New in Home Entertainment
November 25, 2014
The Expendables 3
Rated PG-13 for violence including intense sustained gun battles and fight scenes, and for language. Also includes unrated edition.
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Sylvester Stallone’s third soiree into the 80’s action memory lane arena brings back most of the cast from the first two films and adds in Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Wesley Snipes and Antonio Banderas. You cannot argue that the casting on this thing is tremendously impressive. While the story isn’t nearly as good as the second outing, there is still a lot of fun to be had. Throwing a young and unknown team of actors into the mix might not have been the best idea (honestly – there is such thing as too much), but one of the biggest mistakes was a PG-13 rating that really feels out of place for such a project. This home release includes the “unrated” edition, but a few more F-bombs and blood splatters isn’t the remedy for what ails it. If you are in the need for a truly mindless action film with a lot of familiar faces, and you can manage to put down a couple of drinks while watching, it might be an entertaining experience for you. B-
What If
Rated PG-13 for sexual content including references throughout, partial nudity and language
Available on DVD and Blu-ray
Daniel and Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan star in this sweet, innocent, and unnecessary romantic comedy that plays Radcliffe as a bloke who is in love with a girl with a boyfriend and is willing to become friends with her in the hope of something more. It’s not a horrible film, but the dialog isn’t as clever as it thinks it is and the whole thing is quite boring. One of the things that probably didn’t help the project is that many of the beats felt completely contrived. I got the feeling that writer Elan Mastai found a theme and then tried so hard to revolve everything around it that he forgot to create a credible and natural story. But while the story doesn’t really work that well, I really like Radcliffe and Kazan and would love to see them in a better rom com. Both have a wonderful comic sensibility and a more than decent chemistry is seen regardless of the words coming out of their mouths. C+