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THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER’S WAR (Blu-ray combo)

August 18, 2016

James Plath, Family Home Theater PG-13 rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

WintersWarcoverGrade: C+/B-
Entire family: No
2016, 114 min., Color
Universal
Rated PG-13 for fantasy action, violence, and some sensuality
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-X Immersive Audio
Bonus features: B-
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD
Trailer
Amazon link

If you only looked at Rotten Tomatoes you’d think that The Huntsman: Winter’s War is a real stinker. Out of 183 critics, only 31 pronounced it “fresh,” while the 152 calling it “rotten” gave it an average rating of just 4.2 out of 10. That’s the kind of score you’d look at and think, “This movie isn’t even worth renting.”

Not so, people. While there are plenty of things wrong with this follow-up to Snow White and the Huntsman, whose 49 percent “fresh” rating starts to look stellar by comparison, there are also plenty of things to enjoy.

Chief among them are the nifty special effects and action sequences that help to bring this fantasy world to life. Black tentacle-daggers, fluid gold, and a live-action version of the ice-action we saw in Frozen are all flawlessly rendered. Battle and fight scenes are convincing, and the art and set designers do a decent job of creating a fantasy world that feels believably fantastic. The cast and their performances are also very good, and, apart from a few eyebrow-raising lines, so is the dialogue.

So what’s the problem? Well, The Huntsman: Winter’s War is both disjointed (kids will say “confusing”) and derivative—two strikes against it that make critics crazy enough to act as if it were three.

Winter’s War starts out as a prequel (“The Story before Snow White”), but then fast-forwards past the events of the first film. So it’s a prequel and a sequel rolled into one. There are a lot of unwritten rules in filmmaking, but this seems like a pretty big one to break. Adding to the confusion, like too many fantasies, Winter’s War is more complicated than it needs to be. It’s also WintersWarscreen2dark. Freya (Emily Blunt), the younger sister of Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) whose spirit had been trapped inside the mirror and released by her sister, falls in love with a nobleman (Colin Morgan) she later believes has killed their child. She retaliates and leaves the kingdom to set up her own frozen kingdom. And yes, like Disney’s Elsa she has cryokinetic powers. She can build walls, put people in the deep freeze, and does so with more deliberate evil than her Disney counterpart. But even Disney’s ice queen is more developed as a character than Freya, or her sister, for that matter.

Much of the narrative revolves around Freya, who has ordered her minions to kill parents and abduct the children to “save” them from a world in which love is a hurtful lie. She trains them to become her soldiers with but one rule that tops even abject obedience: no one must ever love or fall in love. And the queen keeps an ever-watchful eye on her minions by using a magical, mechanical snowy owl and an owl mask. But because the Huntsman gets a backstory, we can assume this story is his. Eric (Chris Hemsworth) is one of those kidnapped children raised not to love, and yet he can’t help falling for his tough female counterpart, Sara (Jessica Chastain). Life gets complicated for them after that, to state the obvious without spilling spoilers.

WintersWarscreen1Frozen parallels abound—so many that you wish the filmmakers had been more creative—and when the snow queen rides a polar bearish creature it’s impossible not to also think of The Chronicles of Narnia or The Golden Compass. Thank God for dwarfs. Four of them (Nick Frost, Rob Brydon, Sheridan Smith, Alexandra Roach) liven things up and also provide opportunities for the writers to lighten the mood. With Hemsworth and Chastain they make for an engaging flight-quest story, despite the structural and conceptual problems.

This Blu-ray combo pack comes with an extended unrated version, but parents will find the PG-13 theatrical version strong enough. It’s every bit a movie for teens and older. Note that the Blu-ray version comes with three additional bonus features, all worth watching, and since this special effects fantasy looks best in HD going “Blu” makes the most sense.

Language: “Pissed” is the only language that intrudes on this fantasy
Sex: Blurred, side-view nudity that implies sex, but nothing graphic
Violence: Main characters are thought to be killed, others are skewered or shot; plenty of fighting and battle violence, with relatively little bloodshed
Adult situations: The whole dark fantasy tilts more toward the adult realm than the child’s; this is a movie made for adults that was edited to make the PG-13 rating so children could also see it
Takeaway: A stronger concept could have made Winter’s War a winner, but even as is it’s a film my teens said they’d watch again

BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (Blu-ray combo)

July 24, 2016

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, PG-13 rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy 1 Comment

BatmanvSupermancoverGrade: C+/B-
Entire family: No
2016, 151 min., Color
Warner Bros.
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action throughout, and some sensuality
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: Dolby Atmos
Bonus features: C-
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD
Trailer
Amazon link

My teenage son said it best: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice is a good action movie, but not a very good superheroes film. That is, there’s plenty of action, great CGI visual effects, and breakrib (if not breakneck) pacing. But it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad . . . and doesn’t that Good v. Evil dichotomy drive every superhero film? A little more character development and motivation wouldn’t hurt either, though both of those require a little squinting to see in this 2016 film from Warner Bros.

You almost get the feeling that you’re being had—and not just because of the neurotic, helium-voiced way that Jesse Eisenberg chose to play Lex Luthor Jr., or that you’re stuck with a Jr. in the first place. It’s that the filmmakers thought they could throw everyone into the deep end of the pool and call it a party. They expect that you’ve seen (and remembered) Man of Steel, because if you haven’t, then the opening will make even less sense. Even if just watched Man of Steel there are questions, and I’m not just talking about why WB can’t use the standard abbreviation for “versus.”

BatmanvSupermanscreen1Batman was always a vigilante, but why has he apparently gone rogue against all of society? Why is Superman suddenly so sensitive to public opinion that he’s gotten a megalomaniac complex? Who is shooting at whom, and why, when we see Lois Lane trying to interview a terrorist in the opening Africa sequence? Most importantly, why, pray tell, does Superman threaten Batman, setting up the “v.” conflict? Aren’t both of them on the outs with society? Those are just a few of the nagging questions that surface early.

All of which is to say, Batman v. Superman has one problem, and it isn’t Lex Luthor. It’s that the narrative feels disjointed . . . and how is that even possible, when director Zack Snyder had 151 minutes to work with in this theatrical cut?

Some of the questions are explained and the narrative smoothed out by an extended cut that’s included in this “Ultimate Edition,” but it shouldn’t take 181 minutes to tease out the narration, should it? Especially when the screenplay comes from two guys that in past outings have given audiences terrific, economical scripts: Chris Terrio (Argo) and David S. Goyer (Batman Begins). Snyder, for that matter, directed such previously taut films as 300 and Watchmen. So what happened here?

I can’t even begin to tell you, except that you watch the action thinking that it’s all very cool and that there’s a lot at stake, yet it’s hard to get too involved when there are so many lingering questions. With a superhero film you want to get a handle on how all those interlocking pieces fit together, whether the comic universe is Marvel or DC, and it’s tougher here to do than with any of the Avengers films.

BatmanvSupermanscreen2Here’s what I think happens: The plot picks up a year and a half after the final battle from Man of Steel. Both Batman (Ben Affleck) and Superman (Henry Cavill) feel the other is a threat, despite the fact that Lex Luthor Jr. (Jesse Eisenberg) is mixed up with weapons dealers and trying to get his hands on Kryptonite. Superman is called before a congressional hearing to explain himself, Batman dreams of battling Superman and prepares to act out that dream by stealing the Kryptonite from Luthor, who has kidnapped Superman’s stepmom, Martha Kent (Diane Lane). And Lois Lane (Amy Adams) doesn’t really have much to do after that opening scene except to try to convince Batman that Superman isn’t a bad guy. Oh, and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) makes an appearance.

There’s more, of course, but don’t look to bonus features for a fuller explanation. They all seem promotional in nature, and you get the feeling that Warner Bros. was less concerned with making sense out of this film than they were trying to set up future films in the DC Universe.

Action movies and young audiences have a lot in common: they live in the moment and don’t question things. That’s not a bad mindset to adopt when you pop in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. It may not be a great superhero movie, but with an alien monster and large-scale battle scenes it really is a darned good action flick that bears re-watching . . . and with every viewing you begin to pick up a little more. Good thing, because the extended cut that somewhat smoothes out the narrative is rated R for even more intense sequences of violence. As is, the PG-13 version is adult enough to push this film out of reach of viewers younger than 12 or so.

Language: No F-bombs, but there’s a handful of lesser swearwords
Sex: One bathtub scene with a man and woman, but as with a naked dead man nothing revealing is shown
Violence: Plenty, though bloodless, including gunshots to the head, self-inflicted cuts to the hand, ad the usual explosions and action movie battles
Adult situations: Aside from alcohol use there’s a scene in which a child’s parents are murdered in front of him and a later scene where Doomsday originates that might be a little too powerful for young viewers
Takeaway: I look forward to future conflicts, but so far the clear winner in the Marvel Universe v. DC Universe is Marvel.

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (Blu-ray)

June 16, 2016

James Plath, Family Home Theater PG-13 rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Thriller Leave a comment

MidnightSpecialcoverGrade: C+/B-
Entire family: No
2016, 112 min., Color
Warner Bros.
Rated PG-13 for some violence and action
Aspect ratio: 2.41:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 5.1
Bonus features: C
Trailer
Amazon link

Midnight Special is a strange movie about a boy with strange powers that are never fully explained, even as the film tries to transcend its limitations to enter Steven Spielberg territory toward the second half.

In giving us a different kind of Close Encounter with a sorta-human version of E.T., writer-director Jeff Nichols (Mud, Take Shelter, Shotgun Stories) hovers over Sixth Sense territory as well. Yet, as much as you keep watching with interest, this 2016 sci-fi drama is uneven and kinda cops out when it comes to explanations.

You can picture Nichols’ mind at work: Okay, start with a young boy who has special powers (Jaeden Lieberher)—a boy who was taken from his parents and raised for two years by the leader of a religious cult (Sam Shepard) that thinks he’s the key to life itself. MidnightSpecialscreen1Have them be investigated by the FBI, then have his parents decide they want to rescue him, and, with the help of his best friend, have Dad (Michael Shannon) grab the kid and hits the road. Of course the kid’s powers have to be cool—Light shooting from his hands? Ability to unleash a light attack on people who would harm them?—and then bring in some alien or alternate universe elements to keep viewers guessing. But mostly run with a chase story and lean heavily on Shannon, Joel Edgerton, and Kirsten Dunst to pull off the roles of parents and friend on the run, trusting that viewers will go along for the ride and not ask too many questions.

As I watched this PG-13 rated film with my son, I found myself asking plenty of questions, starting with the title. “Midnight Special” is a traditional American folk song about a train from Houston whose light would shine on a prisoner’s cell as it passed every evening. If you know that and think about it, the title fits. But MidnightSpecialscreen2if you’re not getting the allusion, the title probably makes no sense. The pacing also makes no sense. You’ll be chugging along at a slow pace with not much happening and then WHAM! Something freaky or strange happens to make you go, huh? or wow! Sometimes it’s violence. Sometimes it’s violence that reminds you of cartoons, because characters that seem to get shot point blank just bounce up as if nothing happened. Sometimes it’s a new sci-fi wrinkle. But it’s never character development (there’s no arc to follow), and you don’t really get much in the way of why any of this is really happening. That misguided urge to understate is the film’s chief weakness.

Maybe in some perverse way it’s also the reason why Midnight Special holds your interest as much as it does. You keep watching, hoping to piece everything together. In the end, how much you enjoy this movie may be tied to how much you’re willing to accept the information you’re given and not demand more than that. But the actors also do their part to keep you hanging on, with Shannon especially turning in a fine performance. Star Wars fans will also enjoy watching Adam Driver leave the Dark Side to play a lead investigator.

Midnight Special depends on the element of surprise, so that’s all I’m going to say. I thought it was slightly better than average, but my teenage son was more into it . . . enough to shelve it and watch it again sometime.

Language: No F-words, and less than a handful of others
Sex: None
Violence: People are shot point blank, involved in violent car crashes, and bloodied
Adult situations: Nothing besides the above, plus intense pursuit
Takeaway: Sci-fi thrillers walk a fine line between telling too much and revealing too little, and you’ll either walk away from this shrugging, or you’ll be fascinated enough by the film’s unique elements to give it thumbs up

HERE COMES MR. JORDAN (Blu-ray)

June 6, 2016

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, PG rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

HereComesMrJordancoverGrade: B/B-
Entire family: No
1941, 91 min., Black-and-white
Criterion Collection
Not rated (would be PG for mild violence)
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 2.0
Bonus features: B+
Trailer
Amazon link

Five years before apprentice angel Clarence would try to convince George Bailey that It’s a Wonderful Life, chief angel Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains) tried to make amends when an underling mistakenly snatched a prizefighter 51 years before he was supposed to die.

If there’s a more outlandish premise behind a Hollywood comedy, I haven’t come across it. Robert Montgomery (whose daughter, Elizabeth, would star in a supernatural comedy of her own 23 years later—TV’s Bewitched) is cast as boxer Joe Pendleton, whose hobbies are playing the saxophone (badly) and flying his private plane. It’s the latter that gets him into trouble, and when a prickly new angel (Edward Everett Horton) plucks him from the plane before a crash, thinking to spare him the final pain, it turns out that the boxer would really have survived. In heaven, Mr. Jordan instructs the new angel to return Joe to his body. That’s when things get outrageously complicated. It turns out that Joe’s fight manager, Max Corkle (James Gleason), had his body quickly cremated, so there’s no body for him to return to. Mr. Jordan’s solution: find him a suitable body from someone slated to die soon.

If it were a little more fast-paced and the dialogue overlapping, Here Comes Mr. Jordan would play like a screwball comedy. As is, there are plenty of scenes that feel absurdist enough to qualify, and just as much in the way of clever writing. Here Comes Mr. Jordan is a surprisingly solid fantasy-comedy-romance that still entertains, despite some cheesy cloud scenes featuring an airplane transporting people to their final destinations.

HereComesMrJordanscreenMontgomery is amiable enough as Joe, a plain-talking guy set on becoming heavyweight champion of the world. He isn’t about to let some heavenly mistake get in the way of his destiny, and he isn’t about to accept any body that isn’t “in the pink.” But the film turns most interesting when Mr. Jordan convinces Joe to inhabit the body of a crooked millionaire whose wife (Rita Johnson) and private secretary (John Emery) have just drugged and drowned him in his bathtub. It adds a new wrinkle to a familiar genre, and how fun is it to see the two murderers’ faces when Joe-as-Farnsworth walks out of that bathroom? But that’s only the beginning. Complicating Joe’s drive for a championship body is the instant attraction he feels for a young woman (Evelyn Keyes) whose father Farnsworth framed to take the fall for a phony bond swindle, and Mr. Jordan’s prodding to get him to do something about it before the scheming would-be murderers strike again.

Very few films have plots that are unique, and for that reason alone families with older children (with a tolerance for black-and-white movies) may enjoy this screen version of the stage play Heaven Can Wait—also the title of a 1978 Warren Beatty remake. The angel and body-swapping do seem more charming and infinitely better suited to the Forties and black-and-white. When the film was released, America hadn’t yet entered WWII, and Here Comes Mr. Jordan was a pleasant, even hopeful diversion from the threat of war.

Joe Pendleton is blunt and unrefined, often a little slow on the uptake, but he’s also a genuinely nice guy who just wants what’s coming to him. His earnestness and honesty is infectious. When he tries to communicate his situation and gets caught up in other people’s lives, you can’ help but feel for him. That, even more than the unique plot, is what makes Here Comes Mr. Jordan resonate as an example of classic Hollywood filmmaking. It can feel slow-moving at times and the subject matter probably won’t interest children under age 14, but it’s still worth watching, even 70 years later.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

April 9, 2016

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, PG-13 rated, Reviews (by Genre), Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

ForceAwakenscoverGrade: A-
Entire family: No
2015, 135 min., Color
LucasFilm/Disney
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HDMA 7.1
Bonus features: B+
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Bonus Disc, Digital HD
Trailer
Amazon link

These are exciting times for Star Wars fans, who can be forgiven if they start to think of the seventh film in the series as Star Wars: The Franchise Awakens. In effect, Disney has launched Star Wars 3.0, a glorious reboot that’s the first of six films planned for release over the next five years: three stand-alone spin-offs and a trilogy begun by The Force Awakens, according to Business Insider.

Never mind that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the highest grossing film of 2015. The exciting part is that with this film, a trio of writers led by Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark) put the fun and fast-paced serial adventure back into Luke Skywalker’s galaxy, and, just as importantly they give us new characters that we care about. Under the capable direction of J.J. Abrams (Lost), The Force Awakens also combines the best of both worlds. Fans get the slick technical wizardry of Revenge of the Siths and the otherwise ho-hum Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, combined with the lighter tone and occasional humor that made A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi so much fun. It’s fun, too, seeing Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher reprise their roles as Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia—even if, as Hamill joked, he’s onscreen for less time than Finn drinking with a hippo.

ForceAwakensscreen1Some might say it’s just a little too tidy having offspring of those beloved characters turning up as “players” in this new struggle of resistance fighters trying to stop the First Order, as the imperialists are now called, but there are plenty of instances in real life where children of politicians also become main figures on the world stage. Fruit doesn’t far fall from the tree, and that probably goes double for people with Jedi blood.

The Force Awakens recycles elements from the main storyline of A New Hope, the film that introduced Star Wars in 1977. The emperor may be long gone, but a new one who speaks via hologram has taken his place. Each film begins with someone on an arid, isolated planet finding a droid that has been given an important piece of information. In the case of The Force Awakens, a scavenger named Rey (Daisy Ridley) who is all alone in the world comes across a BB-8 that’s even more endearing than R2-D2. She meets her own version of a bad boy/antihero (a stormtrooper defector named Finn played by John Boyega) and the two of them seem destined to create movie magic together.

Four main characters are introduced—six, if you count a diminutive goggle-eyed Yoda substitute voiced by Lupita Nyong’o and that cute new BB-8—and while Oscar Isaac is engaging enough as resistance pilot ForceAwakensscreen2Poe Dameron, he doesn’t have the same on-screen presence as Ridley and Boyega, or maybe isn’t able to insert enough of his own personality into the role to make him memorable. The costume design took me a bit by surprise, as Disney tried for a Darth Vader update with Adam Driver playing the simpering Kylo Ren wearing a mask that looks a cross between Vader and something Hannibal Lector would wear, and the new stormtrooper helmets flatten out at the bottom so that they look a little like the goalie mask on the old Annaheim Ducks uniforms. But the production design is slick while still appearing realistic and not 100 percent CGI-looking, the way so much of Menace or Clones did. That’s just how far CGI special effects have come.

What makes Star Wars: The Force Awakens a winner is that those state-of-the-art CGI effects accompany a return to old-fashioned storytelling and the lighthearted tone of the serial-inspired original films. That combination guarantees The Force Awakens will get plenty of repeat play. It’s a great popcorn movie that announces this series is back on track again. And does it look phenomenal in Blu-ray! A disc of bonus features is included, and while the deleted scenes aren’t as tantalizing as fans might expect, a full-length documentary is satisfying and there are plenty of excellent shorter features as well. Shop around if you want to add this title. Best Buy, Target, and Walmart all have exclusive releases. This is the general release, available through Amazon and other outlets.

Language: Two “hells” and one “damn” is pretty tame.
Sex: n/a
Violence: This film’s PG-13 rating comes solely because of sci-fi violence. Lots of blasters, lots of explosions, and lots of characters being killed . . . or in the case of an opening sequence, murdered. An attack by multiple-tentacle creatures can be pretty intense for younger children, but the film’s most haunting moment of violence comes when a stormtrooper is shot and as he dies he leaves his bloody handprint on another trooper. It’s so we can identify which trooper to watch, but still….
Adult situations: Some background characters smoke and drink in the cantina, but nothing more.
Takeaways: The Force is back . . . in force! And with new characters, Disney and LucasFilm are well positioned to finish this new trilogy as impressively as they began it.

THE HUNGER GAMES COMPLETE 4-FILM COLLECTION (Blu-ray)

March 25, 2016

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, PG-13 rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy 1 Comment

HungerGamescoverGrade: B+
Entire family: No
2012-15, 548 min., Color
Lionsgate
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some disturbing images, some language, some suggestive elements, and thematic material
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: Dolby TrueHD Atmos / Dolby TrueHD 7.1
Bonus features: B+
Includes: 6 Blu-ray discs, Digital HD
Amazon link
Trailer

If you don’t already have the 15th highest grossing film franchise of all time, read on.

The Hunger Games movies are based on the young adult novels by Suzanne Collins, whose inspiration for her teen heroine Katniss Everdeen was probably Thomas Hardy’s Bathsheba Everdene, the strong main character of Far from the Madding Crowd—a young woman who also finds herself torn between different admirers.

In the movie version, Jennifer Lawrence stars as Katniss, an accomplished archer from the coal-mining District 12 in the futuristic dystopia of Panem, which is run by an autocratic president-slash-dictator named Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland)—a name derived from Shakespeare’s tragedy of Coriolanus, about a Roman general who rises to political leadership after successfully quelling uprisings against Imperial Rome. Teens won’t know or get any of this, but it does make the series a little more literate than most.

HungerGamesscreen1Mockingjay Part 2 (included here) is the climax of a series that began with Katniss taking her younger sister’s place in nationally televised “tributes,” in which two teens from each district fight to the death in a broad, natural arena in a futuristic and more violent version of Survivor. She distinguishes herself and, with fellow District 12 acquaintance-turned-friend-turned-love-interest Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), finds a way to beat the “only one winner” rule.” On their victory tour Katniss senses revolution brewing, and Mockingjay Part 1 finds her being recruited by the underground movement to be their PR heroine. Though Part 2 begins with her accompanied by a film crew advancing to the district closet to Capitol to make another rouse-the-rebellion film, Katniss has other ideas. Liam Hemsworth stars as Gale, who complicates Katniss’s emotional terrain, and a star-riddled cast includes Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Julianne Moore.

Hollywood expanded Collins’ trilogy into four installments, and fans that faithfully purchased the previous three films in HD can pick up The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 on Blu-ray, while The Hunger Games Complete 4-Film Collection seems geared for people who were waiting for the series to conclude before adding the films to their collections. The wrinkle is that the 4-Film set contains a bonus disc that includes exclusive features that haven’t appeared in earlier releases. Is it be enough to entice real fans to double-buy?

HungerGamesscreen2Maybe. But The Hunger Games Complete 4-Film Collection is a great set except for one thing: to package the six discs so that they overlap, Lionsgate had to go with DVD packaging. That’s right. If you’ve adjusted your shelves to fit Blu-rays only, this one won’t make it . . . as is. But if you buy inexpensive replacement double-disc Blu-ray cases at Amazon and photocopy, then cut out, your covers from the previous three releases, it works pretty well: The Hunger Games consists of two discs, like the first release, and they fit in one case; Catching Fire was a single disc, but if you switch to a double disc case you can put that film plus the bonus disc for this collection in that case; and that leaves The Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2 for the third case. Then you can take your first three Blu-rays to the local second-hand video store to get a few bucks for them.

Wait, you’re thinking. That’s a lot of work. Are the bonus features worth it? Well, that can be confusing, because the bonus disc also contains previously released material. But new to this release are “Stories from the Tributes,” an 18-minute feature on the actors and clips from the film; “Casting the Tributes,” an 11-minute behind-the-scenes look; “Tribute Video Diaries,” which is 17 minutes of just what it sounds like; a photo slideshow that runs about 3 minutes; a 15-minute feature on the stunts; an 18-minute feature on the costume design; a 7-minute short on the weaponry; a 10-minute feature on the visual effects; a 7-minute look at the food created for the film; a 5-minute clip of the premiere; a 14-minute look at the returning cast members for the second film; an 18-minute look at new cast members; two 3-minute shorts on the production design of the second film and the Quarter Quell cast; a five-minute look at the weapons of Catching Fire; a 5-minute location tour of Hawaii; a Coldplay music video; another 5-minute foodie feature; a 2-minute look (fast) of The Hob; a miniscule scene that was deleted early in production; a “Battling the Clock Arena” feature that runs 5 minutes; a catch-you-up 9-minute summary of Mockingjay; a 13-minute look at the Mockingjay art design and set decoration; a 12-minute feature on “The Propos Team”; a 12-minute look at the broader war that emerges in the series; and a “Picturing Panem” photo gallery that runs around 8 minutes.

Uber fans will probably want to upgrade, because the additional bonus features are indeed substantial and worthwhile, but if your family is only into the films, there’s no need to buy this collection if you already own the first three films on Blu-ray—the only way to watch this series, by the way. The Hunger Games 4-Film Collection is solid sci-fi entertainment that does what all good fiction attempts: it appeals to more than its intended audience, and offers a compelling plot and cast of characters, some great action and CGI special effects, along with some pretty good messages for teens and anyone else who will listen.

Language: No swearing in the first installment, but a few bleeped-out f-bombs and lesser curse words pop up in the second film
Sex: In the second film the side of a bare breast is glimpsed as people watch a woman undress
Violence: People are killed, but in the first film the crucial moment is either so brief or the camera quickly cuts elsewhere to avoid reveling in violence; the violence is more on-screen and increases in intensity as the series goes on
Adult situations: In Catching Fire one character is often drunk, but there are also plenty of emotional scenes all through the series; in Mockingjay reference is made to a character being forced into sex slavery and that character is traumatized by it
Takeaway: Sorry Divergent and Maze Runner fans, The Hunger Games is the superior young adult novel-on-film, and a rousing finale puts the exclamation point on that

PAN (Blu-ray combo)

December 16, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Entire Family, PG rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

PancoverGrade: B-
Entire family: Yes
2015, 111 min., Color
Rated PG for fantasy action, violence, language, and some thematic material
Warner Bros.
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: English Dolby Atmos
Bonus features: B
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD
Trailer
Amazon link

Pan is an ambitious 2015 live-action fantasy adventure from director Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Hanna) that’s as different as can be from previous film versions of J.M. Barrie’s tale of Peter Pan—and not just because it’s an origin story.

For starters, Hugh Jackman plays a post-apocalyptic looking villain with the kind of flamboyant flair we saw from David Bowie in Labyrinth, and the villain he plays isn’t even Captain Hook. It’s the pirate Blackbeard, who’s snatching British orphans from their beds and taking them to Neverland in his flying ship to work in his fairy dust mines—reminiscent of what we saw in the second Indiana Jones movie. You’ll also have Indy flashbacks when you meet James Hook (Garrett Hedlund), an adventurer whose Fedora and mannerisms seem unmistakably patterned after the character Harrison Ford made famous. Thankfully those “influences” fall short of seeming like rip-offs.

Panscreen1Partly that’s because Pan has distinctively edgy look and feel to it, as if a punk-rock band got inspired by The Who’s rock opera Tommy and decided to make a film of their own . . . without the songs. This fantasy has more fantastic elements to it than even Barrie could have imagined, and young Peter (Levi Miller) goes from being an orphan with a pan pipe necklace and a mother he tries to track down to a budding superhero who finds his place not in London but in Neverland, where he will become champion of the downtrodden.

The people he defends—the Indians of Neverland—are a curious bunch, though. Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara) seems Eurasian, while others of her “tribe” are Asians, blacks, and Latinos. Was this done to avoid racial stereotyping? Possibly, and I wouldn’t blame them. Look at the crap that Disney took for Pocahontas, and they even were careful enough to create a strong, positive heroine who was voiced by a Native American actress. But in Pan the whole idea of “tribe” seems weirdly subverted by multiculturalism.

Panscreen2Those weirdnesses aside, Pan is an energetic fantasy that will satisfy your curiosity about the early days of Peter Pan and his Neverland rivals, unless you’re like my son and you expect to see the story of how Hook lost his arm to the crocodile. Sorry. It’s not here. But would it help to know that the crocodile is animated more like a grand sea monster than the cute nemesis Disney dreamed up? In general, the special and visual effects are quite good, as is the production design. We buy this bleaker, post-apocalyptic version of Neverland precisely because it seems so far-out and young Miller as Pan and the others seem so believably earnest. The action scenes are also more honest and intense than we normally see in a Barrie adaptation. Yes, it’s a little over-the-top in spots and as fantastic as fantasy gets, but Pan is entertaining enough not just for one family movie night, but for replays as well.

Language: A “damn” or two
Sex: n/a
Violence: Some intense action scenes, though no blood or guts or anything
Adult situations: Hook comes on to Tiger Lily, but that’s about it
Takeaway: Just when you thought Peter Pan was as tame as can be, along comes this origin story to prove that you can take even a beloved classic and give it a new, sharper edge

EDWARD SCISSORHANDS: 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION (Blu-ray)

October 17, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater PG-13 rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

EdwardScissorhandscoverGrade: B+
Entire family: No
1990, 105 min., Color
20th Century Fox
Rated PG-13 for innuendo, language, and some violence and peril
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HDMA 4.0
Bonus features: C
Includes: Blu-ray, Digital HD
Trailer
Amazon link

As the original TV series 21 Jump Street was winding down, Johnny Depp made the leap to a starring role on the big screen in Tim Burton’s fantasy-fable Edward Scissorhands (1990).

Edward wasn’t the first Goth, but he’s certainly the most memorable. Before his “makeover” he’s dressed entirely in black leather with studs and rings all over. With his hair spiked and face looking pale as EdwardScissorhandsscreen1death, he could easily have passed for one of those post-punkers that sprung up as a counterculture movement in the early 1980’s in London and Dublin—except that his hands were literally clumps of scissors. We learn in flashback that he lived in this Gothic castle with his creator (Vincent Price), an inventor who died before he could fit his beloved creature with a pair of hands.

Edward Scissorhands is a clever variation on the Mary Shelley novel. It embraces the basic structure and themes of Frankenstein, but also skewers suburbia for good measure. As Burton described it, it’s as if a more sensitive and communicative Frankenstein’s “monster” just happened to live in Martha Stewart’s neighborhood.   More

TOMORROWLAND (Blu-ray combo)

October 13, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, Entire Family, PG rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

TomorrowlandcoverGrade: B-
Entire family: Yes, but…
2015, 130 min., Color
Disney
Rated PG for sequences of sci-fi action violence and peril, thematic elements and language
Aspect ratio: 2.20:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HDMA 7.1
Bonus features: B+
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD
Promo clip
Amazon link

I’m just going to blurt it out: Tomorrowland is entertaining, but underwhelming—at least in the beginning.

Even under the capable direction of Brad Bird (Ratatouille, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) Disney’s latest onscreen theme-park ride feels uneven and unnecessarily complicated, especially in the early going. It takes 22 minutes before the film seems to find its footing. Until then, you’ll have family members asking what’s going on and whether the action is taking place in the past, present, future, or distant future. Later, it can be emotionally confusing, as persons we thought were human are struck by a car or beheaded in an explosion (Uh, Disney?)—after which we learn that they’re really highly refined futuristic robots.

Until the plot kicks in, at least the art direction and set decoration and CGI world that the filmmakers create are all bright and shiny and impeccably rendered. Along with the action, it’s enough to hold your attention until everything starts to make more sense. Tomorrowland clocks in at 130 minutes, and if Bird had compressed and simplified that beginning it would have been a B+ film. Then again, that opening was obviously intended as a theme park tie-in. Instead of Disney World it’s the New York World’s Fair in 1964 that we enter, with a voiceover singing the theme song from the Carousel of Progress and one of the main characters urged to hop aboard a ride that just happens to be a modified version of It’s a Small World.

Tomorrowlandscreen1Two very different characters are targeted to receive a “T” button under mysterious circumstances: a boy genius who brings his Electrolux-converted jet pack to a World’s Fair Tomorrowland attraction, and a rebellious teen girl who sneaks onto a decommissioned NASA launch pad and is arrested for her trouble. But it’s only when that teen girl meets the grown-up boy genius that things really start to roll in this fantasy-adventure.

I don’t know about hidden Mickeys, but you can spot Space Mountain in the midst of the futuristic world in Tomorrowland, and the special and visual effects are the film’s chief strength. Not far behind, though, are performances by Thomas Robinson as young Frank, George Clooney as old Frank, and Britt Robertson as Casey Newton. Even Raffey Cassidy as the mysterious Athena, a young girl who spans generations, adds to the mix so that collectively they make us care about the action, however confused it may be at times.

Tomorrowlandscreen2Disney is known for its strong villains, but surprisingly Hugh Laurie as David Nix, the leader of Tomorrowland, isn’t played over-the-top. He’s more of a misguided misanthrope who could be anyone’s dad fed up with society and resigned to its doom. But the stakes are predictably high: the world will end in the near future unless Casey and Frank can do their thing, despite Nix’s attempts to, uh, nix that.

It’s really pretty amazing what can be done with CGI these days, and Disney spared no expense. The film cost anywhere from $190 million to $330 million to produce and market, depending upon whose figures you buy. Meanwhile, the worldwide gross was $208 million, so financially it’s another big-budget Disney disappointment. But both of my teens said they’d definitely watch Tomorrowland again, and that says a lot. Once you get past a muddled beginning the action and story and characters make for an entertaining family movie night.

Language: Mostly “hells” and “damns”
Sex: n/a
Violence: Plenty of sci-fi violence, including a charred and decapitated head that turns out to be robotic, humans are killed by ray guns, a robotic girl is run over by a car, and the female lead bashes the heck out of a robot with a baseball bat
Adult situations: A father asks if his daughter’s on drugs, but that’s about it
Takeaway: Effects are great, but story still matters. And once this story kicks in, Tomorrowland is worth the visit.

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (Blu-ray combo)

October 4, 2015

James Plath, Family Home Theater 3D, Action-Adventure, PG-13 rated, Reviews (by Genre), Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

AvengersAgeofUltronGrade: A-
Entire family: No
2015, 141 min., Color
Marvel/Disney
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action, violence and destruction, and for some suggestive comments/language
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: English DTS-HDMA 7.1
Bonus features: A-/B+
Included: Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, Digital HD (DVD sold separately)
Trailer
Amazon link

All superheroes try to save the world. It’s in their contract. But the crisis usually isn’t of their own making, as it is in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

The sequel to 2012’s The Avengers is a slam-bang action and special effects movie that requires you to pay attention to pick up the plot points—which means that family members on the low side of the PG-13 rating might be slow to figure things out, though they won’t care a bit. They’ll be happy enough savoring the breakneck action and appreciating the CGI antics of Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Captain America (Chris Evans).

In the pre-title sequence, the Avengers raid a Hydra stronghold in a fictional Eastern European country and recover Loki’s scepter that Hydra scientists were using to experiment on human subjects, including a pair of twins—the now superfast Pietro and mind-manipulating Wanda. But what viewers can see that the Avengers can’t is that Hydra actually wanted them to take that scepter, knowing its power for evil and Tony Stark’s all-or-nothing personality.

Thor is anxious to return the scepter to his world, but trouble ensues when Stark (aka Iron Man) borrows it to upload into his global defense program, dubbed “Ultron,” and the scepter A.I. causes Ultron to go full-blown evil. He eliminates Stark’s A.I., J.A.R.V.I.S., and, like all non-human intelligences, looks around and decides that the world would be a better place without so much bickering flesh and blood. The rest of the film follows the Avengers attempts to track him down—which means a return trip to fictional Sokovia and some pretty cool all-out battles.

AvengersAgeofUltronscreenI’m giving this an A- only because the special effects are uneven. That long pre-title sequence incorporates shortcuts—sped up shots, wildly sweeping cameras, and quick cuts—to generate the appearance of furious action. Thankfully the rest of the film is mostly devoid of those cheap tricks, and viewers can “marvel” at the action as it plays out. In Avengers: Age of Ultron the characters Hawkeye, The Hulk, and Black Widow get more development, and Samuel L. Jackson returns as Nick Fury, but only for the third act. Ultron is the star of this show, and he’s villainous enough to pull the very best out of the Avengers.

Some viewers might have flashbacks to the 1999 remake of The Mummy, in which an evil one tries to “upgrade” himself from walking skeleton to fully flesh-and-blood villain, because the same thing holds true for Ultron. The opening sequence might also remind viewers of the Star Wars series—particularly the speeder bike sequences from Return of the Jedi—because, even more than the first Avengers film, this one goes full-bore CGI in action, backgrounds, settings, and objects.

But it’s accomplished and it’s as entertaining as popcorn movies get. Because of the complexity, because of the accomplished special effects, it’s a film that ought to get plenty of repeat play. The collector’s edition comes with 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and Digital HD, with more than 45 minutes of exclusive bonus features. The DVD is sold separately, but Blu-ray is the way to go, mostly because the sound is so amazing. The picture has plenty of pop, but it’s the immersive soundtrack that sells it. And if you have 3D capability, the depth and tracking during quick scenes is pretty amazing.

Language: A surprising “s-word” early in the film that’s used as a running joke, but otherwise pretty clean
Sex: n/a
Violence: Plenty of fantasy violence, but no graphic blood-letting
Adult situations: Some innuendo, but that’s it
Takeaway: Marvel and Disney are inching closer into Star Wars territory, and creating a series of movies with just as many connections and complexities.

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