3 Razors

The Legend of Tarzan

  • Title: The Legend of Tarzan
  • IMDb: link

The Legend of TarzanCreated by Edgar Rice Burroughs more than 100 years ago, Tarzan has been adapted countless times in film, radio, television, and print. The latest version of the jungle hero from director David Yates chooses to forgo an origin story (which is given to us in small flashbacks over the course of the movie) in favor of a more civilized Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård) returning to Africa with his wife Jane (Margot Robbie) to investigate troubling news concerning the Congo, where he was raised and became a legend – and where an old enemy (Djimon Hounsou) is waiting.

Physically Skarsgård is an imposing figure and he manages to capture both Tarzan’s fierceness and his large heart. Robbie is delightful as the feisty Jane. Kidnapped by Christoph Waltz as a corrupt Belgian, whose resemblance to René Emile Belloq is hard to see as coincidental, Jane finds a way to fight the villain and buy time for her husband to swing in on a vine and ultimately save the day (and all of the Congo). And if Waltz is sleepwalking in the lesser version of characters he has played countless times over, what is to be said of Samuel L. Jackson playing himself in order to add a little comic relief to the proceedings?

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Houdini & Doyle – Necromanteion

  • Title: Houdini & Doyle – Necromanteion
  • IMDb: link

Houdini & Doyle - Necromanteion

After briefly stopping home to bury his mother, Houdini (Michael Weston) joins Doyle (Stephen Mangan) and Adelaide (Rebecca Liddiard) in Canada where a murder suspect (Lara Jean Chorostecki) insists her husband was killed by a poltergeist. Also present are a spirtual medium and Thomas Edison (Peter Outerbridge) who hopes to use his invention, a Necromanteion, to speak to the recently deceased from across the veil. While Houdini dismisses the entire premise, and derides Edison over such a ridiculous invention, both Adelaide and Doyle suspect their friend has conflicting purposes for leaving his family to join this particular murder scene.

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Finding Nemo

  • Title: Finding Nemo
  • IMDb: link

Finding NemoSo it’s like An American Tail underwater? That was my first response to Pixar’s Finding Nemo which stars Albert Brooks as a clown fish named Marlin who is forced out of his comfort zone when his son Nemo (Hayden Rolence) is abducted by scuba divers on his first day of school. While on his journey to save his son, Marlin will meet a host of odd characters most notably Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), the Pacific regal blue tang suffering from short-term memory loss, sharks who have sworn off eating fish, and a sea turtle named Crush (director Andrew Stanton). Meanwhile Nemo meets an assortment of odd fish after being placed in the fish tank of an Australian dentist’s office before ultimately being reunited with his father.

Finding Nemo isn’t my favorite Pixar film. While I enjoy the underwater appeal, the story is pretty basic relying on several cheap gags and body function jokes. It’s not a bad movie by any means, but it lacks the depth of the Toy Story series, and I wasn’t awed by the design of the world the way I am with Cars.

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Conan: The Complete Quest

  • Title: Conan the Barbarian / Conan the Destroyer
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link

Conan: The Complete QuestThe new Blu-ray release collects both original Conan movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the legendary Cimmerian thief and warrior. Focused on Conan’s origin story and his quest for revenge against the evil sorcerer (James Earl Jones) who slaughtered his village as a boy and threw him into slavery, Conan the Barbarian is the better of the two movies. It also gives us Mako (who would return in the sequel) as Conan’s ally.

Following two-years later, Conan the Destroyer feels every bit the half-baked sequel it is as Conan is hired to protect a princess (Olivia d’Abo) with a terrible destiny. While not as strong as the original, Destroyer does offer some memorable moments.

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Houdini & Doyle – Bedlam

  • Title: Houdini & Doyle – Bedlam
  • IMDb: link

Houdini & Doyle - Bedlam

An attack on a priest by a recently-released mental patient believing she may have been possessed and a man at the center of an exorcism left as a vegetable leads Arthur Conan Doyle (Stephen Mangan), Harry Houdini (Michael Weston), and Constable Adelaide Stratton (Rebecca Liddiard) to Bethlem Hospital in search of answers. While investigating the case, Doyle stumbles on the doctor’s secret concerning his father’s death at the hospital which gets him locked away in the asylum with a patient (Ewen Bremner) who believes he is Sherlock Holmes.

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