Project Cars 3: PS4 Review

Developed by Slightly Mad Studios
Released by Bandai Namco

Platform: PS4

In a weird way, the third version of Project Cars feels very much like a take on the Forza Horizon series.

Ditching the simulation elements for a more arcade racer feel, the game's MO is more about fun than massively serious career progression, and engaging the mechanics among us to ensure the driving works.

That's not to say it's a bad thing for Project Cars 3 in any shape or form.

In fact, the reliance more on a laissez-faire approach works great wonders for the casual racer, who knows to brake into the corners and accelerate out of them, and who's willing to sacrifice immediate wins for a more continual feel of a grinding game.

There are needs to win various events and a desire to score pole position to unlock further events - it's not exactly the simulator that previous Project Cars games have been - and to be honest, given how that degree of simulator was going, that's no bad thing by a country mile.

It does however mean that Project Cars 3 lends itself more to a shallow pick up and play racer than a deep growing experience, but if you're willing to accept that, that's a bonus.

Because when it works, Project Cars 3 really does soar.

Beautifully transposed to the screen, with weather giving the driving game the feel it needs, Project Cars 3 more than looks the part. Tracks are simply laid out, and other competitors' cars glisten on the racing track, even if they're leaving you for dust and you're pinballing off the walls.

The extreme details of the past may be gone, and Slightly Mad Studios' desire to make this seem like any other kind of racer could in theory be criticised. But given how accessible this simulator is and how it's geared more to the player than the petrolhead, that's no bad thing.

Project Cars 3 is more than worth a spin, thanks to some precision points in the driving and handling and also the fact that it's almost as entertaining as going out for a Sunday afternoon drive on an empty road.

The Quarry: Film Review

Cast: Michael Shannon, Shea Whigham, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Bobby Soto
Director: Scott Teems

Based on Damon Galgut's story, The Quarry is in no hurry to go anywhere fast.

A grizzled Shea Whigham stars as an unnamed man whose desperate actions set off a chain of events in a small town with devastating consequences.

Picked up by alcoholic priest David Martin in an act of kindness, it seems the man has been saved. 

But in a moment of desperation at a quarry, the priest is killed, and seeing a chance to start a new life, the man takes it and drives to his new parish town of Bevel in west Texas. 

Hot on the heels of his arrival, everything "David Martin" owns is stolen, and the faux priest is forced to seek help from the local police, headed up by Michael Shannon's gravel-voiced Chief Moore. As the net tightens around the thieves, so too does it tighten around "David Martin"'s neck...

There's a muted feel to The Quarry, a film that's so sparse, it almost feels like it goes nowhere at all. Its glacial pace may be a little too much of nothing for some, and while there are elements of New Zealand International Film Festival's Corpus Christi in terms of storyline, The Quarry is a more pensive affair.

Central to proceedings is Whigham and Shannon's relationship, which burns with an intensity that's hard to shake and a feeling of more going on under the surface than is immediately obvious.

Shannon delivers another of his variations of a hard-ass man shaken by life but getting on with it, and it's clear he and Whigham have a chemistry outside of the screen that shakes some of the dust out of the dour and at times, bleak proceedings.

But it's Whigham to whom the film belongs.

There's a subtlety to his performance that benefits the slow-burning plot, even if there's a distinct feeling that some elements of the film aren't quite there.

Moreno is wasted as Celia, the "priest"'s lodger, and there's a nagging impression that more could have been made of her character and her impact on proceedings, rather than being as sidelined as she is.

Ultimately, The Quarry may refer to a physical place or those caught in the cat and mouse game; however, there's a little too much left unsaid throughout the film to fully draw people in. But surrender to the rhythms of The Quarry and its claustrophobic sparseness may yield unexpected rewards.

Street Power Football: PS4 Review

Developed by SFL Interactive

Platform: PS4

Released by 

A weird hybrid of soccer and  B Boy dancing, Street Power Football is the strangest, shallowest take on football you'll ever find on a console.

Short matches, bizarre quick time events that help you look "street" and a jumping soundtrack may make Street Power Football the kind of disposable game that seems perfect for a group night in and a growing chance of banter and bravado.

The game's not really traditional football, even if it has elements of it - in truth, the five minute bursts are more interested in how you perform on the field, rather than how or if you win.

If you remember the kind of trick shot videos that are popular with the YouTube generation, then maybe there is something to consider here and to get your teeth into. Largely though, the trick shots take a lot of time to do properly, and mashing buttons during a game won't really cut it remotely.

There are moments when Street Power Football works. 

There's genuine joy to achieving an unexpected trick shot during the game, but that's few and far in between, as a lot of Street Power Football is repetitive, short-lived and a bit lost for its own identity.

Each time you score, there's a weird dancing that takes place that you have little control of, and parts of the characters' anatomies don't quite look right (one female character looks like a the legs of a horse in the calves area).

If you want disposable football that feels like a NBA 2K Playgrounds style game, then maybe Street Power Football is for you.

But to be honest, the lack of replayability and depth is enough to give this one a yellow card.

Savage: Film Review

Cast: Jake Ryan, John Tui, Chelsea Preston Crayford, James Matamua
Director: Sam Kelly

Sam Kelly's confrontational gangs-led story packs a powerful punch in places.

Opening with an unflinching act of brutality, Savage wears its gang patch on its sleeve.

Porirua-based director Sam Kelly's made no secret of the fact that Savage is supposed to be an honest and open look at the grim reality of life within a gang.

Zig-zagging across 30 years of Ryan's Danny, the film chooses three key timelines to dwell on, formative periods of Danny's life that ultimately lead him to a crossroads and a crisis.

But without wishing to sound trite, and perhaps it's more a reflection on society itself, the three key periods all cover very familiar ground to anyone who has an inkling of what violence begets further violence in life. That's not to doubt the film's authenticity though, more that its journey is not perhaps its strongest one.

It begins in 1965, where the child Danny is being brought up in a violent household. It moves to 1972 where the older Danny finds himself part of a new gang, The Savages, and on a collision course with family who are part of rival gangs. And it ends with Danny as the head enforcer of the Savages and who's questioning his role in the cycle of violence.

Central to Savage is the brooding presence of former Home and Away star Jake Ryan. With tattoos covering his face and with a brooding, glowering approach to life, Ryan imbues Danny with some of the inner turmoil he needs to try and sell the idea that enough is enough.

Key to that narrative arc is John Tui's Moses, and his loyalty to the one person who's stood with him all throughout his life - despite the fact that person may be the bad apple Danny needs to step away from.

With a grim dour palette and a sense of foreboding in the atmosphere, Savage is successfull in capturing the mood and tone of calustrophobia in gang life, and the feeling that Danny's close to heading too far down a path that will claim him forever.

But where Kelly falters with parts of Savage is in the zipping between timelines. Even though some of the storyline is handled with restraint and subtlety, the lack of time in each period and the briefest of characterisations means the story fails to reach the emotional resonance and power that it's pushing for.

Equally, while Kelly hints at the fascinating power dynamics between men and women in the gang world (especially with two parallel relationships stretched out across ages), he never quite follows it up, preferring to leave it dangling and frustrating the audience immensely.

All in all, Savage has brooding intensity and shocking violence when it's needed, but it lacks the emotional heft it needs to fully sell its denouement. Kelly's to be commended for trying something different with a story, but the all-too-familiar edges of the narrative journey and jumping around timelines are what hinders Savage from being the powerful film it aspires to.

The New Mutants: Film Review

Cast: Maisie Williams, Alice Braga, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Blu Hunt

Director: Josh Boone

The idea of the X-Men franchise getting a dose of horror is, in theory, a great one.

But what director Josh "The Fault In Our Stars" Boone delivers is something that fails to build on the potential, frustratingly drawing a veil over 20th Century Fox's involvement in the X-Men franchise.

The story, such as it is, centres around Blu Hunt's Danielle Moonstar, a native American who is the sole survivor of a tornado which destroys her reservation. Awaking having seen her father killed, Dani finds herself chained to a gurney inside a hospital with the soothing voice of Dr Reyes (Braga) telling her everything will be alright, as long as she just accepts the treatment.

Introduced to four other teenagers within the hospital, Dani soon believes they are being trained to be part of the X-Men. But when the group starts to be attacked, they find their loyalties questioned, and their grip on what is the truth crumbling....

The New Mutants never really gets going.

Despite a cast that has charisma in other roles, flat dialogue and limp direction hinders them from being truly memorable.

Add in to that mix, some truly ropey CGI and this X-Men spinoff never finds any of the feet it needed to launch a trilogy. Rough editing, and some uninspired visual choices stop The New Mutants from soaring when it should.

The asylum setting is a nice antithesis to the pristine brilliance of Professor Charles Xavier's school of mutants - and the oppressive claustrophobic nature of what's within should provide the film with the atmosphere it needs, but in truth, the film's script doesn't capitalise on years of prior X-Men films, nor does it show any of its own strengths.

Scenes from Buffy The Vampire Slayer play in the background right before the film practically rips off the moments on the big screen, hints of child abuse and same-sex relationships are danced around to hold off any darkness and the movie never really gains the wisdom of its own merits to soar.

Williams delivers a performance that seems to be another version of her character from (the more superior) schoolgirl murder mystery The Falling; Taylor-Joy appears to be channeling Jennifer Lawrence's Russian Red Sparrow via way of Villanelle and Heaton is playing a kind of Johnny Knoxville-mutant-hick hybrid.

Instead of revelling in the creepy, The New Mutants rolls in the familiar and by being left rotting on a release shelf for 3 years, it really shows that it's out of step and time for what it should be.

Massively frustrating, given the chance to reinvigorate the tired and stale X-Men universe, The New Mutants will fall easily into a category of what should and could have been, rather than what is. 

Terminator: Dark Fate: Neon NZ movie Review

Dwelling in the past while simultaneously dismissing everything which happened post 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator: Dark Fate wastes no time in steeling itself as homage to the films, and twisting and repurposing some of the best bits of Judgment Day.

In this latest, which sees the return of James Cameron, Reyes' Dani is the latest target of robots from the future, this time in the form of Gabriel Luna's Rev-9. Singled out for assassination, Dani finds her humdrum life in the hands of agile new saviour Grace (a strong Davis, easily the best addition to the series in a long time, androgynous, sympathetic and wearing similar gear to Sarah Connor's original white tank top) and Sarah Connor, whose life has been turned back to tragedy in the years after she and John averted Skynet's future.

Forced on the run, and with promise of help coming from a mysterious cabin in the woods, it's a fight for survival for the trio.

Terminator: Dark Fate isn't really content to go its own way.

It proffers up plenty of tantalising ideas, and gets into the action straight away with a factory-based fight and freeway chase with trucks.

If that sounds familiar it is - later on the film chooses to use a chase sequence involving a helicopter and a Terminator pouring its liquid form through its window. It's essentially Terminator 2: Judgment Day writ large for the 2019 audience. Much of it feels familiar, in the same way that any sci-fi robot-chasing-you-to-death film is going to - there's little room for nuance character work in between fits and bursts of popcorn baiting action.

Hamilton hovers between spitting, snarling and chewing the scenery with her damaged Connor; a few quieter moments allow her some depth, hinting at the ongoing effects of being caught in this eternal hunting game and are all the better for it. Schwarzenegger dabbles in some usual humour and nostalgia moments, but is largely there for set-dressing; and Reyes' Dani oscillates wildly between being terrified to becoming her destiny. Luna has little to do other than appear relentless, and be the subject of some occasionally iffy CGI.

Thankfully, Davis as the augmented super soldier, makes a valuable case of a vital new addition to the franchise, meshing both robotic like steeliness to the cause, and moments of humanity as reality sets in. It's no shock she radiates a younger Sarah Connor's determination, and even echoes her wardrobe.

Some of the action set pieces creak from obvious CGI, and Deadpool's Miller is competent enough at rolling them out, even if occasionally they feel perfunctory and all too familiar. (No one needs to ever see a Dunkirk style Terminators rising sequence ever again) That said, some of the live action ones are never less than thrilling, and offer a strong case for the Terminator's continuing popcorn appeal.

But the urgency of the dread fear of an unstoppable hunter on your tail has gone in this latest - and even echoes of contemporary themes such as detainee centres, electronic surveillance and immigrants try to add some urgency, they're not enough to detract from a film that pursues its core objective with dread precision, yet proffers no real reason to keep going back to a universe that seems destined to repeat itself ad infinitum.

The Farewell: Neon Movie Review

The Farewell: Neon NZ Movie Review

Director Lulu Wang puts family drama and reunion squarely on the table in this piece which is based on an actual lie, as the opening title board points out.

Chinese born Billi (Awkwafina, in a muted and conflicted turn) lives in New York, with her mother and father, and is a struggling writer. When she learns that her beloved Nai Nai is dying, her immediate desire is to get back to China and help her cope.

But the family decides to withhold the fatal cancer diagnosis from Nai Nai, telling her she only has benign shadows on her X-Rays and that she's fine. However, they all decide to fly back to China under the pretence of a wedding for one final family reunion.

The clash of familial duty and the affairs of the heart comes delicately together in The Farewell, and is all anchored by Crazy Rich Asians' Awkwafina's rueful turn that brings together both the inner turmoil and deep emotions needed in something that projects her from the screen into the stratosphere.

But as the subtleties of familial relationships are poured through the prism of escalating tensions and imminent sadness of the loss of the matriarch, the film pivots on its ideas and never milks the emotion for easy drama.

East vs West is explored (obviously) and the family arguments and discussions are all set against some gorgeously shot scenes of dining and food.

It all means that Wang brings together the film in ways that are warm, earnest and also amusing. From Nai Nai's nagging to Billi about how she shouldn't wear earrings in New York as they'll be ripped from her ears to the reunion of the two brothers after twenty-plus years, this is a film that's rich in nuance and deep in feeling.

The Farewell is a nuanced take on family, one that balances perfectly on resonance.

It may be based on an actual lie, but its truths are universal and its performance by Awkwafina is delicate and complex, and well worth absorbing.