The New Mutants: Blu Ray Review

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. 

Shirley: DVD Review

Released by Madman Home Ent

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.

The Mystery of D.B Cooper: Film Review

Director: John Dower

To the uninitiated, the legend of DB Cooper may sound preposterous.

A man in a suit who in 1971 hijacked a plane, demanded $200,000, four parachutes and then jumped out of the back stairs of the craft into a destiny unknown - it's practically got mythic status written all over it.

Cooper was responsible for large scale aviation change and implementation of security protocols, but even more than that - he was responsible for a myth lasted since November 1971, given he was never found.

It's into this that John Dower's genial documentary dives headfirst as he gets wrapped up in the only unsolved airplane hijacking in America - and the fact everyone involved in the case has had a "I'm Spartacus" moment when asked if they know who he was.

It's this obsession which fuels the majority of this handsomely shot patchwork recreation doco as Dower delves into the mystery, essentially re-telling it and never providing a Eureka moment as it draws to a close.

From interviewer interjections to candid confessions from those involved that they've spent way too much of their lives obsessing about what happened to Cooper rather than living, Dower throws up a prism to the case, and delivers a film that's completely about the exaggerations of the story and of the points of view of many.

From flight attendants caught up in the moment, to pilots in the cockpit, through to journalists intrigued by the tale, Dower threads a multi-layered webbing of a story that's compelling to watch, but ultimately forgettable after it's finished.

It's about the belief in the mystery and Dower does a fine job of amassing all those edges into something that's nicely entertaining fluff for the conspiracy masses all packaged up in one 90 minute serving.

Midway: Neon NZ Review

One-note, thin characters and some dialogue that's purely about gung-ho jingoism rather than deep insight, B-movie Midway is exactly the kind of film you'd expect from disaster movie director Roland Emmerich.

Based on a true story and a sequel of sorts to Pearl Harbour, Midway is the story of what happened next as the Americans scrambled to prevent another attack from the Japanese after December 7, 1941.

In the wake of the attack, a group of fly-boys, led by Ed Skrein's Dick Best scramble to take to the skies, while Patrick Wilson's intelligence team tries to work out where the next attack could come from.

Midway has potential - Emmerich certainly knows how to effectively present disaster on screen, with his Pearl Harbour attack channeling some of his Independence Day roots with ease.

But the script sends the Japanese to one-note villains, dressed in black and huddling to contemplate their next move (it's alarming the Chinese have backed this film so heavily) and it elevates the Americans to do gooders with whiter-than-white intentions. It could be hagiography, if it were deeper and more insightful in its character realisation.

However, as it stands, what Midway becomes after an interesting opening, is simply a series of attack scenes, which jump around the different viewpoints from within the American world. Much like levels of a video game, Midway doesn't have time to go deeper than the surface to get to its action.

CGI and jeopardy mix hand in hand, and granted Midway never aspires to be more than a computer-generated spectacle. Yet, with Wilson's stoic work, a practically wasted Eckhart, and Harrelson in a wig, the film wastes its best assets on the exploits of the gum-chewing, chiselled jaw jutting, rule-floutin' Dick Best, who's embodied by Ed Skrein with all the delicacy of a paper cut out; there's no nuance in this real life flyboy, merely a hollow shell filled with the script cliches, and brimming with nothing else.

All in all, while Midway delivers on its spectacle early on, it soon becomes clear that the bombast and bombing raids are all it has - narratives are dropped and ignored, only to be resolved right at the end, robbing the film of an emotional edge, and a human element to cheer for in one of America's darkest days. 

Hitman III | Introducing Hitman Trailer

IO Interactive’s latest HITMAN 3 trailer introduces new features and returning favourites

 

In-engine gameplay footage from Dubai, Dartmoor and Chongqing locations showcases new gameplay opportunities in the series’ signature living, breathing sandbox locations.

 IO Interactive is proud to present HITMAN 3 gameplay in 4K at 60 fps with the release of a new trailer, Introducing HITMAN 3. Showcasing in-engine footage, this new trailer introduces fresh gameplay opportunities, the return of fan-favourite features and a full overview of the gameplay concepts and scenarios that players will experience when the game launches on 20 January 2021.

Powered by IO Interactive’s proprietary Glacier engine, HITMAN 3 puts you in full control of Agent 47’s deadly abilities, his razor-sharp instincts and his entire arsenal of weapons and tools that you can use to master the art of assassination. Get to grips with the new camera that can open locks and analyse your performance with the return of post-mission Playstyles that are awarded based on how you complete missions.

 

Get the full debrief on the new and returning features coming to HITMAN 3:

 

On next-gen consoles, HITMAN 3 will support 4k visuals, 60 fps, HDR and faster loading times. The game will also bring refinements to interaction animation and AI, as well as Glacier’s crowd technology that will allow up to 300 NPC’s in a location at once.

 

HITMAN 3 players can import locations from the previous games in the trilogy and have more than 20+ locations under one roof. All of the improvements to rendering, animation and AI introduced with HITMAN 3 can be enjoyed across all three games, making HITMAN 3 the ultimate place to play the entire World of Assassination trilogy.

HITMAN 3 will also support PlayStation VR at launch in January 2021 – but it’s not only HITMAN 3 locations that are supported. Every location from the World of Assassination trilogy can be enjoyed in VR when you play them through HITMAN 3.

HITMAN 3 will be available on 20 January 2021 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Google Stadia and PC. HITMAN 3 will also be coming to Nintendo Switch, playable via cloud streaming technology. Pre-order today for access to the Trinity Pack, a celebration of the World of Assassination.

Military Wives: Blu Ray Review

Cast: Kristin Scott-Thomas, Sharon Horgan, Amy James-Kelly, Laura Checkley, Jason Flemyng
Director: Peter Cattaneo

The Full Monty director Peter Cattaneo knows exactly where he wants to go with this tale of a group of army wives who're left on base and killing time when their husbands are deployed to Afghanistan.

And to be fair, he should - after all, he achieved the same level of crowd-pleasing success with The Full Monty in 1997, a tale of seemingly polar opposites and shambolic group of amateurs coming together to achieve glory under duress. (Even in Military Wives, there's someone within the group who's hopelessly out of their depth, but whose underdog enthusiasm wins through.)

Catastrophe's Horgan is Lisa, a freewheeling mum of a troubled daughter who butts heads with Scott-Thomas' prissy and uptight Kate, the wife of the base's brigadier.

Scorning the usual ideas from the icy Kate of knitting to pass the time and keep the Brit morale up ("It's a bit Little Women, innit" she decries), Lisa assembles the group into a singing group, despite opposition from Kate, who sees it more as a choir and the usual parade of stuffy numbers.

However, Lisa's more keen on drawing from the hit parade of her musical youth and the group finds a common bond - but when their boys are ambushed, tensions that have already been simmering inevitably blow over.

It seems churlish to dismiss Military Wives as anything but predictable formulaic fare, but in truth, that's exactly what Cattaneo achieves here. With a penchant for the obvious, the film falters into "could be a BBC four part drama where the wives face fractures and conflict before ultimately rising to the occasion and the bigger picture" territory.

There are no surprises here and the playing safe causes a slice of tonal whiplash when the drama explodes like a well-timed bomb in the middle of proceedings - it's all very simply telegraphed and signposted early on.

And yet, underneath its fluffy fuzz and cloak of familiarity, Horgan and Scott Thomas elevate the film's penchant for predictability to a more acceptably amiable level.

From the visual cue of the opposition of their outfits (Lisa's more laissez-faire, and Kate's more buttoned up and prissy) to the acerbic banter and bickering, both Scott Thomas and Horgan turn the banalities of females fighting and picking at each other into something more humane - even as the cliches come tumbling forward in their direction. In truth, they elevate the film, and give it more credit than it is sometimes due.

It may sing a good tune for a crowdpleasing piece, and may aspire to easy (and occasionally well-earned) laughs throughout, but Military Wives, in parts, is surprisingly moving.

Just don't be surprised if at the end of all the opposition to the comfortably familiar and eye-rollingly obvious as the film follows its crowd-pleasing zero-to-hero algorithm, you leave singing from its admittedly corny songbook.

Cyberpunk 2077 official launch trailer

Ahead of the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 on December 10, CD Projekt Red has released a new trailer heading into Night City.

 

CD PROJEKT RED has released the official Launch Trailer for Cyberpunk 2077 in anticipation of the game’s launch tomorrow, December 10.

 

The trailer dives deep into the world and story of Cyberpunk 2077, and explores the bonds players will forge, the dangers they will face, and the lengths they will go to in order to build their legend as V, the game’s protagonist. Setting the stage for players to take control and begin their adventure in the megalopolis of Night City, the Launch Trailer is available to watch right now on Cyberpunk 2077’s YouTube channel.

 

Cyberpunk 2077 releases December 10th, 2020, for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The game will also be playable on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles. At a later date, a free upgrade to Cyberpunk 2077, taking full advantage of next-gen hardware, will become available for owners of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions respectively.