Newstalk ZB Review - Reviewing Eddie The Eagle, 25 April and Creed

Newstalk ZB Review - Reviewing Eddie The Eagle, 25 April and Creed

This week it was the turn of Eddie The Eagle under the Newstalk ZB Review spotlight.

I also took a look at 25 April, the NZ Gallipoli animated film and on DVD Creed.

Take a listen below:

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/saturday-mornings-with-jack-tame/audio/darren-bevan-eddie-the-eagle-doesnt-quite-soar/

The 5th Wave: Blu Ray Review

The 5th Wave: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Sony Home Ent

Another YA outing gets a big screen event movie with Rick Yancey's alien invasion story hitting the cinemas.

And once again, all the tropes of the genre are in place, but this time around, they feel more derivative and installed into the narrative via a checklist, rather than dramatic necessity.

Kickass's Chloe Grace Moretz stars as Cassie, a high schooler whose life changes when aliens invade via a succession of attacks. After surviving electrical attacks, natural disasters, fatal disease a la Avian Flu and then body snatcher style invasion a la The Invaders which wipe out her family bar her brother, she finds herself on the run. With a desperate race to save her young brother from the army's clutches and from their weaponising him, Grace Moretz gives everything to the film and sells every ludicrously predictable turn it takes.

It's just a shame that the film gives nothing back.

Despite a stunning first 30 minutes that see the alien menace cleverly and craftily energise the story, it stalls and hits a sickening thud when it realises it needs to weave in the tropes of the genre. (Young love, life after high school seeming like the end of the world, a mistrust of authority etc etc)

After the action slows, The 5th Wave becomes an unconvincing sludge of a film that's barely able to build on the mistrust and premise. The story fractures into Cassie's search and meeting of a charisma-free dishy designer stubble potential love interest and her brother's involvement in the weaponising-our-kids-storyline - and the result is one of tedium more than anything.

Ending on a whimper and the limp promise of yet more, The 5th Wave is a frustrating experience.

Despite a crowded genre with The Hunger Games, Divergent, et al, thanks to Grace Moretz's turn and a terrific start, it could have been so much more and never once delivers anything original or compelling past its invasion schtick. It sanitises its potential brutality and its de-humanising of its lead, and therefore ultimately sells everything short that it sets out to do.

Turns out The 5th Wave from the aliens, that threatens all our lives, is actually tedium.

Rating:

99 Homes: Blu Ray Review

99 Homes: Blu Ray Review

Rating: M
Released by Madman Home Ent


That 99 Homes leaves you seething is a testament to the power of this drama and the moral turpitude it throws you into as this take on the American dream and the obsessions with property play out.

In an entirely relevant parallel given how over-heated the world's property markets are, Garfield is Dennis Nash, a father whose Orlando family home is foreclosed by the bank in 2008. Believing he has 30 days to fight the repossession, Nash's shocked to find the police on his doorstep the next day, demanding he, his mum (a solid Laura Dern) and his son leave immediately.

Also on the scene of the repossession is the lizard-like Rick Carver (an excellent Michael Shannon), a former real estate agent who is now head of his own realty company and who specialises in taking homes and turning profits - whatever the cost and with no regard for the emotional fall-out.

Humiliated and homeless, Nash is forced to work for Carver in a (contrived) series of events, but soon finds his desire to ensure his family has somewhere to live is over-stepping his basic humanity as his Faustian deal with Carver descends to new depths.

99 Homes is a powerful searing drama; it gives a human and inhuman face to the property crisis that beset America and that teeters on the edge worldwide currently.

Shannon's nothing short of electric and horrifying as Carver, a man whom we first meet at the scene of a suicide of an owner whose home has been taken by Carver's realty business. But in typical anti-hero stance, Carver doesn't care about the human cost of his business and Bahrani isn't really interested in fleshing out his character other than a few piecemeal scenes that give chilling insight and horrifying human touches to this monster of a man.

Equally, Garfield's Nash is played well; the conflict he feels is clearly marked early on, but the gnawing sickness of reality and desperation provides plenty of dramatic fuel as well as plenty of debate over what you would do. The line between black and white blurs easily in this morality tale, given human form and faces which can't be blocked from memory.

As this suspenseful thriller plays out and Nash dances ever closer to the devil, the intensity of the film ramps up, even if the credibility of some of the situations edge dangerously close to convenience rather than natural drama. Certainly, the balance of rational from Nash compared to Carver's clinically cold and despicable attitude is nicely struck early on, and both Garfield and Shannon's performances remain the real reasons to stay so engaged with 99 Homes throughout.

If anything though, 99 Homes is Shannon's film - it's a blistering turn that sees him blow smoke on the fire of who's fuelled this situation and Bahrani fans it by insinuating everyone is to blame, given that the banks lend more money when the home hunters are eager to gobble it up.

Ultimately, 99 Homes is a recession drama and a searing, sickening commentary that will eat at your soul long after it's done  - and thanks to its morally compromised leads, the desperation of Nash and the almost vulture like behaviour of Carver will pick at you long after the lights have gone up.

Rating:

Dark Souls III: PS4 Review

Dark Souls III: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Released by Bandai Namco Games

You Died.

Two words you will see a lot in From Software's apparently final Dark Souls offering.

The action RPG is back and it's as challenging as ever in its latest iteration, one which may leave you with levels of frustration which border on seeing you hurl the console out of the window.

Famously hard in its earlier outings, the latest Dark Souls has lost none of the challenge that its predecessors had. Set in the kingdom of Lothric, you take on a soul trying to stop the rot of the kingdom and reverse the curse that is upon it.

If anything, Dark Souls III is as famously brooding as you'd expect, building dread into an atmosphere that's claustrophobic and as dark as the vistas around you. Combat is as epic as the previous games, relying on you to plan an attack and melee rather than just launch into it. Each attack drains you a little, so there needs to be a plan for taking on bosses or those two words will come back to haunt you with ease.

Skills and magic are there to be used too, but again, these have to be used sparingly and with a degree of smarts; replenishing these takes time and focus off you too, meaning you are left vulnerable to attacks if you're not careful.

It takes elements of From Software's Bloodborne, with its Gothic edges and its pacing as well - this is a game that feels like the series has evolved and one which still maintains the series' DNA all over it.

As the game progresses, it's clear that Miyazaki wanted this to be a more speedy affair than previous outings and there's a real sense of the pace of the game sometimes getting ahead of itself. Frustratingly even though the speed is ramped up, it doesn't stop you going back to quite a way in your quest if you die - so perhaps, the faster factor is there to prevent a degree of burn out that was experienced in prior games.

There's no denying Dark Souls III looks epic; there's equally no denying that it takes time to bed in too - you'll need perseverance to get on with this game and that doesn't come with ease. Finding a groove can be tricky as an experience, but when Dark Souls III gets it right with its atmosphere, its difficult gameplay and its claustrophobic aesthetics, it remains nothing short of a compelling game that you will sink plenty of time into.

DOOM Single player stream

DOOM Single player stream

Take an in-depth look at DOOM’s intense single-player campaign!  

It kicks off at 4am AEST / 6am NZST at www.twitch.tv/bethesda and will be archived immediately afterwards so folks can watch it at their leisure. The stream, hosted by Executive Producer Marty Stratton and Creative Director Hugo Martin, will show never-before-seen levels and a variety of content.

Yesterday, Tom Mustaine and the SnapMap team took us through the wide range of co-op, single-player and multiplayer content available in DOOM’s powerful SnapMap tool. You can check that out HERE.

  Watch live video from Bethesda on www.twitch.tv

Florence Foster Jenkins: Film Review

Florence Foster Jenkins: Film Review

Cast: Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg
Director: Stephen Frears

There is a comic nugget between Morecambe and Wise and composer Andre Previn where Eric Morecambe astounds Previn by playing a piano concerto at odds with what is expected.

Asked by Previn what he's doing, Morecambe, with Ernie Wise stood proudly over his charge, tells him that he's "playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order". 

The delusion that both Morecambe and Wise have in this very famous sketch extends to Stephen Frears' film of the deluded wannabe soprano singer Florence Foster Jenkins, as a collective mania sets in over her talent (or lack thereof).

Set in New York in 1944, with the depression of World War II hanging over them, Streep is the aforementioned singer, who entertains friends 25 years after founding The Verdi Club. At her side is the renowned (but awful) monologuist and husband St Clair Bayfield (Grant, who is arguably the real star of this piece).

Deciding that she needs a pianist, Jenkins and St Clair end up hiring Cosme McMoon (The Big Bang Theory's Wolowitz aka Simon Helberg) who is aghast to see Jenkins cannot sing and those around her continue to nurture her delusions with sycophancy and lavish her with praise.

But as Florence Foster Jenkins' star continues to rise, she sets her sights on playing Carnegie Hall - to the dismay of McMoon and the panic of St Clair.

To say that Florence Foster Jenkins is a crowd-pleaser is an understatement.

(It's also the second such film about Jenkins since French film Marguerite last year channelled similar vibes).

Much of the first third of the film is set in delicious anticipation of Streep's delivery of Jenkins' mangling of music - and Helberg's nuanced facial reactions as she first warbles (sounding like a chicken gargling and also being strangled) are priceless, pitching the film in its glory.

However, Frears' film comes to rely on Streep's musical interludes once too often as the rest of the biopic plays out - and while Streep imbues her eccentric socialite with degrees of sadness and tragedy, as well as pathos and delusion, there are only elements of why she is like she is laid out, meaning she ends the film more of a delicious enigma than a fully rounded character. 

Granted, there's a perverse pleasure in watching Streep warble out of tone with such conviction, but the film relies on this too much as a crutch to carry it through.

Helberg's subtle performance delivers much to the proceedings but his underdeveloped edges don't help further this into much of a character piece for McMoon, a man whose inner conflict of playing the ultimate venue versus his own integrity could have proved such fertile ground.

Thankfully, in among Frears' excellently realised period details, Grant emerges in one of the best performances of his life. His St Clair is an actor who's come to the realisation that he's good, but never destined to be great - and his revealing this gives the film an underlying tone of melancholy that's greatly welcomed. 

It is Grant's film through and through and he throws all his mannerisms into a turn that's swathed in sadness, love and is ultimately strangely rousing as he throws all his support behind someone who is clearly destined to fail - it is love incarnate and is inspiring to see as he tries to buy off reviewers, sets up invite only concerts and bury the evidence out of nothing more than devotion.

Where Frears' film falls down though is its refusal to hit some of the harder edges it needs - it shies away from exploring Jenkins' delusion, only hinting at the tragedies that have shaped her present (and never once explaining why nobody has told her she could never sing). 

While it could be explained away with the same schadenfreude that sees people embracing clearly bad acts on current day talent shows, the inference that America was in need of a laugh during the end of World War II and needed healing is left sorely under-mined.

Ultimately, Florence Foster Jenkins is a light frothy film that could have been a little more with some tweaks here and there. It tantalisingly offers a glimpse at the why, but gets distracted by its own desire to grandstand Streep into performing badly. It's not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination, but there's a feeling this charmer could have hit more of the right dramatic notes if it had wanted to by embracing some more of the sadness inherently within.

Rating:

Quantum Break: XBox One Review

Quantum Break: XBox One Review

Developed by Remedy Entertainment
Platform: XBox One

To say that the XBox One has been awaiting a major exclusive this year is perhaps an understatement.

And to say that Quantum Break, from the studio who brought us Alan Wake, is a title that fulfills the expectation is also an understatement.

Meshing TV and gaming together has been on the cards for a while now, but Remedy Entertainment are the first out of the box with this time-travel tale that stars some big Hollywood names.

In this third person shooter, X-Men and The Following star Shawn Ashmore is Jack Joyce. Called back to a fictional university to come and help long-time friend Paul Serene (Game of Thrones and The Wire star Aiden Gillen), Jack finds himself in a time-travel experiment gone wrong.

As with these kinds of experiments-gone-wrong stories, Jack finds himself endowed with special timey-wimey powers. Which is perhaps just as well because suddenly Joyce is being hunted, his brother who was involved in the original experiment is in a spot of bother and a whole amount of hell has been unleashed.

There's no doubting Quantum Break's ambition.

It's not just a straight shooter game, it's a total experience package, with a TV show thrown in as well. But it's also a game that demands that you work with it. In terms of the powers, it takes a little time to adjust to what's expected and how best to use the scope of the possibilities around you.

Add in the fact that you need to explore to pick up extra portions of the game and get more of the story and it's a fairly damn near totally immersive experience. This is where you pick up the story and get more of an idea what's been going on rather than just simply relying on cut scenes to give you a wider picture.

That said, there are moments when the cover doesn't quite work as well as you'd hope and Jack can spring out from where he's hiding into a hail of bullets, ending your game there and then. It takes practice and certainly with the number of abilities that Jack acquires, you're going to need more than just a few fingers and a bit of time to get it all together to gel into something coherent.

But when it does, it's a symphony of action and a superb piece of gaming. Given the deeper immersion too, there's plenty to latch onto in Quantum Break. Occasionally, it could do with pausing and catching its breath, but as an original title, the experience of playing Quantum Break, along with its superb cast of actors and top notch rendering, is like nothing we've seen this year. And given the continuing number of remasters and next chapters in games, this is creativity that the industry so desperately needs to strive for to survive and evolve.

Interview with Quantum Break star Shawn Ashmore.



Don't forget, I also had a chat to Remedy Entertainment's Thomas Puha about the game - listen to that interview below too.

Quantum Break is out now on XBox One.