The
Doorman (2020*)/Red
Shoes and The Seven Dwarfs
(2019/*both Lionsgate Blu-ray)/Rick
and Morty: Season Four
(2020/Adult Swim Blu-ray**)/Spree
(2020/RLJ Blu-ray)/We Bare
Bears: The Movie (2020
DVD/**both Warner)
Picture:
B/A-/A-/C+/C+ Sound: B/A-/C+/B-/C+ Extras: C-/B/A/C-/A
Main Programs: C/A-/C+/C-/B-
Dark
humor (and smart-alec humor) shows up in all kinds of way today, even
if some of it is now obvious and in more young adult-aimed
programming than ever...
Ryuhel
Kitamura's The
Doorman (2020)
is trying to be The
Professional
and Jean Reno even shows up, but the star is Ruby Rose (who just left
the Batwoman
series) as a soldier protecting her sister's family from well-armed
terrorists. She also used to have the title occupation, but now, for
some harder work.
Too
bad the script and film find little new or different for her or the
rest of the cast to do, I was not impressed by the repetition or
predictability or with Rose here, many, many missed opportunities.
Yet, I like her and think a film or TV vehicle that can give her
talents a better character and situations could really mesh because
she is good and the camera likes her. This is an average curio at
best, but now serves as a release that keeps her in the public eye
until the next release.
Digital
Copy and a Making Of featurette are the only extras.
Once
upon a time, the Seven Heroes fought a fairy (mistaking her for a
witch), the fairy then cursed them to become green little dwarfs and
their curse would only be lifted if they are kissed by the most
beautiful girl in the land. Snow Wh-, ehem, Red Shoes becomes on the
run from her step-mother who is after her for her magic shoes, can
the Seven Dwarfs help Red Shoes and prove they are really the Seven
Heroes?
Red
Shoes and The Seven Dwarfs
(2019,)
what if Snow White was really over weight and because of a pair of
magic shoes turned her into a beautiful young woman? And what if the
Seven Dwarfs were seven handsome young heroes who were curse after
beating up a fairy for mistaking her for an ugly witch? Now, in
order to break the curse, they seek to help 'Red Shoes' for a kiss by
saving her from her stepmother who wants her magic shoes to young and
beautiful once more. Chloe Grace Moritz, Patrick Warburton and Gina
Gershon are among the English-language cast.
All
I can say is Disney better watch out, or other companies will be
start make 'Princess' movies too. This was a funny twist on the Snow
White story, in how not to judge others by appearances or care about
only your own appearances. Extras include Making
of Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs,
music videos, story board to animation and trailer gallery and
trailers.
As
popular as ever,
we now have Rick
and Morty: Season Four
(2020)
following them as they travel through the multiverse having epic
adventures as they try to takeover, save, or destroy the universe to
find a bit of meaning and maybe even the point to their existence.
Rick
is a flatulent, burping, crude and rude grandpa, but he is also the
multi-verse's greatest genius. Marty is Rick's lame loser of a
grandson, but he hangs out with Rick to go on adventures to make up
for this lame life (and to hit on the girl he likes). Both Rick and
Marty travels through multi-verse more often saving the universe
(from themselves) fighting monsters, aliens or even God because
mostly because they need to clean up after themselves because of
Rick's omnipotent inventions.
This
series was and is like watching The
Simpsons
crossed with King
of the Hill
with Invader
Zim.
The series is a parody of parodies making fun of all other genres,
pop culture mixed in with tons of violence and macabre scenes, but
it's all OK because it's a cartoon. Extras include A
Day with Rick and Morty: Inside Season 4,
Inside every episode of Season 4, Creating
Snake Jazz:
directing Rick and Morty, Samurai
& Shogun,
character creation, prop process and animation challenges.
Episodes
this time include:
Edge
of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat
- Morty turns into a omnipotent being. Rick
The
Old Man and the Seat
- Rick tries to find out who used his secret toilet.
One
Grew Over the Crewcoo's Morty
- Rick and Morty goes on a heist competition in who can pull off the
ultimate heist.
Claw
and Hoarder: Special Ricktim's Morty
- Rick gets Morty a dragoon, but Morty learns that dragons are horny
as hell.
Rattlestar
Ricklactica
- Morty causes a Terminator
future with snake robots taking over the world from the future.
Never
Ricking Morty
- Rick and Morty gets stuck on a never-ending train story about them
and must somehow break the storyline to escape the train.
Promortyus
- Rick and Morty bodies get taken over mind controlling alien
parasites.
The
Vat of Acid Episode
- Rick tries to teach Marty why his vat of acid idea is clever. Rick
invents an invention that 'resets' time each time Marty makes
mistakes.
Childrick
of Mort
- Rick has an 'affair' with a planet and has 'kids' with a planet and
challenges God.
and
Star
Mort: Rickturn of the Jerri
- Rick's space bounty hunter daughter Beth discover Rick had cloned
her, but which one is the REAL Beth and which one is a clone?
Eugene
Kotlyarenko's Spree
(2020) wants to be some kind of serial killer film, but
unfortunately, it has its inspiration from the worst ones and tries
to be even worse. Proving how boring looking at multiple phone
screens and/or laptop screens is always
boring
and this 92 minutes sets new low for this as ride share driver Kurt
(a highly uninspired Joe Keery) picks people up alive, only to drip
them off dead as corpses. Too bad it is not even half as smart as
that description.
Add
the bad camerawork that we occasionally do get and you too will be
wishing for a very, very violent car accident to end this disaster
early. Could even hardcore horror fans like this one? Can anyone be
so desperate? Yawn!!!
Extras
include an odd kurtsworld
96
featurette and very lame feature length audio commentary track with
the director.
Finally
we have We
Bare Bears: The Movie
(2020).
Grizz, Panda and Ice Bear aren't very popular these days, and after
cause one too many mistakes, the town and the Department of Wildlife
Control decides they might be better to go back to nature. Arrested
and forced to go on the run with Agent Trout hot on their tails the
three bears go on an adventure of a lifetime to find a new home.
As
fans already know, Grizz, Panda and Ice Bear are a brown bear, panda
bear (technically a panda isn't a bear) and a polar bear, three
brother bears living together in the heart of San Francisco. But
when they cause too many accidents the become 'un-bearable' and the
law decides to ship them back to their natural habitats. At first,
Grizz gets the idea they can be saved if they become popular again on
social media and get followers, but when it totally backfires
instead, they get an angry Agent Trout after them and determined to
separate them, to ship Panda back to China and Ice Bear back to the
Arctic. They decide to make a run for Canada but they get lost, can
the 3 bears find old and new friends to help them out?
This
was a cute movie, good for kids of all ages about 3 cute but odd ball
bears all living and working together. The show teaches the meaning
of friendship and accepting others despite differences. Extras
include commentary, early sketches, movie pitches, animatics &
pencil tests and deleted scenes.
Now
for playback
performance. The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on
Doorman
is not a bad HD shoot with some good composition at times, but to
much is what we have seen before and color is only so impressive.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on Shoes
looks great, is impressive CGI for not coming from one of the big
animation houses and the color is not bad either.
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on Morty
are among the best in animated TV today with good color, detail and
definition, with the animation style considered.
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Spree
is a mess, the mix of small phone (and would-be phone) screens is
sloppy, silly, obnoxious and never adds up to anything.
All
four Blu-ray offers DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes, with
Morty
a simpler mix than one would like and Spree
barely better and much, sloppier, while Shoes
sounds better than anything on this list and Doorman
is a distant second with a consistent soundfield that does not offer
much more than competence.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Bears
is as good as the previous DVD we covered, making us wonder why no
Blu-ray release, while the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 is also
sufficient, yet it would be more fun in a lossless format. The
combination is passable for this older format.
-
Nicholas Sheffo (Doorman,
Spree)
and Ricky Chiang