Mysterious Island is a fun, light-hearted, fantasy flick highlighted by Ray Haryhausen’s incredible effects work combined with Bernard Herrmann’s score. The Blu-ray released under the Twilight Time line offers some decent features headlined by an extensive audio commentary, and good video/audio transfers.
There’s really no reason for The Transporter Refueled to exist, let alone one without Jason Statham starring. The writing is bad, the action sequences weren’t well directed and came across more as a commercial for Audi, and the performance from Ed Skrein does not make for a fun or kick ass action hero.
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown is just another bad direct-to-video flick but worse yet, it’s not even a fun bad, just plain bad. The acting is wooden especially on the part of Dean Ambrose who shows no charisma to play the lead and the fight scenes were poorly choreographed. The Blu-ray is rather basic with two thin featurettes, so-so video and adequate audio transfers.
It’s not hard to see why Heist had a very limited theater run before being released to DTV obscurity in spite of a nice cast between Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Robert De Niro. But thanks to a bad script, with far too many contrivances to ignore, this is the type of movie easily forgotten within a day and thrown in with the rest of the subpar flicks.
1984 is a prolific adaptation based on an equally prolific novel that features some fine performances highlighted by John Hurt and amazing cinematography by the legendary Roger Deakins.
Pawn Sacrifice isn’t one of Zwick’s best movies, which for me is still The Last Samurai, but it’s still an adequate drama with strong performances by Tobey Maguire and Michael Stuhlbarg, the latter of whom deserves some award recognition. The Blu-ray release offers good video and audio transfers but falls far short in the bonus material department.
“Game of Thrones”: The Complete Second Season is another solid set. The show is still strong with powerful performances and impressive production design and this Steelbook re-release has some great bonus material to go along with incredible video and audio transfers, the latter getting upgraded to the new Atmos track.
“Marco Polo” isn’t quite my cup of tea but there’s enough entertainment value, not to mention nice work done with the costumes and sets that it’s probably worth a watch especially since it’s only 10 episodes thus one could get through them all in a weekend.
Mississippi Grind is a well meaning and generally finely acted drama but the screenplay probably could’ve used a little more work in fleshing out the friendship between its two main characters, though to be fair, the acting by both Mendelsohn and Reynolds does at least make this watchable.
“Game of Thrones”: The Complete First Season starts off strong and continues to its brutal season finale with brilliant performances from its vast cast from beginning to end along with award-winning production and costume designs. This new Limited Edition Steelbook release is more or less the same as the previous releases but comes with an upgraded Dolby Atmos soundtrack.
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie is, putting it simply, a crap of a movie. Sure, the film might have its fans in a cultish kind of way and plenty of camp but not in the good kind of way. Beyond that, the costumes and prosthetics are creepier than anything else.
The Perfect Guy is a forgettable yet still watchable suspense thriller with fine performances from Sanaa Lathan and Morris Chestnut while Michael Ealy is quite as effective outside of being a creep. That said, it is a plot seen in numerous number of Lifetime Original Movies just with better production values and talent.
At First Sight is by no means a great romantic drama but Val Kilmer and Mira Sorvino make for a charismatic couple though the pacing is a bit off and follows the generic formula; that said, it’s at least watchable. The Blu-ray released by Olive is basic with only a trailer but good video and audio transfers.
“Fear the Walking Dead” doesn’t have much to offer over its parent show but the performances by the likes of Cliff Curtis and Kim Dickens aren’t bad even when their characters act like utter dumb-asses. Perhaps the second season it’ll hit its stride but as of now, I’m not sure there’s really reason for it being.
Knock Knock is the latest Eli Roth misfire and although on paper it sounded good, the execution was anything but. The acting was bad, including Keanu Reeves and his wooden performance, to go along with poor writing. Not sure in what circumstance I would ever revisit this film.