E Blacks Take on India as Gaming Stars Descend on Armageddon Expo this Labour Weekend

An international esports test match, a new two-storey gaming arena and the performers behind some of the world’s favourite game characters will put gaming centre stage at the Spring edition of Armageddon Expo this Labour Weekend.

Running from Friday 23 to Monday 26 October at Auckland Showgrounds, the expo brings together more than two decades of gaming talent, from Kenny James, who began voicing Nintendo’s Bowser in 2005, to new star, Erika Ishii, whose leading roles include Atsu in Ghost of Yōtei.

Alongside them, New Zealand’s E Blacks will face India in eFootball, Tekken and Clash Royale on Sunday 25 October, from 1pm to 3pm, with men’s and women’s players competing throughout the long weekend.

NZ Esports chief executive Jonathan Jansen says Armageddon offers a natural home for the national team and its supporters.

“Armageddon is the best excuse for everyone who loves gaming and pop culture to get together. For us to be able to play there is an awesome way to connect with our community and demonstrate our sport.”

The E Blacks’ two-storey structure will feature an upstairs stage and a four-sided screen display. Visitors can try free-play machines, meet and play with national representatives, see technology demonstrations and purchase an E Blacks jersey personalised with their name. A claw machine will offer the chance to win mascot plushies.

The appearance also celebrates ten years of the E Blacks, ahead of further international competition.

Jansen says the social side of gaming is often overlooked.

“People are realising it’s such a social activity. Because it’s digital or on the internet, there’s a generation who feel it can’t be social. But it really is about that social connection and meeting friends online through gaming.”

Among the players is a mother-and-son pairing representing New Zealand in eFootball, a reminder that competitive gaming reaches well beyond the teenage audience often associated with it.

The international guest line-up tells a similarly broad story. Kenny James has been bringing Bowser to life for more than 20 years, while David Bateson’s association with Hitman’s Agent 47 stretches back more than a quarter of a century. Alongside those familiar voices are performers whose recent roles have introduced them to substantial new audiences.

Erika Ishii is set to be a key attraction at the show, with credits including Ghost of Yōtei, Valkyrie in Apex Legends and a voice option for Rook in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Andrew Wincott gave Baldur’s Gate 3 its charismatic devil Raphael, while Kayleigh McKee voices Testament in Guilty Gear Strive.

Armageddon founder Bill Geradts says the guest list reflects how closely games, film and television now overlap.

“People sometimes talk about gaming guests and screen guests as though they’re separate groups. Look at this line-up and you can see how often they’re the same people. These actors bring game characters to life through their voices, their expressions and, in some cases, a full physical performance.”

Christopher Judge, known to television audiences as Teal’c in Stargate SG-1, provides both the voice and performance capture for Kratos in God of War and God of War Ragnarök. Giancarlo Esposito brings his screen presence from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul to Far Cry 6’s antagonist Antón Castillo. Aliens actor Mark Rolston also plays Norman Osborn in Marvel’s Spider-Man games.

There is also a local connection: Rotorua-raised actor and arm-wrestling champion Maateiwarangi Heta-Morris portrays Tai Kaliso in Gears of War: E-Day. He will appear in the R16 gaming area on Saturday 24 October, from 11am to 3pm.

Other gaming guests include Overwatch’s Carolina Ravassa and Lucie Pohl, League of Legends actor Faye Mata, Rainbow Six Siege’s Martin Copping and Danganronpa actor Christine Marie Cabanos. Wincott and Arcane’s Jason Spisak will also take part in The Scoundrolls’ live Dungeons & Dragons performances.

Across the show floor, purpose-built PG and R16 gaming areas sit alongside PC and console play and a Steam Machine demonstration area. Noel Leeming brings a gaming display and sale, Kiwibank offers arcade play and a photo zone, and Mighty Ape and first-time gaming exhibitor Overkill Games add to the retail line-up. Fonterra combines Protein+ giveaways with a racing area, while Burger King brings giveaways and an online prize area.

“Gaming is always strong at Armageddon, but this time it's huge,” says Geradts.

“You’ve got the voice of Bowser, who has been part of people’s childhoods for 20 years, alongside actors who’re playing key roles in the latest games releases. Then you can cheer on New Zealand against India in a fully-fledged international tournament. That’s a pretty good day out for a gamer,” he says.

Auckland Armageddon Expo starts with a Preview evening on Friday 23, then runs from Saturday 24th –Monday 26 October 2026 at Auckland Showgrounds. 

Tickets, schedules and individual guest appearance days: www.armageddonexpo.com.

 

Clayface: Movie Review

Cast: Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, Ruby Sear, Eddie Marsan, Max Minghella
Director: James Watkins

"The reviews are in," one character says. 

"I hope they're kind," another replies to them.

It's this kind if inadvertently meta-aware moment in Clayface that signals all that's wrong with this body horror origin tale of DC villain Matt Hagen.

(Also, the reviews will categorically not be kind to this.)

When we first meet Hagen (Harries, stoic in the face of a script that's blessed with some clunkers), his stock is rising. Nominated for an Oscar and a star in the making, the actor appears destined for greatness. But while out celebrating, he chooses to sleep with a gangster's moll (Sear), leading to a morning after confrontation that sees him disfigured after being cut up by goons, headed up by local mob boss Markos Szabo (David Dencik).

Scuttling off like The Phantom of the Opera into the backstreets, Hagen falls fast, his life in ruins, dropped by agents and Hollywood before he's even had chance to process what's happening. With nowhere to go, he turns to medical research doctor Caitlyn Corr (Ackie), whom he discovers is using cutting edge nanotechnology to try and cure illness after losing her brother.

Despite her insistence that she's not doing human trials, Hagen convinces her to take him on as a patient...

Clayface may come from prestigious heritage in terms of Haunting of Hill House and Carrie writer Mike Flanagan and Speak No Evil director Janes Watkins, but it's a resounding thud of a film that depressingly signals another bomb for DC after the unfairly maligned Supergirl left them reeling. 

Flat direction, a workmanlike script and the awful dialogue that signals what's happening rather than showing it, Clayface becomes as muddy as the melting face on its villain, played with relative aplomb and occasional blank canvas Harries.

Despite proudly shouting about its R16 rating and with some body horror close ups and scissors near eyes, it feels like the film's not secure enough to reach into darker territory to leave a lasting impression, preferring instead to deliver some lazy jumpscares, rote dialogue and action that - bar one club scene and a sequence on a plane that's likely to leave some squirming - feels non-existent.

It's a crime that this doesn't deliver - its lead, a mix of Marc Warren and Willem Dafoe, tries his best to mine the tragedy, but the ascent and descent come so fast, there's barely time to care or indeed scare. With little chemistry with Ackie and with Minghella more or less playing the same cop he did in the Saw franchise, the most frightening thing about Clayface is how much wasted potential it had as it descends into body morphing, body swapping and fakeout territory.

And Watkins knows how to get tension from little more than actors, as he did with the brilliantly unsettling Speak No Evil. Here, it feels like a film direction constrained by studios and dealt to by a committee, rather than someone given creative freedom to mine the macabre and dial up the unease.

Ultimately, Clayface is one cinematic slab of clay that should have been re-moulded in the early stages - because it's a disaster James Gunn's DC Universe could well do without.

Klara and the Sun: Movie Review

Cast: Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi, Natasha Lyonne, Mia Thiara
Director: Taika Waititi

It's easy to see what would draw a director like Taika Waititi to make and adapt a film like Klara and The Sun.

Given its childlike innocence, naivete and vein of tragedy within, it has a lot in keeping with the elements of Boy and Hunt For The Wilderprople where odd quirky edges hide deep heartache and issues with the human condition.

But the problem here is the adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's book, is that the film never once gives any real depth to its heftier themes, despite a third act that shows so much promise when the darkness creeps in and hints at what the film really could have been, if it had been swathed in more melancholy.

Jenna Ortega is artificial friend Klara, a robot companion that's looking for an owner. Swamped by newer models, she and her kin are forced to stand in shop windows by their owner (Natasha Lyonne) to try and attract a mate. But ignored due to newer models, Klara faces a bleak future until she's discovered by Josie (Thiara, largely brilliant until the third act sidelines her) and taken home.

Once back at Josie's country house, where only her icy mother (Adams, thin-lipped and distant) and housekeeper (Rachel House, once again deploying her familiar schtick as a brusque individual with a heart) live, Klara discovers all is not as it seems as she tries to bond with Josie and find her true happiness.

At the start, Klara and the Sun has a goofy appeal as Ortega's sweetly charming wide-eyed robot tries to fit in. Like a child with nothing imprinted on her yet, Klara has an innocence that the film mines for comedic effect, but soon the whimsy grows tiring as the house of cards is built on little else.

While the rejoinder to the cynicism is perhaps welcome early on, it soon becomes clear that Klara and The Sun has little idea of what it wants to do other than tell a seemingly happy story with a sad heart to it, something Waititi has largely made his oeuvre out of. 

But by dabbling in bits of sci-fi, elements of family drama and melodramatic edges, the film rarely delves deeply into any of them, proving to be a shallow and frustrating experience than frustrates rather than thrills.

Pitching juvenile and not quite adult enough for its themes, Klara and the Sun's highlights remain with its core cast members. 

Ortega has enough to carry the film and imbues Klara with a joy that's initially hard to deny and as Josie, Thiara shows depth beyond her young years, mining the tragedy of her character and the frailty of her situation. However, the third act sidelines her and her missing presence is deeply felt.

Perhaps the biggest frustration with Klara and the Sun is how little of Waititi there appears to be on show here, crafting a film that feels inert and lifeless when it's the perfect kind of story for his back catalogue. 

But on this showing, perhaps the sun needs to set a little on his ambitions and he can go back to basics.

What's on DocPlay in November

Here's everything that's streaming on DocPlay in November 2026.

This November, remarkable documentary films from across the globe stream exclusively on DocPlay. An enticing high-stakes fued spills across the screen in The Oligarch and the Art Dealer, while Broken English offers a surprising genre-bending portrait of the musician Marianne Faithfull. Two films from American documentarian Ross McElwee come to the platform - Sherman’s March (1985), and his devastating new festival favourite, Remake. Offering a similarly-themed meditation on life and death, The Oldest Person in the World is the new film from Sam Green, who develops a fascination with the world’s oldest living people.

Plus, Claude Lanzmann’s opus Shoah, a landmark of documentary cinema, streams on DocPlay from mid-November.

2 November

The Oligarch and the Art Dealer (Exclusive) | Series

When a Russian oligarch accuses his trusted Swiss art dealer of a billion-dollar betrayal, their explosive feud pulls back the curtain on the secretive world of the ultra-wealthy – where masterpieces are currency, fortunes are hidden in plain sight, and power is everything.

5 November

Broken English (Exclusive)

A posterchild of counterculture and lead artist of the British Invasion of music in the United States, Marianne Faithfull was a singular pop talent. Exploring her six-decade journey through music, fame, and reinvention, Faithfull’s final artistic work comes in the form of a genre-bending documentary, weaving reality and imagination to present a full reflection on a one-of-a-kind life.

9 November

Bye Bye Tiberias

In Bye Bye Tiberias, filmmaker Lina Soualem travels back in time and place to capture the stories passed on by four generations of daring Palestinian women in her family.

9 November

The Oldest Person in the World (Exclusive)

Filmmaker Sam Green follows successive record holders for the world's oldest living person, creating a moving meditation on longevity, fate, time, mortality, and the meaning of life.

12 November

Shoah

Over a decade in the making, Claude Lanzmann’s nine-hour-plus opus is a monumental investigation of the unthinkable: the murder of more than six million Jews by the Nazis. DocPlay is proud to present this landmark documentary.

30 November

Remake (Exclusive)

In his most devastatingly personal work to date, veteran auto-documentarian Ross McElwee probes his home movies for insights into his son’s death. Remake premieres on DocPlay alongside Sherman’s March (1985), also directed by Ross McElwee.

Masterplan: Movie Review

Cast: Stanley Tucci, Simona Tabasco, Victor Belmondo
Director: Thomas Vincent

A very European take on the heist movie, Masterplan's flashiness serves it well as a light, frothy evening's entertainment, but once the film's finished, it's hardly likely you'll think on on it.

Which is a shame because director Thomas Vincent crafts together a pacy film about thieves Jay and Chiara, one an Italian cybercriminal (The White Lotus' Tabasco) and the other, an explosives expert (Belmondo) who are thrown together in an attempt to steal the Mona Lisa.

Spearheaded by Stanley Tucci's suave (and exceptionally well-dressed) former criminal Roger, the twist comes when he reveals to the pair that they are his estranged children, adding a more complex element to the stakes.

Or so you'd think.

Unfortunately, Masterplan is more interested in flashy cuts and zippy graphics, soundtracks and montages than the need to deploy much tension in this high-faluting adventure.

Despite Tucci delivering a more than capable performance that showcases his usual wit and charisma, the film's never quite sure of what it wants to achieve, other than zipping around locations, providing a chance to showcase a multi-international co-prod and just leaving the two thieves squabbling with each other (after initially awkwardly flirting).

As a result, Masterplan does what it says - and even with a final act twist, it never quite rises above its intentions, delivering a highly capable Friday night streaming choice. That's perfectly fine to do and given there are no real clangers of performances here for a script that hardly challenges its cast, it's perhaps enough.

But the biggest crime here is that Masterplan will steal away just under 2 hours of your time in a kind of streaming heist that'll leave you scratching your head where the time went and why you can't remember much about it after its credits have rolled.

Masterplan is streaming now on Prime Video.

What's on Disney+ in November

Here's everything that's streaming on Disney+ in November 2026

Rivals (November 11)

Based on Dame Jilly Cooper’s best-selling and beloved Rutshire Chronicles, the critically acclaimed series returns with a three-episode premiere on Wednesday 11 November on Disney+ internationally, and Hulu in the U.S.

As the return to the scandal and excess of 1987 edges closer, the residents of Rutshire reunite for more revelry, rivalry and romance, but as the stakes ramp-up they must face tragedy, heartbreak, backstabbing, and betrayal head on.

Episodes 7-12 pick up after the heartbreaking mid-series finale. Tony Baddingham and Declan O'Hara's battle for the Cotswolds crown reaches fever pitch, while Rupert Campbell-Black is forced to confront his own personal demons. Against a backdrop of hedonistic parties, Bonfire Night chaos, the Hampshire Hunt Ball and a turbulent Christmas, affairs unravel, alliances fracture and rivalries intensify. Caught in the middle of the frenzied franchise war, Taggie O'Hara must find the courage to follow her heart, while those around her face the consequences of ambition, power and secrets that can no longer remain hidden. But as series two draws to a close, who will get their happy ending?

Ahead of its highly anticipated return and following rave reviews, Disney+ also recently announced it had been greenlit for a third season, with twelve new episodes confirmed.

Reprising their iconic roles are David Tennant (‘Doctor Who’, ‘The Thursday Murder Club’) as Lord Tony Baddingham, Alex Hassell (‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’, ‘The Boys’) as Rupert Campbell-Black, Aidan Turner (‘Poldark’, ‘The Suspect’) as Declan O’Hara, Nafessa Williams (‘Black Lightning’, ‘Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody’) as Cameron Cook, Bella Maclean (‘Sex Education’, ‘London Tide’) as Taggie O’Hara, Katherine Parkinson (‘Humans’, ‘Here We Go’) as Lizzie Vereker, Danny Dyer (‘EastEnders, ‘The Football Factory’) as Freddie Jones, Victoria Smurfit (‘Bloodlands’, ‘Once Upon A Time’) as Maud O’Hara, Claire Rushbrook (‘Sherwood’, ‘Ali and Ava’) as Lady Monica Baddingham, Oliver Chris (‘The Crown’, ‘Trying’) as James Vereker, Lisa McGrillis (‘Maternal’, ‘Mum’) as Valerie Jones, Emily Atack (‘The Emily Atack Show’, ‘The Inbetweeners’) as Sarah Stratton, Rufus Jones (‘W1A’, ‘Home’) as Paul Stratton, Luca Pasqualino (‘The Musketeers’, ‘Shantaram’) as Basil ‘Bas’ Baddingham, Catriona Chandler as Caitlin O'Hara (‘Wild Cherry’, ‘Pistol’), Annabel Scholey (‘The Split’) as Beattie Johnson, Gary Lamont (‘Boiling Point’, ‘Outlander’) as Charles Fairburn, Hubert Burton (‘Wolf Hall’, ‘Living’) as Gerald Middleton, Gabriel Tierney (‘The Winter King’, ‘Enola Holmes 2’) as Patrick O’Hara, Lara Peake (‘How To Have Sex’, ‘Reunion’) as Daysee Butler and Bryony Hannah (‘Call The Midwife’, ‘Unforgotten’) as Deirdre Kilpatrick.