Saturday, 24 August 2013
I’ll be honest – there haven’t been many
films in the past few months which I’ve loved. The World’s End and Alpha Papa
are up there, but this summer’s blockbusters have, on the whole, been
disappointing – Man of Steel lost its way, Kick-Ass 2 was a disappointment, and
Star Trek Into Darkness made the grave mistake of having some scenes without
Benedict Cumberbatch in. I was, however, looking forward to Elysium, the latest
from South African director Neill Blomkamp. His previous feature, District 9,
was a great example of relatively low-budget science fiction with a real
intelligence to it. After that success, Blomkamp had more money to play with
this time. And he didn’t disappoint.
The year is 2154. The Earth has been
devastated by over-population, global warming, disease, and all those other bad
things that’ll happen in the future. The rich have buggered off to Elysium, a
paradise in space where everyone has a sharp suit, a pretty mansion, and a
machine that can cure any illness. Max De Costa (Matt Damon), meanwhile, is stuck
working in a grimy factory in dangerously downtrodden Los Angeles. When he’s
irradiated in an industrial accident and given five days to live, Max decides
it’s now or never – he’s going to Elysium, and no-one’s stopping him.
It’s a story revolving around a very strong
core concept, which, despite the futuristic setting, is very much rooted in the
here and now. It’s about class divide, the one percent, the importance of
giving aid to poorer societies, and immigration – all very real, very
contemporary issues. The exaggerated divide between Elysium and future-Earth
bolsters this point and gives the film a strong political bite. This political
side is prevalent throughout, but, importantly, doesn’t get in the way of the fighting
and explosions and fun. It’s an adventurous thrill ride that rattles along at a
good pace and strikes the balance between action and allegory very well.
Leading us through all this is Max, who, as
a former car thief, is not the most cut-and-dry of heroes. Indeed, his main
objective for much of the film is simply to stop himself from dying – he just
happens to get caught up in the resistance movement and becomes much more of a
hero. Damon’s a great choice of lead, bringing his Bourne action credentials to
the fore and effectively bringing out the darker complexities of this
character.

What also helps paper over these cracks is
the magnificent visual panache with which Blomkamp brings this story to the
screen. Both the slums of Earth and the fields of Elysium look stunning, and the
director’s talent is really brought out when we delve deeper into these vistas.
From the chunky robot soldiers that police LA to the homemade weapons used by the
resistance, all the technology, costumes, and assorted details of Elysium’s world
really enhance the story; it’s an imaginative and impressive piece of world-building.
Blomkamp shoots this kinetically and excitingly – though I do think his use of
shaky-cam does get excessive, particularly in some of the later action scenes,
rendering them difficult to watch.
It’s not perfect, and I do understand
people who don’t agree with me, but for me, Elysium is sci-fi at its best –
clever, politically charged, beautiful, and thrilling. Neill Blomkamp is a very
talented director and has handled the step-up in budget from District 9 well,
creating a great blockbuster without losing his edge – his films are big and fun, but ultimately about something relevant, and it excites me that these films are being made. I’ll be looking forward
to what he does next. Elysium is exactly what this summer had been missing and
my favourite film of the year so far.
Monday, 12 August 2013
On 12.8.13 by KieronMoore in David Morrissey, gaming, The Walking Dead, video games, zombies No comments

We’re
over-ridden with zombies. Nazi zombies, super-speedy zombies, stripper
zombies. There’s been a massive outbreak of the undead fellas in recent media, but one franchise that has stood out above the rest is The Walking Dead. Not
content with being an acclaimed comic book series and an acclaimed TV
adaptation with David Morrissey in, the series has recently branched into the
world of episodic gaming. I recently snapped up the first season of the game
when I found it heavily discounted on the PSN.
As
convict-turned-zombie-slayer Lee Everett, The Walking Dead places the player in
an original story set in post-zombocalyptic Georgia (if that isn’t a word, it
is now). There’s a good variety to the gameplay; the player must investigate
situations and solve puzzles – how to distract a street full of zombies so as
to get to the key across the road, for example. As you’d expect from such a dangerous world,
there’s also a fair amount of action sequences. The gameplay in the fight
scenes is far from the best shooting in gaming. In fact, in the first few
chapters, when it does show up, the controls needed are unnatural and awkward.
The developers evidently listened to criticisms and fixed the trigger button
for chapter 4 onwards (and had a shooting section right at the start to prove
this). Nevertheless, this is not a shooting game, it’s a puzzle game, and the
biggest puzzle of all is that of building your character’s relationships.
Yes, what I
like about this series is that, like the TV series, the games focus on
character, building up characters and relationships that I really care about.
Sure, in the first episode, I (and about 90% of players) chose to save Carley
over Doug because she’s the hot one, but after another episode, it was becoming
so much more complex than that. I was really starting to form complex opinions
of all the characters – including to what extent I could trust them – that
informed my decisions.

And the
decisions the player makes actually do seem to change the story. That’s often a
problem in games – the game tells the player that their decisions are
important, but it’s clear that any changes made are superficial, or alter
nothing more than which of two final cut-scenes the player sees. A related
problem is that games often give the player a 'right' or 'wrong' choice, with no grey areas, rendering the whole system rather bland and unengaging. I
re-played BioShock recently and, as masterfully plotted as it is, it falls foul
of these two errors. The Walking Dead, on the other hand, doesn’t. Though I
knew the story would inevitably head towards certain plot developments, I
really did feel that my choices were changing the way other characters acted,
even which characters were part of my gang, and it was often difficult to
decide what to do, which characters to side with – there’s a lot of grey area.
Having to form
these opinions and make these decisions meant that the game demanded emotional
investment. I really started to like the characters to the point that the game
had a profound emotional effect on me at two major points.
The first came
towards the end of chapter three. [WARNING: this paragraph has spoilers] Carley, a character I
liked, was killed by the increasingly unhinged Lilly, who’d
unfoundedly accused her of betraying the group. This sudden and traumatic loss
was followed by the choice – do I bring the murderer back into the group’s
truck to be judged, or leave her in the wilderness to die? Now, I usually try
to do the 'good’ thing in games, but here, Lilly had genuinely made me angry,
and I left her to die. I didn’t think “I think Lee would leave her”, I thought
“I want to leave her”. That just shows how engaging the game is, how believable
the characters are, how powerful character-driven games can be. And, even if my
decisions don’t affect the major narrative flow and Lilly would soon have left
the group by some other means, it still felt like this decision was important
and resonant and revealing of me.
But this was
nothing compared to the gut-wrenching final scenes of chapter five. Really,
anyone who doesn’t believe video games can tell effective stories should have
seen the emotional wreck I was after that. I’m glad I was playing it late at
night so no-one did.
I love The Walking Dead on TV, but the game
tugged at my heartstrings so much more. It’s so, so engrossing and powerful. And
it doesn't even have David Morrissey in.
This is David
Morrissey. He’s not in the game of The
Walking Dead.
I’ll definitely
come back for season 2! And I’ve never said that about a game before…
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About Me

- KieronMoore
- Hi there. I'm Kieron. I write films, comics, and other assorted scribbles. I like Doctor Who, LGBTQ subjects, and chocolate digestives.
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