Patriots Day is a film which comes directed by Peter Berg who some may know for his work on the film Lone Survivor (2013). Patriots Day stars Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman and Michelle Monaghan. The film is about the events during and after the Boston Marathon bombing and the police’s attempts to capture the terrorists who attacked the marathon that day.
Going into this film, I hadn’t really seen that many ads for it or even heard much hype for this at all. Which is strange because Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman and Michelle Monaghan are a good mix of actors to have in any film. However after watching the trailer, I discovered it’s all about the Boston Marathon bombings and the events surrounding that event, while it can be interesting to watch this, I do feel a certain hesitation towards it. I guess it’s because I have watched so many of the terrorist related films in the past and while most are well made and have some good points to present, a lot are also almost like propaganda or are exploiting a certain event for money.
Patriots Day, I’m not sure about it. The film in itself is well made. The production value is great, the special effects are well done and the films tone is very tense at all times. All actors deliver with their roles and there’s not much to fault here with the story. However, while I am watching the film, I know that the events I am watching actually did happen in real life and they weren’t that long ago either.
Mark Wahlberg plays Tommy Saunders – Patriots Day Review
While seeing the explosions and the deaths of many characters (those were real life people!) while I was eating some popcorn and sipping some coca-cola, I did start to wonder if really a film of this nature can be considered entertainment. I am also not sure if it’s educational either. Most of the time I go to the cinema for fun, I understand there’s some action movies out there that aren’t that great in story or anything, but are good popcorn films and I’m happy to recommend people to go and see them for fun, a recent example would be something like Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. But with Patriots Day, I can’t be sure if going to see this for ‘fun’or as something to recommend as a good popcorn film experience is what I could say to someone. I just don’t feel that watching an event like this at the cinema is entertainment and I feel that the film companies may have potentially exploited the event in order to get some money out of it. It actually kind of reminds of Steve Martin’s character in Billy Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk who wanted to make a movie about what happened with the soldiers and was exploiting them and their situation in order to make some money. This is probably a real life example of that happening.
Other than that, the film is alright. I felt a certain anxiety watching the terrorists run around the place and hoped that the police could catch them soon. I do feel I learnt a lot watching this film though and from looking at what the response was, you could really feel in the cinema how powerful the United States is and how strong their police force is. Due to the tense tone of things, everything always felt dangerous, the police over there seem very powerful and very lethal.
Overall this film is a well made and the director I believe has done well with the story and translating it to the cinema screen. But I do question this film’s entertainment value as something fun to go and see this week. I guess it depends on if the subject matter appeals to you or not, after seeing quite a few of these films in the past, I feel I am losing interest in movies like this. I’m interested to see how well Patriots Day does at the box office.
Sea Of Solitude is a game which was developed by Jo-Mei Games and was published by Electronic Arts. It is available on PS4, Xbox One and PC via Origin. It is a single player third person adventure game. The game has the player control a character named Kay who explores an abandoned and flooded city.
This was a game which caught my eye only very recently when I first heard about its release. After watching the trailer, I thought the art style, strong colours and animations looked very interesting. Also as a person who went mad one day and subscribed to EA’s Origin Premiere late last year so that I could play some games I had missed out on over the years, I was pleased to see something new added to the store that wasn’t a typical Electronic Arts style major franchise game. Knowing I could get this one for free was enough to give it a go. But if you’re not part of that program to get it for free, I’d say that the $26.95 asking price for this digital title is certainly worth it.
The game isn’t too long, most hardened gamers will probably be able to finish this one in a single session, which I actually managed to do yesterday morning. I didn’t time myself, but I’d say to expect about 3 or so hours out of it, a bit more if you look around for collectables.
Sea Of Solitude Review
On the surface, Sea Of Solitude is about a young girl named Kay, who is searching through a city, which is for some reason flooded. You start the game all alone on a tiny boat, way out at sea on the water. You make your way to the city, where you find a monster clad in darkness is blocking your path. Through exploration and activating certain things, Kay brings light to an otherwise dark city.
Underneath the main plot though, is a game with strong messages and themes related to loneliness and relationships. Kay as a character is someone who has become lonely, isolated and quite depressed after issues with her family and her boyfriend. The game sends the player on a journey to free Kay and other characters from suffering from the effects of loneliness and related themes. What I didn’t expect this weekend, was to play a game which seemed to have the objective of tackling these mental health issues in this way and I never expected to play something this weekend from the gaming genre with such deep meaning to it.
In many ways, Sea Of Solitude reminded me of my experience with Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice which was also a game that focused on mental health issues and is still a game I hold in very high regard. Both of these games were experiences that I could not put down once I started playing as I just had to find out what was going to happen with my character. Games tackling these mental health themes and the issues involved are quite rare in this medium, so when an experience like this does come along, it’s very unique and interesting. The difference between Sea Of Solitude and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is that Sea of Solitude is a little lighter in tone and not the intense gruelling experience that Senua’s was. This makes a player’s time with Sea Of Solitude one that is peaceful to experience.
Sea Of Solitude Review
The art style in Sea Of Solitude is something I enjoyed looking at. The animations are very rounded, colours stand out on the screen and the use of blacks in contrast with visibly bright blues, whites and orange was what I loved the most. The music and also the voice acting, was soft and did fit in well with the tone of the game’s themes and art style. All together, visuals and audios seemed to be just right.
The gameplay in Sea Of Solitude is something I’d say is probably a little simple. It’s essentially a platforming game where you will jump, swim, drive a boat and shoot flares onto enemies. There aren’t any button combinations to learn or any level up systems. The game is accessible to people of most ages and even to people new to gaming could easily pick this one up and get through it.
Overall coming out of playing Sea Of Solitude, I was filled with positivity and happiness. The story is quite heavy when playing through it, but very warm in the end. The art style and animations are nice to see and the sound and voice acting was just right. I do like to see that the games industry can use the medium to tackle such heavy topics and release games like this which show how well this medium can tell a story and provide its audience with something of great meaning. I’m happy to recommend Sea Of Solitude for your gaming collection.
Stuber is a film which comes directed by Michael Dowse and stars Dave Bautista, Kumail Nanjiani and Betty Gilpin. The film is an action comedy adventure about an Uber driver and a policeman who go on a wild ride together.
Going in to see Stuber I didn’t really know where to set my expectations. Knowing only that the film was a comedy, meant I went in for the lols and didn’t expect all that much from the story. But coming out of the film, I’m sorry to say, but it’s not really that great.
The film starts off okay and the opening scene features both Vic (Dave Bautista) and Sara (Karen Gillan) engaged in a dangerous shootout with some bad guys. Both are seriously injured and Vic loses his eyesight, which means he gets some urgent surgery. His eyes need time go recover, but as soon he’s able to walk he calls for an Uber and continues on with his police business, which is catching the bad guys who got away in the opening scene. This is where Stu (Kumail Nanjiani) comes in and the journey between this awkward duo begins.
I wish I could say that it was all good once the Uber ride began but it wasn’t. The film is only really mildly funny. Dave Bautista who I do really like in action films really isn’t great at comedy. Kumail Nanjiani basically was just screaming and yelling the whole time and talking about his Uber rating and reviews. I admit I did find some of the bad reviews he got from his previous customers in the film funny when they were shown, but that’s about it. Some of the jokes were also drawn out way too long. Dave Bautista’s character being blind was kind of funny in the first minute when you saw him trying to walk around without being able to see. But it’s only funny once and they did this joke over and over again almost all the way until the end!
In addition to this, for quite a bit of the film, I wondered if this was some sort of product placement or advertisement for Uber. There were so many mentions of Uber, Uber reviews and the difference between Uber products and services. What are we paying to watch here? Who cares about Uber!?
In the end I would suggest avoiding Stuber at the cinema this week and choosing literally any other film currently showing. After leaving this I instantly thought that Stuber needs to be on my list of worst movies of 2019 which I created just after seeing this and that says a lot because I was not compelled to make one after seeing X:Men Dark Phoenix.
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