Category: Home Video

It looks like this week I am just reviewing things that The Paladin has already talked about, but so be it.  For Christmas I got the Blu-Ray of The Edge of Tomorrow, and after watching it, I am quite happy to have it in my collection.  This movie had several things against it: people think Tom Cruise is crazy, Cruise just released a not so great Sci-Fi flick a year ago, and the marketing people had no idea what to call this movie.  They still don’t.  My Blu-Ray case clearly says, “Live, Die, Repeat!” on it, and I had to look pretty hard to find Edge of Tomorrow.  It is a shame because this movie deserved to be successful.

By now everyone has heard the concept, it is a Sci-Fi action Groundhog Day where instead of wooing a woman, William Cage (Tom Cruise) learns how to fight alien squid.  He gets trained by the joint military’s best fighter Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt).  She also had this happen to her.  Which is probably why she is so good at killing alien squid herself.

The writer of the light novel Hiroshi Sakurazaka said he got the idea from video games where the player gets better every time they die because they learn the layout and enemy locations.  He also admitted that he was a big fan of Groundhog Day, so the story kind of wrote itself.  I have to say that since I am a fan of video games and Groundhog Day that this movie really worked for me.

I liked the fact that Emily Blunt didn’t need Tom Cruise to save her.  It was in fact the other way around.  I liked that the aliens, while being squid, weren’t overused or over designed.  I also liked that the action felt real and grounded.  It wasn’t just a bunch of random impossible stuff.  It all just worked so well.  This movie even made me like Tom Cruise again, which is something that I didn’t think could happen.

Edge of Tomorrow was a very good movie, and one that a lot of people missed for various reason, but now that it is on home video, I hope that it gets a chance to find a larger audience because it really deserves one.  Support good Sci-Fi and watch this movie.

The Wind Rises the 2013 film by Studio Ghibli, and the last feature length film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, is a hard film to review for me.  It was long and confusing, and as a biopic almost all of it was made up, but still it was lush and beautiful.  It is the type of film that reminds us just what hand animation is capable of.

The film follows Jiro Horikoshi (Hideaki Anno, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) on his journey to build beautiful planes.  His life is consumed by his dream, it is all he wants to do.  Though his dream is cursed, and his magnificent creations will one day fight a war that will destroy his nation, but still it is a dream he cannot put aside.

For the most part I don’t mind it when movie studios twist the truth a little bit for a biographical film.  It is an entertainment medium after all, but in this case other than the fact the Jiro creates planes, none of the film was true, so that was a bit disappointing for me.  Still it did get me to look in to his life, and without this movie I never would have done that otherwise.  Also because of all the dream sequences and time jumps it can be a little hard to follow, but the dreams featuring fellow plane designer Giovanni Battista Caproni (Nomura Mansai, Stanley Tucci) were by far the best parts of the film, so I guess I can’t be too upset.

The main selling point for this film is the amazing artwork.  It is like watching a moving painting.  Any time I got frustrated with the slow pace, or the slightly wonky story, I was always captivated by the art.  Miyazaki always creates a version of the Japanese countryside that I long to visit.  In the words of Liz Lemon, “I want to go to there!”  I am not sure that part of Japan even exists anymore, but Miyazaki has brought it to life for me anyway.

The cast, as is usual for a Studio Ghibli film, is staller.  They got Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, and William H. Macy just to name a few.  Due to the tone of this movie they all give subdued performances, but it is nice when a film like this gets a great cast to bring it to life.

The Wind Rises is not a perfect movie, but it was a movie I enjoyed anyway.  I would have liked for Hayao Miyazaki to go out with a bang, but instead it was a light touching movie, and since that is what he is known for, maybe that was for the best.  This movie invites you to dream with Jiro Horikoshi, and it is a beautiful dream at that.

The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty released by New Line Cinema and distributed by 20th Century Fox is the type of movie that I hate to review.  Not because it is bad, no I like to review bad movies, they let me vent and be witty and whatnot, no The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty is completely bland and forgettable, and a waste of talent.

Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) has the kind of cool job of archiving and taking care of all the photographs for Time Magazine, but when a special photo by famed photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) comes in, Mitty can’t find it.  To make matters worse this photo is supposed to be the cover of the last issue of the Magazine.  Will this be what it takes for Mitty to go off on the adventure he has always dreamed of?  You know it will.

Everything about this movie is predictable.  You know every move before it happens.  The “twist” you see coming a mile away.  It is just a bore, and what is worse they had some opportunities for some laughs, but instead they decided to make this movie heartwarming, so they let them fall by the wayside.  The problem is that it isn’t really that heartwarming either.  Sure it has a friendly feel, but you never care that much about any of the characters.

The fact that this movie stars Kristen Wiig, who can be outrageously funny, and she does nothing in this film is a crime.  Her character is a random void.  We have no idea why Mitty is so smitten with her.  Her son played by Marcus Antturi is in the movie for like five minutes and has more to do than Wiig.  Stiller who is always likable, comes off as likable, but we never get invested in him.  He is just that likable guy running around on screen.  Why get good people to be in your movie if they have nothing to do?

The only thing this movie succeeded at was convincing me that I need to visit Iceland.  The movie looks great, and if it was someone’s travel log it would have been fine.  This was Stiller’s first big gig as a director, and it looks like he got the cinematography down, but he forgot to inject any life in to the characters.  So if you haven’t guessed by now, I don’t think you should investigate the Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, but if you do, at least you will forget it almost as soon as you watch it.