Hollywood, Hobbs, horror and HBO
Make it a summer of blue skies and Blurays, writes Philip Wakefield.
Amid all the summer blockbusters vying for your attention, don’t overlook this exciting, suspenseful B-grade thriller. Taut and thoughtful, and boasting a surprisingly restrained Nicolas Cage as a drug cartel lackey, it painstakingly chronicles cocaine’s tortuous and lethal route from a Colombian crop to a corrupted staple of US consumerism worth 30 times as much.
Cage is part of a heavyweight ensemble that includes Laurence Fishburne and Barry Pepper but the real star is writer/director Jason Cabell: the ex-Navy SEAL made his filmmaking debut with this Sicario variation that isn’t as ambitious but is no less compelling and provocative. There aren’t extras but the transfer is exemplary.
The final season of HBO’s epic George RR Martin adaptation may not have satisfied all devotees but it was still an heroic attempt to conclude the sprawling saga of the Seven Kingdoms.
Whatever the creative shortcomings, the Blu-ray box set is another outstanding example of the format’s superiority to broadcast or streaming media. The triple-disc compilation teems with extras, including 10 commentaries, invaluable in-episode guides, and documentaries about the making of the series finale. Moreover, there’s the chance to see in its full cinematographic glory the controversial episode The Long Night, which still isn’t clear as day but is much sharper than Sky’s compressed broadcast.
In the third instalment of the Fallen franchise, an assassination conspiracy lands the President (Morgan Freeman) in a coma and frames Gerard Butler’s Secret Service agent as the culprit. While it’s flimsy and far-fetched, the hero-goesrogue premise does allow him to reconcile with his estranged survivalist father (Nick Nolte), who leavens the high-stakes gung-ho action with amusing curmudgeonly banter.
The NZ Blu-ray misses out on Dolby Atmos but picture quality is excellent while the extras cover casting, stunts, production design, and how European locations stood in for Washington DC.
The first spin-off from the F&F franchise is a high-octane, lowbrow bromance that teams arch rival Dwayne Johnson (lawman) and Jason Statham (outlaw) in a race against time to stop Idris Elba (uber-villain) from unleashing bioterrorism on the world. The overlong, over-the-top tick-tock plot clocks in at two-and-a-quarter hours but action diehards will relish every wisecracking, bone-crunching, gun-blasting, carcrashing second.
Everyone else will find the machismo overkill gruelling and juvenile, although the 4K-UHD audio and video are stunning. The extras are in 4K, too, and include a director’s commentary and a whopping 45 minutes of deleted/ extended footage.
A visit by King George V and Queen Mary throws the Crawley household, upstairs and down, into turmoil in this sumptuous big-screen sequel to the series set a year or so after the final season ended. Happily, it’s more than just an overblown episode of the TV series, with everything, from the storytelling to the cinematography, aspiring to a higher level while retaining the comfortable fireside familiarity of the original.
A bigger budget allows for more visual extravagance and Highclere Castle, the country house in which Downton Abbey was filmed, is breathtakingly showcased. There’s halfan-hour of extras as well as a director’s commentary.
Not even a grotesquely unhinged final act can stop this from being Quentin Tarantino’s finest movie yet. Anyone who grew up on ‘60s TV will love his exhilarating evocation of the era, his exacting attention to Tinseltown minutiae and his inspired twist on the Manson family murders.
Add the dynamic duo of Leo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as fading showbiz buds, Margot Robbie’s blissful take on Sharon Tate, and a signature soundtrack, and you have more than two hours of utterly spellbinding and sophisticated cinema – until Tarantino goes beserk with the trademark violence that tarnishes his geeky genius.
The 25 minutes of deleted scenes notwithstanding, the movie demands beefier extras than the fascinating but fleeting insights into ‘60s LA, cars, fashions and dawning of the New Hollywood.
The television event of 2019 also deserves better on Blu-ray. Video and audio specs are fine but the lack of substantial extras about the making of this HBO benchmark is a travesty. Each of the five shorts is more like an HBO promotion for the show rather than an insight into how the 1986 nuclear power plant meltdown was dramatised. A historic perspective would have been appreciated, too, although the series, despite its liberties, exudes more than enough authority and authenticity to rival any documentary. TV drama doesn’t get more gripping, terrifying or truthful than this.
This remarkable documentary about the first manned space mission to the moon also comes up short on disc. The sole extra is a 90-second description of how the filmmakers found the 65mm footage that helps to make Apollo 11 so amazingly cinematic. After 50 years of grainy black-and-white footage, it’s a startling revelation to see in highdefinition colour the preparations for and witnessing of the historic lift off. Talk about a giant leap in quality. Indeed, so good is most of the archival footage that you wish Apollo 11 had been released here on 4K-UHD as it has been in the US and UK.
Brad Pitt shines as an astronaut on a meditative Interstellarlike odyssey to Neptune that includes discovering what happened to his lostin-space father (Tommy Lee Jones). While more ponderous than profound, for the most part Ad Astra is spectacular, cerebral sci-fi, especially if you view it in 4K-UHD with its stellar visuals and Dolby Atmos audio. But 4K-UHD buyers pay a premium for the privilege of the higher resolution: the only bonus is a director’s commentary whereas the cheaper Blu-ray release boasts an hour of extras.
This is a smart and funny Amazon Studios comedy about a conceited late-night talk show host (Emma Thompson) who’s about to lose her gig after 10 years – unless the first woman to join her boys’ club writing team (Mandy Kaling) can improve her ratings, relevance and likability. Late Night is better than most inside-showbiz comedies, thanks to its sharp wit, the leads’ terrific chemistry and a solid ensemble that includes John Lithgow and Hugh Dancy.
The extras are rudimentary but at least Late Night is on Blu-ray whereas it’s DVD-only in the UK and only can be streamed in the US.
At 169 minutes, this sequel is half-an-hour longer than the original. That’s too long for any horror film, even one that has pretensions of being a pensive reflection on childhood friendship and fears. The result is a movie that lumbers along from one extravagant setpiece to another, building impatience and boredom rather than suspense or dread. At least Chapter Two looks sublime on Blu-ray, thanks to the picture quality being maximised by not having to share disc space with extras (aside from the director’s commentary). They’re reserved for the second disc, which comprises two documentaries and three making-of shorts.
This overwrought, overlong Wicker Man-like horror film is even more of an endurance test than It 2. So needlessly prolonged is the 170-minute narrative that you can see why 20 minutes were cut for the theatrical release. Writer/ director Ari Aster (Hereditary) establishes a sinister tone and bravely subverts genre expectations but the glacial pacing, endless absurdities and indulgent characters take their toll. The sole extra is a making-of half-hour.
The best of Disney’s live-action re-makes is a rollicking tourde-force of humour, excitement, music, romance and jaw-dropping CGI. The photorealism rivals David Attenborough at his best and this touching tale of an exiled lion club born to be king has been subtly updated without losing the magic of the 1992 original.
Both the 4K-UHD and Blu-ray transfers astound with their richness of colour, light and clarity while the princely Blu-ray extras include a director’s commentary, making-of hour, sing-along lyrics, instant song selection and the evolution of three key scenes.
Say hello to Tony ‘‘Scarface’’ Montana in ultra-high definition. This is a mostly impressive 4K transfer of the 1983 controversial gangster sensation notorious for its chainsaw massacre scene. It starred Al Pacino as a Cuban drug-dealer in screenwriter Oliver Stone’s update of the 1932 Paul Muni classic. The movie’s never looked better on disc and combines previous editions’ extras (in standard definition) with a 35th anniversary reunion of its director and stars.