Return Of Captain Invincible (1982/Umbrella PAL Import DVD)/Warm Bodies (2013/Lionsgate 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray)

Picture: C+/A & B+ Sound: C+/B+ Extras: C-/B Films: C/C+

PLEASE NOTE: The Return Of Captain Invincible Import DVD is now only available from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment in Australia, can only play on Blu-ray and DVD players that can handle the PAL DVD format and can be ordered from the link below.

Next up are two older films reissued that both try to mix genre in unusual ways to create something different and get attention. This is not easy to do, as you will see...

The Return Of Captain Invincible

The actually odder of the two films here us a superhero spoof from 1982 that was made is Australia, has Phillippe Mora directing and mixes Hollywood actors like Alan Arkin and the mighty British acting legend and icon Christoper Lee in The Return Of Captain Invincible, trying to combine comedy, satire, spoofing of the superhero genre of the time and add musical influences (just pre-MTV) from Rock Opera films (think Tommy, Phantom Of The Paradise and even Rocky Horror Picture Show) to get any laugh possible.

There are even Star Wars-type space opera elements, but hey come across more lie bad rip-offs of the early films in that series like Galaxina. The film opens much like the film it is mostly sending up, 1978's Superman The Movie with black and white block-style framed footage of Captain Invincible rise, then how he was witch-hunted out of the business (much like all intellectuals, Jews and 'others' in Hollywood and U.S. society at large) in the 1950s (when comic books and the superhero genre were also targeted) explaining his disappearance.

Fast forward to the almost present (the film is not quite in the Reagan 1980s, to its credit) when our title character's nemesis (Lee running with it here well, as usual) has returned to launch terror and destruction on the world. Also set in New York City like the 1978 Superman, Invincible (Arkin playing it about as well as can be expected in burn-out mode) has forgotten how to fly, lost control of his magnetic powers (I wonder if Captain Marvel/Shazam! is being more than a little referenced here as well) and is just totally out of it. Can he find his edge again to stop the dastardly plot? To save the world? To save himself? To save this film?

Co-written by the always-interesting Steven E. De Souza, the film is all over the place, including a really bad, flat sendup of the ''Can You Read My Mind?'' sequence from Superman, musical numbers that come out of absolutely nowhere (is it supposed to spoof the Superman musical that did so so a few years before?) and Lee is frankly not used well, well enough or on screen enough to save the film either. The result instead is a mess that has little direction or form, a few missed opportunities and little point. It makes fun of bad analog visual effects, then has more of them minus the gag. Some iconic Australian entertainers show up (Chris Haywood, Graham Kennedy) and the DVD case deems it Oz-Ploitation, but its not dirty, cutting-edge or rough enough to really qualify.

It also turned out to be the end of the brief Superhero genre revival Superman and several hit superhero TV shows made possible (from the 1960s Batman to Hulk and Wonder Woman) as Superman III would kill everything until the 1989 Batman. It is much more a 1970s film than 1982 (we gather production delays and a lack of money is part of it all) and if really, really curious, you should see it just to see what happened. Otherwise, we cannot recommend it.

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot in real 35mm anamorphic Panavision (like the 1978 Superman) with a good if not great transfer here. It is just not a good-looking film, nor is it intended to be. The original old Dolby A-type analog sound has been upgraded to lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 here, but the limits of the old sonics of the soundmaster still show up. An Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.

Warm Bodies

A different spin on the zombie genre, Warm Bodies (2013) is a zombie romantic comedy written and directed by Jonathan Levine (Snatched) that isn't all bad with the exception of some cheeseball moments. Featuring the underrated Teresa Palmer (Hacksaw Ridge) and actor Nicholas Hoult (the rising star who plays Beast in the X-Men prequels), the film is about a new kind of cure for the curse of being a Zombie: love. Playing with some themes from Romeo and Juliet, the film is clever in its intentions to reel in horror fans with a date night flick.

Getting a re-release on the new 4K Ultra HD format, Lionsgate presents an impressive presentation of the film with more detail than before just in time for the Halloween season.

The film also stars John Malkovich, Rod Corddry, Dave Franco, and Analeigh Tipton.

After the zombie apocalypse happens, R (Hoult) - who is a highly unusual zombie with the ability to have independent thoughts and emotions. Whenever he encounters the gorgeous Julie (Palmer) and saves her human life from a zombie attack, he soon starts to fall for her. After a while, Julie sees that R is different from the other zombies, and as the two form a special relationship in their struggle for survival R learns that her Dad (Malkovich) is the leader of a Zombie Killing Resistance. As the journey progresses, R becomes increasingly more human as he falls in love with Julie, but her Father will never go for his Daughter being in love with a Zombie... and does she make her a necro? You'll have to see the film to find out.

Warm Bodies is presented on 4K UHD disc with a stunning 2160p transfer and a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.40:1 and an intricate Dolby Atmos 11.1 track that mirrors the original theatrical presentation on the film. A Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) track is also on the disc for older systems. The film has a dark and stylistic color palette and some natural tones in there as well. The high budget Hollywood feel is evident with a nice sound mix and soundtrack to boot. A vast improvement over the also included 1080p original Blu-ray of the disc with similar specs. Both discs contain the film and the special features in 1080p, but there's nothing new here extras-wise.

Special Features:

Audio Commentary with Screenwriter/Director Jonathan Levine and Actors Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer

9 Featurettes

Deleted Scenes with Optional Audio Commentary by Director Jonathan Levine

Gag Reel

Theatrical Trailer

Slightly a product of its time (when the Twilight movie popularity was at its height and AMC's The Walking Dead was just warming up), it's easy to see why Hollywood would want to put this out in an attempt to cash in on the popularity of those two genres with Warm Bodies. While I didn't see it the first time around, it's not too bad of a film for what it is and has some cool visual moments.

To order The Return Of Captain Invincible Umbrella Import DVD, go to this link for it and other hard-to-find titles at:

http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/

- James Lockhart (4K) and Nicholas Sheffo

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/