Wild Target: Zany Unlikely Bonding

By Leo Owen

12th October 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director: Jonathan Lynn,
Writer: Lucinda Coxon
Certificate: 12
Running time: 98 minutes
Studio: Entertainment in Video
No of discs: 1
Region: 2
Price: From £9.98-£13.99
Release Date: October 11 2010
Starring: Bill Nighy, Emily Blunt, Rupert Grint, Rupert Everett, Martin Freeman, Eileen Atkins

The latest British comedy offering from Jonathan Lynn, the Director of The Whole Nine Yards, My Cousin Vinny and Nuns On The Run, is a remake of a 90s’ French flick and stars some of our favourite Brits to combine madcap farce with unexpected romance.

Victor Maynard (Bill Nighy) is a 54 year-old professional killer, reared for the job, as a baby with a kitsch wooden gun mobile hanging above his cot and given a Beretta for his 7th Birthday, “the pistol of princes”. As an adult with a dodgy moustache he lives so safely “it’s dangerous”, choosing a solitary life where he eats banquet meals alone surrounded by vacuum packed furniture. His proud mother (Eileen Atkins) gives him an album of cuttings of all of his jobs and is concerned no-one will keep up the family business.

Queue free-spirited, thief and con-artist, Rose (Emily Blunt), Victor’s next assignment, a Wild Target. After a scam involving a ridiculous blonde wig, Rupert Everett and a Rembrandt painting backfires, Rose has several contracts out on her life. The best in his trade, Victor jeopardises his whole way of life after becoming completely enchanted by her bohemian blasé existence when tailing her.

Complete opposites, Victor and Rose form an unlikely bond based on their differences. Rose charms Victor into protecting her from the other hired assassins with her eccentricities and flattery – the fact she has one tooth too many , “What do you weigh” being her pulling line and her comparing him to “a mighty ancient oak”. Equally, Victor’s own peculiarities slowly begin to affect Rose – his acupuncture qualification and watch with a garotte cheese wire pull-out.

As their relationship blossoms, Rupert Grint (Harry Potter) makes an appearance as bumbling natural killer, Tony, looking less ginger: “I didn’t mean to hurt you – it was just good luck.” Present at the first “shoot-out”, Tony joins the duo to form a trio of bickering children and lands a six week hit-man apprenticeship, including a travel card for the Greater London area.

Baddie, Ferguson (Rupert Everett), protects himself with money, hiring others to do his dirty work – he wants to turn his assistant’s life support machine off but won’t because he’s paying him until the end of the month. Martin Freeman is an unmemorable Dixon, Victor’s nemesis and short-lived rival.

Wild Target is a zany comedy that occasionally successfully pokes fun at traditional hit-man gangster heist movies – its literal interpretation of “half now, half later” and the comic timing of the music accompanying Victor’s first appearance interspersed with the amusing addition of a vocal parrot and French language tape. Character relationships are as convincing as the gags but with its heart in the right place and a fair dollop of English charm, Wild Target raises enough laughs.

***

Death At A Funeral: Inappropriately Funny

By Leo Owen

27th September 2010 | 1 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director: Neil LaBute
Writer: Dean Craig
DVD and blu-ray release date: September 27 2010
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Number of discs: 1
Price: From £11.99-£14.98
Running Time: 92 mins
Certificate: 15
Starring: Danny Glover, James Marsden, Chris Rock, Peter Dinklage, Zoe Saldana, Luke Wilson, Keith David, Loretta Devine, Ron Glass, Regina Hall, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan

The opening coffin sequence is a good indication of what to expect of the rest of this black infused American remake of the 2007 British comedy, Death At A Funeral.

A motley crew of relatives reunite for an ill-fated funeral each bringing with them their own baggage. Whispered bickering starts an already doomed service as brotherly rivalry and a mother’s favouritism makes for a sour reunion.

Aaron (Chris Rock) is the oldest brother and an author whose unpublished book no-one has read. His successful writer brother, Ryan (Martin Lawrence), is the favourite – a rich arsehole who brags about travelling first class and tries to usurp Aaron’s right to read the eulogy, suggesting he is an incompetent writer: “Daddy’s only going to die once”.

Other relatives are equally unsupportive of Aaron’s writing talent, telling him: “We can all write cheques”. Add to this, his mother, Cynthia’s (Loretta Devine) constant cruel jibes at his wife, Michelle’s (Regina Hall) inability to get pregnant and it’s no wonder Aaron is highly strung: “You can’t understand death until you have given life”.

Aaron is not the only preoccupied family member – Norman (Tracy Morgan) is worried he has a pigment mutation and family friend, Derek (Luke Wilson), still loves Elaine (Zoe Saldana) while her fiancé Oscar (James Marsden), takes what appears to be valium but ends up naked on the roof flapping open his knees.

While all this family-orientated drama goes on, mystery guest dwarf, Frank is angered he wasn’t left anything in the will and feels like a “cheap piece of arse” so wants the $30,000 he deserves, threatening to show Cynthia sex pictures to prove he was her husband’s lover.

Death At A Funeral is full of obviously comical slapstick actions, including a dancing tripping midget and a whole host of made-for-laughs gags, like family friend “Little Martina” being described as “in 12th Grade but her arse in grad school”, the Frank situation summarized as “Our father was having sex with a guy that could fit in his pocket” and a drugged up Oscar’s assessment of the funeral: “I want our wedding to be like this”.

By far the biggest joke of the film is an almost unrecognisable Danny Glover as the famously moody Uncle Russell – a wheelchair-bound bitter old guy constantly jabbing people with his walking stick and making inappropriate remarks like “Let’s just burn him and get it over with”, to the point where a fellow relative threatens: “You better stop this or you’re going to be in the box next”.

Afro-Caribbean Death At A funeral does nothing new but a strong cast and appropriately apt timing results in a continuous onslaught of comical episodes happily keeping viewers chuckling hard throughout.

****

Special Features:

• Commentary with Director Neil LaBute and Chris Rock.
• Deleted Scenes.
• Outtakes.
• Death at a Funeral: Last Rites, Dark Secrets Featurette.
• Family Album Featurette.
• Death For Real Featurette.

Blu-ray Exclusive Bonus Material

• movieIQ™+sync and BD-Live connect you to real-time information on the cast, music, trivia and more while watching the movie.

Bad Lieutenant = Great Cage

By Leo Owen

24th September 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director: Werner Herzog
Writer: William M. Finkelstein, Victor Argo
DVD and Blu-ray release date: September 27 2010
Studio: Lions Gate Home Entertainment
Number of discs: 1
Price: From £9.99-£15.93
Certificate: 18
DVD and blu-ray running time: 118/122 minutes
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, Jennifer Coolidge, Tom Bower, William M. Finkelstein, Victor Argo, Werner Herzog

After his ingenious portrayal of the controversial Big Daddy in Kick-Ass earlier in the year, Nick Cage returns in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, suggesting the old grittier Cage is here to stay.

In the opening sequence the “Bad Lieutenant” is presented with a valour award but is then shown sixth months later snorting a white powder, stealing confiscated drugs and smoking marijuana with a suspect while questioning him. Terence McDonagh is an old-skool second generation city cop who believes “a man without a gun – that’s not a man” and is warned he “can’t get away with that cowboy shit anymore”. A workaholic operating on one and a half hours sleep in three days, McDonagh still prefers his less conventional methods and corrupt antics like arresting a couple to then smoke crack with them and have sex with the girl. Despite his girlfriend, Frankie, being a whore (Eva Mendes) and his drug addiction, he gets results.

A stooping extremely tall wonky-looking Cage plays McDonagh with the perfect balance of dry humour and humanity. McDonagh is a lawless impatient man with a temper who gets the job done his own way, helping himself to his prescription drugs, rather than waste police time waiting. Even after he loses his temper questioning the grandmother of a witness, he manages to beat the system and cameras in the “property room” to restock his narcotics supplies.

Structured neatly with a vaguely uplifting end that amusingly mirrors the start, The Bad Lieutenant borders on the absurd as a drug induced McDonagh tries to solve a brutal multiple murder case. McDonagh is preoccupied by all things lizard, as an accident scene is filmed from a croc’s perspective, two Iguanas appear that only he can see and a long sequence involving close-ups of various lizards is rather puzzling. The script at times is just as surreal with beautifully memorable lines like: “Shoot him again – his soul is still dancing”.

Set in a dark and seedy underworld with a surprisingly low-key performance from Val Kilmer as Stevie Pruit, although possessing a slightly overly long running-time, The Bad Lieutenant is a thoroughly enjoyable gritty no-nonsense crime film with a highly original and strangely endearing protagonist.

***

Special Features:

• Trailers.
• Digital Photography Book.
• The Making Of Featurette.

She’s Out Of My League: Endearing Farcical Nerdy Romcom

By Leo Owen

24th September 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director: Jim Field Smith
Writer: Sean Anders, John Morris
DVD and Blu-ray release date: September 27 2010
Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment
Number of discs: 1
Price: From £12.99-£17.93
Running time DVD and Blu-ray: 100/104 mins
Certificate: 15
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, T.J.Miller, Mike Vogel, Nate Torrence, Krysten Ritter, Lindsay Sloane

Nerdy romcom films are hardly in short supply but the writers of Hot Tub Time Machine somehow manage to inject a fresh perspective into this well-worn genre with She’s Out Of My League.

Kirk snorts when he laughs and isn’t exactly buff with his gangly awkward frame. He’s worked at the local airport ever since his dad got a swimming pool rather than pay his college fees. His vile ex-girlfriend, Marnie, fits in better with his family than he does, practically living at their house with her new meat-head “entrepreneurial” boyfriend, Ron, who runs a pizza shop.

Everything changes for Kirk when he meets Molly at airport security. Molly’s a lawyer who now runs her own entertainment planning business with her best friend, Patty. But most importantly, she is stunning and a “perfect ten”. Kirk’s equation, however looks more like: “5 + 1/2 for being nice + 1/2 for being funny – 1 for his car”. Despite the numbers not adding up, recently hurt, Molly decides to give Kirk a go as a “safe guy”; For the rest of the film Kirk’s mind “boggles”.

A relatively unknown cast, charming characters and engaging script, give She’s Out Of My League an 80s’ feel. Kirk’s best friends, Stainer and Devon, are both well-written and even Molly is surprisingly likeable, despite her perfection. By far the favourite is the Disney-fixated Devon – an entirely endearing hopeless romantic who is married himself and sees life as a potential fairytale: “Let’s go on a magic carpet ride” he says, referring to Kirk’s first re-meeting of Molly. His ever-cheesy character delivers the main moral of our 80s’ fairytale: “If someone really loves you then you are a 10.”

She’s Out Of My League not only hits the spot in terms of romance but the mismatched pairing of Molly and Kirk leads to a fair amount of farcical comedy – their first date is almost disastrous when Kirk wears identical jackets to the restaurant waiters, the scene where Devon really goes that extra mile for a friend, when Steiner’s band, “Adult Education”, perform and the final airport showdown where Kirk’s whole family sport revolting matching “Branson Bound!” sweaters.

She’s Out Of My League is a truly promising feel-good first feature from new Director, Jim Field Smith, and worth the time for exposure to a talented unfamiliar cast, and catchy new blend – the moodle…

***

Special Features:

• Deleted Scenes.
• Blooper Reel.
• Extended Ending.
• Devon’s Dating Show – A Hilarious “Dos and Don’ts”.
• Commentary By Director, Jim Field Smith.

Buff Gyllenhaal Saves Arterton’s Sands Of Time

By Leo Owen

14th September 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director: Mike Newell
Writer: Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro
Certificate: 12
Running time: 116 minutes
Studio: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
No of discs: 1
Region: 2
Price: From £12.93-£16.79
Release Date: September 13 2010
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, Steve Toussaint, Tobu Kebbell

Doe-eyed Gyllenhaal once type-cast as the “sensitive type” attempts to re-brand himself through action flick Prince of Persia, based on the legendary computer game.

A brotherly power struggle underpins the plot as adopted Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) finds himself defending his honour after being accused of murdering his father with a poisoned robe. Dastan discovers his reputation isn’t the only thing that needs protecting when he meets wronged Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) and her unusual sword.

Despite Gyllenhaal’s well-documented pre-Prince body pumping, the ridiculously gruff voices of Gyllenhaal’s chivalrous brothers make him sound almost effeminate and his delivery of terrible eye-rolling gags falls flat. His on-screen relationship with growing love-interest Tamina at least has an Indiana Jones style charm about it.

As always Ben Kingsley shines as the scheming growling villain, Nizam, but it is Alfred Molina’s appearance as Sheik Amar in the Valley of the Slaves that sticks. Playing a self-described “slightly dishonourable entrepreneur”, Amar’s creation of the terrifying Valley of Slaves myth in order to create a tax-free area with black-market ostrich racing every Tuesday and Thursday is ingenious. His devotion to the ostriches, describing them as having suicidal tendencies and how he has “to watch [his favourite] night and day to make sure that she doesn’t do anything stupid” is both endearing and comical.

Full of lots of roof-top running and leaping like the original computer game and slowed-down action shots of a nimble footed beefed-up Gyllenhaal drawing swords, Prince of Persia enjoyably fulfils everything you’d expect of a high adrenaline big budget action film – cliched lines like “you know what they say about men with big swords”, melodrama (“If the glass shatters, the world dies with it”), comical farcical villain-hero scenarios (“Next time…”) and romance (“It is said some lives are linked across time connected by an ancient calling”).

***

Bonus Features:

DVD bonus feature: An Unseen World – Making The Prince of Persia.

1-Disc blu-ray bonus feature:

 The above DVD bonus plus Deleted Scenes – The Banquet: Garsiv Presents Heads.

3-Disc combo pack bonus features: 

All of the above DVD and Blu-ray bonus features plus CineExplore: The Sands of Time – Take control of the dagger and use it to unlock secrets behind your favourite scenes; turn back time and uncover over 40 spellbinding segments – including “Walking Up Walls,” “Filming in Morocco”, and “Ostrich Jockey Tryouts”.

Take A Nostalgic Trip In The Hot Tub Time Machine

By Leo Owen

31st August 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this

Director: Steve Pink
Writer: Josh Heald, Sean Anders
Release Date: August 30 2010
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Number of discs: 1
Region: 2
Price: From £11.93
Running Time: 95 mins
Certificate: 15
Starring: John Cusack, Chevy Chase, Clark Duke, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Lyndsy Fonseca, Crispin Glover, Lizzy Caplan, Collette Wolfe

Until 2012, Cusack could do no wrong – Hot Tub Time Machine sees his return to form, revisiting the 80s classics that shaped his early career in this enjoyable celebration of all things 80s.

After hedonistic Lou (Rob Corddry) nearly commits suicide his long-suffering friends, Adam (John Cusack) and Nick (Craig Robinson) reluctantly decide to take him away on holiday, revisiting a favorite destination of their youth with Adam’s nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke). Much to their disappointment Kodiak Valley ski resort is no longer a party town, the bell boy is now one armed and furious and their hot tub contains a rotting animal corpse.

Just as they are gloomily reminiscing about good times, the patio doors mysteriously open to reveal a clean fully operational hot tub. It’s amazing how much fun a hot tub can be and how it can inspire four grumpy guys to try and have a good time. Several drinks downed and spilt later, our heroes wake up in 1986 and spend much of the film trying to return to 2010 and escape a decade remembered for Reagan and aids. Hung up on the Butterfly Effect, believing that changing their future is futile and dangerous, they soon find actively trying to repeat history isn’t as easy as they think and must learn to “embrace the chaos”.

In a walk down memory lane, Hot Tub Time Machine effectively captures that distinctive 80s look through fluorescents, Miami Vice T-shirts, Poison, Alf on TV, Super Mario ruling the console, a “Dude rocking a cassette player” and brick sized phones. If this isn’t enough, the final deciders for our boys are the colour of Michael Jackson’s skin and the bell boy having two arms again. And no 80s film would be complete without the legendary Chevy Chase – here playing the mysterious ever-elusive hot tub mechanic. In a nod to the gophers in 80s franchise, Caddyshack, Hot Tub uses squirrels for on-running comedic effect.

Although our leads are from 2010, Lou displays the same riotous antics memorable in so many 80s flicks, playing the group “arsehole”. Arriving at the resort he is keen to get the party started: “I want an escort to escort our penises into her vagina”. Sex obsessed, he acts as the group’s disastrous accident-prone joker who gets himself into a situation with a girl who only does two at a time and is part of a hilarious bet where he is left dumbstruck, exclaiming: “It’s like Gary Coleman’s forearm – it’s impossibly black.”

Full of juvenile jokes like Lou contemplating combining Twitter and Viagra to create Twitagra and plenty of pleasing 80s references, such as onlookers believing the gang are “some kind of 21 Jump Street spies”, having seen their iphones and Russian red bull “Chernobyle”, Hot Tub Time Machine won’t win any awards but is certainly an entertaining and nostalgic journey.

***

Special Features:

• Deleted Scenes
• Theatrical Trailer
• Production: Acting Like Idiots theatrical promo spot (Blu-ray only)
• Chevy Chase: The Nicest Guy in Hollywood theatrical promo spot (Blu-ray only)
• Totally Radical Outfits: Dayna Pink theatrical promo spot (Blu-ray only)
• Crispin Glover: One Armed Bellhop theatrical promo spot (Blu-ray only)
• Digital Copy of the film (Blu-ray only)

Review: Repo Men – Reclaims Old Ground While Covering New

By Leo Owen

23rd August 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this

Director: Miguel Sapochnik
Writer: Eric Garcia, Garrett Lerner
Release Date: August 23 2010
Studio: Universal Pictures UK
Number of discs: 1
Region: 2
Price: From £9.99
Running Time: 107 mins
Certificate: 18
Starring: Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Alice Braga, Live Schreiber, Carice van Houten

After his shameful involvement in the appalling sentimental twaddle that was A.I, the prolific Mr Law is back braving sci-fi again, in his second foray into the dystopian branch, pondering “How can anything be alive and dead at the same time?”

Set in an unspecified future, Repo Men imagines a society where technology has advanced far enough for organ donor lists to become a thing of the past, replaced by warehouses full of prosthetic organs and body parts awaiting those needy and willing to pay the price or sign up to an instalment plan with a three month “grace period” – effectively a contract on their lives.

Jude Law plays Remy, one of the company’s most talented repo men who coldly and precisely retrieves organs and body parts from live clients who have paid on credit and have reached the end of their 90 days. Remy and his partner, Jake (Forest Whitaker), are both ex-military, believe a “jobs a job” and love their work, using hi-tech equipment to scan for organs and track over-due customers. When they do a job outside Remy’s family home during a barbeque, Remy’s wife gives him an ultimatum – his family or a transfer to sales.

Remy’s decision to do just one last job is life-changing in more ways than one. The legendary DJ Remy has followed since childhood, Jimmy T Bones, is ironically his last job and one that goes horribly wrong, resulting in him waking up in hospital with a company heart unit keeping him alive.

With his own, weighty contract bearing down on him, Remy grows a conscience and starts to recognise the “re-claims” as people with families. No longer able to cold-heartedly and mechanically slice open overdue clients, Remy’s “new heart is accumulating interest with every beat” until he resorts to life on the run seeking refuge in the reclaim nests he once thrived on. Here he meets, Beth, a singer he once admired who has artificial everything and is all out of cash – the only real thing are her lips. Desperate to beat the system, Remy and Beth try everything, concealing themselves with jammers, until they realise they will always be hunted unless they find the mysterious “pink door”, wipe the system and bring down “The Union”.

Sapochnik’s future is a dire vision where health is a commodity, children are used as surgeons for their steady hands and life and death are closely linked – the blinding bright white scene in the factory production line contrasting with the black guards’ uniform offers continued symbolism for this running theme. Repo Men is drenched in the blood of knife warfare and stabbings, culminating in a kick-ass final showdown and possibly the strangest most brutal love scene seen to date before a disappointing Vanilla Sky twist with the advertisement of Neural Net’s complete sensory experience promising: “Yesterday’s dreams are today’s reality.”

Repo Men’s script is liberally peppered with obvious but strangely satisfying slogans for The Union’s sales team: “Only you get one you out of you”, “What’s new in you?,” “You owe it to your family and yourself”… Law and Whitakers’ character chemistry compensates for the flat performance from Carice van Houten as Remy’s wife. Entertaining from start to finish with some inspired ideas and some stolen ones, Repo Men is worth watching as an intelligent “cautionary tale” and all-out blood bath futuristic action flick.

***

Special Features:

• Unrated cut has eight additional minutes that include a little more gore and a scene with John Leguizamo – both versions of the film available.
• Deleted Scenes.
• The Union Commercials.
• Inside the Visual Effects Featurette.
• Writer/Director Commentary.

Sanity Challenger: Shutter Island

By Leo Owen

10th August 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Laeta Kalogridis
Release Date: August 2 2010
Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment
Number of discs: 1
Region: 2
Price: From £9.99
Running Time: 133 mins
Certificate: 15
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas

Before Shutter Island even appeared on mainstream release, Scorsese cleverly played with viewers by using the trailer to trick them into expecting a straight-forward horror film and luring them into a false comfort zone of misplaced preconceived notions.

On the surface Shutter Island is about US Marshall Teddy Daniel’s investigation of missing patient, Rachel (Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson) at Ashecliff mental asylum on Shutter Island. Armed with his own agenda, Teddy’s investigation is not so straight-forward – Teddy seeks another patient, Andrew Laeddis, the man who burnt down his home and in doing so, killed his wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams).

Having previously met an ex-Ashecliff inmate and with the knowledge that the asylum is funded by The House of American Activities Committee, Teddy suspects the clinically insane are being used as guinea pigs for mind experiments and decides to blow Ashecliff’s cover and save all the human lab rats. As Teddy and his partner Chuck, try to find all the missing pieces of the jigsaw, Teddy becomes increasingly obsessed with uncovering the truth of the identity of the 67th patient and exploring the infamous ward C.

When the back-up generator fails in the storm, the whole electrical system fries and with the chaos this brings, Teddy is finally able to explore the lighthouse. Positioned at the bottom of a craggy cliff face covered in poison ivy on a rocky islet surrounded by a security fence and monitored by a guard, the lighthouse is where Teddy believes they open up patients’ brains, performing brain surgery to create the “ghosts” to go out into the world and do things sane men would never do. And all protected by the notion that: “People tell the world that you are crazy and any protest to the contrary just proves otherwise.”

Long before the credits start to roll, Shutter Island morphs from a crime thriller with horrific undertones into a mind-bending ingenious piece of psychological trickery. Its challenging plot line weaves between the past, present, future, make believe and down right delusional.

Shutter Island is located in the middle of the ocean accessible only by a limited ferry service the government control. After two days of its claustrophobic isolation and punishing climate, Teddy starts to get horrific migraines; begins to mistrust and doubt his partner’s intentions; is haunted by the voices of ghosts telling him he “should have saved [them]” re-setting “like a tape playing” and is tortured by traumatic visions of concentration camp mass exterminations and piles of frozen corpses.

Abound with disturbing flashbacks and haunting dream sequences and full of intrigue, Shutter Island is bleak and dire, questioning moral order, the definition of sanity, what makes the individual and the value of man. DiCaprio creates a range in Teddy’s character, successfully depicting the “tough guy” veneer for this troubled soul, while Ben Kingsley makes a mildly humorous humane Doctor Cawley and Mark Ruffalo plays the sympathetic partner.

An expertly executed psychological masterpiece to make you question your own sanity, Shutter Island sits proudly among Scorsese’s impressive body of varied and always captivating work. Testimony to his range as director, Scorsese explores the horror/thriller genre with gravitas, leaving us to ponder if it “ would be worse, to live as a monster or to die as a good man?”

*****

Special Features:

• Behind the Shutters
• Into the Lighthouse

Legion: Ridiculously Hilarious All-Action Angels

By Leo Owen

10th August 2010 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Director/ Producer: Scott Stewart

Writer: Peter Schink, Scott Stewart

Release Date: August 9 2010

Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Number of discs: 1

Region: 2

Price: From £9.99

Running Time: 100 mins

Certificate: 15

Starring: Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Lucas Black, Adrianne Palicki, Tyrese Gibson, Kate Walsh, Willa Holland, Kevin Durand, Charles S. Dutton

The trailer for Paul Bettany’s last major role as Michael in Legion, suggested it would be nothing more than utterly ludicrous entertaining trash, hilarious for all the wrong reasons – despite this, the audacity of a bold plot premise is to its merit.

Sick of all mankind’s “bullshit” a traditionally merciful God implements mass extermination, instructing his angels to possess humans and pit themselves against each other. Michael, an angel and general in God’s army is given an order he does not believe in and becomes “the rebellious son” going down to earth to save mankind.

Meanwhile, on their way to Scottsdale the Anderson family’s car breaks down and they wind up in a New Mexico desert diner where eight months pregnant waitress, Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), works. Simpleton Jeet (Lucas Black), the diner owner’s son (Dennis Quaid as Bob Hanson) dotes on Charlie and will do anything to protect her.

Queue Gladys Foster, affectionately named “Grandma”, a seemingly nice old lady who walks with a zimmer frame and beams at the dinner staff and customers, introducing herself and delightedly announcing: “It will all be over soon… I said your fucking baby is going to burn. All those little babies are going to burn. You are all going to fucking die.” A foul-mouth is not all Gladys has as she hungrily bites Howard Anderson before spider-pigging it along the ceiling slack-jawed with her triangular shark teeth on display.

The gang are fearful and confused; the TV, radio and phone are down and dust clouds seen in the distance are in fact “a mother-fucking pestilence” preventing their escape. Just as chef, Percy (Charles S. Dutton) announces, “I’m going to get my bible – somebody’s got to start praying,” the mysterious Michael shows up to explain the apocalypse is upon them and that the birth of Charlie’s baby is the only hope for humanity.

With the eerie sound of an ice cream van approaching, they prepare for battle, lock all doors and barricade themselves in. The rest of Legion sees the diner gang fight “malicious gatherings” with one wave of the Pac Man jawed spider-like possessed testing their strength followed by a second test of weakness by an onslaught of cars containing juddering people shaking demonically, possessed like characters paused in a computer game. Legion turns into a race against time for Charlie to give birth to the redeemer and re-write the future.

The script is liberally peppered with appalling one liners – far too many to mention as either Michael spouts vague mystical references or comical macho talk; Charlie muses nonsensically; Percy makes supposedly clever observations and gives an incredibly unconvincing ‘touching’ speech and the intentionally sinister, Gabriel with his metal wings and laughably gruff gravely Terminator voice, sternly announces: “You wanted to live like one of them but now you will die like one of them.”

Set to cheesy angelic sounding music, much of the fight between Gabriel and Michael as they grapple with each other, looks more like a gay love scene than mortal combat; Charlie’s labour is conveniently speedy and the miraculous survival of the baby after a severe car crash with no booster seat, carrier or seat belt is entirely implausible.

Legion is Scott Stewart’s second outing as Director – his background is in visual effects so where Legion fails miserably to satisfy in script and plot, it certainly doesn’t in vision. Sadly, looking pretty isn’t enough to save Legion from its consistently poor characterisation and dialogue making it nothing more than something to laugh at.

**

Special Features:

DVD

• Creating the Apocalypse – Behind the Physical Effects
• Humanity’s Last Line of Defense – The Cast and Characters
• From Pixels to Picture – A Look at the Visual Effects

Blu-ray

• Bringing Angels To Earth: Picture-in-Picture
• Creating the Apocalypse – Behind the Physical Effects
• Humanity’s Last Line of Defense – The Cast and Characters
• From Pixels to Picture – A Look at the Visual Effects