Home Video

Ninja

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Ninja (2009)
  • IMDb: link

Ninja movie reviewThrowback Tuesday takes us back to 2009’s Ninja starring Scott Adkins as an American raised in a Japanese temple tasked by his sensei (Togo Igawa) to protect the temple’s most sacred artifacts from a rival former student (Tsuyoshi Ihara) using the skills taught to him to become one of the world’s deadliest assassins.

Ninja is the kind of movie where the police get involved, but only manage to get in the way or arrest the wrong person until they step back to let the ninja fight. Very much the B-action movie it appears to be, Ninja also teases a love story between Casey (Adkins) and the sensei’s daughter (Mika Hijii) as well as Casey’s search for family. Neither amount to much as the film works best when director Isaac Florentine queues up the rivals’ series of action scenes.

…

NinjaRead More »

Ninja Read More »

Batman: The Long Halloween (Part One)

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Batman: The Long Halloween (Part One)
  • IMDb: link

Batman: The Long Halloween (Part 1) DVD reviewWarner Bros. Animation finally gets around to adapting the thirteen-issue maxi-series from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale which follows Batman (Jensen Ackles) over one year as he attempts to catch a murderer know as Holiday for a killing on every major holiday tied to the Falcone crime family.

“Part One” takes us from Halloween and the first crime through New Year’s Eve (roughly through the first 4 issues of the storyline). As in the comic, we get appearances from several of Batman’s rogues gallery including the Joker (Troy Baker), Calendar Man (David Dastmalchian), Solomon Grundy (Fred Tatasciore), and Catwoman (Naya Rivera). Both Catwoman and Harvey Dent (Josh Duhamel) have large roles in the story as along with Jim Gordon (Billy Burke) they all are looking to take down crime boss Carmine Falcone (Titus Welliver). The dense storyline has been simplified a bit, and the Joker’s extended sequence remind me of one of the comic’s original failings as the more colorful villains distract from the narrative as they take over center stage.

…

Batman: The Long Halloween (Part One)Read More »

Batman: The Long Halloween (Part One) Read More »

Batman: Soul of the Dragon

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Batman: Soul of the Dragon
  • IMDb: link

Batman: Soul of the Dragon Blu-ray reviewBatman: Soul of the Dragon leans heavily into 1970s style with a tale of Batman (David Giuntoli) teaming up with the other former students of his former sensei (James Hong) to prevent evil being unleashed in by the Kobra Cult. I was quite impressed with the first-half of the movie, although the straight-to-video movie reminded me more and more of Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which also started off quite strong but lost its way a bit in its second-half.

…

Batman: Soul of the DragonRead More »

Batman: Soul of the Dragon Read More »

Infinite

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Infinite
  • IMDb: link

Infinite movie reviewInfinite is a half-assed sci-fi film about immortals reincarnated over the years. Mark Wahlberg stars as Evan McCauley, a diagnosed schizophrenic with anger issues and dreams of other people’s lives. Arrested after a drug deal goes wrong, McCauley gets on the radar of two competing groups of immortals calling themselves Infinites who want what McCauley hid in a past life (a weapon capable of destroying all life on the planet).

…

InfiniteRead More »

Infinite Read More »

Luca, the Little Merboy

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Luca
  • IMDb: link

Luca movie reviewSet on the Italian Rivera, in an era before cellphones and the Internet, Luca is a fish out of water story. Literally. Living his life under the sea, the curious Luca (Jacob Tremblay) is drawn to the world on the surface despite his parents’ (Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan) warnings about the monsters lurking above. With the ability to assume human form when stepping onto land, Luca can’t help be curious about the humans whose bizarre garbage makes it way to the bottom of the sea. Meeting another teen sea monster who has been passing for human pushes Luca to exploring the surface further and leaving his life under the sea behind him for the seaside community of Portorosso.

…

Luca, the Little MerboyRead More »

Luca, the Little Merboy Read More »