Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

BLU-RAY REVIEW: SPIONE / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: FRITZ LANG / SCREENPLAY: THEA VON HARBOU, FRITZ LANG / STARRING: RUDOLF KLEIN-ROGGE, GERDA MAURUS, WILLY FRITSCH / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Even the world’s biggest directors have to scale down once in a while – after making iconic sci-fi epic Metropolis, Fritz Lang’s studio asked if he wouldn’t mind losing a zero or two from the budget sheets next time around, and thus was born Spione (it’s German for ‘Spies’, don’t you know), a rich and compelling thriller which laid the groundwork for many spy movies to come, and which is now receiving a fresh Blu-ray release thanks to the Masters of Cinema series.

When government agent 326 (Fritsch) encounters the beautiful Sonja (Maurus), pursued by the police for a crime she was forced to commit, she convinces him to hide her away, but little does he know she’s one of those eponymous Spione, out to get him. And if 326 is a proto-007, his nemesis and Sonja’s employer is a proto-Blofeld: Haghi (Klein-Rogge), a bank director (boo, hiss) who secretly leads a sinister espionage organisation and plans to steal a vital Japanese treaty in order to bring about war (even more boos and hisses).

If you’ve seen Metropolis, Spione may initially strike you as less visually decadent. There are no sweeping futuristic cityscapes here, no enormous and imaginative sets – don’t expect proto-Blofeld to have a proto-volcano lair – and some of the longer office-set sequences may test a modern viewer’s patience across the two-and-a-half-hour running time. But Lang really is a master of imagery, and there are some amazing sequences – both action scenes, such as a motorcycle chase of a sophistication you really wouldn’t expect from a 1920s film, and inventive settings for subtler espionage to take place and for Lang to make jabs at the opulence of the richer classes – 326 and Sonja visit a nightclub with its own boxing match; when the match finishes, the dancers swoop into the ring. Oh, and there are some real top-quality moustaches on show.

There’s also great drama between the three leads – OK, 326 is a little bland, but Sonja is wonderfully tough, throwing herself into the action to save him from a railway crash when your typical damsel in distress would sit around crying. And Haghi, though not as iconic as the Dr. Mabuse character Klein-Rogge would later portray, is a compellingly nasty creation, manipulative and dangerously intelligent, with the arrogance to declare himself “richer than Ford, though I pay less taxes”. Cue yet more booing and hissing.

Spione may not be Fritz Lang’s finest film, but it is a surprisingly exciting thriller, visually rich despite not having Metropolis’ budget, and nicely critical of the wasteful rich in a time of Great Depression – all in all, further proof if ever it was needed that Lang truly was a Master of Cinema.

Special Features: Choice of soundtracks from Neil Brand & Donald Sosin / 69-minute documentary / 40-page booklet
 

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BLU-RAY REVIEW: THE ROVER / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: DAVID MICHÔD / SCREENPLAY: DAVID MICHÔD, JOEL EDGERTON / STARRING: GUY PEARCE, ROBERT PATTINSON, SCOTT MCNAIRY / RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 5TH

Dan Hill once sang “it’s a long road, when you’re on your own” but judging by David Michôd’s (Animal Kingdom) drama/thriller, it isn’t much better when you have company. The Rover is a film suited to appeal to different audiences; some will love its style, others will switch the film off. However, one thing that cannot be denied about this polarising offering is the skilful evocation of its post-apocalyptic world. The Rover, penned by Michôd and Joel Edgerton, has echoes of Cormac McCarthy’s work, with dashes of 1988’s Rain Man and a less action-packed Mad Max. While the film’s futuristic, desolated setting is too vague for its own good, there is an interesting film here.

The film is set in the Australian outback, 10 years after ‘the collapse,’ and a group of criminals have got into an altercation with the military and are on the run. In their panic, the group crash their car and jump in the nearest vehicle available, which happens to belong to loner Eric (Pearce), who is desperate to get his car back. To do so he comes across one of the group’s wounded members in Reynolds (Pattinson), who was left behind, and uses him as a guide to find the gang’s hideout and reclaim his car. As odd as the plot seems, the tone is not really the issue with The Rover. In fact, the opening of the film is amazingly atmospheric and an early innovative chase scene lays the groundwork for a potential masterpiece, as does the unexpected and intriguing conclusion. Sadly, the issue falls in the central, overlong stretch of the film, which veers from provoking to pretentious. There is no doubting the appeal of ambiguity, but by the finale you are more than ready for a resolution of some sort.

The Rover is an ambitious film at points, and its presentation of a broken world through Natasha Braier’s gritty cinematography is great, as is the occasionally chilling score by Antony Partos. Shame the pacing slows the momentum of the film down to a stop at points and the film’s initially playful vacuity becomes annoying. True ‘the collapse’ is open to interpretation, and it is interesting to dissect, but the film’s over-reliance on vagueness means that you are infuriatingly distant from it. Michôd’s direction is mostly contemplative, but the lingering long shots and recycled moments within feel meaningless at points, and come the climax (which we felt worked well in giving the film a message) many may feel the destination was certainly not worth the journey.

That being said, and despite a lot of supporting character’s motivations being rendered as little more than McGuffin, the leading performances are brilliant. Guy Pearce is impressively rough-edged as Eric, who is clearly a victim of this new world, having witnessed the moral-free actions that have surrounded the collapse. Pearce, in limited moments of speech, allows his worn and exasperated facial expressions to do much of the talking, although many more will be surprised at how well Robert Pattinson matches him as co-lead (yes, seriously). Pattinson as Reynolds (the needy and slightly naive brother of McNairy’s criminal Henry) proves he can act and delivers an incredibly strong accented performance that recalls Tom Hardy’s drawl in Lawless.

While the story and characters are reliably tragic and downbeat, there are moments of impressive reflection in Michôd’s film. Many may be left with little to really love about this overly grey film, but for all its pacing issues and overstretched running time The Rover shows how the postmodern world is in danger of losing all hope as it heads towards financial oblivion. Downbeatness aside, this is a good follow-up from Michôd that confirms his aspirations, although you are left with the thought that this would have made a far better short film than full-length feature. Flawed but fascinating.

Special Extras: Audio commentary / Making-of
 

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BLU-RAY REVIEW: THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1963) / DIRECTOR: MARIO BAVA / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: LETICIA ROMAN, JOHN SAXON, VALENTINA CORTESSE, DANTE DIPAOLO, GIANNI DI BENEDETTO / RELEASED: OUT NOW

What do cars, shoes and thrillers have in common? In fact, a certain style of Italian thriller is considered a genre of its own: giallo. The giallo film usually features the gruesome murder of a woman being witnessed by another woman who no-one believes and consequently everyone assumes is off her rocker (which she may actually be at various points in the film). There’s normally a fair bit of sex and always a lot of flashy camerawork. With some variations, that seems pretty much a giallo to us. As it happens, The Girl Who Knew Too Much is considered the very first of this most-Italian of things and it’s from one of the masters: Mario Bava. You’ll know him from no end of Italian flicks including Black Sunday (1960) and the one with the shit-scary old lady that indirectly invented British heavy metal, Black Sabbath (1963).

Letícia Román’s Nora Davis turns up in Rome to visit her sick auntie who is being treated by, of all people, John Saxon as Dr. Marcello Bassi. There’s some rum doings on the plane but it all gets really strange when her auntie dies and she witnesses a murder while running round in nothing but a rain coat. Obviously no-one believes her and, in a nicely self-referential touch, assumes that her obsession with pulp murder-mystery novels and a vivid imagination is the problem. But we know better: there’s the mysterious “alphabet murders” from ten years earlier; there’s strange things in cupboards that disappear when they seem to prove she’s not mad; there’s a locked study; mysterious phone calls; red herrings galore and all the other stuff you want in a good thriller.

Actually, in many ways TGWKTM isn’t a typical giallo as the tropes weren’t in place at this stage. There’s no sex and no lurid colours (this was actually Bava’s last black & white film) and, as suggested by that almost-but-not-quite title, it owes more to Hitchcock than anything else. But Hitchcock never looked through a camera; he paid perfectly good cinematographers for that. Bava started his career as a cinematographer so it’s no surprise that it looks fantastic and well-worthy of a Blu-ray release. Bava himself reckoned the story was actually a bit silly. He might have had a point but go with it because it’s good fun and when something is as stylish as this then you’ll get dragged along into the spirit of things anyway. Good looking and entertaining, not to mention culturally important. If only we could all be like that. Bring on the Bava…

Special Features: Audio commentary by Mario Bava biographer Tim Lucas / Introduction by writer and critic Alan Jones / All About the Girl documentary / Trailers / Booklet
 

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BLU-RAY REVIEW: SPACE: 1999 – THE BRINGERS OF WONDER / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: BY TOM CLEGG / SCREENPLAY: TERRENCE FEELY / STARRING: MARTIN LANDAU, BARBARA BAIN, CATHERINE SCHELL, TONY ANHOLT / RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 9TH

Network Distributing are issuing this limited edition (1,999 copies, natch) teaser Blu-ray consisting of the two-part The Bringers of Wonder story from the second season of Gerry Anderson’s 1970s space opera Space: 1999 in advance of the much-anticipated high-definition release of the entire Season 2 next Autumn. Space: 1999, for those not in the know, was Gerry’s post-live action sci-fi adventure (which evolved out of plans for an ultimately-aborted second season of the superior UFO) and concerned the exploits of the inhabitants of lunar facility Moonbase Alpha when the Earth’s satellite is blown into space following a nuclear waste detonation. 1975’s first season wasn’t exactly an unparalleled success; it was dour and humourless, many of its stories were ponderous and clumsy, and the show occasionally drifted into the realms of the metaphysical and the spiritual. Season 2 required a bit of retooling; along came Fred Freiburger…

Freiburger, history records, became the producer of Star Trek for its third season and history goes on to record how Star Trek was swiftly cancelled. Mr F succeeded in applying his ‘golden touch’ to Space: 1999 a few years later. The second series was substantially restructured with established cast members – Barry Morse, Prentis Hancock – shown the airlock and newcomers ushered in – Tony Anholt’s security chief Tony Verdeschi and Catherine Schells’s stately shape-shifting alien Maya. Also out was Anderson regular Barry Gray’s memorable theme tune, replaced by an unsubtle, urgent, striding theme by Derek Wadsworth and incidental music which wouldn’t have been amiss in a 1970s porn movie (probably). Retained were then husband-and-wife pairing of Martin Landau as Commander John Koenig and Barbara Bain as Dr Helena Russell as well as a handful (and here it literally is a handful) of supporting characters. Alpha’s imposing and sprawling Main Mission control room became the cramped and bland Command Centre and, worst of all, the stories became silly, fanciful sci-fi runarounds.

This is probably never better demonstrated than in the two-part The Bringers of Wonder, which squanders a few interesting concepts for the sake of some gaudy and ludicrous alien costumes. A Superswift spaceship from long-lost Earth arrives on Alpha, its crew consisting of close friends and family of Alpha’s personnel. The Alphans are euphoric at the prospect of returning to their lives on Earth. Only John Koenig can see the arrivals in their true form –   hideous (i.e. laughable) glowing, tendrilled, jelloid alien life-forms who speak in impressive cut-glass RP accents. The aliens thrive on radiation and lust after the moon’s nuclear waste dumps. Koenig persuades some of his Alpha chums of the alien’s true form and intentions and sets off in a race against time to stop Alpha’s Alan Carter (Nick Tate) and Jack Bartlett (Jeremy Young) from exploding the dumps, mistakenly believing that they’re back on Earth and having a really good time.

What’s strange – and still disappointing all these years later – about The Bringers of Wonder is how sloppy it is. The aliens are ridiculous and look as if they’ve just wandered in from the set of a 1960s Lost in Space episode, and the script offers little for Landau and Bain to work with, although, to their credit, they give it their best shot. There are a couple of potentially interesting ideas which never get off the ground; the aliens force the Alphans to delude themselves that they’re back on Earth, and the idea that even living a lie would be preferable to just wandering on aimlessly through Space harkens vaguely back to some of the more contemplative stories form the first season. But ultimately it’s all a bit ‘monster of the week’, pulpy sci-fi from a show which, even in its sometimes misguided first season, at least tried to present itself as proper, intelligent science-fiction.

On the plus side, the Blu-ray looks fantastic; the episodes are vibrantly sharp and colourful, and Brian Johnson’s gorgeous model effects work benefits enormously from the transfer to Blu-ray. But the cosmetic work on the series, from more simplistic stories to more ‘relatable’ characters and a generally slapdash production, just makes Space: 1999 look like a cheap, silly and rather desperate adventure series. It’s good to see Space: 1999 receiving the high-def treatment, but The Bringers of Wonder suggests that wading through the entire second season again next year is likely to be an exasperating chore.

Special Features: Unrestored re-edited Destination: Moonbase Alpha feature-length edition first released on VHS in the 1980s
 

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DVD REVIEW: BEYOND / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: JOSEPH BAKER, TOM LARGE / SCREENPLAY: JOSEPH BAKER, TOM LARGE / STARRING: RICHARD J. DANUM, GILLIAN MACGREGOR, PAUL BRANNIGAN, KRISTIAN HART / RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 12TH, 2015

Filmed and set in Scotland, Beyond, along with Monsters and The Battery, is part of a growing number of understated indie films which put the emphasis on character rather than circumstance. Written and directed by creative duo Joseph Baker and Tom Large, Beyond is a low budget treat continuing in the Great British indie tradition.

Set across two time periods, the first three years are set before an extinction level asteroid collides with the earth, whilst the second part is after aliens have decimated the planets population and, like District 9, their ship hovers in the sky. The move from each time is marked by a severe tonal shift, both in shots, style and effects, which can be jarring given the quality of the post-apocalyptic scenes.

After a frankly poorly scripted armed robbery, Cole (Danum) meets Maya (MacGregor). Their relationship mirroring the asteroids rapid trajectory, in the face of annihilation Maya gets pregnant, giving birth when the asteroid is only hours away from collision. In the second time zone, Cole and Maya are cold, starving, and barely holding their broken relationship together. Driven only be a desire to find their baby, the couple move by day and find shelter from the aliens at night.

As with Jonathan Glazer’s introspective Under the Skin, Baker and Large capture the haunting vastness of Scotland; its otherness. The dreadful indie folk soundtrack lets the film down, though the repeating score packs a punch.

Gillian MacGregor is a powerful and distinctive actress with oodles of screen presence, while Danum is more modest in comparison. The pair do play off one another, and their believable portrayal of a relationship, in all its stages, it strangely captivating.

Given the complex, metaphysical script, there’s plenty of different ways to interpret the film, especially its ending. Leaving spoilers at the door, you’re going to file it away under different genres depending on how you interpret it. Whether its sci-fi or a psychological drama is up to you.

Special Features: Trailer
 

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DVD REVIEW: LUCY / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: LUC BESSON / SCREENPLAY: LUC BESSON / STARRING: SCARLETT JOHANSSON, MORGAN FREEMAN, MIN-SIK CHOI, AMR WAKED / RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 12TH, 2015

Lucy is the tale of a woman (Johansson) who gets in over her head. In the first ten minutes of the movie, the titular heroine finds herself coerced, betrayed, beaten, abducted, tortured and then operated on. Gangsters force the main character to be a drug mule, carrying a new street drug that causes vivid hallucinations. The bag of drugs hidden within her bursts, unleashing all of the chemical into her body and unlocking her hidden potential as a super-powered being with a wide range of powers, starting with hyper intelligence and acute awareness. She then uses these newfound abilities to take on the gangsters and stop the mysterious drug from becoming widespread.

Let’s get this out of the way first: the core premise of Lucy is based on a popular myth that we only use a limited amount of our brain capacity. It’s a fallacy that has hung around because peddlers of self-help books and the like use it to flatter the gullible in order to sell them useless things. It is poor science at best, self-help guru propaganda at worst, but neither of these things are relevant to the movie; the “we only use 10% of our brain’s power” is a convenient shortcut to explain away the impossible. Just because the premise of a story is based on bad science, it does not follow that the movie itself is bad.

Lucy is a bad movie for entirely different reasons. On paper, Lucy sounds amazing. Scarlett Johansson is an actress best known for her ass-kicking action movie skills, and director Luc Besson is responsible for movies such as La Femme Nikita and Leon. Throw in Morgan Freeman as a sort of science Gandalf and, in theory, you should have a great little sci-fi B-movie about the ascension of mankind and the dangers of hubris.

Instead, what we get in leaden and plodding tosh. No effort is made to make us care about any of the characters, and by the time we get some level of engagement with the cast, it is way too late. Despite being a race against time, the pacing is too slow to give us any sense of urgency, and the story itself can’t really be bothered to introduce us to the main characters. The gangsters simply exist to move the plot along, Lucy herself does nothing to make us interested in her (despite Johansson’s best efforts) and Morgan Freeman doesn’t actually get to do very much throughout the film. The result is very expensive version of those terrible sci-fi movies that littered video stores in the ‘90s.

Despite its potential, the movie only ever achieves 10% of what it could do.

Special Features: Cerebral Capacity – The True Story of Lucy / Trailers

 

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BLU-RAY REVIEW: BAYONETTA: BLOODY FATE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: FUMINORI KIZAKI, SCREENPLAY: MITSUTAKA HIROTA / STARRING: ATSUKO TANAKA, DAISUKE NAMIKAWA, MIE SONOZAKI, MIYUKI SAWASHIRO, NORIO WAKAMOTO / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 24TH

Bayonetta is the impossibly-shaped protagonist from the popular video game of the same name. Joypad jockeys will be familiar with the character; Bayonetta is a witch who fights angels in the name of humanity. Clad only in her own (heavily enchanted) hair, the supernatural temptress gads about, blowing up monsters, and going from one ludicrous situation to the next.  Bayonetta: Bloody Fate is a faithful adaptation of the game’s slim plot into an anime, featuring the same sort of titillation and violence that has made the game so popular.

Much of the movie’s set-up is established at the very beginning; a voice over tells us that angels and demons are at war over the earth, and that witches and sages fight amongst each other over control of everything; the conflict focusing on a mystical macguffin,  because that’s how these things are done. Bayonetta herself is your typical amnesiac with mysterious powers and a hidden past, and the stakes are the world itself. Though clichéd, it’s not dull; the plot serves to take us to the next scene of either supernatural violence or gratuitous nudity and innuendo.

Bayonetta Bloody Fate is also terribly, terribly ‘90s. Those who remember the likes of Wicked City and Ninja Scroll will be on familiar territory here. The main character is hyper-sexualised to a cartoonish degree and barely a scene goes past without her purring like a cat in heat and making some sort of suggestive comment.  In many ways this feels deliberately unsexy; Bayonetta is clearly established as a dangerously powerful being and the overt sexuality seems to be there to both please and also mock a certain sort of fan. Taken in good humour, it seems more like a running gag as well as a way of reminding the viewer that every single aspect of Bayonetta, right down to her personality, is a weapon of some sort. At the same time, it all seems a bit retro and absurd.

The animation style is very pretty in the right places, and the voice acting is appropriately over-the-top, from the gruff villains to the sultry heroes. Anime has almost certainly moved on it terms of storytelling and depth, but Bayonetta: Bloody Fate is an entertaining call back to a simpler time when overly complex plots and beautiful art were all you needed to make a fun feature for an evening’s drinking.

Special Features: None
 

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DVD REVIEW: LITTLE LOST ROBOT / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: GUY VERNEY / SCREENPLAY: ISAAC ASIMOV / STARRING: BORIS KARLOFF, MAXINE AUDLEY, CLIFFORD EVANS, MURRAY HAYNE, GERALD FLOOD, HAYDN JONES, ROGER SNOWDON / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 24TH

Out of This World: Little Lost Robot is a single DVD release of the only remaining episode of the visionary ABC series for ITV, Out of This World. Broadcast in 1962, and introduced by Boris Karloff, this is a dramatization of the Isaac Asimov story of the same name.

The story is set on a space station where a modified robot (Snowdon) has mingled with 20 other robots and must be discovered else all 21 will be destroyed. Enter intellectual, arrogant and aloof Dr Susan Calvin (Audley), who has to find the lost robot but alienates many of the crew of the space station, including Black (Flood). The story is pure Asimov and consists of a series of tests Calvin puts the robots through, all of which explore the Three Laws of Robotics.

The story is well acted and with minimal budget (and dubious robot outfits), and still conveys the essence of the tale – a lesson in how science fiction used to be told in the 1950s and early 1960s.

The DVD holds this only surviving episode, available with or without a commentary, and also in a VidFIRE version that more precisely mimics the original transmission. We suggest it is well worth viewing the first few minutes of both versions on your particular setup and picking the one that looks best to you.

There are two audios of other episodes, both of which are superb additions to any collection and make you wish (again) that more of the past were available. These are Cold Equations, a short story by Tom Godwin whose cast includes Peter Wyngarde and a young Jane Asher; the second is a Terry Nation adaption of Philip K. Dick’s Impostor. The DVD also includes a PDF of the script of Dumb Martian, a John Wyndham story intended for Out of This World but transmitted as part of Sydney Newman’s Armchair Theatre show.

Allowing for the age of the production, this is a souvenir of a golden age of television science fiction in the UK and there is nothing equivalent anywhere except on the radio, at least in the UK. If you are a connoisseur of classic British TV science fiction this is a must buy.

Special Features: Audio commentary / Tom Godwin’s Cold Equations / Terry Nation’s Imposter / Downloadable PDF of Dumb Martian / Illustrated booklet
 

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BLU-RAY REVIEW: DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: MATT REEVES / SCREENPLAY: MARK BOMBACK, RICK JAFFA, AMANDA SILVER / STARRING: JASON CLARKE, ANDY SERKIS, TOBY KEBBELL, KERI RUSSELL, GARY OLDMAN, KODI-SMIT MCPHEE / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 24TH

Since Charlton Heston first broke down at the closing twist of Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 classic Planet of the Apes, an adaptation of author Pierre Boulle’s novel, the war between man and monkey has seen many turns. From civil rights protests to the (much mocked) Ape-raham Lincoln statue in the closing moments of Tim Burton’s beautiful looking and sounding but very misjudged 2001 remake. However, after a lag following Burton’s film, hopes were not especially high for Rupert Wyatt’s 2011 prequel/reboot Rise of the Planet of the Apes, however the film emerged as a brilliantly emotional film about the animal cosmetic industry and took the series back to it’s ideological and theoretical roots. So with that in mind, Matt Reeves’ (Cloverfield) sequel had a task to outdo what came before. Not only does it accomplish that feat, but Dawn of the Planet of the Apes rises up as the best film in the franchise since the very first.

We knew from the offset the film would be fun (hell, how can any film with a poster featuring a monkey on horseback with a rifle not be?) but what is shocking is Dawn’s scope, it’s heart, and it’s escalation of events that takes something we know is inevitable and turns it into an unpredictable, gripping, and socially relevant spectacle. The film is set after a viral outbreak in 2016 (associated with the Ape breakout in Rise), named the simian flu, which has all but destroyed the human race. 10 years later, in post-virus California, lead ape Caesar (Serkis), his family, and his primate society live day by day in the Muir Woods. One day, though, they encounter a band of humans they thought extinct, and these people need to solve their power crisis for the survivors of the city and it is up to the compassionate Malcolm (Jason Clarke) to negotiate with Caesar. However, war seems inevitable from both sides, as the old wounds between man and ape reopen.

Dawn, like many other films, features an array of special effects wizardry, but unlike many movies these effects do not overpower or take precedent over the story and characters but instead compliment them. The pioneering motion-capture (in a mere 3 years) has leaped further than you could ever imagine, to the point where shots within this gorgeously assembled sequel are photo-realistic. If ever there was a film to finally extinguish that persistently smug notion that motion-capture acting is not “proper acting”, this is that film. The effects, the CG, and the action are beautifully captured, of course, but never is Dawn more effective than when it is more thoughtful or meditative. The opening 15-20 minutes of this film are among the bravest in a mainstream film since the likes of WALL-E, with the film’s early moments being entirely reliant on sign language, expressions, and subtitles.

This film has a firm grasp of psychology, with Bomback, Jaffa and Silver’s sweeping story commenting on cultural angst, the inevitability of war and the corrupting power of revenge. Serkis shines again as lead ape Caesar and has developed the character into a devoted, wise, and fair leader. The human cast is also given a slightly less nasty streak than in the last film, with terrific performances from Jason Clarke as Malcolm, a man willing to work for peace, alongside Keri Russell as Malcolm’s wife Ellie and Kodi-Smit McPhee as his son Alexander. Even the extreme characters, like Gary Oldman’s authoritative leader Dreyfus, are not bad people but desperate people trying to survive. Then you have the film’s superb apes characters, that are sensitive and memorable – if you don’t leave with a soft spot for wise Orangutan Maurice (Karin Konoval) or Ceaser and Cornelia’s (Judy Greer) impressionable but good-hearted son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston), you have been watching with ape hands over your eyes! Although the show stealer is Toby Kebbell as the brutal ape Koba (part Darth Vader, part Lion King’s Scar), who has a tragic resonance behind his hate, and Kebbell’s powerful performance gives the film its central and rather unexpected conflict between he and Serkis’ equally impressive Caesar. In the end, Dawn is essentially a film about the evil of man’s past affecting earth’s present and what more lingering message can a film possibly display?

There are countless lingering shots, set pieces, and cinematography within Reeves’ superbly paced sequel. Michael Giacchino’s score rumbles through the forests and the impressively overgrown and desolate Chicago imagery, and for all the potentially silly moments that could have come from a film that features Apes with guns, on horses or attacking a tank, the film never loses tone or sight of the story. Come the climatic finish, you are left thinking the best is yet to arrive and that is truly exciting because if something tops this, then this new Apes series deserves its place in history. Simply put, if Rise was A New Hope, this is Empire Strikes Back. A masterpiece of blockbuster and like Empire this is not a film of happy endings but it is not a bore or a complete downer either. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the best film to come out of Summer 2014 and will leave you enthralled, shocked and eager for more. War, what is it good fur? (Allow us one!).

Special Features: Audio commentary with Matt Reeves / Eight featurettes / Deleted scenes with optional commentary / Gallery

Expected Rating: 8 out of 10

Actual Rating:
 

BLU-RAY REVIEW: DIARY OF A LOST GIRL / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: GEORG WILHELM PABST / SCREENPLAY: RUDOLF LEONHARDT / STARRING: LOUISE BROOKS, JOSEF ROVENSKY, FRITZ RASP, FRANZISKA KINZ / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 24TH

Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series is helping to archive screen classics and shed new light on films we’ve perhaps taken for granted, but their greatest achievement is allowing viewers to experience the magic and dignity of silent cinema. To anyone who hasn’t yet had the pleasure of seeing a silent film, G. W. Pabst’s iconic 1929 melodrama is a great place to start.

One of the most relevant films of the German silent era, Diary of a Lost Girl follows Thymian Henning (Brooks), who is seduced by a larcenous employee of her father’s pharmacy. Rejecting her family’s expectations following the birth of their child, Thymian is sent to a reform school under the sado-sexual gaze of its headmistress. Following her eventual escape, Thymian inevitably crosses paths with her family again.

The film starts by simply stating that the original cut was changed due to censorship and this is the version as was intended. Following an intense reconstruction, damaged and missing scenes have been retouched and included. While the film fluctuates in quality, it’s scrubbed up pretty nicely.

Louise Brooks is incredibly striking with her severe haircut and gamine features, dominating every frame she’s in. Curiously, Diary of a Lost Girl marked her second and final collaboration with Pabst, following Pandora’s Box. Fritz Rasp has a tremendous and sinister presence as the gruesome Meinert, and Franziska Kinz is particularly imposing as the devilish Meta.

Javier Perez de Aspeitia plays a superb new piano score, sometimes thunderous and demanding and other times wonderfully melodious, floating gently over the images. Its crisp sound revitalising the sequences on screen.

There may be some scenes that outstay there welcome, particularly the farcical cow milking scene and the sequence at the beach, but Diary of a Lost Girl is an arresting and important film which is still as potent and captivating as it’s ever been.

Special Features: Piano score of Javier Perez de Aspeitia / Video essay by filmmaker and critic David Carins / 40-page booklet
 

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