As with Just Cause 3 last year, Dishonored 2 pretty much single-handedly sold me on my ticket to attend this years EGX. I'm a big fan of Arkane Studios' Dishonored, the 2012 steampunk-esque (whalepunk?) stealth game that combined excellent world-building, satisfying mechanics and brilliant level design to deliver something that I've replayed more times that I care to admit, and the opportunity to play the sequel was simply too tempting to pass up.
The mission I played is one that takes place around about 4 hours into the game, tweaked slightly so that those unfamiliar with the first game still have a fighting chance of completing it. Choosing to play as either Corvo Atanno (the protagonist of Dishonored) or Emily Kaldwin (the now grown-up princess from the first game with abilities of her own), players are are tasked with infiltrating the mansion of genius inventor Kirin Jindosh in order to put a stop to the development of his automated clockwork soldiers, while also rescuing an old ally who is being held prisoner deep within the mansion.
Films are as much a product of the time they were made in as they are the product of those who made them, and Hell or High Water demonstrates that better than most. It's a film that could only really be created in today's climate, a modern Western with a strong anti-capitalist streak that's going to resonant with an awful lot of people. We follow brothers Toby and Tanner Howard as they rob a series of banks in order to pay off a reverse mortgage that their late mother took out on family land, and in doing so earn the ire of soon-to-be retired Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton.
The Texas presented to us in Hell or High Water is a thoroughly depressing place, one still struggling to recover from the effects of the financial crisis. The small towns we find ourselves in are virtually abandoned, strip-mined by banks that have successfully turned financial difficulties into easy profit, and that into the new norm. This is the environment created by the banks, which in turn creates people like the Howard brothers - regardless of the actions they take, Hell or High Water places the ultimate blame on the banks themselves for putting the brothers in a position where their actions are necessary. It ensures that we understand that the people are victims of the banks far more than the banks are victims of the people, and in doing so marks itself as one of the most anti-establishment films of the year.
The opening act of Kubo and the Two Strings is some of the finest film making I've ever seen, truly transcendent cinema that holds your attention in a vice like grip throughout, bursting at the seams with the kind of imagination and beauty and craftsmanship that you rarely get to see. From an awe-inspiring sequence that sees Kubo's mother sailing through impossibly rough seas, to a charming scene that sees Kubo using his magic, his music and his origami to tell tales to an enraptured village, Kubo and the Two Strings instantly marks itself out as something different in the best possible way, all before the plot is even set in motion.
We follow Kubo, a young boy with one eye who is living in hiding with his mother after his grandfather tried to blind him as a baby. Kubo, like his mother and the rest of her family, has magical powers - his are best expressed through his instrument, a three stringed guitar that he uses to stage small street performances that tell the story of a great warrior named Hanzo using magically animated origami. However, after the rest of his mothers family find him, Kubo must travel far and wide to locate and unite three mystical artifacts that will give him the power to defeat his grandfather.
2016 may have been a terrible year for blockbuster entertainment so far, but it's been a great one for horror, to the point where I've started to come around on a genre I previously had little time for. Films like Bone Tomahawk, The Witch and Green Room have all offered unique, exhilarating experiences with a real sense of craft behind them - and now Don't Breathe has done much the same, although admittedly to a lesser degree.
Set in Detroit, we follow a trio of young adults - Alex, the son of a security system installer; Rocky, a young mother looking to leave Detroit; and Money, Rocky's boyfriend - as they break into a blind veterans house in order to steal the large payout he received when his daughter was killed in a hit and run incident. Unfortunately for them, the man they are robbing is far more capable than they initially anticipated in spite of his blindness, and before long they are trapped in the house that he knows like the back of his hand.
Imagine if Pixar, the people behind films such as Toy Story, The Incredibles, Up and Wall-E, decided to make an adult comedy. Imagine if they gathered together a who's who of funny people, including most of the cast of Superbad alongside actors like Kristen Wiig, Paul Rudd and even Edward Norton. Imagine if they made a movie specifically dealing with the concept of religion, and that the world would be a better place without it.
Now imagine that Pixar were also really, really bad at making movies. Imagine that they lost their ability to effectively tell a story, to create interesting characters, to make movies that resonant with their audience. Imagine if everyone working for Pixar suffered a severe head trauma immediately before putting pen to paper, instantly putting their mental age back by decades.
The result is Sausage Party, a film that means well.
