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The latest Disney remakes has given rise to “Alice in Wonderland,” “Maleficent,” “Cinderella,” and “The Jungle Book,” each receiving a variety of reviews. However, revamping one of the most popular childhood classics into a live-action picture is a dangerous task to take on, especially when that classic was the first and only animated feature film to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in history. The animation has gained a colossal following the last twenty-six years for its portrayal of female independence and integrity, along with the captivating soundtrack that won Alan Menken an Oscar. Naturally expectations were high for Disney’s revival of “Beauty and the Beast.”
Emma Watson trades her wand for books as Belle, a young woman who fights against female stereotypes and social norms in the French town of Provincial. Besides playing a lead role in one of the world’s most successful franchises, Watson is a dedicated UN’s Women’s Goodwill Ambassador, promoting gender equality and girl’s education. She is also the founder of ‘Our Shared Shelf,’ a feminist book club that focuses on equality and female empowerment—to say she embodied the character Belle is an understatement. Fans of “Downton Abbey” may notice Dan Stevens as the Beast, the enchanted prince whose freedom depends on the requited love of another.
A contemporary twist is taken to include Disney’s first LGBT character, LeFou, played by the Josh Gad, known for voicing Olaf (Frozen.) The bumbling sidekick to Luke Evans’ impressive Gaston has received a very mixed reaction. Some praised the representation. Others questioned the flamboyant choice of character for the momentous moment. But Disney have stood by their choice, refusing to allow countries with strict laws on homosexuality to cut scenes of LeFou and Gaston to appease viewers. In this modern time, Disney seem to be progressing away from outdated misrepresentations of women, sexuality, and diversity.
Although the film is stays true to the animation, some aspects fail to hit the mark. The iconic theme song, “Tale as Old as Time,” is sung by John Legend and Ariana Grande, a rather disappointing upgrade from Angela Lansbury’s original as Mrs. Potts. Ewan Mc Gregor’s French accent as Lumiere is somewhat appalling. And the Beast’s relationship with his father is hammered home with flashbacks and Mrs. Potts explanations.
The adaptation also expands both Belle’s and the Beast’s past. Screenwriters Stephen Chobsky (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”) and Evan Spiliotopoulos (“Hercules”) attempt to fill in the blanks left behind in the animation, one of which is their mutual absent mother figure. The movie also features three new songs written by the mastermind behind the original soundtrack, Alan Menken, with lyrics from Tim Rice. The Beast is given his own solo ballad, “Evermore.” “How Does a Moment Last Forever” is a lament of Belle’s past. And the chorus come together for a touching performance of “Days in the Sun.”
Director Bill Condon does a marvellous job in creating a wonderful experience in “Beauty and the Beast.” From set design to costumes, casting, choreography, CGI, and camerawork, Condon manages to capture the beauty and magic instilled in the original. Several scenes are shot-for-shot of the beloved animation, but none are as well done as the transformation. The long-awaited unveiling of the human prince is so nostalgic, a chill of delight is guaranteed to emanate from your heart. But although the live action ticks all the right boxes, I doubt it will remain as timeless as the 1991 animation.
The Flagship Killers are back in less than 12 months of the launch of the One Plus 3T. This time though you can see the prices going up when you look back at the launch prices of One Plus One, Two etc. Read below to find out if it really is a flagship killer…
Take it out of the box and you feel you’ve just purchased a OnePlus 3T with the iPhone 7 Plus stuck at the back. The similarity is striking and disappointing in the beginning since One Plus has always been a bit different from the rest of the lot. The Aluminium unibody and curved glass edge from the front give it a rich feel and though it’s a bit slippery, still comfortable to hold.
The 5.5” screen is still full HD, at a time when other manufacturers are pushing for 4K. It still better than what the OnePlus 3T was hence feels natural and easy on the eyes. It’s got a pre applied screen guard even though it has the break resistant Gorilla Glass 5 screen protection. It's still got the UBC Type C charging port and a 3.5mm jack at the bottom. The Alert Slider button retains its spot on the dual Sim 4G phone and the Home button is still the fingerprint scanner. The 2 color variants available for now are Midnight Black and Space Grey.
Hardware wise, it's got the latest Snapdragon 835 CPU with either 6GB/8GB RAM and 64GB/128GB storage space. Other features include Bluetooth 5.0, NFC and USB OTG. No FM Radio or Wireless charging support unfortunately. Customisation options are plenty on this phone running Oxygen OS on top of Android 7.0. Double tap to wake, 3 finger screen capture, gestures to launch apps when screen is off, adding a shortcut to the Alert Slider button, Reading Mode etc. are some of the many gimmicks on offer.
In terms of Multimedia, the Camera setup is the most talked about feature and it does a pretty good job. The primary sensor at the back is a 16MP f/1.7 shooter while the secondary sensor is a 20 MP f/2.0 shooter which gives 2x optical zoom and useful to capture photos in Portrait mode or add the Bokeh effect. You get all the fancy filters and color effects, and videos can be recorded in 4K upto 10 mins at a stretch. There’s no built in Optical image stabilisation hence shaky hands can lead to shaky videos. The front 16MP camera takes sharp selfies and has a on screen flash for low light/ night shots. It’s not as good as the iPhone 7 Plus but does give it some competition considering it’s half the price!
Games run smoothly and without lag, there’s enough RAM always to have around 30 apps open at the same time and not notice and stuttering. The 3300 mAh battery lasts almost the entire day on moderate usage and thanks to the super fast Dash Charging you’re from 0 to 100 in less than an hour!
If you already have the OnePlus 3 or 3T, I’d say give this one a miss. A better display, waterproofing, Image stabilisation and a better utilisation of the dual camera setup is needed alongside keeping the cost down in order for this device to be a real challenger to the flagships out there.
Kong: Skull Island is the second film in the expanding genre of Expanded Universes after the highly acclaimed 2014 Godzilla movie. Kong : Skull Island stars Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L Jackson, John Goodman, Brie Larson and John C Reilly, but really it could have just been a handful of putties from the original Power Rangers episodes for all the good it does the film. This reboot answers the question of whether or not an entire cast built from the MCU backlog could work if handed a script that is absolute dog shit. The answer is a resounding “kinda”.
The plot is basically what you think, a collection of people want to get to an undiscovered island, they want to be rich and they want to be first to prove the existence of giant monsters. John C Reilly acts as a tour guide to the island after landing there unexpectedly during world war two and going slightly mental while he was at it. The soldiers seem to actually have a tight bond that I liked, but so many of them were very unmemorable, and the film treats them that way as a collection of bad decisions lead to something horrifying, in some case spidery, deaths.
Like it’s current partner Godzilla, the film has a real problem making any of the characters matter, while at the same time handling the Kaiju (see: giant fucking monster) almost perfectly. We already love all these people, and they still don’t matter to us one bit whereas Kong feels like a real animal interacting with the scenery and not just a Roger Rabbit style CGI character, and in many ways ‘it’ is the best actor in the movie.
His gargantuan size in relation to the cast (and in relation to the previous iterations of Kong) would normally make a film hard to scale, but he moves around as if he is comfortable with his size instead of dragging his limbs really slowly in a way that we associate with elephants stealthily moving through treacle. The giant monkey in question has learned to fight, and he fights with knowledge and skill thus making his semi understanding of the human beings make sense in the world. Kong obviously thinks, he obviously plans and he obviously watches UFC.
If you think you have nothing to gain from watching a giant monkey movie, you might come out of this surprised, though still fundamentally correct. I never particularly enjoyed King Kong, Godzilla et al, but somehow have ended up watching quite a lot of them. When the monsters fight in this, which is what it is really about after all, it really is incredibly thrilling, it doesn’t cause the disconnect that I sometimes feel, like watching episodes of Tom and Jerry while a hangover is kicking in before I’ve even been to bed. However I don’t want you to think that Tom and Jerry isn’t amazing it is, just not while I stew in my pants, wine and regret. Or maybe that’s when it’s best, I can’t tell I’m hungover and in my 30s, I am decaying at a remarkable rate.
John C Reilly lifts the film just as it starts to wilt and causes another schizophrenic feeling for me, as he is suitably entertaining, and the cast seem to be very accepting of him, but it kind’ve feels like he thinks he’s in a Will Ferrell movie about war whereas the rest of the cast think they might be in Apocalypse Now. Samuel L Jackson is typically intense in a fun way that harks back to his best Samuel Angry Jackson roles, and acts as a believable reason for stupid decisions and conflict.
Whereas in the original 1933 film, the giant monster was called upon with a gong and an extra long king kong sing-along, this version of Kong is much more proactive as ‘protector of the realm’, like he sees himself as a superhero with great power and responsibility. The rest of the cast, and plot are dripping out’ve my short term memory into an empty Pringles can on the ground as they were not particularly interesting. There’s nothing more painful to watch than a futile self sacrifice and this film has one of my favourites and quickest.
I know a lot of people are wary and skeptical of shared universes but I think we are feeding a machine that is great at the moment, and eventually it’ll stop turning out pure uncut cocaine for the cinema goers, and inevitably start cutting it with talcum powder and old dusty sand (I’m looking at you Universal), but at the moment we should enjoy the ride, this film isn’t perfect, in fact I don’t remember any of it from when I saw it in the cinema but I have discovered that I remember it fondly and it wasn’t the least pleasant thing I discovered that day. (I found out a friend of mine goes to to the cinema, and for snacks, exclusively eats nacho cheese, out’ve a cup with a pen. It’s not good, it’s also not bad, but the best thing that it isn’t, is boring, the pacing of giant monkey violence is perfect and if they learn where the film falls short, it could make the Kong vs Godzilla movie an absolute fucking cunt hoof!
The original Crash Bandicoot came out the day before my 11th birthday, just under 21 years ago... scary thought. It shot Naughty Dog, these days known for the Uncharted series and The Last of Us, into the big leagues. At the time Crash Bandicoot changed the standard of what platform games could do. No longer just going left to right, but now into and towards the screen. This may seems silly now, but in 1996 we were still waiting for Mario 64.
While we've had a lot of HD remasters, for the newer gen consoles, they've mostly just been slight upgrades to textures and framerates. Crash N. Sane Trilogy has been remade from the ground up. Looking comparable to high budget CGI animated movies and yet somehow still feels familiar, like there was no gap in time. Crash faceplants N. Sanity Beach and, a happy, nostalgia kicks in as he shakes himself off and you run into the jungle, jumping and spinning your way through, picking up apples and smashing boxes. Ahh, the 90's.
Vicarious Visions, Best known for making Skylanders ports and the port of Doom 3 for the Xbox, went all out and not only remade the original, but also Crash 2 and Crash 3: Warped. Coco, who was introduced in Crash 2 (but not playable until the third game, and only during certain stages), is now a playable character for all three games, changing things up slightly.
Obviously there has been a lot of improvements to character models and animation, yet they manage to keep it respectable to the original aethstetic. All the original idol and comedic death animations remain. Levels have been massively overhauled. Where a green texture once passed for grass at the side of a stage, is now fully modelled grass and foliage. Dynamic lighting and shadows are used to create, and sometimes change, the mood of a level, along with some new weather effects. The small touch of footprints in the sand (and snow) was welcomed. (Something Infamous: second son didn't do... not that I look for these things...).
The analogue stick can now be used for movement (Crash out dates the Dualshock controller) but I often found myself reverting back to the D-pad for more accuracy, jumping box to box or across gaps, in some of the more precarious sections. Counter to this, there are now extra Checkpoint boxes throughout the levels. Usually placed before and after trickier parts. Dying multiple times from a Checkpoint will now get you an Aku Aku mask, to aid you. The Bonus Stage save system has been replaced with a more forgiving Autosave and the game seems more generous with the amount of Extra Lives you’ll pick up, in general.
The game (on base PS4) runs at 1080p and mostly holds to its 30FPS (frames per second). While the PS4 Pro runs at a higher 1440p, so not quite 4k, and holds the frame rate with ease. The PS4 Pro also has a few other little touches, like, better shadows and some extra lighting occlusion tricks. Both versions look great, though. While everything I've said is positive, there are a few small things that let it down.
An old teaser trailer had the game running at 60FPS. This would have been nice for both the animation and responsiveness to controls, but I guess it was scaled back due to technical limitations.
The playstation originals also ran at 30FPS, so maybe it was also to keep the feel of that.
There is a lot of loading screens... A lot. These aren't CryEngine long, (looking at you, Prey), only around 8-15 seconds. The title screen needs to load, you press start and then it loads again so you can pick which game you want to play... and then that loads.... Then you're loading between levels and the hub world. This doesn't affect the game play, but can get slightly tedious.
Collision detection (and hitboxes) can be an issue at times, often missing the edge of a platform, getting hit by an enemy or stage trap, to no fault of your own. Most basic of all, Crash will sometimes have a problem doing something as simple as jumping on top of a wooden box. One of the main things you’ll be doing a lot of in this game. While the game is great for fans of the originals, like myself, I'm not sure how a newer audience will accept it. This is a 20 year old platform game and plays like one. For good and bad.
Ever wondered why there hasn’t yet been a children’s film about babies that are actually managers and wear tiny suits, whilst hoping to climb up the ranks to get provided with the greatest office space of all time? I’ve gotta admit that it’s not something that’s been at the forefront of my mind (or anyone else’s that I can think of), yet Dreamworks Animation have gone ahead and given it to us anyway.
Tim is a 7-year-old boy who loves being an only child, as it means he gets loads of time with his parents each day. Their family is very tight-knit, until one day Tim meets his newborn baby brother for the first time, who isn’t quite what he was expecting. Meet the Boss Baby – a tiny, suit-wearing corporate who carries a briefcase and is fully able to talk (but only does so when there aren’t adults around). As it turns out babies all come from BabyCorp, a fast-paced baby-making business somewhere inaccessible for regular people. Most babies are destined to become part of a family, yet a small selection of babies make it to management instead. This is what happened to Boss Baby, and so he’s actually on a secret mission to discover and eradicate a threat so big it’s promising to wipe out the idea of babies altogether… a new type of puppy.
Sounds bizarre, right? Well, you’re right if you agree. It’s overly complicated and confusing from the beginning – abstract can be good but I felt this was a bit too leftfield for it to make much sense. I’m not saying it doesn’t work, because it does, but it just isn’t as strong as other plots that have graced our screens recently, such as the slightly similar ‘Storks’, which was both hilarious and ingenious.
The other issue with the plot was that the potential threat of babies being pushed to one side in favour of fluffy puppies isn’t explored enough despite being the main part of the story – it was hard to really vie for Tim and Boss Baby as the consequences of such a thing happening weren’t really explained transparently enough. It’s easy enough for an adult to make the necessary connections but for some kids the plot might become just a side focus of the film at this point.
It is still a good film though, despite this – Tim is a highly likable and relatable main character, especially for kids who have younger siblings and may feel somewhat forgotten about. Boss Baby is also a great character who adults may be able to relate to more, and reminds me slightly of Stewie from ‘Family Guy’ (minus the expletives and the inappropriateness, of course).
My favourite aspect of the film was the clever comparisons between reality and Tim’s imagination – there was a bit of unreliable narrator thrown in, as well as a lot of surreal that provides some great visual imagery. The humour is generally quite funny for all ages although I felt that a lot of the business references would go over kids’ heads – good for adults watching, yet it may detract from the humour for younger watchers.
Interestingly, the big emotional pull that we’ve become used to expecting from Dreamworks and Pixar wasn’t quite there with ‘Boss Baby’, but then that does make quite a nice change for those of us that just want something light-hearted and less focused on teaching an important lesson to the kids.
I’ll admit that I didn’t think ‘Boss Baby’ was going to be that good after watching the initial trailer, but luckily the film proved me wrong. Sure, it’s not going to be film of the year, but it’s still a good watch that both children and adults will enjoy.
The first of the next anthology series of Star Wars spin offs, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” shares the tale of the original rebel spies who managed to steal the plans for the Death Star in a bid to save the galaxy. The movie is a sort-of prequel to “Episode IV: A New Hope,” and focuses on the events surrounding the innovative weapon. Gareth Edwards manages to fuse the essence of the original trilogy with this modern CGI extravaganza that impresses devoted fans and lure the newest generation to the cult following.
Darth Vader is back. Young Princess Leia makes an appearance. And a brand-new squad of heroes fight to save the galaxy. But there are no tauntauns or ewoks to appeal to the younger audience. The plot is designed particularly for adults, progressing similarly to a WWII film. And the final act is one of the most heart-wrenching ground assault space battle scenes to date. So expect plenty of violence, explosions, and heroic sacrifices. Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt) plays Galen Erso, a former Imperial-scientist who flees the Empire after assisting in the design and construction of the Death Star. After his wife’s murder, he is taken into custody, leaving their daughter Jyn is left horrified and presumably orphaned. Fast forward twenty years, Jyn is a blaster-wielding young woman played by Felicity Jones. (The Theory of Everything)
Peripheral characters bring some light-hearted humour to the narrative. Diego Luna (Casa de mi Padre) plays Cassian Andor, the shifty rebel spy. Donnie Yen (IP Man) and Wen Jiang (Let the Bullets Fly) play the comedy duo Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus, the blind rebel with combat skills to outmatch every foe and his former freelance assassin bodyguard. But the most popular character is K2SO, the candid, reprogrammed Imperial droid, part-time protector and part-time getaway driver, who provides brilliant one-liners of his confusion, brilliance, and the least reassuring statistics as he tries to assimilate the rebel world. The diverse misfits create a strong foundation for the narrative to build upon.
Gareth Edwards, the man behind the “Gozilla” reboot, manages to conjure the spiritual motif that has weaved through the franchise in the form of astounding moments. However, Gareth implements the notion of faith more consistently than any of the collection. The characters are continually faced with choices of physical and mental danger from jumping across a metal abyss to trusting possible Imperial spies. Chirrut’s favourite incantation, “I am the force, the force is with me,” shows the importance of belief during moments of jeopardy and uncertainty. Ironically, Chirrut cannot see but everyone else is blind to the higher powers he devotes himself to.
As impressive as “Rogue One” is, there is one crucial element the story lacks—character development. While the secondary characters thrive, Jyn and Diego fail to come across as genuine or as defined. Their emotional peak comes across as slightly forced rather than naturally moving. But the ending is still moving, and probably one of the most realistic and popular of the franchise.
