Category: DVD Review

Director -Jon Favreau

Staring – Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlet Johansson, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, Samuel L Jackson.

In Russia Ivan Vanko (Rourke) is watching Tony Stark announce that he is Iron man and decides to make a similar arc reactor and suit.

Stark becomes very famous appearing as Iron Man regularly but refuses to government pressure to sell his designs and restarts the Stark Expo event which his father formerly ran showcasing inventions from across the world.

Stark discovers that the palladium core in the arc reactor that is keeping him alive and powers his armour is slowly poisoning him.  He keeps this a secret from his friends Pepper Potts, James Rhodes, Happy Hogan and his new PA Natalie Rushman and becomes increasingly reckless.  He enters a special Monaco Grand Prix but Vanko attacks him using his newly created suit with eclectic whips as “Whiplash”.  Vanko is put in jail, but Starks rival Justin Hammer helps Vanko escapes and by making everyone believe that Vanko died.

Stark believes he is having his final birthday and gets drunk as Iron Man.  Rhodes puts on an old Iron Man suit to try to restrain him and then takes the old suit to the US Air Force.

Nick Fury (SHIELD’s director) meets with Stark and explains that Natalie Rushman is an undercover agent Natasha Romanoff and that Starks father was a SHEILD founder who became an enemy of Vanko’s father.  Stark goes through his father’s stuff and discovers a design for a new element for the arc reactor and starts to make it.

Stark discovers Vanko is alive and starts to successfully use his new reactor.  He goes to the Expo and sees that Hammer and Vako have been making unmanned armoured drones which are led by Rhodes in the old Iron Man suit with extra weapons.  Vanko starts to remotely control Rhodes and the drones to attack Stark.  Hogan and Romanoff manage to get remote control back and Vanko is defeated and Stark and Potts get together. At a debriefing Fury tells stark that due to his personality he will be used as a consultant rather than a full member of SHEILD.

There is a post credits sequence where a shield agent, Phil Coulson reports back on the discovery of a large hammer at the bottom of a crater in a desert in New Mexico.

Extras – Directors Commentary

7/10

Director – Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Staring -Jonah Hill,Channing Tatum, Peter Storemare, Ice Cube

Police officers Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) go undercover at a local college. Schmidt focuses on the arts and Jenko focuses in the football team to catch the criminals.

DVD exrras include a commentary with cast and creators, deleted scenes and interviews

6/10

Director – Steven Spielberg

Staring – Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta Jones, Stanley Tucci

Victor Navorski (Hanks) arrives at New York’s JFK airport is caught up in an immigration technicality that prevents him leaving the airport to either visit New York or return to his home country. He has to remain in the terminal for months b t manages to make good friends.

DVD extras include a number of interviews and behind the scenes documentaries?

8/10

Director -Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

Staring – Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum

This action comedy follows 2 police officers who o undercover at a high school to catch drug dealers.

The DVD has a commentary, behind the scenes and deleted scenes

Director – Louis Leterrier

Staring – Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Time Roth, William Hurt

Following a radiation accident Bruce Banner transforms into the hulk whenever his heart rate rises above 200.  He becomes a fugitive from the US government (in particular General Thunderbolt Ross and Emil Blonsky) who want to use the Hulking process as a weapon.

They try to capture him at a university where Ross’s daughter Betty works and Blonsky and Betty are injured. Banner rescues Betty and they go on the run. Blonsky gets infected with a drop of Banners blood.

Banner and Betty find an expert in radioactive poisoning who is working on an antidote, but also has synthesised Banners blood to help medical breakthroughs. But Ross and Blonsky find them. Banner is captured by Ross and Blonsky transforms himself using the synthetic blood and goes on a rampage. Banner and Blonsky fight in their hulk forms and Banner wins and goes into hiding in a forest.

Ross is then drinking in a bar when Tony Stark (Ironman)comes to tell him a team is being put togetherth.

The DVD includes a film makers commentary.

5/10

Director – Pascal Chaumeil

Staring – Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots, Aaron Paul

4 strangers meet on the roof of a London building in New Years Eve, each of them intending to kill themselves by jumping off. When the meet they decide to leave the roof slkiveand vow not to commit suicide until at least Valentines Day. The film then tells the story of how they each deal with their futures.

The DVD extras are deleted scenes and outakes

6/10

Director – Paul Feig

Staring – Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Jude Law, Miranda Hart, Allison Janney

Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) has a desk job with the CIA.  When the identities of the field agents are compromised she volunteers to go out in the field to stop the bad guys as they do not know her and becomes an unexpected heroine.

This is a very funny film.

The DVD has and extended version of the film and 2 gag reels as extras.

9/10

Director – Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland

Staring – Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin

Alice (Julliane Moore) is an intelligent lecturer who is diagnosed with early onset familial Alzheimer’s. The film follows how she and her family deal with her diagnosis and decline.

It is a sensitively told and we’ll acted story, that deserved the awards it got.

The DVD includes interviews with the cast and crew.

8/10

Director – Jon Favreau

Staring -Robert Downey Jr, Terrance Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Shaun Toub

Ironman is the first film in the Marvel Avengers series. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) is a billionaire weapon manufacturer and inventor. He is kidnapped by terrorists who want him to build a weapon, but instead he invents an armoured suit to escape and then uses it to combat crime assisted by his PA Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).

It is easy to follow for those unfamiliar with the Marvel universe (like me) and there is a post credits scene. leading on to future films.