But where clever film editing condensed the loops there, in Twelve Minutes you have to relive the tedium of many, many re-runs to thread your way to a resolution. Tom Cruise pulled the same tricks in Edge of Tomorrow as a soldier on repeat. It eschews the easy options (such as the phone) and forces you to make some brutal choices in the knowledge they will be undone minutes later. Twelve Minutes is about exploring and learning, using each loop to unearth a little bit more information. So how does he stop Dafoe, how does he get his wife to explain, or perhaps to confess? Maybe that kitchen knife could help if he conceals it in his pocket? Maybe he can call the police with that phone? Each time, McAvoy is dumped back gasping at the beginning of the evening, with everything reset but carrying the knowledge he learned in previous loops. We rely closely on the voices to convey not just the corkscrewing plot but the visceral emotions released by its explosive revelations.įor reasons unexplained, each loop lasts no more than – you guessed it – 12 minutes but sometimes even less if McAvoy triggers a savage confrontation with Dafoe or tries to exit the apartment. Viewed top-down and contained almost entirely within those few square metres of a city shoebox, the characters rarely reveal their faces. McAvoy and Ridley play a loved-up couple whose tiny apartment is gatecrashed by violent cop Dafoe throwing punches and accusations of murder around like confetti. Without them, Twelve Minutes might have been an also-ran, an interesting experiment amid a glut of games with a timeloop, which seems to be the novelty du jour. Sure, the paycheque probably helped but here are three A-listers putting in persuasive performances that carry the project. The rollcall stretches to Hollywood stars such as Steven Spielberg, Martin Sheen, Liam Neeson, Elliot Page, Mark Hamill, Aidan Gillen and Hayden Panettiere.Īll of this explains why Willem Dafoe, James McAvoy and Daisy Ridley now feel comfortable lending their voices to the characters in new timeloop thriller Twelve Minutes, just released for Xbox and PC. And the best way to kill a game’s credibility is for the marketing drones to sell it as an “interactive movie”.īut the crossover between the two media is accelerating rapidly, from special-effects technology to music composers to acting and directing talent. Honourable examples going the other way are thin on the ground. There’s arguably never been a decent film spun off a game franchise. Games have historically struggled with an inferiority complex when it comes to comparisons with cinema.
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