Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice: PS4 Review

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice: PS4 Review

Developed by From Software
Published by Activision

From Software doesn't care for simple games.

It doesn't want to give you an experience that builds as time goes, it wants to challenge you from the start.

So it is with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, the latest fiendishly addictive and definitely annoying game from the studio.

You play a Wolf, a Shenobi guardian to a lord, who's kidnapped in the opening moments of the game, and who leaves you without a hand. It's a tough uncompromising start in Japan, and from there, From Software doesn't let up at all.

Set in late 16th century Japan, the game leads you on a quest for revenge and challenges you every step of the way. Stealth and skill are needed in combat, not hack'n'slash. In fact, rushing in will get you killed every time, and see you throw your controller across the room.

As the game progresses, some of the From Software's familiar tropes emerge.

Progression is tough, and victory feels worthy and rewarding. Fires from the likes of Dark Souls are replaced by buddhas and the game's skill tree opens up the chance to upgrade the prosthetic hand you've been fitted with to help combat enemies.

And you'll need every help you can get, with combat needing to be about attacking pose, breaking your opponent's stance and killing them when the opportunity arises. It's frustrating admittedly, but it is rewarding when you deal to a mini-boss or an opponent.

The game looks beautiful - falling snow and ash cover areas and give the samurai mystical quality a sort of edge that's visually hard to beat. There's a terrifying beauty to the gameplay too, with combat wonderfully rendered and the soundscape of clashing metal something to behold.

Ultimately, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a tough proposition - a game that challenges more than any casual gamer would want. But once you settle into its rhythms, learn its methodology and relax into the gameplay, it's horrendously addictive.

Uncompromising and unforgiving, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is well worth investing time in - and probably worth investing in blood pressure medicine too.

Win a copy of Disney's Mary Poppins Returns

Win a copy of Disney's Mary Poppins Returns

To celebrate the release of  Disney's Mary Poppins Returns, you can win a copy!

The One-and-Only Mary Poppins Is Back and Nominated for Four Academy Awards®, Including Best Original Song Disney’s “Mary Poppins Returns” On and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™ & DVD April 10

Disney’s “Mary Poppins Returns,” the irresistible, timeless sequel based upon the Mary Poppins Stories by PL Travers, has had audiences dancing in their seats and critics singing its praises, earning Academy Award® nominations for best original song, best original score, best costume design and best production design.

Directed by Academy Award winner Rob Marshall, who helmed screen adaptations of “Chicago,” “Nine” and “Into the Woods,” and starring Emily Blunt, Golden Globe®-nominated for her role as practically-perfect nanny Mary Poppins, and award-winning composer, lyricist and performer Lin-Manuel Miranda as charming lamplighter Jack, the fantastical film arrives into homes on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™ and DVD April 10  — with a sing-along version and never-before-seen bonus features.

Thanks to Sony Home Entertainment, you can win a copy of Mary Poppins Returns.

To win all you have to do is email your details and the word MARY POPPINS to this address: darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com 
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Good luck!

Doctor Who: Series 11 Blu Ray Review

Doctor Who: Series 11 Blu Ray Review

The first series of Doctor Who under a new showrunner (Broadchurch's Chris Chibnall) and with the first ever female (Broadchurch's Jodie Whittaker) arrives with considerable expectation.

And with a barn-storming opening episode, the series sets out its mission statement for 2018 and the Doctor's new look. But as the series goes on, it's fair to say there are a few cracks which open up, exposing some of the flaws of the episodes and the scripting.

The push back to standalone episodes is a welcome one, and with Whittaker seizing on the opportunity the moment she literally falls to earth, it becomes clear that Chibnall is after something new. With a stunning look for the series as well, the show looks like it's never looked before.

However, inserting three new companions into the TARDIS as well as a new Doctor was always going to be a hard task to master - some have more productive arcs (such as Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh) but others feel underwritten (step forward, Mandeep Gill).

That said, there's a nice mix of historical and futuristic episodes, something which feels like a nod back to the TARDIS adventures of the very first William Hartnell era and is to be applauded.

While Whittaker at times feels like a mix of both Tom Baker's manic and David Tennant's bounding energy, she does bring a different warmth to the role, and even though her first season may not have been the resounding success we're expecting, it has promise for the future.

A nice solid set of extras round out the release, and some releases come with art cards. It's worth getting the BluRay to really appreciate the look of Doctor Who series 11.

Lean on Pete: DVD Review

Lean on Pete: DVD Review

An entirely heart-breaking film that keeps its feet firmly on the ground, 45 Years director Andrew Haigh's Lean On Pete will destroy you if you have any sense of empathy.

Newcomer Charlie Plummer delivers a delicate and fragile turn as Charley, a kid who's been around the traps thanks to a dad who keeps moving about and thanks to a mom who abandoned them when he was younger.

Settling in Portland in the latest of their travels, Charley's drawn to a local race track, where he strikes up a working relationship / surrogate father relationship with Steve Buscemi's been-round-the-tracks Del and one of Del's horses, Lean On Pete.

Intuitively bonding with Pete as he's the outsider, the sensitive Charley grows closer to the horse, despite Del's insistence he's not a pet, and begins to realise the horse is being over-worked.

With things on the home front facing crisis point and with Lean On Pete's future uncertain, Charley makes a fateful decision, feeling cornered and with only one place to go, setting in motion a chain of events.

Lean On Pete reeks of empathy and delicacy; with a turn from Plummer that's nothing short of sensationally sensitive, Charley is a kid who's fallen and is falling through the cracks. Wisely, Haigh underplays his hand, with the social commentary coming through later on in the piece, but early on, the film shows disparate families growing and societies forced to make decisions out of economic necessity.

But Lean On Pete's strength lies in the way the message is handled, rather than its delivery; it's a tale of outsiders in society all throughout, anchored by a vulnerable lead who heads off on the old American road trip for soul-destroying reasons more than anything else. It's in the subtleties it finds its power, and it's in its delivery of them that Lean On Pete soars.

Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny and Travis Fimmel make for good bedfellows in this, each an American hit by the reality of life, but it's Plummer who's searing and sensational throughout. As Charley, he has to do a great deal of the lifting, but every chance he gets Plummer steals it (literally in parts), ensuring that his character is wracked with guilt and doubt throughout but is never anything other than relatable.

There may be a social commentary on current America here, but Haigh doesn't dwell on it, simply choosing to depict the reality and blessing the film with some stunning vistas and some unfussy and uncomplicated horse racing scenes.

Make no mistake, Lean On Pete will break your heart - it will have you reaching for the closeness of a family unit, and the uncomplicated love; but it will do a little more than that too - having you yearn for happiness for all, while simultaneously embracing the sadness of what life throws your way. 

Second Act: DVD Review

Second Act: DVD Review

Presumably rejected by Hallmark and Lifetime for its utterly insane twist, Second Act is a film that is crippled by its storyline, which comes straight out of 1950s America.

J-Lo is Maria Vargas, a long-suffering assistant supermarket manager in downtown New York. On her birthday, Maria is trying to secure a promotion, having spent 15 years working as the manager's right hand and set in motion some changes that would benefit the business.

But rejected for promotion, and with her relationship with her toyboy baseball coach crumbling over her desire to not have kids, she finds herself offered a job at a major cosmetics company, thanks to her street-talking friend (Remini) faking her CV and getting her an interview.

It gets worse for Vargas when she gets the job and isn't sure how long to continue the lie - setting her on a collision course with the younger elements of the firm, including the firm's founder's daughter Zoe (Hudgens).

To explain why Second Act is such a bizarro trip into 1960s world where women can have anything they want, as long as men sanction it, is to reveal its twist. Which is to rob you of a genuine "Are you kidding me" moment that cinema so rarely offers. Suffice to say, that will not happen here.

But it's enough to say that despite Lopez's earnestness and innate likeability as the everyday woman who wants it all, the film's utter unswerving adherence to something that would have been part of a Twilight Zone episode of I Love Lucy is not to its credit.

Added to this the level of mansplaining going on as well throughout, this tale of so-called women's empowerment is lacking the balls (sorry) it needs to heartily succeed and carry past an insane twist that defies logic and belief.

Lopez does what she can with the material on offer, and maybe the credibility is stretched as far as it can - but giving its lead a power me moment to be crippled by a pratfall seems like something from decades ago, and is as weak as it is inexcusable.

In a fantasy world context, Second Act's continual stereotyping and conforming makes it almost unbelievable to behold, and its central message of You Can Have It All, Ladies seem like something from decades long since buried, and much deliberately maligned in a more woke 2018. It's even more of a crime how it fails to execute its own concept and collapses into a pile of sentimental mush than is barely worthy of a girls-night-out film. 

Thunder Road: Film Review

Thunder Road: Film Review

Cast: Jim Cummings
Director: Jim Cummings

Jim Cummings' extraordinary indie film about a US cop on the brink of breakdown is something to behold.

Expanded out from his 2016 12 minute award-winning short, the film opens with Cummings' Officer Jim Arnaud giving his mother's eulogy. With his face contorting with a mix of grief, unease and emotion after parts of his tribute fall apart, it's an exercise in awkwardness.

But unlike most of the mockumentaries that trade in such unease, Thunder Road bathes much of the proceedings in a level of pathos and humanity that's truly hard to ignore.

As Arnaud deals with the fallout from the funeral, he finds his relationship with his ex and his daughter punctuated by various problems, and various issues on the day-to-day front.

What Thunder Road juggles to marvellous effect is the mix of cringeworthy and the humane - Cummings owns every scene and the realistic writing aches with a reality that's at times, painfully close to the bone.

Drawing deep from the well of despair, Cummings' turn is the kind of performance that makes you wonder exactly where it is going to go next - and fearing for the worse. But what actually emerges is that Thunder Road swings from the sublime to the sad with contextual ease, and takes you along for the ride.
Thunder Road from Jim Cummings on Vimeo.

There's a portrait of trauma that emerges from here, and perhaps that's why Thunder Road should hit such a chord with many. It may be the portrait of a broken man who's trying to be better, one that merges both comedy and tragedy but it is compelling from beginning to end.

Vai: Film Review

Vai: Film Review

Kiel McNaughton and Kerry Warkia's powerhouse film Waru, about abuse, was a movie that blazed a trail on the local scene.

Using eight separate stories and eight directors, the film signified something different for film-making and its critical success allowed other wahine to be inspired for the future.

Their follow up treads a similar path of approach, with nine female directors taking on the story of Vai, in different stages of her life. Set across various Pacific islands, the portmanteau approach once again has highs and lows, with the overall film feeling more like a spiritual piece, than a fully fleshed out feature.

However, what emerges from Vai is a strong eye and connection for stories related to the lands, and within the lands they are set. Excellent camera work from those involved give the film a sense of place, and a sense of timing with shots blending into the land, and with set ups being kept within a close frame than would be offered by the likes of drones and so on.

The non-freewheeling camera approach gives the film an intimacy that's seized on by some of the storytelling and that proves to be greatly beneficial. Certainly the short vignette set within school as Vai's reality of existence comes to the fore, and family matters bubble under is one of the more powerful of the portmanteau.

Ultimately, while Vai has less of the power of Waru, it certainly has more of the spirituality with restrained camera work and direction capturing some traditions for posterity that are wondrous to behold, and which have resonance as they play out.

There may not be a familiar narrative thread running throughout allowing for an easy follow, but there's a familiar theme in Vai of the power of the female, and of the indigenous connection to the land.

It's sparsely stirring stuff when it needs to be, and while overall, Vai may not find a wider audience or stir up as much emotion as Waru did, its commitment to giving a platform for different voices to tell one longer form story in chunks is more than commendable.