Film Review: Django Unchained

Django Unchained is a classic Tarantino film. He pushes the limits of Hollywood like no other Director can. Tarantino brings his own standards back to where they should be and beyond with this tale. The film is set two years before the American civil war and in true Tarantino style is very dark and hits very close to home, whilst at the same time coating the entire thing in light humour. 

Django Freeman (Jamie Foxx) is a slave in 1858 who encounters a German ex-dentist turned bounty hunter called Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Schultz seeks the assistance of Django for a bounty and so they pair up. They continue to work together once the bounty is complete and soon realise that they have more in common than they originally realised, leading them to a much more personal mission. A mission of revenge and rescue.

The story itself isn’t too great, but at the same time it is brilliant because it is so original in the way that it unfolds. Although the story is fictional, it’s surrounded by all the horrid things that happened to black people in this shameful time period. So if you’re easily offended by words or actions in films, just remember that things like this actually happened... just with less CGI. However, for every grotesque action that occurs, a humorous counterpart is also included, usually at the expense of the main characters. So don’t worry USA, you won’t be made to feel too bad about your history for too long.   

  

This film is full of great actors as well. Amongst them is Leonardo DiCaprio who plays an overly well mannered and very wealthy Southern “Mandingo” trader called Candie. He is ridiculously charismatic and has more than a taste for blood when it comes to his slaves. We also see the great Samuel L. Jackson return to a Tarantino film. He plays Stephen, Candie’s overly loyal household attendant. It’s without a double safe to say that Jackson steals the show in this one. Somehow he’s more aggressive and racist (but let’s face it, no one drop the N-word like Jackson) than any other character during the entire film, and you can’t help but love him for it even though you know you shouldn’t.

The soundtrack to this film is also brilliant. Loads of it is based around freedom, or the lack of in most cases. But there are also the odd moments when something amusing is happening and the music in the background is so unfitting that it forces that smile on your face to turn into a laugh.

THE VERDICT

Django unchained was a brilliant film that will have had the people of Hollywood worried due to its raw way of portraying history. It had absolutely superb acting, and the music was perfectly fitting. Unlike some of Tarantino’s previous films (such as Inglorious Bastards) that turned out to be like Marmite (you either love it or hate it), Django Unchained has no chance of that happening. This is up there as one of Tarantino’s best and most people will enjoy watching it. It’s a bitterly funny film set in a shameful American era and you really should go and see it.

 LHSRAting for Django Unchained – 8.8/10

- Ayden

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Game Review: Dead Space Two (the campaign)

Ok, I didn’t play the first Dead Space but I was told that there was a video in this one that would explain everything I needed to know about the previous story and that I could just jump straight in. There was a video, and it explained as much about the first game as a footballer could about politics. But I played it anyway and to be honest I didn’t really grasp what was going on with the story, and for a change I didn’t care because it was frickin’ awesome!

You play as engineer Isaac Clark in the sci-fi horror sequel Dead Space 2. You find yourself waking from a coma in a city crawling with ‘Necromophs’ which appear to be human corpses. They seem more like zombies in principle, but more like aliens in appearance. Anyway, from the word go you have to battle through swarms of them and straight away you get the feeling that you're fighting for your life. And this feeling never goes away throughout the entire game. 

You start in a hospital and quite quickly move on to find a large range of weapons and the iconic engineering suit. From what I grasped in the story there is something called 'the marker' that is causing all these evil things and Isaac is trying to locate it. It’s a little basic and not very interesting, but for a change the core storyline isn’t really the important thing going on here. Instead the developers have made this game extremely more personal and your character is much more focused on fighting an internal battle that is going on inside his mind. 

Hallucinations happen at really unexpected times which will cause you to jump and shoot at stuff that isn’t really there. The great part about this is that you know nothing is there but you won’t be able to help but shoot at nothing anyway. This game will keep you on your toes. You’ll be checking corners and jumping at every little noise, like a bottle falling on the floor.

Game play is great too. Isaac’s movements are really smooth and the animations are great. When you die during the game, and trust me you will die, you won’t even be disappointed because the death animations are that graphic and gruesome that your jaw will drop with shock. You can blow limbs of your enemies and then use those limbs to kill more enemies. There are even crying babies that you have to kill before they kill you. You can interact loads with the environment as well. Isaac has some sort of gravity tool that can pick up and throw items around.  Even though this game is now two years old, the graphics are still fantastic and will easily give new games a run for their money.

Dead Space 2 does seem to take you on an A to B type of rout where you have no choice about the path that Isaac will take. However, this actually works out really well. It works well because you know you have to walk down that long hallway, you know there is no other rout, and you know that at over the next thirty minutes of game play you are going to jump, shout and scream at least ten times... and two thirds of those will be at stuff like brooms falling over and lights going out. The linear rout of Dead Space 2 actually helps to serve the game and make the horror that little bit scarier.

The sound is also top notch in this game. If you have surround sound then you are in for a treat. Dead Space 2 uses this like no other game I have ever played. If you hear something to your right and you turn to look at what it is, then the sound moves perfectly in time with you. That's standard you may think, but that’s not all. The game has a way of using sound so faint that you can hardly hear it. You find yourself thinking that you should look behind you because of it, and sometimes you may end up having a little bit of a scream as something pounces at you.

There is a real huge incentive to replay the game as well. Every time you complete it you’ll unlock a new engineering suit and also be given the option to take all your gear with you from your last game. During the game you get to upgrade all your gear and this allows you to keep using and upgrading other items.  

Now if you like a challenge and feel like you want to do this game on the hardest difficulty then I strongly recommend you play it through once are twice on an easier difficulty and get that gear fully upgraded. Because not only are your enemies at their strongest, and not only is there limited health and ammo supplies, but you also only get three saves throughout the entire game. This is a game that took me nine hours on the easiest difficulty. So yeah, good luck with that if you are that crazy.

THE VERDICT

Dead Space 2 has a really boring core storyline. Luckily for this storyline, the main character has the best internal and external battles going on that it makes you forget all about what you’re meant to be doing and instead makes you almost completely focus on just surviving both mentally and physically.  The graphics are brilliantly shocking, the sound is even better and the game play allows you to choose and modify your equipment. In short this game is a terrifying thriller. It’s what Resident Evil was back in the day.

LHSRAting for Dead Space 2 – 9/10 (Xbox 360)

-Ayden

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