Arrival: Film Review

Arrival: Film Review

Cast: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker
Director: Denis Villeneuve

Director Denis Villeneuve returns with a masterfully heady mystery puzzle box film that's simultaneously a slice of sci-fi but also a meditation on love and communication.

Amy Adams is linguistics Professor Louise Banks, who's called in to help the army when a series of giant objects (12 in total) touch down around the world in a first contact situation. As various superpowers scramble both their weaponry and experts to work out what's wanted, Banks and a team work with their alien visitors to try and crack the code.

But with escalating tension and paranoia, is the world about to be pushed to the limit and react in a way that's apocalyptic?

As usual, Villeneuve brings his eye for suspense and teetering edge of your seat moments with measured and controlled story-telling that appears to be in no rush to reveal its hand.

Eloquently and elegantly shot with some impressive cinematography and an atmosphere of brooding, Arrival is both reverent of its genres and simultaneously new as well. With the language of the heptapod visitors expressed in inky black circles, the film exudes a rudimentary look that's compelling as it plays out. Equally, the soundscape created in the creatures' inner sanctum is audacious and embracing, giving a feeling of the other-worldly as well.

But Incendies, Enemy, Sicario and Prisoners director Villeneuve is never in any rush to hurry along the proceedings, preferring to use long slow shots to build elements of uncertainty and foreboding - it's easy to see why the anticipation is so delicious throughout. It may be based on the short story "Story of Your Life" and straddled with sci fi tropes (mysterious obelisks et al), but it becomes its own beast. (Though a visual nod to another of Villeneuve's films' ending Enemy is perhaps a moment and an Easter Egg only connoisseurs of his films will appreciate)

Stripped of its sci-fi elements and the rather cliched Chinese super-power meltdown / human panic, Arrival is at its heart a meditation on love and language, as well as communication, that's difficult to discuss without spoilers.

Anchored by an impressive Adams who imbues the film with an earthiness that's needed and a fragility that's obvious as her story plays out, it's a trip that's masterful in its execution and gripping in equal measure.

The star of the piece though is once again Villeneuve. As with previous ventures (Sicario, Incendies, Enemy and Prisoners), he demonstrates great flair in adapting the short Story of Your Life novella and turning it into an exercise in anticipation that never manages to over-stay its welcome, and imbues the genre with a freshness that's both reverential and feeling new. Whether it's stretching out Banks' first meeting with the heptapod aliens in an audacious sequence that grips and gives you a sense of the fear, excitement and trepidation that Banks must be feeling.

Ultimately, Arrival does concern itself with aliens and their appearance, but its themes are predominantly more human as it loops around its timelines in its Ouroboros way; love, language, connection, fate and the propensity to take a chance on what's potentially ahead. They're not new themes in the sci-fi world, but they're certainly given a fresh inventiveness and a polish that renders them compelling, intriguing and palpably exciting.

Driveclub VR: PS4 Review

Driveclub VR: PS4 Review

Platform: PSVR

I'd love to be able to review Driveclub VR for you.

But, after 2 laps of the game, with its usual super visuals and incredible detailed sense of the cars and the world around, the arcade nature of the game actually induced horrific nausea as the motion sickness kicked in.

It's a shame, as the visuals of the game are mightily impressive - before you've even started the racing, the fact you can look all around your car shows how much scope there is here.

But ultimately, I couldn't help but nearly blow chunks as I stopped the game midway through its first race.

The Accountant: Film Review

The Accountant: Film Review

Cast: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, John Lithgow, Jon Bernthal, JK Simmons
Director: Gavin O'Connor

In an attempt to make accountants seem like more than just numbers guys, director Gavin O'Connor's movie with a dour faced Ben Affleck as the titular accountant aims for thrills, but on most occasions misses.

Affleck is Christian Wolff the accountant, a maths genius who is afflicted with high-functioning autism and whose social interactions are awkward at best. Called into a robotics company to try and work out where $70 million has gone AWOL, Christian solves the case overnight but his resolution causes a chain of events to unfold.

With a series of killers on his back and the Treasury Department closing in on Wolff after his links to cleaning dodgy books, Wolff's on the back foot - and with a nerdy fellow accountant from the robotics company in tow (Kendrick in usual preppy and perky mode), the chase is on.

Skipping some of the emotional beats needed to make this land proves fatal for The Accountant, which in parts feels perfunctory, drab and dour.

While a frowny Affleck manages to imbue Wolff with the social awkwardness needed, which allows for some comic interludes between him and Kendrick's Dayna, he's pretty much rendered relatively mute. And outside of action sequences, Affleck's got little to do except revel in the vulnerability and physicality- though admittedly, he does it well.

If anything's wrong with The Accountant, it's more a case of the threads not quite tying as tightly together as perhaps they should without characters indulging in serious amounts of exposition to help you through. Worst offender is JK Simmons' Treasury head, who's (cliche alert) determined to crack Wolff's identity before he retires - in one scene alone, he literally espouses the whole story in an attempt to get people up to speed. Thankfully, he's such a great actor that he just manages to lift the material higher than it deserves.

While there's something to be said for having an autism heavy hero on the screen (according to one character 1 in 68 US kids suffer) and there's a feeling that this is the launch of a Littlest Hobo style assassin franchise, The Accountant never quite fires on all cylinders as it trudges through its 2 hour run time, thanks largely to flashbacks that jolt proceedings and disparate multi-threads that aren't particularly engaging or original.

The final fight sequence is precise in its execution and brings a punch that's been lacking, but it's hard to fully invest in proceedings as they play out prior to this point, with some of the threads feeling not quite as well sketched out as they could be.

While relatively solid overall, thanks mainly to Affleck's performance, The Accountant ultimately and unfortunately doesn't quite add up.

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Alice Through The Looking Glass: Blu Ray Review

Alice Through The Looking Glass: Blu Ray Review

If 2010's Alice In Wonderland was a mish-mash of concepts and colours, this sequel six years after the last is a drab dour psychological piece.

When Alice (Mia Wasikowska) returns to land after years away at sea, she finds that she has to head back to Wonderland to escape the confines of Victorian life. However, when she arrives there, she discovers her friend the Hatter (Depp) is no longer the man he used to be due to deep-rooted psychological issues.

When told by the White Queen (Hathaway) and her chums that she may be able to save things if she heads back in time. So setting out to steal the Chronosphere, guarded by time himself (Sacha Baron Cohen), Alice heads off on a dangerous mission to change the past and future.

Essentially riffing on Back To The Future 2, and feeling like every time travel cliche you've seen, the FX laden fantasy Alice Through The Looking Glass is anything but a colourful blast back into Lewis Carroll's world, preferring more to be a Daddy issues film and a sibling rivalry exploration.

With Baron Cohen providing an extended riff on Werner Herzog / Christoph Waltz as Time (and his minions coming together likeTransformers when it's needed), and Depp looking like a sullen faced Beetlejuice reject, the film has Tim Burton's breath all over it, even if the Muppets and Flight of The Conchords' James Bobin is directing it.

The themes of escape for Alice and of damage for The Hatter are perfectly fine, but give the whole thing a wash of deep darkness whose hues it's hard to escape. It's a psychologically oppressive piece that darts back and forth through time and is anchored by a relatively strong Wasikowska who has little to really work with.

Despite being told she could do six impossible things before breakfast, Alice this time around is slightly thwarted by a plot that's more about showcasing its effects and costumes than it is about delving into character. Consequently, characters like Hathaway's White Queen waft ethereally in and out without much depth or commanding much attention.Depp's nicely muted and forlorn as the Hatter whose world is crumbling at the loss of his family, but really he looks like Edward Scissorhands in another get up, and his zaniness that zinged the first film is much missed here.

Moving away from the book's original story was perhaps a brave and bold move, but the fact the film hardly stays in one place for long enough as the protagonists zoom through time in gyroscopes does little to fully engage, despite period details and settings doing much to create an atmosphere that's almost stifled by the over-complicated yet somehow underwritten moments.

Even though the darker and dourer elements of this Alice, What's The Hatter piece are welcome, the film's whole lasting impression, despite the politics of Alice wanting more from her life than conforming or what society sets down for her (a commendable message to young girls), is one of missing Burton's original vision for - and his whimsical touches on - the cinematic Wonderland.

Hitman Season Finale Out Now + Launch Trailer

Hitman Season Finale Out Now + Launch Trailer

THE HITMAN SEASON FINALE IS HERE

Travel to Hokkaido, Japan Today

SYDNEY, 1^ST November 2016 – The Season Finale for HITMAN Season One is here with a mission called “Situs Inversus”, and is the culmination of everything players will have learnt in terms of both gameplay and story.

A journey which 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, Episode 5: Colorado in September as we reach the season finale, Episode 6: Hokkaido today.

“It was a brave decision to go fully digital episodic with Hitman, fundamentally changing how we make the game, and for us it has been a major success,” said Hannes Seifert, Studio Head, Io-Interactive. “I want to say a big thank you to all the players for making this possible! Together we’ve built and run the biggest and most replayable locations of any Hitman game and added new live content every single week since launch. And although we’re now completing season one, this is only the beginning for our ever expanding World of Assassination.”

The Hokkaido location is set within the grounds of the hyper-exclusive GAMA private hospital and resort. This secluded facility is a fusion of Japanese beauty and cutting-edge technology, featuring its own Zen gardens, organic sushi restaurant and traditional Japanese hot spring. Agent 47 must locate two targets in this climactic Season Finale. 

Battlefield 1: PS4 Review

Battlefield 1: PS4 Review

Platform: PS4
Released by EA And developed by DICE

Battlefield 1 is no ordinary shooter.

And it's no ordinary emotional experience.

It's the first first person shooter that's been played that leaves a feeling of despair each time you die - perhaps it's the setting in World War I and the reality that many, many people died during the carnage, or perhaps it's the fact that each time you die, a different character name appears on the screen.

Set over an anthology of stories, this immersive shooter gives you the chance to play different parts of the campaign over the turn of the War.

From a British tank crew to an Italian fighter, the choice is yours - but war itself is very real. And regardless of which order you play the campaign in and in which chapter, the carnage and chaos is utterly terrifying as it spools out in front of you.

It's the 1918 leg of the war, and DICE has opted for reality rather than hyper reality, meaning you're saddled with the primitive weapons of the time. From clunky grenades to guns that need reloading and take time, the weaponry is difficult to use if you don't plan your approaches and ideas.

Granted the sections themselves feel occasionally repetitive (stealth, shoot, kill and steal) being the traits you can expect, but there's a deep emotional connection to this collection that remains rewarding and surprising. Never before has there been the urgent need to invest in the lives of those on the screen and it's Battlefield 1's biggest surprise.

Some of the cut scenes have an epic quality to them as well - giving the whole game a sheen that's welcome.

Multiplayer is massive too - from conquest mode to the chance to play an Operations mode, there's more than enough to keep you alive on the gaming front. While the multiplayer still suffers from the usual issues, spawning you too far away from the action to make it frustration when you arrive and are shot, the game's beauty is evident as well in its surroundings. Plenty of work's gone into the landscapes and the war-torn elements - and in parts, it looks like hell on earth.

While the multiplayer has its trademark DICE issues, the campaign is the greatest reason to play Battlefield 1. Deeply involving, more emotional than expected and with a compulsion that borders on addiction, this shooter is a reminder of the horrors of war, and a game that stays away from glorification of it all.

As a result, it's compelling and gritty as hell.

The Light Between Oceans: Film Review

The Light Between Oceans: Film Review

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, Rachel Weisz, Emily Barclay, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson
Director: Derek Cianfrance

Making great fist of the desolate New Zealand coast and aiming for emotional devastation but landing somewhere nearer trying experience, Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance's The Light Between Oceans aims big in its period affectations.

Beautifully shot and framed, The Light Between Oceans is the film adaptation of ML Steadman's post war story. Fassbender stars as Tom, a World War I veteran who simply wants to recover from the horrors of the Great War (or as he understates he's "just looking to get away from things"). Ending up in the Lighthouse service and asking for a posting on Janus Rock which overlooks the oceans, Tom meets Vikander's Isabel on the mainland and despite his withdrawn nature, an instant attraction blossoms.

The pair's marital bliss is hit by double tragedy with miscarriages and when a boat washes up with a dead man on board and a crying baby, Isabel pleads with Tom to raise the child as their own. Reluctantly, he agrees and the pair settle into a familial life, blissfully happy.

But years later, on the mainland, Tom meets the widow and grieving mother (a dignified and gravitas-filled Weisz) and a chain of events is guiltily set in motion.

The Light Between Oceans benefits from a great solemn first half, that hits all the emotional beats required.

In among some stunning cinematography and some melancholy moments that border on the darkness, Cianfrance draws the best from Vikander with some truly heartbreaking and devastating sequences playing out as Isabel loses two children (the first in the most harrowing of circumstances). But the film hits a stumbling block as it saunters towards the end (which no doubt is in large part the fault of source material) and negotiates both time jumps and desperation for closure, sacrificing the emotional heft that's needed to allow the choices to feel quite so cataclysmic for all involved.

Of the two actors, Vikander's the strongest and most adept at translating her arc to the screen, and while Fassbender's stoic outlook on Tom is nigh on aloof, he's helped by some choice morsels of dialogue that provide insight where characterisation on screen can not.

His ethos of "I just try to keep the light burning for whoever needs it" is laden with tragedy and selflessness but the implications of this lightkeeper doing more than his duty unfortunately never feel fully fleshed out on screen as the film slips into melodrama and divergent endings.

With Cianfrance using cutaways to the rolling oceans and the cruelty of nature a little too often to segue between it all, The Light Between Oceans struggles to really find its own voice in its back half. Granted, the emotion is there initially and it's hard not to get swept up in the bleak unfolding tragedy of Tom and Isabel; but the final strait and its long dawdling route to get there mean its emotional effectiveness is muted and stilted, despite some of the finest efforts of its central cast.

Never as devastating or as provocative as it should be, this effective translation of Steadman's source material may look rich on the exterior, but its core is flawed when others come into the picture and its attempts at emotional resonance are thwarted.

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