Ad Astra: Neon Movie Review

More a Freudian rumination on masculinity that's set in space, James Gray's Ad Astra takes on the vast reaches of the great beyond and delivers a stunning piece of world-building as ever there's been on a universal scale.

A restrained and almost muted Pitt is Roy McBride, the son of an accomplished astronaut Cliff McBride (Lee Jones). Constantly living in his shadow, Roy is sent to find the missing McBride senior who's presumed lost in space somewhere near Neptune, after a series of electrical surges threatens to wipe life from the solar system.

But there's ambiguity over whether McBride senior is to blame for the surges or is trying to stop them...All of which puts the father and son on a collision course both have clearly been trying to avoid their entire lives.

Gray and Pitt conjure up a world in the near future that's as believable as anything seen in the likes of Gravity and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

With vertiginous shots early on giving way to more intimate and internal moments, Gray's film ponders on what it's like to be man, how to deal with an estranged father and how to connect to others. (There's a delicious irony the space mission is about finding life outside of Earth when it's more ground-bound matters that anchor the movie.)

Pitt's muted throughout, prone to his inner monologue rather than espousing reams of dialogue; and when the break comes somewhere in the film, Pitt delivers an emotional range that's as devastating to his character as it needs to be to the audience.

Gray's space world is fascinating - and while there are moments of action set on the moon and thanks to the unease of an unexpected mayday call, the slow calculated script and delivery thereof lead to plenty of payoffs.

It's not perfect though - while the mundanities of commercial space travel are recreated with ease (fast food companies and their neon signs sit along the likes of Virgin on the Moon), some of the script fails its women. Tyler gets a thankless role as a faceless wife (though this is perhaps the point given how Pitt's character can't connect with others in his life) and Ruth Negga shines all too briefly as the conspiracy elements of the mystery are ratcheted up on Mars.

The film delivers much subtlety on male relationships, but it's also content to dispatch some rote lines such as the double-edged "We are all we've got" to satiate those less inclined to the more thoughtful leanings of what's on screen.

Ultimately, Ad Astra works best in its first two thirds - its delivery of some answers and some leaps of logic in the latter stages cause the foundations to flounder.

However, in terms of a rumination on the folly of man, it's second to none - and one of the most arrestingly visual, thoughtful and immersive well-executed experiences that cinema has had to offer. 

 Hustlers: Neon Movie Review

Based on a New York magazine article, Hustlers' tale of empowerment of ladies and taking back what's theirs should in theory, be a home run.

Set against a backdrop of a group of strippers headed up by matriarch Ramona (JLo, in no nonsense taking mood) Constance Wu stars as Destiny, a new-to-town stripper, who's taken under Ramona's wing.

When the financial crisis of 2008 hits the strip clubs and stops the ladies from earning the coin as the businessmen stay away, Ramona and Destiny hit upon a new scam to make money when times get tough....

Hustlers is a fine film in parts (specifically its aesthetics), but one that fails to fully seize on what makes a story like this soar.

While it could be seen as a female POV counterpoint piece to Martin Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street, Hustlers' prime failure is in fully setting up the friendships and family elements early on which would inform the emotional bond you feel to the characters when times get tough.

It's a relatively fatal flaw, in among the incessant gyrations and tasteful nudity that never once falls into male gaze territory (thankfully).

The shallow skin-deep approach informs much of the aesthetics of the club, as well as the approach to the characters - motivations are about as fleshed-out as the fully-covered ladies and Scafaria's failure to demonise anyone makes for an intriguing lack of moral compass as the movie plays out.

It's particularly noticeable and pertinent in the final third of the film, which meanders and drifts into duller territory as the narrative framing devices push the story into a she said, she said approach necessary for the magazine interview format to play out.

Wu is fairly solid in this, but talk of Lopez for Oscar glory for her role as Ramona is misplaced at best - her Ramona is a variation of any strong women role she's had before, but unfortunately, there's not enough dramatic meat in the Hustlers' bones to really justify it.

When the end comes, you may be surprised how hollow it feels and how emotionally lacking it is - if anything, this is the ultimate scam perpetrated by Hustlers, a film so wrapped up in all its own take on capitalism and family that it falls apart under any kind of prolonged scrutiny.

Last Christmas: Neon Movie Review

A contrived and loose retelling of a Christmas Carol, Last Christmas draws inspiration from the Wham! song of the same name.

A game Clarke pratfalls and perks her way through the story as Kate, a mess of a girl, dressed permanently as an Elf and awash in one night stands, homelessness and booze, following recovery from an illness.

Down on her luck in London, Kate spies the suave Tom (Crazy Rich Asians' Golding, who gets to be charming and pointlessly pirouetting around London for no real reason) and the pair strike up an unlikely friendship.

She the cynic, he the optimist, encouraging her to look up at the sky - even though her first doing of this results in pigeon poo in the eye - much like the film for the audience, to be frank.

You can see where Last Christmas is going a mile off - it's the kind of candy covered schmaltz soaked affair that would work well in the festive season, when you're stranded with family, boozed up and don't want to talk to them.

Throwing in Brexit jabs via way of London patriotism, mocking the homeless for being quirky, and plastering the film with shots of London streets in the winter, it's a shock there's no Hugh Grant cameo or Love Actually crossover in among the syrupy sentiment.

And yet, were it not for a duly game Emilia Clarke, Last Christmas would be a real festive turkey.

(It's hard to credit Golding with anything other than being smooth or suave as that's what the script demands of him, and he delivers with warmth and ease, giving Tom and Kate's bond a nice glow.)

Clarke however is called on to shoulder the burden of a cloying script that continues to one-up itself for weak gags, goofy edges and generally being underwritten. And she delivers her hot mess with warmth, chutzpah, and the kind of commitment that's needed to sell the sentiment and holes. (Of which a lot emerge in the final act).

It's the latest film to be fashioned around music, from Blinded by the Light to Yesterday, and while they all suffer from the necessity of shoehorning the music in, Last Christmas does a little the same, but can be forgiven on some level, because of the time of year it's aiming for.

There's a cheesy cornball edge to Last Christmas, but it's sadly not enough one way or another to push this into so-bad-it's-good-territory. Instead, it just is, and were it not for Clarke, the film would have crumbled into a bad Christmas hangover. 

Joker: Neon Movie Review

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix. Robert de Niro, Zazie Beetz, Marc Maron, Frances Conroy
Director: Todd Phillips

Intense, haunting, disturbing, unsettling, uncomfortable, uncompromising, deeply indebted to Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and King of Comedy, Hangover director Todd Phillips' take on Joker is nothing without Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck.

An alienated clown who's trying to get by in a struggling Gotham that's grappling with a descent into garbage strikes and class divides, Fleck is hanging on by the skin of his teeth, scrabbling from day-to-day with a world he's growing ever-more distant from and from humanity on every level.

Fleck's grip on reality is further tested by his relationship with his ailing mother (Conroy) - though there's some light in the form of a neighbour (Deadpool's Beetz) and in local talkshow host Murray Franklin (De Niro riffing on his own Murray Pupkin), both offering Fleck a connection to life and a future.

But as the class war and societal concerns strike, Fleck finds himself at a personal profound crossroads...

Joker is less a comic book film, more an intensely choreographed dance into madness and destruction, that forces you into sympathies for the devil.

Central to the maelstrom is an emaciated Phoenix, his whole frame racked by the condition that forces him to laugh when it's less than ideal, and whose laughs teeter dangerously close to sobs of desperation. Lithe, lissom and genuinely haunting, the incendiary Phoenix owns the screen from the moment the film starts to the time it ends.

While there are nods to the wider universe, Joker is less about the clown prince, more a damning indictment of a man falling apart with parallels to the politically uncertain times we currently live in.

It's here that Phillips and Phoenix team up to make something that's an unravelling in our narcissistic times, a dangerous mirror to edges of our society that may galvanise some more than it should or ought to. There are plenty of scenes of Phoenix's Fleck struggling - be it up endless flights of stairs, or sitting in empty rooms, Phillips doesn't scrimp on the visual imagery.

It's not all perfect - some of the supporting characters feel underused in the extreme slow burn of Phoenix's spotlight; much of the feel of the film is ripped from Scorsese's grimy playbook and there are questions over the mental health portrayal within.

But Joker is visceral and uncomfortable in the way cinema can get under your skin; this character study is one of the year's compelling best, a sickening portrait that's unsettling and unnerving. 

Shirley: Film Review

Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Logan Lerman, Odessa Young, Michael Stuhlbarg

Director: Josephine Decker

Feeling like a woozy Gothic psychological romance rather than a detailed relationship drama, Josephine Decker's Shirley sees The Handmaid's Tale's Elisabeth Moss as writer Shirley Jackson (who went on to pen The Haunting of Hill House).

Unable to find her muse, agoraphobic and constantly in bed, drink or cigarette in hand, Shirley's hit a stumbling block. Into her life, at the behest of her professor partner (Stuhlbarg, in a vaguely monstrous role), comes youngsters Rose and her academic husband Fred (Young and Lerman) to help out around the house and at the college.

But Shirley is reticent to have them around, and Fred becomes frustrated at his lack of progression at the college. However, the more Shirley and Fred dig in, the more Rose awakens from her repression.

Shirley isn't a bad character study by any stretch of the imagination.

Thanks to Moss' wild-eyed approach to Jackson, the film thrives when she's on screen - and it positively sparks when she's paired up with Young as the two crackle against each other and against years of repression and expectation.

Hand-held camerawork, close ups, and a haunting OST along with a mystery of a missing girl all make for an intoxicating mix in Shirley, and Young and Moss deserve kudos for their time on screen.

Moss in particular revels in her character's messiness, and the script doesn't hold back from showing her flaws, but equally, it doesn't criticise her for them either.

A fascinating study of genius and an arthouse approach by Decker give the film the sheen it needs - and offers the audience a different way at looking at tortured authors.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout: PS4 Review

Developed by Mediatonic

Published by Devolver Digital

Platform: PS4 (through PSPlus August game giveaways)

The multiplayer genre is one that's already stuffed with entrants.

Generally though, they are shooters of some description. And with the likes of Fortnite and Overwatch still reigning supreme, there's been a hole in the market place for a good solid family-led inclusive multiplayer game.

Enter Mediatonic's Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, with its cartoony blobby bright colours mash up of fun and silliness.

Essentially an online version of 70s UK TV staple, It's A Knockout and elements of WipeOut USA, the extremely colourful and amusing Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is aimed squarely at fun, and delivers in more than spades.

While its first weekend has been plagued by server issues due to a surge demand (global lockdowns and a desire to play online will do that), Mediatonic's done more than enough to get the game back up and running to cover the 59 players needed to take you on.

Over five rounds of what appear simple games, it's up to you to come first and take the win. Progress through each round without being eliminated to make it through to the final game where you can be crowned winner.

Sounds simple, but in practice, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is anything but - though annoyingly, it's highly addictive and charming enough to keep sucking you back in.

Using physics as well as a bit of old fashioned luck, you'll need to scoot around various challenges to try and win.

From an obstacle course where you have to jump over seesaws, to a Rocket League inspired football match, the games are simple and easy to dive into. That's part of the real charm of Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, it's so frustratingly simple that when you get knocked out by a wrong move or a simple issue of gravity, you immediately want to dive back in.

As a solo game, it's solid and entertaining - with 59 strangers all out for the same thing, it can get competitive. But it's a bit harder on the so-called team games where you're expected to work together - especially if you are without headphones as collaboration goes out the window.

A lack of a local multiplayer game that's offline sets a worrying alarm bell off for the game's future - who knows what's ahead in 6 months' time. But Mediatonic is teasing that this is only season one - however, long term freemium games do face the faddish desires of the players who desert the servers like magpies once the newest shiniest thing comes along or the old fave they dived into launches a new season amid hype.

Ultimately, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is disposable family fun, that's worth diving into whatever your age - and these days for multiplayer, you can rarely recommend that.  Hopefully, it'll keep people entertained for many seasons to come, thanks to an ease of play, a simplicity of design and a rocksolid foundation of execution.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was played on PlayStation Plus via a code provided for the service by PlayStation New Zealand

 Skully is Available Now!

 

Restore Peace in Charming Platforming Adventure, Skully!

Now Available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One

 

Join a Headstrong Hero for a Roll through a Gorgeous but Troubled Paradise

 

 

Indie publisher Modus Games and developer Finish Line Games today released Skully, a reanimated skull’s delightful platforming adventure across a magical island, on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

 

Skully’s accompanying launch trailer is packed with gameplay which perfectly demonstrates our cranium-sized star’s agility and knack for wielding clay-boosted powers. Pools of magical clay can be found while hopping through this colourful land, lending strength in battles and opening new routes through Skully’s beautiful world.

 

Get a sense of what Skully can do by watching the full launch trailer here: