Blu-ray Review: The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

I completely agree with Joel's review of The Adjustment Bureau on its theatrical release, no rather than reiterate similar points I'm reproducing his review here with salient Blu-ray specific comments below.

The Adjustment Bureau, with its morose grey tones, quick-paced chase scenes and pseudo-spiritual focus, is doomed to be compared with Christopher Nolan's Inception, though the plot actually has little in common with 2010's extravaganza. Instead of a staid, defeated Leonardo DiCaprio, we have Matt Damon, his co-star from The Departed, as David, a bullish, up-and-coming politician, who stumbles onto the knowledge that his entire life has been engineered by a group of men who claim to work for someone called The Chairman. They alert him that the big man's 'Plan' entails that he not hook up with a feisty ballerina (the wonderful Emily Blunt) which would derail him from his career and ruin hers.

From the get-go, it's made clear who/what The Chairman is, as well as his workers. These are bureaucrats from the Other Side, who fascinatingly seem to have the same type of business hierarchy as a large government office and are very fond of snappy fedora hats. It's a strange, slightly silly conceit, but perhaps that's what makes it brilliant. (It also gives an excuse to quote perhaps the most unintentionally hilarious line of the year: "The most important thing to remember is that everyone wearing a hat is a threat!")

Director George Nolfi is clever not pretending that Philip K. Dick's source material isn't a little silly, and he actually embraces it. Consequently the chase scenes, with Damon being followed by ten men in sharp suits, flips between being a charming Hitchcock pastiche and actually a little frightening. Indeed, the director isn't afraid of fun - something Christopher Nolan could maybe take a lesson from.

Damon and Blunt display some of the best chemistry on-screen you are likely to see post-Golden Age Hollywood. Though their relationship is based on only three chance meetings, their slow-burning yet jovial banter makes it seem credible that they would be willing to take on God to keep it intact. John Slattery (famous for portraying silver fox Roger Sterling in Mad Men) is also terrific as a cosmic middle manager. And as David's case worker, Anthony Mackie takes what could be a small, exposition-heavy character, and turns him into a melancholic, disillusioned soul with every turn of phrase.

The man at the helm of the project, first-time director and long-time screenwriter, Nolfi makes more than a solid debut behind the camera and the whole film is smoothly shot, with numerous moments of standout cinematography. Considering where the film is based (New York), and the events that occur, there isn't a huge amount of scope to produce impressive visuals, and as such Nolfi should be very satisfied with his input. One aspect that works well is the handling of the Bureau's agents' supernatural movements. They have the ability to alter the location that appears when they step through a door, thus being able to create portals to practically anywhere they like; this is handled very slickly and never appears clunky.

Nolfi also understands that this is an entertainment commodity and he never tries to make bold political and ideological statements, perhaps barring the one time Damon refers to the people "running the country" as "idiots". The correct way to approach The Adjustment Bureau is not to put much serious thought into it. This is not the new Blade Runner; it is a long way from a thought-provoking sci-fi thriller of that particular depth although the film offers many interpretations regarding predestination. Rather, it is a romance story, juxtaposed with elements of sci-fi.

The thematic impulse behind The Adjustment Bureau is a familiar one, that true love is worth more than anything else this life has to offer. The keys to Nolfi putting it over effectively in this real world but quasi-sci-fi context are his great success in making the connection between Damon and Blunt so convincing and worth fighting for.



Release Information
Country: UK / Region: Free / Version: Triple Play Steelbook / Discs: 3 (1 BD/1 DVD/1 Digital Copy) / Distributor: Universal

Presentation
The Adjustment Bureau doesn’t come with quite the sort of slick, polished transfer we’re now used to with new releases. In spots it’s quite soft detail-wise, but this varies quite a lot (some close-ups, for example, look exceptional). There’s a fair amount of grain but it looks inherent in the film stock, and a high bitrate means that compression artefacts, such as undue noise or blocking, are never in evidence. The colour scheme is the most impressive part – the rich palette of colours (especially blues) in John Toll’s cinematography shines through, showing off the film’s unusually extensive New York location shooting magnificently. The soundtrack is commendably immersive at times, though the refreshing lack of bombast means it’s never a showstopper in terms of depth or bass response.

Extras
Meagre, unfortunately. First time director George Nolfi (writer of Ocean’s Twelve and The Bourne Ultimatum) badly needs a partner on the commentary, as his delivery is not the most confident or engaging, despite the fact that he’s evidently passionate about the project. The Interactive Map of New York sounds nifty, but its execution is limited and clunky: choose various story locations on a Google Earth map, watch a (very brief) behind the scenes clip, and ‘travel’ through the door to wherever it leads, like the bureau do in the film. The three remaining featurettes are too short, adding up to only 20 minutes or so; disappointing considering what you do see is interesting.



Summary
Lightness of touch is not what one expects in fictional portrayals of monolithic entities bent on world domination, so the subtle tone George Nolfi maintains here represents something fresh and welcome. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt are sublime.

Blu-ray Review: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) / Das Boot (1981) / The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have released a range of older films this year on Blu-ray with similar sleeve designs. While the collection has no specific name, its intention is clearly collate the best films of Sony’s back catalogue (i.e. Columbia) and release them in the best possible standard. Three of these – The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Das Boot (1981), and The Guns of Navarone (1961), numbered 2, 8 and 9 in the range respectively – are set in World War 2 and form a brilliant trio of war classics, so it only seemed natural to review them together.

The Bridge on the River Kwai is a great war film, a great prison film, a great adventure movie and a great men on a mission film. It adds up to an absolute masterpiece. Its 160 minute runtime may initially seem excessive, but turns out to be fully justified: there’s just so much to enjoy here in a film that just keeps on giving, and the perfectly judged length allows for immense exploration of character, as well as some unbeatable stretches of incredible suspense. The first act is relatively low key: a group of British prisoners of war are marched into their Japanese internment camp deep in the Thai jungle, and a battle of wills ensues between British Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness, never better) and his Japanese oppressor Saito (Sessue Hayakawa, wonderful) over whether the officers will be forced to do manual labour, in defiance of the Geneva convention. The manual labour in question is, of course, the famous bridge. As the verbal battle plays out, an American PoW (William Holden) manages to escape, and before long he’s roped into returning to the camp to blow up the newly built bridge with a squad of commandos.

As the film divides its attention between the commando expedition and the building of the bridge, each is equally gripping. Apparently the latter was an addition at the behest of the producer, who felt the bridge building side of the story would not provide enough thrills, but Lean never shows any disinterest in the less cerebral side of the story. The thrills and incredible suspense of the jungle trek – one sequence in particular, where thousands of bats are disturbed by gunshots and cast shadows over a tense chase, is utter genius – are counterpointed by the fascinating character face-off on the bridge. Guinness’ character is curious, and hard to really pin down – is he just extremely patriotic, simply wanting to show the best of British engineering skills? Or is he a collaborator, willingly helping out his captors? The film never answers this fundamental quandary, leaving its legendary ending open to two divergent interpretations. And what an ending it is: a forty-five minute sustained build of suspense that’s practically unrivalled, reaching an almost unbearable crescendo.

The Guns of Navarone feels like a natural follow-up to Kwai, and was surely designed to capitalise on the earlier film’s success (which it did, earning a Best Picture nomination itself and very healthy box office). The films share a screenwriter, Carl Foreman, which partly explains certain similarities, but Navarone is a more straightforward affair. It’s a pure men on a mission film; indeed probably the very apotheosis of the subgenre – driven by star power (Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn) and a simple plot: a group of British special forces have to blow up a massive Nazi gun emplacement on a Greek island. That’s not to say, though, that it has more in common than mindless modern blockbusters that its precursor Kwai - this is an almost equally satisfying, enjoyable and wholly engrossing affair.

Like Kwai, Navarone takes its time getting anywhere, but never feels indulgently slow. The extra length simply adds to the character interaction and suspense. In fact, the mission itself is underway in the film sooner than you might expect, soon running into difficulties in a superbly realised storm sequence. Navarone never stops throwing complications in the way of the heroes, in the form of double crosses, injuries, captures and other hiccups, but that’s not at the expense of the characters’ integrity – it just amplifies how tough their mission is. The setting of the fictional Greek island (the film was shot on location in Rhodes) adds colour and novelty, and makes for some great set pieces. If the finale feels like a slight anticlimax, that’s made up for by the sheer entertainment value of the whole adventure.

Das Boot takes another tack entirely. It's a World War 2 film starring Germans, made by Germans, and telling the German side of the story. While not unique in that respect, it remains the pinnacle of the films that have attempted to expose what it was like to be on Hitler's side. Following exclusively the experience of a U-boat crew on an Atlantic mission, what Das Boot does so brilliantly is humanise these men: they were just as scared as the Allies, and apparently few of them were blindly loyal to their Fuhrer. There's a world-weariness embodied in the boat's captain, played by Jurgen Prochnow, that captures the futility that must have been sensed by the crew; they were fighting a war that many of them had little stake in, and little hope of surviving. Perhaps there's an air of apologetic German revisionism, but Das Boot feels authentic down to the last rivet.

Director Wolfgang Petersen announced himself on the world stage here, making use of the new Steadicam technology to roam the cramped confines of the submarine with unheard of freedom and realism. Never before or even since has a film so effectively conveyed the claustrophobia and exhaustion that such an environment must engender, and also the nerve-shredding terror of coming under attack while stuck in the ocean depths. From a British perspective U-boats have always been seen as invisible instruments of death that mercilessly attacked vital trade routes, but Das Boot exposes that they were far from invincible, opening with a sobering text telling us that 30,000 of the 40,000 U-boat crewmen in the war died before it ended. Despite the film's harrowing message, though, it's also an extraordinarily thrilling adventure, its three and a half hours (in this Director's Cut) positively sailing by in a blur of edge-of-seat intensity.



Release Information
Country: UK / Region: Free / Version: N/A / Discs: 1 (Kwai and Navarone); 2 (Das Boot) / Distributor: Sony

Presentation
Both Kwai and Navarone have received new 4K restorations, and the results are splendid. In Kwai the details of faces and the leaves of the jungle spring to life with great contrast and definition. Its optical dissolves are hazy, however, momentarily disrupting the experience, but nothing could be done there. Navarone looks even better, with great clarity for an older title, only some of its model effects marginally wilting under the scrutiny. Both retain a fine and entirely beneficial grain structure. They also each receive a DTS-HD 5.1 mix, both of which sound perfectly satisfactory but only erratically provide much impact or weight, with limited use of the surround channels.

Das Boot is a slightly different beast. A documentary on its second disc explains that its negative was in dire shape due to flooding, so this is not a new master; it’s probably the same one used for the construction of the Director’s Cut in 1997. Accordingly, detail is relatively weak, with murky shadows and soft edges. There’s not much grain, too, which suggests possible DNR. Its visual shortcomings may also stem from its origins as a relatively low-budget production, though the set design is exemplary. It looks fine, but not great. The soundtrack was completely remixed and redone in 5.1 for the Director’s Cut (even all-new ambient effects were created), and it’s very good, though does not quite make maximum use of the surround sound potential of a submarine-set film; the soundfield isn’t very densely detailed, but directionality is often well utilised.

Extras
Kwai and Navarone are single disc sets but with their extras being mostly presented in SD disc space becomes less of a concern. Navarone, in particular, comes with a handsome array, including multiple commentaries, documentaries and featurettes, but nothing actually new. A nice touch is that you can watch the film with or without its roadshow intermission. The main attraction among Kwai's extras, meanwhile, is a truly excellent hour-long documentary, which is also accompanied by several archival featurettes and an appreciation by John Milius. There's sadly no commentary, but there is a 'picture-in-graphics' track - basically a simple text-based trivia track, which isn't particularly enticing.

Das Boot, its mammoth runtime occupying the whole of one disc, gets a second disc of extras, many new and in HD too. (The first disc features the very good director's commentary from the original DVD.) Several retrospective docs get together some of the participants to look back at the making of what has come to be a seminal film. Amongst the highlights are a featurette on assembling the Director's Cut, and a visit to the studio where the film was shot; it's clear how personal the film is to Petersen (significantly more personal, you'd have to say, than any of his Hollywood efforts). Strangely, the theatrical cut is nowhere to be found, despite it being housed on the second disc of the otherwise identical US Blu-ray release, but it's no great loss.



Summary
Three brilliant films, with equally powerful - but quite different - impact. The masterful Kwai is the true standout here, but Das Boot is also extraordinary, and Navarone is as good a Boys' Own adventure as you're likely to see. Sony's Blu-ray releases do them all justice; Kwai's and Navarone's meticulous restorations are sights to behold and Das Boot's bonus material makes up for its (perhaps unavoidable) visual shortcomings.

The Bridge on the River Kwai:


The Guns of Navarone:


Das Boot:

Blu-ray Review: The Karate Kid (2010)

As far as remakes go, Karate Kid is a more appealing proposition than many. The original is a childhood favourite of many, sure, but few would claim that it is truly classic. The story is pure archetype: the sports movie where the underdog comes good. It’s Rocky with a kid (and a different ending). It may be formula, but it works, managing to be, at its best, quite rousing. That’s thanks in no small part to the lead actors, Jaden ‘son of Will’ Smith (who made quite a name for himself co-starring with his dad in The Pursuit of Happyness) and Jackie Chan, who make an appealing pair. The story is transplanted from America to China, adding an extra level of alienation and isolation to Jaden’s Dre Parker, upping the emotional stakes when he starts getting picked on by bullies whose language he can’t even understand.

Director Harald Zwart certainly takes his time in laying the groundwork. The film itself is a lengthy 140 minutes. Dre’s mentoring by Chan’s Mr Han only begins properly about an hour into the film, with a new variation on “wax on, wax off”. Even once that begins, though, there’s little emphasis on the martial arts stuff, barring a couple of picture-postcard montages. Zwart instead focuses on the relationship between the two, Mr Han coming to take the place of Dre’s absent father, alongside Dre’s school and language barrier troubles. It’s involving with a nicely judged tone – just serious enough, without neglecting some moments of humour (especially where Chan is involved). However, it does feel like it takes rather too long to get to where it’s going; this is the sort of film that really should have a 2-hour maximum length. There’s some depth and character development, but not enough plot complexity to justify anything longer, especially a story as predictable as this.

At times it just feels padded, often with touristy shots of China that look like they’re paid for by the national tourist board. China is mostly shown in a ridiculously idyllic light, which slightly robs the film of a certain realism and grittiness that it may have benefited from. And yes, it’s yet another one of those Hollywood films set in China that absolutely must feature the Great Wall, despite its inclusion being inexplicable. As an advert for the country, though, it’s certainly a pretty effective one: it looks stunning, and the setting really works for the story. Unfortunately, it renders the title nonsensical: karate is a Japanese martial art; Dre is actually taught kung fu in the film (and he even admonishes his mother in the film for calling it karate). Would The Kung Fu Kid have been such a bad title?



Release Information
Country: UK / Region: Free / Version: N/A / Discs: 1 / Distributor: Sony

Presentation
Karate Kid has the ultra-saturated, high-contrast look of some modern movies, which doesn't make for a particularly natural looking image but it is certainly striking, giving your TV a workout. Sharpness and detail are both at the very high end. Sony, as you would expect, know how to give an effective HD presentation. Not a whole lot to say on the sound side of the equation - as good as you would expect from Blu-ray audio.

Extras
A functional if unexceptional array of extras includes a few featurettes, a production diary, an alternate ending (Jackie Chan gets a bit of an action scene, which is fun, but it is superfluous so was rightly cut), and an interactive map of China, from which you can watch behind the scenes footage at each principal location. The Wu Dang Mountains are particularly stunning.



Summary
An enjoyable, well-made but wholly predictable and overlong underdog tale, The Karate Kid - dodgy title and all – is worth a watch, mainly for Jackie Chan in a fairly low-key role and Jaden Smith moving further along the road to stardom.

Cinema Review: Anonymous (2011)

Shakespeare directed by Roland Emmerich: it sounds like a punchline to a joke, or one of those fake comedy trailers in films like Tropic Thunder. But this one is actually real. Yes, Roland Emmerich, the demigod of destruction, the lord of loud, the man who strikes fear into national monuments the world over, has made a film about William Shakespeare, set in Elizabethan London. Ironically it’s the (undeserved) success of his previous thudding movie apocalypse, 2012, that granted the German director the freedom to make a smaller passion project. Anonymous is the unexpected result, but, typically, it’s no shy, retiring period drama. It has made some waves – though not in the usual Emmerichian tsunami sense of the word – due to its subject matter (amongst the critical community at least; its box office performance has so far been meagre). Anonymous feeds off the faintly ludicrous conspiracy theory that Shakespeare did not write his famous work. According to the film, Shakespeare was in fact a jobbing, mediocre actor who had never even put pen to paper; the real writer of the plays was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who could not claim authorship of the works due to the fact that plays were deemed beneath the station of a nobleman and also potentially seditious.

Emmerich realises that the notion does not in itself constitute a story for a film, so he embeds his thesis within a framework of political skulduggery involving Queen Elizabeth I and her many courtiers and officials. There are accordingly many scenes in darkly lit rooms featuring (mostly bearded) men plotting or arguing, but all the intrigue gets confusing as names and titles fly about with reckless abandon. Further complicating matters is the non-linear structure, jumping about rather haphazardly between four time periods (if you include the pretentious modern day bookends with a preachy Derek Jacobi). Such convolution never seems strictly necessary, just managing to further muddy a narrative that lacks a clear dramatic through-line. Nevertheless, the time jumps do keep things interesting and the brain engaged, even if the questions that arise are sometimes of the ‘who’s this guy again?’ variety, rather than due to any seductive mysteries thrown up by the screenplay.

Fortunately there are numerous redeeming qualities that elevate this well above the director’s last two misfires (10,000 BC and 2012). There are some standouts in the cast. Top of the list is Rhys Ifans, who is nigh-unrecognisable (give his previous roles) as the ‘real’ Shakespeare, Edward. Whether it’s striding through the dark hallways of London or fencing in his hedge maze, he looks perfectly at home and really captures the gravitas and authority of a powerful man in Tudor times. Rafe Spall is entertainingly buffoonish as the semi-illiterate Will Shakespeare, while Sebastian Armesto as playwright Ben Johnson – arguably the film’s protagonist – is likeable, but sports a rather broad accent that sounds odd. A bit of novelty casting in having mother and daughter Vanessa Redgrave and Joely Richardson play Elizabeth I at different ages pays off superbly – in fact the Queen is one of the few characters whose facial features plausibly age according to the time period, given the actors’ obvious resemblance. Another is David Thewlis, who plays middle and old age with equal command, succumbing to not a bit of overacting or implausible make-up to add the years onto him. This only scratches the surface of the film’s lengthy dramatis personae, indicating some of the difficulties in remembering names and motivations.

The visual recreation of Elizabethan London is outstanding in its detail and apparent authenticity, handily surpassing the likes of Shakespeare in Love in realism and Elizabeth in terms of scope – Emmerich has clearly been rewarded with a healthy budget for his efforts and the expenditure is plain to see in the intricate sets and impressive CG vistas. The recreation of Shakespeare’s plays is also exemplary – indeed, the glimpses of performances are undoubtedly the highlights of the whole film, so much so you sometimes wish Emmerich had just made Henry V (seriously). The experience of being in the Globe Theatre with all its noise and liveliness, and people crammed in so close they can smell the actors’ feet, is captured brilliantly, as is the power these plays must have had over the populace. It brings Shakespeare to life in a way that no soporific English Literature lesson ever could.



Summary
Roland Emmerich never quite wrestles control of his unruly narrative structure, but Anonymous offers enough intrigue and spice to keep you engaged. Just take it all with a pinch of salt.

Cinema Review: The Adventures of Tintin - The Secret of the Unicorn (2011)

It’s easy to forget the simple joys of a well-made opening credits sequence. Steven Spielberg’s first film for three years begins by resurrecting this quickly evaporating cinema staple. Refusing to copy the current trend of jumping straight into the action without even so much as a title card, Tintin opens with a carefully crafted sequence, where stylised 2D figures act out a sort of Greatest Hits of Tintin’s adventures. There are hints of the legendary Saul Bass, as well as Spielberg’s own Catch Me If You Can. This is Spielberg indicating he has more faith in modern attention spans than some of the newer breed of directors, content to let the credits gently ease you into the world and atmosphere of the film. Maestro John Williams – also working for the first time since the director’s last effort, the fourth Indiana Jones - may not provide the sort of rousing, instantly memorable march the likes of which made him famous, but he does leave his indelible musical stamp, unmistakable amidst the sea of Hans Zimmer clones who score everything else these days.

Indeed, the term ‘old-fashioned’ comes to mind a lot while watching Tintin, which is slightly paradoxical in that Spielberg is using the most modern and cutting edge of filming techniques to tell his story – namely, 3D performance capture. But it’s old-fashioned in an entirely complimentary sense – as in, it takes you back to when action adventure films were fun and driven by relentless optimism and pure joie de vivre rather than world-weary cynicism. In short, Spielberg’s 1980s output. The Beard himself is on the sort of crowd-pleasing, family friendly form the likes of which haven’t been seen since 1993 when a bunch of digital dinosaurs revolutionised the Hollywood blockbuster. It’s also old-fashioned in its approach to storytelling, concentrating on a slow build to a memorable payoff rather than the constant assault of, say, Michael Bay.

Many of Tintin’s most euphoric highs are anything but old-fashioned, though. Building on, and exceeding, his contemporary Robert Zemeckis’ dalliances with the technology, Spielberg makes at times utterly inspired use of the immense freedom afforded by the new toys. Two sequences in particular are absolute gems. One, a massive Man o’ War battle on the high seas, provides more piratical thrills in ten minutes than the whole of Jack Sparrow’s most recent adventure. The director keeps the camera fluid, transitioning seamlessly from the past to the (film’s) present via numerous creative means that could not have been achieved in live action. The second highlight is the film’s main action showpiece, a jaw-dropping helter-skelter chase through a North African town, which is filmed in one single, continuous take. It’s a genuine stand-up-and-applaud moment.

Aside from the action scenes, though, what any film needs is compelling characters, and it’s only in this department where Tintin struggles slightly. Despite Jamie Bell’s earnest efforts, Tintin himself is bland – perhaps intentionally so, in order for him to function as an audience proxy – which makes the quieter moments, and the times when he’s alone, more of a lull than they should be. Fortunately he’s not alone all that often, as he usually has the colourful Captain Haddock with him, entertainingly performed by motion capture stalwart Andy Serkis. (That’s not to mention Snowy, his faithful dog, who has as much character as any of the humans.) Even the larger performances, though, tend to feel a little too restrained, which may be a side effect of utilising motion capture as opposed to more exaggerated and expressive, but less strictly realistic, animation. As a result some of the comic relief falls a bit flat, particularly the physical, slapstick stuff. On the plus side, the CGI itself is top-drawer - dead eyes are not a problem here.

The fact that a Peter Jackson-directed sequel has already been given a preliminary start date points to the film’s other flaw, its climax, or rather lack thereof. It goes for a more open ended approach which teeters on unsatisfying. In hindsight, the film does have a good final showdown, but it doesn’t feel like the finale because it follows straight on the heels of the end of the second act, with a more low-key final few minutes afterwards that seem to be setting up for another action beat that never arrives. The film thrives on atmosphere, though, be it the unspecified European (Brussels? Paris?) city where Tintin lives, a grimy cargo ship, or the Sahara Desert, and this distinctive character is maintained right to the end. You can’t help but be swept along.



Summary
This is Spielberg having more fun than he has in years, which translates into a supremely enjoyable, precisely crafted boy’s own adventure yarn. It’s refreshing and invigorating, if not vintage.

Blu-ray Review: The Blues Brothers (1980)

The Blues Brothers is the definition of a cult classic: perhaps not particularly widely seen (especially in recent times, relegated to late night showings on ITV4), but worshipped by many loyal fans. The story of two brothers, one just released from jail, who find themselves on ‘a mission from God’ to raise $5000 for an orphanage, it has character to burn and a unique sense of humour. It's also quite evidently the work of a relatively inexperienced crew, particularly in terms of handling the large-scale scenes of carnage, making for a film that is rather ragged editorially. Most of the film, even many of its great highlights, could be improved with a little more fine-tuning, but that's probably a big part of its appeal: it's a loveable mongrel, not a flawless but bland pedigree.

A large part of the enjoyment of the film stems from the interplay between the brothers themselves, played by John Belushi (two years before drugs cut short a legendary career) and Dan Aykroyd, who also co-wrote the script. Permanently wearing their black suits and sunglasses, and never ruffled - not even by a mysteriously homicidal Carrie Fisher who stalks them throughout - they're just a pleasure to be around. On their episodic mission they encounter numerous musical legends making memorable cameos, such as Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, and inadvertently manage to make a whole battalion of enemies from country singers to neo-Nazis. They all converge to hilarious effect in the concert climax.

Not content with just entertaining us musically, director John Landis also crafts several action scenes, the final one an enormous car chase through Chicago - setting a record for vehicular destruction - before the army descend. The sheer scale just piles on the absurdity to breaking point, but the enterprise never crashes down under its own weight. Indeed it's in this final third where Blues Brothers' classic status becomes truly deserved. Up to this point, it's an endearing offbeat affair with a few good laughs, but the finale elevates it to an iconic piece of movie folklore.

Release Information
Country: UK / Region: Free / Version: Blu-ray + Digital Copy / Discs: 1 BD, 1 DVD / Distributor: Universal

Presentation
The film looks pretty damn good, all things considered, once the murky opening titles have passed (once again, blame optical compositing). The level of detail is surprisingly high, as is the clarity, and Universal have thankfully stayed away from the DNR knob, leaving the natural grain intact. The soundtrack is only in standard DTS - 768kpbs, same as a DVD - which is hard to believe for a film where sound is so key, but fear not: this is a cracker of a track, with brilliant depth, thumping bass, and great directionality, doing the music proud.

Extras
You get the option of watching an extended cut, seamlessly branched (or not so seamlessly, as the picture quality differs noticeably). An option just to watch the added scenes alone would have been welcome as the film is already too long in its theatrical cut, but it's interesting to note that the film was originally envisaged as an old-fashioned 3-hour roadshow event. Not all of the missing footage has been recovered - the extended cut is about 20 minutes longer. Otherwise, there's a healthy 56-minute Making Of, and two shorter featurettes: one a 25th anniversary retrospective, and one a tribute to John Belushi.



Summary
A highly flawed but, at its best, raucously funny musical comedy, Blues Brothers builds to an exhilarating finale, glancing a couple of speed bumps along the way.

Blu-ray Review: Green Lantern (2011)

Green Lantern certainly has one of the more elaborate mythologies in superhero comic books, with a truly cosmic scale and all sorts of factions, alien races, rules and characters. Another word for 'elaborate' in this instance could also be, to the uncharitable, 'weird'. That makes it a bit of a hard sell for a blockbuster, but Warner Bros. are understandably keen to try to milk their B-level DC heroes (i.e. not Batman or Superman) like Marvel have been so successful at doing. They were optimistically hoping to capitalise on Avatar's success with another story about a human sucked into a fantastical alien world, but, for whatever reason, the film was stillborn at the box office: little over $100 million domestic, and $200m worldwide, does not nowadays a blockbuster make, when outlay on production and marketing far exceeds that.

Green Lantern opens promisingly. Rejecting the dull domesticity of many a recent superhero’s origin stories, the film goes straight to the realm of science fiction, with an intriguing beginning showing the release of the film’s ultimate big bad. The ambitions are on display immediately, the scale appropriately grand. From there we cut to Earth, where we meet Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds). The character turns out to be a mix between Tony Stark (cocky, womanising) and Top Gun’s Maverick (hot shot jet fighter pilot). Reynolds is surprisingly likeable in the role – not a quality he has often portrayed – and delivers his lines with enjoyable wit and conviction. His special powers arise from a ring that's given to him by a dying alien, a member of the Green Lantern Corps, a group of intergalactic peace keepers, and are not your run-of-the-mill super strength or speed. Rather, he's able to materialise anything he can imagine out of green energy, as well as fly. The powers are potentially a bit cheesy, and the line is crossed from time to time as he turns into something like Inspector Gadget (go-go-gadget-minigun!) meets a Looney Tunes character, but for the most part it's an interesting and unfamiliar twist that opens up some unique opportunities for action sequences, even if the potential is not fully exploited.

A large part of Green Lantern's appeal to comic book fans is its major science-fiction trappings, and they have been quite vocal in their disappointment with the film's mostly Earthbound events. The narrative's trips to Oa (the Lantern Corps' home world) are sporadic and mostly brief, including Jordan's induction and training, which seems overly abridged. However it's plain to see that the filmmakers were trying to walk a fine line between appeasement of the fans and wider appeal, so you can understand their reluctance to fully indulge in the more outlandish elements of the mythos. As it is they remain at least visually faithful to the source material, which itself may be offputting for mass audiences as it is pretty, well, weird (that word again) - Oa is truly alien, unlike, say, Avatar's Pandora, which is strange-yet-reassurringly-familiar in its flora and fauna. The style hews closer to Superman than anything in Marvel's arguably more grounded canon, Thor being the exception.

It remains hard to fathom quite how Lantern cost $200m, but then the budgets of many a blockbuster boggle the mind these days. It surely has something to do with the decision to render the super suit entirely in CG, the rationale being that it’s meant to be made of pure energy, rather than spandex. It works for the most part, the suit given a visual flair that could not have been achieved without effects, although the quality of those effects does vary. Unfortunately, too, the film suffers from the now-expected third act meltdown from an origin story. Whether your hero is Iron Man, Hulk, Green Hornet, even Batman, it seems no origin story can sustain a memorable protagonist as well as a villain, leaving the climactic showdown as something of a rushed affair, more of a tease for a sequel than a satisfying payoff. In an extraordinary bout of optimism, WB have already greenlit (no pun intended!) the next adventure, so we may yet see the payoff that is promised.

Release Information
Country: UK / Region: Free / Version: Triple Play Steelbook / Discs: 1 BD, 1 DVD / Distributor: Warner Bros.

Presentation
Image: Colours come through strongly, particularly (you guessed it) green, with some slightly over-pink skin tones, but the prevalent deep shadows mean that the image is none too bright. This 2D Blu-ray transfer handles it with few undue artefacts or similar problems, but we all know a dark image is not great for 3D, so I would expect that release to be one to avoid. Detail and sharpness are pretty good despite an overall digitised look to the film which probably occurred at the intermediate stage; some grain survives intact, but many shots look slightly smoothed over. Still, it remains an overall slick, pleasing transfer.

Sound: This is one of those 'wake the neighbours' tracks, which might be good or bad. It certainly doesn't lack for power or impact but may require some volume riding for more sensitive ears. Surround effects are employed well.

Extras
The typical WB assortment for a new, high profile release, which means: Maximum Movie Mode, a bunch of "Focus Point" featurettes, and a few other goodies. There's also an extended cut, about nine minutes longer, which adds a really quite important sequence of Hal's childhood. The MMM is a bit disappointing, lacking any director walk-ons or moments where the film pauses to dissect a scene. Still, the picture-in-picture segments are continuous and frequent, so it's certainly worthwhile. The Focus Points add up to a pretty thorough 47 minutes, which are supplemented further by an interesting - and illuminating for the uninitiated - 20-minute piece on Green Lantern's comic book history. There are nine minutes apiece on Ryan Reynolds' preparation for the role and a 'digital comic' of the first issue of the recent Justice League series. The deleted scenes are memorable only for the glimpse into what the film looked like before CGI worked its magic.



Summary
Its design and mythology may be an acquired taste, but Green Lantern is an efficient, if structurally conventional, superhero origin movie, with a science fiction backdrop that adds interest and scale. In the superhero movie pantheon, it ranks somewhere near Ang Lee's similarly hued Hulk: an interesting, alternative take, destined to be underrated by many.