Tuesday, 16 May 2017

LEGO® MARVEL SUPER HEROES 2 - ANNOUNCE


WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT, TT GAMES, THE LEGO GROUP
AND MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCE

LEGO® MARVEL SUPER HEROES 2

Iconic Marvel Super Heroes and Super Villains from Different Eras and Realities Come Together for an All-New, Original Adventure in the Sequel to Blockbuster Hit, LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes

Burbank, Calif. – May 15, 2017 – Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, TT Games, The LEGO Group and Marvel Entertainment today announced LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes 2, an all-new, original adventure and sequel to the smash hit, LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes. Bringing together iconic Marvel Super Heroes and Super Villains from different eras and realities, along with signature LEGO humor, the latest epic adventure from TT Games transports players into a cosmic battle across a myriad of Marvel locations ripped from time and space into the incredible open hub world of Chronopolis. LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes 2 will be available starting November 15, 2017 for PlayStation®4, Xbox One®, and PC. The game will be released for Nintendo Switch™ this holiday. 

“With a completely original branching storyline, LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes 2  introduces amazing new gameplay features, including the ability for characters to manipulate time and a four-player competitive Super Hero battling mode,” said Tom Stone, Managing Director, TT Games. “With a huge array of brand new characters from the Marvel Universe, including old favorites in new guises, this game is sure to thrill both LEGO and Marvel fans, as well as newcomers to the series.”

“The LEGO Group is delighted to continue the stories of the legendary Marvel characters in a new LEGO adventure,” said Sean McEvoy, VP Digital Games, The LEGO Group. “Fans young and old will love playing through this all-new cosmic saga spanning the Marvel Universe as seen through the LEGO lens.”

“As we look to bring amazing games to Marvel fans of all ages, we’ve teamed up yet again with our incredible partners at LEGO, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and TT Games,” said Jay Ong, SVP, Games & Innovation, Marvel Entertainment. “LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes 2 brings characters from across Marvel’s history into an original story told in a way that only LEGO games can, offering hours of epic gameplay.”

Players will go head-to-head with the time-traveling Kang the Conqueror in an epic battle across Chronopolis, from Ancient Egypt and The Old West to Sakaar and New York City in 2099. Along the way, gamers will be able to take control of a host of iconic characters, from Cowboy Captain America from the past to Spider-Man 2099 from the future along with Thor, Hulk, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Doctor Strange, Green Goblin, and dozens of other Marvel Super Heroes and Super Villains.

Packed with entertaining LEGO humor for fans of all agesLEGO® Marvel Super Heroes 2 features a four player multiplayer mode, allowing friends and family to play competitively or cooperatively as a team.

Follow LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes 2 at:

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands - Fallen Ghosts Expansion coming May 30

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands - Fallen Ghosts Expansion coming May 30


HUNTERS BECOME THE HUNTED IN TOM CLANCY’S GHOST RECON® WILDLANDS’ SECOND EXPANSION, FALLEN GHOSTS, COMING MAY 30, 2017




SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA— May 16, 2017 —Ubisoft® has announced that the second Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands expansion, Fallen Ghosts, will be available to season pass owners simultaneously onXbox One, PlayStation® 4 computer entertainment system and Windows PC on May 30, 2017. The expansion will release for individual purchase for all players a week later, on June 6, 2017.

Fallen Ghosts takes place after the fall of the Santa Blanca Cartel. With Unidad’s military force unable to maintain control over Bolivia, the country is in a state of civil war. To help restore order, the Unidad enlists cartel members, veterans, mercenaries and criminals from various nearby countries as volunteers. Together, they form a new brutal special unit: Los Extranjeros, which is ordered to track and eliminate all American agents.

In this chaotic situation, the Ghosts have one last mission: evacuate the last CIA members and American civilians remaining in the country. Shot down enroute to their mission, the Ghosts find themselves in the middle of the jungle, without external support, facing deadly enemies equipped with the latest gear and technology. These dangerous elite soldiers are separated into four distinct classes:

-     Armored: Equipped with heavy bulletproof plates, they are especially threatening in close combat.
-     Elite Sniper: Geared up with an advanced movement detector, these Elite Sniper are able to notice far away targets and never miss their shot.
-     Jammer: With a jamming antenna directly in their backpack, they are able to neutralize drones and interfere with all electronic equipment.
-     Covert Ops: Equipped with a new prototype cloaking device that makes them almost invisible and a powerful crossbow, they give a new meaning to the word “Ghost.”

The Fallen Ghosts campaign will feature 15 new missions in which players will have to take down four new bosses located in three different regions. In the expansion, players will start with a new character at level 30 and equipped with all of the main game skills. The level cap will increase from 30 to 35, and players will be able to unlock nine new skills including physical, weapon and drones skills.

Fallen Ghosts also features six exclusive new weapons ranging from new assaults rifles, sniper rifles and a crossbow that can be equipped with explosive arrows.

Finally, the more hardcore players will be pleased to know that the advanced and expert difficulties have been tweaked to offer an even higher challenge. By turning the HUD off players will get the most extreme and tactical experience possible in Ghost Recon Wildlands.

In Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, players discover a fictionalized future Bolivia, a few years from now, in which players must take down the Santa Blanca drug cartel by any means necessary. Behind enemy lines, they hunt down targets and discover intel, using any of the more than 60 vehicles available, including cars, motorcycles and even helicopters that they can commandeer. To topple the cartel, players have to fight their way to El SueƱo, Santa Blanca’s ruthless leader, by breaking down the Santa Blanca drug cartel’s operation piece by piece as they sever alliances between the drug lords and the corrupted government. A PvP mode for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands will be available in the coming months.

For more information about Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands, please visit ghostrecon.com.

King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword: Film Review

King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword: Film Review


Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Eric Bana, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Aidan Gillen, Neil Maskell
Director: Guy Ritchie

Playing like some bastard version of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Towers, and already a massive flop at the US Box Office, Guy Ritchie's take on King Arthur isn't quite as bad as you've been led to believe.
King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword: Film Review

It's not perfect, either, but the visceral energy and sheer chutzpah that Ritchie imbues part of this fantastical tale with a visual thrill that's hard to shake.

It doesn't start off well, with a CGI heavy Return of the King /Two Towers / Warcraft style battle atop the ramparts that sees possessed pachyderms throwing rocks and taking on hordes of bad guys at the behest of a Mage blighting the land.

But the story concentrates on Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam aka Arthur, who witnesses his father's death before being cast off in a boat for his own safety.

Growing up on the back-alleys and streets of Londinium and denying his royal heritage, Arthur's forced to face his destiny when he manages to pull the sword Excalibur from the stone.
It's this that puts him on a collision course with his uncle, the ruthless leader King Vortigen (Jude Law), who's determined to deny Arthur his birth-right.

There's a kernel of a good gritty take on the Arthurian legend here, but it's buried deeply under the relatively rote and muddied CGI that blights large parts of King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword: Film Review

In particular, Ritchie's geezer take on proceedings and quick cut montage adds a level of irreverence that is welcome in among the familiar trappings of conventional story-telling.
Ritchie used similar devices in his take on Sherlock Holmes and here, the speed and energy pays off with an unconventional way of doing a conventional story.

However, it's these stylish touches which add greatly to King Arthur and almost manage to distract from the occasionally flat delivery of some clunking dialogue (chiefly and unfortunately from former model Berges-Frisbey) and some rather exposition-heavy scenes.
The film's over-reliance on slow-mo also hurts proceedings as well, with it becoming a stylistic bridge too far and a visual trick that needs dialling down to achieve greater effect.

There's also a distinct feeling that the duality of destiny for the protagonists and their journeys on them would have made for a better film, with Arthur doing all he can to deny it, and Vortigen falling further into darkness as he desperately scrabbles to embrace it.

Ultimately, though it's the jumbling of all the ingredients that make King Arthur a disappointment of a film, with supernatural elements becoming the norm over the characters. When the film moves away from those (aside from the brilliant creation of a slithering octopus-like creature that lurks in Vortigen's catacombs), the human elements aren't strong enough to spring to life from the page.
It's a shame as Maskell's innate likeability and Hunnam's oafish-ruffian-geezer energy that make parts of King Arthur bearable.
King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword: Film Review

It's just unfortunate that the weak script and a tighter edit weren't deployed to help save this from feeling like a derivative and sub-par fantasy epic that could ambles on its way and could have been so much more.

Monday, 15 May 2017

Paterson: Blu Ray Review

Paterson: Blu Ray Review


Jim Jarmusch's reflective and languid approach suits Adam Driver's rhythms in Paterson, a thematic companion piece to Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake in its salutations of the common man.

Driver is Paterson, a routine bus driver in the burb of Paterson, who has a daily routine. His watch wakes him around 610am daily, he eats the same breakfast, heads to work at the bus depot and finds time to write poetry before his shift and during. Heading home every day at 6, he corrects a leaning post-box that moves daily, has dinner, walks his shared bulldog Marvin and goes to the local watering hole.

So far, so familiar as Jarmusch's patented loops play out over an 8 day period. But as the days progress, small variations crop up towards the end of the week in Paterson's life - from a girlfriend whose borderline OCD and creative obsession with black and white mean each return home is random to a cataclysmic moment involving his bus.

These are the beats of Paterson, where the ordinary is celebrated and the pace is languid to prosaic. As this ode to the mundane progresses, there are visual tics and tricks that Jarmusch throws into the mix to almost test as if you are paying attention to what's transpiring as the story's more lyrical edges wax and wane with time progressing.


Throwing in a cute scene stealing dog also helps proceedings (when the deliberate pace slows a little too much) as well with Marvin the bulldog (sadly RIP now) proving to be the juxtaposition to Paterson's life in a small way to many, but devastating to the celebration of the mundane. Driver's a relatively blank canvas throughout, with his small intrusions into life being catalogued more by the outre behaviour of others - from the bus depot boss whose life is full of dramas to the dreams of his cup-cake empire dreaming partner, his calmness gives the yin to everyone's extraordinary yang.

Blessed with dry humour and quiet reflections on life, Paterson's simplicity and gorgeousness is in its execution. Its rhythms and wry humour may not be for everyone, but for those who fall for the loops of life and the idiosyncracies within, this slow celebration of the mundanities of it all works wonders. 

Win a copy of Paterson on Blu Ray

Win a copy of Paterson on Blu Ray


Paterson (Adam Driver, STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, GIRLS, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS) is a bus driver in the city of Paterson, New Jersey — they share the name.

Every day, Paterson adheres to a simple routine: he drives his daily route, observing the city as it drifts across his windshield and overhearing fragments of conversation swirling around him; he writes poetry into a notebook; he walks his dog; he stops in a bar and drinks exactly one beer; he goes home to his wife, Laura (Golshifteh Farahani, MY SWEET PEPPERLAND, ABOUT ELLY).
Paterson

By contrast, Laura’s world is ever changing. New dreams come to her almost daily, each a different and inspired project. Paterson loves Laura and she loves him. He supports her newfound ambitions; she champions his gift for poetry.

In this film by acclaimed director Jim Jarmusch, the quiet triumphs and defeats of daily life are observed, along with the poetry that's evident in its smallest details.

Paterson is out now from Madman Home Entertainment and you can net yourself one of two Blu-Ray copies!

To win a copy 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 PATERSON!

Competition closes May 25th

Good luck!


Snatched: Film Review

Snatched: Film Review


Cast: Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Christopher Meloni, Wanda Sykes, Joan Cusack, Ike Barinholtz
Director: Jonathan Levine

Luring Goldie Hawn out of retirement 15 years after her last appearance would appear to be a coup for Amy Schumer's particular brand of comedy.
Snatched: Film Review

But Snatched squanders both Hawn and Schumer with a script and story that feels a little too haphazard to bring many laughs to the fore.

Schumer is self-absorbed Emily, who, as the film starts, is dumped by her fella (Randall Park, in an all-too brief cameo) on the eve of a trip to Ecuador. Fleeing home with her tail between her legs, Emily feels a pang of remorse for her once globe-trotting, now stay-at-home catsitter mother Linda (Hawn) after she discovers a photo album filled with people and places she's been.

On the spur of the moment, Emily invites her now cautious mother along in an attempt to re-connect.
However, it all goes to hell in a hand-cart when Emily and her mother are kidnapped and they set about trying to escape.

It's fair to say that Snatched has moments of comic bravura within.
Snatched: Film Review

Schumer once again proves adept at nailing the cruder and grosser elements of the female comedy that's been long ignored in mainstream media and comedy. From "Did she really just say that?" one-liners to scenes where she makes herself the butt of the joke in the worst possible way, Schumer's strength lies in the ability to shock.

And it's used to get some good solid laughs early on - particularly when Emily is trying to pull a bloke who's interested in her. Despite her continuing obnoxiousness and vacuously weak personality, Schumer's strength lies in giving the character of Emily the sort of vibe that many of the female audience will feel great empathy with.

Less successful though is the script, which feels piecemeal, under-developed and generally squanders its characters for no real impact.

Hawn is largely wasted, and the potential for a story-line that looked at how the Instagram loving Emily can't connect, whereas Linda used to connect with humanity while abroad and now largely feels sidelined by a digitally obsessed vacuous world goes wanting after tantalisingly being teased early on.
Snatched: Film Review

It doesn't help that the script bounces from one sequence to the next, with vague threads trying to pull them together - and while the episodic nature of it all proffers a few guffaws here and there, there's a general nagging feeling that it could have been more.

Christopher Meloni's OTT performance feels like something out of an 80s romance adventure film and wildly out of place, but the script by Ghostbusters' scribe Kate Dippold can't really seem to nail a thread and follow it through, despite the potential dream comedic team on the screen.

Ultimately, while Snatched is a shade over 85 minutes, it feels a lot longer, thanks in large parts due to a script that doesn't bring enough funny and criminally under-uses its leads.
If it had a stronger script and perhaps a bit more depth as well as some more screwball, this could have had great potential. Instead, it feels like a lot of the potential wins it could have traded on have been used to help defeat be snatched from the jaws of victory.

Sunday, 14 May 2017

Voyage of Time: Film Review

Voyage of Time: Film Review


Terrence Malick's Voyage of Time is astonishing on the big screen.
Voyage of Time: Film Review

It sounds like a trite aphorism to describe this this way, but the big screen only amplifies the jigsaw puzzle that Malick's (Tree of Life) assembled.

Less a coherent narrative, more a free form visual art project, the looping rhythms pull together in simple ways, exacerbating the idea of the universe from beginning to end.

Using a myriad of pre-shot footage and the voiceover of Cate Blanchett intoning over and over again about "mother", the film uses its plentiful visuals to dizzying array and startling effect.

While parts feel like nature docos strewn asunder and stripped to their basics, there's a general feeling of awe in this. It's unlikely the sumptuous visuals (flowing lava, creatures under the sea, firing synapses springing into life) won't leave you at any point feeling a degree of existential crisis and potential insignificance in some small way.
Voyage of Time: Film Review

Waxing lyrical, the film's one continual bum note is the trite and cursory come back that love is all that matters; and there are definitely moments that make you feel Malick via Blanchett's flat vocals, really should just be quiet and let the imagery do the talking. This is perhaps Voyage of Time's weakest element, its desire to pull together a narrative and a line in existential questioning that leaves it to fall short.

It's this point that may prove the film's so divisive, and which may be something that's an anathema to the audience, but for those willing to appreciate the assembly of elements that others have shot and to allow the ebb and flow of it all, Voyage of Time is something spectacular.

Because when Voyage of Time really knocks it out of the park is in its eye-popping visuals, bursting from the screen with Joie de Vivre and Arthouse inclinations.
Voyage of Time: Film Review

Ultimately, this is cinema in its purest form and as it should be - awe-inspiring and a reminder of the power of the visual medium.

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