Release

DVD weekly: Clooney, auteur action and invisible aliens

Matt

21st May 2012

Apologies that this week's DVD weekly is a day late. In my defence, I was...um...REALLY hungover.

Released: Monday 21st May 2012

The Descendants (2011) DVD & Blu-ray
Buy the DVD on Amazon for £11.99

The Descendants

What can I tell you about The Descendants that you don't already know from the massive Oscars campaign that ran before this year's Academy Awards. Um... well, how about the fact that George didn't win? And it's a genuine shame because he has never been better here: playing Matt King - a land baron who finds out that his comatose wife was having an affair at the time of her accident - with resolve and vulnerabilty in equal measure.

It's a near impossible balance to get right but Clooney pulls it off with aplomb, all while the providing the pitch-perfect anchor for both the humour and the tragedy in Alexander Payne's humour-tragi-dramedy. Eschewing the blinding charisma upon which he has built his smooth and handsome reputation, this is the most authentic performance of Clooney's career and dayum, if he ain't still funny with it.

But then it helps that Payne knows how to walk the fine line in his films, and this - more than any other - is a story with no clear-cut answers. Should Matt forgive his cheating, comatose wife? Should he sell his plot of land for the good of Hawaii's economy and his family's own wealth, or should he hang on to it to continue his ancestors' legacy? How should he control his misbehaving daughters when he has been a largely absent parent to them before now?

Payne clearly isn't interested in easy solutions or neatly-wrapped endings - but the journey along the way makes for some heartfelt, tender and, at times, hilarious moments. Plus, everyone should immediately buy this film so that they can directly put money in the pocket of Community's Dean (Jim Rash), who won an Oscar for his part in the screenplay. That man cracks me up and therefore deserves all of my monies.

Read the original review
Haywire (2011) DVD & Blu-ray
Buy the DVD on Amazon for £9.99

Haywire

Someone needs to get Steven Soderbergh a Playstation or something. Have you ever known a director to be so bored? Long given up on making Hollywood-pleasing films with megastar wattage, the bald-headed auteur just keeps churning out 'interesting' films, apparently wanting to try his hand at every genre going.

So now we have this: what looks like a generic action flick with guns blazing and adrenaline doing whatever it is that adrenaline does - complete with big blocky commonplace title and a cliche cover full of head shots. At first glance, this looks like an action vehicle for an ex-wrestler. You probably wouldn't even look at it twice in a supermarket bargain bin.

And yet this is actually a super-stylised spy thriller that Soderbergh has crafted out of nowhere, filled with a stellar cast and then used as an action vehicle for an ex-wrestler mixed martial arts fighter (Gina Carano). Once again, subverting the tropes of his genre du jour, Soderbergh has created an action film with actually very little action. There are a few brutal fight scenes but no exploding helicopters or super muscley henchmen. In fact, the first real action sequence - a short gunfight followed by a hot on-foot pursuit - is mostly played out in soundless slow-mo. This is a film grounded in reality and Soderbergh wants you to relish every minute.

The problem is, we've all seen a hundred action films before and this muted approach is difficult to reconcile with a film that promises dynamic ass-kicking. The super-cool spy score and inventive framing all look fresh and original but, given Soderbergh's now-famous clinical and compassionless style of filmmaking, you'll be left waiting for the film to kick into a higher gear that just never comes.

When fights break out, though, it's always refreshingly spontaneous and hard-hitting. Sudden attacks lead to gruelling, clumsy wrestling with bone-breaking pins and usually a swift roundhouse kick from Carano, but the fighting to dialogue ratio just seems a little imbalanced, with a complex backstory and complicated narrative muddling what feels like it should be just a straightforward actioner.

Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas round out a great supporting cast, even if they ARE all on autopilot (and yet still outshining Carano's novice performance) but the real star, as always, is the auteur himself. Well done, Soderbergh - you have successfully created an action film with very little action. Now what's next? A sci-fi film without any science or fiction? An R-rated movie for kids? How about a film that's not really a film but is really a book?

Read the original review
The Darkest Hour (2011) DVD & Blu-ray
Buy the DVD on Amazon for £9.97

The Darkest Hour

Aliens. That's all you need to whip up feverish anticipation for a film. Can't come up with a decent plot upon which to hang your Battleship movie? Just add aliens. You know what's cooler than cowboys and indians? Cowboys And Aliens. Would anyone have bothered with Battle: Los Angeles if the army were defending against an invasion of penguins? Well, yes - probably. But still...aliens. But you know what else these three films have in common? They were disappointing as fuck.

As is the case with The Darkest Hour. A film that teased us with fancy light effects, a scary premise and cool death scenes. But when you watch the film, you can count down the step-by-step moments when the film goes from 'that's awesome!' to 'that's bullshit!': the first kill, in which a police officer is flash-disintegrated by an unseen force (that's awesome!); when our survivors realise that, thanks to SCI-FI, they can see the aliens coming using electrical-magno-made-up-waves (that's...er...dubious science, but whatever we'll go with it); and when we slowly come to realise that the aliens throughout this entire film are going to be invisible so we'll have to put up with watching everyone run away from freaky-looking air (that's bullshit!).

A lot of the problems stem from the fact that the film doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Epic action movie? A stylish invasion flick? The end result plays more like Twilight meets Skyline. Main actor Emile Hirsch starts off the film as funny slacker best friend and somehow skips several evolutionary steps to become dynamic life-saving hero - all while still wearing what seems to be a thinner version of Jack Black's chubby grin. Throw in several scenes of misplaced 'the human race won't stand for this - we'll fight back!' patriotism and we have ourselves a mixing pot of Cloverfield Lite moments that are really hard to take seriously.

It's not all bad. The Moscow setting at least makes for a refreshing locale for this kind of film, the CGI looks neat and well-polished and the pre-invasion banter between bezzies Sean (Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) provide a few genuine laughs. But then it seems that, along with deadly electrical-magno-made-up-waves, this invisible threat also brought with it disjointed storytelling and the ability to turn its foes into dimensionless cliches. Now, if they were invisible penguins, THEN we'd have a film.
Also out this week

2-Headed Shark Attack DVD
Intruders DVD & Blu-ray
Piggy DVD
Pocahontas Blu-ray
Tarzan Blu-ray
The Grey DVD & Blu-ray

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