Logan Lucky: DVD Review

Logan Lucky: DVD Review

Cast: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Seth MacFarlane, Hilary Swank
Director: Steven Soderbergh

Back behind the camera after 4 years, director Steven Soderbergh's latest is a hillbilly heist-cum-low-key-shaggy dog story that's bizarrely watchable and surprisingly fun - if overlong.

Tatum stars as the titular Jimmy Logan, a divorced dad family whose luck always seems to be on the downturn. His brother Clyde lost part of his arm in Iraq and now works in a bartender and his sister Mellie (Keough) works as a beautician; the trio live in West Virginia and are as middle America as they come.

Fired from his latest job, Jimmy decides to assemble a crew to launch an ambitious plan to rip off the annual Coca-cola NASCAR rally. Calling on jailed crim and explosives expert Joe Bang (played with blonde buzz cut and grim humour by James Bond himself Daniel Craig), Jimmy decides to launch the scheme - regardless of the fact that Bang, their main helper, is incarcerated.

There's a great deal of low key humour and extraneous threads in Logan Lucky that, when all tied together, prove to make this film a bit of a home-run in many ways.

From its John Denver tinged opening, via way of its child beauty pageants and talent shows to the embracing of the NASCAR racing itself, Logan Lucky becomes an Ocean's 11 style caper that's very much at the heart of midwestern America and its sentiments and values.

And the idea of a down-on-their-luck family trying to turn it all around and taking on the system very much goes to the heart of current American woes as well.

Tatum delivers a low-key turn that's watchable, relatable and imbued with a heart; equally, Driver delivers a slightly slower-voiced performance as a little brother who's very much in the shadow of his brother. Even Keough and Holmes as a slightly monstrous ex are spot on as well. Craig has a bit of fun, cutting loose as the locked-up crim - but none of the main characters have any hints of darkness around them, making them all seem greatly accessible throughout the contagious film's run time.But it's the script by first-timer Rebecca Blunt that helps Logan Lucky and elevates it into a story that's worth the ride. (One scene involving a prison riot and George R R Martin will go down as the single-most leftfield and welcome digression alone in cinema this year.)

Granted, it could have lost some time and some moments.

MacFarlane's boorish British race car driver seems a bit OTT and pointless; equally, Katherine Waterston is wasted in a role that demands little of her and Swank's turn as an FBI agent trying to get to the root of the heist feels like the film's extended proceedings for no good narrative reason.

All in all though, Logan Lucky, with its hillbilly hucksters, Oh Brother Where Art Thou? heist heart and terrific charisma, marks a welcome return for Soderbergh and a welcome diversion from all the other standard fare currently clogging the box office. 

New and iconic characters in Soulcaliber VI

New and iconic characters in Soulcaliber VI

Four characters, including a brand new one, join the SOULCALIBUR VI roster! BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe today confirmedGrøh, Xianghua, Kilik and Nightmare in the upcoming weapon-based fighting game. SOULCALIBUR VI will be launched in 2018 for PlayStation®4, Xbox One and PC Digital via STEAM® and other distributors.

Click here to watch the trailer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxFwvwYPPcs

The all new character to join SOULCALIBUR VI is an agent in black. Grøh's dedication to his studies and training earned him a place as one of Aval's Twelve. However, after his failure to deal with the Azure Knight, he lost his position within the organization. The infighting in Aval has delayed his punishment for now, and if Grøh hopes to protect his right to wield Arondight, he needs to once again prove just how strong he is.

Fans will be pleased to play again with previous iconic characters such as Xianghua, Kilik and Nightmare.

Xianghua learned how to wield a sword from her mother, Xiangfei, and the sword she inherited from her is a priceless treasure. When she was a child, she was enraptured by the beauty of her mother practicing the sword. Xianghua has added her own moves to the techniques. Her personal style relies less on taking her opponent down with head-on attacks and more on feints—landing a decisive blow only after her opponent has left an opening for her to exploit. The beauty and deadly grace of her movements can make it seem that she is dancing with her sword, and can captivate even her opponents!

Ever since the tragedy brought by the Evil Seed befell Ling-Sheng Su, Kilik has kept the Kali-Yuga firmly by his side. As the final successor to Ling-Sheng Su's techniques, he has devoted himself to his training, and is currently studying esoteric techniques under the legendary warrior, Edge Master.

When facing Nightmare, one must never forget that he is able to at least partially unleash the power of the sword. If he does, payers have to be prepared for a blow designed to kill in one fell cut. The souls of those struck down and devoured by the sword are like books that get added to the blade's seemingly never-ending library of fighting styles. Is there anyone who can stop the river of blood this sword leaves in its wake?

SOULCALIBUR VI will be launched in 2018 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC Digital via STEAM and other distributors. For more information about the game and other products from BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe please visit: https://www.bandainamcoent.com, follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BandaiNamcoEU , or join the conversation at https://www.twitter.com/BandaiNamcoEU .

BLACK CLOVER QUARTET KNIGHTS needs teams

BLACK CLOVER QUARTET KNIGHTS  needs teams

TEAMS NEED TO COOPERATE IN

BLACK CLOVER QUARTET KNIGHTS

BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe today revealed more details about the intense gameplay in BLACK CLOVER QUARTET KNIGHTSavailable in 2018 on PlayStation®4 and PC Digital via STEAM® and other distributors.

Click here to watch the YouTube trailer: https://youtu.be/IBcyOvNGj-w

In the Zone Control mode, teams of 4 players race to hold control of the target area. They will be able to fill the magic gauge by standing within the ring. In this way, teams can add more team members in the ring to increase the gauge fill rate, but run the risk of vulnerability to a full barrage from the opposing team. That’s a strategical choice!

BLACK CLOVER QUARTET KNIGHTS will be available in 2018 on PlayStation 4 and PC Digital via STEAM and other distributors. For more information about the game and other products from BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe please visit: https://www.bandainamcoent.com, follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/BandaiNamcoEU , or join the conversation at https://www.twitter.com/BandaiNamcoEU .

Win a copy of Maudie

Win a copy of Maudie

MAUDIE
Starring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke 
MAUDIE, based on a true story, is an unlikely romance in which the reclusive Everett Lewis (Ethan Hawke) hires a fragile yet determined woman named Maudie (Sally Hawkins) to be his housekeeper. 

Maudie, bright-eyed but hunched with crippled hands, yearns to be independent, to live away from her protective family and she also yearns, passionately, to create art. 

Unexpectedly, Everett finds himself falling in love. 

MAUDIE charts Everett’s efforts to protect himself from being hurt, Maudie’s deep and abiding love for this difficult man and her surprising rise to fame as a folk painter.

To win a copy, all you have to do is email  your details to this  address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com 
Or CLICK HERE NOW!

Include your name and address and title your email MAUDIE!
Competition closes February 5th

Good Time: DVD Review

Good Time: DVD Review

Wearing its Euro-scuzziness like a badge of honour, Josh and Benny Safdie's Good Time is a nervy thriller that has a pounding first half, before slightly going off the boil.

In many ways, its ethos is the Dardenne Brothers via Luc Besson.

Robert Pattinson stars as Connie, who, at the start of the film, breaks his mentally handicapped brother Nick (Benny Safdie) out of facility to help him rob a bank. However, unsurprisingly, this goes south, and Nick ends up being arrested.

With Connie on the run and desperate to assuage some guilt over the incarceration, the clock ticks as he tries to do what he can to restore his brother's freedom.

There's absolutely no doubt the first half of this film, complete with its scummy outlook and its pounding Euro techno beat OST from Oneohtrix Point Never, is utterly thrilling, edge-of-your-seat stuff. Dragging out the pre-titles over a 20 minute period works well for the guerilla film-making ethos of the Safdie brothers, and it gives a pace to the film that's compulsive and nerve-shredding.

Setting on the streets gives it a vibe of the grubby and guarantees that those watching will be hooked, but the film comes slightly unstuck in its second half when Connie's forced into partnership with someone else, due to narrative constraints. It ultimately leads to a series of escapades, and despite the great settings (the streets at night, a fairground complete with Barkhad Abdi as a security guard), the frenetic pace disappointingly slows as it becomes a little more of a psychological insight into Connie and his family.

Pattinson is watchable throughout, imbuing his Connie with a sense of the desperate, yet a sense of being in control. With continual close ups, the Safdies bring a sense of the claustrophobic and the tense, draping everything in Euro neons and reds helps matters a lot too, and helps build atmosphere.

There are moments when the visceral edges help to really reach its potential as this gutter thriller plays out, but the film's desire to build up characters then dispose of them for narrative reasons make it hard to latch on to anything. And while Connie's still the centre of it all, and it's his odyssey, the time spent with others feels wasted.

All in all, Good Time is simply that. Nothing more, nothing less - it's a solid experience which feels like two films stylistically meshed into one pulsing lump that, like any sugar rush, lasts while you're in it, but feels like a comedown at the end. 

Win Tad The Lost Explorer prize packs

Win Tad The Lost Explorer prize packs

To celebrate the release of Tad The Lost Explorer in cinemas now, you can win a prize pack!

About Tad The Lost Explorer

Tadeo Jones travels to Las Vegas to attend archaeologist Sara Lavroff’s presentation of her latest discovery – the papyrus that shows the existence of the Necklace of Midas, the mythical King who turned everything he touched into gold. 

But this happy reunion will be clouded when an evil rich man kidnaps Sara in order to find the talisman and get infinite wealth. 

Along with his friends, the parrot (Belzoni) and his dog (Jeff), Tadeo will have to use his wit to rescue Sara on a trip around the world, where he will meet new friends ... and new villains!

Rated: G

 Tad The Lost Explorer is in Cinemas Now!

Downsizing: Film Review

Downsizing: Film Review

Cast: Matt Damon, Kristen Wiig, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Udo Kier
Director: Alexander Payne

With an eye on the insignificant and how small can mak a big difference, director Alexander (Sideways) Payne's Downsizing, starring Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig (briefly) clearly has lofty ambitions.

Juggling genres from sci-fi to hippy utopia to humanitarian issues, Payne's film is such a mish-mash of anything that it slightly struggles to garner its own identity.

Set in a world where over-population is a real issue and where scientists have discovered there's a way to shrink people and their possessions down and relocate them to gated communities, Payne's film centres on Paul and his wife, the average middle American.

A terribly bland Damon plays Paul, an occupational therapist and middle American, who's stuck in the humdrum way of his life - unable to get into a new home with his wife (Wiig, who's in the film far too briefly), they decide to downsize.

Enticed by the idea of becoming millionaires and having everything they always dreamed of as part of the process (wealth and property are multiplied in value under the irreversible scheme), the pair decide to undergo the process.

However, while Paul completes the procedure, his wife panics and leaves him before beginning - meaning that Paul is destined to find his place alone in LeisureLand, the community set up for smaller people.

Soon discovering the problems of the outside world still exist in Leisureland (crummy jobs, bad neighbours), Paul's dream of Utopia ends up more like a not for U-topia and he seeks his place in the world.

Toying with ideas of insignificance, a microcosm of a society that's less than idyllic, and a satire that has little to no bite, Downsizing aims for profundity but misses with a distinct thud.

It's helped little by Damon playing as bland as the script demands, time jumps that are less than crucial and add little to the drama.

Payne seems lost to know what to do with the little people, even throwing in some apparently timely talk of little people's rights - all the elements are in place in Downsizing, but frustratingly, the jigsaw is so messily assembled, it feels too much of a jumble to care about.

There's also the disturbing edges of Paul the white man American saviour in parts of the film, as the sadsack Damon tackles European attitudes, and Payne rolls out a thinly veiled Asian stereotype in Thai dissident and one-legged cleaner Ngoc Lan Tran, played by Hong Chau.

It's uncomfortable in the extreme and while the excuse script calls for it may be generous at best, it certainly doesn't sit right as the back half of the film meanders to a Lilluptian conclusion.

Ultimately, the fact that Downsizing has had its dramatic teeth shrunk down narratively does it no favours.

There's a kernel of a great idea here, and a doomsday-preppers style story which could have been smartly and cleverly executed. But the clever premise of Downsizing is squandered in an indulgent script and story which shrinks and shrivels as much as its titular characters.

The only way to perhaps enjoy Downsizing is to massively shrink any expectations you have before going in.