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Haywire

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  • Title: Haywire
  • IMDB: link

haywire-blu-rayDespite making more than 30 movies over his career, Haywire represents the first time director Steven Soderbergh sets out to make a rather straightforward action film. Well… straightforward in terms of delivery, the film is saddled with one hell of a convoluted plot by screenwriter Lem Dobbs that will only attempt to fully explain itself in the movie’s closing moments.

At times you’ll notice Soderbergh’s hand with his stylized camera work and use of music, but the film also has several sequence where the style drops away and the director gives us several brutal action scenes.

We begin with Mallory Kane (Gina Carano), a black ops soldier who has been betrayed by her boss and former lover Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) and is now on the run. With limited resources she will hunt down each of the men who betrayed her and get her revenge.

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Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

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  • Title: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
  • IMDB: link

mission-impossible-ghost-protocol-blu-rayDirected by Brad Bird, the latest Mission: Impossible flick puts Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) together with a new team (Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner) to stop a crazy Russian (Michael Nyqvist) from starting a nuclear war.

After an attempt to retrieve information in the Kremlin ends in disaster with the team blamed for a terrorist bombing the IMF is disbanded leaving only these four agents, and whatever they have with them, to stop the real terrorists and prove their innocence.The mission will take the team from Russia to the United Arab Emirates to India. For more on the film check out my original review of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

The movie works as well on Blu-ray as it did in theaters. The story and stunts hold up quite well and even knowing the small twist of Ethan’s wife (Michelle Monaghan) won’t spoil anything for you a second time around.

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Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

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  • Title: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
  • IMDB: link

extremely-loud-and-incredibly-close-dvdBased on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close follows the search of nine year-old with Asberger’s Syndrome who finds a key in his father’s (Tom Hanks) possessions and embarks on the kind of adventure his father used to create for him before his death on 9/11.

Oskar Schell’s (Thomas Horn) adventure takes him all over New York in an attempt to find a man or woman with the last name of Black who may be the only person who knows what lock the key fits. Over the course of his search Oskar meets several people including the mysterious mute renter (Max von Sydow) of his grandmother’s (Zoe Caldwell), who Oskar begins taking with him on his search.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is too cute for its own good. Although similar in the type of story told in Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated (one of my favorite films of 2005) director Stephen Daldry struggles with framing the tale.

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The Darkest Hour

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  • Title: The Darkest Hour
  • IMDb: link

the-darkest-hour-blu-ray

After traveling to Moscow only to get screwed out of a lucrative business opportunity Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) run into an attractive American twenty-something (Olivia Thirlby) and her Australian friend (Rachael Taylor) at a swanky Russian bar just hours before the Earth finds itself invaded by aliens seeking to drain all electric conducting minerals from the planet.

The aliens appear as near invisible glowing clouds of light which can instantly burn through and disintegrate matter on contact. The foursome find themselves stuck in the storeroom of the club for days with the Swedish businessman (Joel Kinnaman) who screwed them over. With their rations exhausted finally the five journey out into a world vastly changed from the one they left only a few days before. Can they make it to safety? Will they find a way to fight back? Which ones will die? If only we cared.

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Justice League: Doom

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  • Title: Justice League: Doom
  • IMDB: link

justice-league-doom-blu-rayDC Comics latest animated feature adapts Mark Waid‘s “Tower of Babel” and pieces of Alex Ross and Jim Krueger‘s Justice as a new straight-to-DVD feature. The plot of the film features Vandal Savage (Phil Morris) putting together a Legion of Doom to take apart the Justice League using contingency plans stolen from Batman (Kevin Conroy).

As Batman finds himself blindsided by Bane (Carlos Alazraqui), Wonder Woman (Susan Eisenberg), Superman (Tim Daly), the Martian Manhunter (Carl Lumbly), the Flash (Michael Rosenbaum), and Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) all find themselves taken completely out of action by Cheetah (Claudia Black), Metallo (Paul Blackthorne), Ma’alefa’ak (Lumbly), Mirror Master (Alexis Denisof), and Star Sapphire (Olivia d’Abo). It’s the unplanned for appearance of Cyborg (Bumper Robinson) who helps throw a wrench into the plan and save the day.

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