Win a copy of Outlander Series 4 on Blu Ray

Win a copy of Outlander Series 4 on Blu Ray

To celebrate the release of Outlander series 4, and thanks to Sony Home Entertainment, you can win a copy.

About Outlander series 4

Available on Blu-ray^™& DVD June 12

 Includes Four All-New “Outlander Untold” Bonus Scenes

Featuring Fan-Favourite Characters

Finally reunited, Claire and Jamie’s epic time-traveling love story continues when OUTLANDER: SEASON FOUR debuts on Blu-ray^™ and DVD on June 12 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

 Based upon Drums of Autumn, the fourth of eight books in Diana Gabaldon’s international best-selling Outlander literary series, OUTLANDER: SEASON FOUR sees Claire (Caitriona Balfe in her Golden Globe^®-nominated role) and Jamie (Sam Heughan) trying to make a home for themselves in Colonial America on the cusp of the American Revolution after being shipwrecked on their way back to Scotland.  

All you have to do is email your details and the word OUTLANDER!

Email now to  darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com 
Or CLICK HERE NOW  

Competition closes 18th June.

Cyberpunk 2077 — release date, pre-orders, new trailer revealed!

Cyberpunk 2077 — release date, pre-orders, new trailer revealed!

Cyberpunk 2077 — release date, pre-orders, new trailer revealed!

CD PROJEKT RED reveals brand new details regarding the studio’s upcoming game, Cyberpunk 2077. Starting today, the title is also available for pre-order.

Cyberpunk 2077, the upcoming open-world, action-adventure story from the creators of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, will release April 16th, 2020 on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

The game’s Collector’s Edition is also available for pre-order and comes packed with a number of high-quality collectibles. These include a 25 cm / 10 inch statue depicting the game’s protagonist — V — in action, a steelbook case, a hardcover art book, and more. The Collector’s Edition comes in an impressive box made to look like one of the megabuildings towering over Night City.

Accompanying the release date and pre-order news is a cinematic trailer, which offers a deeper look into the game’s story. The trailer reveals one of the key characters of Cyberpunk 2077, Johnny Silverhand. The legendary rockerboy is played by Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves (The Matrix trilogy, John Wick series, Johnny Mnemonic). In addition to his appearance and voice, Reeves is also providing full-body motion capture for the character.

More Cyberpunk 2077 news is set to be revealed at E3, which will be taking place from June 11th to June 13th in Los Angeles. The game’s trade show presence includes behind-closed-doors gameplay presentations for media and business representatives in West Exhibit Hall, as well as presentations for all E3 attendees held at the Cyberpunk 2077 booth in South Exhibit Hall.

For more information regarding Cyberpunk 2077 and the game’s E3 presence, make sure to follow the title’s official website, Facebook, and Twitter.

Cold Pursuit: Blu Ray Review

Cold Pursuit: Blu Ray Review

Paling in comparison to 2014's black comedic masterpiece In Order Of Disappearance, but still offering enough light to shine on its own, Cold Pursuit marks Liam Neeson's apparent action movie
swansong.

Neeson plays man of the community Nels Coxman. Rewarded for his efforts to keep the snowy regions of the tourist town clear in his plow, Coxman's world is turned upside down when his son turns up dead of an apparent heroin overdose.

And while his wife (Dern, in a handful of scenes and utterly wasted) turns to grief, Nels turns to disbelief and finds his fears confirmed when he's told his son was killed.

Intent on claiming revenge, Coxman ends up on a collision course with Tom Bateman's Viking, the local gangster behind the death.

Cold Pursuit has a muted feel, and if anything, Neeson's restrained gruffness lend it enough gravitas that it needs. But a tendency to overplay the black humour means that what it delivers is more a film that provokes laughter when the original's darker edges shone through.

An over-reliance on title boards delivering funeral notices is supposed to be wry and amusing, but after an initial use, comes across as a crutch rather than a construct.
Bateman veers a little too OTT at times, infusing his Viking with a feeling of the Joker rather than laying on the menace - it's part of Cold Pursuit's MO that overkill is better than restraint (something which the original managed to encapsulate perfectly).

But there are offhand moments that work and add a level of aloofness that sits well with the audience.

However, there are parts of the script that could have been excised or boosted, rather than feeling undernourished.

Chiefly among those is the inclusion of the Native Americans and their resentment of a local ski resort that is on land where their reservations used to be. Granted, it's a common theme rich for the plucking, but it feels included as an afterthought.

And while the police chasing the crimes add some commentary, the darkness isn't dark enough to need the Fargo-esque edges it pursues. Neeson is solid as Coxman, but there's little levels of emotional depth being plumbed in here, and there's a feeling of emotional aloofness.

Overall, Cold Pursuit itself is an intriguing port over of the original, but it does lack some of the sparkle of the first and a grasp of what made it work so well. 

Happy Death Day 2U: Blu Ray Review

Happy Death Day 2U: Blu Ray Review

2017's Happy Death Day was a blast; a slasher that combined Groundhog Day with some genuine scares, and a character arc for its more than charismatic lead, you'd almost be surprised it was never done before.

But unlike the first, this latest sidelines the scares for a more loopy sci-fi spin on what's happening to Tree Gelbman (Rothe, easily the star of this show), who once again finds herself caught in a murderous day time and time again.

Happy Death Day 2U deserves some commendation for trying something different, and while the beginning wrong foots you - in a clever manner - Rothe soon commands front and centre of this mesh up of Groundhog Day, Scream, Quantum Leap, The Big Bang Theory, Happy Death Day and bizarrely frat movies where kids take on the dean.

The resultant mix is less a mess, more a showcase of Rothe's range as the silliness gets ramped up, pushing the slasher edges to the back (which is a real shame). Certainly, the last third of the film veers too far into dumb comedy territory as the multiverse mentality comes to the fore, and the Frat 
House shenanigans take precedence.

It's almost too slapstick to hit where it should - but Rothe holds it gamely together with a depth that helps elevate the material and the icky sentimentality. (Though a skydiving scene is brilliant in its execution.)

And yet, despite this, Happy Death Day 2U deserves some kudos for not repeating itself (ironically, given the nature of the first, and the premise of the latest).

It's inevitable there will be a third genre mesh-up (Happy D3ath Day, anyone?) and it's inherent on those behind it to maybe inject some of the scares back in - unless they completely go off book for the genres in the trilogy.

What Men Want: DVD Review

What Men Want: DVD Review

An uneven script, doused in a smattering of MeToo gags and some current pop culture references, does not help Taraji P Henson in the latest take of the Nancy Meyers Mel Gibson  flick, What Women Want.

Henson is Ali, a ball-busting sports agent, who's stuck in a firm that's clearly a boys' club and bouncing from one one night stand to another. Rejected again to take partnership in the firm, Ali finds her world further complicated when at a bridal shower she meets a psychic (an unhinged Erykah Badu) who gives her the ability to read men's minds.

Faced with the possibility of using this to get ahead at work, Ali becomes re-energised and desperate to get a star client before her other compadres.

Clever references to Get Out and crowd-pleasing Black Panther moment aside, What Men Want seems to be lost in its own execution, an uncertain mess of where it wants to go and how it wants to get there.

Henson is uniformly excellent though, giving Ali a ball-busting bluster that's needed early on, and a life that shows that she's as good as the boys in the Boys Club sports agent company to get ahead. But saddled with material that's rote and formulaic does little to help Henson rise out of the mire, no matter how hard she tries - and no matter how hard the script tries to mix Jerry Maguire with Entourage.

It helps little that it aims for every low-hanging fruit it can, barely hitting some of them with the crass bat swinging in every direction.

There are obvious learnings here, and perhaps that's what hinders What Men Want - unless you're a gaggle of women, boozed up and after a girls' night out, the film's less than content to satiate many in the audience. It's shallow as you'd expect, giving the men thoughts about body image, promotion, social climbing and work insecurities, as well as the usual sex issues.

Ultimately, while a love story with Aldis Hodge is reasonably well handled, Tracy Morgan's involvement feels like a muted amount of bluster to be fired in the direction of the audience. Supposed to be a foil for Henson's Ali, Morgan's Joe Dollar feels weak and badly-timed for the necessary gags.

All in all, What Men Want is a weak attempt at a feminist bout of humour. Were it not for Henson's all-in approach, the film would be torture for nearly two hours.

As it stands now, it's still torture, but a little more endurable in parts.

Win a double pass to see MIB: International

Win a double pass to see MIB: International

To celebrate the release of MIB: International, in cinemas June 13, you can win a double pass, thanks to Sony Pictures.

About MIB: International

The Men in Black have always protected the Earth from the scum of the universe.  

In this new adventure, they tackle their biggest, most global threat to date: a mole in the Men in Black organization.

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Liam Neeson and Emma Thompson, MIB: International hits cinemas June 13.

All you have to do is email your details and the word MIB!

Email now to  darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com 
Or CLICK HERE NOW  

Competition closes 18th June.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix: Film Review

X-Men: Dark Phoenix: Film Review

Cast: Sophie Turner, James MacAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult, Jennifer Lawrence, Tye Sheridan, Jodi Smit-McPhee, Evan Peters, Jessica Chastain
Director: Simon Kinberg

Not every comic book movie works on the big screen.

Not every X-Men film has been a success, but over the past 20 years, the mutants have been ever present in a series of films that have had a level amount of hits and misses.

In Dark Phoenix, the series comes to an end with a franchise capper that misses all its major moments, and delivers a movie that offers some thrills, but barely enough to sustain it.

During a life-threatening rescue mission in space, Jean Grey (Game of Thrones' Sophie Turner) is hit by a cosmic force that transforms her into one of the most powerful mutants of all. 

Wrestling with this increasingly unstable power as well as her own personal demons, Jean spirals out of control, tearing the X-Men family apart and threatening to destroy the very fabric of our planet.

In all honesty, elements of Captain Marvel's all powerful deus ex machina and how to suppress it come to the fore again, and while moments early on hint at Charles Xavier's morality falling apart in a MeToo kind of nod, the film's only interested in rushing headlong to its conclusion via way of an admittedly excellent train-set final showdown.

But it's in the emotional beats where X- Men: Dark Phoenix falls apart.

A major death doesn't land like it should, and the elements of conflict feel forced rather than natural. It's the emotional detachment that harms the film the most, and while a majority of it is a film we've seen before, the latest incarnation of Dark Phoenix does little to take wings and soar as it should.

Elements of a MeToo control issue aside ("She's not your little girl anymore," one character intones at one point), the film has little to say except to try and transpose comic book panels to the big screen. By opening it up to a wider world midway through, the film loses any hope of intimacy as it looks to tick some character beats and fan hopes.

Chastain, in her audition for an emotion-free Terminator, is saddled with little as the baddie of the piece, and barely hits any of the necessary strides before the script goes down the gurgler. Turner sells some of the conflict of the anger and resentment bubbling up, but in truth, little is required of her other than to look tortured in her close ups. The tragedy doesn't land as it should, and it's fatal at times. MacAvoy and Fassbender impress as ever, and Hoult manages competently with stronger material.

On the visual side, the FX are superbly executed, with early scenes within space brimming with visual flair and excellence; and in the final showdown on a train (before it descends into the usual rote CGI tedium), the film finds a life that's been lacking beforehand.

Ultimately, X-Men: Dark Phoenix is an asinine blockbuster, one that fails in its MO as a franchise finale, and one that shows there was frustrating potential, if it had dared to do something different. As it stands, it's more an X marks the spot where something could have risen from the ashes of a consistently uneven series.