September DVD Round-Up!

We don't seem to have got through as many films this month as usual, which I think is mostly due to the large amount of TV shows (both rented and timeshifted) we've been catching up on. Anyhow, this months selection were:

R.E.D. As a film that, when it dropped through the letterbox, I thought 'I don't remember adding that to our list', I guess my expectations weren't that high. Yes, from the comic by Warren Ellis, and a great looking cast, but it sort of passed me by at the cinema and I went into it pretty cold. And y'know? its pretty damn good. Visually it wears it's comic book roots on it's sleeve, with some great direction, and the performances from the leads are pretty much what you'd expect as a group of retired, highly-trained killers pulled out of retirement by some old conspiracy returning to haunt them. A bit like the previous months The Losers, it's a fairly lightweight, over-the-top actioner held up by being dead in key with what it is.

Rango. I always suspect that drugs are involved in the creative process and Rango would be right up there as case for the prosecution. A Johnny Depp voiced chameleon ends up stranded in the desert saving a border town of miscellaneous animals from a pretty routine western plot, with an odd, dream-logic structure, and the occasional moment of surreal genius, most notably a rattlesnake with a tail made of six-shooter cylinders or gophers riding bats armed with gatling guns. Unfortunately it seems to fall between wanting to be a kids film and wanting to be clever and knowing; the great problem of almost any animated fare that isn't made by Pixar, it seems. I enjoyed it in places, sure, but can't shake the feeling that something is missing.

The Incredible Hulk. So, the second attempt to make a movie from the Hulk and I'm now starting to think that true success will ever elude Hollywood. Overall a less brave, and therefore more successful attempt than Ang Lee's attempt it plays more conventionally and does some nice work, especially in the opening, Latin American section and it's culminating chase/fight sequence. The problem, as ever, is that when Hulk steps out of the shadows theres not a lot too him; "Hulk Smash" and all that and it's all a bit loud and stupid, with all earlier subtlety lost. Again, fun, but slightly lacking.