Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 30th, 2021
If it feels like you’ve been waiting a while for this film, well, you wouldn’t be wrong. Originally the plan was to release the film March 20, 2020, but this would be one of the first of many films that would be shelved due to the pandemic. There was talk about possibly releasing the film on one of the numerous streaming services out there, but thankfully it was decided to hold out till the lockdowns would end and movie theaters would open up wide across the US. It’s been a long wait for this highly anticipated sequel; was it worth it? I didn’t review the first film, but while I wasn’t exactly blown away by the film the first time around, as I’ve revisited the film I have to admit the film has grown on me, and I’d say it was my second favorite horror film released in 2018 (Sorry, Hereditary continues to knock my socks off to this day.) What sort of concerned me going into this sequel is how much would this work without Lee (John Krasinski)? Thankfully the film has Krasinski returning to work behind the camera as director again, as well as aiding in the writing of the film, but most importantly they found a way to bring his character back for the sequel. Was the film worth the wait, or should they have left this as a one-off success?
The film opens up to Day 1 of the invasion. Audiences finally get to see how everything went down when the aliens first arrived. Here we get to see the Abbott family as a happy and whole family. A good portion of this revolves around Lee and how the family manages to survive the first wave of the attack. I absolutely enjoyed this part of the film, though if you’ve seen the Steven Spielberg take on War of the Worlds, well, it will seem a bit familiar, but this definitely helps set the tone for this film. With a bigger budget we get a bigger production design as well as more aliens and more on-screen kills. One of the best aspects of the Day 1 sequence is that it definitely calls back to the first film, when the family is raiding the shop for supplies. Keep your eyes peeled for several props that find their way on screen.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 26th, 2021
Just when you thought the Saw franchise had finally claimed its final victim in Jigsaw, Lionsgate has decided to keep the gruesome franchise going with Spiral. I know it seemed like the character of Jigsaw had finally been milked (or bled) for all its worth; what more can they do with this franchise? Honestly, when I first heard about this film, I groaned. I love horror, and I love gore, but even I was feeling the franchise had gotten a bit stale. As it turns out, there does seem to be more story to be juiced from this franchise, and I’ll say it right now, this film was the game changer the franchise needed, and it helps pave the way for plenty of pain, revenge, and justice down the road. This is a film that was long overdue to the franchise, and I’ll go so far as to say it’s perhaps my favorite film of the series since the release of the first film.
Even if you’ve never seen a Saw film before, Spiral works well as a standalone film. It’s not as though the previous films were serious think pieces, but of course if you’ve seen the previous films it will only add more to the experience. That being said, Spiral does take a different approach and plays out more like a police procedural film. If you’ve ever seen the 1995 film Seven, you’ll most likely catch many of the films homages to David Fincher’s classic. Seeing the film play out more as a crime thriller definitely opens the scope of the film, but to a degree I feel it steps up the film’s pedigree, no longer being a relatively small scale “torture porn”. Now it’s as though the franchise has matured, wanting to give the audience more than just some gore on the wall. Then there is the casting of Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, two names I’m pretty sure no one would have expected to see in this franchise, but most surprising is just how good Chris Rock is in this film. It’s been a while since Chris Rock has been a name that one would call a box office draw, but this is the role that is going to change that (especially when you factor in his performance in Fargo last year). We get to see a lot of range from Rock in this role, and it makes sense why he made himself Executive Producer on the film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 23rd, 2021
"Some people have a hard time explaining rock 'n' roll. I don't think anyone can really explain rock 'n' roll. Maybe Pete Townshend, but that's okay. Rock 'n' roll is a lifestyle and a way of thinking... and it's not about money and popularity. Although, some money would be nice ... And one of these people is gonna save the world. And that means that rock 'n' roll can save the world... all of us together. And the chicks are great. But what it all comes down to is that thing. The indefinable thing when people catch something in your music."
It doesn't take much more than that little piece of dialog to understand that Cameron Crowe really gets what rock 'n' roll was once all about. If you need more proof than that, then you're in luck, because Paramount is giving you 163 minutes of proof, and for the first time in UHD Blu-ray in all the glory of 4K. Almost Famous is one of the best rock movies ever made. It's right up there with This Is Spinal Tap, but for very different reasons. The film captures that sweet spot in rock when the pioneers were still around and right before things became far more corporate. The early 1970's was the perfect moment of "the tour" and the rock star and The Cover Of The Rolling Stone. Cameron Crowe knows what all of that means, because he covered it for decades as a rock journalist. It's obvious he lived some of this stuff, if not all of it. And the hardest part was, he managed to put together just the right team of people to faithfully get it on film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on July 21st, 2021
"Throughout history, different cultures all over the world reference a great tournament of champions. That dragon marking, I think it's an invitation to fight for something known as Mortal Kombat."
While I do rate this adaptation of the popular video game better than its incarnations that came before it in the 90s, I still wouldn’t categorize it as a great movie. It’s a bit too short on explanation to reach that level. It starts off promising with a showdown battle between the two most popular characters of the game, played by Joe Taslim (Sub-Zero) and Hiroyuki Sanada (Scorpion). The fight is everything that I expected it to be; well-orchestrated with the right amount of bloodshed. However, as the story goes on, the quality of the storytelling takes a hit as the film takes the position that the audience is already well-versed in the backstory of the film. For me, this seemed liked the wrong approach to take, especially if you are trying to attract a younger generation to the series. We have to remember that Mortal Kombat is based off a video game series that is nearly thirty years old. Granted, it has seen much revamping over the proceeding years that has kept the series current, but even so, a voiceover explaining the backstory of the tournament would have gone a long way. We get a title card that offer some details, but it’s not enough.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 18th, 2021
Just in time for the first days of shooting on the next and final Indiana Jones film, Paramount cashes in on the renewed interest with the long-awaited, at least from this reviewer, release of the first four films in the Indiana Jones franchise on UHD Blu-ray in full ultra high definition complete with HDR and Dolby Vision. OK, I lied about the long-awaited four films. Most of us have long-awaited two out of the first four films, but Paramount gets that. That's why the original Blu-ray release and again the 4K release doesn't give you the option yet to just pick the two you want. If you want Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Last Crusade in 4K, you're stuck with the other two. I'll take that deal, and you should, too. Here's why.
Harrison Ford was once the top selling actor in Hollywood. He owes this distinction in no small part to a couple of trilogies he did early in his career. While Star Wars might have been a chance for Ford to break out, Raiders of the Lost Ark and its sequels defined his abilities. Indiana Jones is the perfect hero. He’s strong, intelligent, and above all, moral. Unlike the stereotypical hero, Jones is also vulnerable, and at times flawed. Credit Steven Spielberg for the iconic stature Indy occupies today. Left to his own devices, George Lucas would have given us Tom Selleck as the cigarette-smoking, morally bankrupt Indiana Smith.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 18th, 2021
Ever since the release of Godzilla in 2014, just the possibility of this film has been highly anticipated. The last time we got to see these two titans go head to head, it was in the 1963 version of Kong vs, Godzilla. Sure, it has some value as a campy romp, but you’ll have a difficult time convincing anyone that it was actually a good movie. No matter what fans may think of the new Monsterverse that we’ve gotten, I feel what can be agreed upon is that each of the films has given us an impressive look at these monsters, not just in their design, but in their fights. While I’m pretty open about my affection for these titans and how happy I am to see them finally get their due beyond the man-in-suit films (which of course I still enjoy and adore), it’s still no surprise to me that the weakest parts have always been the human aspect of the films. While I believe Peter Jackson’s King Kong may be the best of all the monster films by blending story, FX, and monster mayhem, Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) was quite simply a beautiful take of just monster mayhem, and it really amped up everyone’s expectations to finally get to see Kong and Godzilla finally do battle with a budget and FX that are deserving of them both.
Right from the start the film is setting it up that Godzilla is the “bad guy” while he destroys a tech facility in Florida called Apex Cybernetics. Is it a random attack, or is there something more sinister going on at the facility? Of course, something is rotten in Denmark there, but just what is going on we don’t get the full details on till much later. For fans seeing Godzilla as the villain isn’t anything new; he’s a force of nature that just enjoys destroying cities and getting into scraps with any giant monsters that get in his way. When we meet up with Kong, he’s pretty much the polar opposite. It’s been about 50 years later since his last romp on Skull Island, and he’s just trying to live his life and be happy. Apparently Skull Island has been destroyed, and Kong is really housed in a giant facility where he is under 24-hour watch. In this time he’s made himself a friend, Jia ( Kaylee Hottle), a girl with a hearing disability that has developed a sweet bond with the giant ape. For Hottle this is her first role, and as an actress with a real hearing disability, well, she’s impressive and does a great job as being the heart of this film. How she’s able interact with this giant CGI character and have it look so genuine is definitely what saves this film on the human side of things.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 4th, 2021
By David Annandale
It is 1979. While filming a Super 8 horror movie, a group of young friends on the cusp of adolescence witness a spectacular train wreck. They later discover that they accidentally captured evidence that there was an alien creature on the train, and it is now loose in their small town. But if the mysterious disappearance of dogs, engines, and (increasingly) people wasn’t trouble enough, the military descends upon the community with an agenda far more merciless and inhuman than that of the alien itself. I was 12 in 1979, and I was shooting Super 8 monster movies, so I get the nostalgia that writer/director J.J. Abrams is going for here, and this is an utterly unapologetic exercise in nostalgia. Abrams is out to recreate the experience of a Spielberg movie from that era, and with the man himself acting as producer, the mission is accomplished. Super 8 plays like the Lost Spielberg Movie, with all the wonder, thrills, and sentimentality one would expect. There is so much here that works beautifully. The young cast is terrific, the dialog crackles, the effects are spectacular, and the creature is both menacing and sympathetic, like some unholy version of ET reworked by H.P. Lovecraft.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 25th, 2021
By John Ceballos
“She’s quite a common girl, very common indeed.”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 18th, 2021
It started in 2013 with Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. DC decided to follow the Marvel MCU model and release a series of DC property films in a 16-film phase that ended last year with Justice League Dark: Apokolips War. After 16 films with a couple of branch-offs, that phase/story has come to a close, and a new phase begins with Justice Society: World War II. The stories were pretty much based on the New 52 reboot of the DC comics universe. There have been some exceptional films in the series and a couple of duds. The animation styles varied and conformed to the type of story being told. With the release of Justice Society: World War II we enter a new phase, and so far the theme or source of the new films hasn't been revealed. We know the next two films will be based on the Batman: The Long Halloween comic. After that it appears the DC folks' lips are sealed. While that two-part adventure looks quite enticing, the new series of films opens with a very average entry.
The film begins with President Franklin D. Roosevelt being briefed on a secret Nazi project. This is going to tempt you to fetch your Indiana Jones fedora and whip. You see, this secret Nazi project has Hitler sending teams out to look for "magical" or supernatural objects to help him win World War II. The film presentation gives us an idea of the kinds of artifacts the project is seeking, including... wait for it ... the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. No sign of Harrison Ford. FDR is also briefed on a special project the Allies are running. It's a group of superheroes who have been gathered to fight for the Allies. The group is led by Wonder Woman, voiced by Law & Order: SVU's Stana Katic with a rather humorous Russian accent. The team also includes Hawkman, voiced by Omid Abtahi, Hourman, voiced by Matthew Mercer, Jay Garrick's Flash, voiced by Armen Taylor, Black Canary, voiced by Elysia Rotaru, and Wonder Woman's main squeeze, Steve Trevor, voiced by Chris Diamantopoulos. We get to see them kick a little Nazi behind before we jump to the present where Barry Allan's Flash, voiced by Matt Bomer is helping Superman, voiced by Darren Criss, beat up on Brainiac, voiced by Darin De Paul. This is all pre-Justice League, and they go out of their way to let you know that this team-up is really something new. Barry tries to protect Superman from a Kryptonite projectile when he is suddenly thrown back in time and ends up on a World War II battlefield.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 7th, 2021
"Welcome to the future. Life is good! But it can be better. And why shouldn't it be? All you need is to want it. Think about finally having everything you always wanted."
In 1917 Patty Jenkins teamed up with Israeli actress Gal Gadot to create one of the best comic book movies of all time. Wonder Woman had everything. It sported a really good lead actress surrounded by a really good supporting cast. It had a grand scope but still gave us characters at the core with wonderful chemistry and heart. We got plenty of action and huge set pieces without giving up anything in the trenches. It was easily the best superhero film of the decade and the best DC/Warner hero film since the 1978 Donner Superman movie. But the trouble here is that Jenkins already had an incredible formula going here but couldn't resist the temptation to want everything. There was a tremendously high level of expectations here, and as I've frequently opined: expectations kill. There are still a lot of the elements that made Wonder Woman so great here, but the film strays in ways that end up taking away from those great elements, and we end up with a very mediocre follow-up to a truly great film.
