E3 2013 - Microsoft

The conference kicked off with Metal Gear Solid Five looking more like Assassin's Creed in places, demonstrating a dynamic new weather feature and claims to much deeper tactical stealth mechanics. It's a worrying sign however when you have to fast forward through your own game to get to the good bits.

Don Mattrick entered the stage accompanied by Hideo Kojima presumably just to save himself from instant assassination since as soon as Kojima finished his brief, clearly pre-written by Sony announcement, he immediately left again. Seemingly reluctant to talk about the Xbox One a different slimey suit appeared and introduced a new Xbox360 as if admitting that everyone was sick of their so called improvement. He talked about it's improved design and xbox live features before debuting a trailer for World Of Tanks which...well it's pretty self-explanatory and despite what i thought, it's apparently popular.

Eventually they addressed the elephant in the room and on the posters and forever burned into angry fans' minds and talked about the Xbox One's unprecedented amount of games, wisely moving swiftly into a demo of an interesting new historical action game set in Ancient Rome called "Ryse". This demo promptly shattered any illusion of authenticity when the protagonist shouted "Lads" and proved its extensive research into Ancient Rome in fact being full of gravelly cockneys.

Following the brand new games we saw "Sunset Overdrive" a cartoon shooter that looked like Mirror's Edge and Borderlands fucked Left For Dead when Team Fortress 2 was out of town.

I'll let you decide if that sounds like a good time or not...

Forza 5 is apparently the transcendent start of a new era and yet looked like every other driving game i've ever seen. For some reason they brought an actual car onto stage, maybe they worried gamers had never seen one in real life, followed by a bald man who talked about "drivertars" (they didn't give an exact spelling) A system that apparently creates more human AI and takes note of your own playing style in order to secretly clone you in your sleep and have the evil doppelganger steal your identity.

After Turn Ten we heard from turncoat Phil Harrison who gave us the same statistics lecture he used to do for Sony and a trailer for Minecraft, which i'm pretty sure is already on 360.
Next we saw a cutscene from Quantum Break; a game that could either be a Heavy Rain disaster or a Timesplitters gem, followed by a trailer for D4; a stylistic murder mystery by the guy who made Deadly Premonition. If this can manage to be 95% less broken than that game, there's a chance it could be ok.

Project Spark was an interesting blank canvas, creative map-making, game-making title demonstrated by the cheesiest, obnoxious, pun-slinging fucks i couldn't wait to see leave the stage. A bunch of poor Wii U gamepad imitations from the smartglass later and we reached the only logical thought Microsoft seems to have had recently by charging you in your own currency instead of Microsoft points. There was also a demonstration of the Xbox One's voice activated features and gameplay sharing abilities with a madcap fighter called Killer Instinct. A feature that looks set to flood youtube with even more tedious, amateur let's play videos than ever before.

Crimson Dragon is an innovative new title that's actually completely silent, allowing you to reflect more deeply upon your actions and choices as a majestic fire-breathing creature. For example "Did whatever i just burnt to a cinder have a family waiting back home?"
What came next was in my opinion the only impressive demo of the show in the third installment of the Dead Rising series. It appeared to provide a seamless and detailed open world zombie apocalypse with no load times, improvised weapon combinations and different ways to explore the overrun, infected city. It basically seems to have taken all the good points of the previous games and left out the bad which is an impressive amount of awareness for game developers these days.

The Witcher 3 will attempt to dethrone Skyrim and admittedly the trailer showed potential, whilst Battlefield 4 showed a truly next-gen engine failing to work for over a minute. A minute of embarrassing, cringeworthy silence and audience mockery. "Are we continuing?" With this shit? Really?

Riveting...

The game itself looked like the standard dramatical tactical military FPS in the vastly overpopulated genre of such games. We were then bitterly informed by the humiliated developer that it would be available to play later at the "microbooth" which sounds more exciting than any of the gameplay shown.

The inevitable new Halo game won my award for without a doubt the stupidest character reveal i have ever seen. Master Chief in a desert, covering himself in rags to protect from a sandstorm. How no one saw the pointlessness in wearing a hood when you're already constantly wearing a helmet is baffling. His entire personality is that fucking helmet, how could they overlook this? or do they actually just believe that's his head now?

This literally went from "wouldn't it be cool if he was in all robes in the desert like a Jedi or something?" to green-lit, confirmed, authorised go ahead and make it...

 The show finished with a trailer and gameplay demo of another FPS containing the revolutionary new features of jetpacks and robot mechs...
In conclusion they were reasonably smart to try and detract from the recent reveal shitstorm by not mentioning Kinect, TV and film functionality or any of the moronic, batshit ideas that make up the actual console. Can some potentially decent games make up for the most fucked up totalitarian console ever? It depends who you ask but personally i'm currently not convinced.

28 Weeks Later...And I Finally Update The Blog.

I still haven't seen Skyfall so i'm reviewing this five year old sequel instead.
28 Days Later is praised as having resurrected horror and zombie movies with its groundbreaking blend of a decent story and re-imagining of monsters. Without getting into that whole debate but summing it up with the phrase "running zombies omgwtflolsrsly?", Danny Boyle's independent little gem was doomed to receive a big-budget sequel.

If i need to explain when this film is set, please call your nurse and tell them to better restrict lobotomy patients from internet access. We now follow the tale of Don (Robert Carlyle) who abandons his wife and acquaintances in a cottage full of insane rage-infected zombies, in what is undoubtedly the strongest part of the film and one of the best openings to a horror film i've seen. Unfortunately it's all downhill from there. Having established an interesting and morally questionable protagonist, the film then proceeds to kill him off as quickly as possible, or rather "infect" him which is a whole other issue whining further down the page. Now I'm far from against killing off characters, especially in a horror film where it's pretty much compulsory, even a protagonist is fine, i certainly didn't expect Don to kick the bucket as early as he did. The problem with this twist is that there are no other interesting characters in this film...at all. What's worse is that the writer and director seem to notice this mid-production and never fully settle on a new protagonist.

At first it seems that Scarlet the female military doctor will take precedence with an interesting plot point involving "carriers" of the virus, in other words, people infected with Rage and contagious but not a slavering, mindless, cannibal themselves. Then we get a brief glimpse at some bored snipers and soldiers, the most important of which being Doyle (Jeremy Renner) who will presumably serve some purpose when the inevitable outbreak occurs in the peaceful quarantined section of England where Don and his refugee children are reunited. His son is next in the spotlight and arguably remains fairly central from then on, but apart from a fleeting tender moment with his sister, about missing his mother, he has less character development than the bloody zombies.

They also make a big deal of his heterochromia, probably as it's his only memorable characteristic.

So Don, Tammy (the sister) and Andy (our hero!) are reunited and after explaining that their mother was killed whilst sidestepping details of his own escape and abandoning her, Don takes a backseat to the irritating moronic children, who decide the best thing to do in this situation is ignore the extensive rules about the quarantine and go visit their old house. A brief spark of intrigue rekindles the film as the dopey son discovers his batshit crazy mother hiding in the attic. She introduces the "carrier" subplot as Scarlet examines her and a stereotypical military prick decides the best course of action is killing their only chance of a cure, despite the threat being strapped onto a desk in a locked room inside a military compound.

Meanwhile after Don's children expose his dickish ways to him, he strolls into the facility and makes out with his unhealthy looking wife. Now since the virus can be spread by blood or saliva Don becomes infected and has a brilliantly disturbing fit as he mutates from loving father and remorseful husband to blood belching psycho zombie and if memory serves that's the last high point of the film.

ZombieDon then kills his wife with eye-gouging in a pointless callback to 28 Days and rushes out of the complex, somehow overpowering and infecting multiple armed soldiers along the way. The eye-gouging thing really pissed me off actually, because in the original 28 Days Later it meant something. It was a horribly brutal way to kill someone and it almost convinces a main character witnessing it that the protagonist inflicting it is infected. This brings up some interesting moral questions, heightens the film's tension in its final act and gives the audience some satisfaction in seeing a rapist get his eyes squashed. In 28 Weeks, it's completely meaningless since it actually is a zombie doing it and they've been proven to be quite violent in the past, hence the whole fucking premise of both films. 

28 seconds later and everything's gone tits up, the zombies are running loose, Tammy, Andy and Scarlet are trying to escape "District 1" and the military is ordered to "shoot everything" on the ground because they can't tell who's a zombie and who isn't. The film seems to be trying to recreate the rational but morally questionable military officers of the first film but it doesn't really work since this is a large network of soldiers who should be prepared for such an event whereas the group in 28 Days were few, isolated and starting to lose their minds. And the filmmakers really want you to feel these guys are organised, there is endless military jargon being thrown around as these efficient American peacekeepers stand in formation and march down corridors and loads of other pointless shit that means my 28 seconds joke doesn't actually make sense since it takes a beard-formingly long time for anything to actually happen in this film.

They're called "establishing shots" not "burn into the recesses of your subconscious shots"

 Anyhow, all the military propaganda in the world can't disguise the fact that the "civilian containment area" was placed right next to where the outbreak happened, and the geniuses still utilised it to bursting point until  inevitably the place is overrun with infected. Skip forward and Doyle, Scarlet, the kids and some expendable survivors are attempting to get rescued from Flynn; Doyle's helicopter pilot friend, who is possibly the most unlikeable and badly written character in this entire thing. For some reason he refuses to rescue any of the civilians despite an impending zombie horde and even replies "fuck you pussy" to an uninfected man falling to his death after trying to escape the zombies on the bars below the helicopter.

So Flynn leaves them to die and the group eventually escape the zombies by hiding in a car whilst a random gas cloud floats past. The car doesn't start moving however until Doyle gets out and pushes it, whereupon he's incinerated by a blind military clean up crew. This untimely outbreak of the stupids spreads to the nearby helicopter pilots who despite having absolutely no evidence that zombies can drive cars start shooting at the group of clearly uninfected people driving away from the deadly gas. This is followed by some downright infuriating Blair Witch style footage as Scarlet uses the night vision on a gun to see the two kids scream repeatedly before falling down an escalator. Fucking Chilling.

Oh and even though there's American military everywhere, the audience doesn't need to be reminded every five seconds that the characters are in England. There are frequent, patronising shots of London landmarks and of course the protagonist (whoever the fuck that is) takes the scenic route from Regent's Park to Wembley Stadium then past the good ol' White Cliffs Of Dover and every by jove English thing in between.

It's also worth mentioning that throughout the film, Don keeps reappearing in some apparent hunt for his children, adding a new element of higher intelligence to the zombies, not previously seen. Of course this is never explained nor reaches any meaningful level so we just have Don as a zombie who can hunt specific targets and bludgeon people with the butt of guns for no reason.

I'd talk about the climax of this film but there frankly isn't one. Andy gets bitten but is fine because he's a carrier like his mum, Scarlet gets got by Don and Don gets shot by Tammy. Tammy and Andy meet dickhead Flynn and get carried to supposed safety before we're threatened with the risk of a third film when zombies somehow reach Paris. I think a major factor in this film's quality was both Danny Boyle being replaced by some unknown new director and the writer Alex Garland having a bunch of unnecessary colleagues to help fuck things up. There is so much unnecessary crap in this film and yet the few good ideas it has are completely overlooked and forgotten in favour of gimmicks, empty dialogue and RUNNING ZOMBIES! OMGWTFLMAOASLFFSGTFO...

Lawless - Cinema Review

Lawless makes me increasingly worried about film marketing, as the only reasons i went to see it in the first place were so i could stop seeing the bloody trailer for it everywhere i looked. That said, i don't think the trailer represents it particularly well. I didn't enter the film with low expectations, the promise of Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy and Guy Pearce's fantastic performances definitely sparked some intrigue. I wish i could say director John Hillcoat also drew me in, as the director of one of my favourite films The Road, but i only noticed his contribution in the closing credits.
Some film critic i am.

Thankfully i can say that Lawless is a very good film and if you like any of the actors involved or simply, a good historical crime-drama well told, then i can highly recommend it. I can't measure the setting's and costume's accuracy since i simply don't know history that well, but it works sufficiently to engage you in what feels like a real, developing world. You really notice when the characters leave the dusty, quiet town and enter the significantly larger and modernised inner cities, and similarly whenever characters from either setting enter the other, they blatantly stand out and the film uses this to full effect.

When the youngest Bondurant brother (played by Shia Labeouf...better than you might think) and his friend (Dane Dehaan) enter Chicago attempting to make sales and impress their superiors in the liquor bootlegging business, the aforementioned settings, costumes and cinematography drill in the idea that these guys are way out of their depth and cranks up the tension effectively. On the flipside when Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman) swaggers into Franklin County, where the brothers live, you feel like the devil himself has arrived, and whilst Oldman isn't in the film as much as the persistent trailer suggests, he is masterful in every second that he is.

While it's safe to say Gary Oldman keeps the fear factor tightly by his side, in terms of sheer animosity and seething hatred for a character, Guy Pearce plays the downright slimey Agent Rakes brutally well. A corrupt government officer who brings tyranny to the small town and systematically wades deeper and deeper into dealing with his own dirty work. His hypocritical, uptight, aristocratic mannerisms make him easily detestable but all the more unnerving when he lets free his sinister side, and as the film progresses, his arc, or rather his descent is particularly intense.

Tom Hardy on the other hand is becoming a joy to watch in almost any film, though i wonder if he's trying to create a signature of only playing characters with a humourous verbal tick. It's tempting to say he steals the show but amongst an array of great actors i can only conclude that he is a highlight. Portraying a dangerous and violent thug one minute and a weary but protective father-figure the next, he's a thoroughly engrossing character and will keep you entertained if Labeouf rubs you up the wrong way.

Speaking of whom, i have to say performs well here, and has a clear, meaningful arc throughout the story. Yes he is playing an oafish young guy, awkwardly chasing a girl but it all supports his growth as a character and by the end of the film you have a significantly changed man as he grapples with the harsh realities of his family trade...and if you still don't like the guy, there's a scene where he gets beaten half to death ok?

I would like to say Lawless is flawless but unfortunately it just isn't. It's a tried and tested formula, executed very well but it doesn't bring a great deal new to the table. I suppose being an adaptation from a book based on real events you aren't going to have many bold experimentations happening, but despite this, i feel there are an awful lot of films of a similar nature standing not too far behind. A pitfall it does avoid however is predictability and i can scarcely say more than that without spoiling some of the finer moments.

There are some somewhat dry spells in terms of atmosphere when i feel the film is doing the equivalent of flicking through pages to find a good bit. I was personally disappointed to see a montage towards the later parts of the film, even if i can't imagine a better way to display those events concisely. There is also a rather clichéd expositional voiceover from Labeouf's character at the end of the film which feels more than a little patronising and unnecessary, not to mention out of place when i'm fairly certain the film didn't begin with any narration.

These points don't spoil the film and certainly on a first viewing they can be entirely overlooked, i do wonder however if there isn't a great deal of this film's success riding on the star power (for want of a phrase with reduced cheese) and the fact it features two characters from The Dark Knight Rises and a younger audience favourite for those strange fans of the Transformers movies. Perhaps that's just cynicism talking, i'm not going to let cynicism talk today.

A brief disclaimer here. My film reviews thus far have been dubbed "Cinema" reviews because i understand the cinema experience can alter perceptions of a film and a good cinema film may be different to a good film in general or on dvd say. With that in mind, i apologise for any mistakes i make regarding plot points and character development. I have a pathetically bad memory and don't have the luxury of seeing a film multiple times, but i hope to give you a reasonable idea as to whether a film is worth seeing at a cinema, and i will of course review some films in general/on dvd (at some point).