fantasy
Nick Hasted
Joss Whedon’s Avengers sequel loses much of the original’s exhilarating freshness. It begins in the middle, doesn’t really end, and regularly makes you wonder just how long the Marvel box-office bonanza can continue. The moment when its Cinema Universe’s exponentially growing complexity slams into entropic reverse, as happened to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original comic-book vision, is plainly visible on the horizon.The franchise’s triumph is that its army of highly skilled and humane artists such as Whedon have kept these witty, nimble blockbusters away from that black hole as long as they Read more ...
David Nice
Now that opera houses mostly lack either the will or the funds to stage the more fantastical/exotic pageants among 19th century operas – the Royal Opera production of Meyerbeer’s mostly third-rate Robert le Diable was an unhappy exception – it’s left to valiant concert-performance companies like Chelsea Opera Group to try and trail clouds of kitschy glory. Which, thanks to the usual astute casting of world-class voices for the solo roles and a remarkable semi-professional orchestra under Royal Opera chorus master Renato Balsadonna, they did last night.A confession first. While received wisdom Read more ...
Stuart Houghton
Telltale Games has pioneered the 'box set' model of gaming with their hit episodic adventures based in the Walking Dead universe as well as The Wolf Among Us, set in the modern fairytale world of the Fables comics. Telltale's long-awaited Game of Thrones licence has now launched on multiple platforms. Does their signature blend of multiple choices and moral dilemmas lend itself to George RR Martin's brutal fantasy world?The answer is a cautious yes. The typical Telltale title is an adventure based around well-drawn set pieces with your protagonist unfolding their story by solving puzzles, Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
For those who’ve seen one too many Nutcrackers, nothing says Christmas better than a Matthew Bourne production at Sadler’s Wells. A man whose mantelpiece is overflowing with Tony and Olivier awards is a safe bet for entertainrment – even when the production in question looks at first glance unlikely: Bourne’s 2005 danced version of Edward Scissorhands, the 1990 Tim Burton movie which is part Gothic fairy tale, part moral fable, part 1950s soap opera.From the first moments that the small pit orchestra strikes up, amplified to the max through huge banks of speakers and accompanied by Read more ...
David Nice
Not so much a national hero, more a national disgrace. That seems to be the current consensus on Peer Gynt as Norway moves forward from having canonized the wild-card wanderer of Ibsen's early epic. It’s now 200 years since Norway gained a constitution, and 114 since Peer first shone in the country's National Theatre, that elegant emblem of the Norwegian language. Where does this uniquely prosperous country stand today, spiritually speaking, and can Ibsen’s myth, creating as potent a figure as Oedipus, Hamlet, Don Juan or Faust, offer any answers?Alexander Mørk-Eidem took the question as the Read more ...
David Nice
Christopher Wheeldon’s hard-working mix of skewed classical ballet, vaudeville and Victorian theatrical magic achieved through state-of-the-art technique wasn’t much liked by theartsdesk’s critics on its first and second outings. Marvelling at it on DVD as I worked on the notes for that release, I wondered why. Now it’s clearer that many of the special effects and characterisations work best in close up. But for all that it’s an inventive if overlong entertainment, its occasional treacle quotient fine for seasonal cheer.You’ll get your money's worth simply from the wonders of Bob Crowley, a Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Adapted from the cult novel by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King) and directed by Alexandre Aja, Horns can't keep itself on an even tonal keel for more than a few minutes. Part policier, part doomed romance and part gothic nightmare, I suppose it might even have created its own nano-genre.Nonetheless I enjoyed it quite a lot, even with its over-optimistic two hour running time. But this probably isn't the film which will carry Daniel Radcliffe across the great divide from boy wizard to mature screen actor. Partly it's the nature of the piece, which frequently finds itself trying to straddle the Read more ...
Florence Hallett
Andrew Graham-Dixon’s villainous alter ego got a second airing tonight in his exploration of 19th-century Britain’s love of all things Gothic. Last week we saw him hanging about in decaying graveyards, or appearing, wraithlike in a dank corner of a Gothic ruin, while ravens circled portentously overhead (main picture). We saw him relating tales of horror and mystery in flickering candlelight, or peering through the flames of an infernal bonfire, and in tonight’s episode, always one for going the extra mile, he was touring Victorian sewers, with only a rat for company.The great thing about Read more ...
David Nice
“What does opera have to say to the under-30s?” asked Alexandra Coghlan on theartsdesk yesterday. The question “what does opera have to say to the under-10s?” has had to wait until today. For although yesterday afternoon’s performance of Will Todd’s newish opera for children of all ages was the last in its second, sell-out run on the Yucca Lawn behind Holland Park House, it seemed essential to make my four-year-old goddaughter Mirabel available for comment, and that was the only date available in her diary. The answer? Another wildly enthusiastic “plenty”, from her, mother, aunt and me. Read more ...
Simon Munk
Most first-person games immediately stick a gun in the bottom part of your screen. Developers seem to believe that the only exciting agency a player has in virtual worlds is to destroy them and kill the people populating them. A Story About My Uncle joins a small, but growing band of first-person games that ditch the shooting, for the better.Alongside such titles as Portal and Antichamber, A Story About My Uncle is led by puzzles, by grasping the world with a hand, or traversing through it, rather than shooting at it. Told as a bedtime story (like Princess Read more ...
Matt Wolf
For the latest in a seemingly endless line of misunderstood cultural icons, meet Maleficent, the preternaturally smooth-cheeked anti-hero (or maybe not ) of the new celluloid blockbuster of the same name. As played by Angelina Jolie like some sort of Lara Croft-style visitor to the Disney live action landscape, this creature with the clipped wings isn't so much evil as she is ripe for revision in the public imagination - much as the wicked witch, Elphaba, in the book and stage musical of Wicked was before her.Maleficent may sport black headgear and let rip with curses but beneath the feisty Read more ...
Simon Munk
There are many admirable things about Child Of Light. It's the game that the core team behind Far Cry 3 – the mega-action, gnarly dude first-person shooter ‑ went on to work on next. Yet, it's difficult to imagine two games further from each other.In Child Of Light, you play Aurora – a princess who falls into a deathly sleep to wake up in a dreamworld dominated by darkness. To return to her grieving father in the real world, she must defeat a wicked queen there. Able to fly, followed by a glowing, controllable orb of light and floating her way through a beautifully detailed landscape of giant Read more ...