Movie Review: SUPER 8 (2011)

written & directed by J.J Abrams
starring Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, Ron Eldard,
Noah Emmerich, Bruce Greenwood & Ron Eldard

It's a movie echoing hyphenate J.J Abrams' childhood, told through the prism of those wonderful early-'80s Steven Spielberg movie; where being a kid meant you were part of a gang (treehouse and dog optional), had a bedroom full of NASA posters and B-movie memorabilia, rode a BMX, used a walkie-talkie, and lived in a small-town nestled in a beautiful valley. More importantly, your ordinary life was destined for the extraordinary: perhaps due to the discovery of a treasure map (The Goonies), a visionary dream (Explorers), the arrival of iconic monsters (Monster Squad), or, in Super 8's case, the accidental release of a dangerous alien...

Our mop-haired 13-year-old hero is Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney); half-orphaned by a factory accident that claimed his mother's life, he now lives with his bereft father (Kyle Chandler), the town's Deputy Sheriff, and has bottled his grief by investing time making a homemade zombie movie with pals Charles Kaznyk (Riley Griffiths), Preston (Zach Mills), Martin (Gabriel Basso) and Cary (Ryan Lee). After soliciting the help of older neighbour Alice (Elle Fanning), who proves to be a brilliant actress (cemented by an adolescent version of Naomi Watts' audition scene from Mulholland Dr.), the gang get more than they bargained for while filming on the outskirts of town. It's there a passing military train derails one cloudless night—in spectacular, cacophonous fashion—and, unbeknownst to the young filmmakers, its extra-terrestrial cargo escapes...

From there it's E.T-meets-Iron Giant, with dashes of Jaws and Jurassic Park (and Jeepers Creepers 2?) stirred into Abrams' melting pot. Thankfully, it would be wrong to outright condemn Super 8 for adhering to genre formula, as its intention is to evoke the era when a "summer blockbuster" had to rely on a sense of wonder rather than the wonder of spectacle; where ideas, story and characters were enough to draw audiences. F/X sequences were the parcel drops that kept audiences nourished on the way through a story—they didn't gorge on a Transformers 3-like banquet, which leave you overdosed on nothing but visual stimuli. Abrams manages to nail this old-school approach perfectly; so much so that a part of me felt it was a shame his alien wasn't achieved using stop-motion (CGI almost looks misplaced in a 1979 context), but I suppose there's only so far Abrams' could afford to keep his head in the past.

There's heart and respect to Super 8 that's sadly been a rarity in children's movies these past few decades, once kids started to be spoonfed digital phantoms, photo-realistic tragedies, and rapid-fire editing that batters their minds into submission. Abrams resurrects the gentle spirit of youthful adventure here, helped by some great child stars who give the story real character and, for anyone over-30, a lovely swim in nostalgia. The puppy love between Joel and Alice is touchingly handled, while the thorny issue between their respective fathers provides decent human drama in-between waiting for the alien's back-story, motivation, and escape plan to be explained to us.

While there's nothing that isn't in some way derivative about Super 8, it's fantastic love-letter to a bygone age, and if Tarantino's allowed to recycle '70s exploitation cinema, I see no just cause for Abrams to face criticism for doing exactly the same thing with a more mainstream genre. The individual elements may be familiar to many, but they're blended in such a way as to appear fresh, and the whole thing will probably delight contemporary youngsters who never even lived during this time (either in reality, or vicariously through movies).

Overall, Super 8's a great throwback movie that only suffers because its limited ambition means it's rather predictable, and there are some nitpicks that'll stick in your craw. Why does the alien's magnetized spaceship only attract specific metal objects, for example? But when focusing on its young cast, while refreshing memories of early Amblin movies, Super 8's a pleasing alien-on-the-loose caper that knows exactly what it's doing. I just wish it had subverted more of the genre's conventions (beyond having a menacing alien that isn't anthropomorphized too much), but it's mostly content to replicate the tropes with loving care, attention, and effection.

Paramount Pictures / 112 minutes

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Movie Review: HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 (2011)

directed by David Yates; written by Steve Kloves (based on the novel by J.K Rowling)
starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Alan Rickman & Ralph Fiennes

After a reprise of Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 1's closing scene, with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) retrieving the fabled Elder Wand from the entombed corpse of Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) and firing a triumphant bolt of energy into the heavens, Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2 continues without interruption—so I recommend you get reacquainted with the previous film, or risk spending the first section of Hallows 2 trying to remember how and why Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) captured a grumpy goblin, and that Hermione (Emma Watson) can transform into the likeness of wicked witch Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter).

Of course, the Harry Potter movies tend to assume the majority of the audience have read the books till they're dog-eared, which is probably true, but not in my case. For me, the Potter saga has been an exclusively cinematic experience, but I finish many installments with questions and confusions buzzing around my brain. Whatever happened to that nice Chinese girl Harry kissed once? When did Ginny Weasley and Harry get together? Whatever happened to Moaning Myrtle, whose role as "resident ghost" is supplanted here by the Grey Lady (Kelly Macdonald)?

"You've kept him alive so that he can die at the proper moment."

After eight movies covering seven increasingly hefty books, I think it's safe to say the saga's narrative could have been improved by writing the scripts with the benefit of having all Joanne Rowling's completed books to draw from. Instead, the movies were being made before J.K had finished the fifth tome, and despite the guidance she kindly gave laudable screenwriter Steve Kloves (highlight this character more because he'll be important later, wink-wink), a feeling lingers that the movies were incapable of properly developing or emphasizing key ideas, characters, and storylines that became important in the latter films. A case in point: I have no doubt that Warner Bros would have insisted a better actress play Ginny Wesley, and Kloves would have developed that character more, had everyone known she'd become the hero's love-interest.

Hallows 2 is just an extended climax of its immediate predecessor; a movie that brings a dazzling sense of pace and energy to the often sluggish franchise, in particular contrast to quiet and character-focused Hallows 1. It's not long before we're watching an exciting Potterverse bank heist at Gringotts (where a terrific dragon's ued as the getaway car), and then we're back inside the oppressed Hogwarts—now run by traitorous, dictatorial headmaster Snape (Alan Rickman)—before the students regain power and batten down the hatches in preparation for Voldemort's arrival with his army of Death Eaters. It's an epic clash evoking The Lord Of The Rings' fabulous Siege of Gondor, only involving characters you have deeper attachment to.

In many ways Hallows 2 is one of the least nuanced and plotted installments, but after seven films nudging the mytharc along (often within the confines of self-contained mysteries), it feels only right the boy-wizard's climax is an epic action movie involving animated stone knights, club-wielding trolls, giant spiders, ethereal Dementors, and thousands of wizards spitting spells with their wands. Of particular merit were the World War II feel to battle sequences—with Hogwarts analogous to liberal Britain and Voldemort's cronies representing fascist Nazi Germany. This war movie vibe echoed through the design of the half-demolished school, resembling areas of post-Blitz London with '40s-style wooden stretchers to ferry the injured away.

"You were right, never better. I feel like I can spit fire."

The lead triumvirate of Radcliffe, Watson and Grint have grown into their characters and play them well, with Radcliffe delivering his best performance yet with clenched determination. It's just a shame Watson and Grint don't have much to do beyond chase a big snake around before sharing a kiss (a moment that flops because, honestly, who's ever believed Hermione was attracted to twerpy Ron?) It's particularly sad to realize that Hermione has faded from the plucky young know-all of yesteryear into someone who can't even summon the courage to destroy a horcrux by herself, fated to live out her days as a wife and mother? Considering Rowling's claim that Hermione's essentially herself as a young girl, it's especially disappointing treatment by the author. Rowling even gave an imperative and heroic moment to a relative background character like Neville Longbottom? Astonishingly poor judgement, at least from the perspective of what the movies have given us. (For all I know Neville was a boy of considerable depth and latent valor in the books—anyone care to shed some light?)

Such is the busyness of Hallows 2, most of the adults are just wheeled on to prove they're still on the payroll (hello Mark Williams and Julie Walters, nice to see you again Emma Thompson and David Thewlis), with the exception of the delightfully eerie Alan Rickman—who almost steals the show thanks to a sublime final moment with Radcliffe, leading to a revelatory flashback for Snape that, despite slightly undermining a sacrifice, was brilliantly handled and highly charged. Fiennes also receives a greater amount of screen time than ever before, cementing Lord Voldemort as one of fiction's greatest villains. Seeing the Dark Lord slowly emasculated by every horcrux's destruction, his power chiefly derived from a serpent (how Jungian!), made for compelling drama.

"It seems despite your exhaustive defensive strategies, you still have a bit of a security problem, Headmaster."

To its credit, the mechanics of how Harry triumphs over his arch-nemesis has good internal logic and a few surprises that feel plausible, blessed with some very memorable imagery (a dueling Harry and Voldemort locked in a Star Wars-esque stalemate with fizzing wands, an embryonic Voldemort curled into a fetal position), and the only real letdown is the inclusion of the novel's contentious coda involving a limp flash-forward. It may have felt daft on the page, but at least your imagination could do a better makeup job.

Overall, this conclusion of the long-running, astonishingly popular Harry Potter saga is unlikely to disappoint its fans, and even people left scratching their head over various matters will have been too entertained to really care. At times Hallows 2 delivers edge-of-your seat action, not to mention some emotional peaks that should elicit some lump-in-your-throat moments. For all its faults, and problems with the series as a whole (which danced with greatness, but never seized it), the majesty and ambition of this franchise is beyond reproach. A remarkable contemporary mythology; these spellbinding films, like the best-selling books, will be entertaining us for many years to come.

Warner Bros. Pictures / 130 minutes

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Movie Bites: 'The Hole', 'The Last Airbender' & 'The Other Guys'

THE HOLE. Joe Dante (Gremlins) makes his overdue return to directing with children's fantasy-thriller The Hole; essentially Goosebumps-meets-The Gate. In a typically Spielbergian suburb of America, teenager Dane (Chris Massoglia) and his younger brother Lucas (Nathan Gamble) move into a new house with their single mother (Teri Polo), later discovering a padlocked trapdoor in the basement that covers a bottomless abyss. They investigate the uncanny hole with the help of cute next-door-neighbour Julie (Haley Bennett), only to later realize that they've awoken malevolent spirits from within.

There's a pleasing sense of '80s nostalgia about The Hole, particularly in its first act, which features the tropes of many kid-friendly horrors of that decade: a family moving into a new neighbourhood, a shy teen ignoring his mom because he's listening to loud music, there's even a sinister jester puppet that recalls both the unnerving clown from Poltergeist and Dante's own Gremlins once it springs to maniacal life. The trouble with The Hole is that the mystery and scares become less potent the longer the movie trundles on, despite a fun detour when the trio find the house's previous occupant "Creepy Carl" (Bruce Dern), perhaps proving The Hole would have made a better Outer Limits episode than a full-blooded movie.

Still, credit Dante for delivering a scary movie for kids with some genuinely creepy moments (the grinning jester's a recurring nightmare-in-waiting), camera tricks that were once avant-garde for adult horrors (reverse-filmed ghosts, to create an unnerving jittery gait), and good use of Friedrich Nietzsche's quote "if you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss stares back at you" to explain the eponymous hole's power.

directed by Joe Dante / written by Mark L. Smith / starring Teri Polo, Chris Massoglia, Haley Bennett, Nathan Gamble & Bruce Dern / 98 mins.

* * *

THE LAST AIRBENDER. All hope that M. Night Shyamalan could reverse his filmmaking nosedive by tackling someone else's material are dashed by the dreary non-event of The Last Airbender. Maybe MNS should try directing someone else's script entirely, although there are a worrying number of awkward, stilted scenes that belie Shymalan's usual competence behind the camera. Maybe the guy's starting to lose whatever glimmers of latent talent remained on The Happening? Last Airbender's chilly steampunk production design, nifty special effects, and intelligible fights are the only things worthy of some praise, and thus responsible for my one-star rating.

In a mythical realm there are four kingdoms whose populations can wield, or "bend", the five elements (earth, air, fire, water) to their will. The Air Nation are extinct at the hands of the bellicose Fire Nation, who declared war on all their neighbours, and our story begins with Water Nation friends Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) uncovering an airbender called Aang (Noah Ringer) in a globe of ice -- who's also the long-lost Avatar, capable of controlling all four elements and commune with the ethereal Spirit world. Elsewhere, exiled Fire Nation prince Zuko (Dev Patel) is determined to capture the Avatar to regain the acceptance of his warmongering father, Fire Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis).

There's nothing about Airbender's premise that shouldn't work as a live-action movie. I hear the Nickelodeon cartoon this movie's adapted from is a revered animation with the potential to have spawned a successful franchise in the Harry Potter/Star Wars mould, which makes Shyamalan's limp movie a bitter pill to swallow. The screenplay unwisely tries to compress an entire season's worth of plot into 99-minutes and, frankly, this results in puzzling twists and turns. I'm still not sure if Zuko was a hero or villain, or exactly why the Fire Nation refuse to live in harmony with the other kingdoms. All the actors are vacuous husks, bringing no personality to proceedings, so it's impossible to care about the quest they're on, or invest in their motivations -- if they even have any. While a stupid love-story materializes out of nowhere for gormless Sokka and a beautiful teenage princess, any potential of a romantic undercurrent to Katara and Aang fails to ignite.

The Last Airbender is a movie with a rich universe to explore, but provides no emotional tether for its audience. It's rather like watching a hazy dream unfold, only half as fun in the moment and forgotten twice as fast. But it was a surprise box-office success, despite being savaged by critics, so maybe a lower-budget sequel will happen. If so, let's hope Shyamalan finds his Irvin Kershner and hands over the reigns.

written & directed by M. Night Shyamalan / starring Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel, Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi & Cliff Curtis / 103 mins.

* * *

THE OTHER GUYS. Mismatched "buddy" cop comedy from Adam McKay (Anchorman), where pen-pushing detective Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell) and his dimwitted partner Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) stumble upon a case where billionaire David Ershon (Steve Coogan) is trying to cover his business's financial losses to client Lendl Global. Gamble and Hoitz are the eponymous "other guys" of the precinct, dismissed by their colleagues (particularly an egocentric duo played by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson), who get a chance to prove everyone wrong by solving the city's biggest ever crime.

My problem with this comedy is, at heart, very simple: it isn't very funny. The case being investigated is a white-collar bore that's impossible to feel any connection with, wasting Coogan in the process (no change there), while the simply humour of partnering nerdy Ferrell with idiot Wahlberg rarely amuses. The only element that works is a running gag that Ferrell's character can't see that his sexy wife Sheila (Eva Mendes) is every man's dreamgirl, instead convinced she's a plane jane, which has very little to do with the actual story being told. There are moments when you get the impression this is intended to be an American answer to Hot Fuzz (a climactic car chase swaps Fuzz's miniature village for a golf club's driving range), with McKay also indulging himself with memorable but pointless sequences (like a one-shot tableaux in a pub, where the camera floats around frozen 3D snapshots of Gamble and Hoitz partying.) Adding to the sense of a movie utterly failing in its intentions, the end credits involve animations that explain various financial concepts (using graphs, pie-charts, and statistics), despite the fact The Other Guys never once felt like a clever treatise on shameful business practices.

directed by Adam McKay / written by Chris Hency & Adam McKay / starring Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Steve Coogan & Michael Keaton / 107 mins.

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The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

David Slade, the director who filmed a castration for the unflinching Hard Candy, places his own testicles in the vice of studio commercialism here, forever staining his filmography by involving himself with The Twilight Saga. The good news is this overblown franchise does improve with each release, so maybe the fifth and final movie won't leave me curled up in a gibbering ball with my brain turned to slush.

Continuing six months after the events of New Moon, melancholic Bella (Kristen Stewart) has taken to lolling around in sunny fields with twinkly vampire beau Edward (Robert Pattinson), desperate for him to turn her into one of the undead, if only so she can lose her virginity to him without the fear of physical injury. He likes it rough, does the sullen Cullen. It's always the quiet ones.

I have to lie here 16-hours a day for perfect "bedhead"

But while Edward's won the heart of misery guts Bella, he's unsure condemning her to life as a vampire is the right thing to do -- possibly because the poor girl's pasty enough as it is, or maybe because an eternity of mutual moping is a big turn-off. Added to this, Bella is still conflicted about her feelings for strapping wolfboy Jacob (Taylor Lautner), whom she's been avoiding for months, before feeling compelled to reacquaint herself with his cobbled abs. Knowing werewolves exude copious body heat, Jacob's stomach must feel like hot stones in a pillow case, whereas Edward's tummy must be like a slab of cold gammon.

The plot, which would struggle to fill 20-minutes without the film's heavy use of flashbacks and love triangle posturing, concerns tongue-twisting vampire villain Victoria (Christina Hendricks Bryce Dallas Howard) amassing an army of "newborn" vamps to defeat the Cullens, with the help of a Forks native called Riley (Xavier Samuel) she's turned into her bloodsucking toyboy. As newborn vamps are extremely strong and dangerous, the Cullens decide to form an alliance with the local wolf pack, defending their town and Bella from redhead Victoria and her adolescent mercenaries from Seattle. (Incidentally, I've never understood why peaceful, vegetarian vampires can't get along with peaceful, spiritual werewolves. Surely they're ideal neighbours? "E-bon-y and i-vo-ry, live together in perfect har-mon-y...")

Eclipse isn't a skid mark on the towel of cinema like its predecessors, but it's still resolutely average and languorous. What helps is that Slade's a gifted director capable of delivering some half-decent action sequences (albeit with a whiff of Narnia thanks to those silly wolves), and there are a few character moments that actually work. Notably, a scene where Edward's forced to allow love rival Jacob to sleep alongside Bella in their mountainside tent, knowing Jacob's acute body heat will prevent his girlfriend dying of hypothermia. A scene that plays out very nicely because Lautner and Pattinson both get a chance to act, and the antagonism between their characters develops a speck of depth as they reach a mutual understanding. It's the first time they've been treated as anything other than paranormal alpha males using Bella for a game of sexual tug o' war.

The auditionees for Homoerotic Baywatch

I find that the Twilight movies are, outside of themselves, an oddly interesting talking point. Bella's a role model for schoolgirls, yet she's a character wholly defined by her need for a relationship with boys -- so do older girls find her lack of independence and narrow interests a turn-off? As a man, Bella evokes loathing from me, because she's a girl leading two men on, and that naturally makes me dislike her. And yet I realize that if the genders were reversed, and Twilight was about a despondent teenage boy having to decide between a sexy vampiress and she-wolf, that wouldn't seem half as bad. It's an example of the "slut versus stud" argument, which is undoubtedly very unfair. So maybe men should accept this saga is speaking to a fantasy they can't connect with. But that still doesn't excuse the atrocious underwriting of Bella, who has no hobbies outside of... well, dreary voice-overs and riding pillion on the back of motorbikes.

Overall, Eclipse is the best of a bad bunch, thanks to watchable action beats, more realism to its asinine love-triangle, better acting from the lead triptych, slicker special-effects, some entertaining origin flashbacks, and its ability to inspire debate between Twilight supporters and detractors. The plot is merely a flimsy cobweb holding a collection of moments together, and the core of these movies is insipid piffle aimed at 12-year-old girls, but it's clearly working its magic on the impressionable demographic it's aimed at.

DIRECTOR: David Slade
WRITER: Melissa Rosenberg (based on the book by Stephenie Meyer)
CAST: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Dakota Fanning, Ashley Greene, Elizabeth Reaser, Jackson Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Sarah Chalke, Anna Kendrick & Michael Welch
RUNNING TIME: 124 mins. BUDGET: $68 million

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Salt (2010)

Angelina Jolie's perhaps the best female action star working in Hollywood, and a good dramatic actress to boot. She alternates her roles well (alternating highbrow work like The Changeling and A Mighty Wind with popcorners like Tomb Raider and Wanted), and director Philip Noyce's Salt is definitely in the latter camp. From the pen of Kurt Wimmer (Thomas Crown Affair, Ultraviolet), a screenwriter who often appropriates other films and ideas for his own ends (his Equilibrium was The Matrix-meets-1984), this movie is a preposterous escalation of thrills and spills, rarely stopping to catch its breath. Imagine a season of TV thriller 24, mostly told from the perspective of the villains, condensed into less than two hours, and that's what Salt delivers -- in handfuls, forget a pinch.

Evelyn Salt (Jolie) is a highly-skilled CIA agent (once detained and tortured in North Korea until her German husband (August Dieh) arranged her return to the US), tasked with interviewing Russian defector Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) who claims his country's visiting president is going to be assassinated by a Soviet sleeper agent. The twist being that the informant identifies Salt as the appointed assassin, and Salt appears to confirms her guilt by going on the run, chased by her dumbfounded friends/colleagues Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Winter (Liev Schreiber). But is Salt an activated sleeper determined to complete her mission, even if her cover's been blown? Maybe she's a double-agent with honourable intentions? Or does Salt have her own agenda?

Salt is one of those runaway train-style viewing experiences, which doesn't stay still long enough for you to worry about its ludicrous plot and outdated viewpoint. The whole story is predicated on Cold War concerns that make it something of a throwback to thrillers from the '70s and '80s -- but in a media currently dominated by Islamic extremists, Salt's ex-Soviet radicals felt like a welcome change of pace. The downside is that they obviously don't captures a current mood or political anxiety, which means Salt is intentionally dated in its values. Would the movie really not have worked with more apposite villains for this day and age?

Jolie is a strong presence and totally believable as a female Jason Bourne with added iciness, but there's unfortunately no clear delineation between Evelyn Salt (loving wife, patriotic American) and Evelyn Salt (loyal commie, merciless killer), while Jolie herself is perhaps too A-list for you to believe the outcome will be anything too surprising. Still, it could have been worse: Tom Cruise was the original lead, when the script was called Edwin Salt, until he decided flexing comedy muscles in Knight & Day would be a better career move.

Overall, Salt is a wild confection of old-school concerns and modern verve; mainly relying on its pace, succession of tight action sequences, and a few genuine surprises. It's very possible to guess its twists and the ultimate outcome, but the film does a good job keeping you gripped with the unfolding mayhem and consequently distracted from thinking too far ahead. Or at least, that's how I approached this material, and I was rewarded with a gloriously daft but entertaining action-thriller in the 24 tradition.

Blu-ray Review

Picture (2.40:1, 1080p/AVC MPEG-4) The video presentation is very good, if not extraordinary. Detail is sharp and there's a nice layer of film grain, with very deep blacks and strong colour. It's nothing dazzling, but it's a transfer you won't have many complaints about.

Sound (English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1) The lossless DTS-HD track is excellent; immersive, clear and offering near-constant delights. Dialogue remains crisp throughout, there's great use of rear speakers during the many action sequences, and the music score is distinct and balanced at all times. Fantastic.

Special Features

First, it's worth noting that you get three different cuts of the film on this disc: Theatrical, Director's Cut, and Extended Edition. Is that a record for a movie making its home video debut? I watched the extended edition, figuring it would contain the most material.

Spy Cam (PiP) You can watch this extra within the movie itself, as it offers a rolling commentary from director Noyce and star Jolie, with Making Of footage and interviews. (Note: only accessible on the Theatrical cut)

Commentary: The director Phillip Noyce provides a very good audio commentary that's more insightful and interesting than the PiP track, even if it mostly sounds rehearsed. Noyce includes many anecdotes about his own dealings with the world of espionage (his father trained spies), and Salt's similarities to his '90s flop The Saint.

The Ultimate Female Action Hero (8 mins) A behind-the-scenes featurette focusing on Angelina Jolie and her natural aptitude for action roles like this.

The Real Agents (13 mins) A collection of real stories from genuine spies, including a KGB Major General and various CIA officers. Their stories focus on elements used in the movie, such as sleeper agents and false identities. Interesting.

Spy Disguise: The Looks Of Evelyn Salt (5 mins) Brief featurette about the makeup used on the film, particularly the latex used to turn Jolie into a man.

The Modern Master Of The Political Thriller: Phillip Noyce (10 mins) Essentially a retread of his audio commentary, but briefer and with the visual element. Unnecessary.

False Identity: Creating A New Reality (7 mins) A quick look at the visual effects of Salt, which involved a lot more compositing of fake elements into real shots than you'd imagine. A good extra feature, but deserved more attention.

Salt: Declassified (30 mins) The disc's focal extra is this documentary about the making of the film, which unfortunately recycles lots of footage from the other extras. Still, that means simply watching this documentary covers a lot of bases, fairly broadly.

The Treatment (30 mins) Radio interview with Noyce, which covers things he's already spoken about elsewhere on the disc -- twice! Consequently surplus to requirement.

Extras MovieIQ, if you're so inclined.

DIRECTOR: Phillip Noyce
WRITER: Kurt Wimmer
CAST: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, August Diehl & Daniel Olbrychski
RUNNING TIME: 100 mins (theatrical) BUDGET: $110m

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The Karate Kid (2010) [Blu-ray]

DIRECTOR: Harald Zwart
WRITERS: Christopher Murphey (story by Robert Mark Kamen)
RUNNING TIME: 140 mins. BUDGET: $40m

The 1984 original is a childhood touchstone for me; a movie I revisited in adulthood a few years ago, surprised to find myself still engaged with its coming-of-age tale about a teenage boy defeating bullies, gaining a surrogate father, and finding first love. The 2010 remake was a project I couldn't help being cynical about during its development, and while the resulting movie isn't an insult to the '80s classic (surpassing the original in a few ways), it ultimately fails to match its predecessor.

The story remains largely intact: a half-orphaned boy, Dre (Jaden Smith), moves with his mother (Taraj P. Henson) to a new town (Beijing, China), has trouble adapting to his new life, develops a crush on a local girl, Mei Ying (Wen Wen Han), finds himself the target of a bully, Cheng (Zhenwei Wang), and is later taught how to defend himself by Mr Han (Jackie Chan), a modest handyman who knows Kung Fu. In this remake, parts of the story are strengthened by reasonable changes (the culture-shock of emigrating from Detroit to Beijing provides a more exotic setting and canvas), but the story is weakened by appealing to a younger crowd (casting a 12-year-old boy cripples the love story element, reducing it to cutesy puppylove).

Jaden Smith (son of celebrity couple Will Smith Jada Pinkett-Smith) has clearly been given the lead through nepotism, but he's fairly likeable and you grow to respect his physical commitment to the role. The skills of original stars Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita were always laughable (how Daniel made it to the tournament final, I'll never know), so the remake benefits from the fact Smith's clearly an athletic boy who's done the training, while Chan has obvious credentials when it comes to screen violence.

Jaden Smith in The Karate Kid: Sony Official Site

Chan's character may lack the iconic feel of Morita's Mr Miyagi (with his buff suit, pidgin English, and Sphinx-like expression), but he nonetheless acquits himself very well. In fact, this is probably the best performance of Chan's career to date, as it relies far more on acting than speaking lines in-between kicking people in the face and falling out of high windows. The guy's in his mid-50s now, so giving him a contemplative part that benefits from his reputation, but doesn't require him to do many stunts (beyond a skirmish where Chan uses kids as weapons against themselves), is one of the best ideas in this remake's head.

But while the premise and Chan prevent the whole thing from seriously derailing, The Karate Kid proves a flop in other areas. The bullying Cheng is a wonderfully creepy antagonist who dishes out nasty beatings, but his motivation isn't as sharp (stubborn jealousy that Mei likes Dre); said romance between Dre and Mei is excruciatingly mawkish (even for 12-year-olds); Master Li (Yu Rongguang) is a poor counterpart for Martin Kove's nasty dojo master in the original; and how Dre develops muscle memory, by repetitively taking his jacket on-and-off, isn't handled as well as seeing his predecessor perform a variety of household chores (paint the fence, sand the floor, wax the car, etc.)

However, the fact remains the premise of The Karate Kid (the adolescent underdog overcoming obstacles in his life by finding strength with himself) is a very potent staple of many cinematic stories, and this remake does a competent job whenever it's holding the original's coattails. Harald Zwart's direction isn't astonishing, but it's career best for him, and the photography of China's is as rich and evocative as you could hope. If nothing else, the scenery and vibrancy of Beijing is captured nicely, just as the Chinese authorities demanded of the production in exchange for allowing them such access.

Overall, if you're old enough to have seen the original (ideally in the '80s) and it's since become one of your childhood memories, this remake will have you breathing a deep sigh of relief. It isn't terrible, it's just only ever great when it's following the original's lead without straying off-course. If you have no connection to the 1984 version, I daresay you'll enjoy this on its own merits. Fundamentally, it's still telling a time-honoured story you can't help but respond to on some level, which is its greatest strength.

Jaden Smith & Jackie Chan in The Karate Kid: Sony Official Site

Blu-ray Review

Picture (2.40:1, 1080p/MPEG-4 AVC) I always find movies with beautiful scenery offer the best HD experiences, and this Blu-ray does a great job showing us the magnificence, colour and texture of Beijing and China. Detail is great (check out Jaden's hair braids), blacks are deep, colours pop, and everthing has a beautifully filmic look.

Sound (English DTS-HD MA 5.1, French DTS-HD MA 5.1) An immersive audio experience, with resonant dialogue and nice use of the rear speakers to bring the hustle and bustle of Beijing to life in your livingroom. It's quite a surprise, actually; nuanced, nimble and immersive.

Special Features

Chinese Lessons: In this feature, you can learn various Chinese phrases by having the disc launch you to relevant points in the movie where the language is spoken. It's hardly worth bothering with for teens and adults, but younger kids may find it an interesting introduction to learning another language.

"Never Say Never" Justin Bieber Music Video (HD, 4m) Do you like teenybopper Justin Bieber? Yes? Then watch this. If you answered "no", avoid like syphilis.

Just For Kicks: Making Of Karate Kid (HD, 20m) A typical EPK-style featurette, broadly covering the movie and its links to the '84 original. Quite good as a one-stop visit, but everything it has to offer is detailed better in the other extras.

Interactive Map Of China: An okay use of Blu-ray capabilities, as the movie's location shoots are explored in production footage by clicking on various points on a map of China: the Great Wall (HD, 2m), Wudang Mountains (HD, 5m), Beijing Film Studio (HD, 3m), Shaolin School (HD, 2m), and Sports Arena (HD, 2m).

Alternate Ending (HD, 4m) Jackie Chan didn't get to demonstrate much physicality in the finished film, but this alternate ending reveals that the original intention was for his Mr Han to fight the evil Master Li, mere seconds after Dre's final fight. It's quite nice to see Chan do his stuff, but this isn't a particularly amazing fight, and was deservedly cut. It would have stolen the thunder from Dre, and ended the film on a strange, violent note.

Production Diaries (HD, 30m) Here you'll find 9 diaries, accessible separately if you desire. It's actually a diverting half-hour, with lots of good behind-the-scenes footage that's paced well and shouldn't bore you.

Extras: MovieIQ, as is standard for Sony discs.

Don't forget: you can win a copy of The Karate Kid on Blu-ray by entering my competition. Closing date: 20 November 2010.

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The Evil Dead (1982) [Blu-ray]

The quintessential "video nasty" of the early-1980s, Sam Raimi's cult classic The Evil Dead is remarkable for a horror movie made on a pittance with a cast of friends (including Bruce Campbell as Ash, who would go on to achieve legendary status in B-movie circles, off the back of this 1982 student film.) It's extremely violent and bloodthirsty, but what lingers in your soul is the creeping sense of dread and palpable threat that infects every moment, making The Evil Dead arguably more successful as a suspense film than horror.

In classic spam-in-a-cabin style, four twentysomething friends arrive at an abandoned shack deep in the woods, only accessible over a rickety bridge, only to accidentally summon demons by playing a tape recording of the cabin's previous occupant translating the incantations of a grimoire ("The Book Of The Dead", the film's original title). They soon find themselves under siege from an evil presence in the woods outside -- symbolized by Raimi's now iconic roving camera shots accompanied by ominous, continuous groaning. It's the simplest and most clichéd setup imaginable, but ideal for a young filmmaker to test his skills without having to fret about plot and character. This movie is all about atmosphere and visuals, tightening the screws of tension with its malevolent voyeur lurking outside, until an explosive final hour of blood-soaked mayhem.

It's peculiarly amusing, too, although we'd have to wait for the sequel-cum-remake to grab hold of The Evil Dead's comic potential and allow Campbell full reign to mix goofy with gruesome. It's also great to see many of Raimi's visual signatures already in evidence this early in his career; from the aforementioned use of a camera as the POV of something unseen and deadly, to the snappy cuts of routine activities to give them a sense of cool purpose (most notable when Ash is methodically chaining his girlfriend to a table before he cuts her in half with a chainsaw). The Evil Dead is overshadowed by the slicker and funnier Evil Dead 2, but it remains a marvellous example of low-budget moviemaking that touched a nerve back in the '80s, and still has a raw power that overcomes its meagre cost and questionable acting talent.

Sony Official Site

Blu-ray Review

Picture (1.85:1, 1080p/AVC MPEG-4) There have been countless re-releases of The Evil Dead, but its debut on a high-definition format is a persuasive reason to quadruple-dip. In a remaster of the original 16mm print, this movie has never looked better. Suddenly full of texture and depth, the previously mottled visuals of the woodland become crystal clear in HD. It's a remarkable improvement; even the grain looks wonderful, like a thin mist the world's been marinated in. DVD releases were guilty of erasing the grain through Digital Noise Reduction (DNR), but this treatment is preferable. Deep blacks, natural skin tones, a great transfer. Apparently, Raimi has used digital techniques to erase a few errors (like a member of the crew appearing in shot), but I can forgive that kind of revision. It's hardy at the George Lucas level of amendments. One downside for cinephiles is that this release of Evil Dead on Blu-ray doesn't contain the 1.33:1 original ratio, which was accessible via seamless branching on the US disc.

Sound (English 5.1 DTS-HD MA) The Evil Dead has often had its sound upgraded, as the film is perfect for jolts using the rear speakers and audio effects can become truly immersive as they swirl around your front room. The DTS-HD track is another improvement over the movie's copious DVD releases, bringing additional weight, depth and clarity. It's not quite the onslaught you may be hoping for, with a lot of audio still anchored at the front, and a few action sequences passing by as a disappointment, but it ultimately does a solid job sustaining atmosphere. Some people equipped with 7.1 systems may bemoan the lack of a 7.1 track, particularly considering the previous DVD release contained a DTS-ES 6.1/7.1 track.

Special Features

Audio Commentary: A new track from writer-director Sam Raimi, producer Rob Tapert and star Bruce Campbell, taking a different approach than previous commentaries they've done by discussing their experience actually getting the movie into production. They also chat about this version's restoration for HD, which Raimi supervised.

PiP: Join Us! The Undying Legacy Of The Evil Dead This is a great Picture-In-Picture documentary/interview track that plays over the actual film.

One By One We Will Take You: The Untold Saga Of The Evil Dead (SD, 53m) Meaty featurette about the film's genesis, featuring interviews with Rob Tapert (producer), Mike Sullivan (special effects), and celebrity fans like directors Edgar Wright (Shaun Of The Dead) and Eli Roth (Hostel).

Treasures From The Cutting Room Floor (SD, 59m) Just shy of an hour's worth of B-roll footage and outtakes, there to be devoured by true fans.

At The Drive-In (SD, 12m) The cast/crew of The Evil Dead descend on a Chicago screening of the movie, to chat about the movie and hand out some free DVDs.

Discovering Evil Dead (SD, 13m) A featurette from Blue Underground telling the story of how The Evil Dead got noticed in the UK and its impact there as a notorious "video nasty".

Make-Up Test (SD, 1m) Raw footage of the various make-ups used, but unfortunately very brief.

Sony Official Site

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Cemetery Junction (2010) [Blu-ray]

WRITERS & DIRECTORS: Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant
CAST: Christian Cooke, Felicity Jones, Tom Hughes, Jack Doolan, Ricky Gervais, Matthew Goode, Ralph Fiennes & Emily Watson
RUNNING TIME: 95 mins. BUDGET: $18m

Renowned as purveyors of small-screen "cringe comedy" with The Office and Extras double-hitters, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant turn their talent to a coming-of-age movie that stretches their formula into fresh tonality. Cemetery Junction is as well-observed, humane and humorous as their television work, spinning a yarn that's often predictable and clichéd, but so full of warmth and likeable performances that it's impossible to hate.

Set in Reading, Berkshire, 1973 (where Gervais himself grew up, making this a rose-tinted, quasi-autobiographical tale), we're introduced to the three jack-the-lad leads: handsome Freddie (Christian Cooke), who's scared of a future working in a factory like his underachieving dad (Gervais); charismatic Bruce (Tom Hughes), who already works in said factory and can't seem to escape the home he shares with the alcoholic father he pities; and "Snork" (Jack Doolan), their podgy friend/sidekick who refuses to grow up. All three are stuck in a rut in the titular Cemetery Junction district of town; aptly named because each are about to make a decision that'll determine where their grown-up lives will lead, to avoid dying with a heart-full of regrets.

Cemetery Junction: Sony Official Site

Freddie aspires to be a door-to-door salesman for the Vigilance life insurance company, run by local-boy-made-good Mr Kendrick (an underused Ralph Fiennes), whose sweet daughter Julie (Felicity Jones) was once his Freddie's childhood sweetheart, but whose ignorant fiancé Mike (Matthew Goode) is now Freddie's sales mentor. As Freddie learns how to successfully talk old people into setting aside money to ensure their loved-ones are provided for when they die, rather than focus on the here-and-now, the movie essentially becomes a parable about young people living for the moment and chasing love and dreams, because money and social standing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

There's no denying Cemetery Junction's storyline is a ramble of clichéd and obvious story arcs, but there's some comfort in watching the story travel down a route as the train track that provides the climactic escape route. The lack of surprises does prevent the film from becoming the mini-classic it feels intended to be, but its predictability it kept in check thanks to some genuinely funny moments, personable characters, and an embracive heart.

While the movie suffers from a railed storyline, the direction and writing keep things light-footed, while the casting is superb. Each of the leads may be stuck in storylines with developments you can see coming a mile off, but they're such a pleasure to spend time with it hardly matters. Gervais's supporting role is only really there to provide trailer-bait and shoehorn in some dinner table gags, but there's a really lovely turn from Emily Watson as a housewife in a loveless marriage who wants her daughter to choose a different path. It's a shame Fiennes wasn't given more to do, as his one memorable scene (giving a retiring employee a stilted, unrehearsed "golden handshake" in front of the entire workforce) seemed to prove he could have been a more memorable component, instead of a big-name to lend the film some A-list gloss.

Overall, Cemetery Junction isn't the homespun classic it's aiming to be, but it proves Gervais and Merchant have additional skills up their sleeves, and it's certainly a refreshing alternative to the often downbeat crime/horror-orientated British movie. There's a slight whiff of TV-standard drama at times, but a punchy script and strong performances do a marvellous job of raising the quality and taking you down a narrative path that, while foreseeable, is nevertheless very scenic and involving.

Cemetery Junction: Sony Official Site

Blu-ray Review

Picture (2.40:1, 1080p) The film looks incredibly vibrant and beautiful, reflected in the excellent image quality on display here. Dazzling colours with a rich sense of depth, if a little too soft at times, with natural skin tones and acute texturing.

Sound (English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1) Crisp, strong and immersive sound-mix, particularly when the movie starts spewing out classic '70s music tracks. The sense of atmosphere is always there, from the factory scenes, to the countryside, to the nightclubs.

Special Features

Audio Commentaries: Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant give a typically enlightening and humourous commentary with some lively banter and fun anecdotes. Actors Christian Cooke and Jack Dolan also give a commentary track, but one that's a little dry and certainly pales into insignificance compared to the Gervais/Merchant yakker.

Deleted Scenes (HD, 14 mins.) Quite a tedious selection of scenes deservedly cut.

Blooper Reel (HD, 14 mins.) Hilarious sequence of outtakes, most focusing on Ricky Gervais cracking up and ruining takes. I'm sure this will become a YouTube hit within days, if it isn't already.

The Directors: A Conversation With Gervais & Merchant (HD, 15 mins.) Interesting and funny featurette with the writer-directors outlining exactly what they intended to achieve with the movie.

The Lads Look Back: The Stars Discuss Cemetery Junction (HD, 10 mins.) Decent featurette with Cooke, Dolan and Hughes reminiscing about their experience making the movie.

Seventies Style: Production & Costume Design (HD, 9 mins.) A surprisingly engaging featurette about the costuming, helped by the interspersed interviews with Gervais and Merchant.

Production Featurettes (HD, 7 mins.) Five short documentaries, originally released on Ricky Gervais's official website. Unremarkable.

Extras: The awful MovieIQ and BDLive are bundled with this disc, as usual for Sony.

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Legion (2010) [Blu-ray]

For what's in essence a fire and brimstone riff on The Terminator, it's embarrassing to see Scott Stewart's Legion fail so deplorably in its shallow aims. Born from a hackneyed script with nothing on its mind, beyond a halfhearted idea to combine elements of superior movies (the aforementioned sci-fi classic, cult curio The Prophecy, spam-in-a-cabin horrors), Legion is a heinous waste of time and effort. It's another movie where the director's an ex-ILM wiz-kid, handed the reigns of a movie, who proceeds to deliver a limp vehicle for better-than-you'd-expect CGI, that's every bit as vacuous as you're imagining.

Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) arrives in the City Of Angels during a clichéd thunderstorm, clips his own wings (which is ridiculous, as we learn the feathers are handily bullet proof later), fills a stolen cop car he fills with stolen guns, and drives to a diner in the middle of the desert. At said establishment, grizzled owner Bob (Dennis Quaid), idiot son Jeep (Lucas Black), short order cook Percy (Charles S. Dutton), pregnant waitress Charlie (Adrianne Palicki), and a small group of customers, become suspicious something crazy's going down when a sweet old lady (Kaye Wade) bites a chunk out of a customer's neck and scuttles across the ceiling.

It soon becomes apparent that the diner's the focal point for Armageddon, attracting numerous Los Angelinos possessed by a vengeful God intent on slaughtering Charlie's unborn child -- whose birth, for reasons poorly-"explained", is the only way to prevent Our Lord's plan to exterminate mankind because he's "sick of all the bullshit". A sentiment I was echoing ten minutes into this dirge.

Legion is a film you're convinced you've seen before, because you effectively have. You can predict where it's going with dreary precision and mime along to its obvious, stilted dialogue, if so inclined. Nothing about it is interesting, horrifying, exciting, or fun. It's a hotchpotch of ideas lifted from Stewart's fetid imagination, fooling people into thinking it'll be worth bothering with because it stirs latent memories. The basic premise sounds fun to the ear, the eye feasts on a theatrical trailer of gore and augmented freaks, but your brain realizes the sad truth 15-minutes in.

Quite how a talented actor like Bettany was persuaded to appear in this brain-dead garbage is anyone's guess. By all means balance the likes of A Beautiful Mind and Creation with popcorn thrills to keep you bankable at the box-office, but some standards wouldn't go amiss. If that's not possible, why not go the whole hog and sign-up for a three-picture deal with The Asylum?

I can only assume his fee was a sizeable chunk of the $26m budget, it plugged an unexpected gap in his busy schedule, or he simply fancied the opportunity to fire big guns at zombies. And while the production stretches its budget quite well, there remains a feeling that Legion needed more money to do justice to its idea -- particularly when the Archangel Gabriel (Kevin Durand) arrived to spin around the diner like a winged Tasmanian Devil, twirling a spiked mace.

Next up for the Bettany/Stewart unholy union? An adaptation of vampiric graphic novel Priest. God help us all.

Asides

• I was astonished and disheartened to realize that actor Lucas Black, who is awful here as Jeep, was once the promising child actor who played Caleb Temple in the short-lived '90s supernatural drama American Gothic. Last I heard he was headlining the second Fast & Furious sequel, and I thought it couldn't get any worse than that. I was wrong.

DIRECTOR: Scott Charles Stewart
WRITERS: Peter Schink & Scott Charles Stewart
CAST: Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Lucas Black, Tyrese Gibson, Adrianne Palicki, Willa Holland, Kate Walsh, Kevin Durand, Charles S. Dutton, Jon Tenney & Jeanette Miller
RUNNING TIME: 100 mins. BUDGET: $26m

Blu-ray Review

Picture (2.40:1, 1080p/MPEG-4 AVC) As I've come to expect from Sony, the image quality is pin-sharp with great colour and deep blacks. The disc even preserves some grain to give it that added filmic feel. A top transfer from Sony, but do you expect anything less from the company who pioneered the high-def format in the first place?

Sound (English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround Sound, French DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround Track) Likewise, the DTS lossless audio is a thing of beauty and nuance, far outstripping the woeful content. Crisp and atmospheric throughout, there are enough demo-worthy moments to show off your surround sound setup.

Special Features

Creating The Apocalypse (23m, HD) A long featurette that doesn't prove especially interesting, although it does offer a lot of airtime for Doug Jones (the renowned actor often found playing monsters in modern movies). Fast-forward to hear Jones, but skip the rest.

Humanity's Last Line Of Defense: The Cast & Characters (12m, HD) The usual EPK fluff from the cast and director about the movie.

From Pixel To Picture (11m, HD) I'm usually a sucker for special-effects featurettes, but this one with director Stewart (who got his start working for ILM) was actually rather dull. Considering 90% of the movie is effects, this was a disappointment.

Bringing Angels To Earth: Picture-in-Picture: Director Scott Stewart appears in a Maximum Movie Mode-esque visual commentary, talking about the movie as you watch and letting you jump off to explore storyboards, alternate takes and behind-the-scenes material occasionally. Stewart proves himself a blowhard hack, but this is by far the best extra on the disc.

Extras: Has the MovieIQ idea caught on yet? No. Someone tell Sony. Likewise BDLive.

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