Author: BO

If one squints hard enough, “Breach” could be considered a throwback to the mid-1980s, where filmmakers armed with no budget and a few familiar faces in the cast could cobble together an “Alien” rip-off for the expanding VHS rental market. But that takes a lot of work, and “Breach” doesn’t put in the effort. Screenwriters Edward Drake and Corey Large collect all the deep space travel cliches they can hold in their hands for the picture, combining the blue-collar aches and pains of crew life with the threat of a monster who develops inside human bodies. There’s nothing new here, forcing director John Suits (“Pandemic”) to dial up obnoxious shaky-cam visuals captured on limited sets and pretend he’s making something special with a premise that’s been done to death. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While major animated releases from studios such as Pixar and Dreamworks manage to dominate the box office and command critical conversation, some of the finest examples of the medium have been produced by Cartoon Saloon over the last decade. They’ve churned out magnificent efforts such as “Song of the Sea,” “The Secret of Kells,” and “The Breadwinner,” invested in the art of challenging audiences with unusual tales of resilience and wonder, digging into extremes of fantasy and reality to inspire their stories. The artistry and integrity of this company is astounding, and for 2020, they offer “Wolfwalkers,” once again crafting a story that welcomes hearty emotion and real suspense for family audiences, also delivering a visual feast of 2D animation that supplies some of the most striking imagery of the film year. “Wolfwalkers” is stunning and sincere, preserving Cartoon Saloon’s position as the most exciting animation studio working today. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After trying his luck with a more spectacle-oriented tale of a submarine disaster with 2018’s “The Command” (a.k.a. “Kursk”), director Thomas Vinterberg returns to his indie roots with “Another Round.” The filmmaker goes bleak with a story concerning four men and their abuse of alcohol for therapeutic purposes, creating a screenplay (with Tobias Lindholm) that examines the state of emotional stasis facing some middle-aged men, who play an extended game of justification just to feel again. Vinterberg make a semi-return to his Dogme 95 roots with the endeavor, going raw and real with the feature, which touches on a few areas of dark comedy before returning to the messiness of people dealing with personal issues and troubled relationships. In a career full of interesting movies, “Another Round” emerges as one of Vinterberg’s finest efforts. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Greenland” strives to be more of a thinking person’s disaster movie, but it really can’t help itself at times. Scenes of mass destruction involving the arrival of a massive comet are periodic, giving fans of this type of entertainment what they want as characters try to outrun or outdrive certain doom. The screenplay by Chris Sparling (“Buried,” “ATM,” “The Sea of Trees”) doesn’t remain on big screen catastrophe for very long, making a push to understand the human element involved when encountering the end of the world. “Greenland” isn’t fresh filmmaking, but it does everything a little bit better than the competition, delivering a reasonably tense viewing experience that keeps moving along, cooking up a compelling series of mental and physical challenges for characters on the run to survive an extinction level event. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Taking the revenge movie into a new area of engagement, actress Emerald Fennell (“The Crown,” “Call the Midwife”) makes her filmmaking debut with “Promising Young Woman.” Inspired by courtroom tales and news reports of bad men getting away with heinous crimes against women, Fennell pours her frustration into the material, which presents a mission of malice from a 30-year-old woman who can’t process the unimaginable trauma she’s experienced. Fennell has a vision for the endeavor, taking a big tonal risk by going darkly comedic with the screenplay, and she gets most of it right. Length is a major problem for “Promising Young Woman,” which often grinds to a halt as it figures out its next move, and the presence of cartoon antics diminishes the lasting power of the effort. Horrific moments and atrocious behavior still manage to cut deep, with star Carey Mulligan offered a chance to portray grief in its strangest form, and she captures such torment superbly. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As a director, Martin Owen hasn’t made a strong impression. He’s the helmer of dismal fare such as “L.A. Slasher” and “Killers Anonymous,” struggling with violent entertainment that’s mangled satiric intent, covering his professional limitations with a lot of lighting, the band-aid for troubling filmmakers. Owen returns with “Max Cloud,” trusting in the power of nostalgia to get him through a low-budget adventure, taking viewers back to the glory days of 16-bit video game consoles and their special challenges for gamers. The script (by Owen and Sally Collett) conjures a fantasy about life inside the world of a game, and it’s a fantastic premise, but the production doesn’t have a lot of money or ideas for “Max Cloud,” which would make a fantastic short, but mostly runs out of steam as a feature-length idea, propped up by amusing performances and select moments of side-scrolling escapism. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s hard to believe there’s a second sequel to “Skyline,” a dismal alien invasion chiller that managed to make a few bucks a decade ago. It wasn’t a loved picture in the least, but genre fans apparently demanded a second round, inspiring the creation of 2017’s “Beyond Skyline,” which promoted “Skyline” screenwriter Liam O’Donnell to the director’s chair. Box office was abysmal for the sequel, but somewhere the movie did business, trigging the production of “Skylines,” allowing O’Donnell another chance to play with characters and sci-fi events few seemed thrilled with the first time around. Offering a more alien-centric continuation of the slightly fuzzy franchise timeline, the helmer skips an intensive creative journey and simply rehashes “Aliens,” lifting plot, personalities, and even the title from the James Cameron masterpiece. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Remaining exclusive with thrillers (“Jason Bourne,” “Green Zone”) and nightmarish real-world stories of survival (“Captain Phillips,” “22 July”), director Paul Greengrass attempts something a little softer with “News of the World.” There are plenty of charged moments and environmental challenges, but the helmer dials down his usual restlessness for this western, which follows the efforts of a Civil War veteran to deal with his experiences during a fractured time in American history, sharing tales from the changing country to those unable to learn of such developments. There’s a parental story in the mix as well, presenting Greengrass with an opportunity to showcase a different speed to his skills, offering a more atmospheric and reserved picture with “News of the World,” which has the special ability to sneak up on the viewer with its sensitive understanding of grief and responsibility. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In a massive miscalculation of marketplace appeal, the producers of “Songbird” (including Michael Bay) have decided to offer moviegoers a chance to experience the COVID-19 pandemic while in the midst of our lockdown experience. Even better, the story is set in the near future, providing a vision of a country that’s become a living hell, with illness rampant, media omnipresent, and hope a thing of the past. I’m not sure who the target demographic is for the film, but it’s difficult to understand its creation. Co-writer/director Adam Mason (“Hangman”) tries to bend “Songbird” into a meaningful thriller concerning doomed lovers and obsessed maniacs, keeping things grungy and claustrophobic to best cover his minimal budget and thin story. What Mason actually creates is a fantastically unpleasant picture that doesn’t work as a nail-biter or an understanding of America’s future, and its release timing couldn’t be worse, best suited for masochistic viewers. It’s doom porn for dummies. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After experiencing a creatively turbulent 2019 with the greatness of “High Flying Bird” and the whiff-iness of “The Laundromat,” Steven Soderbergh looks for a more conversational experience with “Let Them All Talk.” The premise is simple, following a reunion of estranged friends as they take a voyage on the Queen Mary 2, but Soderbergh uses the confines of the luxury ship to explore the awakening of dormant feelings and the development of desire, offering tight character work with a mix of improvisation and screenwriting, credited to Deborah Eisenberg. The helmer doesn’t push himself on the viewing experience, wisely permitting his gifted cast room to explore awkward encounters and confessions. It’s a smaller movie with limited dramatic goals, but it’s vividly crafted by Soderbergh, who manages a wonderful sense of exploration with the riveting picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Midnight Sky” represents George Clooney’s first big screen acting role in four years, and his first directorial offering in three, last seen with 2017’s “Suburbicon.” He’s come back with an ambitious project, tackling an adaptation of author Lily Brooks-Dalton’s “Good Morning, Midnight,” which offers a plot that splits time between the frigid extremes of Earth and the technology of space flight. The screenplay by Mark L. Smith has the unenviable task of connecting two different environments and cinematic speeds, creating as close to a disaster movie as Clooney is capable of making. “The Midnight Sky” takes the entire run time to fully expose what it’s ultimately up to, but the viewing experience provides intriguing elements of survival and personal reflection, making for a slightly uneven but interesting sit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The massive success of 2014’s “The Lego Movie” was bound to spawn a plethora of imitators. Interestingly, most of those offerings were other Lego movies, effectively burning off whatever screen appeal there was for the brand. Still, other toy companies wanted in on a good thing, with 2019 alone bringing “Ugly Dolls” and “Playmobil: The Movie” to theaters. For the nutso year of 2020, there’s “Bobbleheads: The Movie,” with producers hoping to strike gold by building a narrative around the world of collectible knickknacks who, in their own “Toy Story” way, magically come to life to help defeat criminals. “Bobbleheads: The Movie” is more bizarre than campy fun, with the road to financing such a concept definitely more interesting than the film itself. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Tara Miele (“Gone Missing,” “Starving in Suburbia”) endeavors to make something mysterious with “Wander Darkly.” Inspired by the films of Nicolas Roeg, Miele attempts her own take on love and loss with the material, exploring a woman’s experience with death and denial as she revisits moments from her life, achieving a greater understanding of her complicated past. Miele’s idea is to keep viewers in the dark, concentrating on stinging emotions that come with relationships, motherhood, and identity, saving illumination for the final reel. While well-intentioned, “Wander Darkly” spends too much time in the shadows, becoming an actor’s showcase instead of a gripping understanding of confusion, lacking a sustained level of suspense to support what becomes a painfully melodramatic movie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Poster art for “I’m Your Woman” has star Rachel Brosnahan posing with a baby in one hand and a gun in the other. Such a provocative image promises a ferocious movie to come, but co-writer/director Julia Hart isn’t interested in making that type of endeavor. “I’m Your Woman” is being sold as a revenge picture, but it isn’t one, emerging as more of a character study about a wife and mother learning self-sufficiency and reality as her life is upended by underworld violence. Hart makes a deliberate feature, and one that’s quite poky at times, never in a hurry to get anywhere. But she has fine performances all around and some wonderful imagery to keep the production soaked in mood. There’s a sharp 90-minute film in this two-hour-long endeavor, which is best suited for viewers who know exactly what they’re getting with Hart’s love of stillness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com