Drive-In Delirium, Volume Three: Retro Rampage (Umbrella Entertainment Region Free DVD Set)/Freelancers (2012/Lionsgate Blu-ray)/The Liquidator (2010/Millennium DVD)/One In The Chamber (2012/Anchor Bay
Blu-ray w/DVD)/The Viral Factor
(2012/Well Go USA
Blu-ray)
Picture:
C+/B-/C+/B- & C/B Sound: C+/B-/C+/B
& B-/B Extras: D/D/C/D/C Main Programs: B+/D/C/D/C
PLEASE NOTE: The Drive-In Delirium DVD set can only be operated on machines capable
of playing back DVDs that can handle Region Zero/0/Free PAL format software and
can be ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website
address provided at the end of the review.
The rest of the titles are U.S. releases.
Now for
some action/exploitation releases.
First up
is Drive-In Delirium, Volume Three:
Retro Rampage which is only available from Umbrella Entertainment in
Australia, but it is a remarkable collection of 300+ trailers on a 4-DVD
Set. We just covered Synapse’s Blu-ray
of 42nd Street Forever and that was pretty extensive,
but I am equally impressed by the line-up here which includes more of the
trailers in great condition than expected and the added bonus of foreign-market
trailer releases (think EMI issuing Dan Curtis’ Dracula telefilm theatrically in England) that are among the many
pleasant surprises. Also, there are
alternate versions of more circulated trailers as well.
The clips
are grouped together under the headings Have
Rocketship. Will Travel, Annihilation
Earth, Where Have All The People
Gone?, Do The Stomp!, Saturday Matinee Madness, Blood In Black & White, Old School Auteurs, Poe & Co., Corman At Ya!,
Technicolor Terror (which includes
genre films in all kinds of color formats), Hammer
Time, Video Nasties (films that
were banned) and Trailerpalooza. The first disc opens with a great extra of
its own, a general promo for theater owners to promote their concession stands
and the different choices of food on the menu is very interested.
With
great rewatchability and fun throughout, this is the best of the many fine DVD
trailer collections we have seen to date.
If you enjoy these sets, this is worth going out of your way to
order. It is also fun to see all the
various genre films in their glory.
Returning
to current times, we have four new releases that show how the action genre has
become lazy, flat and dull.
Curtis
“50 Cent” Jackson
has somehow conned Robert De Niro and Forrest Whittaker to be in his latest
disaster, Jessy Terrero’s Freelancers
(2012) which (we hope you are sitting down) has ‘Mr. Cent’ as a police
officer! Already this is as unrealistic
as anything he has made to date, then it gets worse as people keep shooting and
killing each other throughout, the real stars are wasted and we are supposed to
sympathize with his cop because his father was a slain cop, but could that have
been a set-up?
Yawn!!! These become torture tests to sit through and
you can feel the emptiness as soon as the first few minutes kick in, then it
gets worse. His releases ought to be
dubbed the ‘review this garbage of die trying” series because it is some of the
worst product being made today and that is quiet the achievement. Extras they bothered to add include
time-wasters like a commentary track, Deleted Scenes, Interviews and a Behind The Scenes featurette all so bad,
this might as well be a basic release.
Then we
have the more watchable Akan Satayev Russian actioner The Liquidator (2010, not to be confused with the Rod Taylor film) with Vinnie
Jones featured prominently on the cover, but he is not in it much. To make things more confusing, most of the
actors are Asian and so Jones would not be dubbed badly, her plays a hitman
known as ‘The Mute’. I am not making
this up. For what is here, you get some
nice location shots and a few watchable fights, but it is unmemorable for the
most part and we have the cliché of yet another family member mysteriously
killed.
After all
this, we all know there is nothing mysterious about these deaths, or there
would not be any film (or TV show, etc) so that gives you an idea of the lack
of imagination and effort. A Making Of featurette is the only extra.
Not to be
outdone by 50 Cent, Cuba Gooding Jr. proves that hew can still make work that
is just as relentlessly bad and this time, he has brought Dolph Lundgren with
him (looking like he wants Robert Shaw’s role in Jaws) in William Kaufman’s One
In The Chamber (2012), as in a gun chamber because you might start wanting
to play Russian Roulette (not played in the Vinnie Jones film, ironically)
after sitting through this one.
Gooding
Jr. is a deadly assassin (hhaaaaaaaaaaaa!) doing his job in Prague when he has
to deal with an old Soviet Killer known as ‘The Wolf’ (Lundgren) while on his
mission. This starts out bad, gets worse
and worse, then Lundgren turns up with one of his worst performances ever the
fights are not that good and the script a wreck, so know it is awful. Even Lundgren fans will scratch their heads,
so skip this one otherwise. Wonder if the
Academy wants their Oscar back from Gooding Jr.? A Behind
The Scenes featurette is the only extra.
Finally
(geez) we have Dante Lam’s child-in=jeopardy thriller The Viral Factor (2012) which has Jay Chow, the latest actor to
play Kato in the recent comedy version of The
Green Hornet (see our Blu-ray 3D coverage elsewhere on this site) so form
the cover, I once again expected to see Chou as the star and thought it would
be nice to see him outside of the restrictions of a formula Hollywood comedy.
However,
he is not the star, though he gets more screen time than Vinnie Jones did in Liquidator above (they should be in a
real R-rated action film together) and though it is nice to see Chow in more
naturalistic form when he shows up, it is not enough, the script is a wreck,
the fights are not that well choreographed and despite some good locations and
some money on the screen, this is a big dud.
That is sad, because if they had dropped the clichés, upped Chou’s role
and had better fights, this could have been the best release here, but it instead
is a big disappointment.
Extras
include Cast/Crew Interviews and a Making
Of featurette.
The 1.33
X 1 image on the Delirium set has
various aspect ratios, but again, the trailers are usually in top rate shape
for their age, though some will still look rough. It is fortunate Umbrella found such a nice
archive. The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High
Definition image on Chamber is mixed
with some styling that is dull, plus some motion blur and detail issues, but it
does look better than the anamorphically enhanced DVD also included, which is
very soft and weak, making it the poorest performer on the list. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on
Liquidator has some of the same
issues, but not to the poor extend Chamber
does on DVD.
The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on Freelancers is as problematic (and
often annoyingly similar) to Chamber,
but somehow manages to be slightly more obnoxious overall. That same playback and frame on Factor tends to be the best performer
on the list with slight styling, but consistently steady (even with some shaky
camerawork) throughout and is professionally shot in part in the Super 35mm
film format.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 sound on the Delirium
set can wildly vary) a few clips are in simple stereo), but are usually
monophonic and usually sound better on average than expected. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Liquidator should be better overall,
but tends not to have a very consistent soundfield, which the DVD of Chamber with the same type of mix does
have to some extent, though the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 on its Blu-ray version sounds
as good as anything here.
That
leaves the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Freelancers which is somewhat sloppy and inconsistent, therefore
is not as good and the same kind of mix on Factor,
which is the sonic champ on this list by a very slight, narrow margin.
As noted
above, you can order the Drive-In
Delirium PAL DVD import set (as well as its two predecessors) exclusively
from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
