Author: BO

The highest grossing movie in the “Rocky” series, 1985’s “Rocky IV” was writer/director/star Sylvester Stallone’s attempt to turn The Italian Stallion into a Cold War superhero, pitting the lovable American boxer against a seemingly indestructible opponent from the Soviet Union. Stallone had incredible timing on his side, with audiences aching to loathe a Russian villain, and he was inspired by the evolution of MTV-style filmmaking, packing the feature with montages while simplifying its story to a basic game of revenge. And it worked, with many “Rocky” fans listing the third sequel as the best of the bunch, appreciating an ultra-slick ride of broad emotions and power pop songs, while the boxing was appealingly brutal. After 35 years, “Rocky IV” has returned, with Stallone playing with the footage to create a more mature take on the original material, reworking the dramatic potential of the blockbuster to help connect it to the more personal tales of life and love found in previous installments. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Last year, Edward Drake co-wrote a terrible Bruce Willis VOD actioner, “Breach,” and this year he graduated to directing a bad Bruce Willis VOD actioner with “Cosmic Sin.” Sticking close to the star, Drake returns eight months later with “Apex,” which is…a wretched Bruce Willis actioner. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on in Willis’s life that’s compelling him to burn off his thespian credibility with these low-budget, brain-dead endeavors, but he’s determined to do it, collecting fat paychecks (I’m guessing) for no noticeable effort, this time emerging from a nap to participate in the umpteenth riff on “The Most Dangerous Game.” Drake and co-writer Corey Large don’t offer much to viewers with “Apex,” which doesn’t have any tension or compelling acts of violence. It’s DOA entertainment, with Willis as tuned out of the work as he’s ever been. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Home Alone” isn’t much without John Hughes. The much-missed writer tapped into a kid POV with the 1990 holiday smash, combining the tenderness of Christmas with the blunt force trauma of cartoon violence, ending up with the biggest hit of his career. Hughes understood the mind of a child and the panic of parental exhaustion, delivering a tight, humorous screenplay for a film that managed to become a holiday viewing staple, amassing a huge fanbase. Hughes would go back to the well for two sequels, and the studio suppled two more offerings of body-breaking high jinks, eventually squeezing the teat dry as numbing repetition set in. The franchise has been dormant for nearly a decade, inspiring a new follow-up, “Home Sweet Home Alone,” which has the advantage of reaching a new generation perhaps unfamiliar with the Kevin McCallister years. “Saturday Night Live” writers Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell try to shake a few elements up in the formula, but there’s not enough subversive thinking with this endeavor, which eventually settles into the same old ultraviolent battle between intrusive adults and a wiseacre kid left behind by his vacationing family. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Clifford the Big Red Dog” began life as a children’s book series, with author Norman Bridwell delighting young readers for decades with his vision for adventure and mischief featuring a gargantuan canine and his bottomless love for his human pal, Emily Elizabeth. There were 80 books dedicated to Clifford’s curiosity and heroism, eventually inspiring a hit animated series with John Ritter as the voice of the eponymous pooch. There’s been a lot of Clifford over the years, and the brand name is newly reenergized by “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” a live-action adaptation of Bridwell’s creation, which brings the character to life through CGI, unleashing his chaos in a family comedy that’s attempting to establish a new direction for all things Clifford. There’s nothing here that’s unexpected, but the picture is an agreeable endeavor that will certainly please viewers raised on Bridwell’s simple stories. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Kenneth Branagh has been working recently to up his career profile, taking on larger productions such as “Murder on the Orient Express” (and its sequel, “Death on the Nile,” which is due in 2022) and “Artemis Fowl.” These have been large-budget offerings meant reach a global audience, and “Belfast” feels like a response to that sort of professional pressure. Instead of grand mysteries and CGI-laden adventuring, Branagh goes small with his latest feature, which is a semi-autobiographical tale of growing up in Ireland during the late 1960s. For “Belfast,” coming-of-age ideas are paired with real-world horror, as the writing examines the growing troubles of Northern Ireland during this era, from the perspective of a pre-teen boy trying to make sense of all the change that surrounds him. Branagh has the clarity of memory on his side for this effort, but his editorial control isn’t nearly as focused, finding the picture a scattered series of dramatic entanglements and political content that never gels in a poetic manner. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Rawson Marshall Thurber has a special relationship with actor Dwyane Johnson, previously collaborating with the star on the comedy, “Central Intelligence,” and the disaster picture, “Skyscraper.” Thurber makes his third straight Johnson endeavor with “Red Notice,” which hopes to be a sweeping comedic caper featuring the bulky performer, delivered on a big budget that necessitates the addition of two other super-famous performers: Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot. The trio are unleashed in this criminal extravaganza, tasked with bringing high levels of charm to the production while Thurber masterminds elaborate infiltration and escape sequences. Johnson, Gadot, and Reynolds are basically making a Jackie Chan movie with “Red Notice,” which isn’t advanced filmmaking by any means, but has a candied appeal for fans of nonstop quipping and large-scale stunt set pieces. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Spencer” is not a bio-pic of Diana, Princess of Wales. It’s a chamber piece about the haunted woman, offering more of a psychological profile than a tour of exact details concerning her personal history. The feature is directed by Pablo Larrain, who attempted a similar study of unimaginable stress brewing inside a delicate mind with 2016’s “Jackie,” seemingly drawn to these types of cinematic inspections. “Jackie” was a hypnotic, funereal viewing experience, while “Spencer” aims to be more abstract and artful, with Larrain intentionally getting away from expectations during his examination of Diana’s fragile state of panic. Larrain aims to get inside Diana’s head and remain there for two hours, which is good for some striking images of struggle, but the picture isn’t exactly satisfying, with its addiction to elusiveness throttling dramatic potential. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Tom Hanks has made his fair share of movies about isolated characters, which plays to his considerable strengths as an actor. This tradition returns in “Finch,” with the star portraying a brilliant mind trapped inside a dying body, looking to the company of A.I. to help carry on through an apocalyptic situation on Earth. Hanks is the reason to remain with the story, as his ability to portray nuanced emotions and register degrees of panic are what make him such a special talent. Thankfully, screenwriters Craig Luck and Ivor Powell have something in mind with “Finch,” which explores the nature of trust, parenthood, and responsibility while highlighting various acts of survival. It’s a softer picture than it initially appears, finding ways to be meaningful about the human experience while still meeting suspense needs with its dystopian setting, and all the dangers it contains. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“One Shot” is the latest picture to use the gimmick of a “one take” filmmaking approach, helping to make material that might otherwise be mundane emerge as something cinematically exciting. Director James Nunn (“The Marine 5” and “The Marine 6”) embarks on a technical journey with the production, organizing controlled chaos to best amplify the action interests of the screenplay, using his camera to dodge danger and weave around the characters for 90 minutes of exposition and deadly confrontations. “One Shot” employs technology to sell the magic of an unbroken take, and while the idea doesn’t make for stunning drama, it does manage to generate a few adrenaline rushes during the run time. Complexity isn’t the goal of the feature, which does just fine with pure aggression and a somewhat chilling study of obedience, and Nunn works to crank up the endeavor’s kill count with help from star Scott Adkins. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

This time last year, writer/director Jim Cummings delivered “The Wolf of Snow Hollow,” with the idiosyncratic filmmaker striving to put his stamp on a genre picture, remaining in touch with the violent extremes of a horror movie while still overseeing a screenplay populated with unusual characters and odd situations. Cummings returns with “The Beta Test,” sharing helming and writing duties with co-star P.J. McCabe, this time trading the possibility of fictional creatures with the harsh reality of Hollywood predators, who are just as vicious and relentless. The material is a hodgepodge of ideas and targets, blending sexual obsession with relationship anxiety, and there’s plenty of material about the brutality of the agent system, which is soon joined by an assessment of digital footprints and their power to ruin lives. “The Beta Test” tries to be everything, keeping Cummings out in front with a twitchy lead performance. It ultimately takes on too much, but the production nails some aspects of employment and cohabitation, offering unsettling realism when it comes to the way people treat one another. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com