DVD Rental: Reviews

The start of case 39 sees you introduced to Emily Jenkins, a child support worker being given her 39th case.  At first, It seems as normal as any other she deals with on a day to day basis but it soon becomes apparent that this one will change her life in more ways than one.

She visits the family to see the little girl,  Lilith, who has been falling asleep in class and has had grades drop for A’s to D’s in 3 months.  There is enough evidence to suggest that Lilith is being neglected, but as there are no visible marks, Emily’s boss tells her to leave the case alone.

Against her boss’s wishes, Emily decides to visit Lilith as she is leaving school and tells her to call any time she feels scared.  Later that night Emily receives a chilling call from Lilith saying that she fears her parents are going to kill her.  Emily along with Policeman and friend Mike (Ian Mcshane - the one and only Lovejoy) rush over to the house and rescue Lilith just as she is about to be killed in a horrible manner by her parents.

Lilith is about to be put in care when she begs Emily to look after her.  At first Emily is reluctant but soon agrees and is given temporary custody of Lilith, but could that decision be the worst error of judgement that Emily could have made? Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last few years there have been a lot of films that have been based on real life events, some of which are just brilliant - The Blind side, The Social Network, The Kings Speech, and public enemies are just a few that come to mind.

Stand out, true-life films usually involve a victim of injustice and people fighting to save them from a life that they don’t deserve, usually behind bars.  The Hurricane starring Denzel Washington is a great example of this,  A man arrested and jailed for a murder he didn’t commit.

Conviction gives you all of this and more.

Hillary swank stars as Betty Anne waters, a single mother from Massachusetts who does everything she can to become a lawyer after her brother is charged with murder. The murder charge looks ropey, but 60 years without parole is what Kenny ( Sam Rockwell) is sentenced to after testimonies from an ex (Juliette Lewis, who goes all out in a stunning performance) and the mother of his child convince the jury that Kenny is Guilty.

The next 16 years see Swank’s character put her life on hold, resulting in her divorce, and even her children wanting to move in with their father just so that she can pass all of her exams to help free her brother.

With the help of Arba Rice, a fellow mature student in her class, brilliantly played by Minnie Driver they start to get closer to the truth.  They find out that cases are being thrown out as DNA tests are proving that people were being wrongly convicted. They search high and low for the evidence that convicted Kenny, but according to the police station and court, the evidence was destroyed after 10 years. Read the rest of this entry »

Liam Neeson, best known recently for his role as all action dad in Taken, returns to our screens as Martin Harris, a Doctor due in Berlin to give a speech.  On arriving outside a hotel in a taxi, Dr Harris realises that he has forgotten his briefcase and without entering the hotel with his wife, jumps in to another cab to rush to the airport.

On the way to the airport, frustrated by the traffic, Dr Harris asks the driver to take a different route to which she obliges.  but there is trouble ahead.  Something comes loose from a lorry in front, causing the cab to swerve and crash through a bridge in to a river.

The driver rescues Dr Harris and then leaves the scene quickly, as it appears she is an illegal immigrant.  When Dr Harris wakes, it is 4 days later, and no one has filed a missing persons report for him.  Confused and in a state of panic, Dr Harris checks himself out of the hospital and travels to the hotel to check on his wife.

When he sees his wife he is relieved.  but there is a problem, she doesn’t recognise him and is introducing another man as her husband and he claims to be Dr Martin Harris.

He has no choice but to return to hospital as it seems he is not remembering things correctly, but his mind is convincing him that he is the real Martin Harris and that there must to something strange going on, and when an assassin kills his nurse he knows he is a target of something much bigger than a bit of memory loss.

Neeson then goes on his usual gung ho, one man mission to get to the truth.  He manages to track down the cab driver and although reluctant at first she agrees to help him.

Slowly he starts to piece things back together but starts to think that he may not be Dr Martin Harris after all, but who is he?? Read the rest of this entry »

The basic story of Tron was simple; man gets sucked into a virtual world he created, and he has to sort it out whilst negotiating some particularly dazzling obstacles.  Tron: Legacy is quite happy to offer a very similar ride.

Kevin Flynn (a rather spaced out Jeff Bridges) has been exiled from his own virtual world by CLU, the Flynn digital copy that has taken over and turned the world into something far more advanced and dangerous.

Flynn’s son (Garrett Hedlund), now all grown up, manages to get inside this manic, aesthetic frenzy of coloured chaos and goes in search of his dad whilst doing battle with the crazy hordes that dominate the Grid.  Along the way he encounters Martin Sheen’s criminally underused and utterly watchable David Bowie clone Castor, as well the strikingly gorgeous Olivia Wilde, who does the job as Flynn Senior’s confidante program Quorra.

Tron: Legacy has come a long time after its predecessor, and, as expected, there was a lot of hype, particularly from die hard fans of the original.  Long awaited sequels cannot survive on novelty value (see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), so there needs to be enough to refresh the story, and if it’s thin on the ground then sadly the movie is doomed to mediocrity.

Tron: Legacy looks lovely, and fans will enjoy seeing Mr. Bridges taking to the Grid once more, just as this reviewer enjoyed watching John McClane reignite his love for shooting large numbers of terrorists.  However, the movie has zero longevity because it has no depth, and simply feels like a rehash of Tron with concentrated emphasis on the evolution of digital movie effects.  The movie actually has the dubious honour of further dating the original.

Read the rest of this entry »

I am quite a big fan of gore and body horror so when I saw that hit U.S. series Dexter was available to rent on DVD from LoveFilm I knew I had to watch it!

Dexter is a serial killer with ethics; not your typical leading man! Working as a blood spatter analyst for Miami Metro he encounters the dregs of society and their actions on a daily basis.

Orphaned because his mother was murdered, then adopted by a cop hell-bent on justice, Dexter’s formative years were the catalyst for his now dominant penchant for the macabre.

Dexter seeks to make his little corner of the world a better place by eradicating heinous criminals who have slipped through the net.

Dispensing his own special brand of justice, Dexter plots, plans and meticulously executes his murderous endeavours, whilst ensuring that each victim realises why they are about to meet their maker.

On paper this sounds like quite an intense show, but it’s shot so well, with many varied story arcs and alternative points of interest, that it’s so much more than just another gore fest! Read the rest of this entry »

The dubious Brothers Strause, entirely responsible for the badly lit suck-fest sequel that was Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, had $20m to play with, and chose to splash the cash on an alien invasion flick, spending around 97% of the budget entirely on effects.

This is, of course, a barmy idea. To be fair to these curious gents, they have been behind some eye-popping aesthetics, with their company Hydraulx working on such visual treats as 300, Avatar and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

However, it seems that letting them get hold of the camera may be something to avoid in the future.

Skyline is a pretty formulaic story; some friends in L.A. bear witness to an alien invasion, and hole up in their expensive flat hoping that the unwelcome visitors get bored and fly off. They then decide, for some dull reason relating to water, that a swift escape and journey through the warzone to the nearest coastline would actually be better. This plan causes much death.

You see, these unpleasant invaders emit an attractive blue light, and once it catches your eye then your skin starts to disappear and you get violently sucked into some kind of weird alien sphincter.

Some of these aliens are pretty big and will stand triumphantly on your puny human head, whilst others are small, elegant and partial to the sweet smell of fresh brains.

Read the rest of this entry »

The online DVD rental market is more ferocious than a few feisty minutes in one of David Fincher’s Fight Clubs. There’s a multitude of websites vying for your custom, offering a mouth-watering selection of Blu-rays and DVDs, as well as some truly tempting offers on trials and subscription packages.

We have a look at which online rental service has earned the right to echo the immortal words of Ray Winstone, “I’m the daddy now!”

We have all heard of Lovefilm; this service has stormed to the forefront of online DVD rental, boasting an excellent and diverse catalogue including over 73,000 titles. Customers can also enjoy Lovefilm Player, which is an online and on demand service allowing you to watch the movie of your choice when and where you want. The site has plenty of extras including film news, quizzes, Top 100 lists, trailers and reviews from both critics and Lovefilm members. The packages are pretty good, and a free trial is always hard to resist.

Blockbuster is a household name, and globally recognised brand. This DVD rental service boasts a selection of exclusive titles; these can only be seen first on DVD at Blockbuster, and include huge box-office hits such as Knowing, Taken and Gran Torino. Blockbuster is renowned for quality, which is why it has remained at the top for so long, and this reputation is further enhanced by the growing number of DVD and Blu-rays available to rent. Customers can now rent over 70,000 different titles, and trials start from as little as £1. The website also includes news, special offers and the Blockbuster Blog.

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If someone told me that, for the amusement of the masses, I had to endure electric shocks to my nether regions, or become trapped in a car full of highly agitated bees, I would firmly decline, although a plentiful cheque and offers of free world travel and beer could probably turn my head…

The baffling thing about the Jackass crew is that they were doing it back in the day, when the cash probably wasn’t that great and they had to film in their houses. In all fairness, they seem to just enjoy creating comedy derived from physical and or/mental anguish, as well as the odd gross-out skit or moment of intense embarrassment.

Before reviewing their third big screen outing, it is important to highlight the fact that Jackass provides a very divisive form of entertainment. Those who do not like Jackass have their reasons, and shouldn’t be told to change their minds, and there are plenty of Jackass haters out there.

However, this reviewer finds the deranged, dumb, daft but deftly planned stunts intensely funny, often to the point that a quick dash to the loo is required in order to avoid a messy mishap.

So, subjective opinion stated, let’s move on to Jackass 3, or Jackass 3D as it was released in the cinemas.

After a four year hiatus, presumably needed for healing, therapy, psychological evaluation, rehab etc, the Jackass crew have assembled another 90 minutes of carefully engineered moments of hilarity, provided for our amusement.

Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O, Chris Pontius (Party Boy) and the rest of the lunatics go about attempting to cause each other as much pain as possible, whilst seeking out new, innovative ways to have pain bestowed upon them by external sources. There is, as always, no story or character arc, and no real beginning, middle or end. Just utter chaos.

Read the rest of this entry »

They are undoubtedly the two heavyweights of online DVD rental; Lovefilm and Blockbuster boast a huge library of over 70,000 titles each, and both have developed a globally recognised brand name and enormous customer base. Does anything separate these two giants of movie rental, or does it simply depend on which website looks a bit nicer?

Blockbuster has been around for a long time, and shoppers trust a tried and tested brand name. A customer using Blockbuster online can enjoy some great prices for pre-owned games and DVDs, whilst the subscription online rental packages are also very competitive. A cheap trial period, pre-paid postage for returns and 1^st class delivery are all very appealing aspects of the service, and Blockbuster also offers Blockbuster exclusives.

These are initially only available from Blockbuster, and don’t just include straight-to-DVD suck-fests like Ghosts of Girlfriend’s Past. Some genuinely great films debut for rental at Blockbuster, such as Gran Torino, The Wrestler and Taken.

Lovefilm has casually strolled ahead in the online DVD rental market, offering an incredibly diverse range of movies from a multitude of genres. The library is very impressive; you could search for Jaws: The Revenge and find it available for rent (obviously this would be a massive mistake, but it’s good to know). Hellraiser 5 is also available, in case you wondered.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here at DVDrental.co.uk we have realised that we offer our professional critique on a lot of films, but have never really concentrated on reviewing TV series, which can become more a part of our lives than the quickfire 90-minute movie.

We dedicate more time to TV series than we do with film; we watch a movie and if we don’t enjoy it then we forget about it, accept the lost hour and a half and simply move on, but with TV we make a conscious decision to continue to watch.  We have a greater opportunity to relate to the characters because we see them on a regular basis; we go through life with them and share in the plethora of compelling events and emotions that shape their fates.  We engage on a whole different level.

I mean, who didn’t cry when Madge Bishop passed away in Neighbours?

I could name brilliant TV shows all day, (Lost, Heroes, 24, ER, Prison Break etc) , but I think you would stop reading, so what I will do instead is tell you about a US series that has been showing on Channel 4 and More 4 over the last few months - Brothers & Sisters.

This show follows the life of a seemingly normal family, the Walkers, from idyllic Ojai, California, but looks can be deceiving and even as early as the first episode, it is clear that everything is not as it seems.

William Walker, the head of the family and founder of the family business, has a sudden fatal heart attack whilst talking to his granddaughter at the side of his pool, and soon after his death the skeletons in his closet slowly start to rear their ugly heads.

William leaves behind his wife Nora (played brilliantly by the legendary Sally Field), and five children, all of whom have not only their own issues to deal with, but now two more particularly pressing ones. Not only have they found out that Dad has been having an affair for over 20 years, but he has also seriously embezzled the family business, leaving them on the verge of not only bankruptcy, but a lawsuit too.

The characters in Brothers & Sisters make for a riveting watch, not least because of their intriguing individual issues that they must tackle.

Read the rest of this entry »