Blu-ray Movie Reviews

After five long years the fate of Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Hurley (Jorge Garcia), Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Jim (Daniel Dae Kim), Sun (Yunjin Kim), and Claire (Emile de Ravin) is finally revealed. These survivors of Oceanic flight 815 didn't land in a tropical paradise. Awaiting rescue they discovered polar bears, a smoke monster roaming the jungle, and the "Others" led by Ben Linus (Michael Emerson). Has it all been a dream? Did they all die in the crash and there in some sort of twisted version of hell? Who started the Darma initiative in the first place? Is it just me, or do all of these questions give you a headache?

Ending a popular show is a difficult under the best of circumstances, but when you take a show like Lost with its large ensemble cast, complicated story, and many unanswered questions. Is there a way to please everyone? Not a chance.

Banished by their mother (Kelly Preston) to spend the summer with their father (Greg Kinnear) in Georgia, Veronica (Miley Cyrus) and her younger brother Jonah (Bobby Coleman) get a chance to reconnect with him since their parents divorced a few years earlier. Before the split, Veronica would spend countless hours together at the piano and since he left she has refused to play despite receiving a scholarship offer to Julliard. Can a summer with her father rekindle her desire to play or will other circumstances alter her life?

Written by Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook), The Last Song certainly caters to a female audience but I can't say I didn't enjoy certain aspects of the production. The screenplay is very melodramatic with pitfalls lurking behind every corner, although I felt the performances by Kinnear as the loving father was genuine and young Coleman steals the show with some great one-liners. Cyrus has improved as an actress, but still has quite a ways to go to graduate to more adult productions.

Movies: 3.5/5 Video: 4/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 3.5/5

Movie: 3.5/5 Video: 4/5
Audio: 4.5/5
Extras: 2/5

Penned over 400 years ago, Hamlet is the tale of a young Prince (Kenneth Branagh) who's approached by his father's ghost describing in intimate detail how he was murdered by Claudius (Derek Jacobi), Hamlet's uncle. Filled with rage, Hamlet vows to avenge his father's death and won't rest until he fulfills his pledge.

Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play and actor/director Branagh's adaptation doesn't compromise any of the text. The result is a four hour marathon that virtually flies by, if you're a fan of Shakespeare. I had the pleasure of studying Hamlet three times throughout high school and college and was surprised how much of the text I remembered all these years later. Branagh transports the story from twelfth-century Denmark to the nineteenth, which may raise some eyebrows, but the result is magnificent given the lavish sets and all-star cast.

The theme of the fourth and final season of Heroes is "Redemption." Our surviving Heroes mourn the passing of fallen friends and face a dangerous new foe (Robert Knepper), a carnival operator with a plan to gather those with special abilities and seek retribution against humanity.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. The first season of Heroes was a critical and commercial success with an interesting premise, entertaining storylines, and compelling and likable characters. Unfortunately, the show lost its mojo along with its audience over the following three years. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but I hung in there until the end hoping to recapture the magic of its first season, but sadly it never came. The writers didn't seem to have a long-term strategy they were following and went off on too many tangents. The fourth season showed some promise, but once again the show focused too much attention on Claire (Hayden Panettiere) and her relationship with her father (Jack Coleman) at the expense of the more interesting characters such as Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson-Lee).