Predator Hunting Grounds: PS4 Review

Predator Hunting Grounds: PS4 Review

Developed by Illfonics
Released by Sony Interactive Entertainment

Illfonics' follow up to Friday the 13th sees the studio take on another franchise.

This time it's the 80s classic Predator, and the game throws you deep in the jungle where you play either as the Predator, hunting out a target and wiping out those who stand in your way or as a fireteam tasked with various side missions and a chance to take down the predator.

But that's about it - a lack of content makes the Illfonics game feel less than the full meal - even if it is a blockbuster morsel in parts.

Multiplayer and online always, Predator Hunting Grounds really does have something to offer - but it just feels so undercooked.

Matchmaking is currently a bit choppy at best, with long waits to saddle up as the predator (upwards of 20 minutes), and up to two minutes to play on as part of a team - if you're lucky.

The thrill of playing as the Predator in the new various jungle maps is tantalising enough though. 

Set in the South American jungles, the maps can be a nicely dense affair with trees, foliage and height giving you more than enough options to help plot the demise of your enemies. And yet they are also repetitive offering very similar edges and little else new in the way of things.

Given the task of taking out a target from the guerillas infesting the jungle, the Predator uses the usual skills of heat-seeking and leaping through trees, cloaking and targeting missiles to its advantage. It's here that there is a feeling of being part of the film franchise.

The controls are simple at best, and there are some passing thrills as you execute soldiers and hunt.

Currently the game is more slanted towards the fireteam and AI Enemies are easily dispatched, making missions more like a procedural than anything else. That's not to say they're not enjoyable, it's more a feeling that they're disposable at best.

The game's sole raison d'etre appears to exist on the desire for its fans to play on as the Predator and simple grind on and level up - which only appears to unlock cosmetics and extra weapons.

While the game offers some promise, it's to be hoped there's a bit more of a post release content plan because currently, it has the potential to honour the hunter's legacy, but it's yet to be seen fully how that could remotely transpire.

2020 New Zealand International Film Festival to take place online at your home

2020 New Zealand International Film Festival will be screened online - at your home

From Arthouse to Your House: NZIFF At Home – Online

New Zealand International Film Festival 2020 Edition To Screen On Line

The New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) has today announced its plans to
present the 2020 programme in an online format.

With COVID-19 restrictions in place and likely to continue for some months, cinemas and
entertainment venues around the country are closed or will remain under stringent
gathering and social distancing limitations. NZIFF, run by the not-for-profit New Zealand
Film Festival Trust, is unable to confidently present the 2020 programme as originally
planned in cinemas across the country.

“This is an extraordinary situation and we need to adapt and find a creative solution for
2020,” says New Zealand Film Festival Trust Chair Catherine Fitzgerald. “The shared
experience of cinema and the power of storytelling to bring communities together has
always been our driving force. With the current, and evolving situation, we believe in the
value and importance of cinema now more than ever.

“We cannot do without the Film Festival in July and so we are excited to be able to upgrade
our online platform to ensure we can bring the best of new cinema to our audiences with
new ways to share the experience and interact with the filmmakers and fellow audience
members .”

The New Zealand International Film Festival At Home – Online will take place from 24 July to
2 August with a world-class curated programme of world and New Zealand premiere films
for audiences to screen at home,

Film premieres and film festivals around the world are being severely impacted by the
global pandemic with the cancellation and postponement of festivals including Cannes, New
York’s TribeCa, and Sydney among many others, but new NZIFF Director Marten Rabarts has
assurance from key film distributors in Australia, New Zealand and around the world that
they are committed to making this online edition work well.

“After the initial realisation and heartbreak of not being able to provide our Film Festival
whānau an in-cinema experience this year we’ve worked quickly, while leaning on our
strong relationships with filmmakers, distributors and sales agents, to ensure we are able to
confidently adapt the way in which we’ll present their films to our dedicated audience
across the country.”

Rabarts said “NZIFF At Home – Online will be a true film festival experience featuring world
and New Zealand premieres of films each night, and including virtual red-carpet, and
filmmaker Q&As and we can potentially invite more international guests to present their
films to our festival audiences than ever before using virtual means.

"Some films will be screened as special ‘one-off’ events, and many of the films presented will be exclusive to NZIFF and won’t have other New Zealand screenings.”

Key to the success of the online edition is the upgrade of the existing video on demand
(VOD) portal and the necessary technology and integration to present the festival
experience.

“We are working with our OnDemand provider Shift72 on the technology to
deliver a ‘bells and whistles’ digital screening room, coupled with live streaming events
possibilities on our own website.

Full information on the programme, viewing costs and viewing windows for the online
platform will be announced on Monday 22 June.

Film festival director Marten Rabarts

Bringing the NZIFF 2020 programme to life is a team of programmers led by Festival Director Marten Rabarts, newly promoted Head of Programming Michael McDonnell, Paris-based
Programmer Sandra Reid, and specialist programmers Nic Marshall (For All Ages), Ant
Timpson (Incredibly Strange), and Malcolm Turner (Animation Now), and new for 2020, a
quartet of international guest curators.

The four international guest curators for 2020 are Argentinian film producer and Venice Film
Festival programme consultant Violeta Bava, American curator and creative producer Alesia
Weston whose track record includes Sundance International and the Directorship of
Jerusalem Film Festival, former Director of Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and
programming associate for Toronto International Film Festival Vicci Ho, and Director of
Sundance Institute’s Indigenous Program Bird Runningwater.

“We are excited to introduce our guest curators for the 2020 Festival. These four curators
are highly respected programmers globally and we are delighted to be able to draw on their
knowledge of specialised territories and their diverse backgrounds to enrich this year’s
programme,” Rabarts said.

Rabarts added that NZIFF is also looking to the near-future when COVID 19 gathering
restrictions will once again allow a return to an in-cinema programme.

“In January 2021 we hope to be celebrating that return with a special summer programme of films in our flagship venues in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin,” he affirms.

“We are fully committed to a return to cinemas in 2021 and we understand our audiences
cherish the experience of sharing the festival films with others as much as we do , but until
that’s possible you’ll find us no further away than the NZIFF website or app when we launch
our At Home – Online programme in June.”

Key Dates
Monday 22 June: NZIFF 2020 At Home – Online Programme Announced
24 July – 2 August: NZIFF 2020 At Home – Online runs nationwide

The Gentlemen: DVD Review

The Gentlemen: DVD Review

Guy Ritchie returns to familiar territory in The Gentlemen, a crime caper that dials up the Cockney tomfoolery and violence, but which pales in comparison to Ritchie's greatest Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

In this latest, centring around drug kingpin Mickey Pearson (an unctuous McConaughey) and his marijuana business, Ritchie spins a tale via unreliable narrator and potential blackmailer Fletcher (Grant, in a pastiche of a camp Michael Caine and tabloid editor) who tries his hand to get cash to keep Pearson's secrets.

But when Pearson wants to get rid of the dodgy dealings to spend more time with his wife Ros (Dockery, massively underused as a moll or any kind of character), it attracts the interest of the Chinese triads and their wannabe head Dry Eye (played by Crazy Rich Asians' Henry Golding)....

The Gentlemen is a film which puts the meta into the gangster genre. Or at least tries to.

Grant's slimy Fletcher seems like an extension of Ritchie himself, weaving a web of potential lies and deceit (and even pitching a film to Miramax at the end with a Man from U.N.C.L.E poster in the background), and winking at gangster movie conventions while riffing (less than subtly) on how films like The Conversation are rubbish, and digital films aren't as good as actual film. It's all a bit too much in some ways, and detracts from Ritchie's original simplicity of plotting - though there's a strong case to be said for Fletcher being Ritchie and Pearson's No 2 (Hunnam) being the audience if you want to dig deeper.

Elsewhere, it's the usual mix of trickery and an extremely liberal use of foul language as the cast go warts and all into the proceedings, into the codes of elder gangsters versus younger rivals and the shaggy dog progress of the story.

In truth, Grant's Fletcher is the best thing about The Gentlemen, a louche snake of a man whose self-preservation is second only to his own debauchery and desires - and Grant has a ball playing him, with lines such as "I can feel myself engorging" being delivered with such relish - along with Paddington 2 and this, Grant delivers a strong case for a villainous after career.

The rest of the cast are fine - Hunnam is overlooked though he's the head of the firm in reality, a fixer who's apparently in out of his depth, and McConaughey just oozes charm as the wastrel boss.

But less successful are Dockery, who's sidelined with nothing more than a moll (and a questionable near-rape scene) and Golding, whose one note performance is script related rather than actor delivered.

A long debate over how to racially refer to someone also teeters on extremely unpalatable as well - leaving parts of The Gentlemen feeling grubby and unwarranted.

Ultimately, The Gentlemen has a criminal amount of slippery class, but its stylised edges pale when held upto to Ritchie's best. Sure, he's having a ball, and bringing the audience with him, but this old dog doesn't have any massively new tricks to showcase, merely a criminal caper the likes of which we've mainly seen before.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps: XBox One Review

Ori and the Will of the Wisps: XBox One Review

Developed by Moon studios
Released by Microsoft
Platform: XBox One

The 2015 debut of Ori on the XBox was close to platforming perfection.

Leaping around a forest, performing tricky leaps and bounds, and failing had never been so much fun.

In the long-awaited sequel, it's back to the forest as Ori welcomes the baby of Kuru, the owl that terrorised him in the last game. When Ori and baby Ku become friends, they learn to play together, and as Ku grows and learns to fly, Ori tags along.

But caught up in a storm, the pair is separated - and it's up to Ori to get Ku back home.

Jumping, climbing, leaping and hurtling through the forest, Ori and The Will of The Wisps is a fun and challenging return to the world of Nibel.

Creating a side cast of characters and various missions for Ori, the game concerns itself with its side-quests and its atmospherics, which is where it excels. A gorgeously orchestrated soundtrack complements the action as it plays out and gives the game a warm comfortable feeling.

It also adds to the fairytale level of what's transpiring on screen as well as the world expands this time, leading to a feeling of exploration being worthwhile each time the game sends you off on various missions.

Sure, it does occasionally frustrate - like all great platformers should. And there are some technical bugs that cause headaches more than they should, but overall, Ori and The Will of the Wisps is a game that enchants as much as the Blind Forest did.

Here's to a third outing for Ori.

Upload: Series 1: Amazon Prime Video Review

Upload: Series 1: Amazon Prime Video Review

Released May 1 on Amazon Prime Video

Greg Daniels' latest foray into the TV world seeks to build on success from The Office and Parks and Rec - but it never quite finds a tone it wants and settles on it.

The 10 episode first series deals with Robbie Amell's Nathan Brown, a coder whose untimely death at the hands of a self-driving car leads his frankly awful girlfriend to get him uploaded to the afterlife.

Digitally aware but technically kind of dead, Nathan begins to suspect that he's been murdered. So he gradually starts to investigate what exactly happened with the help of the voice in his ear and the digital Jeeves to his Wooster, his "Angel" Nora (Andy Allo), a glorified customer service assistant at the afterlife company.

And that's kind of it - meshing more drama than comedy, and not enough to end up in the "dramedy" genre, Upload at its digital heart is more interested in showing how shallow Nathan ends up realising the world he left behind was the one he misses the most - even though he didn't realise it at the time.

Equally, Nora discovers that she's falling in love with the upload rather than living for her daily reality.

There are little to no major discoveries in Upload, and the comedy is generally wanting - it's certainly not a show that delivers consistent laughs in its 25 minute episode chunks. If anything, the marketing will oversell this element of the series and damage it - certainly a trailer implies that there's a lot more hokey goings on in the Good Place stylings and pretensions of the show.

But mostly, Upload plays as a soft, gentle drama, that has sporadic laughs that feel more like glitches in the story's narratives than deliberately set down codes.

Amell and Allo work nicely together, and there's a building rapport between the two that feels genuine as the show builds through its 10 episode stint. But tonally the show doesn't seem to decide what it wants to be - is it murder mystery, is it love story - it's never quite sure.

Certainly, it's no biting satire on capitalism, or fantasy takedown (even if there are a nice splattering of sight gags throughout) - it itself seems stuck in an afterlife of uncertainty - and by episode 6, the narrative feels compelled to suddenly change lanes, as if to cope with the initial premise.

Perhaps it's the binge drop of the show which harms it, with each episode feeling like pieces of a jigsaw rather than a composite whole. There are Black Mirror elements here, but run through a prism of softness rather than satirical edges, and consequently Upload feels like a show that's not really sure what its actual MO is.

As a romance and a meditation on life after it's kind of okay, and watchable enough fare delivered in pristine bitesize episodes - but Upload never quite fires in the way it could or should, and with a central pairing that has your support and a premise that's rich in potential, that's a crying shame.

Upload premieres on Amazon Prime Video in its entirety on May 1. All ten episodes of the series were streamed for the purposes of this review.

Bad Education: Film Review

Bad Education: Film Review

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Alison Janney, Ray Romano, Geraldine Viswanathan
Director: Cory Finley

Inspired by true events, Bad Education's success lies greatly on the work done by Hugh Jackman as a US school superintendent who's also a fixer.

Jackman is Frank Tassone, the head of Long Island school in Roslyn New York in 2002, who spends his days charming the staff, using his charisma to appear a sympathetic ear to the unhappy parents and generally looking a million dollars in a series of slick suits and perfectly coiffed hair.

When a school paper student (Blockers' breakout Viswanathan) asks him for a brief interview about an upcoming proposal which would help Roslyn school into the upper echelons of the district, a chain of events is set in place which would ultimately horrify the region.

Bad Education, with its polished house veneers and exteriors of estates as cutaways, delivers a class divide story initially that turns ultimately into a "how did they think they could get away with this" tale, that's pivoted by a darker turn from Jackman than is usual.

But some credit also needs to go to Alison Janney's deputy administrator Pam whose scorn for everyone and the system is evident early on. It's another searing turn from Janney, who's building a back catalogue of disgust and contempt following her turn in I,Tonya.

But Bad Education belongs to Jackman - initially charming before turning into something that's more unsettling.

Dismissing claims of a puff piece while exhorting the school paper to dig deeper, Tassone's superiority comes to the fore, and Jackman's underplaying of various moments adds to the drama's more understated feel.

As Bad Education plays out, it becomes a snowballing of events, rather than a landslide of revelations thanks to a concise script, and Jackman rises to each and every challenge, delivering each with skill.

Bad Education plays on Neon from May 3

After Life: Season 2: Netflix Review

After Life: Season 2: Netflix Review

"Don't wallow, it's addictive."

It's a line spoken late in the sophomore series of Ricky Gervais' After Life - and one can't help but feel it would have been pertinent to anyone casting an eye over the script of the six part sequel to the bittersweet comedy series.

For those unfamiliar with the success of the first, After Life dealt with Ricky Gervais' widower Tony, a man filled with loathing for life and for people in general after cancer stole away his beloved Lisa (Kerry Godliman), and left him bereft and stuck in a dead end job on the local paper.

But the first series was a self-contained gem of a show; one that tapped a veracity of a messy truth and ran with it, unspoken as it was - that grief destroys everything in its path, and the road back from it is difficult, long and prone to many fails.

In the second, Tony returns, suffering to a degree with survivors' guilt and unable to sustain the relationship he appeared to be striking up with Ashley Jensen's care nurse, who looked after his father who's riddled with dementia.

But this time around, some of the thrill's gone from Gervais' show - much of it feels like a do-over, many of the side characters this time around feel one note and underdeveloped - and in one case, Paul Kaye's therapist, a grotesquely obscene caricature that's barely human and not worth spending time with. Gervais attempts to flesh out some of the characters, but still underserves them, with some feeling like skits that fall flat when they should fly.

It's a disappointment for the show - but in the central characters, it finds its heart - albeit muted.

Gervais' Tony is still sleepwalking through life, unable to move on (every episode opens with Gervais staring mournfully at a computer screen, watching good times with his wife, and every episode closes with Tony staring at a screen, red wine in hand, captive to the past) - and the truth here is again one seldom acknowledged - that moving on is at times, unachievable. Yet the script flounders with uncertainty riddling parts of it and holes showing where there were none before.

Some interactions with the Tambury Gazette's readers still throw truths into the light of everyone trying to get by in their own ways (from a 100 year old rest home resident who truly hates every day above ground to a woman whose cat is her sole companion since her husband and daughter died) and will touch some - but to those harder of heart, the script goes for the easier targets and doesn't offer the profundity it had first time around. (Though it scores points for the 36 years in the making Ever Decreasing Circles reunion.)

Yet, there is a poignancy in parts, and despite each episode following a narrative pattern, there are some moments of pathos and vulnerability as well as some wonderful explorations of regret that are affecting - there are also moments of extreme vulgarity which are unnecessary too and reek of desperation in the writing.

After Life Season 2 is not a resounding success when compared to the first, and it may not offer as much hope as the first did as it negotiates the messy world of guilt.

Any third season will have to substantially up its game and Gervais will have to provide a compelling reason to return - after all, the desire to wallow in the success is probably addictive, but feels like dipping into creatively shallow waters.