A Trio of Videogaming Books.

Three books on videogaming today and, with a bit of a caveat on one, more worthy additions to my ever growing collection on the subject. At this rate, I should overtake the military history collection in about... oh, six years!

First up, The Art of Point and Click Adventures published by Bitmap Books.

After reading and thoroughly enjoying "The Games That Weren't", I had a gander at the publisher's website and when I saw this tome, I knew this had to be my next purchase. As you can see below, it arrived in  the usual very well packaged condition.

The book itself measures 26.6 x 4 x 21.7 cm, and is a tad over five hundred pages in length. You get a lovely forward by Gary Whitta (formerly of UK gaming magazine ACE, US gaming magazine PC Gamer and now US-based scriptwriter of no ill repute), backed up by a potted history of point and click adventure games, and a glossary of terms used throughout the interviews. This is where the meat of the book begins.

And what a book! Set in chronological order from 1984 to 2020, individual titles are given between two and eight full pages of screenshots and descriptive text. The superb print quality brings these to life, no matter if they're monochrome, 16-colour EGA or current gen graphics. If this book was just that then I'd be happy to pay the £30 asking price. As a catalogue of games, this is un-matched. But that's not all.

Inter spacing the games are the interviews, forty-four in total. Ranging between two and six pages in length, these not only give background on the developers of key titles in the genre, but also provide another source of screenshots and artwork. The interviews themselves are well worth reading, not only for how the individual started off in the genre but also how they fought technological constraints to realise their vision and how the games industry has developed as both a creative and a business medium. The really good thing here is that you not only hear from familiar names such as Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, Ken Williams, Hal Barwood, Al Lowe and Charles Cecil but also from lesser known (to me, anyway) but no less talented developers such as Eric Chahi, Pierre Gilhodes, Simon Woodroffe and many more. The really sad thing after saying that is although the individuals names were unfamiliar to me, their games were not, and this tome is a great way of putting names to games, so to speak.

What this book has also done is re-kindle my interest in the wider point and click adventure genre. Sure, there are easy pickings on iOS/Android/X-Box such as LucasArts classics Grim Fandango, Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle, but there are so many more out there and just a quick look at GOG.com reveals games featured in this book such as Bladerunner, Myst, The Dig and whole ranges of titles from the Kings Quest, Quest for Glory, Indiana Jones, Leisure Suit Larry and Space Quest series plus dozens more (and the prices are very reasonable). I know I'll be picking up some of the titles on GOG based on their mention in this book.

It is tempting to look at this book as perhaps a nostalgia trip, back to the genre's heyday of the 1980's and 90's, but that would be to miss the point. A lot of these titles are available to play today and remain excellent games in their own right. The Art of Point and Click Adventures is really a celebration. A (hefty) love letter to a form of play that, whilst not as mainstream as it once was, still retains a following whilst attracting new fans to the fold. This is an absolute must for genre fans and anyone with a passing interest. I know I say this a lot but really, the key to learning about a hobby is to push your boundaries a bit and you'll do far, far worse than to pick up a copy of this excellent reference. You never know, you might find yourself buying a few games and spending some time visiting far off worlds, meeting strange characters or just tagging along for the ride (bit like a weekend in Newcastle - pre 2020, obviously).

You can visit Bitmap Books here and check out their range of other titles. I think my next one might be The CRPG Book...

Next up is less about videogames and more about the videogames business as told by Ken Williams in Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings.

Ken Williams, along with his wife Roberta, were the founders of Sierra Online, a software developer and publisher that was responsible for some of the greatest point and click adventures ever released. I've mentioned some of these above but just to be clear, we're talking about Kings Quest, Quest for Glory, Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight and a whole lot more. In fact, there was recently a Kickstarter for a series of three volumes (with two more promised in a future Kickstarter) detailing the entire history of Sierra. I pledged for the hardback edition and, since the funding was more than successful, will hopefully receive the first three volumes in May next year. 

But back to this book and as the author states from the get go, it isn't specifically about the games but a history of the company, that makes this an interesting if uncomfortable read. 

This is a warts and all book and the author is at pains to state that his memory on certain areas may not be exact. He also states that where his opinions are concerned, he knows that he may not be right, but that's honestly how he sees it. It's not a fun tale in a lot of respects, as once the early years pass, it becomes very much a corporate story and, if you're like me and have a healthy dose of cynicism when it comes to anything corporate (or the dreaded management speak) then this book demonstrates that whilst you may be valued when needed, when you're no longer required, the corporation just don't care. Sucks to be you. The worst part is that Williams follows the corporate voice a lot, after all, that was his job, but the human cost of his behaviour and demands (working all hours until something is finished because it's your project, being pro-active to the point of forgoing all else at home and breaking yourself for a dollar) isn't much of his concern. He might feel bad for having to have sacked most of the company at one point but that's only worth a sentence here. No contrition, no empathy. 

His attitude to labeling people by their outlook to work and attitude and how useful they are to him as a member of staff is also something I disagree with. It's very much "I only want really useful people who do so much I don't really have to manage them", or at least comes across as that. I kind of get the (predominantly) American ideal of the cult of the individual, but this seems to be another example of "I'm alright, Jack" and bugger anyone else who suffers. This is especially true when the later corporate illegalities lead to many staff losing what share value they had in the company at the time.

In the end, this is an informative book and one that should be read by anyone wanting to understand how software development worked as a business in the 1980's and 90's, and how it can still go wrong from a low level workers point of view today. That does not make it a fun read though.

You can buy the book on Kindle, where it is also part of the Unlimited plan or order it from the usual bookshops.

The last, but not least, tome is a much more pleasant read, coming as it does from RMC - The Cave. If you're not familiar with RMC - The Cave (formerly known as Retro Man Cave), this is a YouTube channel that has a primary focus on all things retro computing and gaming. It's a great channel and Neil who runs it has done a lot of work for charity off the back of it - including this rather wonderful retro calendar that will adorn my cave walls next year. I urge you to check out the channel if you haven't already.

Retro Tea Breaks Volume 1 is a collection of interviews transcribed from the YouTube channel with the addition of side notes and illustrations. As the title states, more volumes are planned (there are currently 34 tea-break videos on the channel), but in this one, you get fourteen chats with the likes of the Oliver Twins, Al Lowe, Rob Hubbard, Mark Ferrari and Richard Garriott.

The interviews are carried out well and that is down to the format - the tea break conversation. You get a real feel for the individual personalities here and whilst you can view each conversation online in its entirety, this book is about preserving select parts of them in a physical format. Speaking of which, the lovely pocket book presentation is wonderful, the binding is solid and the whole tome screams out quality. 

Despite featuring people who I have already noted are in The Art of Point and Click Adventure, there is little repetition here and I would say that for point and click fans, there is a nice crossover between the two (unrelated) books. Funded by Kickstarter, my pledge included these rather lovely art cards by Stoo Cambridge (also one of the interviewees) and the whole package was well worth the price. 

I do hope that further copies of this book will be available from the RMC store so that others can enjoy it. As for me, I'll happily support any funding efforts for future volumes!

So there you have three videogame themed books that deserve a place on your bookcase/Kindle. Now, time to get the order to Bitmap Books...

RISC OS Cloverleaf - thoughts on the funding campaign

Regular readers (including you, Eddie), may recall this post from the beginning of October about the Cloverleaf Project. This began its Kickstarter funding campaign last Tuesday and as of the time of posting, had reached 24% of its funding goal. I was going to revisit the three questions I posed at the end of that post concerning the project but as I read through the Kickstarter campaign blurb, I realised that I had this all wrong. 

The desktop range... (screenshot from Kickstarter)

... alongside the laptop and all-in-one design (screenshot from Kickstarter).

What we have is a drive to get people who don't use RISC OS into the market. The t-shirt is a marketing touch but really, the included copy of Archive magazine (latest issue reviewed here), the RISC OS Introduction book and the included software are all there to support the new user. In many ways, this mirrors the packages created for the Amiga back in the day, taking the manufacturers' bundle and adding extras. The ones I most remember are Silica Systems (pictured below) but their were many more retailers that did the same thing, such as Hobbyte, Gordon Harwood and Diamond.

I miss 90's magazine adverts.

I don't think this is a bad idea at all, to be honest and I applaud the attempt to bring RISC OS to a wider audience. I would like to see the project succeed as any new software development fed back into the core OS can only be a good thing, as is the aim to get the OS running on a different ARM chipset. However, I have some niggles about Cloverleaf that I wish to note...

Their timeline for one.

This is... aspirational? (screenshot from Kickstarter)

As you can see, there is a very small window from the end of funding to getting hardware into the hands of supporters. The Kitten is now a Raspberry Pi 4-based system and the 11-inch laptop is no longer an option (even though it's still on the timeline...). I can understand the former, as it means they can easily get some hardware out to specific backers, but the latter? Unless they can't source them anymore? As for the other systems, RISC OS does not support the RK3399 processor but they hope to have deliverable systems within three months of funding. They do state that hardware may ship without some functionality (it would have to considering their deadline for NVMe support, but actual OS support???). The thought of pledging for the top end Puma desktop and not having access to a key feature for two months sits poorly with me. Also remember, that's development and testing time - as a software QA tester by trade, I think Cloverleaf aren't leaving enough time to get their offerings to a user ready state. Unless they want to use the backers as testers which is not a good idea at all, especially if said users are new to the OS anyway. 

I know, Kickstarter is not a shop. It's a backer funded system that should, hopefully, deliver on the campaign promises. However, the Puma desktop/laptop/all-in-one pledges are not small amounts of money and I question the belief that they should ship hardware that isn't fully operational. Will new users stick with the OS if bits don't work out of the box and the introductory guide is months away? I wonder...

This campaign has been likened to that of the Spectrum Next which successfully reached it's second campaign total and then some. Cloverleaf is not at all similar to that machine. Whereas the Next is a bespoke machine that is trying to do something different, other than emulation of a retro system, Cloverleaf is, in a way, duplicating a lot of what is already out there. The last six Kickstarters I have pledged to have been for projects that have been extremely specific and unique. From histories of the PS Vita, Dreamcast and Amiga, a definitive guide to Sierra On-Line games and a history of British Bullpup Firearms, all have filled a niche where previously nothing existed. Cloverleaf doesn't, and this brings me to the hardware.

I can already buy ready made kit from a number of suppliers, ready to go out of the box and with documentation to help me along. The 4te is £250, RISCOSbits can get you a working machine from £59 and even the higher end systems don't break the £300 barrier unless you buy add-ons or go portable. These prices make Cloverleaf look expensive. Take a RISCOSbits Delta Pi Lite 256 with 4GB of  RAM: £189. Buy an Archive magazine subscription (£40) and the RISC OS 5 user guide (£20.00). Add delivery for seasoning and you get a RISC OS desktop by the end of the month with easy access to the PlingStore and PackMan to add any software you need, and plenty to read, for £249.00 plus postage - cheaper than the Kitten desktop that you might, if everything goes to plan, receive three months from now with the beginners guide three months further out. And if you want a t-shirt, RISC OS Open do them for £12.50.

You could counter that the Cloverleaf pledge also supports software development for the OS and that's what is advertised, though how much of that will benefit the RISC OS universe is open to question. If you wanted to, you can directly support the development of the OS by pledging toward the bounty schemes here so there are other ways of supporting development other than via Cloverleaf. 

I will point out here that there has been a lively thread in the RISC OS Open: Forum about the project and if you have a look through it, you'll see a good amount of dialogue from project lead, Stefan, including a bit of an explanation as to dev resources posted on the 22nd November. This is handy to know and perhaps should have been included somewhere in the Kickstarter. They want you to hand over money, so the more detail about what the project will do (not just aspire to) is a good thing.

A list of included software with Cloverleaf (screenshot from Kickstarter)

This piece is not intended as a hit job, it's really not. As I have stated above, I like the idea of the Kickstarter campaign. I hope it raises the profile of RISC OS and maybe drums up some more support. However, as an existing user, this drive is not aimed at me and, as I have demonstrated above, if you know the market, you can get alternatives to Cloverleaf products more quickly and for less money.

I admit, I was carried away by my earlier enthusiasm for Cloverleaf. Looking at it in the hard light of day from my perspective, it's not something I think will I support but then again, I am torn on the issue. I don't need another desktop system and though I do want a RISC OS laptop, I think north of £500 for something I won't get for at least another seven months is an ask too far. Truth be told, I am also holding out for the article in the next issue of Archive magazine about portable RISC OS computers, as I have yet to see a proper review of the options available and I do like to do some research before handing over a few hundred pounds on anything. 

At the end of the day, it's a personal choice and I doubt my wittering will have much sway on your decision. This a new way of trying to grow the user base and awareness which, although it has its pitfalls, I hope it manages to succeed where it can. If more information comes out via the Kickstarter page or the forums, I may change my mind, but at present, it's not for me.

Archive Magazine 25.1 Review (plus a little extra RISC OS reading)

Print magazines were once the lifeblood of computing fans of any platform. Sadly, over the years, many of those titles, both mainstream and niche, have disappeared due to declining sales, decline of the actual platform and the rise of online publishing. Titles such as Personal Computer World, Amiga Format, Acorn User and even the illustrious Computer Shopper (last issue out now) have faded away. That's not to say niche platforms have been left bereft of physical publications. Indeed, the Amiga market has the long established Amiga Future and a new title, Amiga Addict, which has recently successfully reached a minimum order goal and should be in reader's hands around the middle of December (I'll have a review of that one when I receive my copy). The same holds for the RISC OS market and it must be said, there is something reassuring about a platform still having the following to support the printed word.

Launched in 1987, Archive now has its third editor after the passing of long-time RISC OS user and writer Jim Nagel. Gavin Smith has taken up the reins and after sampling a pdf of the final issue of Jim's tenure, I took the plunge and ordered a one year subscription. This covers six issues for the princely sum of £40 (including p&p) for UK subscribers. European readers pay £46, whilst the rest of the world pays £50. 

Since this was my first physical copy of Archive, I wasn't entirely sure what I'd be getting - after all, a pdf is just a pdf. What arrived was a 52-page A5 full colour booklet. The cover is sturdy and of high quality, as are the pages, and I definitely think I am getting good value as far as the physical quality goes.

Or course, a magazine stands or falls on its content, so what do we get in this issue?

The traditional news section, covering the new R-Comp computers, the RISCOSitory awards and a new update to ScummVM among other subjects, does the job it needs to before leading onto the bulk of the magazine, the articles.

There is a great piece on how the programming language Python 3 has made its way to RISC OS, followed by an update on the new cases available from RISCOSBits, and then a very readable first part of a series about ARM chips and their architecture. There is an update on RiscOSM and Recce, the first a package that uses OpenStreetMap so you can download and save copyright-free maps for annotation and the like, the latter an add on to add images from Google Street View. I'll be honest and admit I had not heard of these before but they sound useful so I'll keep these in mind. Next up is the tale of bringing the Raspberry Pi 4 and RISC OS together, a less than simple task given the hardware changes to the latest version of the Pi.

We also have an article on getting back into BBC BASIC programming which caught my attention, and a couple of regular columns: PC Bits and Mac Matters - both of which I found enlightening. Two more programming articles, Code Burp 1 and From gawk2Mawk, via Perl were interesting but kind of went over my head - definitely a reflection of my knowledge (or lack thereof) and not the articles themselves.

The back cover gives you notes on resources listed in the mag, details of the subscriptions available, and a Next Issue box where I saw something that piqued my attention: a comparison of the two available portable RISC OS computers - the Pi-Top 2 and the ARMbook. That I can't wait to read!

Are there any downsides to this publication? Well, there are a couple of formatting issues that, in reality, don't spoil the magazine, and the editor has already stated that there was very much a learning curve for this issue, given that it was his first, so there is no need to judge harshly here. Other than that, no, I can't see any negatives at all. The price per issue is decent (including that all important postage and packaging) given the nature of the publication, and the actual physical quality of the magazine is very good indeed. The quality of the writing is high and whilst some of the articles are more technically minded than others, that just creates a good balance for all experience levels of the readership. 

This is a great first issue for the new editor and I look forward to many more. If you are a user of RISC OS or just have an interest in the operating system, I heartily recommend checking Archive out. I know I'll be keeping each issue from now on in a safe place for future reference.

Oh, and a quick note about this, the RISC OS User Guide, covering the most recent version of the operating system, 5.28 (released in October this year). At nearly 600 pages, this is not a small tome but it covers all you would need to know about using RISC OS, the bundled applications and utilities and hardware set up for networks, printers and the like. It's well illustrated with screenshots where needed though not in colour. Having said that, it's only £20 plus £4.50 postage so I can't see a reason to complain. Another very welcome addition to the computing bookshelf.

SnackSurprise - The October Box: Turkey (and yes, I know it's late...)

Another month and another snack box, and this month's box of delights features snacks from Turkey.

It was cold so no blanket shot this month.

Fourteen different snacks this month as you can see from the booklet and I've also included the pages of the pamphlet about the Premium Box so you can see what else you might get if you want to pay the extra.

The Mini/Original Box contents.

The Premium Box extras.

In what seems to be an emerging pattern, we're starting off with the savoury snacks first and what appears to be a rather generous bag of hot pepper corn crisps called Patos Rolls. 

Ice Tea not included.

Except it's not generous at all. This is a 25g bag of crisps masquerading as something three times its actual size. And you thought Walkers were stingy bastards...

I kid you not, nothing has been removed from the packet yet.

But what about the taste? Actually rather nice - these are rolled Doritos in essence. Crunchy, a tad powdery and with a good taste, these take a good three or four before you get any kind of tingling of heat on the tongue, which makes them a pleasant (and milder than expected) snack to eat. Just a shame the packaging (and flavour) promise more than they deliver.

These really shouldn't work, but they do.

Eti Crax are something of a mystery, offering a chilli and lime flavour in a crunchy stick. What they actual give you is a wonderful hot and sour taste that certainly packs more heat than the Patos Rolls. We couldn't manage more than a couple each before the heat became too much but they are easy to return to. As far as this snack box goes so far, this is a cracking start. 

Conjoined buns.

Cake now and Dankek 8kek. Nope, no idea what the name signifies but what you get is a lovely, soft, moist banana cake covered in a thin layer of chocolate. Each flavour is quite potent and combine well overall. It's sweet, but not overly so, and I think would go very well with a brew.

If this was a tree frog, I'd stay well away.

Eti Puf is a marshmallow and biscuit combo that screams out to be loved. I mean, look at those sprinkles!!! It's so cheery and demanding to be liked. It also looks garishly dangerous, like an Amazonian amphibian warning you to stay the hell away. Yet what we actually get is an extremely sweet biscuit that's at least not hard, and a firm marshmallow. It wasn't to my taste though my good lady enjoyed it's nice coconut taste. She did add that it wasn't as good as a Tunnock's. She's not wrong.

That laughing/crying packaging is disturbing...

Eti Cin is apparently a Turkish favourite -  a sweet biscuit tart covered in orange jam and then dusted with chocolate sprinkles. The packaging gives the impression that it knows something is up and it's not letting us in on the secret. That secret is that it's not very nice - the jam is too cloying and the orange overpowers the senses - think a Jaffa cake but four times the intensity of flavour. Really not nice at all.

We're gonna rock down to, Eti Bidolu.

Eti Bidolu is a wafer sandwich with nut filled chocolate as the filling. The wafer is a tad dry but the filling is gooey enough to save your mouth from desiccation. I liked it but my good lady didn't take to the peanut pieces at all. So a marmite style wafer then. 

This sweet biscuit was sponsored by the Umbrella Corporation.

Eti Tutku (and the last of the Eti branded snacks) are biscuits with a cocoa cream. They aren't too dry, and the strength of flavour is pleasant without being too strong. As noted in the pamphlet, these would go well with a cuppa and are an inoffensive biscuit.

Nothing witty at all here - must be slipping.

Away from Eti now and onto Alpella 3Gen. This is a white chocolate bar with layers of white chocolate inter-spaced with wafers. Tasting like a Milky Bar on steroids, it's very nice though I think some people might struggle to finish a bar in one go - it is very sweet because of that white chocolate.

Or here. WTF is going on???

Another chocolate bar next and a familiar one at that. Ulker Albeni is a giant single bar of Twix. There you go, that's pretty much it. Pretty easy to describe and pretty easy to recommend if you like a Twix. 

Nor here either. Though you may have thought that with every caption so far.

Proper ket now (that's not Turkish, that's a local term), and Jelibon Sour Patch Karpuz. Melon sours to us. Soft jelly centre surrounded by a sour crystal like exterior, these deliver the initial sour taste and then a lovely, refreshing watermelon burst once you get chewing. The zing they deliver is mouth-watering and they don't leave any kind of nasty aftertaste which is always a good thing.

It's definitely not toffee.

Kent Tofita are a cherry heavy tasting chew and look pretty much like Chewits. The cherry is strong with this one and they are long lasting. Not too hard and, in a pleasant surprise, not likely to pull fillings out if they stick to your teeth. We didn't mind these at all.

A reason not to go into that bloody wardrobe.

Okay, full disclosure time here. I detest Turkish Delight. Have done since being a child and in the intervening years have now and again sampled it with the same outcome. My good lady, however, was willing to try this one and... nope. Again, it's one of those Marmite decisions.

Probably wouldn't taste better even if covered in cocaine...

Suitable for all muskets and pistols.

The Eksiyuz Sakiz are small, hard, sour bubble gums that kind of worried me when I took one out of the wrapper. You'd kind of expect some give in a bubble gum but no, not here. These things could be used in a musket! Actually trying one was also bad as it had an incredibly sour taste that wasn't just unpleasant - it was actively foul. After disposing of the offending sweet, the aftertaste hung around like a losing Presidential candidate and was almost as salty as those horrible Swedish things from a couple of months ago. These are ones to avoid.

Not rancid fruit piss, which makes a pleasant change.

Finally, we have the included drink and, in some weird tear in the fabric of reality, the Dimes Visne really was quite pleasant. A sour cherry drink, this has a good initial punch of flavour which then politely fades away, leaving a subtle hint on the palette. It's refreshing and worth another go. I think this is the first drink we've had in a snack box that we have actually enjoyed.

So there you have it, another box done and, looking back, more hits than misses, or so it feels. There was an over-reliance on chocolate but other than that, there's been some decent ket in here. Roll on the next one. 

Was That Film Really That Bad??? The Saint (1997)

The back end of the 1990's saw several attempts to launch film franchises based upon popular 1960's TV shows. Whilst Mission: Impossible was a huge success ($457m at the box office against an $80m budget and a film series that continues to this day), Lost in Space ($136m vs $80m) was a dud and The Avengers ($54m vs $60m) was a box office bomb. What about The Saint? For the sake of this post, The Saint falls into the category of 1960's TV show remake, and yes, I am aware of the films produced from the 1930's to '50's as well as the 1940's radio show, but since they dragged Roger Moore in for a cameo in this film, I'm tying this to the 1960's TV show. I considered this film decent back in the day, though the reviews were less than complimentary. Does my original opinion hold today?

From this...

Released in 1997, this $90m production managed to recoup $169m at the box office - not terrible but nowhere near enough to justify sequels. Plot wise, we have the mysterious Simon Templar (Val Kilmer) who survives a poor school experience to become a not half bad thief and master of disguise (snigger!). After a job in Moscow almost goes south, he attracts the attention of a populist Russian would-be leader (and multi-billionaire oligarch) Ivan Tretiak (Rade Serbedzija) who wants to get his hands on a practical method of cold fusion energy generation so that he can come to the rescue of the Russian people and take over the country. This information is held by its inventor, Dr. Emma Russell (Elizabeth Shue) in Oxford and Templer decides to take the job in order to boost his savings up to $50m so he can retire. Along the way, Templar discovers he has a heart to help people, the bad guys fail, the good guys win and we end with a Roger Moore voice cameo. You'd think, what with some good location filming, decent cast and a hefty (for its time) budget, this would be a Shue (!) in for box office gold. Well...

Topical (for the 1990's) plot aside, this film should live or die by its casting of Templar and I'll be honest here, my feelings towards Kilmer are mixed. In some scenes, he looks the part and there is no doubt that the lad can act - hell, anyone with Top Secret, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Ghost and the Darkness, Tombstone and The Doors on their CV has demonstrated they have a range when permitted. The problem with The Saint is that, whether it be a creative decision by Kilmer or direction from Philip Noyce (who can do thrillers well - the two Harrison Ford-starring Tom Clancy adaptations in the early 1990's prove this), Kilmer's performance is weak. 

Part of the problem is that Templar is supposed to be an enigma, but that means you never really get to root for the character. If you think through this logically, he is actually quite the bastard, especially in his plan to woo Shue to get his hands on the cold fusion formula. This isn't helped by some leaden dialogue delivery. Then we have the disguises.

... to this....

You see, there's not much you can do to disguise 1990's Val Kilmer. With a jaw line that could cut (or smash) rock depending on how you used it, there's just no getting past the fact that he is very distinctive in looks. This means that the disguises that Templar effects are... troubling. These efforts are all the more obvious as we get five of them in the first thirty minutes of the movie, leading to a total of twelve by the time the credits role (and Kilmer wanted even more!). From a balding reporter/don, to a blond wigged camp German that borders on the offensive, to long haired (in the style of a Las Vegas magic act) South African/Spanish dudes, they don't convince at all. At least the wigs are good. But it gets worse - there's the grey-haired Russian that drops in to an Australian accent that is beyond all realms of decency and a Russian cleaning lady that dusts the office of Tretiak whilst he and his cronies are actually there! Still, his attempt at mirroring Tretiak almost works in the sense that if you are Mr Magoo and don't have your glasses, you could confuse the two. Overall, I think Kilmer could have been better than he is, playing it either too seriously and/or with zero emotion, at least until the end of the film where you get to see where the character could have been taken.

Shue is miscast here. She does the eccentric, nervous scientist schtick as best she can but it's unconvincing and she has zero on-screen chemistry with Kilmer. The seduction of Russell by Templar is painful to watch. Yes, I know he's playing a character playing a character but it's bad. In news to nobody who has seen this film, Russell has a bad heart - we know this because she literally tells EVERYBODY she meets. As the audience we know this the first time she tells someone so there is no reason to keep bloody repeating it!

Serbedzija is, as always, good value and as is often the case in his US movie appearances, has a twinkle in his eye playing the bad guy. Less so is Valery Nikolev, playing Tretiak's son, Ilya. It's not his acting, which is decent. No, it's the decision to give him a cane to twirl and a fashion sense that veers between "Interview with a Vampire" and an early 90's pop video. All he really needs is a mustache and he's your panto villain right there. 

The rest of the cast contains a veritable list of British actors who do a good job overall: Henry Goodman, Michael Byrne, Charlotte Cornwall, Tommy Flanagan, David Schneider, Emily Mortimer, Julian Rhind-Tutt and Peter Guinness pepper the scenes, though the meatiest secondary role goes to local lad, Alun Armstrong, whose (not quite bumbling) Inspector really does need to be the foil for Templar to play against. Sadly, it's only teased at the end of the film.

...and this...

Re-watching The Saint revealed more than a few flaws outside of the acting, the worst of which is the pacing. The beginning of the film shows a small boy, fascinated by the Templars, suffering the wrath of a Catholic school and the untimely death of a another pupil. Ok, that's good as character set up but by starting the film with such a slow opening, it's not exactly driving people into the story. Fast forward to the present day and after the initial fun of the Moscow theft, the film bogs down in Templar's attempt to get the cold fusion plans from Russell. As noted above, there is zero chemistry and these scenes (roughly 20 minutes of the total run time!) suck the life out of the film. Once you get past that, it livens up again but by then, the damage is done and overall, the pace is sedentary enough to send some people to sleep.

Then there is the edit that was released. When test audiences saw the first cut, they didn't like the ending - this is one where Russell is killed three quarters of the way through and Templar goes on a revenge quest. Fearing this would harm the film's box office, a new ending was shot (at some expense) and is the one you see here. Is it better than the original? No idea, never seen that original cut, but the ending we do have leaves room for a sequel that never came. There were also accusations of Kilmer being a bit of an arse on set but these have never been proven, though the subsequent bad press for both re-shoots and off-screen behaviour can't have helped the film either.

The thing is, there is humour here and when it works, it works well - the ending in Oxford is cute and I'd like to think they would have continued in that vein for a follow up. The problem with some of the humour is that it's based on the disguises and you either need to suspend disbelief or wonder why they didn't just go down the comic route completely (the aforementioned cleaning lady being the nadir).

... to this and he can't tell the difference.

Not a flaw but more of an observation, is the technology of the time. The old Apple Powerbook, a digital camera that, compared to today's kit, looks like something out of the Flintstones and the very heavy use of a Nokia Communicator, the most desirable "smart" phone before the term was coined. How times have moved on!

Where the film does score highly with me is the music - with one exception. With tracks from the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Moby, Fluke, Everything But The Girl and Underworld, this is a proper 1990's retro music fest right here. Even Orbital's cover of The Saint theme isn't bad but suffers in the same way as Apollo 440's Lost in Space theme and Larry Mullen Jr/Adam Clayton's mix on Mission: Impossible's iconic theme - there's not much you can do to stretch a minute long TV tune into a three to four minute single. However, the best, and worst, are to come. They manage to cram in "6 Underground" by the Sneaker Pimps and whilst it's a good track, it's literally crow-barred in with such a lack of finesse that it even plays over some of the incidental music. I mean, WTF? The film gets a reprieve with it's biggest music track, "Out of my Mind" by Duran Duran. This song is perfect for the film, from the tone to the lyrics, and as it plays out over the credits, it feels just right. Certainly, this eclipses film songs from the period such as U2's efforts with Batman Forever ("Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me") and Tomb Raider ("Elevation"). On a side note, for the latter film, Nine Inch Nail's "Deep" was by far the better song and criminally ignored. On a second side note, the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies has a much better theme song that was considered but not chosen (though it was on the soundtrack CD), "Surrender" by k.d. lang - a much, much better Bond song than Sheryl Crow's.

So, The Saint. Not as good as I remembered and with flaws that a sequel could have addressed, freed of the baggage of establishing backstories and motivations. Having said that, I still have a soft spot for it and I still get a pang of regret as the credits roll that they didn't get a chance to do another one. Overall then, this is a film that really does warrant the description of "Disappointing". It deserved to be better and it's a damn shame it wasn't.