Endless
Love (2013
remake/Universal Blu-ray w/DVD)/The
Monuments Men (2014/Sony
DVD)/Pompeii
(2014/Sony Blu-ray 3D w/Blu-ray 2D)
3D
Picture: B- Picture: B- & C+/C/B Sound: B & B-/C+/B
Extras: C-/C/C Films: C-/C+/C
Here
are three different kinds of dramas trying to do different things and
with the results as follows...
Shana
Feste's Endless Love
is a 2013 remake of the failed Brooke Shields/Martin Hewitt romance
film whose title duet theme song was a massive hit (Diana Ross &
Lionel Ritchie) that has been a hit in the form of several remakes
(Ross even cut a successful solo version at the same time!) and now
we have this new film where isolated in success Jade (Gabriella
Wilde) has the dull tranquility suddenly interrupted by a more
outgoing, but gentlemanly David (Alex Pettyfer), break out the
strings because they have fallen for each other.
Her
family and their moneyed friends object because of socio-economic
class division, but the script is too timid to really deal with that
as the boredom and melodrama kick in. They do not offer a remake of
the original theme song, but the parts of the original they recreate
is the boredom, forgetability, endless melodrama and somehow making
the possibly appealing leads sexless mannequins. Though thy have
American accents, the actors are all British!?!
This
does join a new bad cycle of bad cinema we seem to encounter weekly
here at the site: bad, unnecessary remakes of usually bad 1980s
films.
Please
STOP!!!
George
Clooney's The Monuments
Men (2014) uses hybrid
characters to tell the tale of some great, brave and unsung heroes of
WWII who faced death, madness and the like to track down and save as
much of the art of the world as possible that the Nazis and their
Axis partners stole as well as stopping the Soviets from getting and
possibly even destroying said artwork. Cate Blanchett shows up as an
art lover who has a priceless document that could help matters
tremendously.
In
a sort of Dirty Dozen
(clean seven is more like it) mode we have Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill
Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban and Hugh Bonneville
as the team who go into action on behalf of the U.S. Government to do
this, even when it is not everyone's top priority. The story has its
moments and the history is interesting, but the film here holds back
too often by being too clean, not edgy enough and not seeming like it
has an honesty closure or end point when it all ends. It is still
worth a look, but it does not pay off as I wish it did.
Finally
we have Paul W.S. Anderson's Pompeii
(2014), which could and should have been at least a fun actioner and
had possibilities by combining the sword and chain fighting in
ancient arenas (Kubrick's Spartacus,
Scott's Gladiator,
HBO's Game Of Thrones)
with a time running out disaster film scenario (Cameron's Titanic,
several Irwin Allen films) into a blockbuster with punch. Instead,
we get a sadly formulaic wreck in the hands of a director who does
know his way around a genre, but seems bored and does nothing new
with it.
Kit
Harington is the underdog fighter, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as his
sudden friend, Kiefer Sutherland as a boo-hiss villain so silly that
the only way he could have hammed it up any more is if the producers
licensed Porky Pig and stuck him in here CGI, the endless CGI
volcanic effects are the only thing en masse that can compete with
the cliches in the script and even Carrie-Anne Moss, Emily Browning
and Jessica Lucas can stop this from being a bad dude's movie. I can
see why no one is talking about this one. It is a yawner. Jared
Harris also stars.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 MVC-encoded 3-D - Full Resolution digital High
Definition image on Pompeii is produced well enough, but is
not always great despite a few decent holographic shots, but I was
surprised and more impressed by the solid consistency of the 2D
version from its RED EPIC 4K shoot. Anderson has done better in 3D
and 2D before, but this is not bad.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Endless
is a digital shoot that is not great in all of its attempts to look
naturalistic and issues include detail, color and light blowing out
the image slightly, which one notices more on the anamorphically
enhanced DVD version. The original film might not have been great,
but at least it looked decent.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Men looked good in
my theatrical screening, but this DVD is way too soft for its own
good and anyone who wants to see this should get the Blu-ray instead,
especially since it is the best-looking release on this list
ironically.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Endless
and Pompeii
tie for best sonic presentations. It is not that Pompeii
does not sound strong and is up to the sonic standards we get out of
Anderson's genre films, but that Endless
is extremely well recorded and mixed in unexpected ways. This does
not improve either release, but you'll have no problem being able to
here them due to these professionally realized, well recorded,
engineered and mixed tracks.
The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on the Endless
DVD is second place and sounds better than the still decent,
passable, lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Men,
but that sounded solid in theaters and we'd bet the DTS on its
Blu-ray would sound good.
Extras
on all three releases include
Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes capable
devices and a Making
Of
featurette, with Men
adding a second Behind The Scenes piece and Pompeii
adding a 20 Deleted Scenes,
feature length filmmakers' audio commentary track and five more
featurettes, four of which are Blu-ray exclusives and cover aspects
like visual effects, cast/characters, wardrobe, stunts, production
design and the history that inspired
the film.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
