Rise - Blood Hunter DVD Review

From the DVD cover -- "Female reporter Sadie Blake (Lucky Liu) wakes up in a morgue to find herself a member fo the undead, the victim of a brutal vampire ritual. Trying desperately to fight off her thirst, Sadie prowls the dark city streets, armed with a crossbow and hell-bent on slaying the twisted vampires that made her this way. With an all-star cast featuring Carla Gugino, Michael Chiklis, and James D'Arcy, prepare for a bloody descent into a terrifying underworld."

Special Features

Behind-the-scenes featurettes

3 storyboard to screen featurettes

Review of Rise: Blood Hunter DVD

I was a tad surprised when I saw the poster for this movie in the local rental video store and could not recall it's theatrical release. I knew that the movie had some big names attached to it, Michael Chiklis, Carla Gugino, and, of course, Lucy Liu. So I rented the movie but with caution and low expectations. To my surprise, it's not that bad. But the straight to DVD release is justified.

The movie began interestingly enough with an already turned-vampire Sadie Blake in an erotic tease with another beautiful woman. We found out that Sadie was just using this woman to find the whereabouts of the vampire leader who turned her into a bloodsucker. And at all times, Sadie was not about to let any harm come upon this woman. From there on, we get a big flashback that took us to the circumstances that led to her becoming a vampire up to the present time.

The idea for "Rise: Blood Hunter" is not new. We've seen this premise in the much more finely tuned "Blade" series. To distinguish this movie from the fast-moving, but thinly-acted, "Blade", Lucy Liu will have to be compelling in her portrayal of a vengeful spirit. Instead, we get someone who's only moving with the tide. She's not believable as an action hero. Her part require someone who can portray hatred of all things vampire, even herself. It just didn't work out that way.

Another disappointment is the under-use of Michael Chiklis of "The Shield" and "Fantastic Four" fame. Chiklis can actually carry a movie given a chance. He played the role of a police officer searching for the killers of his daughter.

If you're a die-hard fan of the vampire genre, you'll be disappointed with this movie. But if you're a fan of Lucy Liu, then this should be one of the handful of movies in your collection.

Renato Aguirre is a contributing writer and producer for Planet Comic Book Radio, a talkshow on everything comic books. He's also the Movie editor for Nuven Magazine

Inception Movie Blu Ray and DVD Preview

Inception was one of 2010's best films, if not the best. This mind bending film from the best cinematic mind-bender in the business, Christopher Nolan, raced up box office charts and critics' reviews, breaking records along the way. Inception is one of those films that is hard to explain to those who hadn't already seen it and also doesn't sit cleanly in any pre-determined genre (is it action/thriller/psychological drama/romance?).

With its engaging action and intricate plot, Inception is sure to be one of the year's biggest sellers on Blu ray and DVD. People who walked out of the theatre often expressed the desire to see it again. Inception warrants repeated viewing to decipher all the visual cues and symbols as well as the smallest details and nuances of character and plot development.

Inception is released on Blu Ray and DVD on the 6th of December in both the US and UK and the sets are ostensibly the same in both countries, though viewers in the UK have the option of a limited edition collectors set with some amazing goodies included - we take a look at what is inside both versions.

The basic version of Inception on Blu Ray and DVD comes with 90 minutes of bonus content featuring director Christopher Nolan and star Leonardo DiCaprio. It also features a motion comic (comic panels animated in Flash with added sound effects) that tells the prequel story of how Cobb, Arthur, and Nash came to be enlisted by Cobol Engineering. Other features include a documentary on dreams as well as trailers, TV spots, conceptual art and promotional art galleries.

It is the limited UK edition that will draw most fans in that country and no doubt from overseas. Although the UK Blu Ray will only play on region-free and Region B players (UK Africa and Australia) the extras will certainly tempt many fans nonetheless. Inside a specially designed silver hard briefcase the limited edition includes the Blu Ray, DVD and Digital copies found on the regular version as well as a User Manual for the PASIV (Portable Automated Somnacin Intra Venous) Device used to send people into dreams in the movie, some movie art-cards and a replica of Cobb's Spinning Top.

Regardless which edition fans eventually go for it is the story that will engage and inspire and is best enjoyed in High Definition Blu Ray.

Inger loves stories and loves to write. As a librarian in a previous life she also has an insatiable thirst for general knowledge. Her latest website looks at the issues surrounding Fair Trade Clothing including places to purchase fair trade jewelry.

How to Train Your Dragon - Movie/DVD Review

"How to Train Your Dragon" is an animated family film that was released in 2010. It is rated PG.

Viking Island

Berk is an island that is settled by a group of Vikings led by Stoick the Vast. His son Hiccup is a slender, inquisitive, and inventive young boy who desires to be a dragon killer like his father. Unfortunately, he is just as clumsy as he is clever, and seems to be a hindrance when it comes to fighting the dragons that often swoop in and steal their livestock.

During a night raid by the dragons Hiccup fires one of his inventions toward an elusive and deadly Night Fury dragon, a type which had never been seen let alone killed. He thinks he has hit the dragon but cannot convince his father. Soon afterward the Vikings set out on their ships to hunt for the dragons' lair, leaving Hiccup to participate in lessons to become a dragon slayer. The other kids are better at fighting the captured dragons, especially Astrid, a pretty blond with a violent streak. Hiccup decides to see if he had actually managed to hit the dragon and finds him trapped in a small canyon, his tail injured. He cannot kill the dragon because of the fear in its eyes, so he lets it go. It threatens him but then takes off into the air. Unfortunately for the Night Fury, its damaged tail prevents it from flying out of the enclosed canyon.

Learning to Fly

Wanting to learn more, Hiccup returns to the dragon and brings him a fish. The dragon turns out to be fairly friendly and they learn about each other. Hiccup learns that dragons fear eels, that scratching them in the right place will tame them, and other useful tidbits of information. He uses this new found knowledge to his advantage in the dragon slaying school, so much in fact that he is deemed the top student, earning the privilege of actually killing a real dragon in front of the entire village. During this time he has managed to create a mechanical wing/fin for the tail of the dragon (whom he names Toothless). He also creates a saddle and steering devices and they learn to fly together. Astrid discovers his after school activities and threatens to tell on him. He grabs her and takes her for a flight. Afterward, she realizes that he cannot betray his dragon friend and agrees to keep his secret. When the time comes for Hiccup to slay a captured dragon he casts down his axe and approaches the dragon. His father thinks he is in danger and jumps into the ring, startling the dragon who then stalks Hiccup. Having sensed that Hiccup was in danger, Toothless manages to find the ring just in time to attack the other dragon, saving Hiccup. However, Stoick and the other Vikings capture Toothless.

The Vikings use Toothless to find the main dragon lair, an island with a large mountain. Once on the island the Vikings find that there is a huge dragon that is hidden away in the mountain. He had forced the other dragons to go out and forage for food to feed him while he stayed safe on the island. The Vikings used catapults to break open the base of the mountain and while the other dragons flew away, the huge one attacked their ships, setting them on fire. When it seemed that all was lost Hiccup and his friends show up mounted on the dragons that they had fought in their lessons. The friends attack the big dragon trying to distract it while Hiccup went to save Toothless who was still tied up on his father's ship. The ship sinks and Hiccup tries to save his dragon but could not, instead his father swims down and cuts the ropes that have him tied down. Together, Toothless and Hiccup join the fight with the big dragon. They lead the dragon high up into the sky and then dive headlong back towards the island. The giant dragon follows them and at just the right moment, as the giant dragon is about to spit fire toward them, Toothless turns back and fires his own blast directly into the dragon's mouth, setting off a huge explosion and killing the dragon.

All is Well, Except for the Limp

Toothless is hurt by the fire and Hiccup gets separated from him and plunges toward the sea. They both hurtle through the flames of the dying giant dragon and the scene cuts to the Vikings on the beach, with Stoick wondering if Hiccup had survived. When the flames clear they find Toothless on the beach with Hiccup safely cradled under one wing. When Hiccup wakes up he finds himself back in his village with Toothless nearby. One problem is that he lost a leg in the fight and the blacksmith had fixed him up with a mechanical replacement. The movie closes with the sight of many dragons being flown by people of the town, with Hiccup saying that other places may be easier to live in but no place else has dragons for pets.

My Recommendation

I enjoyed the film. It was a little deeper than I had expected, between the coming of age of Hiccup and his friends and the boy/dragon relationship that evolves. I did not have a chance to see this one in 3D but the standard DVD version was fine. The animation was very good and the plot was based on a popular series of books.

I recommend that you watch it. It is not really designed for young children below 6 years old, but older than that should get a kick out of the flying and fighting sequences. The story itself may be a little mature for those less than ten or so but even so, they will like the thought of having a dragon for a pet. I know I did. If only I didn't have to catch one myself...

For real recommendations on movies you would like to see, check out Movie Crasher - Movie/DVD Reviews today. Howard is a movie fanatic and enjoys watching action movies, romantic comedies, comedies, family movies, and holiday movies. Look for more animated movie reviews on his site. You can also see film photos on his original movie review of "How to Train Your Dragon".

DVD Review - Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four is an exciting movie. With great special effects and loyalty to the comic book, this is an awesome film for all of the old Fantastic Four fans as well as today's new generation of fans.

The movie is centered around the effects caused by an experiment aboard an orbiting satellite owned by Victor Doom (Julian McMahon). The four scientists Dr. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), Susan Storm (Jessica Alba) and Johnny Storm (Chris Evans) become exposed to an intense radiation storm while aboard the space station and develop superhuman powers. Reed Richards gets the ability to stretch his body. Sue Storm can becomes invisible and generate force fields. Johnny Storm is able to withstand and control fire. Ben Grimm later turns into a "thing" of solid rock and becomes incredibly strong!

Together, this "Fantastic Four", so named by a crowd of people that see what they can do, while trying to reverse their powers eventually detect and realize that they must stop the evil plans of Victor Doom, a billionaire businessman. He later becomes Dr. Doom as his body also changes from the radiation he was exposed to aboard his own space station. His body slowly turns into a super strong metal alloy that gives him the ability to absorb and control electricity.

In the beginning the movie, Dr. Richards approaches Victor Doom with a business proposition involving research on genetics and finding a cure for a wide variety of diseases. They agree to use Doom's orbiting space station to observe a unique space storm that contains the building blocks of life. Everything seems routine until the storm picks up speed and hits the station far ahead of schedule.

Caught completely by surprise, everyone on the space station is affected, though none of them are aware of it...until the genetic changes begin to happen.

That is when everything starts getting complicated. Sue Storm and Dr. Reed Richards become united in finding a cure for their "special powers", but in the process have to get past their personal conflict with each other. Once in love, they had a painful end to their relationship. Suddenly reunited by fate, they now try to be professional with each other in order to figure out a way to change themselves back the way they used to be.

Ben Grimm, who suffers the most when his total appearance is altered into a walking huge hulk of living rocks. Even though he has a heart of gold, his girlfriend rejects him immediately, frightened by reason of his new body. Ben Grimm even endures more humiliation when the press spreads the name "The Thing" given to him by Johnny Storm in a press interview. It turns out he cannot even use an elevator because his weight exceeds the limit of what elevators can handle, over two thousand pounds.

The movie grows more intense as Doom grows in his abilities and ambitions for power. Like his personality, he remains cold to human suffering, caring only for what he can use and control. Soon, the Fantastic Four challenged by Doom and forced into trying to stop him from killing and destroying millions of innocent people.

"Fantastic Four" is rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and suggestive content.

Tom Straub is a successful author, and webmaster of the www.Bonanzle.com/GameCenter web site, where you can see more of your favorite classics, musicals, mysteries, science fiction and young children DVD releases.

Better This World

Chris Barsanti has been a Filmcritic reviewer since 2002. So there.The F.B.I. spends a lot of time and resources hunting down dangerous criminals and devious terrorists. It also exerts a lot of effort in the pursuit and prosecution of kids like David McKay and Brad Crowder, the so-called "Texas Two" who took a few wrong turns and ended up the main attractions of a three-ring circus of entrapment, paranoia, and dubious motives. How it all came about is a curious and occasionally sickening sight. Documentarians Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega take the story of a how a seemingly hapless pair of activists stumbled into the harsh spotlight of the American security establishment and turn it into an oblique indictment of a society in which fear trumps all.

McKay and Crowder were a couple of pleasant-seeming 22-year-olds from Midland, Texas who actually just wanted to make a world better than the one they were faced with during the presidency of George W. Bush. Like so many activists before them, they weren't exactly sure how to go about doing this and appeared to be somewhat adrift in the movement before they came across Brandon Darby. A dark and intense guy ten years their senior, Darby was everything a young activist might look up to. He helped run a social-work collective in New Orleans, and had saved people from post-Katrina flooding. Wielding a guerrilla's dash and flair, Darby bonded with McKay and Crowder but also challenged them to ratchet up their level of protest activities. A combination of cool older brother and street-lefty drill instructor, Darby egged them on to more serious actions.

Unfortunately, Darby turned out to have been a classic agent provocateur, there not just to push the budding activists into taking unlikely and extreme actions but also to ensure that they will eventually go to jail for it. He is also the encapsulation of the film's moral crux: no matter what McKay and Crowder intended to do once they arrived at the 2008 Republican Convention in St. Paul, they didn't appear to go through with it. But that point seems irrelevant in the cold and creepy world of post-9/11 security-state paranoia which Better This World summons all too vividly.

The filmmakers come out of the TV-journalistic side of documentary filmmaking and so weave strands of smartly-handled interviews with the principals throughout the film. Besides getting the story from the arrestees themselves and their (understandably baffled) family, Galloway and de la Vega also loop in several representatives of the prosecutorial team, who talk about the case with admirable dispassion. The result is mostly even-handed and non-confrontational, noting the Orwellian atmosphere of conviction without action but not playing just for sympathy. Undercoating the narrative is an unsettling sense of the modern surveillance society, seeded as the film is with ambient streams of surveillance footage from the streets of St. Paul, where the stormtrooper-attired police seemed to outnumber the protestors. Against their dark, serried ranks, a gaggle of masked protestors seem comically outmatched.

What this searching and provocative film creates is less a case of highwire drama than a punishing stumble into a looking-glass world where criminals are made so that they can be undone and the high, humane ideals of utterly decent people become nothing more than fuel for their downfall.

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The Last Circus

Visceral anger isn't often communicated very well in film. The tendency is to put the rabid puppy on a leash in hopes of averting alienation and discomfort, which are hardly the easiest emotional reactions to see the benefit in. To be perfectly frank, most movies that come from true outrage tend to come off as biased, cloyingly self-righteous, and political in the worst sense of the word, leading one to not only lose faith in the filmmaker but also in issues that deserve contemplation, action, and, yes, anger. The difference between a film being in your face or "in your face" is the difference between a rattlesnake and a lemon, and a film such as Alex de la Iglesia's The Last Circus is perhaps most interesting when considering where an artist's rightful fury contaminates, distorts, and ultimately degrades his formal abilities or, perhaps, highlights the limits of said abilities.

This isn't to say that dissent is a new criterion for de la Iglesia, who is perhaps most well-known in the states for The Day of the Beast, which saw a priest attempting to gain the favor of Satan through a series of increasingly debauched acts in the service of ultimately killing the Anti-Christ. No less jarring in its conception, The Last Circus opens as a clown is drafted to fight for the rebellion in Franco's Spain, subsequently tearing through a battalion of soldiers with a machete in full regalia before his inevitable capture. He is later killed by one of Franco's head honchos, Salcedo (Sancho Gracia), during a daring escape staged by the clown's son, Javier, who already has plans of following in his father's oversized footsteps. A few decades later, Franco's regime is in severe decline and pudgy, side-burned Javier (Carlos Areces) has landed a not-so-sweet gig as the Sad Clown for the eponymous show, working under the Happy Clown, Sergio (Antonio de la Torre).

An egomaniacal boozer with his clown shoe pressed firmly to the ringmaster's throat, Sergio is Franco in miniature, ruling over his colleagues with his frequent, ultra-violent tantrums. Not even his lover, Natalia (Carolina Bang), is safe from his savage beatings, but, as she explains, she is addicted to his wild, carnal nature; their fights tend to be followed by feral fuck sessions, sometimes in public. But Natalia also falls hard for Javier's boldness and his lack of fear in regard to Sergio, who attempts to instill said fear with a ferocious once-over at a local carnival that leaves Javier with an aching back and a further twisted psyche. Javier answers back by bludgeoning and severely disfiguring Sergio, mid-coitus, and on goes the war between charismatic tyranny and impassioned rebellion, reaching a fever pitch when Javier deforms his own face with acid and a hot iron before embarking on a shooting spree.

De la Iglesia imparts a genuine sense of madness to the proceedings, which is deeply seductive in its willingness to toss itself into the void. But it comes at the cost of clarity, both in terms of storytelling and technical form. Working from his own script, the director seizes upon a grotesque atmosphere of gaudy embellishments, matched by grandiose set-pieces and unsettling quakes of barbarity. It is then somewhat understandable that once Javier and Sergio's visages truly mirror their mangled, monstrous insides, the narrative itself begins to come apart at the seams. At the same time, however, de la Iglesia loses control and the film's tone and pacing begin to feel like erratic fits. Save for an engaging chase between Sergio and Natalia from her Kojak-themed nightclub, the action in the film's final third is deployed sloppily and the film's urgency begins to feel more like hurrying towards its near-operatic end.

By the end, the whole mess feels only marginally effective in its political subtext but you can feel de la Iglesia's wild heart thumping like mad underneath the grimy veneer of Madrid, which appears as a charred husk after innumerable bombings and terrorist attacks. Casting the ruthless Sergio as Franco's proxy is expectedly vicious but Javier, as the brooding face of the rebellion that explodes into a scarred atrocity, is hardly more sympathetic by the film's climax in a church filled with the bones of dead rebels.

There are moments of great, caustic humor and delirious melodrama throughout The Last Circus. But as a whole, the film lacks the consistency, sorrow, and tremendous imagination of Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, which it has been somewhat unjustly compared to. Del Toro's magnificent fable focused almost completely on how imagination and invention serve as reactants to personal and political trauma, at once shielding us and betraying us. In contrast, The Last Circus deals more closely with memory, how we revert to and pervert learned ideals of innocence and entertainment, making them essentially hideous. De la Iglesia's unwillingness to reconcile his passion for his country's cruel heritage is effective in spurts, but it's all too familiar of tragic Javier, whose inability to come fully to terms with his past births a horror.     

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The Whistleblower

An exposé of rampant corporate corruption in military affairs, The Whistleblower arrives in theatres stamped with a self-important seal of approval. The issue-film begins with a cautionary prologue. Rebellious Ukrainian teenager Raya (Roxana Condurache) arrives home late one night from a party and bickers with her single-parent mother. With a friend by her side, Raya subsequently acquires a false passport, and in a flash, her fate is determined. Debut director and Balkan tour guide Larysa Kondracki sets forth our introductory excursion into the low-life of underground sex-slave trafficking.

Meanwhile Nebraskan police officer and caring, albeit distracted, and divorced mother Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) struggles to pay the bills. Offered a drastic increase in salary, Kathryn leaves her rural post for a United Nations-contracted, privately-owned "peacekeeping" corporation occupying postwar Bosnia. She travels halfway across the world only to discover that outside the cornfields of America systemic female subjugation is still as prevalent as ever (and even propagated by United Nations employees).

After raiding a brothel, Kathryn watches local forces handcuff the formidable owners as they are quickly whisked away into motorcars and re-routed to unidentified locations. Enjoying a new promotion, she does not make much of an effort to apprehend and charge the traffickers under international law, naively assuming no foul play. However the bewildered Kathryn, driven by punctilious suspicion and professionalism, scours the brothel's backrooms, flashlight in hand. The place is replete with infested cots, rusted manacles, and mounds of used condoms. Kathryn recognizes colleagues gloating in perverse pictures plastered on the walls, orgiastic male "humanitarians" forcibly enacting communal rape and branding.

The Whistleblower has the inherent potency of a top-notch political conspiracy thriller. Kathryn is cornered in an international web of crooked policy and corporate corruption. Placing her job, diplomatic standing, and life on the line for the sake of 'serving and protecting' the disenfranchised, Kathryn confides in Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave), the head of the Women's Rights and Gender Unit. Rees introduces Kathryn to Internal Affairs officer Peter Ward, the always adept (but in this case underused) David Strathairn. Whenever Strathairn and Redgrave share the frame with Weisz, we are treated to a Master Class in acting; and for this reason alone, The Whistleblower may fleetingly be worth your time.

Crosscutting Kathryn and Raya throughout, the film is at its most riveting when Kathryn makes a last attempt to save the blonde Ukrainian teenager from the threshold of her captors. In a raid spearheaded by the tenacious protagonist, petrified Raya is literally caught between choosing her muckraking savior and brainwashing enslaver. In protestation Karthryn shrieks, "Don't look at him!" And a torn Raya, nearly catatonic, must choose. The finely directed climax captures the psychologically twisted shackles under which these victimized girls live: entrapped by fear, inferiority, and resignation.

Director Larysa Kondracki nevertheless proves to be a novice screenwriter, right down to her all-too-revealing title. An accidental and poorly constructed fait accompli, the film's title diminishes and ultimately nullifies the narrative's suspense. Instead of treating us to a paranoid thriller about the blowback of 'crying wolf,' Kondracki presents a by-the-numbers procedural. The peril lies in whether Karthryn's courage can surmount the dangers of military corruption; or will she wind up discarded like the film's unfortunate chattels? The movie's title unfortunately reveals all.

In a recent interview, the real Karthryn Bolkovac divulged that her most debilitating paranoia occurred once she was stripped of diplomatic immunity, shipped to United Kingdom authorities, and had to await the outcome of her whistle-blowing tribunal. Family and friends feared for her safety. Eventually Kathryn won her voice, and her employer dropped its appeal (only to gain new contracts in Iraq), evidence that Kathryn's story is an illuminating treatise on the parasitic relationship between governing bodies and corporate contractors. Yet the film ends before we are treated to the revelatory hypocrisy, and Kathryn's Bosnian travails, which feel neither urgent nor unknown, are left to satisfy. The Whistleblower disappointingly labors as a rudimentary treatment on the underworld of sex-trafficking, and even more so, as a purported piece of suspense storytelling.

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