Release

DVD weekly: Magic hats, more Nic Cage and Hammer Horror

Matt

4th July 2011

Here’s the weekly run-down of all the new DVD and Blu-ray releases hitting the shelves today. But of course, none of you will know that because no one uses ‘shelves’ any more – we’re all shopping on the interwebs. Fancy that!

Released: Monday 4th July 2011

The Adjustment Bureau (2011) DVD & Blu-ray
Buy the DVD on Amazon for £9.99

Adjustment Bureau

I’m a sucker for anything by Philip K Dick (I had to rewrite those words a few times for fear of leaving myself open to innuendo-based LOLs): intelligent sci-fi concepts, usually mixed with some philosophical meditation on fate and destiny, shaken with clever action set-pieces and garnished with a sprig of WTF. It’s not a perfect metaphor, but I like cocktails. And I’m leaving those last few words as they are.

So, in many ways, The Adjustment Bureau is typical Dick: Matt Damon stars as politician David Norris, who falls for ballet dancer Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt) only for mysterious trenchcoated hat-wearers to break onto the scene and tell Norris that he can’t see her anymore. Why? Because he’s set to become an important, powerful politician one day, and apparently that won’t happen if he’s with Emily Blunt. It seems that actually being in love with a ballet dancer will make him not focus on his own career, or something to that extent. Tsk…women. Amiright, guys?

While this obviously calls into question the very idea of Fate and whether or not we are free to make our own choices, the film’s downfall is its failure to appropriately capture this concept on screen. From the very start, the film has more holes than a net full of sponges as the almost-omniscient, nearly-omnipotent angel-like Bureau workers swing from being powerful beings (moving an entire bus with a mere hand gesture) to being useless layabout fuck-ups (falling asleep on the job. ASLEEP. They’re supposed to be angels, ferchrissakes).

And so, in what is essentially a paranoia thriller dealing with existentialism, destiny and freewill, we have the most underwhelming visuals to ever accompany a film in which Matt Damon runs. Never is this more apparent when, later in the movie, Damon actually finds the Adjustment Bureau – as in, a heaven of sorts, a metaphysical plane from which the angels/workers carry out God’s will – and it’s just a fucking office. Not even a nice one. I’ve seen where Ali works and that’s much fancier. These Bureau workers don’t even have an air hockey table in their kitchen. Suddenly, the film’s ridiculously dull title makes sense.

Having said that, the film manages to claw back a lot of points by default of having Damon and Blunt trying to outflirt each other. Their early scenes in particular are full of effortless charm and gentle pigtail-pulling that is genuinely a joy to watch, and this is what makes the film halfway decent. In a movie where you are expected to root for a couple that even GOD doesn’t want to be together, you had better make sure you have the likable leads to back it up. Luckily, Damon and Blunt’s sparking chemistry not only makes you want them to succeed on screen, but it also makes you secretly hope they got it on at least once in real life too.

And so The Adjustment Bureau isn’t a total loss – it’s just that any tale from the warped brainwrong of Philip K Dick doesn’t deserve to be overshadowed by the lovey-dovey acting. That’s just not right – I sure as shit didn’t watch Total Recall rooting for Arnie and the three-breasted hooker to find a life together.

Read our original review
Drive Angry (2011) DVD & Blu-ray
Buy the DVD on Amazon for £10.99

Drive Angry

Another week, another Nic Cage film to hawk, and you should know by now how much we like to talk up that mad bastard. However, Drive Angry is an exception to the rule as far as I’m concerned – it’s the complete opposite of what any good Nic Cage film should be about. It’s the Anti-Cage, if you will. Because, in this story about a man escaping from hell so that he can rescue his baby granddaughter from a cult, Nic Cage is uncharacteristically stoic and emotionless, while the movie is utterly batshit sparko.

We have fast cars, ritualistic killing, William Fichtner as Satan’s wry little helper and a scene in which he slow-motion shoots a room full of thugs, all while having sex with a trashy barmaid. The film screams awesome. And yet, Cage plays his main character (the apparently clever-literary-reference-named Milton) as though he is currently undergoing three lobotomies while in a coma. Gone is the usual boggle-eyed vitriol, the maniacal facial expressions and the unpredictable accent - this is Cage at his phoned-in dullest and, as a result, the film is just a glossy mess.

I honestly would have preferred this film if it consisted of a one-camera shot of Nic Cage acting out the entire movie, including every needless explosion and every superfluous 3D money shot. And then, every now and then, he could bring out Amber Heard to just bend over in hot pants, before being sending her off camera again, such is her role in the film.

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

Hall Pass

Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis star in this low-brow comedy thanks to a premise that just WOULDN’T HAPPEN fails in its attempt to make any subsequent plotting even vaguely interesting. When the two goofy guys’ unrealistically attractive wives (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate) let them have a ‘hall pass’ to hook up with other women for a week, hilarity is sure to ensue. Except, are we really expected to root for these guys to cheat on their wives? When a happy ending is inevitable, surely we know we’re just in for a series of chat-up line skits before the predictable epiphany.

Oh, and Stephen Merchant? Choose your films more wisely, otherwise people are going to start realising that there’s a reason Ricky Gervais is more famous than you.
The Resident (2011) DVD & Blu-ray
Buy the DVD on Amazon for £9.93

The Resident

After their official comeback film Let Me In was surprisingly pretty good, Hammer Horror are following it up with this creepy story of stalking and voyeurism. Hilary Swank plays a recently-single doctor who finds a perfect apartment in Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s building. The two become close friends and soon cross over into kissing buddies before Swank realises that’s not what she wants after all, leaving Jeffrey Dean Morgan horny and frustrated. Luckily for him, surrounding Swank’s apartment is a series of secret passageways that allow him to spy on her masturbating in the bath so he can jack off at the same time. I’m not being crude – this actually happens.

The film suffers hugely from being completely unremarkable in almost every way as it drags out so many horror clichés, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was written during the last time Hammer Horror were a big name in films. Swank plays a doe-eyed and useless blank-slate victim for Morgan’s feverish obsessions, and Christopher Lee has an extended cameo as a creepy old man in what is essentially just a nod to his former career as Hammer’s main representative.

Morgan himself makes the film just about watchable thanks to being utterly charming and affable one minute, and then having a crying wank over Swank’s nightie the next. If you’re into that kind of thing, this is the film for you.
Anuvahood (2011) DVD & Blu-ray
Buy the DVD on Amazon for £9.97

Anuvahood

I have been led to assume that this film is some kind of spoof of Kidulthood, Adulthood and anything else Noel Clarke churns out in the same vein and, to be honest, I can’t say I’m particularly interested in any of those films, let alone a movie that takes the piss out of them. But maybe that’s because I’m just not street.

I will say though that, according to the synopsis on IMDB, the main character quits his job at ‘Laimsbury’s’, and if that’s the calibre of gag on offer here, I think I can safely say for everyone that this one isn’t exactly a ‘must-see’.
Also out this week

Barb Wire Blu-ray
Beneath The Dark DVD & Blu-ray
Born On The Fourth Of July Blu-ray
Dinocroc Vs Supergator DVD & Blu-ray
In Bruges Blu-ray
Land Of The Lost DVD & Blu-ray
Norwegian Wood DVD & Blu-ray
The Mercenary DVD & Blu-ray
Uncle Buck Blu-ray

More:  DVD Weekly
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