DVD Review

The Last Samurai is almost exactly what you expect – a likeable movie making all the right political noises and giving its star a chance to look tough in a hair-commercial sort of way. It’s 60% Dances With Wolves, 20% Last of the Mohicans and 20% The Wild Bunch, which leaves no room for originality if I’ve done my sums right. And of course it’s not a patch on any of them. Cruise is as competent as always, Ken Watanabe is great as head samurai, and it’s always good to see Timothy Spall in big-budget movies like he’s wandered...

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Impressive but extremely downbeat down-under western. Ray Winstone plays an English lawman in remote 1800’s Australia, who is forced into conflict with a band of outlaw brothers including Guy Pearce and Danny Huston. The whole cast is covered in flies, there are regular outbursts of nasty violence and the barren scenery is stunning. It’s well written by Nick Cave and directed by John Hillcoat, and it’s a pleasant change to see Winstone playing something other than a Cockney thug, and doing it very well. Again, it makes for an impressive and thought-provoking night in rather than an enjoyable one....

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Another disappointment was the R1 release of Saw. Normally I’m a big fan of low-budget horror, and I’m certainly a sucker for gimmicky DVDs like this one which looks like a circular blade. The movie itself is not bad for a first attempt, and boasts a cast who normally appear in big-budget stuff – Danny Glover, Cary Elwes and Monica Potter among them. However having set up the main characters in a confined space, the writers fail to provide a credible explanation of how they ended up there. Worse than that, the numerous flash-backs and forwards add nothing to...

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I gave this a miss at the cinema as it looked like a cheap Matrix rip-off, and while that’s true to some extent, it’s a well-made (in parts) old-fashioned SF movie with modern fight sequences. The story is a blend of 1984, Brave New World, Blade Runner and any number of Repressive Future stories; here the repression is carried out by suppressing everyone’s emotions with drugs, as in theory this will prevent any possible conflict. It’s a ropey idea (as is the ‘gunkata’ martial art featured in the movie) but it makes for some interesting acting by a fine...

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I sat down with apprehension and watched Love Actually. Don’t worry, this isn’t starting a new trend for the site, I promised I’d watch this and I managed it without fast-forwarding once. As you’ll know, this is written by Richard Curtis, who I’ve loathed ever since Four Weddings and a Funeral. Surprisingly, since this is the first time he’s directed his own script, it isn’t quite as clichéd and smug as usual, and he actually displays a visual talent in a couple of scenes. In fact, the first hour is moderately enjoyable if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief,...

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One of the best low budget horror movies of recent years was Neil Marshall’s Dog Soldiers. Marshall’s follow-up, The Descent, is now out on R2 DVD, and proves that he’s got an undeniable talent. His first movie was criticised for being too blokey and too comic, so now he’s made a movie with an almost entirely female cast and only one joke as far as I can remember. The story involves one of the women suffering a personal tragedy, and attempting to recover by going caving with her friends (doesn’t sound too clever to me, and funnily enough…) Not...

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