Transformers (Two-Disc Special Edition) on Blu-ray

“I bought a car. Turned out to be an alien robot. Who knew?” deadpans Sam Witwicky, hero and human heart of Michael Bay’s rollicking robot-smackdown fest, Transformers. Witwicky (the sweetly nerdy Shia LaBeouf, channeling a young John Cusack) is the perfect counterpoint to the nearly nonstop exhilarating action. The plot is simple: an alien civil war (the Autobots vs. the evil Decepticons) has spilled onto Earth, and young Sam is caught in the fray by his newly purchased souped-up Camaro. Which has a mind–and identity, as a noble-warrior robot named Bumblebee–of its own. The effects, especially the mind-blowing transformations of the robots into their earthly forms and back again, are stellar.

Fans of the earlier film and TV series will be thrilled at this cutting-edge incarnation, but this version should please all fans of high-adrenaline action. Director Bay gleefully salts the movie with homages to pop-culture touchstones like Raiders of the Lost Ark, King Kong, and the early technothriller WarGames. The actors, though clearly all supporting those kickass robots, are uniformly on-target, including the dashing Josh Duhamel as a U.S. Army sergeant fighting an enemy he never anticipated; Jon Voight, as a tough yet sympathetic Secretary of Defense in over his head; and John Turturro, whose special agent manages to be confidently unctuous, even stripped to his undies. But the film belongs to Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, and the dastardly Megatron–and the wicked stunts they collide in all over the globe. Long live Transformers!
By A.T. Hurley

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This weeks Blu-ray releases:

Transformers (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Eraser
Outbreak
Under Siege 2 - Dark Territory
The Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow
The Gauntlet
Every Which Way But Loose
The Invincible Iron Man
Marine Aquarium (Special Collecters Edition)
Then She Found Me
Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles Collector’s Edition
Married Life
Black Mask

End of Days on Blu-ray

After a two-year hiatus that included recovery from heart surgery, Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to the big screen in November 1999 with End of Days, a Thanksgiving turkey if ever there was one. Overcooked and bloated with stuffing, this ludicrous thriller attached itself to the end-of-the-millennium furor that kicked in a year too early. A prologue begins in 1979 with panic in the Vatican when a comet signals the birth of a child who will, 20 years later, become the chosen bride of Satan, destined to conceive the devil’s spawn between 11 p.m. and midnight on December 31, 1999. It’s hard to decide who has the more thankless role–Robin Tunney as Satan’s would-be bride, or Schwarzenegger as Jericho Cane, the burned-out alcoholic bodyguard assigned to protect the girl from Satan, billed as “The Man” and played with cheesy menace (and an inconsistent variety of metaphysical manifestations) by Gabriel Byrne.

With kitschy character names like Jericho and Chicago (Arnie’s partner, played by Kevin Pollack) and lapses in logic that any 5-year-old could spot, End of Days is a loud, aggravating movie that would be entertaining if it were intended as comedy. But Schwarzenegger and director Peter Hyams approach the story as an earnest tale of redemption and tested faith, delivering a ridiculous climax full of special effects and devoid of dramatic impact. You’re left instead to savor the verbal and physical sparring between Satan and Jericho, resulting in the most thorough pummeling Schwarzenegger’s ever endured onscreen. Of course he eventually gets his payback, just in time for New Year’s Eve. Perhaps he was touched by an angel.
By Jeff Shannon

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Redbelt on Blu-ray

Like David Mamet’s previous films, Redbelt’s narrative slowly exposes the well-guarded secrets of systems shrouded in mystique and conspiracy, this time at martial-arts academies and on Hollywood film and television sets. Reminiscent of Rocky, Redbelt is an unapologetically moralistic tale of an impoverished, inner city Jiu Jitsu instructor whose idealism is an affront to those who seek to sink him. Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), unknowingly affiliated with the wealthy Brazilian family who rigs televised MMA matches, naively rescues actor Chet Frank (Tim Allen) from being mutilated in a bar brawl, but isn’t able to link Frank’s sketchy relations until Terry’s life is endangered. Fated to assist Terry is attorney Laura Black (Emily Mortimer), who conveniently stumbles into Terry’s Jiu Jitsu academy early in the film’s opening. With an impossibly mandarin plot, Redbelt is packed with improbable coincidences and confusing, maze-like dead-ends, but the sheer brainpower required to sleuth along keeps one riveted throughout. Plus, it is hard not to be thrilled by ample, accurately enacted Jiu Jitsu fight scenes. Mamet’s actors deliver deadpan, poker-faced dialogue to comedic effect, especially Ricky Jay, who plays an MMA star’s corrupt manager. Allen, also, is surprisingly suited to portraying an untouchable, overly serious Hollywood film star. Even Redbelt’s subplots revolve around fighting: while Frank shoots a war film, Terry hashes it out with his wife who urges him to earn some cash. In the end, one wonders if Terry’s uphill struggle isn’t representative of the director’s attempt to sift through convoluted narrative threads for an archetypal hero legend that is sparklingly simple.
By Trinie Dalton

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Miami Vice on Blu-ray

Bearing absolutely no resemblance to the 1980s TV series that helped to propel Michael Mann into big-time filmmaking, Miami Vice is the kind of serious, and seriously stylish, crime drama that Mann does better than anyone else. As written by Mann himself, this undercover sting thriller doesn’t reach the peak intensity of Mann’s 1995 classic Heat, and it lacks the tight, nail-biting suspense of Collateral, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t occasionally pack a wallop.

As Miami detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs (respectively), Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx don’t have to do much but mumble their plot-thickening dialogue and look ultra-cool in the casual cop attire, and their partnership is rather lifeless on screen (perhaps owing to the fact that this was a troubled production, with an actual shooting that occurred during filming, and Foxx’s refusal to risk his life on dangerous locations in South America). But once Mann shifts into high gear with a plot to foil a powerful drug kingpin (Luis Tosar) and his ruthless middle-man (John Ortiz), Vice pays off with the kind of smart, realistic action that Mann’s fans have come to expect. With Chinese superstar Gong Li as Crockett’s love interest on the wrong side of the law, Miami Vice covers territory that’s a little too familiar, and one suspects Mann’s screenplay might’ve been punched up with a polish or two. Still, this is an above-average crime thriller that demands and rewards close attention, with a climactic shoot-out that’s pure Mann, worthy of the brooding drama that precedes it.
By Jeff Shannon

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Pale Rider on Blu-ray

After a nine-year break from the genre that made him an international star (the Western just before this one was The Outlaw Josey Wales, from 1976), Clint Eastwood returned in this gritty Western, crafted in the tradition of Shane and High Noon. Eastwood directed and stars as the nameless stranger known only as “Preacher,” because he rides into a beleaguered mining town wearing a clerical collar. He’s either an agent of death or an angel of mercy, and the echoes of Shane ring loud and clear when he comes to the aid of independent miners who are being terrorized by a local tycoon (Richard Dysart) and his ruthless band of hired guns. Befriended by a miner (Michael Moriarty) and idolized by the miner’s wife and daughter (played by Carrie Snodgress and Sydney Penny, respectively), the “Pale Rider” sparks the defiant spirit of the underdog miners and takes after the bad guys with single-minded purpose.
By Jeff Shannon

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Dude Where’s My Car on Blu-ray

Sometimes, stupidity is its own reward. Dude, Where’s My Car? is one of the most ridiculous movies ever made–so ridiculous, and so thoroughly cheerful about being ridiculous, that it’s thoroughly entertaining. Jesse and Chester (Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott) wake up one morning with absolutely no memory of the night before, but they’re confident they must have had a good time. An irate phone call from their girlfriends quickly makes it clear that they may have had too much of a good time, and will be branded as sucky boyfriends unless they set things right. The boys set out to get the anniversary gifts they have for the girls in Jesse’s car… only Jesse’s car seems to be missing. Which of course leads our heroes on a quest, during which they encounter a pot-smoking dog, khaki-wearing cultists, hot chicks from outer space, a cameo by Fabio, and a herd of wild ostriches. Dude, Where’s My Car? lacks the depth of character you might find in, say, a Bill & Ted movie, but the dialogue has an amazing spareness to it that gives it a kind of metaphysical splendor–if absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett had written ludicrous babe & stoner movies, he would have written Dude, Where’s My Car? Also featuring a cameo by Andy Dick and more babes in bikinis than you can count.
By Bret Fetzer

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What Happens in Vegas on Blu-ray

What Happens in Vegas is a comedy waiting to happen. It takes an old premise (drunk strangers regretting their decision to get married in Las Vegas) and adds in a dilemma (a $3 million slot machine win) that could’ve been easily resolved. But then again, there would’ve been no movie if the unhappily wedded couple figured out that splitting the money in half and getting their marriage annulled would’ve been quick and effective. Cameron Diaz plays uptight clean-freak Joy, who has just been dumped by her fiance. Ashton Kutcher is Jack, a slacker furniture maker who has been fired–by his own dad. Each goes to Vegas to let off some steam. And while they have nothing in common (except being exceptionally good looking) they make out, get married, and fight over the money Jack wins with Joy’s quarter.

Instead of letting the couple get divorced, a judge sentences the odd couple to half a year of marriage. What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas, but extends into New York where Jack and Joy live. Both actors have fared well in comedies, especially Diaz in My Best Friend’s Wedding. And while Kutcher still has to live down Dude, Where’s My Car?, he showed a lot of comedic flair and charm in A Lot Like Love. But the two face an uphill battle here with inane dialogue and a premise that not only is unbelievable, but unlikeable. The two are so incompatible (and immature) they can’t even control bathroom time and, in Jack’s case, his bladder.
By Jae-Ha Kim

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U-571 on Blu-ray

Taut and gripping, U-571 follows the exploits of a fictional team of World War II U.S. submariners who undertake a secret mission to capture a German Enigma machine to decode German documents. Writer-director Jonathan Mostow (Breakdown) tells an intense, economical tale, reminiscent of the best classic war films, while infusing it with modern sentiments.

Spring 1942: A crew of young submarine sailors are on a much-needed 48-hour liberty when they’re suddenly called together and engaged in an expedition. At the helm are Lieutenant Commander Mike Dahlgren (Bill Paxton), Lieutenant Andrew Tyler (Matthew McConaughey), and Chief Klough (Harvey Keitel). Other pivotal crew members include Tyler’s Annapolis pal Lieutenant Pete Emmett (Jon Bon Jovi, proving his acting mettle) and Lieutenant Hirsch (Jake Weber), who, along with Marine Major Coonan (David Keith), organizes the mission. As much of the movie takes place in a submarine during WWII, there are inevitable comparisons with the technical masterpiece Das Boot, but Mostow’s masterfully shot tale can hold its own.

McConaughey’s Tyler is believably earnest as he comes to grips with the reality, tragedy, and consequence of being in command. While this explosion-filled film consistently maintains its tense pace (as did the underrated Breakdown), it also presents with surprising restraint a genuine human story–and the remarkable journey of an unexpected hero.
By N.F. Mendoza

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The Adventures of Robin Hood on Blu-ray

Dashing Errol Flynn is the definitive Robin Hood in the most gloriously swashbuckling version of the legendary story. Warner Brothers reunited Michael Curtiz, their top-action director, with the winning team of Flynn and Olivia de Havilland (Maid Marian) and perennial villain Basil Rathbone as the aristocratic Sir Guy of Gisbourne, and pulled out all stops for the production. It became their costliest film to date, a grandly handsome, glowing Technicolor adventure set to a stirring, Oscar-winning score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

The decadent Prince John (a smoothly conniving Claude Rains) takes advantage of King Richard’s absence to tax the country into poverty but meets his match in the medieval guerrilla rebel Robin Hood and his Merry Men of Sherwood Forest, who rise up and, to quote a cliché coined by the film, “steal from the rich and give to the poor.” Stocky Alan Hale Sr. plays Robin’s loyal friend Little John (a part he played in Douglas Fairbanks’s silent version), Eugene Palette the portly Friar Tuck, and Melville Cooper the bumbling Sheriff of Nottingham.

Flynn’s confidence and cocky charm makes for a perfect Robin Hood, and his easygoing manner is a marvelous counterpoint to Rathbone’s regal bearing and courtly diction. The film climaxes in their rousing battle-to-the-finish sword fight, a magnificently choreographed scene highlighted by Curtiz’s inventive use of shadows cast upon the castle walls.
By Sean Axmaker

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