At Darren's World of Entertainment - a movie, DVD and game review blog.
The latest movie and DVD reviews - plus game reviews as well. And cool stuff thrown in when I see it.
Oh my God, is this the hardest platformer ever to hit the console?
Quite possibly, and in terms of frustrations, it's up there with Manic Miner and Underwurlde way back when.
A Steam favourite from way back when, you play a cube of red meat, tasked with rescuing your beloved Bandage Girl from Dr Foetus.
Each level sees you reunite with your lovely, only to have the evil Foetus snatch her away from you and send you back to try again in another environment. Usually one with buzzsaws, and fiendish gravity traps. Jumping, timing jumps and simply hoping for the best occasionally may help - but chances are you're more than likely to be screaming your head off in frustration with Super Meat Boy, because it's so much about the timing.
Reminiscent of N++ and its gravity defying ways, Super Meat Boy is one of those games you start playing, only to lose hours constantly replaying moments because it should be so obvious. Most of the trickier levels see you bounding off walls to avoid saws in a sort of Rayman-esque way only to get caught by the timings of the saws or the fact you didn't jump high enough. Each death brings a touch of red to the environment with bloody entrails left on the side and teasing you with yet another failure.
And yet, the relentless pace, the sheer simplicity of the game and the fiendishly addictive way it plays out, means that you will go back time and time again - because it seems too easy to defeat. The reality is though, it is not. And yet, despite the responsiveness of the controls and the ease in which you leap and bound, you're only ever to blame for the failure.
That's the joy and the frustration of Super Meat Boy - with its almost Nintendo-esque graphics and its simplicity of play, it's more than a passing addiction. This cube of meat is one recipe for perfect gaming and perfectly compulsive disaster.
Just released is the brand new Warcraft: The Beginning Trailer.
From Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures comes Warcraft, an epic adventure of world-colliding conflict based on Blizzard Entertainment’s global phenomenon.
The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilization faces a fearsome race of invaders: Orc warriors fleeing their dying home to colonize another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction and the other faces extinction. From opposing sides, two heroes are set on a collision course that will decide the fate of their family, their people and their home.
So begins a spectacular saga of power and sacrifice in which war has many faces, and everyone fights for something.
Warcraft: The Beginning launches on June 16th 2016.
Rating: M Released by Universal Home ent In the second of the trilogy (made as is Hollywood's wont, which will be made into four films),Shailene Woodley returns as Tris Prior.
Now on the run, with fellow fugitive and love interest Four (James), Tris finds herself hunted by Jeanine (Kate Winslet) who's determined to wipe out the Divergent strain. But Jeanine finds that the Divergents suddenly hold the key to opening a mysterious box that promises to deliver a message for all their futures.
So, with the net tightening around them, and with the guilt of the death of her family playing heavily on her, Tris finds the stakes are higher than ever.
There's an irony that the word Urgent is in the title Insurgent, given how lax and relatively flat the film is this time around, with the angst dialled up to 11 and the distinct lack of much happening sucking some of the life out of Veronica Roth's series which started off so promisingly.
The first film had an affable feel to it as it toyed with the unoriginal idea of trying to fit teenagers into factions and life with some discovering their alienation was a sign they didn't fit in to their assigned box.
In the first, Divergent, Woodley thrived as Tris; this time around, she's crippled by grief and hamstrung by an inability to hit the emotional pitches needed for the character's struggle in this dystopian YA outing.
In a sign of Tris' growing angst, she cuts her hair off and it proves to be the only really defining moment for the character, as the teen posturing / moping and bloodless action begins to kick in. It's potentially more a fault of the writing, given there's little for her to do but even so she really doesn't quite convey the emotional weight needed (which is a real shame as she dealt with it brilliantly in The Spectactular Now) and those involved in the script prefer to hammer home the "Forgive yourself" message to the point of distraction. It doesn't help that Tris isn't really a character you'd root for in the latest; the weight of expectations and guilt weigh and wear her down, and the audience along with it.
Equally, the supporting cast suffer the indignity of having little to do; James is solid but unmemorable as the pretty boy Four, whose life is changed when he meets Evelyn (a bizarrely miscast and emo Naomi Watts) but who ends up merely moping; Elgort is wasted as Caleb, who's about as wet as they come and narratively an empty vessel and Teller suffers from a lack of screen time as his snarky and obsequious Peter is diverted due to story necessities. Winslet manages to channel some icy villainess as Jeanine preferring to go for effective menace rather than scene chewing.
Schwentke, who directed the likes of Red and RIPD pulls together some nicely executed VFX scenes that are a step up from what you'd have experienced in The Matrix and The Lawnmower Man, but they feel like expanded hangovers from music videos in part; visually impressive and diverting from how little is going on on screen.
The Insurgent trailer promised to deliver action and scope but what the second film actually does is fail to fully deliver to that premise and ramp up the action stakes.
In parts, a lot of Insurgent is one-note with consequences that aren't really that dramatic given how lightly sketched some of the supporting players are; it lacks the gritty conviction of its dystopian premise and thanks to its relatively dour execution, it's nowhere near as engaging as a second portion of a trilogy should be.
Cast: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Lea Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Andrew Scott, Naomie Harris
Director: Sam Mendes
That the latest Bond outing starts off in Mexico with the Day of the Dead festival seems too pertinent - it's an apt observation, given how much of the film is haunted by ghosts from its own past.
A more introspective piece set against a backdrop of an ongoing discussion about intelligence sharing, mergers and the place of archaic spies, the 24th Bond sees James Bond engaging in a more personal quest and forgetting about global concerns to mixed results. Setting out in Mexico on a rogue mission to track a man called Sciarra, Bond's globe-trotting finally leads him into the world of shadowy organisation Spectre - and a discovery that shakes his very core.
The new Bond film is steeped in the tentacles of its past and really struggles to garner a new identity for itself, with shades of deja vu a la Star Trek Into Darkness spilling in for reasons that verge on spoiler territory.
Half the problem of the film is that throughout, the sense of threat and urgency is rather misplaced within the long drawn-out pacing.
The film's opening in Mexico is breath-taking, with a gorgeous tracking shot that weaves between the crowds of The Day Of The Dead festival and along the rooftops as Bond precisely tracks his prey. Sharply suited throughout like some kind of walking GQ shoot and clad in Tom Ford (just one of many sponsors), Craig cuts an arrogantly icy figure as the Bond who's more aloof spy in the cold this time around; but the pre-credits teaser lacks some of the spectacle you'd expect even if some of the helicopter based stunt work borders on impressive and solid, rather than edge of your seat.
There's the obligatory globe-trotting too to Tangiers, Rome and Austria but as the story plays out the Snowden-esque elements of the global conspiracy end up being confined to the sidelines after propelling the narrative forward. Equally, Andrew Scott's C, who's the driver for the merger ends up being sidelined and part of a too obvious twist - even if he does play nicely off Ralph Fiennes' expanded M, with Fiennes delivering a quip that sounds like it could have come from the Roger Moore era (something which Craig also revels in to wry effect).
Confining to the fringes is a charge which could be laid against Christoph Waltz's villain too. His mellifluous tones light up the start of the film but then is damned to the back 30 minutes as the machinations and revelations come quickly. And however hard Waltz may try, he ends up feeling the victim of an extended set-up, as well as Austin Powers style parallels - even if foundations are laid for the future kind of character. (There are no spoilers here, but plenty of speculation on the character is already out there - and if you're a Bond afficionado, the film's title offers delicious hints of where exactly it could be going).
To be frank, the film very much teeters on reminding you why the series needed rebooting in the first place - it lacks the edge and gritty urgency of Casino Royale and sorely misses an emotional punch a la Skyfall as the potential finality of Daniel Craig's tenure as Bond plays out.
Revelling in its past (an original Aston Martin, an Odd Job type nemesis for Bond in the form of Dave Bautista and the other films from Craig's time as 007), Spectre never really finds a moment to definitively call its own. The stakes never feel high enough and the action sequences border on perfunctorily thrilling rather than edge of your seat gripping.
It also dangerously edges back towards underwritten female protagonists too that simply fall under Bond's thrall. Belucci is completely wasted and is simply there to be bedded and Seydoux who brings a hardened edge starts off strong and feisty before falling into cliched Bond girl in peril territory.
But there are moments when Spectre hits its straps; chiefly, while it falls down on pushing the wonderfully energetic Harris and Fiennes to the outer edges of the action, bringing Ben Whishaw's Q into the field delivers the flick some much needed points of difference and a sense of unpredictability - future outings could benefit from more of Whishaw's clipped precise tones and fish-out-of-water vibes as Q.
And while the action is tightly pulled together, its choreography almost strangles it of any danger, any life and any edge - almost as if Mendes and his team have story-boarded it to death.
Consequently the final verdict on Spectre is it's not exactly a Bond at its best but neither is at its worst; even though Craig makes the role definitively his own, the extended glut of the film, the resolution of past threads you didn't even know were loose and the lack of any urgency and threat make it more a ho-hum entry into the canon. It's easy to target Bond, but as the rebooted franchise has shown, it can play successfully with expectations while still delivering a spectacle that's rich in emotional resonance as it is flying bullets.
The credits promise that James Bond will return, but to really radically overhaul this film series again, it needs to shake off the ghosts of its own past, its own feeling of rote tropes and ensure that business as usual for this spy is nothing short of constantly thrilling - even if it is a more slightly traditional road to follow.
There's no denying thatgamecompany's influence on somewhat minimal gaming.
In its PS3 iteration, Journey was a game-changing title, a game that defied convention, description and provided more emotions than many other titles when it was initially released. Equally, the PS4 version upped the beauty of the game with the next gen console, but lost none of the power and feelings even though you knew what was coming.
So it is then, that the physical version of this, along with thatgamecompany's two earlier titles, FlOw and Flower are released into the market place.
There's little point going on about Journey as I've made my feelings on that title abundantly clear through its various iterations - it remains one of the greatest titles ever unleashed and one of the most emotional games I've ever played as you move a small Jawa-esque character through the deserts and icy tundras on some kind of quest / commentary on the soul.
And similarly the earlier titles FlOw and Flower follow a similar pattern.
In FlOw, you are an organism floating through the waters and collecting other similar organisms to add to your own body. Floating from one to the next, you gain or lose mass depending on how you play. It feels sensory but not quite as exciting as the promise of Journey would suggest, though one could argue this was perhaps the start of thatgamecompany's quest. The 2006 title has held up well, but it definitely feels like the start of a journey rather than an arrival.
In Flower, we are all just floating on a breeze. It's another simple, sensory MO for the gamer and sees you essentially floating as a flower through a meadow. Touching other flowers triggers their petals into the sky and sends sounds soaring in to the stratosphere as well. Combining a soundtrack as well as visuals that soar, Flower feels like the stepping stone to Journey and the continuation of thatgamecompany's evolution.
Thematically, all three games are interlinked and hang together well; there's no denying that Journey remains the highlight, but as an evolution of a company, this trio of releases charts why and how thatgamecompany shaped the gaming world, paving the way for the likes of The Unfinished Swan and firing a rocket up the triple A titles that emotion's infinitely more powerful than how big your gun is.
The Lumière Reader presents a third new essay film free online from today as part of a web series of digital arts documentaries made with funding from NZ On Air.
Out of the Mist: An Alternate History of New Zealand Cinema,written and directed by film critic Tim Wong, revisits the pioneering spirit of New Zealand’s first wave of filmmakers celebrated by Sam Neill’s Cinema of Unease exactly 20 years ago. Featuring excerpts from over 40 New Zealand films – many neglected, misunderstood, or simply forgotten due to obscurity – its carefully curated survey spans from the pre-history of New Zealand film through to the present day, including films as recent as What We Do in the Shadows and The Red House.
The feature-length documentary, narrated by Man Booker prizewinner Eleanor Catton and edited by Peter O’Donoghue (Love Story, Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets), premiered at the New Zealand International Film Festival in July. Encore screenings are planned for the Govett-Brewster’s Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth and the re-opening of the Christchurch Art Gallery in December.
“The long absence of another major documentary on our film history was a strong motivating factor behind Out of the Mist and, in contemplating the prevailing image of our national cinema, I have also privileged the films and filmmakers who don’t make the standard tour guides,” says director Tim Wong.
“Aside from the opportunity to update the record, what has really driven its making is the conversation I’ve shared with fellow cinephiles and filmmakers about the state of New Zealand Cinema, how we might begin to redefine it, and whose work is being obscured by the popular canon. My contribution to this conversation is a film essay with multiple angles: as an archeology of films and filmmakers forgotten or ignored; as a study of images, both celebrated and outdated; as a form of advocacy for art on the margins; and as a challenge to the status quo around how national identity is represented in our movies.” says Wong.
Previously released films in “The Lumière Reader presents” web series include Paper Boat (dir. Alex Mitcalfe Wilson), a documentary charting the journey a book follows when it is published today, and Land of the Long White Stain (dir. Claire Duncan), a love letter to a brood of genre-bending Auckland musicians, among them Seth Frightening and Girls Pissing on Girls Pissing.
Tim Wong is the founding editor of The Lumière Reader (www.lumiere.net.nz), an online journal which, since 2003, has published film criticism and arts journalism by leading New Zealand writers. Its digital content is produced by Auckland/New York-based Melinda Jackson under the umbrella of design and production company Lumière Industries.
