UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS - Official "Legacy" Trailer

UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS - Official "Legacy" Trailer

The brand new UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS - Official "Legacy" Trailer has dropped.

UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS hits NZ Cinemas on December 1

PlayStation 4 Pro and slimmer and lighter PlayStation 4 unveiled

PlayStation 4 Pro and slimmer and lighter PlayStation 4 unveiled

Following the PlayStation Meeting 2016 held today at the PlayStation Theatre in New York, Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced the following:

PlayStation 4 Pro

·         PlayStation 4 Pro delivers enhanced experiences through improved image processing capability and support for 4K quality

·         Allows games to deliver graphics with far more detail and unprecedented visual precision

·         4K video playback support to deliver 4K streaming video services such as Netflix and YouTube

·         Support of HDR imaging technology, enabling reproduction of brightness and darkness while realizing a much wider range of colours

·         Available in New Zealand from November 10, 2016, NZD$639.95 RRP

Slimmer and lighter PlayStation 4

·         New form factor reduces size by more than 30% and makes console 25% lighter in weight than previous models

·         Increased energy efficiency, cutting power consumption by more than 34%

·         All PS4 systems including the new slimmer model and PS4 Pro will support HDR imaging technology via an update

·         500GB PlayStation 4 available in New Zealand from September 16^th, 2016, NZD$489.95 RRP

·         1TB PlayStation 4 available in New Zealand from September 29^th, 2016, NZD$569.95 RRP

From New York, Michael Ephraim, Managing Director, Sony Interactive Entertainment New Zealand commented:

“As Andy House said, our vision is to present a clear choice to the gamer and we are steadfast in our commitment to being the best place to play. Today’s announcements are testament of this.  With PlayStation 4 Pro, we look forward to introducing our players to our most powerful home console with the offering of the first class 4k and HDR technology. At 30% reduced size, the new model PS4 offers great value for the gamer and will also join the HDR revolution from next week. With the news we’ve unveiled today and PS VR launching on October 13, there’s never been a better time to join the PlayStation community.”

Here's an idea of how the new TOMB RAIDER will look in 4K

HITMAN™ - Episode 5: Colorado Coming September 27th

HITMAN™ - Episode 5: Colorado Coming September 27th

HITMAN™ - Episode 5: Colorado Coming September 27^th

SYDNEY - September 7, 2016 - Io-Interactive today confirms that Episode 5 of HITMAN will be set in Colorado and will be arriving on September 27^th. 

For the penultimate episode in HITMAN Season One, the mission “Freedom Fighters” is not one to be taken lightly. Agent 47 must infiltrate a Colorado farm compound that has been converted into a private militia training camp.  Players are presented with an intense infiltration mission to locate and take out four targets.

Sean Rose, Maya Parvati, Ezra Berg and Penelope Graves are four very different, very dangerous people, each with their own specialist skillset ranging from environmental terrorism to chemical interrogation. This will be the toughest assignment yet for Agent 47. Players must utilize all the skills learned so far.

“This is one of the toughest episodes yet. Not only do you have four targets, but from the moment you set foot in Colorado you’re on enemy ground,” said Hannes Seifert, Studio Head at Io-Interactive. "'Freedom Fighters' is a key episode, which will add serious momentum to the story and set up an intriguing season finale for players.” 

With all-new opportunities and disguises, and with 70 different challenges unlocking brand new gear, weapons, and items, Episode 5: Colorado rewards players with huge story revelations as the season builds towards a thrilling climax.

HITMAN began with a Prologue and Paris location in March, continued with Episode 2: Sapienza in April, Episode 3: Marrakesh in May, the Summer Bonus Episode in July, Episode 4: Bangkok in August and Episode 5: Colorado in September. The season finale in Japan will arrive later in 2016.

Train To Busan: Film Review

Train To Busan: Film Review

Cast: Yoo Gong, Dong-seok Ma, Woo-sik Choi, Soo-an Kim
Director: Sang-ho Yeon

Despite starting off dangerously close to camp territory thanks to a resurrected road-kill, Train To Busan shakes off any silliness to provide one of the year's freshest and engaging takes on the zombie genre.

In South Korea, there's a crisis - amid concerns of foot and mouth inside a quarantine zone, trouble's brewing. Thanks to a "tiny leak at a biotech district", chaos soon reigns and the region is over-run by a zombie virus, turning the masses into rabid feral biters, determined to take down anyone and anything in their way.

Unaware of what's happening, Sok-Woo (Yoo Gong) is trying to get out of spending time with his estranged young daughter Soo-an (Soo-an Kim) because of work pressures. Separated from his wife in another district, Soo-an simply wants to board the train to Busan to go back to her mother, after her father failed to attend her recital.

Motivated by guilt, the pair board the KTX bullet train heading for Busan. Full of other passengers, the train suddenly becomes a killing field when one of the infected ends up on board at the last minute - and soon father and daughter, along with a clutch of other groups, are desperately struggling for survival as society breaks down around them.

It's rare to get a film that offers a fresh take on a tired genre.

But while Train To Busan, with its fast-knit horde of speeding infected may owe a debt to World War Z's scrabbling horde, it's thanks to Sang-ho Yeon's direction and some thrilling action sequences that this is a train well worth boarding.

As the eerie build up begins and glimpsed shots of varying elements of carnage play out just off screen, the sense of indiscriminate panic begins to pile on a level of suspense that's palpable.

Granted, some of the players in the train (a group of jocks, a pregnant woman and comedy partner, a villainous COO) are clearly a little blank canvas, but what the film manages to do is make you connect with them as the atmosphere builds up. Nowhere is this more obvious than the relationship between a selfish father and selfless daughter as they awkwardly reconnect, and the pair sell this worn out trope well. One of the more crucial scenes sees the dad telling his young daughter in such situations as this, to look out solely for herself. It's a shocking moment but one that speaks volumes to how frank and refreshing Train to Busan is.

With its contorting faceless infected, Train To Busan's action sequences are taut and exciting; from the confines of the train, a station stop to the final train yard showdown, the film's MO is one of edge of your seat emotional action. It's admittedly Snowpiercer crossed with 28 Days Later, but that's no bad thing as the film speeds as relentlessly as the train does to its destination.

Sure, there are some societal commentary moments thrown in (the father is a fund manager and his main nemesis is a slimy COO, a rich vs poor allegory hanging in the midst) but the simple MO of Train To Busan is to proffer frights, scares and emotional centres.

With a relatively unknown cast on these shores, it's an added frisson of thrills to wonder who will be picked off and thanks to the pace, tone and stakes for all, Train To Busan emerges as one of the best films of the year - and one well worth getting on board with.

Bridget Jones's Baby: Film Review

Bridget Jones's Baby: Film Review

Cast: Renee Zellweger, Patrick Dempsey, Colin Firth
Director: Sharon Maguire

What to expect when Bridget is expecting is perhaps the greatest fear facing many fans of Helen Fielding's titular beloved singleton.

But based on Bridget Jones' Baby which comes some 12 years after The Edge of Reason, there's every need to keep calm and carry on.

In this broad but occasionally bloated crowd pleasing comedy, Renee Zellweger's Bridget Jones's back and negotiating life in her own inimitable fashion.

The world may have changed plenty since we've seen her last - Hugh Grant's caddish Daniel Cleaver is disappeared, Darcy and Bridget have split - but, on her 43rd birthday, Bridget's solo and celebrating all by herself. However, that changes when work colleague Miranda (a scene stealing Sarah Solemani) takes her to a music festival to get laid.

Stumbling drunkenly into the wrong tent and a sordid tryst, Bridge hooks up with dating guru and dishy Jack (played by ole McDreamy himself Patrick Dempsey). Running off after, she ends up having another unexpected dalliance with Colin Firth's starched Mr Darcy at a christening a few days later.

Things get further complicated when she finds out she's pregnant but with no clue who the father is...

Swathed in an affectionate nostalgic glow for the character and playing up the usual neuroses and tics that made Bridget so relatable to so many, Zellweger steps back into the role - and its clipped English tones - with ease. 

(Let's not dwell on the slight cosmetic change as other media have been wont to do; this is still the same Bridget but slightly tweaked.) She's the perky comedy glue that holds this together and with some flippantly funny one liners, the film zings when she's around. (A line about glamping and Adolf Hitler garners unexpected laughs)

And even though it's not really much of a departure of a film from the usual choices of men that Bridget has to face as well as the predictable playing out of the klutzier edges and hitting a lull at about 80 mins in, the whole thing comes off as funny, warm and surprisingly familiar - and a potentially a saccharine riff on US and UK relations.

By making both males seem normal, the script wisely steers away from making Bridget's choice obvious or one of them kooky and nicely muddies the waters by playing with viewers' affections - even if the gloop and sentiment kicks in toward the end in this time honoured riff on the old trope two women/ one man.

Both Firth and Dempsey play their roles well, with Firth's humour coming off the more effective as he riffs on the social awkwardness that's always been at Darcy's core. Dempsey's a little blander, but still pleasant and helps sell the emotional quandary rather than over-egging it.

In a year that has already seen some middling 90s revivals (from Ab Fab to David Brent), it's refreshing to report that Bridget's latest (and hopefully last, even if a final scene pan teases something else) is both nostalgic and a little forward-looking. 

With its moments of honesty and its continuing depiction of one woman's messy life, Bridget Jones' Baby is no pregnant pause for the franchise. It's better than it could have been and consequently infinitely more enjoyable than you would have remotely expected. If you'll forgive the pun, this baby truly delivers in unexpected ways.

Sausage Party: Film Review

Sausage Party: Film Review

Vocal cast: Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, David Krumholtz, Edward Norton, Salma Hayek
Director: Conrad Vernon, Greg Tiernan

Possibly one of the most messed up adult animations of its generation, Sausage Party is a Seth Rogen idea 10 years in the making.

Mixing Pixar and Disney through the potty-mouthed prism of South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut, it's the at times anarchic story of sausage Frank (Rogen) and bun Brenda (Wiig) who live in a supermarket and who long to be selected by shoppers and taken to the nirvana of the Great Beyond (aka outside the store).

But when Frank and Brenda are separated from their bagged colleagues trying to save a suicidal mustard jar who says the Great Beyond is a lie, they have to get back to their shelves in time to be sold for July 4th celebrations....

Puns, profanity, philosophy and puerility collide in this animated flick which thanks to one scene towards the end gives new meanings to the phrases food porn and root vegetables.

And yet in among the clearly deranged lust for frat boy crudity and puns, there's also a story of religious tolerance, beliefs and commentary on the Israel / Palestine situation thanks to a squabbling friendship between a lavash and a bagel. It's a paradigm of Sausage Party that it covers such higher topics while pursuing such baser ideals and potty-mouthed leanings.

At its heart, it's a simple take on the Toy Story style get home adventure of the first film as Frank and Brenda muddle their way through the shopping aisles being chased by a bad guy, while one fellow sausage negotiates the horrors of reality of being cooked out in the real world.

But it's certainly plenty of food for thought during this culturally diverse and occasionally subversive piece that embraces all and points out the absurdity of conflicts and differences with the use of puns and a polemic pushing of the envelope. From God hates Figs to Exterminating Juice, there's plenty to keep you guffawing here as the inevitable lulls start to hit the scatological highs. An all-out orgy scene goes as far as it can and a clever use of Meatloaf helps the film to hit parodies of films like Terminator 2 and slasher films.

All in all the Adult Swim-like Sausage Party is perhaps not quite as clever as it aims to be in parts, but with Rogen adding an animated sausage to his pot-headed frat boy filmography, there are signs that he's doing what he does best and to great comic effect with this CGI outing.

Funny, riotous, ribald and a bit deeper than you'd expect despite its filthy sheen, Sausage Party sizzles more than you'd expect it to do so.

Sully: Film Review

Sully: Film Review

Cast: Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney
Director: Clint Eastwood

With its dedication to those who rushed to the aid of american airlines flight 1549 coming at the end, director Clint Eastwood's Sully wears its salute to heroism in New York on its sleeve.

On Thursday January 15th 2009, New York became alive with the chanting of a hero when Captain Chesley Sullenberger (a white haired and moustachioed Tom Hanks) force landed his plane onto the waters of the Hudson River with 155 people on board. But while the media heralded him, an investigation into his actions threatened to ruin him...

Sully is an odd film, one of quiet strengths and character weaknesses as it looks at the Miracle on The Hudson.

With little insight into the man other than brief flashbacks of his learning to fly and landing an air force jet in peril but with plenty of hints of troubled in his life, Eastwood plays the film remarkably straight, leaving the end result feeling a little muted.

Hanks gives his usual stoic and solid turn as Sullenberger, but a choice to play him as troubled or slightly sullen seems at odds with how little tension there actually appears to be in his background. Calls to his wife (Laura Linney) hint at problems that never seem to manifest, and to be frank, all that's really known about Sullenberger as a result, is what he did for some 208 seconds on the plane, and then consequently worried about thereafter.

With nightmarish flashes of jets powering through New York's skylines and crashing into buildings forming Sully's sleeping and waking life, and a passing comment that "New York's not had news this good, especially with an aeroplane involved" hinting at a post 9/11 city struggling still, it's clear Eastwood's Sully is a salutation to the resilience of those within.

But that's contrasted with the human factor that Hanks manifests here - it's another every man doing heroic every day things that he's made his career on. Yet even with that approach, Hanks' quiet resilience comes through and bleeds into Sullenberger where the script fails him. As the film leads to its inevitable trial by the National Transport Safety Board, there's a feeling that Sully really has relied on Hanks to carry the character through, even with brief interactions with Eckhart's co-pilot and his long distance wife.

Equally, Eastwood relies on the actual drama in the air to provide the emotional meat of the film, playing to generic fears many have on a plane that it all rests on the shoulders and actions of those in the cockpit. 

With some of the passengers falling into the generic mawkish stereotypes (woman with a baby, trio of late-comers to the flight), there's a tendency toward indifference as the bird strike hits forcing the engines into shutdown. 

But Eastwood gives it a calm muted sheen that gels with the feel of this languidly sedate film, which is the antithesis to Robert Zemeckis' Flight. As a result, the plane sequence is easily the stand-out of the film - though an over-reliance on re-showing it some three times from different perspectives becomes a narrative weakness and lends a strengthening feeling there is nothing else to the film other than what Sully did in the air.

The pitch for Sully is the incredible true story you didn't know, but based on a series of flashbacks, inter-cut narratives and an underwhelming fleshing out of the lead, there's little here that sings as sensational - other than the actions of one normal man "just doing his job".

Granted, Eastwood's workmanlike directorial touches during the flight sequences give Sully the frisson of excitement it needs, because in many other aspects, this film's circling in the air, waiting for clearance to land or even take-off.