Search
Smart Scanner
Business and Utilities
App
48h sale! Just take a photo of a text with phone number, e-mail address or URL and immediately call,...
Lee (2222 KP) rated Max Winslow and the House of Secrets (2019) in Movies
Oct 13, 2020
Max Winslow and the House of Secrets is a family film, very much in the vein of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Maxine Winslow (Sydne Mikelle), or Max for short, is our Charlie Bucket, coming from a single-parent family and living with a mother who is struggling with debt. Tech-savvy Max is also a skilled hacker, demonstrating this by taking control of her neighbours video doorbell and making it ring so that he comes running outside. Kind of like a modern-day Knock-Down Ginger.
Max heads into school, where we’re introduced to some more teens who are set to join her later on, including a social-media obsessed girl, a boy addicted to gaming and a boy who enjoys trolling people online. As they settle down at their desks, the face of eccentric billionaire Atticus Virtue (Chad Michael Murray) takes over all of the TV screens throughout the school. He tells them that five students are to be selected to spend the night in his high tech mansion, and undertake a series of games, with the winner becoming the new owner of the mansion. When the confirmation text messages start coming through to the student phones later that day, we already know most of those that receive the big green tick on their screens, so they head off to the mansion, ready to spend the night.
Atticus himself isn’t at the mansion to greet the group. Instead, an AI named Haven (voiced by Marina Sirtis) opens the door for them, orders a takeaway delivery and gives them their instructions for the night. Basically, whoever solves the most puzzles and earns the highest score wins the mansion!
The puzzles start off ridiculously hard, with a locked door requiring a six-digit code to open, and only three attempts allowed. Max spots three jars of candy in the room and automatically decides that the total pieces of candy in each jar can be combined into a six-digit number, obviously. And you’re not supposed to think about how she managed to get them in the right order, or why the plate of cookies on the table wasn’t included in the code…
From there, the points come a lot easier for the team, such as simply putting on a pair of sunglasses(!), before turning slightly sinister as the group separates and everyone heads off on their own. Haven begins to go a little bit rogue, although with her monotone delivery of thinly veiled threats, she never really comes across as scary as I think she is meant to be. The games become a way of showing each individual the error of their ways - narcissistic Sophia is trapped in a bathroom talking to her mirror reflection, which has now turned into a nastier version of herself, while others are trapped in VR scenarios designed to show them where they’ve gone wrong in life.
It’s at this point that the movie struggles. The VR recreations are mostly dull, while other scenes utilise some pretty dodgy VFX and there’s never any real feeling of peril or threat. The young cast, for the most part, give some pretty good performances. However, with a mediocre script, none of them is really given very much to work with. Consequently, some of them, particularly the character of Max, feel a little wasted, not fleshed out enough.
While entertaining at times, Max Winslow and the House of Secrets is too scary for young children and not dramatic or scary enough for adults to really enjoy. Hopefully, though, the teen audience that this is squarely aimed at will pick up on the strong moral messages at the heart of the movie and will manage to gain some enjoyment from it.
Max heads into school, where we’re introduced to some more teens who are set to join her later on, including a social-media obsessed girl, a boy addicted to gaming and a boy who enjoys trolling people online. As they settle down at their desks, the face of eccentric billionaire Atticus Virtue (Chad Michael Murray) takes over all of the TV screens throughout the school. He tells them that five students are to be selected to spend the night in his high tech mansion, and undertake a series of games, with the winner becoming the new owner of the mansion. When the confirmation text messages start coming through to the student phones later that day, we already know most of those that receive the big green tick on their screens, so they head off to the mansion, ready to spend the night.
Atticus himself isn’t at the mansion to greet the group. Instead, an AI named Haven (voiced by Marina Sirtis) opens the door for them, orders a takeaway delivery and gives them their instructions for the night. Basically, whoever solves the most puzzles and earns the highest score wins the mansion!
The puzzles start off ridiculously hard, with a locked door requiring a six-digit code to open, and only three attempts allowed. Max spots three jars of candy in the room and automatically decides that the total pieces of candy in each jar can be combined into a six-digit number, obviously. And you’re not supposed to think about how she managed to get them in the right order, or why the plate of cookies on the table wasn’t included in the code…
From there, the points come a lot easier for the team, such as simply putting on a pair of sunglasses(!), before turning slightly sinister as the group separates and everyone heads off on their own. Haven begins to go a little bit rogue, although with her monotone delivery of thinly veiled threats, she never really comes across as scary as I think she is meant to be. The games become a way of showing each individual the error of their ways - narcissistic Sophia is trapped in a bathroom talking to her mirror reflection, which has now turned into a nastier version of herself, while others are trapped in VR scenarios designed to show them where they’ve gone wrong in life.
It’s at this point that the movie struggles. The VR recreations are mostly dull, while other scenes utilise some pretty dodgy VFX and there’s never any real feeling of peril or threat. The young cast, for the most part, give some pretty good performances. However, with a mediocre script, none of them is really given very much to work with. Consequently, some of them, particularly the character of Max, feel a little wasted, not fleshed out enough.
While entertaining at times, Max Winslow and the House of Secrets is too scary for young children and not dramatic or scary enough for adults to really enjoy. Hopefully, though, the teen audience that this is squarely aimed at will pick up on the strong moral messages at the heart of the movie and will manage to gain some enjoyment from it.
Darren (1599 KP) rated Empathy, Inc (2018) in Movies
Sep 13, 2019
Characters – Joel was one of the top stockbrokers in his company until it turns out that he has been made the scapegoat for a deal which lost people millions, Joel needs to get back on his feet, build his client base once again, which sees him taking advantages of a new VR system that has come his way. He thinks this will put his life back together, though it soon only makes things more complicated, as he must learn the truth. Jessica is the wife of Joel, she has supported him through the struggles, while trying to make a name for herself as an actress, she does make the most logic when Joel learns the truth. Lester is the mastermind that has created the technology, he is somebody that is happy to be isolated from the main world. Nicolaus is the old friend to Joel that offers him a chance to invest in the company, he has a reputation for questionable deals, but Joel has no choice. He knows how to sweet talk a deal through, which makes him the man bringing the project money.
Performances – Zack Robidas is great in this leading role, he does show us just how his characters life can come crashing down around him, while trying to figure out make up for his mistakes. Outside of Zack, nobody gets that much time to shine, with Kathy Searle and Jay Klaitz doing everything you imagine their characters need to, without being challenged, while Eric Berryman is as smooth as he needs to be throughout the film.
Story – The story here follows an investor that loses his job and needs to rebuild his career, which sees him taking a chance on a new start up whose idea isn’t as sweet as he thought it would be. The story does show how one man must rebuild his reputation, this is all we need and everything that works in the story, where this story gets even more interesting, comes from the idea that a VR system could be created to do what this one does, XVR, this idea in the story is what will make this standout on new levels, because it does pose the ideas of what people would do with this technology. A story that makes you think, is what sci-fi is truly about, this could also easily be a welcome addition to the Black Mirror world.
Sci-Fi – The sci-fi elements in the film do make you feel like you are watching an episode of Black Mirror, it is a concept that turns what seems like a smart idea, that takes a dark turn when the truth comes out, one that makes you think what would you do in this situation.
Settings – The film does keep the settings looking like a start up business, which is all we need, we don’t need to see anything more or anything over the top either, the settings are handled perfectly for the tone of the film.
Special Effects – The effects like the settings, don’t need to be anything more than we get, most are very simple, we don’t need anything fancy for this film though.
Scene of the Movie – The second visit on the machine.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – We could have had more of a conversation about the moral side of the concept.
Final Thoughts – This is a sci-fi film with a concept that stands out, it will ask the audience a question and will keep you wondering just how far the people will go in the name of science.
Overall: Sci-Fi seriously good.
Performances – Zack Robidas is great in this leading role, he does show us just how his characters life can come crashing down around him, while trying to figure out make up for his mistakes. Outside of Zack, nobody gets that much time to shine, with Kathy Searle and Jay Klaitz doing everything you imagine their characters need to, without being challenged, while Eric Berryman is as smooth as he needs to be throughout the film.
Story – The story here follows an investor that loses his job and needs to rebuild his career, which sees him taking a chance on a new start up whose idea isn’t as sweet as he thought it would be. The story does show how one man must rebuild his reputation, this is all we need and everything that works in the story, where this story gets even more interesting, comes from the idea that a VR system could be created to do what this one does, XVR, this idea in the story is what will make this standout on new levels, because it does pose the ideas of what people would do with this technology. A story that makes you think, is what sci-fi is truly about, this could also easily be a welcome addition to the Black Mirror world.
Sci-Fi – The sci-fi elements in the film do make you feel like you are watching an episode of Black Mirror, it is a concept that turns what seems like a smart idea, that takes a dark turn when the truth comes out, one that makes you think what would you do in this situation.
Settings – The film does keep the settings looking like a start up business, which is all we need, we don’t need to see anything more or anything over the top either, the settings are handled perfectly for the tone of the film.
Special Effects – The effects like the settings, don’t need to be anything more than we get, most are very simple, we don’t need anything fancy for this film though.
Scene of the Movie – The second visit on the machine.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – We could have had more of a conversation about the moral side of the concept.
Final Thoughts – This is a sci-fi film with a concept that stands out, it will ask the audience a question and will keep you wondering just how far the people will go in the name of science.
Overall: Sci-Fi seriously good.
Kevin Wilson (179 KP) rated Black Mirror - Season 3 in TV
Jul 14, 2018 (Updated Jul 14, 2018)
Interesting and frightening stories (2 more)
So many twists
Fantastic acting
The series just keeps getting better
This series I feels just keeps getting better and better. I loved season 3. There were definitely some episodes that stood out as the best you will see on TV altogether.
It also felt completely relevant to what is actually happening in the world today. The first episode was about how your perceived through social networking and how your judged through being rated. 1 about the dangers of downloading unknown programs that may contain viruses and another about how the technology behind VR is progressing. As a gamer that was most interesting.
As far as acting goes, the episode that really stood out was the 4th called San Junipero. I'll be honest I spent a majority of the episode confused because it seemed to be set during time period but then it all made sense. The twists and the emotion in the scenes were incredible and I was in tears by the end.
The 5th was good, it reminded me a lot of startship troopers for a while and the twists were great. Twists seems to be where black mirror thrives. I don't like giving spoilers usually so trying not to say much. It's all about the army and blindly following orders without question.
The last episode I could take or leave. It was good but I wasn't as invested as the others. It was about killer machincal bees I guess I can say.its basically a cop drama episode about someone solving a murder. Bees are not the twist to be honest.
What I love about black mirror is how all this is actually possible. It's something that could happen 1 day and that terrifies me. It's a frightening concept and It feels it's all set now but with added tech. You don't need to watch these in any order but I'd still recommend watch every episode.
It also felt completely relevant to what is actually happening in the world today. The first episode was about how your perceived through social networking and how your judged through being rated. 1 about the dangers of downloading unknown programs that may contain viruses and another about how the technology behind VR is progressing. As a gamer that was most interesting.
As far as acting goes, the episode that really stood out was the 4th called San Junipero. I'll be honest I spent a majority of the episode confused because it seemed to be set during time period but then it all made sense. The twists and the emotion in the scenes were incredible and I was in tears by the end.
The 5th was good, it reminded me a lot of startship troopers for a while and the twists were great. Twists seems to be where black mirror thrives. I don't like giving spoilers usually so trying not to say much. It's all about the army and blindly following orders without question.
The last episode I could take or leave. It was good but I wasn't as invested as the others. It was about killer machincal bees I guess I can say.its basically a cop drama episode about someone solving a murder. Bees are not the twist to be honest.
What I love about black mirror is how all this is actually possible. It's something that could happen 1 day and that terrifies me. It's a frightening concept and It feels it's all set now but with added tech. You don't need to watch these in any order but I'd still recommend watch every episode.
Kaz (232 KP) rated Harry Potter: Wizards Unite in Apps
Jun 29, 2019
A Disappointing Game
Being a Harry Potter fan, I was really excited to finally be able to download and play this game. However, I have been left disappointed.
When I first started up this game, it took forever to load. So, thinking this was due to my phone (I don't have a fancy phone, just a bog standard one), I bought a new SD card, hoping that the extra memory would do the trick. It helped, but I found the game to still be really slow.
Also, it was a bit frustrating when you had to cast spells, you kept having to do them again and again, because your tracing of the patterns, wasn't quite right. Possibly I would have done better using a stylus to trace the patterns, but I think it shouldn't be so exacting, because not everyone has a stylus to hand when they are out and about.
I also found that I wasn't able to put the VR backgrounds on my phone and had to resort to having the computer generated ones, which kind of defeats the purpose of this game, as it's supposed to be fun to find 'foundables' within your home or town.
This leads me to another problem I had. During the game, you had to go to certain places within your area. However, when I got there, it said that I had to wait for players to do a battle or some kind of challenge with. I don't know whether I chose the wrong time of day, where other players were elsewhere or there aren't many players within my area, but I didn't fancy standing around on a hot day, eating up my Internet MBs.
The concept of this game is good, but due to the slowness and uninspiring context of the game, this didn't get me enthused to play it. Actually, I've deleted the app from my phone. Very Disappointing.
When I first started up this game, it took forever to load. So, thinking this was due to my phone (I don't have a fancy phone, just a bog standard one), I bought a new SD card, hoping that the extra memory would do the trick. It helped, but I found the game to still be really slow.
Also, it was a bit frustrating when you had to cast spells, you kept having to do them again and again, because your tracing of the patterns, wasn't quite right. Possibly I would have done better using a stylus to trace the patterns, but I think it shouldn't be so exacting, because not everyone has a stylus to hand when they are out and about.
I also found that I wasn't able to put the VR backgrounds on my phone and had to resort to having the computer generated ones, which kind of defeats the purpose of this game, as it's supposed to be fun to find 'foundables' within your home or town.
This leads me to another problem I had. During the game, you had to go to certain places within your area. However, when I got there, it said that I had to wait for players to do a battle or some kind of challenge with. I don't know whether I chose the wrong time of day, where other players were elsewhere or there aren't many players within my area, but I didn't fancy standing around on a hot day, eating up my Internet MBs.
The concept of this game is good, but due to the slowness and uninspiring context of the game, this didn't get me enthused to play it. Actually, I've deleted the app from my phone. Very Disappointing.
GameFit Racing ( Exercise Powered Offroad Race Track Fitness Game )
Health & Fitness and Sports
App
GameFit Racing is a totally new and fun way to work out! In this 3D racing game, the harder you...
BIMx PRO - BIM eXplorer for AEC professionals
Productivity and Utilities
App
GRAPHISOFT's mobile BIM communication tool, BIMx, is the ultimate BIM project communication app. It...
A Bibliophagist (113 KP) rated Warcross in Books
Jan 27, 2020
Decent characters (2 more)
Plot
Pacing
YA formula (2 more)
Predictable
Not enough of the game
YA VR fun
I really enjoyed this book, as VR stories are some of my favorite types and rarely done well. This one was done well enough but suffered the large YA pitfall of there would be no story had people actually communicated with each other.
The story follows Emika, a scrappy teen living in the slums of (I think New York). As YA books tend to do, she is a normal, poor, orphan girl, who happens to be able to afford to dye her hair rainbow, and oh, I forgot to mention, very good at hacking. The world is fully submerged into the Nuerolink, which are AR/VR glasses almost everyone has, that handle the internet, gaming worlds, infrastructure etc etc. The most popular aspect is a game on the Nuerolink called Warcross, a rather simple Team vs Team capture the flag with power-ups and battling. Football move over, Warcross is where it's at. Because the nuerolink is so ingrained into society, a seedy underbelly of gambling and dark web has cropped up, and Emika makes her pennies as a bounty hunter for people who gamble in Warcross games. On the eve of the Opening of the biggest Warcross Tournament of the year (which takes up like... 6 months of the year...) Emika is being threatened with eviction, failed to get a bounty that would have fixed her situation. So as far as YA tropes go we can check off "ordinary, but special girl of poor circumstances".
Emika and her roommate, even though they are facing a looming eviction, log into the neurolink to experience the opening day ceremony. This is where Lu really introduces the ability of the nuerolink and where we can underline the "special" aspect of our tropey lead, as she somehow hacks herself into the opening game ceremony, revealing herself to the world. This is probably a good place to point out that hacking in this book is pretty much just Emika saying "I hacked into this thing" and little more than that. She runs a program here and there, that always does what she wants. Honestly as the story progresses I forget that she hacks, but the book doesn't let you forget that she's "super good at it".
Now fearing more than just eviction, but fearing for her freedom as she just did something very illegal, Emika is surprised when her world is turned upside down and she's spirited away by the Nuerolink creator to Tokyo. The creator being hot boy Hideo, whom she has been just ever so obsessed with since she was a kid, and much to her fantasies, he thinks she is special and needs her hacker expertise to track down someone that's been messing with the code in the game. BUT she needs to do it from within the game. So now she's going to be in the big game of the year as a player, a spy, and a hacker. Somehow juggling the investigation and playing a game professionally that she's the only kind of dabbled in (as far as we know, YA spoiler alert, she's super good at it).
I know I sound snarky, and like I didn't like the book, but I did. once you just accept the YA formula and that this book will be full of it, you can just lean back an enjoy the ride. Emika finds herself in a deep plot that involves other players, the dark web, and the ghosts of Hideo's past. Of course because YA Hideo is just smitten with Emika from the get go. She's great at the game, everyone acknowledges how special she is, but the big YA factor I struggled with over looking was the utter lack of communication. This whole book could've ended in a few chapters had the characters just communicated with each other. But there was always some kind of personal justification for why they couldn't just talk to each other.
I found the game world to be well thought out and interesting, just unfortunately it didn't get nearly as much page time as I'd like. I get that the story is about the scheme around the game, and not the game, but Lu introduced her as a player so I wanted more. I wanted more intereaction with her teammates, more development. She never felt like she was part of the group to me, which made it harder to believe in the second book when they all go out of their way to help her. The romance with Hideo was heavy-handed but cute, so I didn't mind it. But I kept finding myself wanting more gameplay. It's called Warcross for goodness sake.
One thing I have to commend Lu on is that it has a decent number of legitimate twists. Twists that made me actually gasp once or twice. That kept me intrigued and made me read it in a day. But unfortunately, while a fun little romp, the story's reliance on bad communication and YA tropes to advance the plot made the book lack a soul that really could take the story to the next level. I didn't care too much about anyone. I just wanted answers more than anything. But instead, we get a mysterious bad guy being cryptic, even though if he wasn't cryptic we could have avoided a lot and Emika always winning cause she's special. Though most of the information she gets is freely given to her and had nothing to do with her skills as a hacker.
When my boyfriend asked me if I liked it, I shrugged and said "yea it was fun, can we go get the second book". But I didn't have the overwhelming desire to tell him the plot or anything else as I do with books that truly resonate with me. To be fair when I did attempt to describe it the soap opera YA aspect seemed glaring and he just rolled his eyes.
Absolutely worth a read, especially if you enjoy this genre. But just don't go in expecting it to be special, it follows the YA formula to a T.
The story follows Emika, a scrappy teen living in the slums of (I think New York). As YA books tend to do, she is a normal, poor, orphan girl, who happens to be able to afford to dye her hair rainbow, and oh, I forgot to mention, very good at hacking. The world is fully submerged into the Nuerolink, which are AR/VR glasses almost everyone has, that handle the internet, gaming worlds, infrastructure etc etc. The most popular aspect is a game on the Nuerolink called Warcross, a rather simple Team vs Team capture the flag with power-ups and battling. Football move over, Warcross is where it's at. Because the nuerolink is so ingrained into society, a seedy underbelly of gambling and dark web has cropped up, and Emika makes her pennies as a bounty hunter for people who gamble in Warcross games. On the eve of the Opening of the biggest Warcross Tournament of the year (which takes up like... 6 months of the year...) Emika is being threatened with eviction, failed to get a bounty that would have fixed her situation. So as far as YA tropes go we can check off "ordinary, but special girl of poor circumstances".
Emika and her roommate, even though they are facing a looming eviction, log into the neurolink to experience the opening day ceremony. This is where Lu really introduces the ability of the nuerolink and where we can underline the "special" aspect of our tropey lead, as she somehow hacks herself into the opening game ceremony, revealing herself to the world. This is probably a good place to point out that hacking in this book is pretty much just Emika saying "I hacked into this thing" and little more than that. She runs a program here and there, that always does what she wants. Honestly as the story progresses I forget that she hacks, but the book doesn't let you forget that she's "super good at it".
Now fearing more than just eviction, but fearing for her freedom as she just did something very illegal, Emika is surprised when her world is turned upside down and she's spirited away by the Nuerolink creator to Tokyo. The creator being hot boy Hideo, whom she has been just ever so obsessed with since she was a kid, and much to her fantasies, he thinks she is special and needs her hacker expertise to track down someone that's been messing with the code in the game. BUT she needs to do it from within the game. So now she's going to be in the big game of the year as a player, a spy, and a hacker. Somehow juggling the investigation and playing a game professionally that she's the only kind of dabbled in (as far as we know, YA spoiler alert, she's super good at it).
I know I sound snarky, and like I didn't like the book, but I did. once you just accept the YA formula and that this book will be full of it, you can just lean back an enjoy the ride. Emika finds herself in a deep plot that involves other players, the dark web, and the ghosts of Hideo's past. Of course because YA Hideo is just smitten with Emika from the get go. She's great at the game, everyone acknowledges how special she is, but the big YA factor I struggled with over looking was the utter lack of communication. This whole book could've ended in a few chapters had the characters just communicated with each other. But there was always some kind of personal justification for why they couldn't just talk to each other.
I found the game world to be well thought out and interesting, just unfortunately it didn't get nearly as much page time as I'd like. I get that the story is about the scheme around the game, and not the game, but Lu introduced her as a player so I wanted more. I wanted more intereaction with her teammates, more development. She never felt like she was part of the group to me, which made it harder to believe in the second book when they all go out of their way to help her. The romance with Hideo was heavy-handed but cute, so I didn't mind it. But I kept finding myself wanting more gameplay. It's called Warcross for goodness sake.
One thing I have to commend Lu on is that it has a decent number of legitimate twists. Twists that made me actually gasp once or twice. That kept me intrigued and made me read it in a day. But unfortunately, while a fun little romp, the story's reliance on bad communication and YA tropes to advance the plot made the book lack a soul that really could take the story to the next level. I didn't care too much about anyone. I just wanted answers more than anything. But instead, we get a mysterious bad guy being cryptic, even though if he wasn't cryptic we could have avoided a lot and Emika always winning cause she's special. Though most of the information she gets is freely given to her and had nothing to do with her skills as a hacker.
When my boyfriend asked me if I liked it, I shrugged and said "yea it was fun, can we go get the second book". But I didn't have the overwhelming desire to tell him the plot or anything else as I do with books that truly resonate with me. To be fair when I did attempt to describe it the soap opera YA aspect seemed glaring and he just rolled his eyes.
Absolutely worth a read, especially if you enjoy this genre. But just don't go in expecting it to be special, it follows the YA formula to a T.
