Halo 5: Guardians - The gift that doesn't give - Xbox One Review

Let's get straight to the point, I'm no Halo fanatic. In fact, I didn't care very much for him. I picked up the series from 3 and just enjoyed shooting stuff. Even more so when I probably paid £20 for the lot making it worth the investment. Now I thought I'd change that and jump onto the pre-order bandwagon for Halo 5. Was it worth it? Hell nah

For anyone who has read previous articles, you'll be well aware that I enjoy story. Halo's trailers depicted a rogue Master Chief being chased down by another Spartan called Locke; a hench dude with a a beard that looks like he's drawn it on with a whiteboard marker. Surrounded by rubble, the 2 variants features both characters in vice versa roles drawing their weapon to shoot the restrained one. The whole world appeared to be mourning the death of Chief and the whole thing looked very distopian. Jump into the game and its dramatically different. There is only one confrontation between the characters and this is just over the halfway mark in the game, so about 3-4 hours in and lasts a mere 30 seconds. Chief isn't dead and the world has a far different threat to deal with. SPOILERS - Its Cortana. She's gone batshit crazy and is now planning to police all of the known worlds with some crazy machines. Here is the problem, after 6-8 hours of gameplay, the story isn't actually finished. The credits roll, the game is over and you're left wondering why you spent a fortune for something that wasn't even complete and drags a story so dull and lacklustre on for another instalment. I've played indie games for longer that were cheaper and far more enjoyable. It's the perfect depiction of a cash cow and it'll become another yearly game that bleeds money from its consumers because some mechanics are slightly different and the multiplayer maps have changed - aka Call of Duty.


Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my experience of shooting stuff on platforms, moving on and rinse and repeat a hundred times, but I'm a different kettle of fish. I'm not there for multiplayer, I'm here for lots of fun and I didn't get that. We've established that the story was pulled from the inner rim of a public toilet but lets talk about everything else wrong with it.

• Its recycled
• Characters and Voice acting were rather dull (Sorry Nathan Fillion, you don't sell it)
• Weapons lack diversity, power and ammo. Seriously, how the fuck does it take a full magazine to kill one enemy!?
• No diversity in enemies. They're dropped in from the beginning and they never change so levels don't ramp up in difficulty, they just add more
• Repetitive zones and boss - Literally, its all the same
• God awful boost mechanic which moves you about 3ft at a time

Its not a long list, sure. Yet its a big list when the only things I can draw from it that are actually good are the visual cut scenes,general graphics and the sound effects. Many people worry about triple A games and the reviewers who cover them for the big publications and so far, these big guys have talked up and marketed these titles as some of the best games ever. I simply cannot agree and with complaints and rumours of paid promotions and reviews by these publications, its not looking good.
I'm currently debating selling or returning this item because it was honestly a bleed on an already tight purse that didn't give its customers what they really deserved - A game for the people, not for the bank account.

6/10 - Tune in next time to see the gradual decline of triple A games in record time

Triple Film Review: SPECTRE

Dan's Review

After the enormous success of Sam Mendes' Skyfall back in 2012, a film which celebrated Bond's fiftieth anniversary in rather spectacular fashion which not only gained sumptuous critical plaudits but also managed to become the highest grossing movie in the UK to date, any potential follow up was set to be under a huge amount of pressure from the outset, yet the return of director Sam Mendes and the continuation of Daniel Craig as the world's greatest secret agent put Skyfall's successor in rather safe hands, strengthened not only by the return of the titular SPECTRE, the seedy, shadowy criminal organisation last featured in Sean Connery's Bond swansong Diamonds Are Forever, but by the inclusion of cast members such as Lea Seydoux, Monica Bellucci, and the two-time Oscar winning Christoph Waltz. Although the shadow of Skyfall's success was inherently creeping up on the newest incarnation of 007, Mendes himself made it clear that Spectre was set to be a very different beast indeed, and within all the explosions, helicopter battles, car chases, and secret lairs, Spectre grabs all the best bits of the Bond canon and ramps them up to produce a highly enjoyable blockbuster, reminiscent more of the camp, gadget-induced Bond of years previous whist nicely tying up the plot threads that have been rife since Craig's first outing in Casino Royale.  

After Bond (Daniel Craig) is sent a cryptic message from the past, he is sent on a journey to discover and unravel the secrets of the seedy organisation SPECTRE, a criminal organisation at the heart of Bond's past. Whilst M (Ralph Fiennes) battles forces in London with the newly appointed C (Andrew Scott), the head of the newly created Joint Intelligence Service, Bond seeks out the truth behind SPECTRE with the help of Madeline Swann (Lea Seydoux), the daughter of an old foe, in an attempt to destroy the organisation's evil deeds once and for all. If Skyfall came across to the audiences as a much more elegant, character and emotion driven piece of cinema, helped directly by the handy-work of not only the acclaimed Sam Mendes but the long awaited Oscar recipient, Roger Deakins, then Spectre attempts to completely divert away from repeating the trick once more and attempts to go full on 80's Bond mode, with much more action set pieces including a brilliantly tenses opening scene and a bruising and bloody fight on a sleeper train, nodding back to Bond's fight with Grant in From Russia With Love. Aside from the abundance of action and wasted ammunition, we witness Bond well and truly stamp his passport with him travelling across the globe from Mexico City to Rome, from Austria to Morocco, all of which are beautifully shot by Interstellar cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, eventually leading back to the capital city of London for the final act. 

With Christoph Waltz on the payroll, Spectre was inevitably going to buildup to certain revelations regarding the character of Franz Oberhauser, all of which were done in an overly entertaining and eye-winking manner, something of which as an overtly dedicated Bond fan, I couldn't resist from laughing at with sheer joy, particularly when we are treated to a shot of a rather fluffy particular breed of household animal. Although Waltz isn't in the film long enough at all, the camera is completely transfixed with his eerie demeanor each and every time he appears, starting with a completely blacked-out board meeting in which he quietly whispers instructions to his dedicated servants, and resulting in a tense revelation scene within the confines of a 21st century update of a well-established Bond lair, complete with hideously ludicrous torture equipment, and the coincidentally accessible escape vehicle, all of which our favourite super-spy uses without question. Kudos to the film-makers for not choosing to kill off our underused villain, restoring faith in the notion that you can't have too much of a good thing. See you around Mr Waltz. 

Uproariously entertaining and extremely watchable from the outset, Spectre fundamentally wants to be everything that Skyfall wasn't, with an abundance more amount of action, brilliant comic timing from the likes of Ben Whishaw as Q and Fiennes as M, with one scene in particular with C bringing the whole audience to a spout of laughter, and a much more laid back temperament, harking back to the gadget strewn Bond era of Moore and Brosnan, with Craig ultimately having fun with the role as the world's great agent, who this time does get the girl in the form of Leas Seydoux's Madeline Swann, a rather perfect match for our battle-worn Englishman, who breaks from the reigns of cliched Bond girls and actually comes across as a three-dimensional, intelligent female in the land of Bond. Who would have thought? If this is to be the last round for both Craig and Mendes, it sure is a fine way to call it a day, with Spectre being pretty much everything a Bond fan in the 21st century would want from the opening credits. Farewell Mr Craig and Mr Mendes, it's been emotional. Unless you do one more. Please. Please do.

Overall Score: 9/10

Josh's Review

Bond Is Back! (Couldn't help myself with that) to finish what was started all that time ago in Casino Royale (2006), which luckily I decided to watch the previous night at 01:00 in preparation, and if I had the time I would have watched Quantum of Solace and Skyfall but I digress. In terms of Spectre therefore, I have to start with that opening. It isn't a Bond film without a slow song mixed in with silhouette ladies dancing along. I personally loved it with the visuals mixing in well with Sam Smith's chart-topping single “Writings on the Wall” which felt like it was written directly for the film and is one of the reasons why I am listening to it now non-stop as I write this review. Back to gadgets (*Face palm*) where despite in Skyfall Q saying they had gone past explosive pens and other absurdities, here we are only one film later with explosive watches! A problem with gadgets is that they are always used in obvious situations and act almost like the "get out of jail free card" on a monopoly board, resulting in such tropes feeling as if the film-makers were trying to justify product placement by giving it an actual role, which of course will result in hundreds of people attempting to buy such objects (Yes, I did have a look myself). 

Daniel Craig's Bond this time feels much more refined than he was in Skyfall with Craig being back in top form in both athleticism and wit, therefore being much more comparable to previous Bonds instead of the raw violence seen in his previous outings. Oscar winner Christoph Waltz’s performance as Oberhauser was enjoyable to watch however, I was disappointed with how the character was written. It seems we are back to villains seemingly playing tempestuously with their food (James Bond) who in the meantime share their master plan away whilst giving too many chances for the hero to escape. I mean come on, what was the point of that torture scene, a scene which felt weak in comparison to Casino Royale's chair and bollocks scene, with Spectre's particular torture scene having few too many chances where Bond could easily slip his head out from the chair. Throughout the course of the movie, Oberhauser had more than enough chances to put a bullet in him and even had the chance to destroy him once for all in the final act. I mean  why not set the bomb for 2 minutes and fly away instead? 

The car chase with Mr Hinx (Dave Bautista) was a fairly big disappointment with it being more comical than action based, with the chase itself rife with comical perseverance in which it hardly showed what the cars are capable of. Another example of undermining the action for comedy would be in Mexico City, in which we witness Bond falling through decaying buildings only to land square on a conveniently placed sofa. Yes comical, however incredibly childish. Not all of the action within Spectre was lacklustre however, with the fight scene with Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista) in particular being by far one of my favourite scenes of the movie, with the sheer amount of destruction against a towering foe is what I love about Daniel Craig's portrayal of Bond. Furthermore, some of the jump-cuts between locations felt unexplained with vital clues seemingly being partially pulled out of a hat, making following some parts of the plot very difficult, to an extent that I would have to re-watch it in order to understand it completely, with the major one for me being linking the previous Bond villains just with single ring. I mean if it was the symbol on the face of the ring couldn't they have linked all of these previous threats before without the ring? Surely so with one of them actually managing to kill the the previous "M" and blow up MI5. 

Spectre seems to be returning Bond to its' organic roots, with more wit than destructive violence, and with gadgets popping up Bond's sleeve and into his car, something of which the old Bond fan in me loves, however it isn't the Bond film I was expecting with Daniel Craig. Yes, you could argue that such tropes and traits is the result of his character growing into the older Bond we know, however his violent side was what we loved about him in the 21st century. Although the plot does seem to jump around quite heavily and it features some poor 1940's villain writing, Spectre was highly enjoyable but I hope that's that with Daniel Craig's portrayal of Bond, with Spectre being a good note to leave Bond behind, particularly with Craig's recent outbursts about regretting being Bond in the first place.

Overall Score: 7/10

Pete's Review

As Dan has so elegantly described, Spectre harks back to its origins with its classic villains, witty banter and excessive action scenes. It was a very enjoyable film and sits as a very good blockbuster but personally, its sits outside of Daniel Craig's Bond. When Craig first appeared on the scene, audiences were skeptical. A blonde hair, blue eyed Bond was very much out of the ordinary but he turned that around with Casino Royale and reinvigorated the series with a sense of realism and darkness that we'd never seen before in this particular universe. In Skyfall we actually get a far grittier and darker tale. Javier Bardem is his usual fantastic self, creating an extreme threat that even worries Bond and puts him through hell. Christoph Waltz in Spectre is the apparent mastermind behind the operation and Bond's cruel luck that has seen him dragged through hell, but in reality, he isn't scary. His background story is so cringe worthy, it seemingly fell from the latest teen flick, full of teen angst and jealousy of another child. Josh also speaks volumes for the progression of the story. It often felt that we moved too quickly. Links were being established and any sort of reasoning behind it was ignored. A simple ring linked to every villain Bond has faced so far through a somewhat over complicated scanning device and being the longest one so far, you'd suspect that it wouldn't have been such an issue.

The classic Bond element didn't hit me. After Skyfall, a lot could have been done and I feel that choosing to stray from the metric was a really poor idea. Daniel Craig has also been very vocal about not wanting to play the character any more as he hates him. It seems as if this is the straw that broke the camels back. The dramatic shift from a character torn apart by loss and the realities of his job only to be swept under the rug and made jolly with a lot of sarcasm and a new women. As a Bond movie, it was great. For a Daniel Craig Bond flick, it was alright. Visually the film is stunning and the action scenes were fantastic. The Aston Martin DB10 should have got a little more show time for the press it received but what little of it we saw was great fun. Some points with the awful taste in music of 009 and the empty ammo canisters screamed fond memories of Rowan Atkinson's Johnny English and classic bond humour. The opening's explosive Day of the Dead scene with the aero acrobatics of a helicopter over the heavily populated area was amazing. Its not something we see very often and will probably sit with me for quite some time as one of the best stunt scenes of recent years. Although these are the guys who received the world record for most rolls of a car in a single take from Casino Royale so its fairly understandable that they could pull something like this off. 

However, Spectre did have its cheesy moments, the final scene on the bridge in particular shunned the Bond of the past for Rom-com Bond. For me, I sit right on the wall. The run up and the hype was all well and good but I expected a darker, more emotional tale with a villain that was truly genius and mad as can be. What I got was a throwback to the classics that was fun but didn't bowl me over. Visually and musically the whole spectacle was awesome and Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall" is an amazing theme song, albeit not as powerful as Adele's "Skyfall" or Chris Cornell's " You Know My Name" but it captured the essence of what I really wanted from this.

Pete's score - 8/10

Overall Score: 8/10

Assassin's Creed Syndicate - Anything is better than Unity - Xbox One Review!

It's that time of year again when our wallets and purses are left crying in the corner of the room, vacant and hollow - AKA: The greatest time of year for gamers. Triple A titles are raining down on us and today we start this with the first entry, Assassin's Creed Syndicate.

Follow in on from the resounding success of Unity *cough*, Ubisoft continue the annual outing with Syndicate. Based in London in the late 1800's we join Jacob and Evie Frye. Assassin twins with no direct connection to those from previous iterations but raised by an assassin family. Their mission is to remove the tyranny of the Templars from London and finish the grand master Starrick for good...So like every other game. In the current time line, we are back with Shaun trying to find another precursor artefact. Just this time we watch them through some floating camera drone cut scene that does nothing to progress the story or add anything vaguely interesting. It seems as if Ubisoft needed some sort of validation about what they were doing so they can keep this train a'rollin'. So, here we have it. A linear story with the same formula, rinse and repeat. Its alright if you ignore the simple changes that have gone into creating it. Like CIA black ops files, there are thick black lines over names and places and then Ubisoft takes it, rolls a dice and there you have it, your characters and location done. We've seen as of late that they're picking up on this and are trying to diversify gameplay to reinvigorate the fan base. We see with Chronicles: China that they've been struggling to maintain the hype that was once reserved for their epic Ezio cut scene trailers layered with staggering music by now switching the gameplay dramatically to a stealth based platform/side-scroller. However, Syndicate hasn't done anything new. In all honesty, its actually removed one of the more popular mechanics which was the sailing (don't lie, everyone loved sailing the seas and blowing shit up in their OP boats). Understandably boating in London in the late 1800's isn't that easy but they have worked on liberation of rival camps and regions with your trusty rope launcher. That's fun. Liberating an entire borough on London of its Templar/Blighters gang ends with a big brawl between you, your crew, the Blighters/Templars and the areas boss, unless you've already chased them down and spread them across the pavement with your carriage. Roughly 10vs10, the fight can end very quickly if you're quick to catch the leader prior to the fight. Constantly upgrading and crafting new weapons and tools means you're almost always ahead of them in fire power, most notably gun wise.

As ever, combat within the AC universe has always been extremely fun and violent. Finishers and multi-kills are now even more brutal which also intelligently use the wider environment to pierce your enemy to the wall or make them into your newest desk accessory. Multi-kills aren't very often and require a setup so they don't become tiresome to watch or do and the general assassinations are fantastic. Kicking the shit out of people is just so fun but every action seems to be a some super human speed that is impossible to achieve with such weaponry. However, it seems that every police officer, Templar and gang member knows the main characters. So the super secret assassins of the secret order are known by everyone in London and their hideout is as subtle as a streaker at Sunday Mass. This winds me up to no end. You cannot walk though a neighbourhood without drawing the attention of 20 people, murdering them and moving on rapidly only to get caught out again a few blocks down the road. Any reason to beat the shit out of someone I guess. Yet we do not have a non-lethal way to progress. If an objective says not to kill a police officer, I have to kidnap them individually and knock them out away from all their friends one by one. I'm sure if you have the patience to do it meticulously, you'll find some way of bullshitting it but if you're like me, flooding a quarter of London in Templar blood was far more appealing. I tell you what is not appealing though, the shitty boss fight at the end which is a simple sequence motion that is repeated 3 or 4 times with slight variations with an illogical starting point for the character in relation to the cut scenes. Now here is the real kicker, its not too buggy. I had my fair share of bugs the crashed my game, killed me and made progress through zones very difficult. One of those is when you enter combat and all attacks to nothing. You run about trying to get hit but you can't do anything to stop it. Then we have the various audio bugs that didn't sync with the on screen animations and the invisible enemies that you've managed to morph with the wall. But, nothing game breaking and in regards to Unity, that's a winner.

Visually the environment was stunning. Landmarks and set pieces looked amazing and a certain WW1 memory sequence created some even more amazing pieces and interactions. Now, I play on an

Xbox One, the lower spec of the next gen consoles and I'd presume that my experience is far less than that of the PS4 in comparison. Character variation was good but the city is so big, you see many of the same people hanging around and you've probably killed the same guys over and over. My only gripe visually is fluidity. Anything the characters touch that isn't their uniform is stiff, like cardboard and the hair isn't even smooth, in fact you can visibly see the pixels that make the strands of Evie's hair. Its nice to see a female character in the main character slot but other female characters that originated in the gangs that were heads of the groups felt as if they were trying too hard to appeal to that section and really impacted the reality of what women actually had to fight for. The aim to put female characters in the games are fantastic moves, especially in the Creed and the Templars but the general gang populace, it wasn't that way and feels more like pandering to the extreme voices. We do get a cheeky mention of women's rights in the bonus WW1 mission which was very amusing and actually addressed the situation in a historical aspect that doesn't shun the past but brings light to the horrors of the past. By all means, I don't believe the games to be 100% historically correct but it brushed the social issues of the time under the rug by acting like it never happened and created an idealistic image in a fairly distopian story that still shows children being worked to the bone by factory bosses.

I wouldn't say I come into the AC universe to see the best voice actors in the industry create art but the script needs to match with facial movements and convey the correct emotions where necessary but often enough Evie's mouth moved very little and emotion was lacking, but in all fairness, the stories and characters weren't so engaging that you could immerse yourself into the world and feel for the characters. Some felt rather attached to the sibling disputes while I felt them more of a nuisance and that the relationship wasn't explored enough to get a solid grasp of who these people are, its only towards the end of the game that we actually hear any mention of their parents real names and a history on them but still nothing on our protagonists apart from the fact that Jacob smashes shit up, Evie fixes it. It felt more like a big blockbuster action movie that priorities excitement and general fun over script, dialogue and character depth and if I'm honest, I'm okay with that. Its been fun and I will certainly be going back to experience some more of the extra missions, potentially more WW1 missions and generally beating the shit out of people. How is that not fun!?

Worth the pick up - 7/10

Let us know in the comments below of what you think of Assassin's Creed Syndicate and head over to our Youtube channel to watch all the shit I do over there!

Film Review: Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension

"I Should Have Stayed At Mum's..."

When it comes to a juggernaut of a release such as Spectre, there is always a few films that attempt to grab the minorities attention and attempt to sway them away from Mr Bond and his exploding watch. Unfortunately for those who part of such a minority, one of the few films release side-by-side Spectre this week is Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, the newest and supposedly last incarnation of the well-worn found footage franchise that began all the way back in in 2009 with Paranormal Activity, which to be fair was rather creepy and overtly intelligent, satisfyingly so considering its' tightrope budget was well and truly recuperated around a million times over by audiences via word of mouth and critical praise rather than overblown advertisements and propaganda. Once the first film was seen as a highly effective money-making scheme, producers decided to repeat the process over and over and over again with The Ghost Dimension proving to be the final nail in the coffin of the original which in effect has been completely tarnished by the reputation of its' successors. 

Paranormal Activity 2? Pants. Activity 3? Bit better. Activity 4? Real pants. The Marked Ones? Completely pointless. Am I missing anything? Do I care? No. Neither seemingly do the film-makers of The Ghost Dimension who seem not to realise that the overly boring setup of found footage films nowadays is really starting to become rather grating with The Ghost Dimension ticking all of the many boxes of what you expect with such a movie. People filming the house? Check. Cleaning the lens? Check. Wobbly, shaky, running scenes? Check. Camera catching no-so-creepy entity and then people looking at it again therefore repeating the same scene twice just so our so called cast can catch up with stuff we have already seen? Check. Get the picture? The one redeeming feature of The Ghost Dimension is that it puts to bed the overly tedious and overstretched plot-lines that apparently connects all of the Paranormal series, something of which I couldn't care less about but does make me happy that we will never see any shaky-cam captures of the demonic and stupidly named Toby ever again. 

Overall Score: 2/10 

TV Review: Doctor Who Series Nine Episode Six "The Woman Who Lived"

"You'll Have To Remind Me, What's Sorrow Like?"

If last week's episode of Doctor Who attempted to cram in as much craziness as humanly possible, with electric eels, spider mines, testosterone craving alien race, and of course, Arya Stark, then this week's concluding half of the story of Ashildr, was much more composed and carefully designed to focus on the possibility of immortality from someone else's point of view, rather than that of the wandering Time Lord who seems all too secure with the notion that he may just carry on travelling around the galaxy for eternity. What "The Woman Who Lived" attempted to embrace was the notion that immortality and the chance to live throughout Earth's long and arduous history is in fact a terrifying nightmare, with young Ashildr, played tremendously once again by Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams, facing the fact that all her gift brings her is heartbreak and pain. Kudos must surely go to not only the writers and the actors, but the general distributors of this particular episode in the form of the BBC who even though are continued to be getting a hard time in the press, continue their argument for success with the balls out approach in releasing an episode of Doctor Who that wasn't all spaceships and mud monsters and instead focused on the coldness of loss and the painful nature of death.

Such a notion of death and loss was clearly emphasised to reach out to the impending departure of Jenna Coleman as long-serving assistant Clara Oswald, who even though only showed up in the last few minutes of this week's episode, had just enough screen-time to emphasise that her bubbly demeanor and classy Blackpudlian accent will well and truly be missed by everyone, particularly The Doctor himself, who ended the episode staring at our beloved companion with a sense of sadness in the knowledge that he well and truly knew the answer to Ashildr's question of how many Clara's had been lost throughout the Doctors' own long lifespan. Ultimately, the slight reservations of the episode was when it duly swerved off course from the deep characterisation study and then remembered it was in fact a science-fiction show, resulting in a concluding act that felt rather rushed and wholly out of place for an episode in which the first half was truly something rather genius in retrospect and different from the usual swing of Doctor Who, something of which we look like getting more of next week with the return of the Zygons. Solid Who once again, this season is one to keep an eye on.

Overall Score: 8/10

TV Review: Doctor Who Series Nine Episode Five "The Girl Who Died"

"Immortality Means Watching Everyone Else Die..."

Five weeks into this latest series of Doctor Who and it is fair to say that this week's episode, written two-fold by both chief writer Steven Moffat and Jamie Mathieson, the mastermind behind two of last series' best episodes in "Mummy On The Orient Express" and "Flatline", is completely bonkers. Not only are we rushed straight between space, spider mines, and Vikings within the space of five minutes, but "The Girl Who Died" also featured not one, but two fake reincarnations of Odin, with the latter screaming an oath to Valhalla in a similar vein to the War Boys in Mad Max: Fury Road, an alien battle fleet known as the Mire, and Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams as the mysterious Ashildr, who although carried speculation of being someone of vital importance to the Doctor such as Susan Foreman or someone of similar familiarity, simply was in the end, a Viking girl, albeit a rather extraordinary one who is set to feature quite a bit in the concluding part next week.

In the midst of all this complete and utter mayhem, which although was pretty darn fun from the outset, resulted in a overly flashy, if rather underdeveloped episode in terms of certain aspects such as character development and plot threads (I mean is it just me, or did the reasoning behind the creation of the massive eel thing seem rather brushed over?), is the performance from Peter Capaldi who once again showed the flawless nature in which he can divert his incarnation of the travelling time lord from the humorous, sarcastic stick insect, to the snarling, emotion-riddled old alien that he is, with the speeches in which he explains the curse of immortality and the realisation of why his face is something in which is overly familiar, a real standout of the episode. As for immortality, this week's cliffhanger showed how such may have affected one young viking girl in particular with next week once again setting up a whole new range of questions that need to be adequately answered. Man, I'm glad these two-parters are back.

Overall Score: 8/10

Film Review: Crimson Peak

"Beware Of Crimson Peak..."

Sometimes a film can be so incredibly mouthwatering and exciting, whether it be a release from a new favourite director, a return to acting from an esteemed actor or actress, or even something as minute as a certain film featuring a song that you admire on the soundtrack, (take Muse on the World War Z soundtrack for instance; a mediocre movie but one that holds a place deep in my heart for the use of one Muse song) that no matter what the final result is in terms of the film's overall critical appeal, such a film is always set to be brilliant in the eyes of a small contingency of followers. In the case of Crimson Peak, the hype-train was well and truly boarded months back when I realised the core ingredients was made up of director and writer Guillermo Del Toro, the visionary mastermind behind the pretty-much perfect Pans Labyrinth and other horror pieces such as The Devils' Backbone and The Orphanage, if only on production duties, and the holy trinity of recent acting favourites of Mia Wasikowska (Stoker), Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers, Only Lovers Left Alive) and Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, The Martian). Sound too good to be true? Indeed, with Crimson Peak not being a case of complete disappointment, but something that seemingly had all the tools to become a masterpiece on the same level as Pans Labyrinth yet ultimately, has failed to become so. 

After the idealistic young novelist Edith Cushing (Wasikowska) falls in love with the dashing, if rather mysterious Sir Thomas Sharpe (Hiddleston), much to the disdain of her father Carter Cushing (Jim Beaver), she decides to accept his hand in marriage and follow him to his place of residence, the rustic, ancient Allerdale Hall in Cumbria, England, home not only to Thomas but to his sister Lucille (Chastain) who is reluctant at the thought of her brothers' choice in marriage. Living in the screeching, clay-ridden confines of Sharpe's mansion, Edith begins to witness a wide range of activity from both the abnormal and paranormal, with her husband and newly proclaimed sister-in-law perhaps hiding their true intentions for Edith and her involvement in the prophetic notion of the cryptic and titular Crimson Peak. In terms of the films' successes, both costume and production design are enigmatic and entirely flawless, with the construction of the dying, decomposing Allerdale Hall being a sight to behold and arguably being the star of the show, with the design being made to within an inch of its' life and surely bringing with it a well-deserved Oscar nod and hopefully, win.

Within the success of the production, it's a shame that Del Toro couldn't have as much time on the script, with the plot to Crimson Peak being rather cliched and wholly un-original, something of which made the surprises not entirely surprising and the creepy, if rather obvious foreshadowing. rather plodding, resulting in a conclusion that was quite inevitable, something of which I can't can't quite comprehend from the director and writer of the wonderfully complex and deliciously dark Pans Labyrinth. Even with the minimal plot in hand, each of the three leads make the most of the script they are given and fully embrace the Gothic romantic nature of the film's tone, with Wasikowska and Hiddleston being undeniably perfect in their casting, albeit if sometimes the chemistry between the two did seem rather off, perhaps due to the ambiguous nature of Sharpe's true intentions. Pans Labyrinth it is not, but Crimson Peak remains a rather gorgeous experience in terms of its' visual presentation yet suffers from a rather underwhelming script, resulting in a flawed but fun piece of cinema that manages to explore the heavily-examined Gothic theme in the hands of Del Toro. 

Overall Score: 7/10

TV Review: Doctor Who Series Nine Episode Four "Before The Flood"

"Who Composed Beethoven's 5th?"

Beginning this week's latest episode of The Doctor's travels in time and space was an unusual change of atmosphere with the fourth wall being well and truly broken by Mr. Capaldi in a vein that heavily reminded me of John Normington in The Caves of Androzani when, after misunderstanding the script and stage direction, directly addresses the viewer with his lines, much to the enjoyment of both the producers and die-hard Doctor Who fans across the globe who all agree in coherence that Peter Davison's farewell was rather splendid indeed, with that scene in particular being one to remember. Although "Before The Flood" is not entirely in the league of classics that include "The Caves of Androzani", the concluding part of Toby Whithouse's two-parter definitely attempted to stir the brain-cells with more mind-bending timey-wimey action, a frightening, if underused, monster-of-the-week, and a final moment to ponder upon cemented around the confounding notion of The Bootstrap Paradox, a theory in which the fourth wall was shattered down and explained to the audience by the guitar-wielding Twelfth Doctor of whom we all are beginning to cherish and love.

If last week's episode upped the ante on the scares and solidified a focus on character development, aiming towards more of a direction of horror, then "Before The Flood" chose to replace such with full-out monster mayhem; think Aliens rather that Alien, with The Fisher King being a ominous presence from start to finish, who although seemed way too much of a physical threat for The Doctor and co, was defeated in roundabout fashion, linking back to one of the questions that was being asked right from the start of Whithouse's two parter; what or who is in the stasis chamber? Surprisingly, all of the remaining questions that were left hanging at the conclusion of "Under The Lake" were all dealt with in a satisfactory fashion, particularly the origin of The Doctor's ghost form and the real point of the creepy apparitions in the first place. Where the episode ultimately succeeded however, was the way in which the origin of the Bootstrap Paradox, in which the legend of Beethoven was well and truly questioned, fashionably attempted to cover all the holes opened wide by the timey-wimey nature of Whithouse's script, emphasised by the final shrug and smirk of the Doctor, who, like us, must have been pondering on whether his meddles in time and space actually do make sense after all.

Overall Score: 8/10 

Film Review: Sicario

"Welcome To Juarez..."

Back in early January when Denis Villeneuve's mind-warping thriller Enemy was released, it began a spur of excitement towards a director who although had already began to make waves to a wider audience with Prisoners, was quietly going under the radar making enthralling and, against the norm of the money-making syndicate that is Hollywood in the 21st century, intelligent works of art. If Enemy left me with a sense of sheer fright at the sight of its' ever so creepy final scene, then Villeneuve's latest Sicario takes it up a notch, and then some, with Villeneuve not in any way being tempted to resort to the crash-bang-wallop of recent thrillers deriving from the US, which although may result in a stack load of money, usually ends up being particularly forgettable piles of tripe in the long run, something of which cannot be said of Sicario, a film so enriched in tension and threat that if it were not for it being advertised as being a stone-cold thriller, could easily be regarded as a first-class horror, designed to tickle the senses from head to toe.

When a kidnapping raid in Chandler, Arizona goes horrendously wrong, FBI Agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt, Looper, Edge of Tomorrow) is quickly tasked with the shady, if enigmatic, Department of Defense adviser Matt Graver (Josh Brolin, No Country For Old Men, Everest) in an attempt to dismantle the enraging cartel activity behind the raid's failure, During her venture into the ambiguous nature of her involvement with Graver, Macer comes into contact with his partner, Alejandro Gillick (Benicio Del Toro, Traffic, Sin City) a silent and secretive agent who is reluctant to share his involvement in the operation, Delving deeper and deeper into the heart of gangland territory, Kate begins to suspect that all is not what it seems with her life becoming more and more in danger the deeper she treads into the real objectives of both Graver and Gillick. Sound gripping? And oh boy is it, with not one, but three set pieces in particular within Sicario actually managing to make my heart beat at a higher rate than normal, something of which hasn't occurred since maybe Ben Wheatley's Kill List, a dark and mysterious thriller/horror that has many positive links with Villeneuve's latest, with both featuring an engrossing story that forgets the spoon-fed nature of a mass audience and instead focuses on natures both ambiguous and unknown.

The three set pieces? A congested motorway. A pitch black tunnel. A last supper. All scenes in which silence is played upon to the extreme and tension is rammed up to the max, helped significantly by top-of-their-game acting from the three main leads in the form of Blunt, Del Toro, and Brolin, all of whom should regard Sicario as a true statement of their own individual acting pedigree with Blunt's portrayal as the ambitious and rather curious Macer a true indication of her diverse acting ability (Into The Woods, The Devil Wears Prada). Stars of the show however belong to both Del Toro as the incredibly stone-cold Gillick, his best role in years, and cinematographer Roger Deakins, the Devon-born artist who even though after doing brilliant work on The Shawshank Redemption, Skyfall, and basically the entire Coen Brothers back catalogue, has still failed to win an Oscar, may finally get his chance to proclaim supremacy with his latest offering. Take it from me, Sicario looks beautiful with Deakins' work effectively adhering to and empowering the dark and deadly nature of the film's atmosphere resulting in a film that isn't just your everyday thriller, its' a film laced with horror tropes from start to finish and ultimately results in one leaving the cinema both shaking in fear and gawping in amazement, a solid thumbs up in anyone's opinion.

Overall Score: 9/10

Film Review: Macbeth

"All Hail Macbeth"

Wow. Style and substance hand in hand usually results in a magnum opus of a movie for a particular director, actor, screenwriter etc, etc., and with the perfect synchronisation and combination of all things great and where everything hits top form in regards to what really makes a movie tick, whether it be the screenplay, the acting, cinematography or whatever, usually such a cinematic experience is one that will live long in the memory of not only those that watch it, but those wholly involved in its' creation. In the case of Macbeth therefore, director Justin Kurzel has developed something quite extraordinary on the face of it, a Shakespearean tragedy soaked two-fold in the dank, dark and deadly atmosphere of blood and fire, something of which could easily be mistaken for a work of art rather than a film with it already being the first film of the year to make me watch consecutively in the space of two days or so with its' sheer bravery and extraordinary execution being something remarkable and rather, out-of-this world. 

Following the classical Shakespearean tragedy of Mr. Macbeth and his scorpion-filled mind to a T, Kurzel's vision takes advantage of the blood-filled crazed tale of lust, power, greed and revenge by not only ramping up the violence to eleven, but also emphasising the eerie nature of the classic tale by use of picturesque cinematography which stylizes the film in an overly oppressive yet wholly magnanimous fashion, similar to that of Ben Wheatley's Kill List, a film so dour and ominous in its' nature that to sit through it is a rather pressing experience. Although Macbeth may fundamentally be a overtly depressing and tragic tale of traumatic proportions, Kurzel's vision of such a tale seems to take such tragedy to levels of enraged extremity, resulting in a film that inevitably will not be for everyone but for me was a beautiful and enlightening experience that was not afraid to take its' time or resort to slow-motion scenes of death and murder, all of which were signs of Macbeth's deteriorating conscious and psyche.

At the heart of the movie is two spellbinding performances by Fassbender and Coltillard as Lord and Lady Macbeth respectively, with each bringing their A-Game truly to the acting table, with Fassbender's pain-stricken King swiftly developing from the acclaimed war hero to the feared tyrannical madman in the space of just under two hours in superb fashion, whilst Coltillard's Lady Macbeth can only sit back and revel in the crazed creation of her own doing, much to her inevitable downfall. Oscar nominations I hear you say? I would have thought so, especially with the superb acting, flawless directing, art-house esque cinematography, and obviously brilliant script all combining in bringing a 21st century take on the Shakespearean classic to the big screen in glorious fashion. One of the best films of the year? Most definitely. Go check it out. 

Overall Score: 9/10 

TV Review: Doctor Who Series Nine Episode Three "Under The Lake"

"They're Ghosts! Yeah, Ghosts!"

I can't help but think that the amount of influence that Peter Capaldi has had since his arrival as the formidable, highly sarcastic, yet inherently heartwarming Twelfth Doctor is one of the few reasons why in the latest series of Doctor Who, we are being treated to a wider range of two-part stories, an obvious hark back to the classic era of Doctor Who where stories were not just told over the course of a brief 45 minute stint, but in fact, over the course of weeks leading into months. Take one of my favourite Doctor Who stories for example in the form of Jon Pertwee's Inferno, a story so laced with atmosphere and tension, that to squeeze it all into a shorter amount of time would have no-doubt have prevented it from the classic Who story it has become, and ironically enough, this weeks' adventure into an underwater base features a heavy breeze of old school Who, something of which those who love the classic era were bound to enjoy regardless of its' rather over-lapping familiarity. 

Although ghosts, yeah, actual ghosts, may not have been privy to the Doctor and his travels thus far in his many years of exploration, other parts of "Under The Lake" surely must have felt extremely familiar to the self-proclaimed madman in a box, with the setting of a scarce, cut-off base being something that has been presented before ("The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit") whilst the cliffhanger in which we see our beloved Doctor take the form of a other-worldly style doppelganger being an almost complete mirror image of the cliffhanger to the Matt Smith two-parter, "The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People". Aside from the overly familiar tropes of "Under the Lake", the episode was actually quite creepy on occasions, with the scene in which our beloved heroes attempt to trap the ghostly entities overly nail-biting whilst the ways in which the crew were being slowly picked off was indeed quite alarming, adhering to the "darker side" of NuWho which the show has attempted to swing towards. 

Within all the hammer-horror moments of the episode was Capaldi at his sharpest, with the Doctor's intense amount of knowledge and experience being truly put to the test in the face of an unknown danger, whilst the scene in which Clara helps the Doctor act out his more human side with the aid of different cue-cards, wholly entertaining and suiting Capaldi's take on the Doctor to a capital T. Of course, acting as a first of a two-part episode, "Under The Lake" essentially involved a heck of a lot of buildup for the conclusion of the story next week which sometimes made the episode drag ever so slightly, but if the teaser for next week is anything to go by, the second two-part story of this current season of NuWho is set to be something rather magical. 

Overall Score: 8/10 

Film Review: The Martian

Life On Mars

When the first theatrical trailer for Ridley Scott's new sci-fi movie The Martian was released to the world a few months back, the two-minute clip was so spoiler-heavy in terms of some rather important plot points, you could have been easily forgiven for not choosing to pay to watch what essentially might have been a two and a half hour extension of the ideas highlighted in that particularly short amount of time, and when a following six-minute trailer for the film was released soon after the first, I completely blocked it in order to save some of the excitement for the film's release. If you were one of the many who chose to watch The Martian in its' six-minute release format, I can't imagine you could have been overly impressed by the complete package, with it, like Everest recently, suffering from the now-familiar problem that its' core shocks and storylines were overtly spoiled before the film's release in a vain attempt to sell the film to the masses via that of a trailer, something of which detracts the film from the excellence it could have possibly become.

When the NASA led Ares III manned mission to Mars is forced to retreat due to heavy storms and dangerous weather, astronaut and acclaimed botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is left for dead on the planet after being hit by debris, yet soon after, NASA realise Watney is in fact alive and well on the planet after surviving the accident and is now attempting to survive on Mars for the duration of time it takes until the next scheduled NASA mission lands. Using the wide range of expertise of both Watney and those back on Earth, the two combine in an attempt to accomplish the miracle of getting Watney back home, a destination all of 33 million miles away. Directed by the genius that is Ridley Scott, creator of two of my favourite films of all time in the form of Blade Runner and Alien, The Martian proves to be one of his better works in recent times but ultimately fails to touch the greatness of some of his most prestigious work whilst feeling indirectly and unfortunately familiar to the masterpiece that was last year's Interstellar, with the film even going so far as having some of the same actors (Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain) whilst having an unbelievably uncanny plot point that derives straight from last years' Nolan epic (Matt Damon being stranded alone on a alien planet).

Areas in which the film succeeds is the way in which Damon's portrayal of the lone astronaut Mark Watney is strongly handled with him neither passing into the realm of annoyance or boredom and instead being an interesting and well-developed character throughout, whilst the interaction of geeks and gargantuan space-filled characters on Earth was also highly enjoyable with a wide range of unexpected comedic content, aside from the inclusion of Donald Glover's Rich Purnell whose annoying ten-minute inclusion almost ruined every scene in which he was present. Excellent also was the presentation of the desperate wasteland that is Mars, with Dariusz Wolski's cinematography being on tip-top form when confronted with the planet's desolate surroundings. The main problem in my opinion with The Martian, aside from it being around twenty-minutes too long, was there was no real sense of threat for the character of Mark Watney, with it being blindingly obvious that his escape from Mars was set to be a successful venture, something of which was rather disappointing, whilst the sometimes cheesy script and dialogue (That Iron Man scene...Eugh) resulted in The Martian being a solid return for Sir Ridley, but nothing actually that spectacular on the face of it. 

Overall Score: 7/10