Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

POUND OF FLESH

What could be worse than hazily waking up in a Filipino bathtub after a night of passion with a stranger you’d rescued that same night, only to realise that some no good sort has removed one of your kidneys? Well, that’s exactly the pickle that Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Deacon finds himself embroiled in.

Now whilst unwillingly losing a kidney isn’t great at the best of times, Deacon is actually in the Philippines so that he can donate said kidney to his dying niece. With time at a premium, he must unravel the mystery as to who took his kidney, why it was taken and, more importantly, get it back in time to save his religious brother’s (John Ralston) dying 9-year-old daughter. Oh, and kick lots of people in the face, obviously. Thing is, the people who Deacon is after are well aware that he is on to them, with hired heavy Drake (the sadly deceased Darren Shahlavi) proving to be a major stumbling block.

As far as Van Damme movies go, Pound of Flesh fits in perfectly with the back catalogue of the Muscles from Brussels. The dialogue is your usual action movie fodder and some of the rear projection effects look as if they’ve been pulled straight from the 1950s, but of course you go into a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie for one thing: the action. From managing to effortlessly keep his sunglasses on his face during one brawl to using a bible to brutalise some assailants, there are certainly action sequences that stand out here. However, the first half of the film is mighty thin on the ground in terms of action. Instead, we seem to get an initial 15 minutes that just focusses on a completely bare-arsed Van Damme stumbling round a bedroom before he and his crew set out to retrieve the missing organ.

To go further into the plot of the film would be to veer on spoiler territory, but it’s fair to say that there are some twists and turns along the way; some predictable, some not so. Van Damme himself does a decent, if not a tad clichéd, job at the centre of the action, and his supporting players’ performances vary from fine to average to awkward. And for a Van Damme film, the action feels a little slack at times, with the sequences that don’t involve JCVD coming off as a clunky and ungainly, and Van Damme’s Deacon often involved in a hazy bubble due to the whole organ removal issue.

Pound of Flesh is one that the Van Damme hounds will lavish their pennies on, although many may end up with a little less action than they’re used to. Either way, this action mystery movie will still deliver many of the familiar beats that you’re used to and will be expecting.

Special Features: None

INFO: POUND OF FLESH / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: ERNIE BARBARASH / SCREENPLAY: JOSHUA JAMES / STARRING: JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMME, DARREN SHAHLAVI, CHARLOTTE PETERS, JOHN RALSTON, AKI ALEONG / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 22ND
 

“They tried to call it Killer Mermaids,” said director Milan Todorovic, introducing what was then called Nymph, at Frightfest 2014. This, to peals of audience laughter and derision. Fast forward to almost a year later, where what was then called Nymph has arrived on DVD, now retitled… yep, Killer Mermaids. Cue peals of audience laughter and derision.

Killer Mermaids, Killer Mermaid, Nymph, Mamula… whatever you want to call it (not Killer Mermaids), one of the odder movies of the year is here, its story, for better or worse, very much doing what it says on the tin; killer mermaids, hunting a pretty young group of holidaygoers in beautiful Montenegro. Separating this from the rest of its SyFy ilk is a surprising level of technical competence and the presence of one Franco Nero as a mysterious, grizzled local.

By default the world’s most second-most notable Serbian film, Killer Mermaids goes easy on the *shudders* newborn porn and dodgy underground antics, instead laying on the camp as thick as they can get it. The overbearing nightclub rave soundtrack only adds to a feeling of weird disco you’d struggle to find outside of the Eurovision Song Contest or a sweaty nightclub somewhere warm and abroad. Not even the entrance of the titular murderous mermaids can save Killer Mermaids from feeling as desperately daft as it is, no matter how straight Todorovic and his cast play it. From the front of the camera (the appearance of Nero never seems any less  bizarre, no matter how long he sticks around) to behind it (where the catering company is listed as one of the producers) it feels genuinely fresh, even if that doesn’t always translate to good filmmaking. Even better, haters of reading can rejoice (heathens!) – to appeal to a bigger audience, Todorovic had his film made in English. As though a title like Killer Mermaids won’t have everyone gagging to see the main attraction.

Utterly, befuddlingly ridiculous, Killer Mermaids is a beautiful oddity. Silly, sexy and strange, it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but its siren song is well worth hearing out.

Special Features: None

INFO: KILLER MERMAIDS / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: MILAN TODOROVIC / SCREENPLAY: BARRY KEATING, MILAN KONJEVIC / STARRING: FRANCO NERO, KRISTINA KLEBE, NATALIE BURN, DRAGAN MICANOVIC / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 29TH

 

From overindulgent Japanese director Kazuaki Kiriya comes a dull remake of The 47 Ronin, which doesn’t even have the ridiculous excess and glamour of 2013’s Keanu Reeves vehicle going for it. Its only concession to genuine entertainment is taking Japan’s Edo period and grafting it onto a medieval medley setting. But both pools of stimulus are ditched in favour of a po-faced tale of honour and loyalty.

Clive Owen is at his most dour as commander Raiden, overseeing a group of elite soldiers for their clan and master. The group follow a strict but poorly defined Bushido-like warrior code. The empire that governs them has been corrupted by nefarious minister Geza Mott (Aksel Hennie). After their master is unceremoniously killed, the warriors-turned-Ronin are scattered. A year later Raiden is a drinking and whoring himself into oblivion, while the others ruthlessly plan their vengeance against Mott.

Morgan Freeman takes on the mantle of clan leader Bartok, proving that all he’s really got going for him is his baritone, and even his dulcet tones aren’t enough to save Last Knights from mediocrity and tedium. Though Owen and Freeman take top billing, there’s plenty of familiar faces including Cliff Curtis and the late Dave Legeno in his last film role.

The fight choreography is bland with a mismatch of fighting styles and quick cuts to mask the shoddy effects and am dram shamble. The near two-hour running time is due in no small part the slow-mo which draws out the peppering of fight scenes. There’s some nice enough, if innocuous, set pieces and even the odd decent shot, mostly of Clive Owen looking sad in snow or rain.

Kiriya begs your indulgence for almost two hours with nothing but dull characters and a plodding script in return. For a similar and superior take on vengeance and loyalty after watching Last Knights, Takeshi Miike’s 13 Assassins is a suitable palate cleanser.

Special Features: None

INFO: LAST KNIGHTS / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: KAZUAKI KIRIYA / SCREENPLAY: MICHAEL KONYVES, DOVE SUSSMAN / STARRING: MORGAN FREEMAN, CLIVE OWEN, AKSEL HENNIE, CLIFF CURTIS, DAVE LEGENO / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 29TH

 

A LETTER TO THREE WIVES

We do cult movies now. What? You don’t reckon this one’s cult? Cult is a pretty broad church, you know. Well perhaps you’re right. We shall see. But it is quite good so read on…

Three friends (Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern) are about to embark on a boat trip with the local children. They’re talking about their fourth friend, Addie Ross (Celeste Holm), who has apparently just skipped town. As they’re about to leave, a messenger arrives with a letter from Addie addressed to all three. She’s only gone and buggered off with one of their husbands. But the twist is that she doesn’t say which one. They’ll have to wait until the evening to find out. Neat, huh? Cult enough for you yet? OK, maybe not. Anyway, we then get three separate flashback vignettes as the women think about their relationships with their husbands and each other while we get to try and work out which husband has done the dirty.

The first thing you have to say about A letter to Three Wives is that it’s a fascinating insight into the lives of middle class Americans just as the ‘50s were about to dawn. One of the friends writes radio plays so there’s a great deal about consumerism and a brilliant rant from a her school-teaching husband (a young Kirk Douglas – now 98 and still with us at the time of writing) about corporate America in which we learn people were well aware of the effects of tobacco even back then. Two of the friends have actually married into the middle class lifestyle; one thrives while the other is burdened by what she (and only she) sees as her inadequacies. The script is witty and much of it has aged surprisingly well with a few laugh out loud moments and a brilliant comic performance from the incomparable Thelma Ritter (Rear Window) as Sadie the bolshie and very working class housekeeper. And while Addie acts as the film’s narrator, brilliantly, she is never seen. We see the husband’s reactions to her when she’s being talked about or, in one scene, where she’s just off camera, but Addie remains an enigma throughout. Maybe this is cult material after all.

But perhaps the film has cult status because it has a notoriously confusing ending? Actually, if we’re honest we have no idea why anyone thinks the ending is confusing. It’s pretty clear. But people really were confused, including General Douglas MacArthur (no, really) who actually wrote to the director asking for an explanation. We have no idea if Mankiewicz replied or not.

So it’s an intriguing story with a pivotal character you never see and an ending that baffled 20th century military-history royalty. And you thought it wasn’t cult? We think it qualifies (just).

Special Features: Audio commentary / Newsreel of Academy Awards ceremony / Trailer / 36-page booklet

INFO:  A LETTER TO THREE WIVES (1949) / DIRECTOR: JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ / SCREENPLAY: JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ, VERA CASPARY / STARRING: JEANNE CRAIN, LINDA DARNELL, ANN SOTHERN, KIRK DOUGLAS, PAUL DOUGLAS, JEFFREY LYNN, THELMA RITTER, FLORENCE BATES, HOBART CAVANAUGH, CELESTE HOLM / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 29TH
 
 

RWBY: VOLUME 1

From anarchic online upstarts Rooster Teeth comes what their CEO describes as America’s first anime. Avatar: The Last Airbender notwithstanding, the 2012 series of shorts is more of a hybrid between eastern and western animation that doesn’t belong in either camp. A fact that has no doubt led to its impressive popularity.

Watching RWBY gives credence to the adage that the animation is wrong, but everything is so right. And the gaudy computer generated animation is clunky, awkward and possessing more than one fundamental problem, but not without style. The backdrops in particularly are beautifully rendered. It’s tremendously directed by Monty Oum, the late creator of the series, bolstering colour with music and slick design for one hip dose of animation.

The first volume is divvied up into ten episodes, each averaging a 12-minute running time, so it’s an easily digestible series for the hustle bustle of modern day life. Although a digital stream on the go is probably the preferred viewing option, the DVD and Blu-ray release does come with the choice to watch the episodes strung together as one feature-length piece. Because of the episodic nature the spliced up version is jumpy, with episode ends and beginnings stuck head and tail together.

RWBY is a whimsical and engaging story drawn straight from fairytale and myth where the world of Remnant is populated by shadowy beasties called Grimm. Having battled the Grimm, humanity discovered the use of dust, which allowed them to power weapons and abilities to fight back. Cut to the modern day, special schools train the magically inclined into hunters and huntresses.

Ruby Rose is little red riding hood reimagined as a mischievous and goofy teen with her trick scythe, crescent rose. After demonstrating her fighting skill, she’s bumped ahead two years and sent to hunter/huntress school Beacon with her sister. There she ends up heading the team RWYB, an acronym made up of its members: Ruby, Weiss, Yang and Blake.

Oum, something of a dandy himself, brings his effortless cool to the character design, with enviable outfits and weapons that say all you need to know about their owners. The dialogue is snappy and funny, but the accompanying voice acting is a mixed bunch, with a lot of grating performances. Ruby, in particular, voiced by Lindsay Jones, has great delivery and timing.

Putting two thirds of the series on one volume and expecting fans to fork over for the remaining six episodes is pretty cheeky, but if you can look past the double price tag and the trying animation it’s a very rewarding series that boasts specular action sequences, a terrific soundtrack and genuinely engaging characters.

Special Features: Audio commentary / Behind the scenes / Storyboards / Fan art / Cosplay / Trailers

INFO: RWBY: VOLUME 1 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: MONTY OUM, KERRY SHAWCROSS / STARRING: LINDSAY JONES, KARA EBERLE, ARRYN ZECH, BARBARA DUNKELMAN, MILES LUNA / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 29TH

 

The scene opens with a pretty brunette girl in tight, short summer clothes and red stilettos running startled into the middle of a perfectly parallel suburbia. This is against a screeching, layered soundtrack that’s stylised to emphasise the evening spread out against the sky above those little box houses made of ticky tacky. David Robert Mitchell’s film is sometimes reminiscent of a giallo, but isn’t one. This is a horror film that plays tricks on the brain as it follows its main character, Jay, and her friends as she navigates the spectres of sex and death in Detroit.

Extremely well-made, much of the framing sees the teens sitting in circles, shutting the audience out and creating an intense sense of claustrophobic paranoia about their relationships. This is compounded by Disasterpeace’s soundtrack. It’s a highly stylised, heavy electronic overlay that feels like it’s what the teens’ mood is, rather than what we’d expect them to listen to. This, together with a large number of static long-shots, emphasises a dislocated dread; no one knows quite what’s going on or what it means. This self-conscious artistry suggests a poetic representation of them trying to understand the urban, adult world while being terrified of the slow death of Starbucks and coffee spoons as supposed romance. It is almost preposterously pretentious and, in places, naked in its silliness, yet works because it’s so confident that its cleverness is interesting.

Maika Monroe is the star of the show as the tormented Jay. She looks the typical teen scream queen and has a good set of lungs on her, but with a face that does really good emo. She’s also a great giallo-techno-porno-temptress when in her summer dress. This makes sense as hers is a partly introspective, partly demonstrative role about the way teens are expected to react to SEX and, yes, it’s a little heavy. She’s balanced out with fizzle and pop from her friends, particularly Keir Gilchrist as Paul, who has an adorable, puppy-doggish charm with an insistent and slightly seedy sexual undertone beneath his chivalry. He’s just a boy, after all.

It Follows is a shape-shifter. It has the beats of a typical teen slasher but projects the brainless babes, boyfriends and bonking through an art house approach that glows with the allure of tension rather than chair-jumping terror. Instead of focusing on the frolicky teens’ flesh, we have artistic static shots in which they look moodily into the middle distance, posed as much as ponderous. The entire story can be interpreted differently depending on your view of the intercourse. The one constant, highlighted when it drowns a little under its own philosophical weight, is that it’s keener to be seen as a Gothic intellectual tango than following any particular logic. That said, its imagery is so twisted, yet so beautifully and starkly captured, that it’s oddly clinically matter-of-fact.

If thought freaks you out, this will terrify you.

INFO: IT FOLLOWS / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: DAVID ROBERT MITCHELL / STARRING: MAIKA MONROE, KEIR GILCHRIST, CAROLLETTE PHILLIPS, LOREN BASS, OLIVIA LUCCARDI / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 29TH
 

RED VS BLUE: SEASON 11

There is something neat about the fact that, though Red vs. Blue is a workplace comedy set in the Halo universe, you don’t need to have played a single game of Halo to understand it. As luck would have it, as the popular internet show enters its eleventh year, there has been a strong effort to get back to their roots so this is now quite a good jumping on point. Especially as the whole thing starts off with a brief recap explaining how they got into their current situation.

The script, penned by Rooster Teeth staff member Miles Luna, is full of laughs. The funniest stuff is easily anything to do with the Spanish-speaking characters Lopez and Dos.0 and most of the characters are still likable in their own way. This makes for a two hours that almost flies by.

However, there is something quite disheartening about the fact that most of the content on the DVD and Blu-ray releases are a bunch of trailers for other RT shows. This is especially galling when all of the episodes are already available on YouTube in a sequential playlist and the viewing experience is much the same. This means that the main piece of worthwhile material from this release (other than a few deleted scenes and other ephemera) is the commentary on the main feature. Which, to be fair, is illuminating and tells the audience a lot about how they got a lot of surprisingly complex shots in the Halo multiplayer environment. But we know there are people out there who won’t bother listening to it. So what are these people left with?

While the show itself is certainly funny and worth the watch, we found the actual package a bit lacking. If you’re bothered about supporting Rooster Teeth, you’ve probably already ordered this. The rest of us… well, we’re not so sure. For us, this was barely a cut above a vanilla edition and these days they just don’t cut it.

Special Features: Audio commentary / Deleted scenes / Trailers

INFO: RED VS BLUE: SEASON 11 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: MILES LUNA / STARRING: JOEL HEYMAN, MATT HULLUM, GEOFF RAMSEY, JASON SALDANA, GUS SOROLA / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 29TH

STAR LEAF

Star Leaf’s story is centred on James, a former Marine sniper suffering from PTSD after his deployment in the Hindu Kush. His squadmate Tim has buried the same traumas with a carefree hippie lifestyle and Twilight-fixated girlfriend named Martha. The three of them are directed to a secret mountain plantation, where grows a super-strain of marijuana that may or may not have been left there by aliens (which may or may not have actually been Islamic djinn) to open the minds of humans to the secrets of the universe. From then on things just get weirder.

Dating back to the unintentionally hilarious 1930s propaganda flick Reefer Madness, marijuana has a long history of altering the consciousness of cinema screens, often featuring amusingly bemused stoners stumbling their way through improbably elaborate plots. Although Star Leaf might sound like a throwaway sci-fi comedy, it’s actually a lot better thought out than that.

Despite the inherently farcical concept that conjures images of wacky hijinks from aliens and stoners (or even alien stoners), it’s actually surprisingly restrained, and as a result allows us to take its ideas seriously. However, that’s not to say it’s all grim solemnity; it’s fun enough to still be entertaining, and light moments like the hallucination of a sexy fairy or a running joke about a bear-humping moose relieve the weight of the metaphysical aspects.

The characterisation of the central trio is simple but effective and comes through naturally in their conversations, allowing us to properly understand the relationships between them without requiring them to be outright stated. Likewise, the comedy inherent in the bizarre situations is allowed to come through on its own without being coerced by laborious events or dialogue.

The most surreal events occur during the sequences of the central trio being stoned, and with the addition of psychedelic lens flares from a glitterball supernova and music so trippy it’ll lift you up on a cloud of sound, you can’t even be sure what’s actually supposed to be happening, never mind whether or not it’s real. The morning after the night of getting baked, if becomes difficult to tell whether their ensuing panic is due to genuine encroaching danger on account of their inevitably flagrant disregard for the rules they were given before embarking on the journey to the grove, or if it’s a group paranoia hangover from the effects of the Martian maryjane. The uncertainty is confusing but rewarding, and by not following a straightforward path the film sets itself apart from the kinds of movies it will doubtless become compared to. In a short space of time Star Leaf manages to build interesting characters and efficiently convey a number of ideas without glossing over them or cramming them in, thus providing, like the journey of its characters, a slightly bewildering but ultimately fulfilling experience.

Special Features: TBC

INFO: STAR LEAF / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: RICHARD CRANOR / SCREENPLAY: RICHARD CRANOR, HUGH BERRY / STARRING: JULIAN GAVILANES, TYLER TRERISE, SHELBY TRUAX, RICHARD CRANOR, RUSSELL HODGKINSON / RELEASE DATE: VOD OUT NOW
 

THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN

Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel imagines the effects of a devastating alien microorganism crash landing on earth, and follows the efforts of a crack team of scientists to combat the threat. Robert Wise’s faithful movie adaption came a few years later, and the ponderous film provided the backbone to the 2008 two part mini-series of the same name. It’s now been released on DVD again, only this time packing a handful of extras.

Backed by powerhouse producers Tony and Ridley Scott, writer Robert Schenkkan upped the political espionage, bringing the story up to date, juggling America’s paranoia by connecting events with the Middle East crisis and the war on terror. A more interesting reading is the ecological effect of big corporations. In whatever case, both take a backseat to the soppy love story straddling the rest.

The captioned character names which fleetingly set the ball rolling give it a documentary aesthetic, which might have made for a more focussed effort had director Mikael Salomon gone down the vérité route. Salomon worked as cinematographer on James Cameron’s undersea sci-fi epic The Abyss, and it shows. There’s a distinct functionality to the shots, a stiffness typical of Cameron’s latter work, with only the occasional arty flourish giving away any kind of style or flavour.

It boasts a pretty decent ensemble cast, with Benjamin Bratt as Dr. Jeremy Stone, the central figure around which the narrative shifts and gravitates. His charisma and presence are captivating, and he gives a good go of heading up the scientific team charged with fighting the spreading infection. Barry Flatman brings his timbre and game face in a role straight out of All the President’s Men. Viola Davis probably gives the best performance as Dr. Charlene Barton, a dynamic and believable portrayal of a woman struggling with a commitment to duty while trying to keep her family safe. On the other side of things, Perception’s Eric McCormack is the scene-stealing investigative journalist Jack Nash, a paranoid mischief maker with a coke habit.

It feels dated, even 7 years later, particularly the laughable visual effects. With The Strain and Helix as stiff modern day competition, The Andromeda Strain falls flat. It’s a fascinating central concept, proving Crichton’s enduring intellect and medical know how. Smart, stylish and very ambitious, it’s a show too bogged-down with its science-for-dummies script, schlocky monster movie effects and pitiful plot-turns to be anything other than a so-so mini-series from TV’s yesterday.

Special Features: Audio commentaries / Making of / Visual effects breakdown / Photo and design gallery

INFO: THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: MIKAEL SALOMON / SCREENPLAY: ROBERT SCHENKKAN, MICHAEL CRICHTON / STARRING: BENJAMIN BRATT, BARRY FLATMAN, CHRISTA MILLER, VIOLA DAVIS, ERIC MCCORMACK / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
 
 

JURASSIC CITY

First of all, the alluring box art, showing a Tyrannosaurus Rex towering over an SUV with pterodactyls soaring overhead doesn’t appear in the film, and, although mentioned as a star in the write up on the back of the DVD case, Dallas Bryce Howard doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the film either. But the audacity of the publicity department’s misleading advertising aside (she’s not credited on the actual film) – the movie is actually not bad.

Jurassic Park or World, this ain’t. Think of it more as independent film director/screenwriter/editor Sean Cain’s Jurassic Lark. Inexplicably, there are dinosaurs on the loose in modern day Los Angeles, running wild and causing general havoc.

The story takes place in one night, with an impressive but brief final segment set the following morning. No explanation is given for the sudden unwelcome arrival of velociraptors among us, and the motley groups we follow during the film’s lean 85-minute running time seem to accept their appearance pretty easily and quickly.

The main setting is a prison, where a particularly unpleasant trio of teenaged sorority sisters are placed in a holding cell with a bunch of other miscreants, a couple of alcoholics and a hardened criminal – all of whom must somehow work together to escape the building, which is now the hunting ground for a pack of hungry raptors. Elsewhere, the military’s Special Ops unit are trying and failing to contain the situation.

The CGI effects are what you’d expect for a budget-conscious independent feature; varying in quality, but they serve their purpose in moving the story forward and Cain wisely doesn’t dwell on them, but rather plays to his strengths in directing a strong cast.

Over the years, Cain has managed to pull together a regular acting troupe in his features, and we see a few of his regulars here. Cult film and TV aficionados will no doubt enjoy the performances of Vernon Wells (Max Max 2, Inner Space, Commando) Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp) and Ray Wise (Twin Peaks).

Creative and fast-paced, it feels like there should be a sequel.

INFO: CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: SEAN CAIN / STARRING: RAY WISE, KEVIN GAGE, DANA MELANIE, SOFIA MATTSSON, KAYLA CARLYLE, VANESSA JOHNSON, JACK FORCINITO, VERNON WELLS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW