Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: Doctor Who – The Legacy Collection / Cert: PG / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, Daniel Hill, Denis Carey, Christopher Neame/ Release Date: January 7th 2013

Douglas Adams’ Shada, planned as the final serial in the 1979/80 seventeenth season of Doctor Who, is the famous “lost” story from the show’s canon, its production halted and eventually abandoned thanks to one of the many industrial disputes which so bedevilled the BBC in the 1970s. But in truth Shada has been “found” several times in the intervening years, so its air of mystery has been somewhat diminished across the decades. The surviving footage was available on a bootleg video back in the early 1980s (so we’re told); the BBC issued the story on VHS in 1992 (the same version now presented on this new DVD) with linking narration by Tom Baker to fill in the (many) gaps; and the whole thing was reworked into a audio drama starring Paul McGann and finally novelised (after a fashion) by current show writer Gareth Roberts and published earlier this year. Given all that, you might expect most Doctor Who fans to be able to recite Shada off by heart by now, such must be their familiarity with the material. But for anyone new to Who or for those who just haven’t been tempted by the story’s presentation so far, its appearance on this new three-disc box set along with copious special features may well be the time to take the plunge and find out quite what was supposed to be so great about this mysterious, legendary story.

Much further along in his career, Adams himself looked back at his unfinished Who masterpiece and made comments to the effect that it really wasn’t that good a story. Watching the cobbled-together remains of Shada on this DVD (only a week’s location filming in Cambridge and one of three planned studio sessions was recorded before the plug was pulled) it’s probably fair to say that perhaps he had a point. The problem is and always will be that, whatever format the story turns up in, it’s impossible to be quite sure what the finished TV version would have been like. But I’d be willing to wager my sonic screwdriver collection that it would have been the same sort of slightly shambolic, slightly silly fare the rest of the season had served up, albeit spruced up with some refreshing location footage (the previous three serials having all been entirely studio-based). But Shada still starred Tom Baker at his ripest, along with some arch performances from the supporting cast and a script which never knowingly strayed across the line into serious (even by Who standards) drama.

Camp baddy Skagra (Neame) escapes from imprisonment in deep space and speeds off to 1979 Cambridge to track down Professor Chronotis (Carey), living in splendid isolation surrounded by his books in his cloisters. Chronotis is an old friend of the Doctor’s and he has in his possession The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey, a mysterious and all-powerful tome from the home of the Time Lords. The Doctor and Romana (Ward), enjoying a bit of punting on the Cam, have been lured to Cambridge by mysterious voices and before long Skagra, looking way beyond ludicrous striding around Cambridge in his early New Romantic cape and whites, is on the attack with his mind-sucking floating sphere and his plans to take over the Universe with the power of thought. Or something.

The surviving Shada footage has been hopefully sliced into six episode lengths; but with much of the completed studio footage comprising material in Chronotis’ Cambridge rooms, the story quickly drifts into frustrating narration mode as the Doctor rushes out of the room and we cut to Tom Baker telling us where he went next and what he did there (usually to another set which was never filmed on). Parts 1 and 2 are the nearest we have to complete episodes here, boasting most of the location footage and sequential Chronotis material. Later episodes run to around fifteen minutes and are comprised of the handful of scenes filmed on the spaceship set and some cheesy freeze-frames of earlier material to visually represent characters we haven’t actually been able to see on screen for two or three episodes. But from what remains – and there are a few new visual effects here and there – it seems likely that Shada would have deteriorated into an increasingly fanciful runaround of escapes and captures boasting, in the slate-like Krargs (one of which does at least appear in a couple of recorded sequences), one of the show’s less memorable monsters. But there’s some witty dialogue, Baker’s off-screen chemistry with co-star Ward is wonderfully evident on screen and Carey is a hoot as the archetypal absent-minded Professor who’s actually quite a bit more.

No matter how many ways the story is retold or reinvented, Shada will always have the whiff of legend about it and fans will undoubtedly forever dream of what might have been. But the simple fact is that, on the evidence of what survives and the way it’s been assembled here, the story would really not have been much more than an acceptable and enjoyable enough finale to a season which had seen Doctor Who slip further and further into tongue-in-cheek parody and irrelevance as it unknowingly embarked on the long journey which would lead to its cancellation ten years later.

Shada and its attendant special features occupy the first two discs of the Legacy Collection box set. Disc 3 leads with the 1993 BBC TV documentary More Than Thirty Years In The TARDIS, an extended ninety-minute edit of the sixty-minute TV broadcast. This is undoubtedly the best documentary ever made about the series, but now, some twenty years later, and with the benefit of knowing how the Doctor has subsequently been spectacularly revived, it seems uncomfortably dated, shot through as it is with a wistful poignancy about a show which had already been dead for four years when it was made and which had a few more years in limbo left to endure. Even more depressing is the fact that it features prominently so many classic Who faces who are no longer with us; Nicholas Courtney (the Brigadier) narrates and appears, Jon Pertwee whizzes around the South Bank in his Whomobile, Elisabeth Sladen and her young daughter escape the attentions of a Sontaran, 1960s producer Verity Lambert pontificates about the origins of the show.

The rest of disc 3 seems to be a dumping ground for a grab-bag of stray bits and pieces which haven’t fitted onto other releases and have been shoehorned in here under the Legacy title. So we get vintage interview material with Peter Purves (Steven Taylor in the Hartnell era) and Verity Lambert, a rather touching tribute to the late Courtney (the standout piece across all three discs) and a collection of camp on-screen and off-screen Doctor Who talent discussing the merits of Those Deadly Divas – Doctor Who’s most dangerous ladies. Oh well… it’s always nice to see Camille Coduri (Rose’s Mum Jackie) again.

The Legacy Collection box set is a rather scrappy and random way to launch the 2013 Doctor Who release schedule, and even though there’s an interesting selection-box mix of material here, the slightly maudlin documentary and the frustrating unfinishedness of Shada give the set an air of barrel-scraping desperation which was surely never intended and really isn’t deserved.

Extras: Shada boasts the usual “making of” (or in this case “not making of”) documentary which takes cast and crew back to Cambridge to reminisce about a TV show they half-made and why they never finished it; Strike! Strike! Strike! looks at the series’ history of BBC disruption; Being a Girl considers the representation of women in Doctor Who; Now and Then revisits the Cambridge locations and the McGann animation is computer-accessible.

Review: Stan Lee’s Lightspeed / Cert: 15 / Director: Don E. FauntLeRoy / Screenplay: Steve Latshaw, John Gray / Starring: Jason Connery, Nicole Eggert, Daniel Goddard, Lee Majors / Release Date: Out Now

Although we haven’t done the research, we’d wager there was a moment in the early ’70s when some TV exec said: “This Six Million Dollar Man idea is dynamite! But here’s the thing… how are we going to convince the audience that he’s running at these tremendous speeds?” At which point, presumably, he was shown some test footage of a guy in tracksuit apparently moving faster than those around him but shown entirely in slow motion. Suitably impressed by this low-tech solution that relied on the audience’s imagination, he would have probably said, “Brilliant! Let’s do it!”

You can’t help wondering whether a similar conversation took place during the development of Stan Lee’s Lightspeed. Except that in this case, the exec was shown test footage of a man in a ski-suit onesie speeded up to look like the Keystone Cops, with billows of smoke to give the idea of burning rubber. “OK! Don’t spend more that 45 million and don’t mess it up!”

Watching Lightspeed induces a nagging feeling that the makers of this movie are having a laugh. Is the presence of a surprisingly sprightly (until he stands up) Lee Majors just part of an elaborate in-joke? And that costume really is terrible. Our hero buys it in a sports shop to prevent windburn (no, really), so it’s got a plausible rationale. But you can’t help being reminded of that moment in Spider-Man (2002), when we’re expecting the first appearance of the classic outfit but get Tobey Maguire in his pj’s instead. That was a joke that worked. In Lightspeed, the sartorial faux pas haunts the movie as we’re repeatedly subjected to Jason Connery looking like Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards making a cameo in a Benny Hill sketch. Mind you, it does clear up the mystery of which side Connery dresses on.

Any good points? Well, it certainly has a comic book feel, and Daniel Goddard actually does quite a good turn as the particularly nasty Python – a villain who gets through so many henchmen (he even dispatches a few himself) that you’re left wondering how they recruit these people. It might have actually attracted some younger viewers, but for some bizarre reason they decided to chuck in such a surprising amount of violence that it earned a 15 certificate.

Why did Stan Lee let them put his name on it? Why is it getting a re-release now? Were they serious? Lightspeed is a film that raises more questions than it answers.

It’s on the left, by the way.

Extras: None

Review: Berberian Sound Studio / Cert: 15 / Director: Peter Strickland / Screenplay: Peter Strickland / Starring: Toby Jones, Antonio Mancino, Tonia Sotiropoulou, Cosimo Fusco, Fatma Mohamed / Release Date: 31st December

The studio in question is a post-production place in Italy. It is here, sometime in the ’70s, that timid Dorking-based sound engineer Gilderoy (Jones) arrives, full of misgiving, to work on The Equestrian Vortex, a low-budget shocker about two boarding school girls battling witches. Very soon, Gilderoy has horrors of his own to contend with as he tries to pry his travel expenses from a frighteningly pretty secretary and does his best to cope with moisture in the condensers. The producer, spivvy Francesco (Fusco), bullies and needles him. The director, Santini (Mancino), is a buffoonish figure who wanders in occasionally with his dog. Silvia (Mohamed), one of the actresses, flirts with him vaguely, but that’s disturbing too (Francesco warns him, “Be careful of that girl. There’s poison in those tits of hers.”).

Plus there’s the unpleasantness of the film-within-the-film, which requires sound effects for seemingly endless scenes of torture and mutilation. We never get to see any of this footage ourselves; instead, we witness the foley artists and Gilderoy doing their thing, massacring fruit and vegetables in sync with the lurid on-screen antics. Initially a somewhat comical spectacle, it gradually becomes disturbing. Gilderoy rips some cherry tomatoes off their stalks to imitate the sound of hair being torn out by the roots, and his face contorts with rage, a sign that this world of fictional violence into which he’s been plunged is getting to him.

The first hour of Berberian Sound Studio is evocative stuff. The ’70s exploitation flick milieu is recreated in convincing detail, with some nice touches to amuse the aficionado, such as the master tape being operated by a black leather-gloved hand, a la Dario Argento. The mediation of horror through cold technology has been done many times before, but in this instance the banks of retro gadgetry in Gilderoy’s snug control room add extra allure – rows of plug-ins, dials and oscillators in battleship-grey units. And upon this period setting, writer-director Peter Strickland has overlaid an unsettling atmosphere of mystery and miscommunication.

But what happens next is much less satisfying. Reality collapses around Gilderoy, and the film collapses too. Overwhelmed by so much horrific imagery, it would seem that the troubled Brit has lost the ability to tell fantasy from actuality. But the director also dangles other possibilities which suggest that Gilderoy’s delusions go deeper and predate his current predicament. Finally, all of the loose ends cancel each other out, and the result has about as much cohesion as a crushed watermelon. Still, it remains a provocative parable about the diabolical nature of cinema, one that seems to hint that making a movie can be a bit like selling your soul to the devil.

Extras: Interview with director Peter Strickland / The Making of Berberian Sound Studio / Deleted Scenes / Production Design Gallery / Extended Box Hill Documentary / Berberian Sound Studio Short / Trailer

Review: The Bionic Woman – the Complete Collection / Cert: PG / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Lindsay Wagner, Lee Majors, Richard Anderson / Release Date: Out Now

Jaime Sommers, the world’s first bionic woman, returns to our TV screens courtesy of one of the world’s biggest box sets – 18 discs comprising all three seasons and a bundle of extras that will have completists salivating like Maximillian, the Bionic Dog. For those of you who weren’t around in the ’70s, Jaime is the childhood sweetheart of Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin. When he buys a place in his sleepy hometown of Ojai, California, their romance is rekindled, and after a skydiving accident puts her in the hospital, Steve calls in his pals from the Office of Scientific Intelligence to rebuild her. We’re talking extensive body-work – both legs, one arm and a bionic ear (good for cracking safes, eavesdropping and wearing very dangly earrings).

Unfortunately, complications ensue (rejection of her bionic implants, death, resuscitation through cryogenic therapy, amnesia, and did we mention death? – all covered in four gloriously melodramatic Six Million Dollar Man episodes on disc 1), and in order for her not to suffer a relapse, she and Steve have to part.

With all that behind her, Season One sees Jaime making a new life for herself in Ojai, teaching 7th graders and embarking on a diverse series of adventures between lessons. Taking his cue from the small-town setting, writer-producer Kenneth Johnson (on this evidence, the J.J. Abrams of his time) keeps everything on a human level. Themes of female empowerment are gently explored, while sexist stereotypes get roundly mocked (in one Miss Congeniality-style episode, Jaime is forced, much to her disgust, to enter a beauty pageant, while in another she’s bemused when she’s sent undercover as a nurse as she hasn’t the first clue how to tie a bandage).

Season Two switches things up and goes for fun and camp. This is the era that brought us the infamous fembots (tasked with stealing a weather control device from OSI) and saw Jaime fight Sasquatch in an effort to locate an alien wonder drug for a radiation-poisoned Steve Austin. All a bit silly, yes, but sharp scripts save the day, and there’s a particularly delightful episode wherein Jaime infiltrates a team of lady wrestlers. Season Three offers more of the same – fembot showgirls, Max the dog (who, as the world’s first bionic creature, has had it a bit rough) – before bowing out with a darker episode in which Jaime tries to resign from OSI.

Jaime and Steve would do that Buffy-Angel thing of popping up in each other’s series, and these crossover storylines are all here, as are three later, very dignified reunion movies. Throughout, the picture restoration is bright and vivid. A classy box set for a classy show.

Extras: All 4 Six Million Dollar Man episodes explaining the origin of the Bionic Woman / Bionic Beginnings Featurette / Gag Reel / Bionic Galleries / Bonus Six Million Dollar Man episode “The Return of Big Foot” Pt. 1 / “Doomsday is Tomorrow” Pts. 1 & 2 audio commentary by creator/writer/director Kenneth Johnson / Audio commentaries on “Road to Nashville” and “Bio-Feedback” episodes by Lindsay Wagner / Bionic Blast Featurette / Audio commentary for “The Bionic Dog Pt. 1” from writer James D. Parriott / Audio commentary for “On the Run” from writer Steven E. De Souza / Q&A with Lindsay Wagner / All 3 reunion movies, “The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman” (1987), “Bionic Showdown” (1989), “Bionic Ever After” (1994) / Full-colour booklets and stills

Review: Piranhaconda / Cert: 15 / Director: Jim Wynorski / Screenplay: Mike MacLean / Starring: Michael Madsen, Rachel Hunter, Shandi Finnessey, Rib Hillis / Release Date: January 7th 2013

It’s not asking the world, is it? You’re watching a movie called Piranhaconda, so it’s not unreasonable to expect a cross between a piranha and an anaconda, right? But no, what we get is something that, as Rachel Hunter points out, is “like an unholy union between a piranha and an anaconda”. Like? So it isn’t actually a hybrid then? Just a big snake with particularly sharp gnashers? Well that’s bitterly disappointing. Nice of them to hire Rachel Hunter to point this out (she doesn’t seem to serve any other purpose), but you can’t help feeling a little deceived.

Moving swiftly on, Piranhaconda is pretty much what we’ve come to expect from the Syfy/Roger Corman school of filmmaking. These TV movies generally have a budget of a mere million dollars but you’ll still struggle to see where they could have possibly spent it. Needless to say, the CGI piranhawotsit is rubbish as it chomps its way through the unexplored Hawaiian wilderness. Unexplored? Well, there’s an odd thing. We thought Hawaii was fairly developed but apparently not. It’s full of deserted jungle and ruined industrial complexes which are lairs to its notorious gangs of heavily armed kidnappers. Who knew? By the way, it’s a kidnapped film crew who provide the plot; otherwise we’d just have a series random babes being eaten in inexplicable puffs of red mist. Not that we still don’t get plenty of those, mind you. Some are given the briefest of backstories for being in the jungle (botany, swimming); some are not. Our favourite was the one who just gets out of a boat, walks up a tarmacked path in the middle of the nowhere (how’d that get there?) and then gets eaten. She never appeared before; she never gets mentioned again. About a minute of screen time. Brilliant.

But for all this, Piranhathingy is actually rather superior to most tosh of this sort. These things live or die by how far they can get their tongue into their cheek, and both the script and the cast do a pretty good job of sending the genre up. This is the same team that gave us the seminal Sharktopus (2010) and they seem to have mastered how to pitch all this self-effacing silliness at the right level. The Cheetah Whores’ surfed-up theme tune (they did a similar one for Sharktopus) immediately brings a smile to the face, and there are gags about B-movies and a brilliant performance from Shandi Finnessey (another Sharktopus veteran) as Kimmy, the bikini-clad star of the ludicrous horror shocker the fictional film crew are making. Finnessey’s comic timing is perfect and in some parallel universe she is probably Jennifer Aniston; maybe one day she will be. In fact it’s only the big guns of Michael Madsen and Rachel Hunter who let the side down by just looking a bit bored. C’mon guys, have some fun, because the Oscars certainly won’t be beckoning.

Wait… did we really just call Sharktopus seminal?

Extras: None

Review: Gangsters, Guns and Zombies / Cert: 18 / Director: Matt Mitchell / Screenplay: Taliesyn Mitchell, Matt Mitchell / Starring: Vincent Jerome, Huggy Leaver, Fabrizio Santino, Cassandra Orhan / Release Date: January 7th 2013

Oh no! It’s yet another low budget British zombie film. This one, however is actually a little better than the lame title may suggest.

A gang of armed robbers have used the early days of the zombie apocalypse as cover for a big bank job, and are making their way to their safe house. With one of them dying from a gunshot wound, and the others squabbling amongst themselves, the marauding undead are merely a minor nuisance, until they run out of petrol and have to seek alternative arrangements.

The first thing that strikes you about Gangsters, Guns and Zombies is how much it wants to be Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; it even has a member of the original cast (Leaver). Throw in elements of Reservoir Dogs and 28 Days Later and you might begin to get an idea of the heights this film is striving for. Where it ends up, however, is another matter entirely. While it isn’t a complete disaster – several scenes work well, and there’s a definite sense of humour – pacing problems cause the final act of the film to sag somewhat, and the romantic subplot is superfluous. There’s not much to be scared of here either, as it’s played mostly for laughs, with very little gore, although coulrophobics (Google it!) should keep a wary eye out for one scene that might disturb them. On the plus side, there’s a standout performance from Jennie Lathan as the Grandma who gives as good as she gets (especially in the potty mouth stakes), and in fairness, writer/director Mitchell has made the most of his limited resources, delivering a movie that will be fun for the less discerning viewer.

Extras: A 30 min featurette: The Making of Gangsters, Guns and Zombies: Fake Blood, Sweat and Tears which really doesn’t amount to much more than the cast and crew saying how much fun they had making the film.

Review: Tarantino XX: 8-Film Collection / Cert: 18 / Director: Quentin Tarantino / Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino / Starring: Various / Release Date: Out Now

Ten out of ten, obviously. Of the eight movies in this stupendously desirable box set, there’s not a single film that rates less than an eight out of ten. Quentin Tarantino’s very worst film is better than a lot of directors’ best. Hey, say what you like about Death Proof, but it’s the best scripted foot fetish movie ever made.

In chronological order, the films consist of Reservoir Dogs, True Romance (written by Tarantino, directed by the late great Tony Scott), Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill 1 & 2, Death Proof and Inglourious Basterds. Mister Tarantino, that is quite the oeuvre. That said, if we’re going to include films written but not directed by Tarantino, I would very much have liked to see Natural Born Killers and From Dusk Till Dawn in there too. But then, that’s just me being greedy. It should be noted also, that the individual movies are repackaged previous releases, complete with the extras therein. But oh, what packaging. It’s the Blu-ray equivalent of a coffee table book.

Beyond those individual movies – each one indispensable in its own way – there’s a serious amount of extras and special features to wade through. The Critics Corner is a series of round table discussions, one for each of the films. As tends to happen when you put a group of verbose film nerds in a room together, the talk occasionally feels a little dry and exclusive. Downright rude, when you get to their talk of Death Proof, in which they accuse audiences of being too stupid and ignorant to ‘get’ the film. It gets rather snooty as they bemoan how nobody but them seems to appreciate older films. Kids today, eh. That said, the more enthusiastic the critics get, the more enjoyable their chatter is. It’s very nice to see Inglourious Basterds get the appreciation it richly deserves. The second disc of extras contains a career retrospective, a Jackie Brown Q&A and a collection of trailers for Django Unchained. A celebration of cinema’s loudest, most effusive voice, there’s enough extras across these discs to keep film fans busy for quite some time.

Celebrating twenty years of one of cinema’s most original voices, Tarantino XX is a must-have for any fledgling film collection. Fans will no doubt already own many of the films already, but those new to collecting – or looking to upgrade – would be well advised to pick up this beauty. Here’s to another XX years of the mighty Quentin Tarantino.

Review: When The Lights Went Out / Cert: 15 / Director: Pat Holden / Screenplay: Pat Holden / Starring: Steven Waddington, Kate Ashfield, Tasha Connor, Gary Lewis / Release Date: January 7th 2013

Set in the early ’70s, at the height of the power cuts, this British ghost story is based on a real-life haunting that took place in Pontefract.

Moving into their dream home, the Maynard family, Len (Waddington), Jenny (Ashfield) and daughter Sally (Connor), soon have more to worry about than the colour of the kitchen walls (“Avocado? Don’t you mean green?”) when a malevolent spirit seems to want them out. At first Len tries to profit from the happenings, charging nosey locals a pound to tour the house, and it seems Sally has a bond with the entity. But when things begin to get more violent, they call in paranormal investigator Hilary Barnes (former Emmerdale star Tony Pitts) and even blackmail local priest Father Clifton (Lewis) into performing an exorcism – anything rather than move out and go back to the bottom of that council house waiting list.

Writer/director Holden apparently has connections to the original story (his aunt was friends with the real-life family) and does a marvellous job of recreating the look and feel of the 1970s, right down to the grim social club which is the mainstay of Pontefract nightlife. You can just sense him breathing a sigh of nostalgia at the Noel Edmonds-fronted episode of Top of the Pops seen on TV at one point.

Newcomers Tasha Connor and Hannah Clifford (as Lucy, Sally’s only school friend) are brilliant, and outshine the majority of the adult cast. Which is not to say the latter are bad: Waddington and Ashfield are credible as a typical ’70s couple, and the ever-reliable Jo Hartley (Inbred) is great as Lucy’s over-protective mother. It’s a shame, then, that the film wastes no time in getting to the hauntings when it could have built up more atmosphere and characterisation. The scares are handled really well early on, especially in a scene in which Jenny is decorating, and in the simple use of classic kid’s toys – a Slinky creeping down the stairs and Buckeroo shedding its load. But as the film progresses the use of CGI gets in the way. By the end it is going all out for easy scares rather than taking a more subtle approach. The climactic exorcism scene comes across more comical than scary, but it’s entertaining enough and should go down well with Paranormal Activity fans.

Extras: None

Review: The Corridor / Cert: 18 / Director: Evan Kelly / Screenplay: Josh MacDonald / Starring: Stephen Chambers, James Gilbert, David Patrick Flemming / Release Date: February 25th 2013

A favourite on the festival circuit for the last year or so, this Canadian horror film has hints of sci-fi and takes the hoary cabin in the woods scenario to a very different place.

A group of life-long friends head to a remote cabin in the snow-covered woods of Nova Scotia. Here they meet up with their erstwhile buddy Tyler (Chambers), newly released from an asylum after losing it big time when his mother killed herself in front of him. That he has a history of lashing out violently at his pals doesn’t help the atmosphere at what is already a very chilly rendezvous. It seems like only a matter of time before he has a relapse; meanwhile, they are all quietly getting on each others nerves.

When Tyler is spreading his mother’s ashes, he encounters something strange in the woods. The others naturally assume he’s off his meds, until they, too, experience the mysterious force that seems to feed on their presence. Euphoria and wonder soon turns to mistrust and paranoia, however, as they fight among themselves and become increasingly hostile to Tyler, whose blockers seem to make him immune to the power exuded from the anomaly.

This strange ensemble piece could have easily fallen victim to its low budget, but to the credit of all involved, it manages to be both enigmatic and entertaining. Instead of being a lazy psycho thriller (the mental illness part is handled rather well) it blends elements of horror, existentialism and spiritualism and doesn’t feel the need to provide all the answers on simple sign posts. It’s thus one of those rare films that rewards watching without too much prior knowledge, and certainly has a couple of decent developments. The other side of the coin is that it is also a film that will infuriate those who prefer everything to be spelt out for them. Go into it with an open mind, though, and you may be pleasantly surprised.

Extras: None

Review: The Dark Knight Rises / Cert: 12 / Director: Christopher Nolan / Screenplay: Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan / Starring: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine, Marion Cotillard / Release Date: December 3rd

Just in time for Christmas, the final chapter of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy arrives on DVD and Blu-ray. And now that we’ve all had a chance to calm down, it’s pretty clear that it’s no masterpiece. But to be fair, what were the chances? After all, this was a movie that had a helluva lot on its plate. In order to satisfy the weight of public expectation, it had to be big, really big, and it also had to deliver shedloads of closure and worthy themes so as to pacify those critics who were anticipating the Gotterdammerung in spandex. But then again, it would be nice, from a bottom line, box office point of view, if it could hint at new beginnings, paving the way for a possible further Batman cycle and Catwoman spin-off.

No wonder, then, that it’s a blockbuster with a bit of an identity crisis, one that seems to pull in half a dozen different directions at once. At the heart of the problem is a rather windy and turbid script by the Nolan brothers. Some scenes and plot strands are skimmed over in an almost lackadaisical manner – confronted by beat cop John Blake (Gordon-Levitt), Bruce Wayne coughs to his secret identity far too easily, and who, exactly, is this Miranda Tate woman who keeps popping up? (“She’s smart. And quite lovely.” Oh, okay, that’ll do for a backstory.) The middle act is stuffed with endless Occupy Wall Street-inspired political rant (presumably there to make the film seem current and edgy) and cod Eastern wisdom (“the leap to freedom is not about strength”), while the third degenerates into a series of videogame-style ticking-clock missions (“You’ve got to get the bomb here in ten minutes!”) before reaching a conclusion which is eerily reminiscent of The Iron Giant (now there was a great movie).

As played by Tom Hardy, Bane is certainly formidable (he’s so hard he lives in the sewers with his shirt off), but he’s not as horrifying as he’s supposed to be. This is due in large part to the studio’s determination to go for a 12 certificate, as a result of which the camera flinches away squeamishly whenever he twists someone’s head 360 degrees. Also, though, like many a villain, he tends to get lost in his own bombast. With Bruce Wayne in his clutches, he threatens him with torture: “Not of your body! Of your soul!” Bruce shudders dutifully, but it’s a bit of a let-off.

On the bright side, there are some crowd-pleasing action sequences and plenty of great tech, including fleets of Tumblers and the Bat, a gorgeous new aircraft that whisks along as quietly as a bicycle. And who could forget the heartwarming sight of Selina Kyle straddling the Batpod? In addition, the film’s wittier than it’s been given credit for, with a sprinkling of memorable zinger lines. (“Sure it was him?” Blake asks a fellow cop who’d hoped to arrest Batman, after the Bat goes sailing over their heads.) Christian Bale, meanwhile, has what is arguably his best outing as Bruce Wayne, taking him from a limping hermit with George Harrison whiskers who can’t cope without the cape to a man rediscovering his taste for life in a performance that is varied, approachable and dignified.

The sheer epic sprawl also impresses, never mind the occasional absurdities. (Gotham’s police force, trapped underground for days, emerging into the daylight with no more wear and tear than an occasional smudge and some designer stubble. And don’t get us started on that prison pit – guys, just chip out a few more handholds and you’ll be out of there like a rat up a drainpipe.) Rough round the edges it may be, but this film feels big and important, there’s no denying it. And as for closure – it delivers enough of that to fill a Batcave.

Extras: The Journey of Bruce Wayne / UltraViolet – Instantly stream and download films to compatible devices