DVD REVIEWS
MAPS TO THE STARS In his first film to aim a direct lens at Hollywood, David Cronenberg pans satiric gold from the muck of celebrity ills, in a Tinseltown where reality depends on your dosage.
Drawn from a scathing script by Bruce Wagner, an ex-limo driver (possibly the inspiration for Robert Pattinson’s chauffeur character), the film focuses on two households: one led by a self-help guru (John Cusack); the other by a desperate actress (Julianne Moore, who won Best Actress at Cannes). They’re drawn fatefully together by the machinations of an intense visitor (Mia Wasikowska), who likes to play with fire.
There’s also a star-making turn by young actor Evan Bird, who plays a child actor so obnoxious, it’s a wonder he wasn’t strangled in his cradle.
Extras include a screenwriter’s commentary, plus cast and crew interviews.
TAKEN 3 Taken 3 is such a blatant paycheque gig for Liam Neeson, you almost expect him to stop midway through the movie to deposit his loot into an ATM.
Instead, he careers around Los Angeles, vainly trying to maintain velocity in an action-thriller franchise that was already wheezing to a halt with Taken 2, which was set in Istanbul.
That was back when the title actually made sense. In Taken 2, as in the surprise-hit 2008 original Taken, set in Paris, Neeson’s ex-CIA guy Bryan Mills employed his “particular set of skills” to rescue family members from badass foreign kidnappers. The family-snatch angle is little more than an after-thought this time — maybe they should have called it Mistaken?
Extras include a deleted scene and making-of featurettes. Reviews by Peter Howell