Blu-ray Review - Escape Plan: The Extractors (2019)

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Swinging for the fences while trying not to snack on the scenery, as a B-movie villain who jovially rattles off creepy anecdotes to intimidate his hostages at a moment's notice, Devon Sawa commands our attention in Escape Plan: The Extractors (aka Escape Plan 3).

As it turns out, however, he's one of only a few bright spots in this otherwise bland, paint-by-numbers actioner. Borrowing from the Game of Thrones playbook, The Extractors is shot in so much darkness that you'll probably wonder — as you squint along — if you either forgot to pay your electric bill or there's something's wrong with your TV.

But just when we think we've seen enough to know we're not going to miss much if we hit eject, Sawa and fellow new cast member Jin Zhang show up to change our mind. As the Sylvester Stallone franchise's newest dastardly villain and kick-ass hero respectively, Sawa and Zhang are so entertaining that viewers will probably wish they'd been tapped to play the leads in a new (and hopefully much better) action movie.

Like a silent, black-and-white movie from the 1920s where a kidnapped woman is left helplessly tied to the railroad tracks, Extractors' entire plot — what little there is of it — revolves around not one but two damsels in distress.

Called to action after a Chinese technology mogul's daughter is kidnapped and a flash drive with his name on it is found at the scene of the crime, Stallone's security (and escape) expert Ray Breslin prepares to go on the hunt to bring her back from an abandoned old Latvian prison where she's being held.

Raising the stakes by making her captor none other than Breslin's corrupt ex-partner's son (Sawa) — who grabbed her more to kick off the long game of revenge than collect a ransom — the film's screenwriters try to give it more emotional heft by visiting their favorite creative well again.

Not content with just one lady in waiting, The Extractors rinses and repeats the film's plot as Stallone's onscreen girlfriend (played by a tragically underutilized Jaime King) gets abducted and thrown in the Latvian pokey known as the Devil's Station as well.

While Dave Bautista has an absolute blast blowing stuff up and fighting his stunt double (which in Hollywood, I'm sure counts as some sort of action star on-the-job therapy), from a wasted King and a blink-and-you-missed it return by Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson to a one note turn by Stallone, the rest of the franchise's previous stars just seem bored.

To inject the series — which was a huge hit in China — with a much needed shot of adrenaline, Stallone recruited dynamic Chinese star Jin Zhang, who bursts onto the screen and takes down a number of Breslin's co-workers with the aid of an umbrella. Fortunately, the two men aren't rivals for long. After the battle is over, Zhang's Shen teams up with Breslin because it seems that damsel in distress number one is his girlfriend.

Having multiplied the same plot point by Breslin and employed it twice, as director and co-writer John Herzfeld's film continues, we discover that that's one time and one damsel too many when the otherwise terrific Zhang and Harry Shun Jr. get kicked to the curb in the disappointing movie's largely lifeless second half.

And shockingly, although Stallone comes alive in a brutal — and from what I gather unchoreographed — actual fight with Devon Sawa that left both men bloody and battered, as written, Extractors might've worked better if Zhang had been promoted to the lead, Sawa and Bautista were left in the mix, and Stallone and King played an even smaller role.

As a lifelong Stallone fan, that's a hard truth to write, although it's probably not as hard as Zhang knocking down human obstacles with his trusty umbrella or Sawa exclaiming that he loves the sound of prison bars locking up for the night with the same glee that a child has after watching their first Stallone movie fight.

Text ©2019, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Blu-ray Review: Rio 2 (2014)

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Related Review:
Rio (2011)

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Blue Sky Studios’ globally-minded musically driven 3D CG-animated adventure movie Rio brought its aptly named Blue Macaw Blu and his bookish owner Linda (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg and Leslie Mann respectively) from Minnesota to the titular Rio in the infectious 2011 original that enchanted viewers with its high-spirited energy and fast moving storyline which danced at a steady Samba pace.

Unfortunately while it’s as beautifully vibrant as ever in a visually breathtaking opener that once again feels like it's an animated half-pint version of the Carnival classic Black Orpheus, the second film is an undeniably busy, ambitiously overstuffed and disappointingly episodic return to the delightful high-flying world of Rio.

Strategically released to coincide with the World Cup, Rio 2 incorporates a soccer fueled scene that’s – like everything else in the film – ratcheted up a million degrees so that it’s storyboarded less like a regular match and more like a spectacular Harry Potter styled aerial game of Quidditch.

And despite its pro-nature message about preserving the Amazon Rainforest (as well as the endangered birds in another through-line admirably carried over from the first film), far too much gets lost in the shuffle of individually isolated “scenes” in a movie that ultimately lacks the cohesive focus of a well-conceptualized whole.

As Rio 2 begins, we check back in with the paired off lovebirds (Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway) from the original as the couple and their three young flappers leave Rio behind before flying into acquaintances both new and old in the sequel’s dominated Rainforest setting.

Essentially a feathered version of Meet the Parents for the small set, in Rio 2, Hathaway’s Jewel is stunned to discover that the family she’d long thought to have been deceased is alive and well in her old Amazon home.

While indulging in his opportunity to play the Robert De Niro like Parents heavy, voice actor Andy Garcia is clearly having a ball as Jewell's long lost father who takes an immediate dislike and disapproval to Blu by admonishing him as a mere “pet.” However, the biggest surprise is musician Bruno Mars, who steals several scenes in an often screamingly funny role as a childhood friend who still clearly carries a torch for Jewel.

Burning through subplot and supporting characters (including a return of the first film’s fan favorite Jemaine Clement who’s now partnered with Kristin Chenoweth), from its snappy one-liners to obligatory pop songs and brightly colored, firework-fast diversions, Rio 2’s key takeaway about preserving plant and animal life on Earth gets pushed into the periphery.

Sloppily written, the film shortchanges its talented cast and expectant audience alike with a collection of sitcom level scenes edited together with a few eye-opening epic moments (such as the aforementioned opener) buried in between in order to satisfy the shortest of attention spans.

A pleasant enough diversion for your tiniest tots especially given the multiple format combo pack release which boasts a Blu-ray, DVD and digital copy, director Carlos Saldanha’s effort works better than a majority of run of the mill fare like The Nut Job.

And likewise given the studio's dedicated to discovering new topics, techniques, and terrain (even by way of a preexisting template), it is a stronger than average follow-up as far as animated movies go.

Nonetheless there’s still no beating the South American spirit of Blu’s original opus that showed ticket-buyers that outside of the frozen tundra of the impressive Ice Age franchise, Blue Sky has a bright future ahead of them in the sun.

   

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review - Joy Ride 3: Roadkll (2014) - Unrated

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I’ll say this for writer/director Declan O'Brien’s Joy Ride 3 – at least it sounded good on paper. In a move that – with the right amount of humor and a charismatic character (or two) – could’ve been the stuff of tongue-in-cheek pop culture kismet, O'Brien decided to throw a wrench into the formula that was first established in John Dahl’s underrated Duel meets Scream ’01 contemporary sleeper hit.

The series, which centers on a predatory trucker named Rusty Nail that stalks pretty young things on a lonely stretch of American highway stayed pretty true to the paradigm in the second film (Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead) but former Roger Corman director O'Brien called on his vast horror background for his turn at the helm.

Opting to switch gears, in a shrewd in-joke he decided to have Rusty square off against a group of racers – the same type of characters that wouldn’t be out of place in a Fast and Furious franchise film that turned original Joy Ride lead Paul Walker into a household name.

Although it’s a terrific premise in theory to not only raise the stakes but also give his group of joy-riders a better than average chance of defeating the twisted madman (whose face still remains hidden but whose shudder inducing voice easily dominates the film), unfortunately Joy Ride 3 runs out of gas almost as quickly as it starts following an exploitative yet truly terrifying opener.

Making the most of the straight-to-disc unrated status, the film opens with a gratuitous sex scene featuring two addicts who pick the wrong long distance trucker to prank after Rusty gets even by chaining them to the front of his truck.

While that’s easily the most genuinely frightening sequence as the two are forced to hold on to each other while balancing for a mile on the front of Rusty’s cab, the movie only goes downhill from there.

Failing to follow through with a fresh aside wherein O'Brien introduces us to police officers who've begun to find evidence of Rusty’s serial slaughters on Highway 17 (that might've turned Roadkill into a whodunit police procedural horror movie to give us the tiniest prospect of mystery) which could've enhanced the Rusty Nail legend from the previous films, O'Brien falls back on the established routine.

Thus, other than conveniently offering exposition from time-to-time, the police are mostly relegated to victim status for the rest of the misguided plotline. It’s a shame too because this scene offers further proof that between the police/culprit cat-and-mouse paradigm and the street racers spin, as a writer/director O'Brien has no shortage of ideas. Unfortunately, he’s unable to make the most of one to really drive home a terrific production.

Bogged down by Roadkill’s lifeless dialogue that fails to strengthen an already weak cast of interchangeably bland, woefully underwritten characters we can barely tell apart (although sadly it does help that of the film’s two girls, he cast one blonde and one brunette as a sort of color-coded Cliff’s Notes), the film goes into genre cruise control and never picks up momentum.

Although the second film was criticized for being far too heavily influenced by the first one, honestly after watching all three in quick succession to prepare for the review, I was surprised by how much I liked Joy Ride 2 as a worthy follow-up to Dahl’s ingenious original.

Yes, it did repeat certain tactics established in Dahl’s film including Rusty’s requests for the kids to carry out certain dares but the lively – if flawed – characters and talented cast helped sell the situation, regardless of how ludicrous it seemed.

In this film, not only is very little made of their background racing but we don’t develop any kind of connection to the ensemble at all before they start getting tortured in one mind-numbingly cold and gruesome scene after another.

There’s just no spark of life to the film, whether it’s in the charisma of the cast or the anticlimactic showdowns that (unlike the previous cat-and-mouse chase-filled last acts of the earlier pictures), are completely lacking in suspense or surprise.

While admittedly Rusty and his targets defied death far too many times in previous films, when there’s no tension, the horror-based confrontations just feel sadomasochistic at best.

Obviously, given his extensive background and proof apparent in the film, O'Brien has an enviably clever mind to come up with the creative set-up for the film. However, after taking a look at his overcrowded filmography of far too many straight-to-disc sequels (from Marine 3 to Wrong Turn 4 and 5), I’m thinking that if he either slowed down to give himself a creative break between projects or let someone else supercharge his scripts with a punched up rewrite, his next horror entry will leave the rest in the dust.

   

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Bad Ass 2 - Bad Asses (2014)

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There’s an old cliché that states that a gun shown in the first half of a movie will inevitably go off in the second and when you’re talking about Bad Ass 2: Bad Asses, gunplay in both halves is inevitable.

Yet (and far more creatively), when the perpetually fanny pack clad bad ass senior citizen played by Danny Trejo in the first film builds a child a secret door to heighten her hide and seek skills in the sequel, you just know that hiding place will come in particularly handy in the film’s final confrontation of hard-hitting criminals versus card-carrying members of the AARP.

Essentially the sequel stays true to the same formula established in the first movie about a rough and tough but down on his luck Vietnam veteran named Frank Vega (Trejo) who gains unexpected notoriety after cell phone video of him taking on a group of young skinheads terrorizing an old man on a bus goes viral.

If the premise sounds vaguely familiar, that’s probably because writer/director Craig Moss sought inspiration for his hero from the real-life elderly subject of a similar rapidly shared online video.

Of course, that’s where fact ended and Bad Ass fiction began.

Having been forced out of his forty year business operating a hot dog cart due to the sudden popularity of food trucks in the first movie, shortly after footage of his good deed on the bus went viral, the legally disabled Vega found himself venturing into vigilantism after his best friend and fellow veteran was murdered in cold blood.

With the police unable or unwilling to crack the case, Vega took it upon himself to investigate. Successfully unraveling a major political corruption scandal, Vega was named an honorary community police officer before the sequel checks back in with him three years after the events of the previous installment occurred.

Now running a recreational center, we find Vega teaching young men to box while trying to instill some strong morals in them at the same time.

When his favorite and most promising student is found dead in the midst of what appears to be a drug deal gone wrong, Vega once again finds he has no choice but to track down those responsible, regardless of how high up the chain of command the mystery goes.

Looking after Manny’s widowed mother and adorable kid sister, Vega also forms a new alliance with another fellow fighter (clad in sensible senior citizen apparel) in the form of Danny Glover’s ornery Bernie.

An agoraphobic shopkeeper whose store is connected to Vega’s gym, when Bernie falls victim to street violence and the two men team up the first time, it isn’t long before the previous bickering grumpy old geezers become fast friends.

New on disc, Bad Asses utilizes a lot of the same techniques from the first film from the frequent shots of Los Angeles maps that illustrate where the leads are going – following one scumbag’s tip to the next – as well as revisiting some of the same supporting castmates and employing a similar blend of laid back situational humor throughout.

Taking a lot of material from the duo's advancing age and the physical, health-related challenges that go along with it, Moss seasons the film’s obligatory bad ass fights with tongue-in-cheek jokes.

While it goes to the scatological well a few too many times (opting for the same exact flatulence gag in two separate scenes, for example), one positive aspect about the series is that its characters don’t talk like stereotypical movie heroes.

Intriguingly avoiding the tendency of a lot of thematically similar action movies to rely far too heavily on pop culture Tarantino-esque speeches or laughably repetitive f-bomb laced outbursts of profanity, Moss never forgets that he’s making a movie that can charm as well as simply entertain its target senior demographic.

Steering clear of cheap Viagra jokes or opportunities for exploitation that would’ve turned off older viewers, while it doesn’t deliver the same guns-blazing over-the-top spectacle of an Expendables movie, it strikes a nice balance of embellished yet nonetheless still human heroes rather than the near-action figures that populate Stallone’s testosterone fueled franchise.

Despite this, Bad Asses does run out of gas in a far more incredulous car chase laced finale than we witnessed in the first film by amping up the action to dubious heights that goes against Vega's street-fighting man Modus operandi.

Nonetheless, it’s still fun to see Glover and Trejo play off each other as men so set in their ways that they won’t let anyone (including themselves or each other) tell them that they’re "too old for any of this shit," as Glover’s Lethal Weapon alter ego was so fond of saying.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Cowgirls 'N Angels 2: Dakota's Summer (2014)

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Alternate Titles: Dakota’s Summer; Cowgirls ‘N Angels: Dakota’s Summer

Improving upon the same Flicka-inspired cowgirl coming-of-age formula established by the previous 2012 installment that first introduced viewers to the trick-riding Sweethearts of the Rodeo, writer/director Timothy Armstrong returns with a newfound filmmaking confidence and a much stronger character arc for this impressive straight-to-disc Fox studio sequel.

Revisiting the same themes, a few supporting characters as well as the clever family mystery plot device served up in the earlier Cowgirls which found its younger heroine running away with the rodeo while on the hunt for the father she’d never met, Dakota’s Summer takes a much more ambitious approach to its older eponymous teenager’s family tree fueled journey of self-discovery.

Having always wondered why she didn’t look more like her older, blonde sister (played by Arrow fan-favorite Emily Bett Richards) or had the natural genetic ability of her rodeo legend grandfather Austin Rose (Keith Carradine), shortly into the film, Dakota (Haley Ramm) finally learns the secret that her family has been keeping from her since birth.

Still reeling from the shock, Dakota travels to her grandfather’s ranch to process the revelation and do a little Nancy Drew-like digging in the process.

Gradually letting her guard down the more time she spends helping out with the running of a miniature horse camp that Austin hosts on his ranch for orphans and troubled tweens, Dakota soon finds an unlikely friend and kindred spirit in a young, mischievous girl named Summer (Jade Pettyjohn) whose love of horses rivals her own.

With the lesson that success has more to do with heart than biology, Dakota musters up the courage to literally and figuratively get back on the horse after stumbling in her own life as well as at the rodeo -- rejoining the Sweethearts after the life-changing summer reminds her that what she was looking for she had all along.

Handling a contemporary identifiable dilemma with realism as well as maturity, Armstrong deftly tackles difficult terrain involving self-made vs. biological families and the importance of good friends who are there to help play that role when times get tough.

Admirably avoiding the easy way out by refusing to treat certain characters like one-dimensional villains or opt for an overly sugar-coated fairy tale approach, Armstrong instead depicts all sides and points-of-view regarding the topic of adoption, therefore ensuring that there will be much for families to discuss together after the movie given his more humanistic treatment of the subject.

While obviously because the main storyline is so rich, some of the supporting characters get lost in the shuffle and a few plot points get resolved a bit too conveniently in the nick of time including a disappointingly protracted conclusion to Dakota’s ongoing rivalry with a former childhood friend turned trick-riding antagonist. Yet in the end, Dakota’s Summer is just so darn lovable in its wholesome approach that its minor flaws are easy to overlook.

Beautifully transferred to Blu-ray, the film’s visuals radiate the warmth reflected in its title as well as its script. Shot with an emphasis on the bright colors of a golden rayed sunshine, Dakota’s Summer is filled with the same feel-great key-lighting that harks back to the old-fashioned girl and her horse coming-of-age films of decades past from which the series was initially inspired.

A superior sequel that easily transcends its dated origins thanks to its intelligent handling of a more contemporary plotline, Dakota’s winning combination of heart and horses keeps the briskly paced girl power film galloping along.

Highly recommended, Dakota’s Summer is sure to become a replay-worthy favorite on your daughter’s upcoming summer vacation, thanks to the convenient inclusion of a digital high definition portable device copy of the film with the Blu-ray release that will enable you to bring Austin’s miniature horse camp with you wherever you go (no saddle required).

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review - Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)

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From announcing the follow-up film as Ron Burgundy on Conan to co-anchoring the news in North Dakota in character, Will Ferrell and company led a tireless advertising campaign to remind the legions of viewers that had been clamoring for a sequel to the cult favorite for years that they were back.

Undeniably creative yet at times just plain obnoxious, as it turned out the aggressive ad campaign was a sneak preview of the very film they were plugging as Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues proved it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

For despite the infinitely clever idea to make a tongue-in-cheek revisionist satire of the decline in journalism in the era of the 24 hour news cycle, Ferrell and the gang should have stopped after the first Ron.

Thankfully the Blu-ray release of director Adam McKay’s unfocused, bloated misfire boasts a “super-sized R-rated version with 763 new jokes,” (including several that actually work better than the final cut that was distributed to theaters in time for the film’s Christmas release) so at least super fans can pick and choose which version and scenes they want to watch.

Yet that’s an awful lot of work to expect from an average viewer who is most likely to be disappointed by the theatrical presentation.

Ultimately Anchorman 2 amounts to a comedic car wreck that rather ironically (or fittingly, depending on your point-of-view) truly begins to go off the rails during an onscreen car crash that occurs as the result of a gag you see coming a mile away when the recently reunited news team of ego-driven airheads realizes that nobody is driving their RV.

An all-out disappointment that’s a missed opportunity of epic proportions, Anchorman 2 tests your patience right from the start after relegating series MVP Christina Applegate to what amounts to a near walk-on role, McKay proves equally inept at handling new female cast members.

Whether it’s in the tonally awkward performance of Meagan Good as Ron’s new African-American boss and love interest at the CNN-like Global News Network we find them working at in the 1980s to wasting Kristen Wiig as a female version of Steve Carell’s intellectually challenged, nonsense spouting Brick via a series of increasingly unfunny encounters, we wind up just feeling embarrassed Anchorman’s newest additions.

Likewise, despite a potential comedic goldmine given the new environment, screenwriters McKay and Ferrell wind up falling back on their old tried and true formulas we’ve seen throughout their oeuvre – borrowing plot points that worked better in previous pictures such as the character-building turning point that came from a medical trauma in Talladega Nights.

Mixing the old with new takes on favorite moments from the first film like a supernatural tinged news network rumble in New York that runs out of gas by the time it’s done introducing all of its celebrity cameo players, everything in 2 is bigger except for the laughs. Likewise, it has that unmistakable Ocean's 12 and 13 like air about it that makes you think that it was infinitely more fun to make than it was to watch.

By filling it with too many on the nose extreme references and crass jokes, the filmmakers have misgauged precisely what was funny about the first film. And while it’s possible that at least 25 minutes could’ve been trimmed from the movie to help match the pace established by the original, all in all it’s hard to guess how much of the work would actually be salvageable since there’s not enough good material upon which to build.

As such, this multi-disc set might just inspire fans to remix their own cut and given the vastly improved first act on display in the R-rated edition vs. the original, there might be a passable Anchorman sequel buried in there beneath all of the bulk. Unfortunately and despite all of the incredible talent involved (that may have spent too much time improvising than refining an already solid script), the one currently calling itself Anchorman 2 isn’t it.

It’s too bad too given the satirical potential of our infotainment-based media and the messages contained in the film that roast the practices of various 24 hour news stations from Fox’s jingoism and speculative reporting to the rise of sensationalism of celebrity fueled stories and car chases in the fight for ratings.

While the intriguing call-backs of age-old scandals from O.J. to Lorena Bobbitt earn chuckles, in an era where The Daily Show and Colbert Report cover the very same terrain with much more sophistication on a nightly basis, the lack of a sharper edge to the writing makes Ferrell and McKay’s gags seem halfhearted and dated at best.

A true letdown that may have earned audience (and critical) goodwill due to how much we love those involved as well as the original film, while at least this multi-version Blu-ray, DVD and Ultraviolet combo pack offers up a more thorough presentation of what went wrong and what went right, I only wish that Anchorman 2 would’ve been filled with as much ingenuity as some of the stunts pulled to raise awareness of its theatrical release.

In comedy, they say you should always leave your audience wanting more and because Anchorman 2 made me want less, in the end it proves that less is more – from the beautiful simplicity of the original to a shorter running time to the thought that regardless of demand, not every hit movie needs a sequel.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Alpha and Omega 3 - The Great Wolf Games (2014)

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Related Review:
Alpha and Omega

Timed to tie-in with the Olympic Games, this straight-to-disc sequel from the director of Disney’s The Fox and the Hound easily surpasses the introductory film in the Alpha and Omega franchise, while likewise making up for what it lacks in celebrity voice actors with breathtaking computer generated animation and a universally relatable plotline.

Although The Great Wolf Games referenced in the title is an obvious play on the Olympics complete with clever digs about fairness in judging with home advantage bias, screenwriter Tom Kane takes it to a more easily identifiable level.

Less about the games than their true meaning, as the film continues it moves beyond the event to explore the tendency for drama among sports parents and youth coaches who live vicariously through their child athletes as a commentary on Little League parents and the like.

When the offspring of the eponymous wolf couple from the first film encounter wolves their age practicing for the games in other packs nearby, the headstrong alpha Claudette becomes inspired.

Vowing to bring back the spirit of the event which her dad Humphrey said used to be open to all critters (and not just alpha wolves), Claudette takes it upon herself to put together a diverse team of five members – recruiting a fearful bear cub and a flying porcupine along with her younger twin brothers Stinky and Runt to form their own Western Pack.

Working with her team to help overcome their weaknesses from emotional Brent the bear’s bird issues or the fast-talking porcupine Agnes’s plan to negotiate as many berry bushes and salmon falls as possible, the motley Western crew eventually turns to Humphrey to be their coach since Claudette’s more athletically inclined alpha mother is away tending to official forest business.

Befriending a fellow competitor on the Northern Pack whose coach and father pushes him way too hard, Claudette and her new pal Fleet discover that his father’s trying to relive his own youth through his talented son, trying to make amends for the ego blow he took when he lost in the games to none other than Claudette’s mother.

Not wanting to risk losing a new friend or compete for the wrong reasons, when the race is down to Fleet and Claudette, the younger generation realizes they must take it upon themselves to stand up for themselves and each other in this nicely constructed, altogether positive follow-up to the recent holiday themed second installment of the series (which I have yet to review).

Light years ahead of the far more expensive original that suffered from some oddly inappropriate material for children’s fare when it came to exploring the teenage wolves’ more amorous feelings, although Games is only 45 minutes, the eye-popping clarity of the Crest Animation Blu-ray (plus included high definition Ultraviolet digital copy) is quite breathtaking to behold.

Additionally offering two youth friendly games you can play as part of the special features, this budget friendly combo pack also includes a DVD version of Games to ensure you’re able to entertain your own pack regardless of whether you’re at home, in the wild or on the road.

Text ©2014, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Easy Money - Hard to Kill (2012)

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AKA: Easy Money II
Foreign Title: Snabba Cash II 

“What you want can’t be bought. Class is something you’re born with,” a character tells JW (Joel Kinnaman) in this unrelentingly visceral sequel to the Swedish blockbuster crime saga Easy Money, based on the novel of the same name in the Stockholm Noir trilogy by author Jens Lapidus.

Zeroing in on JW’s lifelong desire to belong among the rich and powerful which propelled Kinnaman’s brainy economics student to move from cabbie to coke dealer in his award-winning transformative performance throughout helmer Daniel Espinosa's predecessor, it's this observation that defines JW right to the core.

Easy Money: Hard to Kill takes us even deeper into the personal lives of those who populate the Noir world of contemporary Sweden first introduced in 2010.

Hard to Kill (which is known as Snabba Cash II overseas) builds its multifaceted storyline from the first two books in Lapidus’s triology which has garnered rave reviews from and/or comparisons to the likes of James Ellroy and Dennis Lehane.

Whereas the first film sectioned its characters into two to three “groups” overall (not counting minor subplots and non-criminal relationships), the highly complicated sequel is far more ambitious. Spreading out the narratives and expanding on characterizations, it helps immensely to have watched the first film recently before you jump back into the fray.

Picking up where we left off, we catch up with the characters three years after JW’s fateful double-cross found him double-crossed as well. Using the gun that made its way into his hand to fire a bullet into Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic) after Mrado went back on his word that nobody would get hurt, the previously nonviolent JW (aka the “Mr. Brains” behind the operation) is forever altered by the decision.

Having formed a peaceful alliance with Mrado after the now wheelchair bound man was transferred to JW’s prison, the two men plan for the future together behind bars. Hinging all their hopes for a proseperous future on a piece of financial software that the ever clever, aspiring social climber JW has designed on the inside while using what little connections he has left on the outside, JW eagerly awaits a fateful business meeting to pitch his brain-child to the money men.

When he’s predictably double-crossed at the same time as two of his former partners in crime likewise find themselves as screwed as the second novel’s Swedish title Aldrig Fucka Upp (aka “Never Fuck Up”) implies, events are set in motion for all three of the men's separate storylines to eventually intersect in an unpredictable way.

While narratively speaking, the intertextuality of the three threads that are destined to be woven together recalls other crime sagas of the past twenty-five years from Pulp Fiction to City of God to The Departed, there’s also a Paul Thomas Anderson Magnolia inspired thematic element to JW’s sobering realization that he may be done with the past but it’s certainly not done with him.

Yet that’s not to say that just because it harks to films of the past, we’re left with something unoriginal or clichéd. Quite the contrary, this Swedish trilogy is one of the strongest crime sagas not named The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo to hit the film scene since the era of Infernal Affairs (which became The Departed) and City of God.

Doomed to repeat the past in the present but hopefully with more hard-earned knowledge that will help them in the future, JW falls back on his criminal background. Setting up a one-shot-only score with Mrado, much like the final meet in the previous picture, the resulting event has a domino effect that will impact everyone else one way or another before the final credits roll.

Espinosa’s original film was muted in its color palette, opting for a dark docudramatic feel that prevailed everywhere expect in the golden tinged world of the upper class so that we could truly feel JW’s desire to belong in that perceived picture perfect existence of sunny afternoons, candlelit dinners and romantic sunrises by seeing it through his eyes. Hard to Kill, on the other hand, finds beauty in the most unexpected places.

A undeniably gritty work that’s also unspeakably beautiful, Kill transcends its tough subject matter and the violent confrontations that pervade as various characters try to double-deal, rob, conspire and pull something over on sworn enemies or lifelong friends depending on the day.

An endless merry-go-round of blood, bullets and bags of money changing hands, director Babak Najafi – using a majority of the same crew that worked on the first installment – weaves a hypnotic web that heightens the textures, colors and emotions of any given scene to thrilling effect, which you can especially appreciate in Cinedigm’s razor-sharp Blu-ray transfer.

From bubbles blowing in the wind at a wedding to a dizzyingly surreal use of match cuts to synchronize the action between multiple characters as a bottle of champagne is used as a weapon in one scene and we move right to blood spilling into a sink in an altogether different one, there’s an impressive sense of visceral poetry that pulsates from the first frame to the very last.

Emphasizing who these characters are as people more than ever before – while we’d spent a large amount of time with JW and Mrado in the first film, Hard to Kill delves much deeper into the lives of both Mahmoud (Fares Fares) and Jorge (Matias Varela) this time around.

Echoing Godfather Part II’s exploration of the way familial roots can make a person, Hard to Kill introduces us to new back-stories that not only help fill in the biographical blanks on the main ensemble but (much like the first film) also alludes to the overall themes of the trilogy to illustrate the new challenges faced by the burgeoning cultural and socioeconomic melting pot that Stockholm has become.

And undoubtedly, even though it’s touched upon in Kill, the depth of this work promises greater things to come as all of these plots and themes will assuredly intersect with Ciendigm’s upcoming Blu-ray, DVD and Digital release of the final installment of social climber JW’s Noir trilogy with Easy Money: Life Deluxe.   

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