need for speed

New mega-gaming and indoor go-karting playhouse speeds into Katy

Orlando, Florida-based entertainment facility Andretti Indoor Karting & Games will be hitting the Houston area with thrilling attractions and racing experiences.

On Tuesday, March 3, the family entertainment and gaming center will open up a new location in Katy, located adjacent to the newly opened, University of Houston Katy campus and Katy Asian Town at the corner of Grand Parkway and I-10.

Named after the legendary Andretti racing family, the nearly 88,000-square-foot complex will showcase high-speed electric superkarts, laser tag, mini golf, VR gaming, a ropes course, unique dining options, over 4,600 square feet of exceptional event space, and more.

Here are the features and attractions attendees can look forward to:

Multi-Level race track
Experience the adrenaline rush of electric go karts on a ½ mile of multi-level tracks with sweeping downward spirals, multiple sharp turns, and long straightaways that take you all the way to victory lane.

Laser Tag
The two-story 2,053-square-foot black light battlefield transports you inside the engine of a race car with the latest laser tag technology from Delta Strike, the leader in laser tag equipment industry.

Arcade games
Guests can enjoy over 80 of the latest and greatest video, redemption and prize games in the state-of-the-art arcade. After racking up all of the tickets, guests can redeem their winnings at the Redemption Counter with a wide range of prizes for all ages.

Ropes course
Andretti offers an indoor high adventure ropes course which can be found well above the arcade with multiple challenging obstacles for both the beginner and advanced adventurer.

Hologate VR
Hologate is a four-player virtual reality attraction that takes you to a new dimension with advanced graphic technology and immersion. The open-air layout allows spectators to see the players and take in the action on the monitors above the playing space.

Hologate Blitz
This four-player virtual reality experience immerses players in full sensory heart-pounding thrills by combining state of the art virtual reality graphics with a motion simulator that rises a full meter in height and can tilt in every direction. The chance of motion sickness that some players may feel in other virtual reality attractions has been almost completely eliminated due to extremely low latency and next-level network and code design.

Omniverse
Explore virtual reality like never before with a 360-degree-moving treadmill platform, state of the art graphics optimized for multiplayer interactive gaming and an adjustable harness that allows players to move full speed without hitting walls. Guests can play for the sheer thrilling fun of the experience by participating individually or competitively as teams in weekly and monthly Esports world competitions.

Mini-Golf
Lucky Putt is nine custom high-tech holes of mini golf reimagined that blends the nostalgic joy of classic mini golf with exclusive technology to deliver an unforgettable social experience. The scoring system is digitized to streamline score tracking and allow players to focus on the experience. At the beginning of each hole, players select their names on a digital tablet, and sensors automatically track the movement of the ball and tally scores for each player. As for food, this spot offers several dining options including a Food Truck Plaza, sit-down dining, a dessert bar and two bars. The Indoor Food Truck Plaza will feature three different food trucks and a Dessert Bar:

Fusion Bowl featuring Asian cuisine including bowls hot off the wok, cold bowls and spring rolls.
Mama Andretti’s featuring Italian cuisine including salads and brick oven pizzas and calzones.
Let’s Roll Diner featuring American cuisine including wings, burgers, sandwiches and chicken tenders.

The Main Bar area will feature the full restaurant menu including salads, Asian bowls, burgers, sandwiches, brick oven pizzas & calzones, chef-crafted entrees and desserts, along with gluten-free bread, pasta and pizza dough for those with special dietary restrictions.

Andretti also welcomes corporate events, birthday parties and any special occasions of any size, offering a wide variety of birthday party packages and add-ons to customize each event. Event spaces include:

Total Event Space Grand Room & VIP Rooms: 307-person capacity
Mario Room: Viewing Area with two glass walls overlooking the Arcade and Track.

Andretti Karting is hiring for approximately 350 positions, including game and attraction attendants, culinary, janitorial, mechanics and much more. Applicants must be at least 18 years old. A job fair will take place at the Best Western Premier Energy Corridor on January 15 through February 21. The Job Fair hours will be Monday-Friday 9 am to 6 pm and on Saturdays 10 am to 4 pm.

For more information on open positions and to submit your application in advance, visit the official site.

The karts are electric.

Photo courtesy of Andretti

The karts are electric.

sports funny-stuff food-trucks

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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