Blu-ray 11th May Releases

Edge of Darkness [Blu-ray]

Warner Brothers / 2010 / 117 Minutes / Rated R
Street Date: May 11, 2010

Genres: Thriller, suspense, crime
Starring: Mel Gibson, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, and Bojana Novakovic
Director: Martin Campbell

Plot Synopsis: The good news is that Edge of Darkness (no relation to the fine 1943 war picture of that name) brings back Mel Gibson in front of the camera for the first time in nearly a decade. Although he's grown creased and leathery and his thatch has thinned, the movie star who was Mad Max still has the charisma and gravitas to center a dodgy suspense tale and propel it to the finish line. Gibson plays veteran Boston police detective Tom Craven, who welcomes home daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) for a rare visit, then sees her shot down at his front door. Because the gunman shouted "Craven!" and because a cop makes enemies, Tom assumes Emma took a bullet meant for him, which adds considerably to his grief and pain. But as he looks into the life of a daughter he loved yet scarcely knew, he discovers she'd been preparing to turn whistleblower on her employer, a corporation doing unsavory clandestine things for the government. Craven starts having oblique chats with a philosophical Brit named Jedburgh (Ray Winstone), who keeps turning up unexpectedly--in Craven's backyard at night, say--always giving the distinct impression that he could just as well kill a fellow instead of schmoozing. Their strange rapport, like Craven's tendency to mutter ironical asides as if in ongoing conversation with the departed Emma, is more intriguing than the conspiracy involving corporate skullduggery and a rogue assassination bureau. The bar for that sort of thing was set in post-Watergate days by Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View, and we're nowhere near its cinematic elegance or pervasive paranoia. Edge of Darkness, based on a British miniseries from 1985, was directed by Martin Campbell, who also handled the six-hour original (and more recently the successful James Bond reboot Casino Royale). Campbell does decent-enough work--the occasional bursts of "shocking action" do shock even as we know they're coming--but rarely exceeds generic requirements. For killing comparison among contemporary suspense films, catch Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer, in which every frame unsettlingly conveys a world where disquiet is the natural order of things.

Disc Features:
Focus-point featurettes:
-Revisiting the Edge of Darkness miniseries
-Mel's back
-Director profile: Martin Campbell
-Boston as a character
-And more
Additional/alternate scenes

Legion [Blu-ray]

Sony / 2010 / 100 Minutes / Rated R
Street Date: May 11, 2010

Overall Grade Great disc, terrible film





Genres: Action, horror, thriller
Starring: Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid
Director: Scott Stewart

Plot Synopsis: As pure check-your-head-at-the-door popcorn entertainment, the apocalyptic action-horror hybrid Legion delivers in nearly every frame--its story of a band of strangers fighting an army of angels and demons for the fate of mankind is proudly loud, bullet riddled, and knee-deep in gore and CGI. That doesn't mean it's particularly good or even coherent--the story has renegade angel Michael (a glum Paul Bettany) come to the aid of diner owner Dennis Quaid (equally glum) and his patrons (a cross-section of stereotypes embodied by a capable cast, which includes Lucas Black, Charles S. Dutton, Tyrese Gibson, Kate Walsh, and Jon Tenney) as a host of heavenly and diabolical beings, dispatched by an angry God, descend on the diner with the intent of killing waitress Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights), whose unborn child may be the salvation of humanity. The orgy of special effects--endless hails of bullets and a menagerie of unpleasant demonic creatures, the most unsettling of which is the ice cream man (Doug Jones, Hellboy)--is eye popping but ultimately repetitive, and since no character rises above a cipher in director Scott Stewart's script (cowritten with Peter Schink), the whole affair feels unwieldy and eventually tiresome under a barrage of hackneyed dialogue. Naturally, Legion ends with the possibility of a sequel, though one wonders where the story can go after Armageddon.

Disc Features:

• Creating the Apocalypse (HD, 23:43)
  
• Humanity's Last Line of Defense (HD, 11:23)
  
• From Pixel to Picture (HD, 10:57)

• Bringing Angels to Earth: Picture-in-Picture
  

Daybreakers [Blu-ray]

Lionsgate / 2009 / 98 Minutes / Rated R
Street Date: May 11, 2010

Overall Grade Worth it!





Genres: Futuristic thriller
Starring: Ethan Hawke, William Dafoe
Director: Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig

Plot Synopsis: Two-time Academy Award® nominee Ethan Hawke plays Edward Dalton, a researcher in the year 2019, when an unknown plague has transformed the world’s population into vampires. As the human population nears extinction, vampires must capture and farm every remaining human, or find a blood substitute before time runs out. However, a covert group of vampires makes a remarkable discovery, one which has the power to save the human race.

Disc Features:

• Making of 'Daybreakers' (HD, 121:38) – Here's the breakdown:
  
  Early Development: The Beginning; Story Development; The Vampires - Part I; Script Editing; Casting; and The Vampires - Part II.
  
  Pre-Production: Part I - Creating the Look; Part II - Rehearsals and Ed Dalton; Part III - Teeth, Lenses, and Car Crashes; and Part IV - On Set Rehearsals.
  
  Production: Part I - Subsiders from the Start; Part II - The Human Resistance; Part III - Two Directors and Elvis; Part IV - Carnage and Car Crashes; Part V - Schedule and Shigella; Part VI - Bites and Bromley; Part VII - Sacrifice and Subsiders; and Part VIII - The Beginning is the End.
  
  Post-Production: Part I - Editing and Visual Effects; Part II - Music, Color, and Sound; Part III - Test Screening and New Ending; and Part IV - The Toronto Film Festival.


• 'The Big Picture' (HD, 13:51)

• Storyboard and Animatics Comparison – A Bonus View picture-in-picture feature that shows storyboards and animatics in a small window during the movie.


• BD Touch – Access disc-specific special features via the iPhone and iPod Touch.

• Metamenu – This features supposedly enables Blu-ray owners to control their players via iPhone. More information can be found on the www.my.metamenus.com site.


• Bookmarks – Save your favorite scenes. Never found any use for this feature personally.


• LG-Live – Lionsgate's BD-Live Portal where you can download ringtones and backgrounds, control your gadgets, and access other online goodies.


• Digital Copy – A second disc includes a standard-definition digital copy of the film compatible with PC or Mac.


• Trailers – 'From Paris With Love,' 'Gamer,' 'Lionsgate Blu-ray' promo, and 'EPIX HD.'

Back Catalogue/ Other Blu-ray Releases: