Name: trace - juicy biscuits
Editor: mekki

Technical

There is a lot to like about this movie from a technical standpoint. The capturing seems to have been done crisply and the use of colours is not the hinderance it can be for those of us who prefer the more raw footage. The editing of the kills has been done pretty well throughout. Sequences seem to start at the appropriate point and end likewise, plus the kicker which always makes or breaks this style of editing is that in this case scenes which feature sequences at different times throughout the round have been well edited so it still feels like there is a flow between them. Credit has to be given there because that is a tricky element of that style of editing and is an area in which many many moviemakers stumble and fall.

There are some times where I felt like effect decisions went the wrong way. A couple of good examples would be the scene where trace is AWPing on the wooden outside balcony on inferno and for the last kill the moviemaker darkens the screen so the viewer can't really see it. This is done again in a scene where trace is in the B tunnel on dust2 and is AWPing players who are coming from T spawn. Again the last kill appears to be blackened out so the viewer really can't make it out at all. This scene of course leads into the next problem with this movie which is namely the use of laggy kills.

In that particular scene the lag really makes it a redundant scene because pretty much every AWP shot while scoped seems to coincide with a lag spike which makes it close to impossible to see the actual kill beyond noticing it popping up in the obituaries. That is the worst example of the laggy kills though, the rest are actually much less of a problem. This is one of the only movies I've ever seen with a lot of lag in the footage which didn't seem to be completely handicapped by that downside.

The running time of the movie is really spot on as in that 5:58 you get plenty of action yet due to the downsides and the fact the moviemaker doesn't have unlimited good frags you get the feeling he ended it at the right time. To try to push it out any further would have weakened the movie while at this length it feels like a nice punchy effort which has real interest value.

Visual

The frags are the reason any of us watched this movie, we could really care less about the music or the editing. If you're like me then you watched this movie because you're curious to see more of trace's game now he's the newest member of mTw.dk. In that respect you will not be disappointed as you see a wide range of sequences and kills from the talented young Dane. Even in spite of the lag which comes along with them the kills in this movie are of a high standard for most of the movie, even if some sequences are less aesthetically enjoyable than the kills would have been imagined from seeing them on paper.

There are a whole host of sequences where you get really good kills, some even against known/good opposition. We get to see one bullet deagle headshot sequences where players come in one by one only to get their domes rocked, always a crowd pleaser. There are silenced colt scenes where trace shows off his bursting, a notable one being where he is on upper ramp at inner on train and kills players as they come from the T side of upper but then keeps looking back down into the site in case any have come from lower. There is something very satisfying about the way he looks away after each kill to check the site, then when he notices another T has come out he instantly moves back over and makes an almost picture perfect identical shot and kill to the previous one. When this is done three times it really has a nice effect on the viewing experience.

The AWPing of trace really gets shown off in this movie and there are a number of scenes where he hits a nice quickscope shot or gets off consistent kills on a pack of enemies over and over. Clearly trace shares his new team-mate Sunde's penchant for raw hand-eye coordination, allowing him to seemingly never miss if the enemy walks through his crosshair. The USP kills and wall spams were nice enough too.

Even the eco kills in the movie work for the most part. The scene where he is killing ecoing Ts with a famas on nuke in ramp room isn't exactly dynamite stuff, it's the standard kill 4 with a rifle then kill the last with a USP that moviemakers seem to be enamoured with. That said one scene which stuck out in my mind as showing that eco frags can be ok if used correctly was when trace is outside the tunnel at B on dust2 and enemies are rushing him and he over and over glocks them while jumping, this is quite a satisfying scene in and of itself. That kind of sums up even the lesser kills in this movie: they work within the context of the movie and have some redeeming quality. When trace is on the T roof of nuke and killing people around the ladder area could have been very lame but the last kill really saves the scene and makes it worthwhile.

There are some sequences which could have been left out, which didn't really add anything or weren't good enough in comparison to the rest. That is the case for most movies though.

Audio

The first audio track felt like a really nice selection for this movie and the action on display. This is kind of a nu-metal track done right in as much as it has nice enough riffs, I haven't heard it before and the emotional aspect connects up well with the action of the first half of the movie. So as you see kills and the chorus is blaring you're getting that kick of adrenaline and the thrill which I assume we all seek from the movie viewing experience.

The second track is 'Linkin Park - Faint' and I've really got to say it for the 1000th time: really? We're STILL doing Linkin Park in CS movies? It's not even like this is an appalling track of the level of something you'd see on American idol. It's an ok track, but for the first two times I heard it. For the last 698 (thanks to being in some of the best CS movies ever) it's been at best mildly annoying and at other times down right hateable. The reason I say this is because it really brings down the second half of the movie for me after the first half had done so well at setting the scene and then getting me involved as a viewer. The second half in comparison seems much more mundane and ho-hum. One can't ignore the effect music and visual components have in combining to produce something more than the sum of each.

The outro track was fairly nice and it marks one of the few outros where they cover the screen but show kills in the background that I watched the whole way through.

Overall

This is a flawed movie no doubt, in each of the respects by which I judge a frag movie too, and yet it managed to emerge in spite of those flaws as an entertaining viewing experience. At times energetic and with great action, at other times lapsing into momemtary lulls or simply less impressive sequences. The overall feeling I get from the movie is that it was good though a little too far from being very good or great. I wanted to know more about trace as a player and this movie was a good crash course on what he is capable of and the range of his game, in as much as a frag movie can be.

It's not going to win any awards but for a movie made in under a week this is certainly acceptable and something I will likely view again in the future.

Thorin Rating: 7/10

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