XBox Game Pass - five best titles...for now.

XBox Game Pass - five best titles...for now.

There's nothing like a library.

In the times we now exist in, the roaring 20s will never see the return of the video shop. Housed within was a small section dedicated to letting you try-before-you-buy games.

It was a killer thing to do, to pay a tenth of what the studio was charging for their latest, let you take it away for 3 days and see if you wanted to buy it. Most of the time you clocked the titles,  and then didn't go back for more, but the seeds of an idea were there.

So it is with XBox's Game Pass.

Having been wary of a library online with over 200 titles around, the Christmas break provided the opportunity to look at some of the games within, and to fire the XBox up.

And it has to be said, the content's compelling enough to keep you heading back for more.

Here are five of the best titles currently on offer on XBox Game Pass

Untitled Goose Game

Sure, everyone raved about the Switch version of this, but the console version, which showed just before Christmas, is equally worth it.  A smart and small indie that brings the family together, Untitled Goose Game is one to revel in for silliness and honking rewards.

My Friend Pedro

You're a killer hitman, who sees a banana who gives you inspiration. Yep, it's that bonkers.
But this Guy Ritchie style shooter is as gangster as it comes. Bouncing around bullet time and hurtling from wall to wall with extreme violence, this stick and gun game is well worth the investment of time. Sure, the levels get repetitive, but when it's this fun, who cares?

Batman Arkham Knight

The Batman franchise has rarely been better than this bone-crunching return to the world of Gotham. Great voice work, stunning action and melee combat, this is a Batman to delve into and spend plenty of time in.

The Outer Wilds

Game Pass isn't just about the archive titles, with new games launched simultaneously. This sci-fi exploration title is one of the better launches, giving a deep dive into the heady worlds of beyond. It's compelling enough to stay in for long after you should have left.

LEGO Star Wars III

Sure, The Rise of Skywalker is in cinemas now, but you can't go past Travellers Tales' series of blocky silliness and fun. Playing on the Clone Wars and riffing on the comedy elements, Star Wars has been the perfect bedfellow for the LEGO series for a while now - and it's solid family entertainment that's as wholesome as it is fun.

A pass was provided for use of the XBox Game Pass.

Win a copy of Maleficent Mistress of Evil

Win a copy of Maleficent Mistress of Evil

To celebrate the release of Disney's Maleficent: Mistress of Evil on home release, thanks to Sony Home Entertainment, you can win a copy!

About Disney's Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.

Maleficent and her goddaughter Aurora begin to question the complex family ties that bind them as they are pulled in different directions by impending nuptials, unexpected allies, and dark new forces at play.

Angelina Jolie and Dakota Fanning return - and are joined by Michelle Pfeiffer.

All you have to do is email your details and the word MALEFICENT
Email now to  darrensworldofentertainment@gmail.com 
Or CLICK HERE NOW  

Underwater: Film Review

Underwater: Movie Review

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, TJ Miller, Jessica Henwick
Director: William Eubank

You've seen Underwater before.

Whether it's the mix of The Meg's terror, or the barely disguised Alien rip off baby creature, or in the seabase under threat mentality of various episodes of Doctor Who, there's a sense of deja vu from the moment this murkily executed, frustratingly workmanlike film begins.

Stewart is Norah, a close-cropped techie type who's spent so long under the sea working on the drilling operation that she's no longer sure what day it is, or if she's awake or dreaming.

However, her tenuous grip on reality is rudely awoken when large sections of the miles-deep rig begin to fail and she's forced to run for her life. Siding with a handful of other survivors, including the rig's Captain (Cassel, largely wasted), it becomes a desperate run for life as it transpires something outside the walls, potentially shaken out from the company's deep-sea drilling, is hunting them - and won't leave anyone alive.

Underwater's production values are stunning.

While the CGI creatures are a massive let down, the visualisation of the suits, the grimy walls and subterranean corridors is a claustrophobe's nightmare.

Director William Eubank makes great fist of the encroaching walls and the creaks and jolts of the underwater rig falling in around our ears. Using tightly shot close ups, or images from within the helmets, he gives the film a sense of terror, of urgency and of uncertainty which is largely lacking from a lot of the rest of the script.

Inconsistencies of the creature's behaviour, a desire to give Stewart's Norah a line worthy of Ripley and some truly average CGI work drags Underwater into the sea murk, which is a shame, as there's a kernel of a good thriller horror lurking here, a ticking time bomb of man versus nature mixed in with an "God what did we do" ethos and paranoia that's worthy of any film.

But by showing the creatures, the film squanders any good will, and despite a more muted, racked by tics Stewart showing she's never a one dimensional actor, there was truly some real potential here to uphold the despair and the fight for survival.

Underwater is serviceable enough - just frustratingly, it feels underwritten and its potential lost at sea.

Seberg: Film Review

Seberg: Film Review

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Jack O'Connell, Vince Vaughn, Anthony Mackie, Zazie Beetz
Director: Benedict Andrews

With its perils of surveillance of the innocent story, you'd expect Seberg to be a seething commentary on the contemporary ills Americans face.

But in truth, Seberg's simplicity is what cripples its tale of the downfall of Jean Seberg (Stewart, in a largely vacant shell of drama until the final third of the film kicks in).

Stewart is Seberg, an American actress who garnered fame through her part in Jean Luc Godard's Breathless in 1960. When Seberg is seen supporting the Black Panther movement via way of Anthony Mackie's Hakim Jamal, the FBI is ordered to wiretrap and surveil her as part of the FBI COINTELPRO programme.

As the surveillance steps up, Seberg's grip on life starts to falter, and an FBI Agent (O'Connell) begins to question whether his bosses are doing the right thing...

The drama is present in Seberg, and the stage is set for an explosive showdown that lays bare the perils of defamation, the cost of the stalking and the clash of ideologies within. Yet, by laying out broad brush strokes and having a lead who doesn't feel she inhabits the role, the fault lies squarely in the script of Seberg, which is too light and fluffy to really deliver the bite it needs.

Vaughan's pro-FBI man is merely a monster, and O'Connell's wavering is presented too simply. The conflict is nowhere explored nearly as much as it could and should be in Seberg. Presenting Seberg as Joan of Arc early on aims to show her martydom but the film does little other than to portray her as a victim throughout, which is intentional, but unearned thanks to the weak script.

In the final third, as the consequences ramp up, Stewart delivers something close to searing, but it's really too little too late as the muted feel hits the film and cripples it.

Seberg is nowhere near as searing as it should be, and its chance to condemn, lay blame and berate those who gifted Seberg with her unwanted paranoia is squandered, when it should have been seized and milked to maximum dramatic effect.

Win a copy of Zombieland Double Tap

Win a copy of Zombieland Double Tap

To celebrate the release of Zombieland Double Tap, thanks to Sony Home Entertainment, you can win a copy.

About Zombieland Double Tap

Columbus, Tallahassee, Wichita, and Little Rock move to the American heartland as they face off against evolved zombies, fellow survivors, and the growing pains of the snarky makeshift family.

Starring the original cast of Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Jesse Eisenberg, and Abigail Breslin, Zombieland Double Tap adds in new cast member Zoey Deutch.

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

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

The Grudge: Film Review

The Grudge: Film Review

Cast: Andrea Riseborough, Jacki Weaver, Demian Bichir, John Cho, Betty Gilpin, Lin Shaye
Director: Nicolas Pesce

With its split time narratives and its desire to try and do something different with Ju-on, The Grudge's 2020 outing has laudable intentions.

This time around, the curse of the angry ghost is brought to America, and a cop (Riseborough, channeling Scandi chic and dour faces) sets about investigating the murders in a suburban house, that have plagued generations.

But the more she investigates, the more drawn into the world she becomes - and the more she faces the possibility she will be taken....

The Grudge has an intriguing premise - but by stretching it out across three time different periods, and chopping and changing the narrative, the film denies the movie going audience the one thing a good horror movie should give them - frights.

Less a jump fest, more a choppy psychological piece, this outing for Ju-on, which began back in the early 2000s when Ringu and its ilk were popular, feels like a frustrating exercise in tedium and endurance, a haunted house horror that barely has the frights to match its macabre machinations.

Riseborough is gritty enough, but doesn't get enough to do with a script that demands she's more dour-faced than anything else. Bichir adds yet another horror outing to his CV, but his grizzled detective does little but grumble about proceedings and warn of horrors.

Weaver impresses as a suicide assistance nurse, but with the time jumps, the film loses the build up of tensions when it needs them the most, and each set piece leads inevitably to where you expect it would - and where the script has already shown you. There's little to surprise here, making the 90 minute run time still feel like time is going backwards.

Simply put, The Grudge is a drudge, one of 2020's worst and most frustrating missed opportunities.

Playing with Fire: Film Review

Playing with Fire: Film Review

Cast: John Cena, John Leguizamo, Keegan-Michael Key, Dennis Haybsert, Judy Greer, Brianna Hildebrand
Director: Andy Fickman

It's not just that Playing With Fire is bad, it's also that it's so excruciatingly bad that it extinguishes your will to get through its 95 minute run time.

From Nickleodeon, you'd expect this tale of a group of smoke jumpers, headed up by straight-laced Cena's Jake Carson, to be broad family fare. However, as this mix of Kindergarten Cop and unfunny flat oneliners proves, not everything Cena touches turns to comedy gold.

When Carson and his team rescue a group of three kids, headed up by Deadpool's Brianna Hildebrand, from a fire, they're forced to give them shelter in the firehouse for the weekend.

But the chaos of the kids in the big house causes untold issues for the uptight, emotionally stunted Carson and his compatriots. And it's further compounded when Carson finds his chance for promotion dangling in the balance.

Playing With Fire is a mix of sentimental with the silly, but unfortunately, none of it really gels together.

Slow mo shots of the firefighters early on give way to corny gags and a plot that's threadbare at best, non-existent at worst.

Sure there's the old trope of the emotionally stunted men getting in touch with their feelings, but none of it's presented well enough to be engaging.

From Keegan-Michael Key's over-emphatic No2 to Leguizamo's misquoting and My Little Pony watching firehouse chef, the film's desire to play silly and broad doesn't work, because the gags aren't amusing enough to anyone over the age of 5.

A lack of writing can't be substituted for what's needed within the film, and while Cena et al prove they don't care enough to debase themselves with what the script dictates, Playing With Fire is more an exercise in patience and tedium.

The problem is that the rewards for doing so just aren't nearly enough.