New DVDs This Week
Posted on December 16, 2008 - 10:39pm by michael
The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), PG-13, 112 mins.
Rick and Evelyn O'Connell are back for another mummified adventure, this time sharing the same last name and failing at a half-hearted attempt to settle down to a quiet life in the English countryside. It doesn't take a lot of convincing to get them to get involved in an assignment to deliver a priceless artifact to China, where their son Alex is secretly excavating an ancient tomb.
The tomb that he is excavating is the real-life tomb of Emperor Qin (never opened to this day), which lies near the Chinese city of Xi'an, next to the buried army of thousands of life-sized terra-cotta warriors (also very real). Needless to say, the artifact being delivered turns out to be more than meets the eye, and soon a curse is unleashed which brings the despotic Dragon Emperor back to life, and it's up to Rick and Evelyn to stop him from uniting China under his brutal rule.
There is an interesting juxtaposition of the time period of the film with real events in China at that time. Less than two years after the movie takes place, Mao Tse-tung - who quite likely is personally responsible for more deaths than any single person who has ever lived in the history of mankind (more than 70 million) - proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China and united China for 27 years under his own brutal rule.
Of course, none of this comes through in the movie, but it's interesting nonetheless. The movie's packed with special effects, too little Jet Li, and too much of Brendan Fraser's trademark bad acting. But at least it was better than
Journey to the Center of the Earth...
Mamma Mia! (2008), PG-13, 108 mins.
The enormously popular
Mamma Mia is the story of a young woman named Sophie who, just before getting married herself, learns that any one of three men might possibly be her father. Without telling her mother, she invites all three men to her wedding.
The ABBA-fueled chaos that follows is a remarkably charming and entertaining romantic comedy. Meryl Streep rushes headlong into an inspired performance as Donna, Sophie's mother, fully enjoying the show just as much as we are. Pierce Brosnan is nearly as good, and just the fact that he makes it so easy for us to see him as anything other than James Bond is an achievement in itself.
For those of us old enough to remember the days when ABBA was at their peak (I'm not one of those unfortunately), the movie will be a wonderful trip down memory lane. For the rest of us, whether or not you consider yourself an ABBA fan,
Mamma Mia has an impressive ability to bring out the party spirit in all of us. Enjoy!
Traitor (2008), PG-13, 114 mins.
Traitor is a unique spy thriller that doesn't exactly cover a lot of new ground in the spy-thriller vein, but is still very impressive in how it introduces a series of major existential questions without presuming to have all the answers, and also approaches some of the most sensitive political issues of our time without itself coming off as a political film.
Don Cheadle plays the part of Samir Horn, a devout American Muslim with a complicated past living in Yemen and making an unenviable but honest living but unfortunately showing up repeatedly on the FBI's radar for being potentially involved in a series of terrorist bombings.
Guy Pearce is Roy Clayton, an FBI agent heading up an investigation into Horn's possible connection to the bombings, when some terrorists break out of prison and bring Horn with them. Clayon links Horn to the bombing of an American consulate in southern France and must capture him before he strikes his next target, while Horn himself struggles with being labeled a terrorist and his inability to prove himself innocent.
Horn is an intricately designed character with much more depth than is common in modern films, and almost single-handedly makes the movie worth watching. It's a complex and contradictory film, but makes for a powerful and moving exploration of some of the most important issues in the current political climate. It's not all fun and games, but may be one of the most thought-provoking films to have come along in quite some time.
Note: Traitor will be released on December 19th.
The House Bunny (2008), PG-13, 97 mins.
Anna Faris' latest film reveals to the public that she still has no interest in performing in movies that have a single, echoing thought in their head.
The House Bunny almost cancels itself out just by the kind of movie it is. It's an immature, adolescent sex-comedy that's rated PG-13, so it can't even have any nudity, which is about 90% of what it's own target audience is looking for.
But the built-in contradictions don't stop there. The whole story is about an exiled Playboy Bunny who takes it upon herself to help a group of social outcasts make their classmates respect them
for who they are by turning them into a bunch of slutty frat party favors.
How's that again? At any rate, it's sad that someone as beautiful and clearly talented as Anna Faris keeps acting in such astonishingly stupid sex comedies like this and the
Scary Movies, which are, believe it or not, leaps and bounds worse than
The House Bunny.
When Hollywood farts, out comes something like this. I recommend you check out
Mamma Mia or
Traitor, or just watch
The Dark Knight again!
Note: The House Bunny will be released on December 19th.
The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), PG-13, 112 mins.
Rick and Evelyn O'Connell are back for another mummified adventure, this time sharing the same last name and failing at a half-hearted attempt to settle down to a quiet life in the English countryside. It doesn't take a lot of convincing to get them to get involved in an assignment to deliver a priceless artifact to China, where their son Alex is secretly excavating an ancient tomb.
The tomb that he is excavating is the real-life tomb of Emperor Qin (never opened to this day), which lies near the Chinese city of Xi'an, next to the buried army of thousands of life-sized terra-cotta warriors (also very real). Needless to say, the artifact being delivered turns out to be more than meets the eye, and soon a curse is unleashed which brings the despotic Dragon Emperor back to life, and it's up to Rick and Evelyn to stop him from uniting China under his brutal rule.
There is an interesting juxtaposition of the time period of the film with real events in China at that time. Less than two years after the movie takes place, Mao Tse-tung - who quite likely is personally responsible for more deaths than any single person who has ever lived in the history of mankind (more than 70 million) - proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China and united China for 27 years under his own brutal rule.
Of course, none of this comes through in the movie, but it's interesting nonetheless. The movie's packed with special effects, too little Jet Li, and too much of Brendan Fraser's trademark bad acting. But at least it was better than Journey to the Center of the Earth...
Mamma Mia! (2008), PG-13, 108 mins.
The enormously popular Mamma Mia is the story of a young woman named Sophie who, just before getting married herself, learns that any one of three men might possibly be her father. Without telling her mother, she invites all three men to her wedding.
The ABBA-fueled chaos that follows is a remarkably charming and entertaining romantic comedy. Meryl Streep rushes headlong into an inspired performance as Donna, Sophie's mother, fully enjoying the show just as much as we are. Pierce Brosnan is nearly as good, and just the fact that he makes it so easy for us to see him as anything other than James Bond is an achievement in itself.
For those of us old enough to remember the days when ABBA was at their peak (I'm not one of those unfortunately), the movie will be a wonderful trip down memory lane. For the rest of us, whether or not you consider yourself an ABBA fan, Mamma Mia has an impressive ability to bring out the party spirit in all of us. Enjoy!
Traitor (2008), PG-13, 114 mins.
Traitor is a unique spy thriller that doesn't exactly cover a lot of new ground in the spy-thriller vein, but is still very impressive in how it introduces a series of major existential questions without presuming to have all the answers, and also approaches some of the most sensitive political issues of our time without itself coming off as a political film.
Don Cheadle plays the part of Samir Horn, a devout American Muslim with a complicated past living in Yemen and making an unenviable but honest living but unfortunately showing up repeatedly on the FBI's radar for being potentially involved in a series of terrorist bombings.
Guy Pearce is Roy Clayton, an FBI agent heading up an investigation into Horn's possible connection to the bombings, when some terrorists break out of prison and bring Horn with them. Clayon links Horn to the bombing of an American consulate in southern France and must capture him before he strikes his next target, while Horn himself struggles with being labeled a terrorist and his inability to prove himself innocent.
Horn is an intricately designed character with much more depth than is common in modern films, and almost single-handedly makes the movie worth watching. It's a complex and contradictory film, but makes for a powerful and moving exploration of some of the most important issues in the current political climate. It's not all fun and games, but may be one of the most thought-provoking films to have come along in quite some time.
Note: Traitor will be released on December 19th.
The House Bunny (2008), PG-13, 97 mins.
Anna Faris' latest film reveals to the public that she still has no interest in performing in movies that have a single, echoing thought in their head. The House Bunny almost cancels itself out just by the kind of movie it is. It's an immature, adolescent sex-comedy that's rated PG-13, so it can't even have any nudity, which is about 90% of what it's own target audience is looking for.
But the built-in contradictions don't stop there. The whole story is about an exiled Playboy Bunny who takes it upon herself to help a group of social outcasts make their classmates respect them for who they are by turning them into a bunch of slutty frat party favors.
How's that again? At any rate, it's sad that someone as beautiful and clearly talented as Anna Faris keeps acting in such astonishingly stupid sex comedies like this and the Scary Movies, which are, believe it or not, leaps and bounds worse than The House Bunny.
When Hollywood farts, out comes something like this. I recommend you check out Mamma Mia or Traitor, or just watch The Dark Knight again!
Note: The House Bunny will be released on December 19th. 
