DVD Review: Salt

Rated PG13 for brief language, action, violence, brief torture, brief nudity

Starring Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber

Evelyn Salt is a CIA agent, first accused of being an American spy by the North Koreans and later accused of being a Russian spy by her fellow Americans after a strange Russian man is brought in for interrogation and requests to speak to Salt, claiming he knows who she is and that it is her who is to assassinate the vice president.

It's hard to review this one without giving too much away, as there were quite a bit of twists in the film. The Russian claims Salt was trained by the Russians as a child shortly after her parents died in a car accident to be a Russian sleeper agent, blending in and working her way up in America to be in position when the time comes for their ultimate plan to be carried out.

Of course Salt claims to know none of this, but does she really? And will she really carry out her supposed role in their plan?

Throughout most of the movie we are left guessing where Salt's loyalties really lie - with the Russians or with the Americans?

It's definitely an interesting flick to watch though, full of lots of action and suspense. Worth a rental.

DVD Review: Sherlock Holmes

Rated PG13 for action violence, adult themes, brief sexuality, brief nudity

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong

The film opens with Holmes and Watson racing to stop Lord Blackwood from ritually murdering another young woman. Fortunately, they are just in time, as the inspector shows up to arrest Blackwood and he is sentenced to death.

As his last request, Blackwood requests to speak with Holmes, informing him that his death won't be the end of him and that several others will die in order to carry out his ultimate plan. Holmes doesn't think too much of it though, as Blackwood is soon hanged and pronounced dead by Watson.

3 days later, Holmes is visited by thief and former flame Irene Adler, who requests that he find a missing person for her. Also, Holmes and Watson are informed that a groundskeeper at the cemetery claims to have seen Blackwood alive. The go and investigate and sure enough, Blackwood's grave has been tampered with from the inside out and the body in the coffin is not Blackwood's!

Starting with clues from the grave, Holmes and Watson race to find Blackwood, figure out what his ultimate plan is and put a stop to it before time runs out.

This film was a lot darker than I was expecting it to be, as Blackwood is believed to be an agent of Satan, using dark, black magic. While Holmes is the master at observation and deductive reasoning, him and Watson know quite a bit of Martial Arts it would seem, as they get in quite a few fist fights with the bad guys - not quite the classic detective movie one would be expecting!

Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law make a great Holmes and Watson duo though, as their interactions together were great!

Not quite one for the whole family, as some of the scenes are a bit dark for the young ones, but definitely ones teens and adults would enjoy.

DVD Review: Sunshine

Rated R for brief language, violence

Starring Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans

In 2057, the Icarus II is sent into space with a stellar bomb to detonate into the sun and reignite it, as the sun is slowly dying and will be no more in 50 years otherwise, leaving Earth in an unlivable solar winter. In 2050, the Icarus I was sent, but never returned. When the crew of the Icarus II gets just beyond Mercury, they no longer can have communication with Earth and receive a distress single from Icarus I. Torn to delay the mission and check help Icarus I, the crew has a decision to make. Deciding to help Icarus I and find out what happened, they change their course, but with disasterous effects that make it near impossible for the entire crew to make it to the sun and leaving them with no resources to get home if they do make it. What's the crew to do? Will they be able to make it into the sun now to carry out their intial mission? And who is slowly killing off the rest of the crew of Icarus II?

What started out as an interesting sci-fi filmed, turned into Event Horizon by films end. It's worth a rent if you enjoy sci-fi films that take place in space, however if you've seen Event Horizon you can pretty much predict the end result.

DVD Review: Untraceable

Rated R for violence, torture, language, gore

Starring Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Billy Burke, Joseph Cross, Mary Beth Hurt

Jennifer Marsh is widowed mother who cares for her daughter by day and heads up the FBI's cybercrime division by night, usually fighting indentity theft and the like. One night however, she comes across a webite called killwithme.com which is streaming video footage of a kitten being tortured and killed, live on camera. Not thinking too much of it, as it's only an animal, Jennifer's supervisor tells her to just shutdown the site and don't worry too much about it.

Shortly later, however, killwithme.com is active again, and this time the vicitim is a human. The more people that tune into the site, the faster the victim dies. Despite warning from Jennifer, the press holds a conference, urging people to avoid the site, however this causes more people to become curious about it and only increases the site's popularity.

Will Jennifer and the FBI be able to find out and stop the killer before he strikes again? Will they be able to do it before more and more people tune into the site, causing the victims to die even faster? As Jennifer gets closer to figuring out the case, the killer begins to come after her. In this deadly game of cat and mouse, who will come out alive?

This film, starring Diane Lane, was an interesting view into the FBI cybercrimes division. While still considered to be part of the "torture porn" genre of horror films that include flicks like Saw and Hostel, this one was a lot more toned down that its predecessors. The violence and torture, while a bit graphic at times, was necessary in order for this film to work, but fortunately, it wasn't nearly as graphic as what we've seen in recent films like Saw.

A bit too scary and graphic for the kids, this in an interesting race against time thriller for the adults to watch.

DVD Review: The Spirit

Rated PG13 for comicbook violence and action, sexuality, brief nudity

Starring Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes

In Central City, the masked Spirit is a vigilante who protects the city. After a tip from the Detective that something big is going on near the docks that could include Spirit's arch-nemesis The Octopus, he rushes to the scene, where he finds the Detective dead and only 1 of 2 chests remaining. He also encounter The Octopus and the 2 duke it out for quite sometime until The Spirit is knocked unconscious, waken up a bit later at the hospital, appearing fully healthy despite being shot. Trying to find who killed the Detective and why, The Spirit finds a golden locket on the Detective's body that he recognizes as belonging to his childhood friend Sand Saref.

The Spirit, directed by Frank Miller, is reminiscent of Miller's previous work in Sin City, having the same stylized action and comicbook feel to it. The plot however, if you're not paying attention, can become a bit confusing as well.

If you enjoy comicbook films and liked Sin City, be sure to check this one out as well, as it's much of the same, but on a PG13 scale, otherwise, you're not missing much if you decided to skip this one.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Rated PG13 for dark elements, fantasy violence

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter

Taking place directly after the events of the previous film, Voldemort is back and his loyal followers, The Deatheaters, are wreaking havoc on not only the wizard world, but the muggle world as well. Draco Malfoy has also been recruited to carry out a task for the dark lord, one that Harry tries to figure out through most of the school year.

Back at Hogwarts, Harry and Ron are taking potions class with new returning Professor Slughorn, as Snape is now the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Harry receives a potions textbook that appears to have belonged once to the mysterious Half Blood Prince, in which the pages of the book are covered with annotations, which Harry uses to his benefit. Harry is also kept busy by Dumbledore, who, through the use of a pensive, shows Harry various memories of a young Voldemort, known back then as Tom Riddle, and teaches him about seven Horcuxes that Voldemort has created to safeguard his soul, that they need to find and destroy in order to stop the dark lord for good.

Love is also in the air at Hogwarts, as Harry begins to fall for his friend's sister, and Ron becomes smitten with a fellow student which makes Hermoine insanely jealous.

In comparison to previous Potter films, just like the books, the films are continuing to get darker and darker, with this being the darkest installment yet.

It does make for a good adaption from the book however - sure there were some parts that were left out or slightly changed for time, but overall, it left most fans satisfied and eagerly anticipating 2-part installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the last book in the series.

In spite of the dark and scary moments in this film, there also are some cute moments amongst our favorite wizard teens, as they continue to grow up and experience romantic love too, but in a way that is still innocent compared to other teenage films with teen romance.

While I wouldn't recommend this one for the younger kids, as some of the scenes might scare them a bit too much, the older kids, especially if they've read the book, will be just fine!

The Invisible

Saw The Invisible last night.

And do not be fooled - it's hardly anything like the trailers/commercials make it out to be. If you go by the trailers, it would appear that he's murdered and if he wants to live again, he has to solve his own murder mystery within a certain time frame.

Yeah, hardly.

What the story actually is, is that the group that 'murders' him dumps his body and is trying to cover their tracks, although really he's still alive, but barely. He's sort of a ghost stuck in a universe between life and death, and realizes that he's actually still alive, but if he doesnt hurry and find someway to communication where his body is located, he will actually die. He's basically invisible, he can be there, but no one sees him. Kinda like a different dimension i guess. And the only person that can hear him his the last person he saw - his murderer.

It was still pretty good though, esp for being a remake of a Swedish film.

If you're in a for a good dramatic/murder type movie, check out The Invisible, rated PG-13 for mild language, teenage drinking, violence and i'd say some mature themes.