Cinderella (2015) Blu-ray Review

“Disney’s streak of live action fairy tale adaptations can be branded as feminine super hero stories, where women use their internal resolve and might to thwart whatever the evil may be. Heroines are capable of battle without weapons or powers, only their instincts. Cinderella works even as the story may be derided for the “marry rich” subtext. This edition tweaks and lessens controlling dialog: “… if she wishes to marry the Prince,” instead of “will marry.” The touch is a clever modernization.”

Read my full review of Cinderella on Blu-ray at DoBlu

San Andreas Blu-ray Review

“San Andreas is persistent. There is little waiting. Earthquakes fall over one another for screen time, stepping aside only to allow a tidal wave to ransack the Golden Gate Bridge – with a boat. How nice of the earthquakes to share their spotlight.”

Read my full review of San Andreas on Blu-ray at DoBlu

Home Blu-ray Review

“Home breaches a race barrier which has impacted mainstream animation with few exceptions, say Disney’s Princess & the Frog. Importantly, Home treats the scenario without drawing attention to it. Demographics are not split, nor does Home feel inaccessible to anyone. Its culture is safely middle class. Of course, kids won’t notice because kids won’t care – unless they’ve been told to.”

Read my full Blu-ray review of Home at DoBlu

Barely Lethal Blu-ray Review

“Barely Lethal does nothing with its premise. It neither rips the foundation of the teen comedy to pieces nor establishes a base to break from a male-dominated action scene. Scenes are shot as if for a Nickelodeon special. The falsely feminine, dreamy haze is obnoxious rather than suitable. Maybe a female director would have shifted the tone. As it sits, Kyle Newman, who lensed the successful geek road trip Fanboys in 2009, seems caught in the same world. Barely Lethal is written so the geek inevitably gets the girl.”

Read my full Barely Lethal Blu-ray review at DoBlu

It Follows Blu-ray Review

“Horror films use women for their bodies. It Follows uses women to progress a conversation through the cliché, then tramples tradition to depict sexualization as an inherent fear. Is It Follows preaching? Maybe, but for understanding – for crucial perspective on a topic this genre is so fond of manipulating for profit.”

Read my full It Follows Blu-ray review on DoBlu

Ex Machina Blu-ray Review

“More so, Ex Machina is a human movie – about robots. It’s about emotional responses to the potential distrust, the lies, and the manipulation. Or how we react to unknown stimuli when presented with it, mostly with curiosity and emotion. If it’s predictable, that’s only because it should be to reflect who we are.”

Read my Blu-ray review of Ex Machina on DoBlu

Kingsman: The Secret Service Blu-ray Review

“Sandwiched between the lighter almost-satire of British spy entertainment is a wry, effective layout of political conundrums. Kingsman leaves nothing unturned, leering at radicalized religion, sneering at the embrace of technology, and cheering at both of their comeuppances. Under that is a story of a ghetto kid who is freed from his circumstances through hard work and the capitalist who wants to kill us all – because of global warming and the Gaia theory. It’s crowded and double sided.”

Read my full Blu-ray of Kingsman: The Secret Service at DoBlu

Monsters: Dark Continent Blu-ray Review

“The monsters are but a catalyst in an irregular science fiction story. There’s the point: Everyone is so pre-occupied with killing one another – the Arabic populace fighting for the death toll caused by the bombings; the Americans for the retaliation – no one appears to see the wonder or the sorrow. The monsters emote. Directly, the beings only appear instinctively curious. Never once do they kill. They die because they’re in the way of stopping terrorism, which in turn only exists due to their death. The real world cycle as visually portrayed is tragic.”

Read my full review of Monsters: Dark Continent on DoBlu

Taken 3 Blu-ray Review

“This third entry finds someone taken in a most definitive way, leading Mills to reenact The Fugitive, only it was not a one-armed man. It was Russians, because it’s always Russians now. Can the Cold War be nostalgic? All of this action, whether Mills is punching police or pointing guns, is riding on a listless story which neither has the spunk nor the urgency which began this swiftly profitable series. There is no purpose, just an excuse to jump start this sometimes/sometimes not hero into a frenzy.”

Read my full Blu-ray review of Taken 3 at DoBlu

The Babadook Blu-ray Review

“Babadook’s style is visually rattling with closed-in walls, deepened color, and distancing coldness surrounding the main set’s home interior. A widowed mother, her eyes pale and sleepless, wanders these claustrophobic and shrunken hallways. Her son Robbie (Noah Wiseman) is nearing seven. He’s troubled. He sees things, dark things, which propel him beyond normal childhood fantasies and cause him to violently act out in fear.

But this is only part of Babadook. It a film about a children’s book. It is unknown where the piece of pop-up fiction came from but soon it will be obvious, then joyless. Babadook sterilizes nothing. An allegory of death and failing to let go looms. The grip always grows stronger.”

Read my full Blu-ray review of The Babadook at DoBlu