Super Stardust Ultra: PS4 Review

Super Stardust Ultra: PS4 Review

Developer: d3t Ltd
Platform: PS4

Asteroids, a scrolling yet fixed shoot-em-up and 1080p rendering.

Yep, after the success of the somewhat brilliant Resogun (should actually be called Reso-fun), Super Stardust Ultra blasts onto the PS4 platform in what appears to be its third iteration. (It was first released in 1996)

Utilising the same kind of duel-stick controls that were last seen in Resogun, you get to defend the solar system as the last remaining fighter in the midst of a deadly meteor storm. Choosing from three types of weapon, it's up to you to try and save the day.

Giant floating asteroids which when blasted unveil a green floating nugget and potentially deadly fragments all litter the screen to make things difficult - and if that wasn't bad enough, each planet has a swarm of enemies flying at you, determined to kill you off.

Super Stardust Ultra is arcade gaming in the extreme, given a highly polished HD makeover.

Crisp graphics and high def colours show no sign of struggling when the screen becomes overwhelmed with critters and littered with bits; it's essentially a type of 3D Asteroids with you slap bang in the middle of it all.

Using a choice of weapons from rock-crushers, gold melter and ice splitter, this intergalactic game of scissors, paper and rock requires you to be precise in your calculations or risk being blasted. Though it has to be said, using the rocks to take out the enemies is intensely satisfying.

Blasting the green nuggets housed within the rocks gives you power ups - which degrade down if you leave them too long. Much like Resogun though, you can speed boost your way through rocks to cut them down to size and to power yourself up; though this ability is limited.

Controls are fluid on Super Stardust Ultra and it's certainly playable enough thanks to each level needing five victories before you can move onto another planet. But it's nowhere near as addictive as it could be - granted, I've not played the original so can't comment on whether it's been upgraded for the next gen or simply ported across, but it lacks a little of the buzz you need for playing time and time again.

Additional levels are a little harder to come by - and as ever with these types a lack of a continue function is a real blocker to going through it all again and what seems fun soon becomes a little tedious as you have to re-repeat to blast through to the end. Additional modes (arcade, planet, endless) all add to the action so there's no end of playable content to get through - even if each is simply an add on from the last.

Ultimately, Super Stardust Ultra is a solidly disposable arcade game - it looks great, plays slickly and rewards those simply wanting to pick up and play. That's no bad thing - but compared to the inventive and fresh Resogun, this shooter feels very much of the last generation consoles.

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Jupiter Ascending: Film Review

Jupiter Ascending: Film Review

Cast: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean
Directors: The Wachowskis

Space opera, stunning visual effects and a big messy plot all collide with limited effect in the Wachowski’s latest outing.

A doe-eyed Mila Kunis  stars as Jupiter, a cleaner who dreams of another life and who finds her dream is more of a reality than she realises when she becomes the victim of a space war.

It turns out Jupiter is actually a princess and an heir to the ownership of the Earth, a fact imparted to her when she’s saved by half-wolf/ half-human Caine (a pointy-eared Tatum). With killers dispatched by Balem Abrasax (Eddie Redmayne, prone to whispering and then shouting for no obvious reason) the tyrant heir of a family, Caine and Jupiter soon find themselves on the run and trying to restore Jupiter’s rightful position in the cosmos.

It’s clear where the money’s gone on the Wachowski’s latest.

Sumptuous space visuals, an array of creatures and alien races all appear to have gobbled up the cash that could have been spent on the story.

Saddled with some laugh-out-loud dialogue (one brutally forced in moment of contrived romance sees Jupiter telling Caine that she loves dogs – another reveals that bees can recognise royalty as they swirl around Kunis), thrown in overt references to the likes of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, some incredibly lazy and missing character development, Jupiter Ascending becomes an incomprehensible visual mess, lacking in coherence and offering nothing more than an assault on the eyeballs.

Kunis manages as best she can in her role, but suffers through some of the indignities of the script and the pacy directing; Tatum is near mute (and pointlessly shirtless) as his bland character grunts his way through continually skating through the skies (no, seriously) to save Jupiter; and Redmayne’s Ming-the-merciless wannabe villain is so underdeveloped that his greatest threat appears to be utilising his over-bite to chew through the scenery as he becomes a last-act villain plot device.

It’s a shame that the Wachowskis who brought us such visual feasts as The Matrix trilogy, Cloud Atlas, Speed Racer are reduced to this near incoherent hot mess. If the story stopped occasionally to breathe once in a while and take in the scenery, it would have been a slightly less flawed execution. Instead by racing breakneck speed between action sequences, having Caine continually save the day, throwing in a leftfield romance simply because, and providing a lack of consequence, this wannabe Star Wars clone has less bite than Tatum’s dog-eared lycan.

Though commendation must be given to one light sequence where Jupiter has to have her ID and regency validated; the Wachowskis’ satirical touch and take on bureaucracy is hilariously on the money and reminiscent of Brazil (replete with Terry Gilliam cameo).

Plundering from the giant treasure trove of sci-fi may have proven a fruitful ground for The Wachowskis in terms of stunning aesthetics and truly out of this world visuals mixed with extravagant costuming and an overly bombastic and overloaded OST.

But by failing to observe some the fact that character is what helps these stand up over the years after the FX have proven outdated, the cinematic folly that is Jupiter Ascending is more facing a descent into cinematic obscurity.

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Life Of Crime: Blu Ray Review

Life Of Crime: Blu Ray Review

Rating: R16
Released by Madman Home Ent

Elmore Leonard makes another outing onto the big screen with this adaptation of one of his novels.

It's your classic crim movie as well, with two down-on-their-luck guys (Def and Hawkes) deciding to kidnap Jennifer Aniston's wealthy woman, confident that her husband (Tim Robbins) will stump up the ransom. But the trouble is, he's on the edge of divorcing her so that he can make his mistress (Isla Fisher) happy...

Soon, the duo is struggling to work out how they can pull this back.

Life Of Crime is solid if unspectacular fare, that really sits within the genre but hardly challenges it.

Aniston's fine as the woman who realises her place in the world has changed; Robbins, though, verges on parody as the cheating hubbie. Def and Hawkes make a watchable enough pair and have enough charm to carry the movie through.

It's not one of the best Leonard adaptations, but it certainly isn't a bad film that's not worthy of your time. It's nice to see Aniston flexing her dramatic muscles, but it's not quite enough to raise Life Of Crime into the higher echelons of the genre because while it looks the part with its 70s recreations, it's lacking the sparkle and fizz that you'd remember from other Elmore Leonard adaptations like Justified and Get Shorty.

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Newstalk ZB Review - Talking Fifty Shades of Grey and Gone Girl

Newstalk ZB Review - Talking Fifty Shades of Grey and Gone Girl

Fifty Shades of Grey was the big release of the Valentine's Day weekend.

And I stepped up to the plate to review Fifty Shades of Grey.

Here's what I said to Jack Tame about it...

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-mornings-with-jack-tame/audio/darren-bevan-50-shades-of-nay/

The Skeleton Twins: Blu Ray Review

The Skeleton Twins: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Sony Home Ent

It's off to the deep dark world of indie for this emotionally rich piece about a pair of estranged siblings, whose concurrent suicide attempts brings them back together.

In The Skeleton Twins, Kristen Wiig is Maggie, a dental hygienist , married to Luke Wilson's Lance, a loveable guy who clearly dotes on his wife and the idea of becoming a father. But unbeknownst to him, Maggie's wrestling with some big secrets behind the veneer of suburbia.

Into their lives comes Milo (Hader), unhappy and suicidal - his initial attempt forms one of the starkest images of the film as red blood seeps up through clear water in an opening shocker.

As the two gradually open up to each other after years apart, the bonds are re-strengthened and tested once again in this darkly tragic yet bittersweet piece.

Hader and Wiig have great comedic chemistry together and comedic timing (as shown in a lip synching sequence) but also have dramatic depth as the emotions start to rain down.

Director Luke Johnson drives the film well, juggling a sensitive line between dark and deliciously funny as the lies we often tell to each other are exposed. But there's an air of sadness that hangs heavy on The Skeleton Twins that's inescapable (aside from a depressingly cliched Hollywood and improbable ending that somewhat sours the experience) and provides fertile ground to explore the relationships.

Poignant, warm, effective and heartbreaking, indie The Skeleton Twins provides hidden depths to these comedic actors and delivers a uniquely skewed view on life that feels all too real and engaging. You could say there's some dramatic meat on these here bones... 

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CitizenFour: Film Review

CitizenFour: Film Review

Cast: Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald
Director: Laura Poitras

Whistleblower, patriot, traitor, hero.

All of these have been levelled at the subject of the Oscar nominated documentary, CitizenFour, Edward Snowden.

Whether you believe the information or whether you back the theory that if there's nothing to hide then there's nothing to fear, there can be nothing more incendiary than the Edward Snowden revelations.

The disclosure that the Obama adminstration was deeper into invading personal privacy than was believed forms the basis of CitizenFour - and more specifically, the unspooling on screen of the instigator of the leaks, Edward Snowden.

Film-maker Laura Poitras has captured lightning in a bottle in some ways with this, her third doco about personal freedoms and reporting in post 9/11 America, as she manages to chronicle the real time unspooling of Snowden's claims and the releasing of them into the international conscience.

Central to CitizenFour is the eight day hotel siege in June 2013 when Snowden unleashed his claims anonymously via Glenn Greenwald and first stunned the incumbent adminstrations. You could be forgiven for thinking Snowden was some kind of Machievellan plotter lurking in the shadows, rubbing his hands in glee at the unveiling of such bombshells, but Poitras' doco is at pains to show the man as he is, with no histrionics and OTT editing in place to either canonise or demonise the man in any way shape or form.

In fact, the simple unveiling of facts (a lot of facts, almost too much for those not in the least bit au fait with the claims) is the basis of this calm doco, which simply follows events rather than shaping them or fuelling any kind of sentiment.

On that front, CitizenFour is an interesting piece, one which will lead to hyperbolic claims that it's one of the most important documentaries of our time, because of the subject matter.

It's perhaps more interesting that the film itself does little to reveal too much more of the man or those around him - the government is always a shady presence in the piece, seen to be acting off camera with malice aforethough and Snowden himself is a man caught up in a potential maelstrom that he's not fully considered the implications of.

Occasionally though, Poitras peppers her relatively dry piece with some personality and humour; Snowden himself types his password while cloaked under a veil (to prevent over-analysis and digital interpretation of keystrokes); equally, a series of fire alarm tests in the building provoke Snowden to unplug the phone. These could be the actions of a true paranoid man but with calm presentation, Poitras grounds Snowden in a humanity that's relatable and perhaps, sympathetic.

Claims at the end that POTUS is possibly implicated by a new source hang without any follow up (a frustrating symptomatic fact of this doco is that it doesn't reward the casual viewer at all); it's technically well put together, relatively focussed on the global implications of the bombshells, but fails to fully follow up anything; in that way, CitizenFour feels a like a "Day in the life of" piece, which gives you the context of what transpires and why it's happening but with a cold detachedness that's distinctly obvious throughout - even though Snowden's reasoning for not being the story are valid in the context, to make him the subject of the doco and not fully explore that isn't totally seizing on what's available.

While CitizenFour is likely to take the Best documentary category at the Oscars this year, it feels like the documentary adheres very strictly to the codes of its genre which is to its detriment; there's little other than a documenting of facts which makes this feel a little too aloof to be the incendiary bombshell it clearly wants to be.

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Life Is Strange: PS4 Review

Life Is Strange: PS4 Review

Developer: Square Enix /Dontnod
Platform: PS4

Ever since TellTale Games set the click and play world afire with The Walking Dead, Fables and now Game Of Thrones, the question has always been when would other studios come to the party?

Well, the Dontnod studio (who developed the much underrated Remember Me) is the first to try and capitalise on the craze with this story set in an American high school (and which utilises some of the rewind technology and ideas you saw in Remember Me).

It's the story of Max Caulfield, a quiet withdrawn teen who has a fascination with a Polaroid camera and who one day experiences a vivid dream with a twister while dosing off in class. Waking up, Max discovers she can rewind time now she's back in her home town of Arcadia Bay. Which is curious for her, but also fortunate as it gives her a chance to help answer the tough questions in class (she's able to retain vital information when she rewinds time) as well as stopping someone from being shot in a bathroom.

Chrysalis is the first part of Life Is Strange and to be honest,it's more about set up than anything else.

It's a typical high school kind of mini movie in a way - all the usual issues are there from catty girls to social awkwardness and exclusion, no familiar trope is left unturned. And yet, it's intriguing more than it is fully engaging.

Max's dialogue occasionally feels a little forced as you wander round exploring everything and sometimes the graphics (such as Max trying to brush her fingers through her hair) don't always work, but it's worth sticking with Life Is Strange. Rewinding gives her a chance to relive it all again and do things differently, but the extra prompting from Max afterwards makes you doubt your choices - it's interesting as they'll all play out in future episodes I guess, but it felt like there wasn't quite as much in terms of consequence as you'd expect (although to be fair, this is only Chapter One).

Arcadia Bay feels like it's something out of Veronica Mars and Buffy meshed together - there's mystery ( a disappeared girl), high school bullying and ostracism and a whole heap of hokum as the time travel is left fully unexplored (though it's a great hook - who wouldn't want to do it all again as a troubled teen?)

All in all, Life Is Strange is a good intriguing start to the five part series. I'm interested to see where it goes and if the emotional pay off is as solid as you'd hope for, given some of the themes explored in Chrysalis.

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