (the remade Mega Man, Ghouls n’ Ghosts and the, apparently awesome, Bionic Commando Rearmed) Capcom took a different approach with this one. Available as a Wiiware/PSN/Xbox Live Arcade downloadable title, Mega Man 9 is as old-school as it gets. Sporting 8-bit graphics and sound, Mega Man 9 will bring you in for nostalgia, but you’ll stay for the gameplay.

Hardhats, or Mets as they’re more properly called, return to their roots here. Previous games saw flying Mets, swimming Mets, giant Mets and even Mets who drove trucks. These simple triple-shot Mets a generally strategically placed to be the biggest pain in the ass possible. Note the flying saucers at the top of the screen, which are also trying to kill you.

To be blunt, this is the hardest goddamn game I’ve played in a long, long time. And I’ve been spoiling for a good challenge. By doing away with graphical concerns, Capcom poured all their efforts into level design and A.I. behaviour. In Plug Man’s level, there’s a spot of classic “disappearing and reappearing” blocks over a bed of spikes, with a hard hat shooter guy waiting on the platform you’re trying to jump on. 10 lives later, I finally found where to land and when to shoot to be able to land safely. In Jewel Man’s level, there are large cannons that can take off about a fifth of your energy with one shot and aim directly for you. While you’re trying to deal with that, a little green pod flutters to the ground. Upon landing, is sprouts spikes and turns into a fast moving, whirling hazard that moves just below your line of fire. After a couple of retries, you start to get the pattern of when to shoot the green thing before it hits, in between the cannon’s shots. Mega Man 9 is a study in mastering thousands of little situations like that.

Striking a blow for robotic women’s rights, Splash Woman is the first female Robot Master (boss) to be introduced in the series. I finally kicked her ass and took her Lightning Trident earlier tonight. Back to the kitchen, hussy!

In keeping with the retro feeling, the slide (introduced in Mega Man 3) and the charged shots (introduced in Mega Man 4) are done away with. You can jump and you can shoot, that’s it. And that’s all you need. I remember borrowing Mega Man 6, the last NES entry, shortly after its release and beating it in one evening. While my gaming efforts were certainly divided this week, I only managed to beat two bosses on the first night of playing. Yesterday I picked off one, and I beat two more tonight. The difficulty really makes you appreciate when victory comes. I’ve only actually beaten one of the bosses with the right weapon so far, I’m looking forward to discovering The Pattern.

This mosaic shows all the bosses from the first 6 games. This will make a snazzy desktop photo/”name the robot trivia game” for drunken geeks.

The Pattern is a tie that binds all the Mega Man and Mega Man X games together. Beat a boss and you get their weapon. The weapon generally, will be the achilles heel of another boss, but figuring out which one is another part of the challenge. So, you develop an order to fight the levels in. For example, here’s my order for Mega Man 2- Air Man, Metal Man, Bubble Man, Flash Man, Crash Man, Wood Man, Heat Man, Quick Man. Everyone can develop their own plan. My first objective is to get Metal Man’s metal blades, which are the most useful weapon in the game as you can throw them in 8 directions. That’s a big help in some levels like Crash Man’s. I’ll fight Air Man first, though, so that I can have the rocket sled when I play Metal Man’s level and can reach an energy tank. These are the kind of considerations and strategy you can apply to the games. I’m still trying to figure out my strategy for Mega Man 9. And I love that, I haven’t really had to develop a strategy for a game in a long time.

A nerd’s wet dream, here’s a picture of all the original series and directly related Mega Man games. The original series (the six NES games, plus the five Gameboy, one SNES game and a PS1 game) are set about a century before the Mega Man X series (three SNES, three PS1, two PS2), which were followed by the Mega Man Z and ZX series on Gameboy Advance and DS. One of Z and ZX is a prequel series, I think, but I’m not sure which.

I should also mention the sound. The music is 8-bits, and kicks ass. Capcom has always been known for having great music in their games, from Mega Man to Street Fighter and everywhere in between. They deliver perfectly here. Tornado Man’s level music ranks up there with the best Mega Man songs in my opinion. It just gets you really pumped up for the level.

So, to sum up two great games, for entirely different reasons. Lego Batman, you shouldn’t have to guess whether or not you’ll like it. You should be able to tell from your enjoyment of either Batman or the other Lego games. Mega Man 9, I recommend to everyone, particularly younger gamers. Give this a go, and take a look at how effective simplicity can be. Instead of having a hundred buttons and complicated command sequences you’ve got two buttons and one helluva challenge. Back in the days before a game could really hang its hat on things like graphics and cut scenes, the bottom line was gameplay and challenge. Mega Man 9 exceeds my expectations for both.

Seems my sudden surge of activity (riding my new rocketbicycle, inline skating, Aikido, and generally walking everywhere and avoiding my car) has resulted in extreme muscle aches, a painfully sore right knee, sore right elbow, and non-weight-supporting stabbing-pain right shoulder.

Time to take it easy!

Still went to Aikido, but was very relaxed. We practiced posture, unbendable arm, and some more static techniques that don’t require a lot of motion. But I can’t find any pictures or videos of the related activities.

Perhaps I should take some time off and, oh, I dunno, watch batman or something. I still haven’t even gotten around to seeing Ironman yet. :/

On Friday night, Lindsay, Matt and I took in The Dark Knight. For two and a half hours, I don’t think I blinked once. Here’s my thoughts. I’ll try to avoid any gratuitous spoilers, but no promises, so SPOILERS THROUGHOUT.

I know I’m biased, but I agree with Kevin Smith. The Dark Knight is the greatest superhero movie ever made. Without question. The movie is a sprawling epic with twists and turns galore, multiple themes and motifs cross over each other. The concept of a white knight (Harvey Dent), and a black knight (Batman). Order and chaos (Batman and the Joker). Faith lost and faith renewed or rewarded (Gordon and Lucius Fox). There’s a lot going on with this movie. The story is dense, but not overwhelmingly so.

A lot of little details that only occur to you later, or upon repeated viewings, add extra emotional depth. Harvey Dent and Batman each think the other is the most important symbol of hope for the people of Gotham. That difference costs them much in the long run. Late in the film, a truly grotesque Two-Face screams at Batman and Gordon that he was the only one who lost anything.  But Dent was Batman’s hope to someday end his mission against crime, and by this point of the film, Batman has lost as much as anyone. The best part about this is, he doesn’t say any of this, but you can read it clearly on his face, impressive considering most of his head is covered with a mask.

Dent is a classic tragic hero. He’s a good man who’s only crime at the start of the movie is an abundance of ambition. By the end of the film, that ambition costs him everything. Whether it was his arrogance (taking on the mob, one would be well aware of the potential consequences) that caused his downfall is irrelevant to Dent. Terrible things happen to Dent here, and it’s all just chance. Maybe he spent too much time “making his own luck,” and it was karma putting a thumb on the scales to balance the score. As the battle with the mob and the Joker escalates, Dent’s becomes reckless making bolder and bolder moves that all lead to his own downfall. Unlike some previous versions of Two-Face, Eckhart’s Dent clearly is a man who’s path from hero to villain is the cause of more than just monstrous facial scarring.

As expected most of the attention on “entertainment news”* programs and the internet message board community is Heath Ledger’s Joker. Believe the hype kids. Heath Ledger just disappears into the role and his performance delivers in the best possible way. In the first part of the movie, the audience laughs at The Joker’s antics, being wowed by the “pencil trick” or his various odd inflections stops laughing by the climax. As is desperately needed, by the end of the film, it doesn’t matter how showy and darkly funny he is, the audience wants to see him get what’s coming to him. The audience can’t identify with The Joker. You might be able to relate to some of the things he says (on anarchy: “when the chips are down, these people will eat each other,”), but you can’t identify with his goals. He’s not Dr. Octopus or The Green Goblin or even Harvey Dent (good men who fell from grace). He’s as close to pure evil as you can get without getting into a religious discussion.

I was expecting to be impressed with Ledger’s Joker, but even my lofty expectations were exceeded. I wasn’t expecting Ledger to outdo Mark Hamil’s voice work on the Batman animated series, but he did just that. Ledger’s very physical performance is manic and unrestrained, but just up to the line of being so out there as to loose the sinister edge. “Does Gotham really seem like a better place because of the Batman?” he asks from off camera to a Batman imitator who’s torture he’s video taping. His tone is taunting, playful even. Out of nowhere, he explodes “LOOK AT ME!” terrifying both the hockey-pad Batman and the audience. That he can run the gamut from trickster clown to psychotic killer as quickly as he does, and still be believable, is what seals the deal on Ledger’s performance, in my books. On the other end of the spectrum is the scene where the Joker, disguised as a nurse, sits down by Dent’s hospital bed, and says “Hi” with the delivery and facial expression of a high school girlfriend trying to get back a guy she had cheated on.

It’s not all roses. While Harvey Dent’s arc is beautiful and tells a wonderful story of pride going before a fall, Two-Face is almost “Venomed” if you know what I mean (though there are some members of the online community who have different ideas on this). The “Batsonar” is overused in the climax. Batman Begins’ much hated “If it gets underneath Wayne Tower, this thing is gonna blow!” guy get’s a spiritual cousin in “That’s not good!” guy. And while Maggie Gyllenhall’s turn as Rachel Dawes is way better than that of Katie Holmes, it’s still the weakest performance in the film.

These complaints are really nothing more than nitpicks, though. This is easily the best movie I’ve seen in years, and that includes Batman Begins. When people used to ask me about Batman Begins, my standard line to emphasize how good I thought the movie was always “about halfway through the movie, I realized it was already better than all the previous Batman movies put together, and he hadn’t even put on the costume on yet.” A parallel moment occurs in The Dark Knight where The Joker introduces himself to the mobs by way of the aforementioned “pencil trick,” and you immediately know that this is going to be something really special.

It looks like most people agree with me, since the movie seems to be on its way to setting a record for breaking records. Nonetheless, the movie lived up to the unbelievable hype that was applied to it (by myself, amongst others), and I am very happy with the results. It was well worth the three year wait, and I’ll gladly wait another three for one more from Nolan. As I said to Matt later on in the night after first seeing that movie, the only real problem I see with Dark Knight is that it’s about 23 hours too short.

*Entertainment News programs are neither entertaining, nor news.

So, here’s a kick in the teeth. Heath Ledger was found dead in his apartment this afternoon.

I’m not going to lie to you. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have given two shits about this. Sure, the death of a father of a young girl is sad no matter what, but I thought of Heath Ledger as just another actor getting work because teenage girls thought he was hot. I always thought of him as that pretty-boy from A Knight’s Tale and 10 Things I Hate About You.

Just below the radar of mainstream Hollywood, however, Ledger was slowly establishing himself as a serious actor in lesser known films like Candy and Ned Kelly. Then, when Brokeback Mountain came out, he was widely praised for his portrayal of a gay cowboy.

Ledger in Ned Kelly

Still, none of that got him on my radar. I still haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain. Obviously, Heath Ledger only started to enter my area of interest when he was tapped to play The Joker in The Dark Knight. My first reaction was “that guy?” Then I started reading a lot of positive things about his performance, both as The Joker and as Bob Dylan in the strange pseudo bio-film, I’m Not There.

I saw him as The Joker for myself in the Prologue a few weeks back. Heath’s Joker reached out through the screen and commanded your attention. He tapped a very unsettling and creepy vein. It’s clear that he put a lot of thought into his performance.

From what I’ve read, The Joker consumed Ledger. He spent a few weeks holed up in a hotel getting the character down. He worked day and night on how he was going to speak, how he would move, and how he would think. He kept a diary, writing down things The Joker would find funny (AIDS was one of them, reportedly). Ledger was quoted as saying the character was extremely challenging. Reportedly, he suffered from insomnia during filming.

Ironically, that may have played a part in his death, as Ledger is believed to have died of an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. It will be eerily poetic if Ledger’s performance is as the Joker is an enduring and powerful as it’s been described by his co-stars. Creating this new, fearsome and guttural Joker may be Heath Ledger’s legacy.

It’s tragic that he was only just starting to shed his pretty-boy image and develop a reputation as a serious actor. It’s tragic that he had just completed a personally satisfying role that he may have been able to continue performing for years in sequels. It’s tragic that an actor with great promise died at such a young age. And most of all, it’s tragic that a 2 year-old girl will only know her daddy from watching his films, trying to figure out what he was really like.

Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams, in happier times, when daughter Matilda was a baby.

RIP

Sidenote: Can somebody put Larry King out of my misery? Please. Watching King try to play ringmaster to his panel on Ledger’s death tonight pissed me off. He clearly had done no research, and came across with a callous “let’s get this over with” attitude. Nancy Grace will be pissed you stole her gimmick, Larry.

DOES ANYONE REMEMBER BASEBALL CARDS?

I’ve always gotten a laugh out of the “Batman is gay” thing. I guess you can read whatever you want out of it. If the life of Batman is your homosexual fantasy, more power to ya.

Really though, you can apply the gay theory of Batman and Robin to any iconic duo. Shaggy and Scooby, for example. Maybe Chris Farley and David Spade. Or Mario and Luigi. Or, my favorite, Hitler and Mussolini.

Seriously though, the whole “Seduction of the Innocent” thing in comics is really interesting. It’s usually folly to hold a past society up to the current society’s values, but some of the things that were forbidden by the Comics Code seem ricockulous to me. Some comics still operate withing the limited scope of this archaic standard.

Luckily, it’s not all in vain, as this all makes for a good segueway into your Dark Knight viral marketing update!

This is the most recent Joker picture released. I like that in each picture, his make up looks a little different. It’s like he goes through a few appearance changes throughout the movie. Christopher Nolan had said something about patterning him after his first few appearances in the comics. I’ve got a collected edition with the first appearance of Joker in it, and the look on his face in this shot is almost identical to one of the panels. It’s uncanny.

The other big piece of news is that at Imax theaters next month, there’ll be a nine minute Joker intro thing attached to Will Smith’s I Am Legend. I didn’t expect to be watching that movie, but I’ll happily give it a shot to take a look at the Joker. Around that time, we can probably expect a more in depth trailer too.

On the viral marketing front, over a few Joker websites, people had to take pictures of themselves with Joker makeup in front of landmarks in their towns. Those who did were rewarded with having 12 copies of The Gotham Times mailed to them. Those of us who didn’t do that, can check out the paper here.

It’s an interesting bit of reading. Of note are the part of the front page you can tear off, and the story about the dead girl on the last page.

Shortly after that, Joker posted his graphittied version, The Ha Ha Ha Times. I nearly did a spit take on “Dead girl no longer most likely to succeed. Entertaining stuff.

There’s also a slew of random Gotham-related websites that launched yesterday and today.

We Are The Answer
Gotham Police
Gotham Rail
Remembering Regina, a tribute website for the aforementioned dead girl.

Also, back on the Joker’s website, you can take a personality test.

Man, I this stuff is getting intense.

Edit: upon searching the sites a bit more, you can contribute, by writing a letter to the editor at the Gotham Times at letterstotheeditor@thegothamtimes.com, send a job application to the Joker at humanresources@whysoserious.com, report a crooked cop on the We Are The Answer site, and offer your memories of the dead girl at the e-mail address on her site. Presumably, they’ll use the best of the material they’re sent in future updates. Should be fun.

Next week: Hyrule!

Two new games to look forward to in the new year! First, for anyone who has ever played the hugely successful Lego Star Wars games - known affectionately to the gaming community as ‘the star wars games that are actually fun to play’ - there is some good news.

There are several new titles in development using the ‘Lego’ paradigm, but of most interest to anyone with any taste is the very recent announcement of a Batman-themed Lego game.

The star wars lego games are legitimately a good time (though certainly not replacements for KOTOR), and if they simply follow the same formula but with the new characters, this game essentially can’t help but succeed.

Speaking of Batman, the other day Weas posted a cute little pic of the caped crusader and the boy wonder in the middle of planning their next move in the fight against Gotham’s criminal element:

Needless to say, I was kinda bummed to see it since I thought I was paying for original artwork when I got this done:

Oh, and that other hot new game just in time for the holidays? Check it out!

Good times. In the words of Mr. Show, it’s great when we can get together and have fun with our differences.

Anyway, on to business!

Clearly, the most important goal for The Dark Knight Batman sequel is to appease me. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean “me” as in “long term fans,” or “fans who appreciate the dark psychology of the characters” or anything like that. I mean me, personally. I’m Chris Nolan has thought about it.

“Geez, that guy in Moncton who saw Begins 9 times in the theatre and then bought the special edition DVD. I’d really hate to let him down.”

So, for a handy reference, here’s a list of some things that Chris can do to make sure that I leave the theatre in June with my pants wet from excitement pee, and my shirt wet with drool.

1) Remember, it’s about Batman-

This was one of my biggest problems with the original series of Batman movies. They weren’t about Batman. They were about all these villains, who just got sillier and sillier as the thing went on. Even the classic Batman `89 was guilty of this to a lesser degree. The man in the parachute silk electric cape is the focus here. Let’s keep that in mind. However, that being said…

2) Make this Joker Begins-

I’d like to see a real development of the Joker as the movie goes on. He starts off as just an eccentric murderer/thief, but by the end of the film, he’s a full on psycho-killer. Nolan has said that this movie would be based on Joker’s first couple of appearances in the comics, which is great, but in those comics, he just showed up without any explanation at all. Let’s have some character development in there. That’s not to say you should show your entire hand at once (sorry for the card-pun). Leave a good deal of mystery, but the make sure we understand what kind of nut the Joker is.

3) Don’t worry about Joker t-shirt sales-

This is the main thing that was wrong about Jack Nicholson as the Joker (and as such, anyone who thinks Nicholson was a perfect Joker doesn’t fully understand the character). I want to truly hate The Joker. Lot’s of people talked about how much they loved Jack’s Joker in the first movie. People say similar things about Ceasar Romero’s Joker in the 60’s series. I want a Joker who is so sadistic, vile and downright evil, that you can’t help but hate him. When Batman finally gets his hands on the Joker and starts laying in the punches, I want the audience to erupt like Bats just found the cure for cancer.

4) Lay the framework for a developed world-

I wouldn’t mind seeing appearances by, possibly, Selina Kyle, Victor Fries, Jervis Tect, Edward Nygma, Pamela Isley, Matt Hagen or possibly even Dick Grayson. However…

5) Just leave it as a framework-

Under no circumstances do I want to see Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, The Mad Hatter, The Riddler, Poison Ivy, Clayface, or expecially Robin. I’d like to have it established that some of these characters exist in this world, but I don’t want to see them play out yet. Example, Joker rushes through a lab or something, and you see two technicians working, with name tags that read Fries and Tect, and then we move on. We know that these characters might end up as Mr. Freeze and The Mad Hatter, but there’s no need to get into that right now. Maybe show the Grayson family circus going through town. Advertisements for a movie starring Matt Hagen. But we don’t need to make things convoluted by throwing all these characters that you’d need to develop.

6) Two-tone suits are for cartoons-

I don’t think I have to explain this one, really. A guy on a message board I was reading had a great idea, which was to just have Two-Face’s blood spatter onto one side of his suit when he gets scarred, and so that gives the image of a double-suit without getting into Joel Shumacher-esque campy horseshit.

7) For the love of god, don’t kill off the Joker-

For shit’s sake, honestly. Under no circumstances should you kill off the second most iconic character in the series. It’s just dumb. In fairness to Tim Burton, I don’t think he was planning a sequel, but there’s no excuse now. I’ve already said, I’d love to see Joker take the chemical bath by the end of the movie. Have the movie end with Gordon telling Batman that they never found the body or something. Set us up for a great, out of nowhere return in the next movie.

That’s about it. I’ve got to go get ready for the wedding now. I’ve pledged to tackle the bride, should she decide to do like Julia Roberts in that shitty movie, and to kill anyone who tries to pull any cheesy, “interrupt the wedding to profess your love” crap. Should be fun. Later kids!