Weapons and Australia debut on disc this week.
Weapons
Lionsgate
$26.98
Plot: A casual hook-up brings about violent repercussions in a suburban wasteland populated by bored, gun-toting teens.
Opinion: It’s appropriate that the main feature on the Weapons DVD is preceded by trailers for Larry Clark’s Kids and Bully, both of which also revolve around dead-end teenagers doing awful things to each other. Writer/director Adam Bhala Lough avoids lingering on the lithe bodies of his photogenic cast the way Clark does, but he shares the same fascination with youth violence and adolescent nihilism. Told in short vignettes that are assembled out of chronological order, Weapons has nothing groundbreaking to say about why contemporary teenagers are so screwed up, but it’s not a total waste of time either, thanks to solid performances from its ensemble cast, which includes Paul Dano, Regine Nehy, Mark Webber and Nick Cannon, whose on-screen death is worth the price of a rental.
Bonus Features: None.
Verdict: Rent It
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Australia
20th Century Fox
$29.99
Blu-ray: $39.99
Plot: A cattle tycoon’s wife (Nicole Kidman) journeys to her deceased husband’s ranch in Australia and leads the herd on a cross-country trek with the help of a rugged cowboy (Hugh Jackman).
Opinion: One of last fall’s most anticipated studio pictures, Baz Lurhmann’s throwback to the romantic epics of Hollywood’s Golden Age proved to be an enormous critical and commercial stink bomb, barely grossing $50 million domestically (though it fared much better overseas) and earning scores of bad reviews. While its not quite up to the level of Moulin Rouge! and Strictly Ballroom, Australia doesn’t entirely deserve its bad reputation. In both its style and substance, the movie is unapologetically retro, relying on big, broad emotions that aren’t seen in most contemporary studio romances. The movie’s greatest strength and weakness is its sprawling scope. Luhrmann throws everything he can into the film–horses, cattle stampedes, Wizard of Oz-references, a Pearl Harbor-like bombing of an Australian port city–even when he should pull back and focus his energies a little more constructively. Australia may be a folly, but at least it’s a grandly entertaining folly.
Bonus Features: Really Fox? The best extras you could come up with are two measly deleted scenes? What about all those alternate endings that Lurhmann reportedly shot? And surely there was some EPK footage you could assemble into a standard making-of featurette. C’mon guys—give movie buffs who missed the film in theaters some reason to pick up the DVD.
Verdict: Rent It
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Also on DVD:
Warner Brothers still hasn’t been able to get a Wonder Woman live-action feature off the ground, but DC Comics’ animation division finally gives the Amazon princess her due with the full-length direct-to-DVD movie Wonder Woman (Warner, $29.98). Keri Russell voices the title character and geek favorite Nathan Fillion plays her love interest, fighter pilot Steve Trevor. The film comes with a PG-13 rating, so parents should be aware that the action gets pretty intense for an animated film. If you’re looking for something a little more age-appropriate, you can give the surprise box-office hit Beverly Hills Chihuahua (Disney, $29.99) a whirl, provided you’re able to stand the sight of a talking Chihuahua for 90 minutes. Elsewhere, The Scarlett Johansson Collection (Lionsgate, $19.98) collects three early films starring the new Mrs. Ryan Reynolds, including Girl With a Pearl Earring, A Good Woman and An American Rhapsody and critically beloved auteur Wong Kar-Wai revisits his confounding 1994 martial arts film in Ashes of Time Redux (Sony Pictures Classics, $28.96).
