Every Tuesday, I review the newest Blu-ray releases and let you know whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping, along with a breakdown of the included extras. If you see something you like, click on the cover art to purchase the Blu-ray from Amazon, and be sure to share each week’s column on Facebook and Twitter with your friends.
“Taken 3”
WHAT: After his ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) is murdered and he becomes the prime suspect, former special ops agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) sets out to find the real killer and clear his name while being hunted by a tenacious police inspector (Forest Whitaker).
WHY: If “Taken 2” proved anything, it’s that money should never be the driving force behind a sequel, although try telling that to the makers of “Taken 3,” because that seems to be the only reason why the movie was made. Though Luc Besson was smart to go the “Fugitive” route for the third installment (there’s no way he could have gotten away with doing another story about the Albanian baddies), it results in a movie that feels very different from its predecessors. For starters, no one is kidnapped this time around, and the villains are so far removed from the story that the main antagonist only appears in the opening scene and shortly again at the end. There’s also very little action compared to the first two films, which only makes the dull moments stick out even more. Liam Neeson and Forest Whitaker (doing his usual eccentric cop thing) manage to prevent the movie from turning into a complete bore, but they’re never given the chance to form any sort of relationship, which was a hugely missed opportunity. Just like director Oliver Megaton’s other Besson productions, “Taken 3” is competently made, but it’s an incredibly stale action thriller that seems to have forgotten what made the original so entertaining.
EXTRAS: There’s a short retrospective on the “Taken” series, a pair of production featurettes and a deleted scene.
FINAL VERDICT: SKIP
“Everly”
WHAT: After serving as a sex slave for ruthless crime boss Taiko (Hiroyuki Watanabe) for the past five years, Everly (Salma Hayek) strikes a deal with one of the few honest cops in town to testify against Taiko. But when Taiko learns of her betrayal, he places a bounty on her head, forcing Everly to fight back against countless waves of ferocious intruders intent on collecting the reward.
WHY: There’s something oddly appealing about a movie that encourages you to turn off your brain for 90 minutes while a gun-toting badass takes down a bunch of bad guys in extremely violent fashion. Some of cinema’s guiltiest pleasures have followed this formula to great success, and though director Joe Lynch’s “Everly” desperately wants to join those ranks as the next cult classic shoot-‘em-up, it falls disappointingly short. Though it starts out as a fairly decent, low-budget action film, “Everly” gets progressively worse with each passing minute, dragged down by the terrible dialogue, poor acting and paper-thin villains. Hayek does the best she can with what little she’s given, but nothing about her character makes sense, like how she’s able to dispatch an army of killers when she barely even knows how to shoot a gun. It’s not quite as awful as Lynch’s last effort, the horror-comedy “Knights of Badassdom,” but while the idea of watching a scantily-clad Hayek fight her way through yakuza henchman and prostitutes-turned-assassins may sound like a ton of fun, “Everly” is never able to match its B-movie aspirations, instead forced to flounder in the gutter like the filthy, exploitative grindhouse film that it is.
EXTRAS: The Blu-ray boasts a pair of audio commentaries – the first with director Joe Lynch, producer Brett Hedblom and Editor Evan Schiff, and another with Lynch and cinematographer Steve Gainer – but that’s the extent of the bonus material.
FINAL VERDICT: SKIP
“Escape from New York”
WHAT: In the future, the country has become so ravaged by crime that the entire island of Manhattan has been turned into a maximum security prison. But when the U.S. President (Donald Pleasence) crash-lands inside the walls, notorious outlaw Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is implanted with an explosive device an given 24 hours to rescue the President, or die trying.
WHY: John Carpenter’s 1981 cult classic may not have come close to predicting the future as it would be in 1997, but it marked the beginning of a beautiful friendship between the filmmaker and star Kurt Russell, who would go on to work together again in “The Thing” and “Big Trouble in Little China.” While “Escape from New York” isn’t the duo’s best collaboration (although it probably depends on who you ask), the movie is responsible for creating what is perhaps the most iconic character in Russell’s career. Snake Plissken is the ultimate antihero – a macho, cool-as-a-cucumber badass who’d just as quickly kill you if it meant saving himself – and it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role. “Escape from New York” is a really fun B-movie with some solid set pieces, Carpenter’s trademark synth score, and a colorful supporting cast featuring Lee Van Cleef, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanto and Adrienne Barbeau. Granted, some people forget that it’s still only a B-movie, which means that it’s served with a large side of cheese, but Carpenter and Russell form such a great team that even when they swing and miss (like the mid-90s sequel set in L.A.), it’s worth going along for the ride.
EXTRAS: In addition to a new 2K high definition scan that looks great, the Collector’s Edition is overflowing with goodies, including three audio commentaries featuring director John Carpenter and star Kurt Russell; producer Debra Hill and production designer Joe Alves; and a new track with actress Adrienne Barbeau and cinematographer Dean Cundey. Additionally, there’s a new featurette on the film’s visual effects, new interviews with composer Alan Howarth, actor Joe Unger, still photographer Kim Gottlieb-Walker and filmmaker David DeCoteau, as well as a previously released featurette and the original opening bank robbery sequence.
FINAL VERDICT: RENT
