July 2008 DVD Reviews & Video Reviews

Jumper

20th Century Fox
DVD
ISBN# B00177Y9ZC
Suggested Retail Price: $29.99 or as low as $8.82 from Amazon.com!

Jumper is a fast-paced sci-fi thriller about a mild-mannered computer geek named David Rice (Hayden Christensen) who's constantly being belittled by his tyraniccal female supervisor and dominated by Millie, his cheating girlfried. But his life is transformed one day when he discovers that he has the ability to teleport himself to anyplace he can visualize in his mind. David explores his abilities by among other things, "jumping" into a bank vault to grab some quick cash. But his robbery is such a mystery that it attracts the attention of Roland (Samuel L. Jackson), who claims to be from the NSA, but is amazingly unsurprised by the closed vault caper that's baffling the police and bank officials. David starts to blythely travel around the world for a couple of years until Roland catches up to him and captures him with a magic gun that prevents him from teleporting. It turns out the Roland is the head of a group called paladins whose secret mission is to destroy all jumpers like David. David manages to escape from the paladins' fortress, and goes back home to try to find Millie again. After a brief scuffle with Millie's boyfriend Mark, the guy she was cheating with, David teleports Mark into a bank vault, then comes back and persuades Millie to take a trip with him to Rome - Millie's lifelong dream. She reluctantly accepts. While they're in Rome, they try to visit the Collesium, only to find it closed. Locks being no barrier to David, he teleports inside to open a gate for Millie. When David is looking for a path down to the area for Millie, he discovers another jumper named Griffin who warns him about the paladins ultimate plans, and tells David that he must stay away from everyone he cares about because the paladins will kill them in order to capture him.

Jumper is a thrill ride that travels around the world while we follow the good vs. evil story of the paladins and the jumpers. A rolicking action movie that keeps your eyes glued to the screen.

John Adams

HBO
DVD
ISBN# B000WGWQG8
Suggested Retail Price: $59.99 or as low as $33.88 from Amazon.com!

Paul Giamatti plays John Adams in this superb biography of one of America's most underappreciated founders. Based on the best-selling book by David McCullough, this HBO mini-series tells the story of a very human Adams, a Boston lawyer who can't abide the British hegemony that eventually leads to the American Revolution. We follow Adams and his family as they endure the years of war and the political battles that ensue as the nation is born and struggles to find a balance in the fragile relationship between the thirteen colonies to form a central government.

Watching this series makes you appreciate the courage, integrity, and remarkable intelligence of men like John Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson without requiring the idealized legends we all learned in school. These were all real men with very personal concerns who rose above them in a common cause. Historians are blessed by the fact that Adams' wife Abigail kept most of the many letters the two exchanged while Adams was away from home during the Revolution, while he attended the Continental Congress, and later when he was an envoy to France. McCullough relied on them heavily in telling the story of their relationship. Laura Linney is nothing short of superb in her portrayal of Abigail as the loving wife, devoted mother, and Adams soul mate and counsel. Kudos also to David Morse who plays George Washington as a reluctant politician whose moral compass keeps him from allowing his fame as the leader of the Revolution from turning the presidency into a monarchy. And British actor Tom Wilkinson shines as Ben Franklin who is shown in an unusually unflattering light as a much more self-interested man than the patriotic inventor and prolific orator we read about in the history books in grade school.

While the actors are an essential factor in making this series such a rewarding marvel, what has to amaze us all is that the story told here is the unvarnished truth. Few writers manage to make history so compelling and yet palatable to a broad audience. A must-see if there ever was one.

Cruel Intentions

Columbia Pictures
Blu-ray
ISBN# B000OT6UZQ
Suggested Retail Price: $28.95 or as low as $17.49 from Amazon.com!

Columbia Pictures Home Video recently released the Blu-Ray edition of the 1999 sex farce "Cruel Intentions" starring Sarah Michelle Geller, Reese Witherspoon, and Ryan Phillippe. It's a remake of the classic novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", which was also the basis for 1988's hit "Dangerous Liasons" which starred Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Keanu Reeves, and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Set in modern-day New York, this black comedy revolves around a pair of wealthy siblings, Kathryn (Geller) and Sebastian (Phillipe) revel in ruining people's lives and reputations, and leave a trail of broken hearts. The story focuses on a young girl from Oklahoma named Annette (Reese Witherspoon), writes a magazine article titled "Why I Choose To Wait", extolling the virtues of chastity. Naturally, Sebastian and Kathryn can't resist this challenge, and they strike a wager over whether or not Sebastian can successfully deflower this naive girl. Sadly, the story plays out all too predictably when Sebastian falls for Annette. Worse, we never get to see the relationship between Sebastian and Annette develop. One moment she thinks he's a shallow cad and then suddenly she's head over heels for him. Director Roger Kumble also robs us of key moments between Kathryn and Sebastian that would have made the ending much more satisfying if he had left them in the movie instead of just providing the clips on the DVD. Given the star-studded cast of talented actors, this movie was a cruel disappointment.