I Review DVDs

DVD Title: Crank
DVD Release Date: January 9, 2007
Starring: Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Efren Ramirez, Dwight Yoakam.
ASIN: B000K7UBSO
[Buy From Amazon.com]

DVD Review: An assassin discovers that his rival has injected him with a poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops. What follows is an action packed adventure as the assasin tries to keep his metabolism up. It is a thrill ride that understands itself, its audience and its genre enough to not take anything too seriously. This film is what the action category is, I should rename the category “Crank.”

DVD Title: Serenity
DVD Release Date: December 20, 2005
Starring: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Sean Maher, Jewel Staite
ASIN: B000BW7QWW
[Buy From Amazon.com]

DVD Review: A gritty space western with lots of action and suspense. Malcolm Reynolds is a hardened veteran who fought on the losing side of a galactic civil war between the defeated Independent Planets and the Alliance. Now he ekes out a living with his transport-for-hire spaceship, Serenity. He and his misfit crew hang out on the edge of space doing odd jobs — most of them illegal. When the crew of the spaceship Serenity takes on two new passengers, a young doctor and his unstable, telepathic sister, they get much more than they bargained for. The two are fugitives from the Alliance.

DVD Title: V for Vendetta
DVD Release Date: August 1, 2006
Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, Rupert Graves.
ASIN: B000FS9FCG
Rating:
[Buy From Amazon.com]

DVD Review: This future-shock story is about a masked avenger at war with a totalitarian British regime. After he rescues a young woman from the secret police, she emerges as his unlikely ally in the culmination of his plot to bring freedom and justice back to a society fraught with cruelty and corruption. This film is a controversial thriller and at the same time a breathtaking action film.

DVD Title: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
DVD Release Date: June 13, 2006
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen, Dash Mihok.
ASIN:B000F5GNX8
Rating:
[Buy From Amazon.com]

DVD Review: For those who like their comedies a little dark, a little twisted and completely hilarious, “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” will come as treat. Robert Downey Jr. plays a criminal who accidentally auditions for a role as a detective. Then when he tells his former schoolyard crush (Michelle Monaghan) that he’s actually a detective, he gets sucked into a murder mystery alongside the even stranger Val Kilmer. This film mixes comedy and action so smoothly, it is something completely new.

DVD Title: Sin City
DVD Release Date: August 16, 2005
Starring: Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Benicio Del Toro, Clive Owen, Rosario Dawson, Alexis Bledel, Mickey Rourke.
ASIN: B00005JNTX
Rating:
[Buy From Amazon.com]

DVD Review: “Sin City” is, in a word, a blast. This movie is one that really does look like a comic book come to life on a screen. Simply on a visual level, the film is mind-blowing. I was in awe of the style from beginning to end. The film is a dark, dirtubing, and enthralling. “Sin City” is set in a world full of serial killers and prostitutes, corrupt politicians and child molesters. The gritty, grimy quality of the story is not exploitive, though. It explores the theme from different viewpoints, managing to be intelligent and compelling all the while.

DVD Title: Mr. & Mrs. Smith
DVD Release Date: November 29, 2005
Starring: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaughn, Adam Brody, Kerry Washington.
ASIN: B000AP04FG
Rating:
[Buy From Amazon.com]

DVD Review: “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” is a romantic comedy disguised as an action movie. It shines with co-stars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in the title roles. John and Jane Smith are an ordinary suburban couple with an ordinary, lifeless suburban marriage. But they are keeping a rather large secret from one another - that both are actually assassins, and they work for rival organizations. Mr. and Mrs. Smith both discover a new source of excitement in their marriage, when they are hired to assassinate each other.

DVD Title: King Kong
DVD Release Date: March 28, 2006
Starring: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Colin Hanks.
ASIN: B00005JO20
Rating:
[Buy From Amazon.com]

DVD Review: At three hours, seven minutes this film is as big as King Kong himself. Peter Jackson, the director, manages to capture several films in one epic. It emcompasses the thrilling treasure hunt, the adventure on Skull Island, and the action of Kong in the City. As Jackson imagines it, the story is one of friendship. It is a troubled friendship between Ann Darrow and King Kong, for Kong understands so little, and Ann can do so little. They are helpless and doomed, for the rest of the world, whether out of greed or out of fear, will unite to destroy them.

DVD Title: Kingdom of Heaven
DVD Release Date: October 11, 2005
Starring: Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, Eva Green, Marton Csokas, Brendan Gleeson, Jeremy Irons, Alexander Siddig.
ASIN: B000AARKOO
Rating:
[Buy From Amazon.com]

DVD Review: “Kingdom of Heaven” is probably about as good a movie as anyone could make about the Crusades. Balian, a village blacksmith in France, discovers he is the illegitimate son of Sir Godfrey. Godfrey is a knight returning from the Middle East, who paints Jerusalem not in terms of a holy war but in terms of its opportunities for an ambitious young man. Godfrey promises that, “There at the end of the world you are not what you were born but what you have it in yourself to be.” For Balian, Jerusalem confronts him with uncomfortable decisions, in which there is no clear-cut moral choice. Death is the consequence of every course of action.

DVD Title: Oceans Eleven
DVD Release Date: 05/07/2002
Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Andy Garcia, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle
Rating:
[Buy From Amazon.com]

DVD Review: Ocean’s Eleven improves on 1960’s Rat Pack original with supernova casting, a slickly updated plot, and Steven Soderbergh’s graceful touch behind the camera. Soderbergh reportedly relished the opportunity “to make a movie that has no desire except to give pleasure from beginning to end,” and he succeeds on those terms, blessed by the casting of George Clooney as Danny Ocean, the title role originated by Frank Sinatra. Fresh out of jail, Ocean masterminds a plot to steal $163 million from the seemingly impervious vault of Las Vegas’s Bellagio casino, not just for the money but to win his ex-wife (Julia Roberts) back from the casino’s ruthless owner (Andy Garcia). Soderbergh doesn’t scrimp on the caper’s comically intricate strategy, but he finds greater joy in assembling a stellar team (including Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Carl Reiner) and indulging their strengths as actors. The result is a film that’s as smooth as a silk suit and just as stylish.