Blu-ray Review: Hell / Cert: 15 / Director: Tim Fehlbaum / Screenplay: Tim Fehlbaum, Oliver Kahl, Thomas Wobke / Starring: Hannah Herzsprung, Lisa Vicari, Lars Eidinger, Stipe Erceg / Release Date: July 2nd

Roland Emmerich has been instrumental in the cinematic destruction of the Earth more times than can reasonably be considered decent and he’s at it again in Hell, albeit this time in his role as producer rather than director. First-time film-maker (and co-writer) Fehlbaum is in charge here and, not surprisingly, the budget is a little bit lower than the Man Himself is used to and the story is a little lower-key than the likes of The Day After Tomorrow and the ludicrous 2012. But the stakes are just as high – the world’s gone to the dogs again, after all – it’s just that the story’s a bit more intimate and the scale a bit smaller than it might have been if Emmerich had been directly playing with his favourite toys again.

Hell is a subtitled German movie set in 2016 where increased solar activity sees the Earth’s temperature rise to the extent that the planet has become a blasted, desolate wilderness, its surface scorched, what remains of its population hiding from the searing, unrelenting heat. Hell is set in the aftermath of the catastrophe – no burning cities and scenes of devastation here – as two sisters, Marie (Herzsprung) and Leonie (Vicari) drive through the parched countryside with the well-meaning Phillip (Eidinger) heading for the mountains where, so they’ve heard, there are plentiful supplies of natural water – now the scarcest of commodities in this arid new world. Stopping at an abandoned petrol station in search of supplies and petrol, the group meet up with the desperate Tom (Erceg) who joins them on their journey. But before long they find themselves ambushed and separated and Marie, alone and terrified, sets out to rescue her captured sister from the clutches of a family of survivors who have resorted to distinctly grisly ways of staying alive as the world roasts towards destruction.

In many ways Hell (the German word for ‘bright’, incidentally) is pretty routine post-apoc stuff; grubby people eking out an existence on a ruined landscape, not much in the way of jokes (nothing, in fact), short, sharp brutal violence. You’ll be reminded of John Hillcoat’s uncomfortable film version of The Road in the early daylight sequences, the picture bleached out and desaturated, the sun blazing down on characters wrapped up against the skin-blistering heat or else hiding inside a car with its windows covered with tape. There’s not much hope and precious little to live for as parched, ragged survivors scavenge for petrol and water just so they can stay alive for another day. Unfortunately Hell forfeits its distinctive ‘look’ as it inevitably wanders into territory we’re all a bit too familiar with and much of the slightly-saggy core of the film sees Hannah falling in with the sort of hillbilly hicks we’ve seen in far too many B-movie horrors. Herzsprung’s gutsy performance as the determined Marie keeps us interested when the film turns its attention to its cardboard cut-out family of baddies rather than the central premise of a world burning to death. It’s only towards the end, when we’re back in the unremitting heat again, that we’re reminded how an idea good enough to sustain the film in its own right has been sacrificed for the sake of generic capture/escape/recapture stuff.

However, Hell is still a stark and powerful film, an impressive achievement on a fairy tiny budget and once again we’re reminded that it’s still possible to tell a good, imaginative science fiction story without having to rely on swathes of CGI and casts of thousands. Hell is ultimately flawed by its lack of originality beyond its fascinating premise but it remains a worthwhile addition to a movie genre which isn’t in danger of running out of fuel any time soon.

Special Features: English subtitles.

DVD Review: Airborne / Cert: 15 / Director: Dominic Burns / Screenplay: Paul Chronnell / Starring: Mark Hamill, Julian Glover, Gemma Atkinson, Simon Phillips, Alan Ford / Release Date: July 30th 2012

To paraphrase Kevin Smith’s Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, look everybody, it’s Mark Hamill! This appears to be the biggest selling point for a movie that couldn’t be any more British if it tried. The old Jedi seems to have let himself go a bit and ‘stars’ as a senior air traffic controller who is on his final shift before his retirement.

Working at the East Midlands Airport, his final night includes a nasty storm that is predicted to be on its way over the Atlantic, causing all flights to be cancelled. All planes that is, except for Atlantic Sky Airways flight 686, which is bound for New York with a skeleton crew and passenger load of about ten. Oh, and there’s an expensive antique vase in the cargo hold that one of the passengers is accompanying to the States.

When one of the passengers goes inexplicably missing, the others start to panic and they begin to vanish one by one. Of course, being on a plane in the sky, they can’t have gone far, but they have definitely vanished and not into the toilet to clear out the in-flight meal! As the vehicle is searched, it becomes clear that someone is to blame – possibly terrorists –  as the bodies are discovered, including some of the crew. The plane begins to disappear off of the radar and the controllers lose contact with it. The twist as to why it’s all happening is almost understandable, but there is a further twist involving the supernatural that just doesn’t sit right.

With a cast that includes the guy that played Bricktop in Snatch, the guy who used to be in The Bill but now appears in lawyer commercials and Gemma Atkinson off of Hollyoaks, you really couldn’t have a more British production. With its setting, the film should feel claustrophobic, but it doesn’t due to the lack of passengers and the supernatural twist is weak – or at least the vessel involved is. There are some red herrings that could have been expanded upon but are never fully followed through on, and there is a real lack of tension, apart from shouting and mini-fights breaking out.

Hamill is basically tied to a room, shouting down a microphone and looking at radar screens. Airbourne has an interesting premise but doesn’t utilise the situation or setting to its full extent. This is missed opportunity to make a clever, nasty little film, which is a real shame.

DVD Review: The Collapsed / Cert: 15 / Director: Justin McConnell / Screenplay: Justin McConnell / Starring: John Fantasia, Steve Vieria, Anna Ross, Lise Moule / Release Date: Out Now

Well whaddya know; the world’s only gone and ended again. But this time it’s not an alien invasion, zombie apocalypse or lethal killer virus, this time it’s… well, that’d not only be telling, it’d ruin the twist-in-the-tale ending to this surprisingly-diverting little movie which dares to go where too many recent movies have gone before but at least manages to take something vaguely new with it.

Filmed in a Canadian forest and looking as if it was funded with loose change found in the foot well of someone’s car, The Collapsed sees the all-American Weaver family (led by John Fantasia as Scott – I’d kill for a surname like Fantasia) fleeing some unspecified apocalyptic event which has left cities burning and dead bodies sprawled in the streets (the film’s only real money sequence). The Weavers set off across the country to reach the family’s other son who lives in the charmingly-named Dover’s Bend. It seems that other survivors can’t be trusted; the family flee an unlooted store before they can stock up on supplies when a surly-looking gang arrives on the scene. For the rest of the time the family wander through crackling woodlands as something mysterious and eerie stalks them, its unearthly howl echoing around the forest as it appears to close in on them.

The Collapsed surprises its audience fairly quickly – to reveal exactly how would be a spoiler of major proportions. But we’re rapidly wrong-footed and the film keeps us in the dark right until the end about what catastrophe has actually befallen Mankind this time and even when we find out the explanation isn’t especially clear or satisfactory and leaves too many questions unanswered.

The Collapsed is actually more of a psychological horror story than a gutsy post-apocalypse adventure but it’s sadly let down by half-hearted performances and characters who are really pretty unlikable and uninteresting. John Fantasia may well have a great surname but he doesn’t give Scott Weaver much in the way of a personality; he doesn’t seem hugely perturbed when terrible things happen (which they do) and there’s not really much chemistry between him and the rest of his family. One or two of the characters get to do really stupid things too. Weaver girl Rebecca (Ross), having escaped a desperate flight through the woods, decides a bit later that now’s the time to wander off on her own to the nearby river and… shave her legs? Meanwhile the forest is alive with the strange howling sound of… well, whatever it is that’s out there.

And in the end it’s what’s out there that makes The Collapsed worth your time. The film’s ending isn’t cosy, it’s not especially upbeat and in some ways it doesn’t make a lot of sense. But it’s striking, unusual and even a bit chilling. The world’s had better, bigger budget endings, of course, but The Collapsed is an interesting addition to the apocalyptic archive and, at about seventy minutes, it won’t take up too much of your time.

Special Features: the American DVD release boasts commentaries, a long ‘making of’ featurette and a music video. UK types get nothing. Boo.

DVD Review: Elfie Hopkins / Cert: 15 / Director: Ryan Andrews / Screenplay: Ryan Andrews, Riyad Barmania / Starring: Jaime Winstone, Aneurin Barnard, Kimberly Nixon, Steven Mackintosh, Ray Winstone, Rupert Evans, Kate Magowan, Richard Harrington / Release Date: August 13th

Pilloried and derided – and pretty much ignored – during its brief limited theatrical run back in April, Ryan Andrews’ cheap British horror thriller Elfie Hopkins might not be in danger of troubling too many Awards ceremonies any time soon and is largely pretty forgettable (even occasionally irritating) but there’s just about enough going on here and there to make it worth a look if only out of curiosity.

Elfie Hopkins is a tale of mysterious strangers, unexplained disappearances, amateur detection and quite a lot of unconvincing accents in one of the most rural parts of rural Wales. Jaime Winstone plays Elfie, a rebellious twenty-two year old slacker who fancies herself as a bit of a detective; but the problem is there’s not much real detection required deep in the heart of nowhere. But when a swanky new family – the Gammons – move into the village, Elfie’s suspicions become aroused and she and her geeky best friend Dylan (Aneurin Barnard) soon find themselves in more trouble than they’d ever bargained for.

Elfie Hopkins is really nothing like as bad as you might have heard – but it’s also, unfortunately, nothing like as accomplished as it should be. Despite co-writing the script, new director Ryan Andrews doesn’t seem at all sure quite what he wants to put on the screen. Elfie Hopkins staggers randomly between stoner comedy and slasher horror, its characters and their motivations are all over the place, performances generally too mannered, self-conscious or just plain poor (Steven Mackintosh has probably never been worse and Ray Winstone’s cameo as a portentous butcher is… let’s just say interesting) and the dialogue, desperate to appear slick and referentiall, just ends up coming across as clunky and unbelievable.

But Elfie Hopkins isn’t a complete wash-out. Its first half hour or so certainly drags its heels but the pace starts to pick up when Elfie realises there really is something odd about the new neighbours – the Gammon’s freaky Goth daughter Ruby (Gwyneth Keyworth) being easily the most intriguing character in the film – and the bloody killings start. The last-reel carnage throws the erratic quaint style of the rest of the movie out of the window and goes Hell for leather for the jugular with slashings, stabbings and throat-slitting as the Gammons reveal their true colours – even if the script doesn’t actually provide them with much in the way of motivation or substantial back story.

Despite its considerable shortcomings Elfie Hopkins is likable enough, perhaps because of a general haphazardness which makes it endearing rather than infuriating. There are a few good ideas, a pleasing other-worldiness in the locations and the photography and a decent, albeit familiar story and even though none of its component parts sit particularly well together and the film lacks a clear and coherent vision, it’s still really not the career-sabotaging disaster some of its fiercer critics have suggested.

Special Features: ‘Making of’ documentary, deleted scenes, short film.

Blu-ray Review: Roujin Z / Cert: 15 / Director: Hiroyuki Kitakubo / Screenplay: Katsuhiro Ohtomo / Starring: Chisa Yokoyama, Nigel Anthony, Barbara Barnes / Release Date: Out Now

Whenever a new format appears on the home entertainment market, it gives you ample opportunity to see some things that you may have missed first time around. Released in the western markets in the middle of the anime boom of the early 90’s, Roujin Z was inexplicably popular when it first came out. The opportunity to see the film if you missed it first time around is probably not something you should take up however if you wish to keep migraine free.

The story as far as I could make out concerns an elderly gentleman who is bed ridden and is suddenly borderline kidnapped by some government/corporate/military types and given the opportunity to become the first recipient of the Z-001 – an artificially intelligent bed driven by nuclear power. His nurse Hiruko is concerned and becomes more concerned when the Z-001 becomes self-aware, starts logging into networks, tries to make itself into some kind of giant robot and goes on a rampage with the elderly patient trapped inside.

I have no doubt that in the early 90s this was moderately diverting, however when seen now time has been very unkind. The animation is very poor and this isn’t a time issue, as Mamoru Oshii and Yoshiaki Kawajiri were doing beautiful work around the same time. Quite often there is no detail on characters’ faces even if they are not that far away from the frame, this would be forgivable on VHS but under the harsh glare of Blu-ray it just doesn’t work.

Apart from this the story and tone are all over the place. It starts off like a satire of the future along the lines of Robocop and then introduces a Scooby gang of nurses perverts, becoming something along the lines of a carry on film and all satire is abandoned in favour of innuendo and bawdy humour. Quite what happens in the last fifteen minutes is anyone’s guess but it seemed like badly animated junk being thrown around a city for no discernible reason.

If you have to watch this then do yourself a favour and watch the subtitled version. It’s not as bad anymore with modern dubs being quite good but back in the early days the English dubbing was ruined by shrill female voice actors and monotone male performers. The dubbing on this is especially bad and could conceivably be used as torture in some dictatorships.

Roujin Z has not aged well, not well at all. Stick with the classics like Akira, Ghost in the Shell and Ninja Scroll for anime that has aged like fine wine.

Special Features: None

DVD Review: Lesbian Vampire Warriors / Cert: 15 / Director: Dennis Law / Screenplay: Dennis Law / Starring: Jiang Lu-Xia, Chrissie Chau Sau-Na, Yuen Wah, Chin Slu-Ho, Rock Ji, Dada Lo Chung-Chi, A. Lin / Release Date: June 25th

Right, let’s get a couple of things cleared up straight off of the bat shall we? Firstly, you’ll be pleased to hear that this is not a sequel to the execrable James Corden crapfest that was Lesbian Vampire Killers. Secondly, the lesbian in the title is a misnomer – you’ll find no cheap titillation on show here – it’s just a clever marketing ploy.

With that out of the way, what can this Chinese vampire tale offer you, our discernible reader? Well, it comes across as a Far Eastern Buffy in certain ways, with a light-hearted script and likable characters. The wirework and choreographed fight scenes are well done and the whole thing appears to have been created with a bit of heart and soul rather than the usual sub-genre cash-ins.

The story surrounds Ar (Lu-Xia), a human vampire hunter who is trying to find her sister, Sue, who may or may not have succumbed to a vampire. Ar has a sixth sense that allows her to ‘sniff out’ vampires before they spot her. She hunts down the bad vampires – the ones that drink the blood of humans and appears to only have vampire friends, who all only drink animal blood and steer clear of the human kind. Her ‘girlfriend’ Max (Chau Sau-Na) and Max’s family find life as a vampire dull, with no ability to feel anything – ranging from everything between pain and love. But don’t think that this is a lovey-dovey tale either, it feels tight considering the running time. The family of vampires and their friends show a different side to teenage vampires who have lived for centuries and there are some fun moments as we watch them try to think up ways of entertaining themselves.

When a vampire Lord, Mung (Wah), who drinks the blood of other vampires to take the strength of their souls, enters the scene, it sets into motion a chain of events that ensure that he will have to face off against the Slayer, sorry, vampire hunter. The ending is less climactic that you’d want, but then the film does deliver as an overall package. It’s fun and fast paced and doesn’t take the material too seriously, whilst also managing to avoid parody at the same time.

An entertaining flick and well worth your time, just don’t be fooled by the title.

Special Features: None

DVD Review: Earth 2 – The Complete Series / Cert: PG / Director: Joe Napolitano, Jim Charleston, John Harrison, Felix Enriquez Alcala / Screenplay: Michael Duggan, Carol Flint, Mark Levin, Billy Ray / Starring: Debrah Farentino, Clancy Brown, Sullivan Walker, Jessica Steen, Rebecca Gayheart / Release Date: Out Now

A precursor to Star Trek: Voyager and LOST, this relatively short-lived science fiction television programme dumps a crew of disparate humans on a faraway planet and leaves them there to fend for themselves.

The year is 2192, and much of Earth’s population has fled following the destruction of our fragile environment. When the young son of a billionaire contracts a fatal virus known as “the syndrome” (caused, apparently by the lack of an Earthly environment, because that makes sense) a small group of humans set course for a planet 22 light years away with a similar ecosystem to our own – Earth 2 (not to be confused with the DC alternate universe of the same name). There they find dodgy looking aliens and a very sinister Tim Curry.

Star Trek: Voyager was much vaunted for its female captain, but few realise that Earth 2 got there first. Devon Adair may have different motivations to the famous Captain Janeway, but she’s no less a strong or decisive leader. The show does tend to frame her as a mother first rather than Janeway’s single-minded career woman, but she does a fine job, nevertheless. The Chakotay to her Janeway is John Danziger, played by the underrated Clancy Brown. It’s distracting seeing the usually gruff, authoritarian actor play what is essentially a space hippy, but he’s as reliable as ever. There are a few too many children amongst the group – chiefly Devon’s son, Ulysses and Danziger’s daughter – but enough aliens, robots and Tim Curry elsewhere for it to not matter all that much.

All twenty two episodes of Earth 2 make up this box set. Cancelled before it could make it to a second season, it feels vaguely incomplete but not enough so to spoil one’s enjoyment of the series. Twenty two episodes is a lot, so it should take even the staunchest sci-fi fan awhile to watch them all – it’s not the sort of programme one can watch episode after episode of. The biggest issue is in how dull its beginnings are. The pilot episode is a dull three hour slog through a universe that at first doesn’t feel terribly interesting. Power through, however, and there’s much to enjoy on Earth 2.

Curry is especially great, looking like the evil twin of Desmond from LOST and giving a typical nineties’ Tim Curry performance (The Wild Thornberrys – my personal favourite – not withstanding). His wild hair and slimy demeanour make every episode in which he appears a joy. His habit of whispering sweet nothings into the ear of Danziger’s daughter is particularly creepy. At one point he delivers a villainous soliloquy whilst spying on the group from an outcropping cliff. He is to Earth 2 what Gary Oldman was to Lost in Space – the best thing in it. That the episode in which he makes his debut is titled The Man Who Fell to Earth (Two) is a lovely touch.

Alas, Curry appears in a scant three episodes, so in his absence, other familiar faces take up some of the slack. Terry O’ Quinn plays a small but important role as do the likes of Rebecca Gayheart and Virginia Madsen. The setting gives a large enough scale for the group to have plenty to do during their 22-episode stay on Earth 2. There are aliens too, robots and plenty of dangerous flora and fauna for the unfortunate humans to either befriend or be attacked by (complete with visible seams in their rubber outfits).

Earth 2 doesn’t quite reach the heights scaled by its great sci-fi television forebears. Visually it’s quite ugly (most of Earth 2 appears to be made up of nondescript wasteland) and the aliens fairly derivative. Crippled by a slow beginning and lack of clear direction, it joins the likes of Terra Nova and Jericho; competent but cancelled due to a lack of viewers. Given time, Earth 2 could have been something special. Sci-fi television can take a while to heat up, so it’s unfortunate that a lot of shows aren’t given the time to rise from their humble beginnings. It’s easily forgotten how pants the first series of The Next Generation was – Earth 2 is better than that. But without the brand name and pre-installed rabid fans, it never had the same room for manoeuvre.

As it is, this is a diverting box set that should keep fans of mid-nineties sci-fi busy in-between re-watches of old Star Trek episodes. Earth 2 is boldly going nowhere, but who knows, maybe in a different time and place, on another Earth…

Special Features: Deleted/Extended Scenes, Blooper Reel, Outtakes

DVD Review: Crows Zero 2 / Cert: 15 / Director: Takashi Miike / Screenplay: Shogo Muto / Starring: Shun Oguri, Kyosuke Yabe, Meisa Kuroki / Release Date: July 2nd

During one of their tours, Blur’s backstage punch-ups apparently got so bad, at one point they all managed to give each other black eyes. The same kind of thing happens in this brooding teen rumble-fest, where everyone who’s anyone ends up with a split lip, a torn and bloodied shirt and a shiner that looks like a squashed tomato.

Crows Zero II follows on directly from Crows Zero, which in turn was based upon a best-selling manga by Hiroshi Takahashi. Haven’t seen the first film or read the comic? No matter, the storyline won’t tax your powers of comprehension. Pouting bad boy Genji (Shun Oguri) has fought his way up to become top dog at the Suzuran Senior High School for Boys, but he’s too narcissistic and self-absorbed to be able to reconcile the various factions of its ultra-violent student body. A failing which becomes a serious problem when the rambunctious skinheads of the Hosen Academy decide to move in and take them down. Can Genji learn values in time to unify the Suzurans into a fighting force capable of repelling the Hosen thugs? Or will he content himself with wandering the mean streets in lonely splendour, cigarette smoke curling from his thin, moody lips? Or maybe he’ll do a bit of the moody thing first, before manning up for a balls-out finale? Now how’s that for a plan?

Director Takashi Miike moves everything along with his usual pop-promo vividness, but makes little attempt to individualize the characters, who fall into two homogeneous groups – preening alpha males with narrow hips and good cheekbones, and their gurning sidekicks. The urban squalor is piled on, with rolls of barbed wire and graffiti-daubed walls wherever you look. You’d find more subtlety and subtext in a spoonful of wasabi. There’s masses of combat, but not of the graceful, highly choreographed martial arts kind. This is fist-fighting in the Western manner, except that no one’s learnt how to duck.

Between brawls, there’s much posturing and male peacockery. The cast do almost too good a job of mimicking the stylised attitudes of their manga originals – the wistfully tilted head, the narrowed eyes glimpsed through the floppy fringe, the languid cigarette in long-boned fingers. Ladies might well find this aspect of the film quite beguiling – in small doses. But they’re just as likely to be dismayed by the near-total absence of female characters (two small roles for women in a cast numbering hundreds) and 130 minutes is a long time to watch even the prettiest boy band types bludgeoning each other until their barnets drip blood.

Blu-ray Review: A Better Tomorrow 2012 / Cert: 15 / Director: Song Hae-sung / Screenplay: Hing-Ka Chan, Suk-Wah Leung / Starring: Ju Jin-Mo, Song Seung-heon, Kim Kang-woo, Jo Han Sun / Release Date: Out Now

Despite the specific date title, this is a 2010 Korean remake of the seminal Chinese film of the same name from 1986. The film that put John Woo and Chow Yun Fat firmly on the map. While keeping similar themes, this update takes its own path.

The plot centres around Kim Hyuk (Ju Jin-Mo) who has defected from North Korea, leaving behind his mother and younger brother, Chul (Kim Kang Woo). He works as a police officer as well as an arms smuggler, with the help of another Northern defector, Young-Choon (Song Seung-hun). Chul is found and brought to Hyuk’s station, but he doesn’t want anything to do with his elder sibling, believing that he abandoned them to save himself, while their mother was killed as he watched.

Hyuk finds himself in a Thai jail after being betrayed in a gun running deal, both by the buyers and his second in command, Tae Min (Jo Han Sun). Young-Choon avenges Hyuk, but is crippled in the process. Meanwhile, Chul has himself become a police officer, and is determined to bring both the gang, now led by the power mad Tae Min, and his wayward brother to justice.

The film takes the basic elements of the original story, and transplants them in Korea and puts the emphasis back on the story – the brother’s split mirroring the divide between North and South – rather than the cool looking set pieces. That is not to say this version does not have its moments, there are a number of shoot outs that are well choreographed and have plenty of style, but nothing stands out like the ballet of violence that is the 1986 classic. The problem with remaking such a revered film is of course you will forever be compared. Had director Song Hae-sung called the film something completely different, he would have probably got away from many unfair comparisons. John Woo, director and writer of the original has an executive producer credit here, but judging from the brief sound bite in the extras, he literally just put his name to the film as a stamp of approval. Which makes the marketing of the film all the more frustrating. In big bold letters on the box, John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow 2012. The original Korean title, Mujeogja (Invincible) would have worked better.

A big let-down, especially as I’m an advocate of the format, was the completely unnecessary 3D conversion for the Blu-ray, which adds absolutely nothing. On the plus side, however it does not spoil the look of the film either and it has not been used (so far) as an excuse to jack up the price of the disc, it’s just pointless.

A great Eastern gangster film, which deserves more than just being tarnished by the remake tag.

Special Features: None

Review: The Expendables – Director’s Cut / Director: Sylvester Stallone / Screenplay: Dave Callaham, Sylvester Stallone / Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Steve Austin, Randy Couture, Charisma Carpenter / Release Date: Out Now

On the surface, The Expendables is a story of a black-ops-for-hire team – lead by stoic team leader Barney (Stallone) – who essentially kick ass for the highest bidder. In this case, the man with the money is the shady Mr Church (Willis) who hires Barney and his crew for a hit in a South American island. But as you would expect, all is not what it seems and before he knows it, Barney is turning a well-paid job into an attempt at redemption. Or so this movie would have you believe.

In fact, what The Expendables really is, is an excuse to throw together almost every recognisable action star from the ’80s and ’90s (with a few new ones, most notably Statham) to blow stuff up and relive former glories. Not that this is a bad thing. The concept of having Stallone on screen again with the likes of Lundgren, while Jet Li, Jason Statham and Stone Cold Steve Austin run around is like fan boy heaven. Throw Arnie and Bruce Willis into the mix (albeit in a brief scene) and you’re practically reaching for the Kleenex.

But, what you quickly discover is that the two reasons for The Expendables existence don’t really mix. This is neither explosive enough to cash in the expectations of the mighty cast, nor worthy enough to validate the core theme of absolution. Leaving us with a movie which has managed to capture the feel of the early ’90s action movie, but fails to add anything new.

Having said that, of course in this case, there is something new. Being a director’s cut we’re privy, not only to all the extra bits that Stallone wished he’d been allowed to include in the theatrical release, but a total re-cut. That’s not to say that this is vastly different from the original film, but rather than just slot in a couple of cut scenes Stallone has really gone through and re-assembled the film, often including different takes and new music. For the most part, the cut scenes themselves consist of small character exchanges that do at least help to flesh them out more. As for the music? Well, it’s neither better nor worse.

From the extra features Stallone makes it clear that directing and acting in this film took far more out of him than he’d imagined it would do. In fact Sly’s ‘Director in Action’ featurette is so candid that you almost feel sorry for the guy. But hard as it may have been, it doesn’t excuse this from being an action movie cheque that Stallone and crew simply couldn’t cash.

Extras:

This is where this release finally wins. The aforementioned featurette provides an intimate master class in Stallone’s directorial career from the man himself, which is commendably honest. Feature-length Inferno: The Making of The Expendables is equally transparent in its depiction of Stallone’s time on set. Music video and brief introduction (from the set of Expendables 2, curiously the only E2 content on board) are fine. For the full story, Stallone’s Commentary is a must, if nothing else you’ll get the best argument for his choices (good and bad).