DVD: John Dies At The End (dir: Don Coscarelli, 2013)

REVIEW No. 450!

"Hey, a story's a story...."

Any viewer not familiar with John Dies.... may well be perplexed by director Coscarelli's drug-fuelled fantasy-horror which stylistically hearkens all the way back to his Phantasm series with its fractured narrative and alternate dimensions, complete with all its nods to Cronenberg, Lynch and early Raimi.  What starts off as a fairly straight and surprisingly effective adaptation of David Wong's enjoyably bizarre novel becomes progressively less reliant on the source material, sacrificing much character depth and the narrative scope of the novel along the way.  Chase Williamson is a good fit for the character of Dave, and in its own right the film handles a lot of interesting ideas reasonably well, and whilst the end result is not entirely successful, it is good to see Don Coscarelli's imagination back on screen and he was ultimately probably one of the most apt directors to tackle this peculiar material.

FILM: The Lego Movie 3D (dirs: Phil Lord and Chris Miller, 2014)

"Everything is awesome..."

The Lego Movie is the most wonderful slice of bonkers to grace cinema screens in a very long time.  The frantic pace, the eye-popping colourful detail and the relentless onslaught of verbal and visual gags at times feels almost overwhelming, but if you are not completely hooked by the end of the opening salvo of Emmet's morning routine then there is little joy in your life.  The directors' Cloudy With A Chance... collides with A Town Called Panic to create unexpected boundless manic joy and some real heart with a ridiculously high hit-rate of creative ideas and invention (including mad movie references such as Twister, Akira, The Matrix Revolutions and Independence Day, and is not afraid to use 2 Unlimited on the soundtrack with a killer deadpan joke attached).  The comedy genius that is Chris Pratt suffuses the film with terrific energy as the lead character, giving one of the best voice-over performances in modern animation, and the always-recognisable Morgan Freeman has an enormous amount of fun as the Obi-Wan figure. This is a truly cross-generational movie that virtually sidesteps the whole notion of the ultimate in product placement to focus on the very fundamental notions of play, imagination and discovering self-value, bringing together toys and the movies in a hugely entertaining manner.

FILM: Robocop (dir: José Padilha, 2014)

"Well, this should be interesting."

The makers of this 2014 version of Robocop have gone out of their way to take a different angle on the familiar themes and material, to the extent that it really should not be compared with the original film.  For the most part, Verhoeven's sharp satire, comedy and uber-violence have been replaced by what is essentially a police thriller with the man-in-a-robo-suit concept tagged on, and what it lacks in crowd-pleasing bombast (the lawyer getting blasted, a convincing baddie, McCrane's toxic waste squelch) is made up for by ramping up the 'human' drama - a Borg Queen-style disassembly sequence and Robo being reunited with his family come closest.  Padilha clearly knows how to stage a shoot-out, and performances come to the rescue frequently: Kinnaman is satisfactory (and improving as an actor), but Oldman, Jackson, Cornish and especially Keaton are all fine.  There are niggles aplenty: Basil Poledouris's wonderful iconic music occasionally intrudes and feels misplaced in an otherwise generic score, the effects are well done (sorry Phil Tippett, the ED-209s are great if underused here) if occasionally having the matt unreality sheen of The Phantom Menace, and Murphy apparently suffers 'fourth degree burns over 80% of his body' although his clothes evade any evidence of this.  The political (local, national and global) concerns make Robocop 2014 feel very contemporary, and it is certainly better than the nasty 2 and the deplorable 3, but 'effective' does not quite feel like enough here.

DVD: Odd Thomas (dir: Stephen Sommers, 2013)

"Livin' up to his name."
"Every damn day...."

This unexpected little gem punches way above its weight as it limps out on DVD in the UK.  Adapted from Dean Koontz's novel, the biggest surprise is the smart and witty screenplay and the tight and zippy direction by Stephen Sommers, whose track record in both areas is patchy to say the least.  Venturing into narrative territory usually reserved for TV fare such as Reaper and Supernatural, with production values only marginally higher, this well-told tale constantly brings new ideas and inventiveness for the whole of the running time, with strong set-pieces and a remarkably affecting ending.  With ease, Anton Yelchin carries the film successfully with bucketloads of charm and conviction.  Odd Thomas comfortably sits with other cult fantasy favourites such as Zombieland and Tremors with its instantly endearing characters and Whedon-esque banter.