The Purge had an interesting concept but the closer you look, the dumber it was. But if you set the logical aside, and can handle an unlikeable and utterly stupid family, the suspense and thrills are effective and at 85-minutes it’s not a big time investment.
Much Ado About Nothing shows the multiple sides to Joss Whedon able to tell a good story no matter what the budgets or genres are. The merging of Shakespeare and modern film is nearly seamless and the cast is superb.
Airplane II: The Sequel is the perfect reminder of why not every surprise hit should get a sequel. While a few of the jokes work here, most do not and it’s pretty forgettable even if it’s not a bad time-waster.
Curse of Chucky isn’t a great horror film but it’s satisfying and a big step up from Bride and Seed and takes the character back to his roots and away from the stand-up comedy routine from the later outings. Fiona Dourif is a delight in the lead role and Maitland McConnell is hopefully on her way to bigger things after this. While I wasn’t overly thrilled with the film, I’m certain fans of the franchise will love it.
“Robot Chicken”: Season 6 continues to be a successful and very funny series for Adult Swim. The comedy is often gold and Seth Green and company often cross the line offending multiple people and cultures with off-color humor.
Volcano isn’t exactly a memorable disaster movie as it utilizes every cliché in the book but Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche and, to a lesser extent, Don Cheadle, each give admirable performances slugging through stilted dialogue and utterly laughable situations. Still, it’s passable entertainment but don’t go in, or leave, with anything more than what it is.
While Fright Night 2: New Blood actually wasn’t that bad given a limited budget and cast of unknowns, but there’s really nothing special about it and it was more or less another remake to a classic. This is the kind of movie you no doubt will see on FX or FXX in a couple of years.
The Amityville Horror Trilogy set released by Shout Factory has one semi-classic movie, a serviceable sequel and a third movie that is downright silly. The set also has a good amount of features to keep you occupied and the first two movies have good audio/video transfers while the third, at least the video, was awful.
The Hangover Part III by definition as unnecessary but despite two cruel scenes as well as some scenes that just didn’t hit the mark, I still enjoyed this sequel although I’m not sure if it’s because it’s actually funny or if it’s relative to the fact Part II was a complete rehash of the first sans laughs. In any case, I’m not giving this a glowing review for the obvious reasons however it is at least worth a rental.
To be honest I’ve never been the biggest fan of “Glee” but there are some good moments here and there and the musical covers tend to be reasonably good all things considered.
The Little Mermaid makes a triumphant debut with this “Diamond Edition” Blu-ray containing a fair amount of features and fantastic audio/video transfers making it the best this film has ever looked and sounded.
I Spit on Your Grave 2 is, to say the least, a disturbing movie and like most sequels, the writers and director attempts to amp up the anguish to the next level which it mostly does.
The Frozen Ground excels in many areas from a welcomed subtle performance by Nicolas Cage, a mature turn for Vanessa Hudgens and John Cusack playing the thankless role as the creepy and thoroughly disturbing serial killer. However, for all the good acting by the main cast and beautiful, Oscar-worthy, cinematography, it never quite reaches its potential.
World War Z isn’t a bad movie, far from it, as it efficiently entertains from beginning to end though Brad Pitt more or less sleepwalks through his role. However, this film is the epitome of wasted opportunities as this could have been one of the best in the genre to come out but instead it’s just a safe movie.
Halloween is still one of the best horror movies with genuine scares and the introduction to one of the best villains in movie history. While the movie might be great, Anchor Bay continues to milk the franchise releasing multiple editions with some nice new features but failing to port over anything from the others.