Their Finest: Film Review

Their Finest: Film Review

Cast: Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, Eddie Marsan, Rachael Stirling

Director: Lone Scherfig

Their Finest may purport to be a proto-feminist rant disguised in a down-pat traditionalist rom-com that nostalgically gazes back on the cinema, but it, unfortunately, can't help losing sight of the bar it sets out early on.

When Gemma Arterton's Welsh wife Catrin Cole comes to the ministry of war for a copy-writing job, she's put to work writing for the 'slops', the female element of informational films made to keep morale high in 1940s war-torn Britain.

Of course, she accepts this role, on a lower income than her male counterparts naturally, but finds herself involved in the making of a propaganda film about two girls who saved the day to rally the cinema-going Brits in the Blitzkreig.

(In an irony, her husband is an Italian painter, whose works are shunned because he captures the grim reality of daily bombings on the canvas and doesn't register that brow-beaten Brits don't want to revel in that and prefer the pomp and escapism of the movies' rosier view on life).

However, the Ministry of War's mantra is that the film, about a pair of women who rescued the lads from Dunkirk, should have "Authenticity and honesty" as its raison d'etre, so Catrin finds herself decamping to Devon (doubling as Dunkirk) and working with a none-too-impressed Buckly (Hunger Games star Claflin, complete with round glasses, stiffly Brylcreemed and viciously parted hair and spiffing moustache).

Initially reticent to a woman being involved in the proceedings, it doesn't take a genius (or budding screen-writer) to see how this will play out as the banter between the duo and animosity sets in.

While large portions of Their Finest have a degree of genial predictability to them, a great deal of An Education's director Lone Scherfig's period piece is wonderfully tolerable, deeply nostalgic to the old cinematic ways and equally largely amusing to any cinema-loving audience member, with a hint of reverence to the old Pathe news reels that unspooled before films of the era.

It's mainly due to the meta-touches about making cinema which are peppered liberally throughout and do a lot to genuinely carve an atmosphere of love for the cinema-making experience.

An early scene sees Cole and Buckly spit-balling story ideas around the planned journey of their protagonists in front of a blank board; and it's simply joyous to behold the quick-fire pitching in action. While cinema-lovers will get a lot from touches like this, Scherfig's adaptation of Lissa Evans' novel isn't a mutually exclusive club, with gentle broad comedy being lashed throughout.

And even though the wilting of Catrin continues through the back half of the film, and the movie follows its own sign-posted "Comic life, tragic death, tears all round" mantra and tonal jerking of the promised romance to teeth-grinding annoyance levels, some of the supporting players of Their Finest add a great deal to the unfolding screen broth.

Most of the kudos goes to Bill Nighy's ageing actor Ambrose Hilliard, a former screen star whose expressions and dismissive touches when he's offered the role of an older character, described as a ship-wreck of a man, are nothing short of sublime.

With his wry mocking of the time in the limelight and puffing of his own ego, a scene-stealing Nighy is Their Finest's MVP by far, and he relishes every single moment on screen with such joie-de-vivre and wearied delusion, that it's impossible to not love this man and revel in his on-screen time and general chutzpah.

By the same token, Rachael Stirling's lesbian "ministry spy" keeping in check the film-makers has a deliciously tart line in withering put-downs, as well as giving voice to the female movement so often confined to the sidelines on the screen adaptations of that time.

There are large portions of the character moments that hang together in a nostalgic glow, and make Their Finest feel like a film from yesteryear.

Ultimately, Their Finest works best when it doesn't concentrate on the romance elements of the film.

While these decidedly feel-good tear-jerker moments will resonate with the audience, the film's life and soul really do come from the way it celebrates cinema, and its part in the war effort and the collective morale. It’s for this that Their Finest deserves salutations, rather than the more mawkish moments that feel shoe-horned in toward the film’s muddled , and oddly messy,  denouement.

Play Prey for Free on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One | Fight the Invasion!

Play Prey for Free on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One | Fight the Invasion!

We’re pleased to announce that a free Prey demo will be available on Thursday, April 27th for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The demo will allow fans to board Talos I and play the opening hour before the worldwide launch of the game on May 5th.

  

The Prey Demo: Opening Hour puts you in the role of Morgan Yu, lead scientist aboard Talos I, working on a scientific breakthrough meant to alter humanity forever. What starts off as an exciting first day of work very quickly takes a dark turn. You find yourself alone on board Talos I, a lavish but abandoned interstellar research facility. Aliens have overrun the station and are hunting down any surviving crew members, including you. Should these creatures reach Earth, life as you know it will end. It’s up to you to uncover the mysteries of Talos I, fight the alien invasion and save humanity.

Plus, be sure to keep an eye out tomorrow for preview stories around the globe revealing additional game details and showcasing new content.

Set to launch worldwide on Friday, May 5, 2017 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, Prey is the highly anticipated first-person sci-fi action game from Arkane Studios - creators of the award-winning Dishonored series which includes the 2012 'Game of the Year' and the critically acclaimed follow-up, Dishonored 2.

Denial: Film Review

Denial: Film Review

Cast: Rachel Weisz, Andrew Scott, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Spall
Director: Mick Jackson

With made for TV aspirations and lacking a distinctly cathartic or powereful end, Denial's a courtroom film that really, sadly, falls a little flat when it ultimately enters the courtoom in its final stages.

Centring around Rachel Weisz's American scholar and Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt and the libel case brought against her by denier David Irving (played with snake-like obsequiousness by a slender Timothy Spall), Denial concentrates on presenting the facts and the nuts and bolts of the case with relative solidity.

Choosing to deal with the fact that Lipstadt and her legal team had to prove the Holocaust did actually happen due to the intricacies and idiosyncracies of English law, Denial presents the usual tropes for the genre (a headstrong American who wants to pursue her way of doing things, a couple of showdowns et al) but delivers them all with little bluster and scant regard for histrionics.

It helps that Weisz is surrounded by some good sturdy character acting from the likes of Sherlock star Andrew Scott as lawyer Anthony Julius, who delivers a nuanced and subtle turn at the start of the film, before fading into the background during the court proceedings. Equally blessed with similar amounts of both stern temperament and righteous indignation is Tom Wilkinson as Richard Rampton, a prosecuting barrister.

But director Jackson is smart enough to ensure that this docudrama (with its verbatim dialect and dialogue ripped from the court proceedings) works better by humanising the pathetic Irving and his appalling take on what Hitler did, and letting the moral outrage seethe from the screen rather than turn him into a spitting fury caricature that evokes anger and is played OTT. Thankfully, a sneering Spall delivers in large spades, making his monstrous man all about the small facial movements as he spouts his foul beliefs and profligates his lies about what the regime did. It's not an easy task to make the man come to life, but thanks to large amounts of restraint and subtlety, it works better than it should.

To describe Denial as workmanlike may sound like to damn it with feint praise, but in all honesty, this better-suited-for-the-small-screen has some sequences that truly work.

A visit to Auschwitz is narratively compulsory and puts barriers between Lipstadt and Rampton that need to be there for conflict of approaches, but by delivering the sequence with a degree of sensitivity, the gravity of what transpired there is hard to deny.

And yet, when the film enters the courtroom in the final furlong, the sense of depth of discussion and implications of what's playing out never quite feels as weighty as the subject matter would suggest. The courtroom scenes lack the OTT antics of barristers or the moments that droop into cliche, but it's hard to see what else could be done.

Smartly using the media throng and the news reporters to set the scene rather than exposition, the film manages to convey a sense of time with considerable aplomb, while simultaneously allowing Lipstadt to become more disgruntled that she's not able to take the stand and denounce Irving and his poisonous beliefs.

However, the more interesting kernel of the film lies in the contrast between the American and British judicial systems. From shots of a judge carefully taking and stirring his tea while eyeing a plate of biscuits, the sense of opposites is obvious in its studiousness and subtleties.

It's a shame that this isn't brought out more on the screen, but in fairness, the film couldn't risk trivialising its subject matter and the decision to simply present the case and the teams in a very matter of fact fashion means that the movie is never likely to soar when you'd expect it to.

Maybe that's no bad thing, and in all honesty, Denial is eminently watchable thanks to its ensemble cast, who all turn in well constructed performances, even if parts of them (particularly Weisz's out of her legal depth Lipstadt) veer dangerously close to feeling stereotyped.

Ultimately, Denial's attentiveness to its subject matter and its avoidance of preachy overtones mean the drama's solid but never spectacular. And while it follows the formula of a courtroom thriller, its inability (or perhaps, refusal) to give it a bit more theatrics mean the overall tone and resolution is more muted and respectful than powerful.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 leaks

Star Wars Battlefront 2 leaks

Is this your first look at the brand new Star Wars Battlefront 2?

bf2 from TheSpicinberg on Vimeo.

The Fate of the Furious: Film Review

The Fate of the Furious: Film Review

Cast: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Charlize Theron, Luke Evans, Scott Eastwood, Michelle Rodriguez, Luadcris, Tyrese Gibson, Jason Statham, Kurt Russell, Helen Mirren
Director: F Gary Gray

There are certain things you expect from a Fast and Furious film.

From the shots of scantily clad girls gyrating in barely any clothing, lots of insane racing and endless speeches about family made throughout.

Pretty much all of those are present and correct in the eighth instalment of the franchise which shows no sense of dying.

But what's missing in this latest is a sense of soul and heart that's bound together the other films to varying degrees of success.

In Fate of the Furious, Vin Diesel's emoting potato of a folk hero Dom Toretto is forced to betray his crew and his family when braided cyber-terrorist Cypher (an icy Charlize Theron whose cold presence bodes well for the upcoming Atomic Blonde and who's likely to spawn several Fast and Furiosa memes) exerts some mysterious leverage over him.

Forced into the reality they've been betrayed by the one they trusted the most, Dwayne Johnson's Luke Hobbs is compelled to assemble the usual good guys ( including an expanded role for Game Of Thrones' Nathalie Emmanuel's hacker) and some bad guys (hello, Jason Statham's Deckard Shaw imprisoned in Furious 7) to save the day.

Mixing in global terrorism, cyber-hacking and occasional set pieces with relative ease appear to be the MO for this latest Furious outing, but despite Straight Outta Compton helmer F Gary Gray's eye behind the lens, the whole thing feels like a flat formulaic piece of cinema when compared to some of the other outings for this franchise.

Granted, with its ACME style shenanigans and fights and car-flips where nobody ever emerges with the slightest hint of a cut or graze on their fetishized buff bodies, the Fast franchise has never aimed for the levels of Shakespearean dialogue or any attempts at a cerebral outing.

The usual reason to endure and enjoy one of these outings is in the spectacularly over-the-top stunt work and high-octane sequences - and in Fast 5, great amounts of heart and surprising humanity was fuel-injected into the characters. As one character says in The Fate Of The Furious: "It's not what's under the hood, it's about who's behind the wheel". And that motif certainly feels like it infects large swathes of this occasionally bloated and soulless action thriller, with the growing feeling that those in charge didn't really invest as much into the script as they should have.

The mid-section of the 2 hour 15 minute dumb beast is slowed by endless amounts of techno-banter masquerading as exposition and it almost cripples what you'd want from a film like this. After a thrilling street race in Havana, reminiscent of the very best of the Forza Horizon driving game series, which showcases both the best and worst of what the series offers (cliched dialogue, gyrating car bunnies and pacy well-choreographed but sensibly cut action), the film hits a speed bump after the introduction of self-assured Theron's Cipher.

Diesel is his usual monosyllabic gruff pouting self as Toretto, but this time, even Diesel struggles to reach the basic level of emotion needed to invest in the character's plight and his attempts at showing struggle and conflict come across as more a petulant teen outburst mixed with the emotional range of a potato. It's not his best charismatic work in the series as other entries will attest.

Fortunately, some of the slack is picked up by the usual charism of Dwayne Johnson, the man mountain who was brought on as a cop a few entrants back to track down Toretto. There's even a scene that will appeal to the home crowd as Johnson leads a female kids football team into a rousing haka pre-game (though, it does feel slightly odd and unexpected as a throwaway moment but it's good to see perhaps that his recent Moana outing's stirred up some sense of culture).

But the script confines most of Toretto's team to the sidelines, grounding their arcs in neutral rather than full-speed ahead - and even the banter between Ludacris' Tej and Tyrese Gibson's Roman is hit by a lack of under-writing.

Thankfully, the British invasion brings the best signs of life in this flagging actioner - a wonderful cameo from Helen Mirren as an East-end mucky-mouthed matriarch greatly enlivens proceedings, and a final plane-confined homage to the 1992 action flick Hard Boiled from Yun-Fat Chow involving Statham is nothing short of deranged brilliance and great fun.

However, all in all The Fate Of The Furious is stuffed to the gills and would have greatly benefited from an expeditious trim to make it leaner and more taut in its ultimate execution.

Set pieces within don't feel as exciting as they could be, and while there are moments, such as a World War Z style zombie car attack in New York (yes, that sentence was just written) that stand out, most of the action feels arbitrary and relatively unengaging.

Equally, the fact the cast of main actors, and their supporting charges, is growing to ever-increasing numbers doesn't help things. Its one more cameo mentality feels like a troupe of am dram players who are too afraid to sort the wheat from the chaff and whose numbers swell greatly with little to do; a culling of the Fast family would greatly enhance parts of this franchise and bring some much needed emotional range too.

Perhaps it's the fact that Fast 7's $1.5billion global box office take in wake of Paul Walker's death necessitated yet one more ride, even though thematically the narrative tank was empty and everything had been neatly resolved in the last, but The Fate of the Furious actually feels surplus to requirements in the series' canon.

While the precision of the action sequences is neatly handled by Gray as the lunacy and ridiculousness increases, climaxing with an ice-capade set to the backdrop of a Russian nuclear sub heist, it really doesn't feel like the emotional range needed to ground this dumb, bloated actioner is even close to hitting the spot.

The Fate Of The Furious is a lacklustre spectacle that feels constrained and that betrays some of the franchise's prior heart and soul in among the car-nage. It's perhaps the ultimate Easter treat - looks good, shiny and promises much, but in its centre, it's hollow and empty and you'll feel guilty as hell afterwards.

Watch it do absolutely insane numbers at the box office though - this has never, ever been a series which has pandered to the critical mass; it's more a demented extreme version of Top Gear for the masses, who'll lap up every second of its excess and ensure that come Diesel's retirement age, he'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

Win a Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 prize pack!

Win a  Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 prize pack!

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 is coming soon!



To celebrate the release of the hotly anticipated sequel to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2, I've got three prize packs to give away!

Packs include

Mini Groot

Phone card wallets

Star lord keychains

Cap

Retro headphones

Groot T shirts

Double in-season pass to see the movie!

From Marvel Studios, the studio that brought you the cinematic global blockbuster franchises of “Iron Man,” “Captain America,” “Thor,” “Ant-Man,” “Doctor Strange” and the “Avengers,” comes the highly anticipated sequel, featuring the world’s favorite band of intergalactic misfits—the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Picking up where “Guardians of the Galaxy”—2014’s highest grossing film of the summer—left off, Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” continues the action-packed, irreverent, epic space adventures of Peter Quill aka Star-Lord and his gang of eccentric characters as they patrol and protect the universe, doing mercenary work in the wake of the popularity and fame they garnered from saving Xandar.

Set to the backdrop of Awesome Mixtape #2, the story follows the team as they fight to keep their newfound family together while traversing the outer reaches of the cosmos to unravel the mysteries of Peter Quill’s true parentage. Old foes become new allies and fan-favorite characters from the classic comics will come to our heroes’ aid as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 Starring Chris Pratt, Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel is in Cinemas April 25

Rating : TBC

To win a Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 prize pack, all you have to do is enter simply email your details to this  address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com or CLICK HERE NOW!

Include your name and address and title your email GOTG2!
Competition closes April 25th

Good luck!

Raw: Film Review

Raw: Film Review

Cast: Garrance Mareillier, Ella Rumpf
Director: Julia Ducournau

Already the enfant terrible of the festival scene after viewers at Cannes apparently fainted and vomited during screenings, French director Julia Ducournau's stylistically nourishing body horror may have already put some off.

However, this tale is more one of coming-of-age, self-acceptance, sibling rivalry and the usual outsider trying to fit in story that cinema so often delivers.

The waif-like Garrance Mareillier (who carries more than a passing visual reference to Zoey Deutch via way of Isabelle Adjani) is Justine, who, as the film begins, is heading to enrol in the veterinary college frequented by generations of her family.

At a roadside cafe, there's uproar when her mother discovers the slop mashed potatoes Justine's been served come with a sausage within. Surely, no cause for concern - however, Justine and all her family shun the carnivorous ways and are staunch vegetarians.

Dropped at the college, Justine is thrown into a brutal hazeing ceremony that afflicts all newcomers - forced on all fours, and herded like cattle to an abattoir, the first year students are dropped deep into a world of work, partying, hedonistic almost Bacchanial excess and plenty of flesh on show.

Justine reunites with her sister, Alexia (Rumpf) who's also there and has been for a few years. Initially reticent, the duo reform and repair some of the brittle bridges that scatter siblings - before an unlikely bond is discovered and a hunger awoken in Justine...

Raw may have at its core a tale of cannibalism, and there's certainly enough pleasures of the flesh put upon the screen, but the hybrid of horror and occasional shocks is more riddled with an atmosphere of unease and suspense than an outright desire to induce nausea in its audience.

It's perhaps pertinent if you are of a queasy disposition to take degrees of caution, but certainly the gore on the screen is a lot less effective or bloody than Raw's reputation would suggest.

More startling is director Julia Ducournau's commitment to this fearless debut; it pulls together elements of every coming of age film you've seen. From elements of Ginger Snaps to the hedonism of Trainspotting, via way of startling and striking imagery (some of it ripped from Carrie), the film crackles with visual flair throughout.

It helps that Mareiller's aloofness sells the other-worldly edges of what plays out, and as the rapacious hunger within is awoken, she manages to sell the almost feral transformation incredibly well and sympathetically as the principles tangle and conflict with the primal urges within.

From hints of her being seduced into the almost cult-like world of the pledges to looking at meat on a counter, Mareiller does more with little than you'd expect to see and the restraint adds much to her character who's simultaneously coming of age and trying to find her place in the world. It helps that these themes are not new, and have been explored before - but rarely with the pertinence and female point of view leading the way.

The script hints a lot at what's going on, and there are delicious double entendres that come to life as the film ends - indeed Justine's told that "an animal that's tasted flesh isn't exactly safe", but there's a studious once over with Raw that almost veers into parody in the final cinematic furlong.

It's not that the gore hits a crescendo, more that the score hits a one louder approach that threatens to topple the audaciousness of what's already played out. Certainly, Ducournau would have benefited from being a little more hands-off as the film veers towards its darkly twisted denouement.

With escalating sibling rivalry at its core, Raw's feral and visceral in parts, drowning its coming of age observations and cannibalism in its female point of view.

Coupled with a fevered lead whose occasionally dead eyes hint at the conflict and the primal hunger within, Raw's certainly a film not for all tastes. But for those willing to surrender themselves to its deft stylish touches, and its hints of horrors as well as its outright taste for shocks, it's one hell of an experience, and one hell of a fiery debut.