This week on home video, we’ve got a blockbuster action sequel, another dystopian young adult novel adaptation, and a would-be first installment in a spy franchise starring Pierce Brosnan (no, not that franchise). Then, we’ve got a few smaller films, including a rom-com with Daniel Radcliffe and a couple of holiday comedies, as well as two choices from the Criterion Collection. Read on for details:
Both the first and second Expendables were quite profitable, and according to critics, the second one even improved upon the first. The Expendables 3 didn’t make as much money or impress as many people, though. This time around, Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) recruits a younger crew to apprehend an Expendables founder-turned-arms dealer (Mel Gibson), but when they’re captured during the operation, he must enlist the services of the disbanded veteran Expendables to free them. Harrison Ford, Kelsey Grammer, and Antonio Banderas join Kellan Lutz and a few other athletic young stars, but critics found this installment least exciting of all, especially considering all the talent involved. The announced Expendables 4 and 5 will give them a couple more chances to get it right, though, and failing that, there’s always the female-driven Expendabelles.
Despite the fact that The Giver was based on a popular, award-winning dystopian young adult novel, helmed by a veteran director (Phillip Noyce), and populated by no less than two celebrated Academy Award-winning actors (Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges), the film underperformed quite dramatically. The story revolves around a seemingly utopian community devoid of emotion and all knowledge of the past, save for one individual — the Receiver of Memory — whose responsibility it is to help his society avoid repeating historical mistakes. When a young man is chosen as the next Receiver, he decides everyone should have the same knowledge. While critics gave The Giver credit for its visual flourishes and for exploring its source material’s thought-provoking ideas, most also felt it merely touched on those ideas and, furthermore, left any compelling drama by the wayside.
If only every aging leading man could find the late-career success that Liam Neeson has earned in the action genre? Pierce Brosnan steps into somewhat familiar shoes as ex-CIA agent Peter Devereaux, a retired operative pulled back into action for “one last mission,” complete with a femme fatale (Olga Kurylenko, a former Bond girl herself), only to discover there is a mole in the agency who wants him dead. Based on a novel by Bill Granger, The November Man seemed to have been aimed at beginning another spy thriller franchise, but critics mostly grew weary of the film’s reliance on shopworn genre clichés, which earned it a paltry 34 percent on the Tomatometer. That said, a sequel is coming, whether we want it or not.
What If (69 percent), starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan in a romantic comedy about med school dropout who makes an instant connection with an animator, and the two begin to fall for each other.
Almost a year after its theatrical release, we get Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas (19 percent), wherein the feisty matriarch accompanies a friend on a surprise visit to her daughter in a rural town.
A Merry Friggin’ Christmas (18 percent), starring Robin Williams (in one of his final film roles) and Joel McHale in a holiday road comedy about an estranged father and son who set out to retrieve the son’s forgotten Christmas gifts.
And lastly, two choices from the Criterion Collection: a new Blu-ray of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960 masterpiece L’Avventura (97 percent); and Les Blank: Always for Pleasure, a collection of the documentary filmmaker’s eclectic filmography that contains 14 films and 8 short films.
