DVD Review - June 29

By Damon Smith

New to rent on DVD/Blu-ray

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (Cert 15, 87 mins, Paramount Home Entertainment, Action/Horror/Thriller/Romance, also available to buy DVD £19.99/Blu-ray £26.99/3D Blu-ray £29.99)

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Thomas Mann, Pihla Viitala, Peter Stormare and the voice of Robin Atkin Downes.

Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and his feisty sister Gretel (Gemma Arterton) had their first encounter with a witch as children. Through luck and enterprise, the siblings killed the diabolical crone and established a reputation as protectors against the dark arts. When several children from one sleepy village go missing, Sheriff Berringer (Peter Stormare) blames local woman Mina (Pihla Viitala) and prepares to burn her as a witch. The eponymous heroes intervene in the nick of time and set about tracking down the real culprit - grand witch Muriel (Famke Janssen) - who is kidnapping local tykes as a sacrifice during the forthcoming night of the Blood Moon. With the odds stacked against them, Hansel, Gretel and an enthusiastic protege (Thomas Mann) lay their lives on the line to send Muriel and her coven back to hell. Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is a gleefully violent fantasy that expands the story of two children held hostage by a crone in a gingerbread house into a full-blooded battle between the forces of good and evil. The script marries action movie convention with an olde-worlde setting, providing the titular heroes with an arsenal of pithy one-liners. Renner and Arterton dispatch their prey with aplomb, both enjoying the physical aspects of their roles. However, frenetic action sequences cannot compensate for flimsy plotting and a paucity of character development. Director Tommy Wirkola adds lashings of gore, splattering one crone's guts all over the camera lens. This is no slavish retread of the Brothers Grimm. The 3D version of the film is available exclusively on Blu-ray.

Rating: ***

Song For Marion (Cert PG, 89 mins, Entertainment One, Drama/Romance/Musical, also available to buy DVD £15.99/Blu-ray £19.99)

Starring: Terence Stamp, Vanessa Redgrave, Gemma Arterton, Christopher Eccleston, Anne Reid, Orla Hill.

Elizabeth (Gemma Arterton) is volunteer conductor of a motley crew of fun-loving pensioners at Smith Hall Community Centre, who perform under the name of the OAPZ. Marion (Vanessa Redgrave) is one of the most popular and beloved members of the choir. She is battling terminal illness with the help of her cranky husband, Arthur (Terence Stamp), who would prefer his wife to give up singing so she can concentrate on getting better. The OAPZ are preparing for a singing competition and Marion is earmarked for a rousing solo. Alas, when she can no longer trill through the pain, Arthur begrudgingly takes his wife's place and rediscovers his love of singing. In the process, he also rebuilds bridges with his mechanic son James (Christopher Eccleston) and widens his circles of friends to support him when the time comes to let go of the woman he adores. Song For Marion is a comedic drama about personal triumph and reconciliation in the wake of terminal illness, anchored by Stamp's sympathetic portrayal of a curmudgeonly loner who finds redemption at his lowest ebb. Paul Andrew Williams' film could easily have descended into cloying sentimentality and shameless emotional manipulation. So it's to the writer-director's credit that he doesn't soften too many of Arthur's rough edges or steer his characters far away from the reality of their devastating loss. The gently paced script sings from the heart, milking copious tears between lively choral arrangements of Salt-N-Pepa's dancefloor filler Let's Talk About Sex and Motorhead's Ace Of Spades, and Redgrave's heartbreaking solo on Cyndi Lauper's ballad True Colours.

Rating: ****

This Is 40 (Cert 15, 128 mins, Universal Pictures (UK) Ltd, Comedy/Romance, also available to buy DVD £19.99/Blu-ray £24.99)

Starring: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Maude Apatow, Iris Apatow, Megan Fox, Charlyne Yi, Jason Segel, Chris O'Dowd, Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Melissa McCarthy.

Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) have raised two beautiful daughters, 13-year-old Sadie (Maude Apatow) and eight-year-old Charlotte (Iris Apatow), but are now stuck in a rut. Sadie is going through a difficult phase, clashing with her parents about her addiction to her favourite television show. "My relationship with Lost is not your business. It's incredibly personal," she snaps. "JJ Abrams, he's ruining our daughter!" despairs Debbie. Meanwhile, precocious Charlotte is upset by all of the screaming and shouting in the house. As Debbie goes into denial about turning 40 in the very same week that Pete celebrates the same milestone, husband and wife re-evaluate their stagnating marriage and decide an emotional spring clean is in order. This has dramatic repercussions for Pete's cash-strapped father (Albert Brooks) and Debbie's employees (Megan Fox, Charlyne Yi) at her upscale clothing boutique. This Is 40 is a long-winded rom-com, which revisits characters from Judd Apatow's film Knocked Up to explore the reality of married life for a middle-aged couple who have lost that loving feeling. Laughter and tears are weighted heavily in favour of the former with some very funny interludes, including a marijuana-spiked vacation. However, the characters' various emotional crises scream out for resolution well before Apatow decides that he's had his fill after an exhausting 128 minutes. Rudd and Mann - Apatow's real-life wife - are an attractive pairing and a scene-stealing cameo from Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) delivers big laughs when the film needs them most.

Rating: ***

Broken City (Cert 15, 104 mins, Studio Canal, Thriller/Romance/Action, also available to buy DVD £17.99/Blu-ray £22.99)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jeffrey Wright, Barry Pepper, Natalie Martinez, Kyle Chandler, Alona Tal.

New York City cop Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) shoots an unarmed suspect and faces a prison sentence until popular Mayor Nicholas Hostetler (Russell Crowe) steps in with a deal, making clear to Billy that he expects a favour in return. Seven years later, Billy is a low-rent private detective with thousands of unpaid bills. Out of the blue, Hostetler calls in his marker: he asks Billy to gather evidence to prove that his wife Cathleen (Catherine Zeta-Jones) has been unfaithful. A simple surveillance operation reveals a hotel room liaison between Cathleen and Paul Andrews (Kyle Chandler), election manager of Hostetler's charismatic rival, Jack Valliant (Barry Pepper). Her betrayal seems clear, then Andrews is murdered and Billy grapples with the chilling probability that he signed the campaign manager's death warrant. Broken City is a polished political thriller of corruption and betrayal, about men and women who will do and say anything to get ahead of the chasing pack. Director Allen Hughes marshals an impressive cast. Wahlberg goes through the motions as the pawn in a deadly game he doesn't understand until it is too late, but Crowe savours his opportunity to chew on scenery as the man in power who won't give up his crown easily. Their big showdown is rather one-sided - Crowe spits venom all over his co-star - but plot mechanics and technology come to Wahlberg's rescue in the final reckoning. Brian Tucker's script sustains dramatic tension for the opening hour by teasing us with characters' ulterior motives but becomes increasingly preposterous.

Rating: ***

Also released

12 Rounds 2: Reloaded (Cert 15, 90 mins, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Action/Thriller, also available to buy DVD £15.99/Blu-ray £19.99 - see below)

Entity (Cert 15, 87 mins, Metrodome Distribution, Horror/Thriller, also available to buy DVD £15.99 - see below)

Movie 43 (Cert 15, 94 mins, Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment, Comedy/Romance, also available to buy DVD £15.99 - see below)

Neighbouring Sounds (Cert 15, 126 mins, Artificial Eye, Drama, also available to buy DVD £15.99 - see below)

New to buy on DVD/Blu-ray

Doctor Who: Regeneration (Cert PG, 490 mins, BBC DVD, DVD £59.99, Sci-Fi/Drama/Action)

In the wake of Matt Smith's announcement that he intends to bow out as the 11th timelord in this year's Christmas special, relive the many faces of the Doctor in this lavish, individually numbered box set, which brings together the regeneration episodes that introduced viewers to the eponymous time traveller as played by William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant. Packaged as a coffee table-style book, the box set includes six discs with over 1000 minutes of footage and extras including the previously missing fourth episode from The Tenth Planet storyline, which has been restored and reconstructed in animated form with the original audio soundtrack.

Movie 43 (Cert 15, 94 mins, Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment, DVD £15.99, Comedy/Romance)

Three teenage boys excitedly search the internet for a notorious banned film entitled Movie 43. Instead of the video nasty they were hoping to find, the young men stumble upon a series of outrageous and outlandish comic sketches peppered with strong sex references and incendiary language. The casts of these entwined narratives includes Elizabeth Banks, Kristen Bell, Halle Berry, Leslie Bibb, Kate Bosworth, Gerard Butler, Josh Duhamel, Anna Faris, Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Hugh Jackman, Johnny Knoxville, Justin Long, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Grace Moretz, Liev Schreiber, Seann William Scott, Emma Stone, Jason Sudeikis, Uma Thurman, Naomi Watts and Kate Winslet.

12 Rounds 2: Reloaded (Cert 15, 90 mins, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, DVD £15.99/2 Rounds Double Pack DVD Box Set £19.99/Blu-ray £19.99/2 Rounds Double Pack Blu-ray Box Set £21.99, Action/Thriller)

The straight-to-DVD sequel to the 2009 thriller starring John Cena stars a different WWE wrestler, Randy Orton, but follows a similar template. Dedicated paramedic Nick Malloy (Orton) receives a mysterious telephone call from a deranged killer called Heller (Brian Markinson), who claims to have kidnapped Nick's wife, Sarah (Cindy Busby). In order to save her, Nick must perform 12 challenges within a strict time limit, achieving each target without alerting the police otherwise Heller promises to kill Sarah and then unleash hell upon the unsuspecting residents of the city. With the clock ticking and Sarah's life hanging by a thread, Nick must break the law in order to understand Heller's motives and then hunt down the madman before he can enact his diabolical scheme. A two-disc set, comprising the original film 12 Rounds and the sequel, is also available.

CSI New York - Complete Season 08 (Cert 15, 782 mins, Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment, DVD £49.99, Thriller/Action)

Detective Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) suffers private torment with the impending 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and the death of his beloved wife Claire in the penultimate series of the forensics drama. Assistant Supervisor Jo Danville (Sela Ward) and colleagues Danny (Carmine Giovinazzo) and Lindsay (Anna Belknap) help Mac through this difficult time but even their professional resolve is tested in the final episode "Near Death", in which Mac is critically injured in a bungled robbery and the team must race against time to follow the evidence and identify the shooter. The five-disc box set includes all 18 gripping episodes.

Futurama - Season 6 (Cert 12, 275 mins, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, DVD £24.99/Blu-ray £29.99, Animation/Sci-Fi/Comedy)

Another 13 madcap episodes of Simpsons creator Matt Groening's futuristic animated comedy, which chronicles the misadventures of 20th-century pizza delivery boy Philip J Fry, who wakes from cryogenic deep freeze after more than 1000 years to continue his slacker life alongside cyclopean Captain Leela, Bender the inebriated robot, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, Doctor Zoidberg and Captain Zapp Brannigan. This series, Bender testifies against the robot mafia and is rushed into witness protection, Leela becomes a major player in Hollywood and the crew travels back in time and accidentally alters the course of history.

Frankie (Cert 12, 354 mins, BBC DVD, DVD £19.99, Drama/Romance)

Penned by Lucy Gannon, creator of long-running series as Peak Practice, Bramwell and Soldier, Soldier, this six-part BBC One drama centres on well respected district nurse Frankie Maddox (Eve Myles) as she enters people's lives and helps them to make life or death decisions. Long-term boyfriend Ian (Dean Lennox Kelly) cheats on her and Frankie refuses to take him back. Meanwhile, Dr Zoe Evans (Gemma Redgrave), who also works at the Community Nurse's Office, makes shocking allegations against Frankie and new team leader Matthew Seren (Ben Owens-Jones) raises eyebrows with his unconventional approach to management. The two-disc set includes all six episodes.

Entity (Cert 15, 87 mins, Metrodome Distribution, DVD £15.99, Horror/Thriller)

Kate Hansen (Charlotte Riley) hosts a popular British TV show called Darkest Secrets, which travels around the world to the locations of unsolved crimes and employs brilliant psychic Ruth Peacock (Dervla Kirwan) to deduce what happened and perhaps even who committed the heinous crime. The show's producers learn about the discovery of 34 dead bodies in a Siberian forest and so Ruth and the crew travel deep into Eastern Europe in the company of local guide, Yuri Levkov (Branko Tomovic). With the cameras rolling and Ruth's highly tuned senses going into overdrive, it's not long before the team uncovers dark and chilling secrets in the forest, which put their own lives in jeopardy.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God (Cert 15, 105 mins, Independent Distribution, DVD £15.99, Documentary)

American documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney won an Academy Award for his 2007 feature Taxi To The Dark Side, which highlighted the death of an Afghan taxi driver during an interrogation by Afghan soldiers. Never afraid to tackle timely or taboo subjects, Gibney now turns his attentions to sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. He chooses to highlight the cases of four deaf men who claimed they were abused by the same priest and brought forth one of the first cases of its kind to question why the Vatican did not remove the holy man from his post when their allegations came to light. Actors Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke, Jamey Sheridan and John Slattery provide the voices of the deaf victims as they relate their harrowing stories and share their fierce determination to expose a cover-up.

Neighbouring Sounds (Cert 15, 126 mins, Artificial Eye, DVD £15.99, Drama)

Film critic Kleber Mendonca Filho's debut feature is a slice of Brazilian life, weaving together several loosely connected plot strands relating to residents of the same middle-class neighbourhood of Recife. Ageing patriarch Francisco (WJ Solha) owns many of the properties on the street but even he is powerless to stop a private security firm from touting its business to the locals, promising to eradicate crime for a suitable fee. Married mother-of-two Bia (Maeve Jinkings) is sick and tired of the barking of her neighbour's dog and she assuages the pain by smoking pot and leaping atop her washing machine for a deeply pleasurable spin cycle. Meanwhile, Francisco's son Joao (Gustavo Jahn) wakes to discover someone has broken into the car of his girlfriend. His cousin Dinho (Yuri Holanda) is the likely suspect but Joao needs proof to back up the allegation.

Keeping Up With The Kardashians - Season Seven (Cert 12, 556 mins, Universal/Playback, DVD £12.99, Special Interest)

Mother hen Kris decides to pursue a DNA test so she can prove Khloe's paternity then has her breast implants replaced, Kendall and Kylie have the bright idea of making a music video together and Kim and Khloe visit a fertility clinic in the latest instalments of the soapy reality TV series, which is broadcast on channel E! The five-disc set includes all 18 episodes.

Home (Cert 12, 77 mins, Drakes Avenue Pictures, DVD £15.99, Drama)

Turkish actor Muzaffer Ozdemir makes his directorial debut with this melancholic meditation on the passing of time and the relentless pace of modern life. Neurotic architect Dogan (Kanbolat Gorkem Arslan) falls ill and is prescribed rest and relaxation far from the city and his usual surroundings. So he chooses to return to the bucolic town of his childhood, which he remembers fondly as an idyll untouched by the technological age. Back in the countryside he holds so dear, Dogan discovers that the town he remembers has changed greatly and that those bygone days of tranquility are sadly no more.

Resolution (Cert 15, 92 mins, Crystal Lake Entertainment, DVD £12.99, Horror/Thriller)

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead co-direct this low budget horror, which follows a similar narrative thread to the recent remake of Evil Dead. Michael (Peter Cilella) has watched his good friend Chris (Vinny Curran) succumb to drugs and almost self-destruct under the influence of narcotics. Unable to stand by any longer, Michael points a stun gun at Chris then handcuffs his pal and drives deep into the forest to a remote cabin where he chains Chris to a pipe so his friend will have to go cold turkey and flush the poison out of his system once and for all. As the effects of the drugs begin to wear off, Chris suffers terrifying hallucinations and begs to be uncuffed but Michael refuses, certain that his intervention will succeed. But then Michael begins to experience the same chilling visions and he realizes that there are dark forces around the cabin intent on claiming Chris's tortured soul.

Roger & Val Have Just Got In - Series 2 (Cert 12, 174 mins, Dazzler, DVD £19.99, Comedy/Romance)

Dawn French and Alfred Molina star in another six instalments of the gently paced BBC Two sitcom, which follows the lives of food technology teacher Val (French) and her botanist husband Roger (Molina) as they return home from work each day. On the surface, the shows seems to deal with the couple's relationship and the minutiae of their daily routines but gradually, the viewer glimpses the heartache beneath Val and Roger's smiles stemming from the death of their infant son Christopher. The DVD includes the episodes The Shock, The Woman In The Attic, Surprise!, Pam's Collage, A Poem For Uncle Jack and The Gift.

Yellow Sky (Cert PG, 94 mins, Odeon Entertainment, DVD £12.99, Western)

Gregory Peck dons his spurs as a bank robber, who has a change of heart about his life of crime, in this restored version of William A Wellman's 1948 western, loosely based on Shakespeare's play The Tempest. James 'Stretch' Dawson (Peck) and his gang of gun-toting robbers leave town in a hurry with a vengeful posse in hot pursuit. The law-breakers gallop into a ghost town called Yellow Sky, desperately short of food and water, and discover that an old prospector (James Barton) and his beautiful granddaughter Constance (Anne Baxter) have stayed behind to plunder a local gold mine. The gang plots to rip off Constance and the old timer but when Stretch falls head over heels in love with the little lady, allegiances within the gang are tested to breaking point, pitting one villainous varmint against another.

DVD retail top 10

1 (4) Wreck-It-Ralph

2 (1) Les Misérables

3 (7) Breaking Bad - Season 5

4 (3) Jillian Michaels: 30 Day Shred

5 (10) Dexter - Season 7

6 (2) Django Unchained

7 (9) Game of Thrones - Season 1

8 (-) True Blood - Season 5

9 (6) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

10 (-) Lincoln

Chart supplied by Amazon.co.uk

DVD rental top 10

1 (-) The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey

2 (6) Flight

3 (7) Wreck-it-Ralph

4 (9) I Give it a Year

5 (1) Argo

6 (2) The Impossible

7 (5) Silver Linings Playbook

8 (4) Jack Reacher

9 (-) Bullet to the Head

10 (3) The Last Stand

Chart supplied by www.LOVEFiLM.com

Film streaming top 10

1 (3) Fast Five

2 (1) Bad Teacher

3 (4) Hanna

4 (7) Hop

5 (5) Just Go With It

6 (-) Sex and the City

7 (6) Ratatouille

8 (-) The Pacifier

9 (-) The Emperor's New Groove

10 (9) High School Musical 3

Chart supplied by www.LOVEFiLM.com

Note to Editors: Amended version, charts included below