Oz the great and powerful movie review

Oz the great and powerful movie review

Oz the Great and Powerful is a 2013 American fantasy adventure film directed by Sam Raimi, produced by Joe Roth, and written by David Lindsay-Abaire and Mitchell Kapner. The film stars James Franco as the titular character, Mila Kunis as Theodora, Rachel Weisz as Evanora, and Michelle Williams as Glinda. Zach Braff, Bill Cobbs, Joey King and Tony Cox are featured in supporting roles.
The film is based on L. Frank Baum's Oz novels and also pays homage to the 1939 MGM film, The Wizard of Oz. Set 20 years before the events of the original novel, Oz the Great and Powerful focuses on Oscar Diggs, who arrives in the Land of Oz and encounters three witches: Theodora, Evanora and Glinda. Oscar is then enlisted to restore order in Oz, while struggling to resolve conflicts with the witches and himself.
Oz the Great and Powerful premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on February 14, 2013, and with general theatrical release by Walt Disney Pictures on March 8, 2013, through the Disney Digital 3D, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D formats, as well as in conventional theatres. Despite mixed reviews, the film was a box office success, grossing $493 million worldwide in revenue; $234 million of which was earned in the United States and Canada

Plot

1905. Carny magician Oscar Diggs (James Franco) is transported from Kansas to the Land of Oz, where he is taken for the wizard who is prophesied to save the realm from a wicked witch. The sisters Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Theodora (Mila Kunis) send him on a deadly quest which brings him into contact with Glinda the Good (Michelle Williams), flying monkeys, a china doll and oppressed Munchkins.

Review

Though officially based on L. Frank Baum’s multi-volume Oz series of books, this big fantasy is essentially a prequel to the famous 1939 film of The Wizard Of Oz, which made several significant changes to Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz. A generation ago, Disney made Return To Oz, a darker sequel which drew on Baum’s other works but found it hard to escape from the shadow of Over The Rainbow, Judy Garland and the ruby slippers. Now, Sam Raimi’s expansive take on Oz has to jostle for attention not only with earlier film versions (remember The Wiz and The Muppets’ Wizard Of Oz?) but Gregory Maguire’s outstanding novel Wicked and it hugely successful stage musical adaptation, which similarly explore pre-Dorothy Oz but concentrate on the early days of another key player in Emerald City politics.

We start in a mode which can’t help but recall Victor Fleming’s 1939 opening, in black-and-white academy frame 3D with Oscar (James Franco), a smarmy philandering conjurer billed as ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’, griping about his lowly tent show career when he wants to be a combination of Harry Houdini and Thomas Edison. Fleeing angry carnies, he is swept off to Oz in a hot-air ballon via twister… whereupon gorgeous, CGI-assisted colours blossom and the screen expands panoramically. Sam Raimi, who has been playing with Oz imagery ever since the animated evil trees of The Evil Dead, is among the few filmmakers who see 3D as a liberation rather than a commercially-mandatory inconvenience. This matches Dredd in its inventive, impressive use of the third dimension to give its world depth, texture and added wondrousness. Unlike most wussy contemporary directors of 3D films – you know, the guys who make films about hammer-throwing heroes but omit to chuck Mjolnir at the camera even once - he understands 1950s dimensional showmanship and takes care to throw spears, piranha-plant tendrils and other items at the centre stalls with infectious glee.

Given that we know how this story must end up, with the man behind the curtain and good and bad witches at the appropriate compass points of Oz, there’s still an interesting arc to be had. The protagonist changes from a greedy, shallow, cowardly conman who is as near a sex addict as it’s possible to be in a PG film into an arrant fraud who nevertheless is a half-way fit ruler of the land whose name he shares. Franco’s grin and charm help a potentially hateful character skate by, as the would-be wizard discovers an urge to live up to the trust put in him by his naive companions – new to this story are a sympathetic flying monkey (voiced by Zach Braff) and an adorable orphan china doll (voiced by Joey King) – and starts playing Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court steampunk games to match the witches’ magic with technological know-how and bamboozling showmanship. It may be that this is the ultimate Hollywood wish-fulfilment fantasy, even beyond Argo: here, the world is saved by a special effects artist, not a singing farmgirl with a bucket.

Producer Joe Roth was recently involved in Snow White And The Huntsman and Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland, which both rebooted much-told tales by turning them into remakes of The Wizard of Oz in which a feisty outsider girl and her companions defeat a witch queen and overthrow a corrupt regime. Here, we get an interesting array of wonderful witches, from the elegantly fiendish, green-gowned Rachel Weisz, an Oz witch incarnated as a Disney cartoon villainess, to the glowingly virtuous all-in-white Michelle Williams, all-powerful but oddly passive. But, yet again, Mila Kunis walks away with the honours as the wavering witch Theodora, whose heartbreak brings another, less-expected depth to this 3D spectacle, and who gets to lend some old Raimi-style chill (is this his Drag Me To Oz mode?) to several bone-scraping lines ("I’m not wicked" and a truly splendid cry of "Never").

 

Remember Me game review

Remember Me game review

Remember Me is an action-adventure video game developed by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Capcom. It was released in June 2013 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game's plot focuses on Nilin, a memory hunter working for an underground resistance called the Errorists. When the game starts, she has been stripped of nearly all her memories by mega-corporation Memorize. With the help of a mysterious man named Edge, she goes on a quest to bring down Memorize and recover her lost memories.
Remember Me was developed as the debut project of Dontnod Entertainment, with one of the company's founding members, Jean-Max Moris, as its director. Part of his goal for the game was to create a thought-provoking story, and eventually settled on a female protagonist to help convey the story themes. Originally a PlayStation 3-exclusive titled Adrift, it was cancelled in 2011, then later purchased by Capcom, and resurrected as a multiplatform game. The game received mixed to positive reviews upon release, with general praise going to the story concept, some of the gameplay elements and the general setting. Criticism was laid against aspects of the main narrative, the combat, and design choices that were considered detrimental to the game.

Gameplay

Remember Me features platforming, exploration and melee combat. The game introduces the mechanic of 'memory remixing': entering and rearranging a target's memories to manipulate them. Players accomplish this by replaying a memory and modifying details to change the target's recollection of the outcome. Another key mechanic of gameplay is stealing memories from certain targets and using points called Remembranes to replay the memory in real-time: this is often needed to proceed through the game or avoid hazards otherwise hidden from the player. When the player is low on health, the screen will glitch until a sufficient amount of health is regained.
In terms of combat, the game allows players to create and customize their own move combos in the Combo Lab, which uses four families of fighting moves called Pressens that players can reorganize by creating chains, earned through gaining PMP (Procedural Mastering Power), with a limit of four combos being active at any one time. The four Pressen families are "Regen" (healing), "Power" (damage), "Chain" (duplication and doubling of previous moves) and "Cooldown" (regeneration of S-Pressen energy). The game's creative director, Jean-Max Moris has said that there are 50,000 possible Pressen combinations. The special moves, S-Pressens, are made available to the player through the course of the game: the moves enabling them to do things like stun groups of enemies, move at high speed and land more hits, or turn hostile robots into allies which then self-destruct. Players also have access to projectile-based weapons like the 'Spammer' and 'Junk bolt'.

Story

The game begins as Nilin (Kezia Burrows), an Errorist imprisoned in the Bastille Fortress, is having almost all her memory wiped by Memorize. As she is taken to have the last of her memories wiped, a mysterious man called Edge, leader of the Errorists and a man she only hears over her comms device, helps her escape. Edge tells her that she is an Errorist with the gift of both stealing and remixing memories. After escaping into the slums of Neo-Paris, Nilin encounters Tommy, a fellow Errorist. Suddenly, Nilin and Tommy are attacked by Olga Sedova, a bounty hunter chasing Nilin. Nilin dives into Olga's mind and remixes her memory to make Olga become an Errorist ally and she transports Nilin to her first destination.
Arriving in the Saint-Michel district, Nilin, who is aided by another Errorist codenamed Bad Request, is told by Edge to steal secret codes from Kaori Sheridan, Neo-Paris' top architect. After retrieving and uploading the codes to Edge, he uses the codes to open the Saint-Michel dam, flooding the district. Due to the flood draining out the slums, Nilin is able to infiltrate the Bastille and heads to the memory servers to free the stored memories of herself and the inmates while taking down Madame, the sadistic manager of the Bastille. After defeating Madame, Nilin releases the memories of the inmates and partially regains some of her own. She remembers the crime that landed her in the Bastille; on a mission, Nilin remixed the mind of a Memorize commander and made him believe he had killed his girlfriend. The altered memory pushed him to commit suicide.
Nilin reluctantly goes along with Edge's next plan: to remix the CEO of Memorize, Scylla Cartier-Wells, to make her see the harm her company's technology is causing. Nilin makes her way into Scylla's office and enters her mind, remixing the memory of a car crash which left her with a bitter taste against the world. As she changes the memory to make Scylla a more compassionate person, Nilin discovers that she is Scylla's daughter. Nilin is then told by Edge to head for the Bastille basements to save Bad Request, who has been taken captive. She finds Bad Request, but discovers that his memory has been fully wiped. Nilin then discovers that Memorize scientist Doctor Quaid is trying to find a way to control the Leapers through their Sensens to create a private army for Memorize. However, Johnny Greenteeth, a former co-worker of Quaid's who was experimented on and turned into a Leaper, kills Quaid and prepares to self-destruct the Bastille. Bad Request helps Nilin take down Johnny at the cost of his life and Nilin escapes the destroyed facility.
With all of Memorize's secret operations taken down, Edge presses Nilin to find the Conception Cube, Memorize's central base, and destroy H3O, the Memorize Central Server. Once there, she encounters her father, Charles Cartier-Wells, the creator of the Sensen. Upon finding him, she sees that, fueled by the car accident that injured his wife, he has become lost in a dream of an ideal world free from painful memories, all inspired by the desire to help Nilin forget about the accident. Nilin makes him see the harm his technology causes, and Scylla arrives to convince Charles to help Nilin enter the Central Server. Once in the presence of the Central Server, it is revealed to Nilin that Edge is a self-aware entity created by the amalgamation of unwanted memories within H3O. Nilin, who unwittingly started Edge with the memories of her unhappy childhood, enters the Server and, at H30/Edge's will, she destroys him and releases the memories back into the general population.
As the memories are released, Nilin remembers Edge's words about the mind being a fortress, and says that Edge died to remind people that memories should not become open to all, and that painful memories should be lived with rather than forcibly removed. She finishes that outside her now-restored mind she has a family again and a damaged world to heal.

Development

Development of the game began in 2008 when the company was formed. Initially called Adrift, the original concept of the game was a world flooded from global warming, with a key gameplay mechanic being the player character using jetskis to navigate a coastal city. Later, the Dontnod team thought up the concept of memory as a central theme and redesigned the game accordingly, although the game's director Jean-Max Moris was reluctant to set the game in Paris since the studio was based there. In interviews, Moris said that the game's theme was inspired by the social network sites that abound in the modern world, citing Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter as examples. He said that the game, while some elements looked fantastical, was grounded in the real world in terms of how social networking might evolve over the coming decades. One of the literary works referenced in the game is George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, though Moris stated that he did not want the game to portray any kind of intrusive message or meaning.
When asked in an interview with Penny Arcade Report why he made Nilin, Remember Me's protagonist, a woman, Moris said that part of his reason was that it "felt right from the beginning". He also stated that he wanted a game in the cyberpunk genre that was more about "emotion, intimacy, identity, and the way technology would intersect those", so it made more sense for the player character to be a woman. However, the fact that Nilin was a woman meant that when the game was shown to potential publishers, many were discouraged from backing the project, saying that a male character would sell better. Also against the game were its protagonist's race and the general structure of the game, in that the majority of human enemies were taken down non-fatally. Moris has stated in a different interview that one of the challenges with designing Nilin was creating a protagonist that was not over-sexualised or ineffective, saying: "You have to avoid the pitfalls of making her just a damsel in distress or a sex bomb, because this is what you think would appeal most to the hordes of men that constitute your fan base".
The game was originally being co-developed by Dontnod and Sony exclusively for the PlayStation 3 under the Adrift title, beginning full development in February 2010. Following creative disagreements between Dontnod and Sony, and the subsequent cancellation of the project in February 2011 for unrelated reasons, Capcom purchased the IP and provided funding for the project as a multi-platform title. The game was officially revealed at the 2012 Gamescom event with an official trailer and gameplay demonstration.
The music was composed by Olivier Deriviere, who recorded an orchestral score, then modified and changed it using electronic equipment. In an interview with Game Informer, Deriviere said: "Remember Me is not just a game; it's a fully realized world that the creative team at Dontnod created from scratch. During my first contact [with the game], I was quite confused by so much information and I felt the music should reflect this confusion". Speaking to MTV Multiplayer about the game's main theme, Deriviere said that players would not hear it until the end of the game, since the theme is scattered in pieces through the rest of the score to reflect the nature of the game and the story of Nilin.
In collaboration with Mike Seymour of Fxguide, two of the game's developers, senior engine and graphics programmer Sébastien Lagarde and co-art director Micheal Koch, published a series of articles describing the technical work that was done in creating the game's graphics, in particular the lighting, rain and 'wet environment' effects. Lagarde notes that these articles overlap with material originally published on his blog.

 

 

Man of steel movie

Man of steel movie

Man of Steel is a 2013 American superhero film directed by Zack Snyder, produced by Christopher Nolan, and written by David S. Goyer. Based on the DC Comics character Superman, the film is a reboot of the Superman film series that portrays the character's origin story. The film stars Henry Cavill in the title role, with Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon as General Zod, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, and Russell Crowe as Jor-El. Man of Steel sets the tone for a shared fictional universe of DC Comics characters on film.
Development began in 2008 when Warner Bros. Pictures took pitches from comic book writers, screenwriters and directors, opting to reboot the franchise. In 2009, a court ruling resulted in Jerry Siegel's family recapturing the rights to Superman's origins and Siegel's copyright. The decision stated that Warner Bros. did not owe the families additional royalties from previous films, but if they did not begin production on a Superman film by 2011, then the Shuster and Siegel estates would be able to sue for lost revenue on an unproduced film. Nolan pitched Goyer's idea after story discussion on The Dark Knight Rises, and Snyder was hired as the film's director in October 2010. Principal photography began in August 2011 in West Chicago, Illinois, before moving to Vancouver and Plano, Illinois.
Man of Steel's red carpet premiere in the U.S. was attended by its principal cast members in New York City on June 10, 2013. The film was released to the general public on June 14, 2013, in conventional, 3D and IMAX theaters. The film became a box office success, grossing more than $662 million worldwide, despite a mixed response from critics. Some critics highlighted the film's narrative, acting, visuals and reinvention of the titular character, while others were critical of the film's pacing and lack of character development. A follow-up film featuring Batman and Wonder Woman is planned for July 17, 2015.

Plot

The planet Krypton faces imminent destruction due to its unstable core, the result of depleting Krypton's natural resources. The ruling council is deposed by the planet's military commander General Zod and his followers during a military coup. Knowing that the use of artificial population control has ruined their civilization, scientist Jor-El and his wife Lara launch their newborn son Kal-El, the first naturally born Kryptonian child in centuries, on a spacecraft to Earth after infusing his cells with a genetic codex of the entire Kryptonian race. After General Zod murders Jor-El, he and his followers are captured and banished to the Phantom Zone. However, when Krypton later explodes, they are freed from it.
Kal-El's ship lands in Smallville, a small town in Kansas. He is raised as the adopted son of Jonathan and Martha Kent, who name him Clark. Clark's Kryptonian physiology affords him superhuman abilities on Earth, which initially cause him confusion and ostracism. However, he gradually learns to harness his powers to help others. Jonathan reveals to a teenage Clark that he is an alien and advises him not to use his powers publicly, fearing that society will reject him.
After Jonathan's death, an adult Clark spends several years living a nomadic lifestyle, working different jobs under false identities, while saving people in secret, as well as struggling to cope with the loss of his adoptive father. Clark eventually infiltrates a U.S. military investigation of a Kryptonian scout spaceship in the Arctic. When Clark enters the alien ship, he uses a Kryptonian "control-key" from the ship that brought him to Earth, and it allows him to communicate with the preserved consciousness of Jor-El in the form of a hologram. Jor-El reveals Clark's origins, his story, and the extinction of his race, and tells Clark that he was sent to Earth to bring hope to mankind for a better future. Lois Lane, a journalist from the Daily Planet newspaper who was sent to write a story on the discovery, sneaks inside the ship while following Clark and is rescued by him when she is injured. Lois's editor Perry White rejects her story of a "superhuman" rescuer, so she traces Clark back to Kansas with the intention of writing an exposé. After hearing his story, she decides not to reveal his secret.
Meanwhile, Zod and his crew seek out other worlds that the Kryptonian race colonized long ago. However, none of the colonies survived after Krypton abandoned them. Zod and the others eventually pick up a Kryptonian distress signal sent from the ship Clark discovered on Earth. Zod arrives and demands that the humans surrender Kal-El, whom he believes has the codex, or else Earth will be destroyed. Clark agrees, and the military hand him and Lois over to Zod's second-in-command, Faora, at Zod's request. Zod reveals that he intends to use a terraforming "world engine" to transform Earth into a new Krypton and use the codex to repopulate the planet with genetically-engineered Kryptonians. However, the terraforming process would result in the extinction of humanity due to numerous ecological changes, rendering the planet uninhabitable to those native to Earth. Clark and Lois escape Zod's ship with Jor-El's help, Clark defeats Faora and another Kryptonian, convincing the military that he is an ally. Zod deploys the world engine and initiates the process in Metropolis and over the Indian Ocean, increasing the Earth's mass and atmosphere.
Clark, now called "Superman," destroys the world engine, while the military uses the spacecraft that brought him to Earth in an aerial strike on Zod's ship over Metropolis, sending Zod's forces back into the Phantom Zone. Superman destroys the ship that carries the Genesis Chamber, the pivotal technology to restore the Kryptonian race with the codex. Only Zod remains, and he engages Superman in a destructive battle across Metropolis using his newly developed powers. When Zod attempts to murder cornered civilians as revenge for his defeat, Superman is forced to snap his neck, killing him. Some time later, Superman warns the government that, if it wants his help, it will be on his terms. To create an alias that gives him access to dangerous situations without arousing suspicion, Clark takes a job as a reporter at the Daily Planet.

Cast

• Henry Cavill as Kal-El / Clark Kent:A Kryptonian whose parents sent him to Earth as an infant to escape the destruction of his homeworld Krypton. He is raised in Smallville, Kansas, by farmers Martha and Jonathan Kent. Raised under the moral guidance of his adoptive parents and inspired by the holographic message from his late father, he becomes Earth's greatest protector. Superman is depicted as being 33 years old, at least from the moment he is found, in the present timeline of the film. Cavill is the first British and non-American actor to play the character. He was previously cast in Superman: Flyby, which was ultimately shelved, and was considered for the role in the 2006 film Superman Returns, but lost out to Brandon Routh. Cavill stated, "There's a very real story behind the Superman character." He explained that everyone's goal has been to explore the difficulties his character faces as a result of having multiple identities – including his birth name, Kal-El, and his alter ego, Clark Kent. Cavill also stated that, "He's alone and there's no one like him," referring to Superman's Ashlin. "That must be incredibly scary and lonely, not to know who you are or what you are, and trying to find out what makes sense. Where's your baseline? What do you draw from? Where do you draw a limit with the power you have? In itself, that's an incredible weakness." In an interview with Total Film magazine, Cavill stated he had been consuming nearly 5,000 calories a day, training for over two hours daily and plowing protein to pack on the muscle mass. Dylan Sprayberry was cast as the 13-year-old Clark Kent, while 11-year-old Cooper Timberline was cast as the 9-year-old Clark Kent
• Amy Adams as Lois Lane:Reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper and love interest of Clark Kent. Adams was selected from a list of actresses that included Olivia Wilde and Mila Kunis. "There was a big, giant search for Lois," Snyder said. "For us, it was a big thing and obviously a really important role. We did a lot of auditioning, but we had this meeting with Amy Adams and after that I just felt she was perfect for it." Adams auditioned for the role three times: once for the unproduced Superman: Flyby, and the second time for Superman Returns before landing the current role. Adams was confirmed to play Lois Lane in March 2011. While announcing the role, Snyder said in a statement, "We are excited to announce the casting of Amy Adams, one of the most versatile and respected actresses in films today. Amy has the talent to capture all of the qualities we love about Lois: smart, tough, funny, warm, ambitious and, of course, beautiful." On portraying Lois Lane, Adams stated that the film would feature a Lois Lane who is an "independent, feisty woman ... but set in a more identifiable world." Adams said that "She has become more of a free-ranging journalist, someone who likes to be hands-on. The nature of the newspaper business has changed so much. There is so much more pressure."
• Michael Shannon as General Zod:A Kryptonian general and megalomaniac with the same superpowers as Superman. Viggo Mortensen was considered for the role. Snyder stated, "Zod is not only one of Superman's most formidable enemies, but one of the most significant, because he has insights into Superman that others don't. Michael is a powerful actor who can project both the intelligence and the malice of the character, making him perfect for the role." When Goyer was asked about why Zod was chosen as the villain, he stated, "The way (Christopher) Nolan and I have always approached movies as well is you never say, 'Hey, which villain would be cool for this movie?' You start with the story first. What kind of story? What kind of theme do you want to tell? So we worked that out. Then, usually the villain becomes obvious in terms of who's going to be the appropriate antagonist for that. When you guys see the movie, the only villain we could've used was Zod and the Kryptonians. I mean, when you see what the whole story is, nothing else would have even made sense." Shannon also commented on his portrayal in comparison to Terence Stamp's original take on Zod, "To follow Terence Stamp's iconic performance in the original, it is daunting, but I just focused on one day at a time. It's interesting that when we started with this, we did a lot of training together and I think that kind of helped loosen things up a little bit. It is a very physical movie at the end of the day. That's a good way to find your way 'into it' [as an actor]."
• Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Jonathan and Martha Kent:The adoptive parents of Superman. Snyder explained his reason for his casting the on-screen couple is solely for the realism: "I think the thing you realize when you look at Diane and Kevin, in our decision to cast them so far, you sort of get a sense of how tonally we're looking at the movie, and what you realize is that those guys are serious actors, and we're taking this movie very seriously in terms of the tone of having those guys. You're talking about having a situation where whatever the action is or whatever the drama of the movie is, our first priority is to make sure it's rendered in the most realistic way we can get at." Lane was the first cast member to join the film after Cavill. "This was a very important piece of casting for me because Martha Kent is the woman whose values helped shape the man we know as Superman," Snyder said in the release. "We are thrilled to have Diane in the role because she can convey the wisdom and the wonder of a woman whose son has powers beyond her imagination."
• Laurence Fishburne as Perry White:
• The editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet and the boss of Lois Lane. Fishburne is the first African-American to play Perry White in a live-action film. Fishburne stated that he modeled his character after Ed Bradley, stating that "my inspiration really is the late Ed Bradley, who was a CBS correspondent on 60 Minutes for many years ... [The] legendary Ed Bradley... was a friend, a mentor, and a role model for me, particularly because he worked in journalism, and he was the kind of guy who walked with kings, but he had the common touch. And so he was my inspiration for Perry."
• Russell Crowe as Jor-El:The biological father of Superman. Sean Penn and Clive Owen were also considered for the role. Crowe incorporates how his own fatherhood informed his reading of the script to portray Jor-El, stating that "...it was one of those things where that's how it was connecting me. That's the question that Jor-El faces, that's the situation that he's in." Crowe also comments on his preparation for the film stating that: "When I signed on... well, one, I didn't realize that I would be wearing Spandex—'cause you know that's Superman's costume—I didn't realize that I'd have to fit into it as well," Crowe said. "But, I also didn't realize the type of organizer that Zack Snyder is, 'cause this was really old school prep. This is sort of David Lean-level preparation, and I really appreciated him. And I was on the movie for three-and-a-half or four months before I even got in front of the camera."
• Antje Traue as Faora-Ul:Zod's sub-commander and a commander of the Kryptonian military who is completely devoted and loyal to General Zod. Ruthless, cold, and brutal in her methods, Faora's military training and skills make her a very dangerous opponent to Superman. Faora is an expert in close quarters combat and melee weaponry.
• Ayelet Zurer as Lara Lor-Van:The biological mother of Superman and loyal wife to Jor-El. Julia Ormond had previously been announced as cast, but dropped out. Connie Nielsen was in negotiations for the role before Ormond was cast.
• Harry Lennix as Lieutenant General Swanwick
• Christopher Meloni as Colonel Nathan Hardy
• Richard Schiff as Dr. Emil Hamilton
• Mackenzie Gray as Jax-Ur.
• Michael Kelly as Steve Lombard

Design

Man of Steel features a redesigned Superman costume by Jim Acheson and Michael Wilkinson. The costume preserves the color scheme and "S" logo, but adopts darker tones, and notably does not feature the red trunks usually worn by Superman. Zack Snyder said the costume is "a modern aesthetic". He and the producers attempted to devise a suit featuring the red trunks, but could not design one that fit into the tone of the film, leading to their removal from the suit. Due to the substantial weight a practical suit would yield, the Kryptonian armor for General Zod was constructed through CGI to allow Shannon "freedom of movement".

 

The Wolverine movie review

The Wolverine movie review

When film critics aren’t pressed for submission dates it is often a good idea to step back, sigh a little, and then recompose the feeling one got when watching the movie. Now and then, the impact of the movie is so strong that images, sequences — even characters — linger around involuntarily in the consciousness; other times, one draws a blank — an utter, dark, dank, expressionless blank.
This is the case with “The Wolverine”, a present day sequel with Hugh Jackman as the six-foot tall, hairy-chested Canadian Mutant Logan, with kickass healing ability “unbreakable” adamantinum claws and a penchant for hooking up with dangerous dames.
In his sixth Wolverine outing — three X-Men movies, a cameo in X-Men: First Class and the origins prequel also called Wolverine — there’s little Mr. Jackman can do that’s nonconforming to what we know about Logan … and he doesn’t have to. Nonetheless, a brief bit into the past is, of course, statutory to any sequel (especially his).
Here, we open to a slightly unsettling front-seat to the Nagasaki bombing, where Logan saves a soldier’s life. Years later today, the soldier’s runner Yukio (Rila Fukushima) tracks Logan to the backwoods of Yukon with instructions to chaperone him to Japan. The soldier, Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), now a multi-billionaire technology industrialist lies withering from cancer and hopes Logan’s regenerating mutant-ability would help him out.
Alas, once there, Logan finds himself on the other end of some nasty stares (and some pointy katana’s) from Yashida’s son Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada), the in-line heir who gets side-stepped by daddy in favor of granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto). A wildcard wedged into a daytime family soap, Logan runs away with Mariko (with the best of intentions, of course), while literally contending with Jean Grey’s (Famke Jenssen) specter, whom he dispatched in The Last Stand.
Logan’s girl-trouble, along with some mean action on top of a Shinkansen (the Japanese bullet train) leads to more girl-trouble, more action and not really that much storytelling (the screenplay is by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank).
The only gradual build-up is the movie’s own lack of consequence. We know Logan is hampered, and that there will be no shortage of visual effects (some choppy, few fine), and that there will be a big-brawl in the end — this time with a tin-battle suit.
On the production front though, Japan (custom built on sets in Australia by production designer François Audouy), is a mix of the soothing, the monotonous and the weird — in particular when Logan and Mariko check into a Love Motel. The effect is very much like the real place: a subjective amalgam of the past and present, secluded to particular districts. Tough luck, the sights only offer minute distraction.
Actually there is one other aspect worth rooting for: the mock father-daughter relationship between Logan and Yukio, who also is an effective assassin — and a co-mutant.

As the movie runs it’s relatively easy under-appreciating the ease of Mr. Jackman’s transition from a vulnerable killer to prized lab-rat tothat of afather figure for Ms. Fukushima’s Yukio(who also responds with an excellence bounce of performance).
While director James Mangold 3:10 to Yuma; Knight & Day doesn’t gush over sensational, specious, flair of the big-budget one is under contract to spend(well, sometimes), he still doesn’t consolidate the screenplay’s slack into an engaging experience. A few mutant-vs.-Yazuka fights here, a few mutant-vs.-mutant fight there — a slinky villainess, played by Svetlana Khodchenkova in a green designer figure-hugging body-suit, is adept at poisoning people — and The Wolverine is good to go.
Fanboys (who I would be one of too), would love to tick off and go bonkers over names like: The Silver Samurai, The Viper, and throwaway end credit teaser cameos for "X-Men: Days of the Future Past," but that would be equal to doing an essay on the futility of trending blockbusters.

Directed by James Mangold; Produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Hutch Parker; Written by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank; Cinematography by Ross Emery; Edited by Michael McCusker; Music by Marco Beltrami; Production design by François Audouy; Costumes by Isis Mussenden.
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Famke Janssen, Will Yun Lee, Rila Fukushima, Tao Okamoto, Svetlana Khodchenkova and Haruhiko Yamanouchi. Released by 20th Century Fox, “The Wolverine” is rated PG-13. Claws snap out, slice people dead, and all that jazz.

Tom Yum Goong 2 movie review

Tom Yum Goong 2 movie review

• Directed by Pracha Pinkaew
• Starring Tony Jaa, RZA, Marrese Crump, Rhatha Pho-ngam, Jeeja Yanin, Teerada Kittisiriprasert, David Isamalone, Kazu Patrick Tang, Petchtai Wongkumlao
• Released in Thai cinemas on October 23, 2013; rated 15+
• Wise Kwai's rating: 3/5
• With an overly complicated plot, Tom-Yum-Goong 2, the much-anticipated new action flick from martial-arts star Thatchakorn “Tony Jaa” Yeerum, has turned out to be a rather bland concoction.
  
  This is despite it being in 3D and pretty much non-stop action that crams in other martial-arts stars, including Yanin “Jeeja” Vismistananda and America’s Marrese Crump, plus hip-hop musician and kung-fu aficionado RZA and Thai singer-actress Rhatha “Yaya Ying” Pho-ngam.
  
  It's better than Jaa’s previous feature, Ong-Bak 3, but is not as strong as his major studio breakout, 2003’s Ong-Bak and 2005’s Tom-Yum-Goong, a.k.a. The Protector.
  
  Even more disappointing, it might possibly be the last Thai film Jaa makes. Tom-Yum-Goong 2 comes out amidst a feud between Jaa and his studio, Sahamongkol Film international, and its powerful boss, Somsak “Sia Jiang” Techaratanaprasert. He is upset that Jaa is now working in Hollywood, making a Fast and Furious sequel and teaching Vin Diesel Muay Thai.
  
  The first Tom-Yum-Goong took Jaa to Australia as he chased gangsters who’d stolen his baby elephant. The relatively simple plot was an aim to broaden Jaa’s international appeal, setting up fights for him around Sydney landmarks.
  
  Tom-Yum-Goong 2 stays in Thailand and again has Jaa’s character Kham losing his elephant Khon. But it keeps the international flavor, with such foreign fighters as Crump and RZA, plus David Ismalone (“Mad Dog” from Ong-Bak) and Kazu Patrick Tang (Raging Phoenix).
  
  The set-up for the plot scripted by Ekkasith Thairath is labored, showing a snooze-worthy montage of news headlines about a war in fictional far-away lands. For some reason, Thailand is chosen as the location for the signing of a peace treaty.
  
  And somehow, this will involve Kham’s elephant being stolen by the foreigner criminal mastermind portrayed by RZA. He leads a small army of martial-arts warriors, each with a number tattoo to indicate how good they are. Among them are the lethally brutal Number 2 (Crump) and the fierce Twenty (Rhatha), whose tattoo is spelled out across her cleavage.
  
  Thankfully, it only takes 15 minutes or so for Kham to start running around, searching for his elephant, which was initially taken by the crooked owner of an elephant camp. But then that guy turns up dead, and Kham is standing over his body when the man’s nieces show up – Jeeja and another actress, Teerada kittisiriprasert. They are supposed to be twins, but apart from their pixie-bob hairstyles and clothing, they look nothing alike. Still, it’s pretty confusing trying to follow the Chocolate star Jeeja as she throws down against Jaa for the first time.
  
  
  
  
  Arriving with the twins is a motorcycle gang. They chase Kham up a flight of stairs and onto a building’s roof. This is the best fight sequence of the movie, with the noisy bikes whizzing all around as Kham ducks and dodges them all with acrobatic ease. One smashes through a skylight and the camera angle quickly shifts above it to catch the bike and glass shards spiraling out of the screen in 3D.
  
  More nifty camera work comes from a point-of-view shot of Kham jumping from the roof to a balcony on another building.
  
  Kham eventually commandeers one of the bikes and leads the hundreds motorcycling miscreants on a chase through alleys and down an elevated motorway. He also takes a crazy ride on top of a drift-racing car.
  
  And too soon, with an oil tanker explosion, it’s all over.
  
  The action spills into a shipyard where Kham and the Pixie Sisters get the hurt put on them by the imposing Number 2.
  
  While Kham is pursued by RZA’s gang of toughs, and is eventually captured and branded as No 1, he’s also a fugitive from a squad of Interpol officers who include Kham’s old friend from Sydney, Sergeant Mark (Petchthai “Mum Jokmok” Wongkamlao). I'm not sure why he's in this movie, but he at least gets to voice what everyone is thinking.
  
  "Are you sure it's an elephant and not a kitten? Why do you keep losing him?"
  
  From the first encounter with Crump, the fights all tend to blur together, taking place in such locations as dark warehouses and subway tunnels. For the most part, they are framed too tightly and move too fast to make any sense of.
  
  One fun bit has Jaa and Crump fighting on an electrified railway line. In a move that defies the laws of physics, they both dip their feet in water and stand on the rails shocking each other. As their fists swing they make the same sounds as lightsabers from Star Wars.
  
  Director Prachya Pinkaew and Jaa’s mentoring martial-arts guru Panna Rittikrai clearly had a ball coming up with all kinds of ways to have fists, feet, heads, elbows, weapons and elephant trunks zoom out of the screen in 3D. Some effects work, some don't. Jeeja and her "sister" have some kind of weird electric weapon they throw, but it's always hard to make out what it is.
  
  Despite everyone's best efforts, the fights in Tom-Yum-Goong 2 lack the sizzle and originality of their earlier efforts in Ong-Bak and Tom-Yum-Goong.
  
  On the plus side is Jaa, whose dour onscreen demeanor seems to have softened with marriage, fatherhood and maturity. Compared to his earlier films, he appears more at ease and natural. Perhaps Hollywood is where he’ll create his happiest memories.
  
  
  

Movie Review: The Wolverine

Movie Review: The Wolverine

When film critics aren’t pressed for submission dates it is often a good idea to step back, sigh a little, and then recompose the feeling one got when watching the movie. Now and then, the impact of the movie is so strong that images, sequences — even characters — linger around involuntarily in the consciousness; other times, one draws a blank — an utter, dark, dank, expressionless blank.

This is the case with “The Wolverine”, a present day sequel with Hugh Jackman as the six-foot tall, hairy-chested Canadian Mutant Logan, with kickass healing ability “unbreakable” adamantinum claws and a penchant for hooking up with dangerous dames.

In his sixth Wolverine outing — three X-Men movies, a cameo in X-Men: First Class and the origins prequel also called Wolverine — there’s little Mr. Jackman can do that’s nonconforming to what we know about Logan … and he doesn’t have to. Nonetheless, a brief bit into the past is, of course, statutory to any sequel (especially his).

Here, we open to a slightly unsettling front-seat to the Nagasaki bombing, where Logan saves a soldier’s life. Years later today, the soldier’s runner Yukio (Rila Fukushima) tracks Logan to the backwoods of Yukon with instructions to chaperone him to Japan. The soldier, Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), now a multi-billionaire technology industrialist lies withering from cancer and hopes Logan’s regenerating mutant-ability would help him out.

Alas, once there, Logan finds himself on the other end of some nasty stares (and some pointy katana’s) from Yashida’s son Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada), the in-line heir who gets side-stepped by daddy in favor of granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto). A wildcard wedged into a daytime family soap, Logan runs away with Mariko (with the best of intentions, of course), while literally contending with Jean Grey’s (Famke Jenssen) specter, whom he dispatched in The Last Stand.

Logan’s girl-trouble, along with some mean action on top of a Shinkansen (the Japanese bullet train) leads to more girl-trouble, more action and not really that much storytelling (the screenplay is by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank).

The only gradual build-up is the movie’s own lack of consequence. We know Logan is hampered, and that there will be no shortage of visual effects (some choppy, few fine), and that there will be a big-brawl in the end — this time with a tin-battle suit.

On the production front though, Japan (custom built on sets in Australia by production designer François Audouy), is a mix of the soothing, the monotonous and the weird — in particular when Logan and Mariko check into a Love Motel. The effect is very much like the real place: a subjective amalgam of the past and present, secluded to particular districts. Tough luck, the sights only offer minute distraction.

Actually there is one other aspect worth rooting for: the mock father-daughter relationship between Logan and Yukio, who also is an effective assassin — and a co-mutant.

As the movie runs it’s relatively easy under-appreciating the ease of Mr. Jackman’s transition from a vulnerable killer to prized lab-rat tothat of afather figure for Ms. Fukushima’s Yukio(who also responds with an excellence bounce of performance).

While director James Mangold 3:10 to Yuma; Knight & Day doesn’t gush over sensational, specious, flair of the big-budget one is under contract to spend(well, sometimes), he still doesn’t consolidate the screenplay’s slack into an engaging experience. A few mutant-vs.-Yazuka fights here, a few mutant-vs.-mutant fight there — a slinky villainess, played by Svetlana Khodchenkova in a green designer figure-hugging body-suit, is adept at poisoning people — and The Wolverine is good to go.

Fanboys (who I would be one of too), would love to tick off and go bonkers over names like: The Silver Samurai, The Viper, and throwaway end credit teaser cameos for "X-Men: Days of the Future Past," but that would be equal to doing an essay on the futility of trending blockbusters.

Directed by James Mangold; Produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Hutch Parker; Written by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank; Cinematography by Ross Emery; Edited by Michael McCusker; Music by Marco Beltrami; Production design by François Audouy; Costumes by Isis Mussenden.

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Famke Janssen, Will Yun Lee, Rila Fukushima, Tao Okamoto, Svetlana Khodchenkova and Haruhiko Yamanouchi. Released by 20th Century Fox, “The Wolverine” is rated PG-13. Claws snap out, slice people dead, and all that jazz.

When film critics aren’t pressed for submission dates it is often a good idea to step back, sigh a little, and then recompose the feeling one got when watching the movie. Now and then, the impact of the movie is so strong that images, sequences — even characters — linger around involuntarily in the consciousness; other times, one draws a blank — an utter, dark, dank, expressionless blank.

This is the case with “The Wolverine”, a present day sequel with Hugh Jackman as the six-foot tall, hairy-chested Canadian Mutant Logan, with kickass healing ability “unbreakable” adamantinum claws and a penchant for hooking up with dangerous dames.

In his sixth Wolverine outing — three X-Men movies, a cameo in X-Men: First Class and the origins prequel also called Wolverine — there’s little Mr. Jackman can do that’s nonconforming to what we know about Logan … and he doesn’t have to. Nonetheless, a brief bit into the past is, of course, statutory to any sequel (especially his).

Here, we open to a slightly unsettling front-seat to the Nagasaki bombing, where Logan saves a soldier’s life. Years later today, the soldier’s runner Yukio (Rila Fukushima) tracks Logan to the backwoods of Yukon with instructions to chaperone him to Japan. The soldier, Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi), now a multi-billionaire technology industrialist lies withering from cancer and hopes Logan’s regenerating mutant-ability would help him out.

Alas, once there, Logan finds himself on the other end of some nasty stares (and some pointy katana’s) from Yashida’s son Shingen (Hiroyuki Sanada), the in-line heir who gets side-stepped by daddy in favor of granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto). A wildcard wedged into a daytime family soap, Logan runs away with Mariko (with the best of intentions, of course), while literally contending with Jean Grey’s (Famke Jenssen) specter, whom he dispatched in The Last Stand.

Logan’s girl-trouble, along with some mean action on top of a Shinkansen (the Japanese bullet train) leads to more girl-trouble, more action and not really that much storytelling (the screenplay is by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank).

The only gradual build-up is the movie’s own lack of consequence. We know Logan is hampered, and that there will be no shortage of visual effects (some choppy, few fine), and that there will be a big-brawl in the end — this time with a tin-battle suit.

On the production front though, Japan (custom built on sets in Australia by production designer François Audouy), is a mix of the soothing, the monotonous and the weird — in particular when Logan and Mariko check into a Love Motel. The effect is very much like the real place: a subjective amalgam of the past and present, secluded to particular districts. Tough luck, the sights only offer minute distraction.

Actually there is one other aspect worth rooting for: the mock father-daughter relationship between Logan and Yukio, who also is an effective assassin — and a co-mutant.

As the movie runs it’s relatively easy under-appreciating the ease of Mr. Jackman’s transition from a vulnerable killer to prized lab-rat tothat of afather figure for Ms. Fukushima’s Yukio(who also responds with an excellence bounce of performance).

While director James Mangold 3:10 to Yuma; Knight & Day doesn’t gush over sensational, specious, flair of the big-budget one is under contract to spend(well, sometimes), he still doesn’t consolidate the screenplay’s slack into an engaging experience. A few mutant-vs.-Yazuka fights here, a few mutant-vs.-mutant fight there — a slinky villainess, played by Svetlana Khodchenkova in a green designer figure-hugging body-suit, is adept at poisoning people — and The Wolverine is good to go.

Fanboys (who I would be one of too), would love to tick off and go bonkers over names like: The Silver Samurai, The Viper, and throwaway end credit teaser cameos for "X-Men: Days of the Future Past," but that would be equal to doing an essay on the futility of trending blockbusters.

Directed by James Mangold; Produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Hutch Parker; Written by Mark Bomback and Scott Frank; Cinematography by Ross Emery; Edited by Michael McCusker; Music by Marco Beltrami; Production design by François Audouy; Costumes by Isis Mussenden.

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Famke Janssen, Will Yun Lee, Rila Fukushima, Tao Okamoto, Svetlana Khodchenkova and Haruhiko Yamanouchi. Released by 20th Century Fox, “The Wolverine” is rated PG-13. Claws snap out, slice people dead, and all that jazz.

Far Cry 3 pc game review

Far Cry 3 pc game review

The Far Cry series is an odd beast. The first title was as much a graphical showcase as a game thanks to its stunning island scenery, cheesy voice acting and horrible AI. The developers, Crytek, then went on to make the futuristic Crysis series, while the Far Cry name passed to Ubisoft.

It's an island paradise... apart from the pirates. And the snakes
Far Cry 2 followed: a malaria-induced descent into madness in an African nation on the brink of civil war. It was unrivalled for atmosphere, but the repetitive gameplay was a bit of a turn-off.
Far Cry 3 is a bit of a hybrid of the first and second games, with some Assassin's Creed thrown in (which seems to be the inspiration of choice for big titles at the moment, as shown by Bethesda's steampunk stab-em-up Dishonored).
It's an open-world shooter set on an island somewhere between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The game starts off with quite a jolt. After a montage of you and your friends drinking, partying and skydiving, having the time of your lives, you wake up chained to a bamboo cage with a Mohican-toting madman standing over you.
You've been captured by pirates, and it's up to you, Jason Brody, to rescue your friends and get the hell off the island. As action heroes go, Brody is an unlikely one. While Far Cry and Far Cry 2's protagonists had military or mercenary backgrounds, which at least explained their ability to reload an assault rifle in three seconds, you're just an over-privileged Californian bro in his early twenties stuck in a nightmare situation.

Dennis. He's pretty cool
The disconnect between the pampered Americans and the unadulterated barbarity of pirates operating on the fringes of civilization lends itself well to much of the game's tension, as well as Jason's character development. Under the guidance of the island's native Rakyat warriors, he morphs from a terrified innocent into a tattooed assassin, bristling with weapons and high on home-made drugs - in the process becoming increasingly distant from his friends.
The open-world model means Far Cry 3 has more in common with RPGs such as Skyrim than Modern Warfare 3. You're free to roam around the island (which is absolutely huge) picking up missions and side-quests to earn money and experience. The side missions aren’t a patch on Skyrim's immersive extra quests, and mainly involve boilerplate assassinations, vehicle racing or hunting a specific animal, so it's easy enough to ignore them and get on with the main mission if you so wish. However, gaining experience is useful, as this unlocks skill points to spend on special moves such as stealthy takedowns, faster movement and increased damage resistance.
The story missions, of which there are an enormous 38, are generally remarkably varied, and become gradually more bizarre as the game goes on; you progress from blowing up pirate ammo dumps to Indiana Jones-style quests in trap-filled ancient ruins, with some drug-induced hallucinations along the way. At first we found the game difficult to get into. When you start, you're only capable of carrying one weapon and a couple of magazines, which means you constantly run out of ammo in a firefight, and have to fall back on stealth and your trusty machete.

Dr. Earnhardt. He's definitely not stoned
To even the odds, it's vital to learn the art of crafting. Everything you need in Far Cry 3 can be fashioned in the jungle from the skins of various animals. By hunting and skinning everything from dogs to wild boar to komodo dragons and tigers, you can increase your ability to carry weapons, ammunition and explosives. You can also take advantage of the planet's native fauna to make medicines and performance-enhancing drugs, which help you with everything from holding your breath for longer to spotting animals from a distance.

Tomb Raider (2013) game review

Tomb Raider (2013) game review

Tomb Raider is a 2013 action-adventure video game published by Square Enix. Tomb Raider is the fifth title developed by Crystal Dynamics in the Tomb Raider franchise. As the first entry in a new Tomb Raider continuity, the game is a reboot that emphasises the reconstructed origins of the culturally influential lead character Lara Croft. Tomb Raider was released on 5 March 2013 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
After the release of Tomb Raider: Underworld in 2008, Crystal Dynamics began development of Tomb Raider soon after. Rather than a sequel, the team decided to completely reboot the series, establishing the origins of Lara Croft for the second time, following Tomb Raider: Legend. Tomb Raider is set on Yamatai, an island from which Lara Croft must save her friends and escape while being hunted down by a malevolent cult. Gameplay elements focus more on survival, although exploration is used within the game when exploring the island and various optional tombs. It is also the first game in the series to have multiplayer and the first game to be published by Square Enix, after the latter's acquisition of Eidos Interactive in 2009. Camilla Luddington was announced to voice and perform as Lara Croft in 2010, replacing Keeley Hawes.
After a delayed release from late 2012 to March 2013, the game received much anticipation and hype. Tomb Raider received critical acclaim upon release, with critics praising the graphics, the gameplay, Luddington's performance as Lara, and Lara's characterization and development, although the addition of the multiplayer mode was criticised. Tomb Raider sold one million copies within 48 hours of its release, and has sold more than 4 million copies overall. An updated version, Tomb Raider: The Definitive Edition, will be released in January 2014 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One containing all features and DLC.

Gameplay

 

Tomb Raider is presented in third-person perspective, and the player takes control of the lead character, Lara Croft: the game uses an interconnected hub-and-spoke model that combines action-adventure, exploration, and survival mechanics. Lara can traverse between the camps and across the island using footpaths, improvised or already-available ziplines and climbable tracks. Many of Lara's moves are carried over from the previous games created by Crystal Dynamics, with some tweaks added, such as incorporating elements of stealth gameplay. Quick Time Events are scattered at regular intervals throughout the game, often appearing at crucial or fast-moving points in the game's plot, such as two early ones where Lara has to extract a shard of metal from her side, then later escape a collapsing cave. The combat of the game borrows multiple elements from the Uncharted series, with the player having the ability to free-aim Lara's bow and the guns she salvages, engage in close-quarter combat and perform stealth kills.Added to Lara's abilities is Survival Instinct, a mode where enemies, collectables and objects pivotal to environmental puzzles will be highlighted for the player. The game also incorporates RPG elements: as the player progresses through the game, they earn experience points from performing certain actions and completing in-game challenges linked with hunting, exploring and combat: this enables Lara Croft's skills and abilities to be upgraded in specific ways, such as giving her more storage capacity for arrows and ammunition. Players can also upgrade and customize weapons using salvage collected across the island. There is also a character progression mechanic in the game: better items, weapons and equipment is gained as the player progresses, though the appearance of most of these items is closely linked to events in the story.^[11] Karl Stewart said that the game's campaign lasts between 12 and 15 hours. Along with the main story, players will have the chance to do multiple side quests, explore the island, revisit locations, and search for challenge tombs.

Multiplayer

Tomb Raider also includes an option for players to compete with each other in several multiplayer maps, a first for the series. In each multiplayer match, there are two enemy teams: four survivors and four scavengers, and there are three types of games for multiplayer to compete in, played in five different maps: the modes are Team Deathmatch, Private Rescue and Cry for Help. The first mode is a simple PvP combat scenario, with teams pitted against each other, and the winning team being the one to kill of the opposing team in three separate matches. In the second mode, the "survivors" team must take medical supplies to a specific point on the map, while the "scavengers" must reach a certain number of kills, both within a ten-minute time limit. The third mode, Cry for Help, involves the "survivors" exploring the maps and retrieving batteries for defended radio beacons while being hunted by the "scavengers". Across all three modes, weapons and destroyable environments from the single-player campaign are carried over.

Synopsis

Characters

The player takes on the role of Lara Croft, a young and ambitious archaeology graduate whose theories on the location of the lost kingdom of Yamatai have convinced the Nishimura family—descendants from the people of Yamatai themselves—to fund an expedition in search of the kingdom. The expedition is led by Dr. James Whitman, a celebrity archaeologist who has fallen on hard times and is desperate to avoid bankruptcy, and is accompanied by Conrad Roth, a Royal Marine turned adventurer and close friend of the Croft family who serves as mentor to Lara; Samantha "Sam" Nishimura, Lara's friend and a representative of the Nishimura family who films the expedition for a documentary; Joslyn Reyes, a skeptical and temperamental mechanic and single mother; Jonah Maiava, an imposing and placid fisherman who is willing to believe in the existence of the paranormal and esoteric; Angus "Grim" Grimaldi, the gruff Glasweigan helmsman of the Endurance; and Alex Weiss, a goofy and bespectacled electronics specialist.

Setting

The game is set on Yamatai, an island in the Dragon's Triangle off the coast of Japan. The island—and the kingdom that once existed there—is shrouded in mystery, given its reputation for fearsome storms and shipwrecks that litter its coastline. Yamatai was once ruled by a queen named Himiko, known by her honorific title of "Sun Queen", who according to legend was blessed with shamanistic powers that enabled her to control the weather. Very little is known about Yamatai's history in the time since Himiko's death, other than that the island's infamy was established shortly thereafter. In exploring the island, the player may find evidence that—among others—Portuguese traders, United States Marines and a Japanese military project were all stranded on Yamatai at various points throughout history.
At the start of the game, the island is populated exclusively by the Solarii Brotherhood, a violent cult of criminals, mercenaries and shipwreck survivors. The Solarii Brotherhood has established its own society based on the worship of Himiko, complete with a social structure and laws, with their exact purpose and intentions being explored over the course of the story.

Plot

The game begins with Lara setting out on her first expedition aboard the ship Endurance, with the intention of finding the lost kingdom of Yamatai. By her suggestion and against Whitman's advice, the expedition ventures into the Dragon's Triangle, east of Japan. The ship is struck by a violent storm and split in two, leaving the survivors stranded on an isolated island. Lara is separated from the others when she is captured by a strange, savage man and trapped in his cave home. She manages to escape while her captor is killed as the cave collapses around them. As Lara tries to locate the other survivors, she finds more evidence that the island is inhabited, complete with strange carvings, dead bodies, and ritual sacrifices of animals. She eventually finds her friend Sam and a man called Mathias, who claims to be a teacher who was shipwrecked on the island. As Sam tells Mathias the legends of Himiko, Lara passes out; when she wakes, Mathias and Sam are nowhere in sight.
When Lara finally reunites with the other survivors, Whitman decides to break off from the main party with Lara and search for Roth, who is still missing, while the rest of the group (Reyes, Jonah, Alex and Grim) set out to find Sam and Mathias. As Lara and Whitman explore, they discover that the island's inhabitants are worshipping Himiko, confirming that the island is Yamatai. Upon discovering a shrine erected in Himiko's name, they are captured by the islanders and taken to a settlement along with several other survivors from the Endurance. When the survivors attempt an escape, the captors turn on them. Lara is separated from Whitman and tries to hide, but is found by Vladimir, one of the leaders of the inhabitants. Vladimir attacks Lara, but she fights back and is forced to kill him to save her own life. She fights off the remainder of the inhabitants as she desperately works her way up the mountainside to meet up with Roth. Eventually, Lara locates the injured Roth, and using his equipment, she sets off for a communications relay at the very top of the mountain, in hopes of contacting the outside world and calling for aid.
After successfully hailing a plane that was searching for the Endurance and setting a signal fire for them to follow, Lara witnesses a fierce storm materialise out of a clear sky and strike the plane down, accompanied by a mysterious voice saying "No one leaves" in Japanese. Feeling responsible for the fate of the pilots, Lara is powerless to stop the island's inhabitants from killing them. Lara is contacted by Alex and Reyes, who reveal that Sam has been kidnapped by the islanders, a violent cult known as the Solarii Brotherhood. Lara, who is closest to Sam's position, tries to rescue her, but is foiled by Mathias - now revealed to be the leader of the Solarii - who orders her killed. Lara is saved by the intervention of strange samurai-like creatures—referred to by the islanders as 'Oni', demons in Japanese folklore—and taken to an ancient monastery in the mountains. Escaping again, Lara stumbles onto a ritual chamber, where she learns that a "fire ritual" was used to choose the Sun Queen's successor as part of a ceremony called the "Ascension". A terrified Sam manages to contact Lara and informs her that the Solarii intend to put her through the fire ritual, which will burn her to death if it is unsuccessful. Lara makes for the Solarii fortress, meeting up with Grim, but the Solarii capture the latter and threaten to murder him unless she surrenders. Grim attempts to overpower them, but eventually sacrifices himself so Lara can escape. Roth then arrives, and with his support, Lara is able to infiltrate the palace, where she witnesses Mathias putting Sam through the fire ritual. Lara tries to save Sam, but she is overpowered by Mathias and his men. The ritual continues, but Sam is not harmed by the flames, which are extinguished by a great gust of wind, marking her as the rightful successor to the Sun Queen's throne.
Lara narrowly escapes captivity once again and doubles back to help her friends, whose attempts to reach Sam have resulted in their capture. Aided by Whitman—who has managed to negotiate some degree of freedom with the Solarii—Lara returns to the palace to rescue Sam as Roth commandeers a helicopter to get them out. Having witnessed the storm that forced the search plane to crash, Lara sends Sam to escape by land and tries to force the pilot to land as a second storm brews up, striking the helicopter and forcing them to crash. Lara is nearly killed in the accident and is revived by Roth. However, Mathias and the Solarii arrive, and Roth takes a fatal blow meant for Lara. While mourning over Roth, Lara accepts that the storms are not natural, but are somehow connected to the Sun Queen and designed to prevent anyone from leaving the island. She meets up with the other survivors, who have evaded the Solarii long enough to secure a boat for escaping the island, provided that it can be repaired. They are joined by Whitman, who claims to have escaped, though Lara begins to suspect him of working with the cultists. Lara heads for the wreck of the Endurance to meet up with Alex, who had previously gone there to salvage the tools needed to repair the boat. She finds him trapped under wreckage and, as she attempts to free him, they come under attack by the Solarii. Alex decides to trigger an explosion and sacrifice himself so that Lara can escape with the tools.
Finding an account of a World War II-era Japanese military and Nazi scientific expedition to the island that sought a way to harness the power of the storms as a weapon, Lara decides to explore an ancient tomb on the coast, where she finds the remains of a high-ranking samurai who had committed seppuku. It is revealed, in a message he left, that he was the general of the Queen's Stormguard, the Oni that defend the monastery, and that the Queen's successor took her own life rather than receive the Sun Queen's power, leaving the Sun Queen trapped in her body after death, and her rage has manifested as the storms. Lara realises that the Ascension is not a ceremony to crown a new queen, but rather a ritual that transfers the original Sun Queen's soul into a new body, and that the process will destroy the host's soul. Himiko's spirit wants to escape its current body, and Mathias plans to offer Sam as a new host. Lara returns to the survivors on the beach to find that Whitman has betrayed them, abducting Sam and handing her over to Mathias. Lara, Jonah and Reyes give chase, heading up a river to the monastery, with Lara arriving just in time to see Whitman killed by the Oni. After fighting her way through the Queen's guards, Lara arrives at the top of the monastery in time to see Mathias start the Ascension ritual. She works her way to Mathias, confronting Solarii and guards alike. Lara kills Mathias when she shoots him from the roof of the monastery using (Lara Croft's iconic) two pistols, before destroying Himiko's remains to save Sam. With the storms dispersed, Lara, Sam, Reyes and Jonah leave the island and are picked up by a cargo ship. As she and her friends sail home, Lara decides that there are many more myths to be found and resolves to uncover them, stating that she isn't returning home just yet.

Development

Following Tomb Raider: Underworld, Crystal Dynamics was split into two teams; the first beginning work on the next sequential pillar of the Tomb Raider franchise, while the second focusing on the newly created spin-off Lara Croft series (debuting with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light in 2010). Following pre-announcement media hype while the game's title was under embargo, in November 2010, Square Enix filed for trademark of the slogan for the new Tomb Raider game; "A Survivor is Born". On 6 December 2010, Square Enix announced Tomb Raider had been in production for nearly 2 years; "Square Enix Ltd. is excited today to announce Tomb Raider, the new game from Redwood City based studio Crystal Dynamics". Studio head Darrell Gallagher said, "Forget everything you knew about Tomb Raider, this is an origins story that creates Lara Croft and takes her on a character defining journey like no other". Game Informer website and magazine ran a world exclusive cover reveal in its January 2011 issue, as well as exclusive coverage of emerging details directly from Crystal Dynamics from 12 December 2010. Tomb Raider was the first game in the series to receive a M rating in the United States.
In January 2012, when asked if the game would be available on Nintendo's Wii U console, Crystal Dynamics global brand director Karl Stewart responded there are no plans to have the game available on that platform. According to Stewart, the reason for this is that "it would not be right" for the game to simply be ported, as the developers built the game to be platform-specific before the Wii U was announced, and goes on to mention that if they started building the game for the platform "[they] would build it very differently and [they] would build it with unique functionality." The multiplayer mode was created by Canadian video game development studio Eidos Montreal, known for making Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In May 2012, it was announced by Darrell Gallagher, the studio head of Crystal Dynamics, that the game has been delayed and would be due for release in the first quarter of 2013. He said: "We're doing things that are completely new to Tomb Raider in this game, and the additional development time will allow us to put the finishing touches into the game and polish it to a level that you deserve. We believe this is the right choice, and I guarantee it will be worth the wait."

Animated model

Lara Croft's model is animated using compiled performance capture, a technique used in the previous installment Tomb Raider: Underworld. The game was built on Crystal Dynamics's game engine called the "Crystal Engine". Lara´s face is based on that of model Megan Farquhar. On 3 June 2011, the "Turning Point" CGI teaser trailer premiered at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011, emphasizing the release date was to be in the third quarter of 2012. The trailer was produced by Square Enix's CGI studio Visual Works.

Voice cast

Keeley Hawes did not return as Lara Croft for 2013's Tomb Raider, after completing Tomb Raider: Legend, Anniversary, Underworld and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Her contribution spanned four years; the longest role of any of Croft's voice actresses in English. In December 2010, Crystal Dynamics was said to be trialling dozens of voice actresses. On 26 June 2012, the voice actress of Lara Croft was revealed to be Camilla Luddington. Lara is played by Nadine Njeim in the Arabic dub, by Nora Tschirner in the German dub, by Alice David in the French dub, by Karolina Gorczyca in the Polish dub, by Yuhko Kaida in the Japanese dub, by Benedetta Ponticelli in the Italian dub, by Guiomar Alburquerque Durán in the Spanish dub and by Polina Sherbakova in the Russian dub.

Gameplay showcases

On 31 May 2012, a new gameplay trailer was released online, showcasing more action-based gameplay along with varying plot elements. The trailer also confirms the presence of several other non-playable characters besides Lara on the island, many of which appear to be in a menacing organization, much like in previous instalments in the franchise. On 4 June 2012, at Microsoft's E3 2012 press conference, a new gameplay demonstration was shown, depicting environmental destruction and other interactivity, stealth combat using a bow and arrow, quick-time events and parachuting. During summer 2012, gameplay was shown of Lara hunting, exploring the island and killing for the first time. They were shown at EuroGamer Expo 2012 at London on 27 September 2012. On 8 December 2012, a new trailer was shown during Spike Video Game Awards. At the beginning, an introduction was made by Camilla Luddington and during the event, the trailer was followed by a musical orchestra, led by the music composer, Jason Graves. The next week, IGN presented: Tomb Raider Week. Each day from Monday to Friday, exclusive previews, features and trailers were released, showing more details for the upgrading system, survival tools and challenge tombs. Tomb Raider officially went gold on 8 February 2013.

Reviews

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings (X360) 87.41%[88] (PS3) 86.71%[89] (PC) 86.69%[90] Metacritic (PS3) 87/100[91] (X360) 86/100[92] (PC) 86/100[93] Review scores Publication Score Eurogamer 8/10[94] Famitsu 38/40[95] Game Informer 9.25/10[96] GamesRadar [97] GameSpot 8.5/10[98] GameTrailers 8.5/10[99] IGN 9.1/10[100] Joystiq [101] Official PlayStation Magazine (UK) 8/10[102] Digital Spy [103] The Guardian [104]

Tomb Raider received critical acclaim upon release, with most critics agreeing that it was a solid and long-overdue reboot for the franchise. In a 'world exclusive' review, GamesMaster magazine gave the game a score of 90%, as well as the "GamesMaster Gold award" (awarded to games that manage a score of 90% or above). The editor regarded the quality of the visuals, the length and depth of the gameplay, and the "spectacular" last third of the game as the highlights. The summary said "sitting back exhausted we were left with just one question dribbling forth from our gaping jaws. How on earth are they going to top this in the sequel? Because of one thing there can be no doubt. Lara is back." IGN's Keza MacDonald also spoke extremely positively, stating that they felt the game was "exciting" and "beautifully presented", included "great characterization" and "more depth than you would expect". They gave the game an overall score of 9.1 out of 10, the highest score they have given a game in the series since Tomb Raider, describing it as "amazing" and concluding that the game "did justice" to both the character and franchise. Ryan Taljonick of GamesRadar lauded the location's setting and environment, and expressed that "not one area ever feels like a rehash of another". Taljonick also felt that the game had great pacing, and that it is "unrivaled by any other game in the genre". Furthermore, the reviewer considered Lara's character development as "an integral part" of the whole game's experience, and concluded that Tomb Raider "is a fantastic game and an excellent origin story for one of gaming's original treasure seekers". Australian TV show, Good Game, praised the game with both hosts rating it 10/10, making it only the eighth game out of the show's seven-year run to do so. Giant Bomb gave the game four stars out of five, stating that "Tomb Raider's tone is somewhat at odds with its action, but the reborn Lara Croft seems primed for a successful new adventuring career".
One of the major criticisms of the game stemmed from a disparity between the emotional thrust of the story and the actions of the player, with GameTrailers' Justin Speer pointing out that while the story attempted to characterise Lara Croft as vulnerable and uncomfortable with killing, the player was encouraged to engage enemies aggressively and use brutal tactics to earn more experience points. Speer felt that this paradoxical approach ultimately let the game down as it undermined Lara's character to the point where he found it difficult to identify with her at all. IGN's Keza MacDonald also highlighted the issue, but was less critical of it than Speer, pointing out that both Lara and the player had to adapt quickly to killing in order to survive. However, Game Informer's Matt Miller noted that the game offered the player several options for progressing through its combat situations, and that the player could avoid open conflict entirely if they chose to do so. He also praised the behaviour and presence of the enemies for the way they felt like they had actual tasks to perform on the island, rather than being clusters of polygons whose only function was to be killed by the player in order for them to progress. While on the subject of character development, GamesRadar's Ryan Taljonick expressed that the supporting characters were underdeveloped relative to Lara Croft, describing them as "pretty generic characters who, while rarely annoying, just aren't memorable".
While many reviews applauded the single-player campaign, the multiplayer mode bore the brunt of the game's criticism, with MacDonald, Speer and Miller all finding fault with it, describing it as lackluster and stating that the difference between the developer's vision for the game mode and the finished product made it difficult to enjoy.