Tuesday 11 December 2012

The Good, the Bad and the Blu-rays

You wouldn't think there's only two weeks of Christmas shopping left, as this may be the sparsest week for new releases in recent memory.

The biggest film for grown-ups this week by default, The Expendables 2 arrives on Blu-ray, complete with its mega-cast of action movie icons. The first film had its fans, but also had some serious narrative flaws. Now that Stallone has relinquished control of the director's chair (passing the duties over to Con Air director Simon West), he hopefully spent more time writing characters who aren't just one-dimensional meatheads and Jason Statham being Jason Statham. Of course, this time around there's a whole new bunch of jaded action stars joining the team (I still don't get why the addition of Chuck Norris was such a highly publicised thing, but then I've never been a fan of his work and/or beard), with the bulked up roles for Willis and in particular Schwarzenegger an interesting prospect for fans of '80s action movies.

For the kids out there we have the fourth in the series of Ice Age films, this time adopting a pirate motif more than a decade after Johnny Depp re-popularised it. At this point in time I'm completely lost with the Ice Age franchise. I know it's for children, but first they had a film with dinosaurs in it set AFTER the arrival of humans and now that they've abandoned land they seem to have also abandoned any sense. Kids will love it, but picky 30-something film snobs with a demand for accuracy in a children's film with talking animals in it... notsomuch.

The ITV2 phenomenon that is Keith Lemon has largely been lost on me, what with me being a fan of actual comedy and not just a relentless parade of catchphrases delivered by a bleach blonde pleb. Don't even try and tell me that it's meant to be satirical; the overwhelming popularity of Lemon makes me weep for humanity. Thankfully, most audiences decided that a cinema screen was no place for Lemon and stayed away en masse, so maybe the tide is finally turning. Released on Blu-ray as the 18 certificate "Juicy Edition", the best thing I can say about this uncut version is that it's actually 3 and a half minutes shorter than the version released into cinemas, meaning that if you do decide to buy it you can spend more time looking at yourself in the mirror afterwards, thinking about what you've done.

At this point I'd normally include the film's trailer, but I really don't want to. It's better if you read The Shiznit's summation of the whole thing here.



1 comment:

  1. Actually, in ICE AGE 3, the dinosaurs have been trapped under ground for years.

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