For the week of February 6th, Lionsgate Home Entertainment is bringing a 4K edition of John Wick to Blu-ray, just in time for the sequel's 2/10 theatrical release. Here's a case of a movie creating its own hype. Lionsgate's marketing campaign sold it as a typical revenge thriller, with Keanu Reeves' title character a fearsome former assassin who returns to his bloodletting ways after a group of idiot gangsters (personified by Alfie Allen's eminently punchable goon) break into his house, kill his dog, and leave him for dead. Minus the whole puppy-killing angle, this story looked not a million miles removed from the low-rent action programmers that Charles Bronson headlined in the 1980s, and that would have been enough, if not for a funny thing: co-directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch take this setup more and less seriously than Bronson ever did. In the first ten minutes, they establish Wick's tortured inner life with understated gravity - as melodramatic as the situation could get (Wick is so connected to his beagle puppy because a) it's adorable and b) it taught him how to love again after the death of his wife, natch), they emphasize the silence and Wick's formidable stillness, which Reeves makes palpable. As action stars go, he's always been an expert minimalist, and so he's able to emphasize Wick's pain without resorting to excessive, hammy theatrics. It's surprising how involving this part of the movie is, and I'd be content to watch a low-key drama about Wick's reconnection to the world were it not for how skillfully Stahelski and Leitch handle his Roaring Rampage of Revenge. On a sensory level, the many, many shootings, stabbings, beatings, crashes, and explosions have a balletic grace mostly absent from contemporary actioners. Stahelski and Leitch also worked as stunt choreographers on Steven Soderbergh's beyond-underrated Haywire, and they've borrowed that film's fluid approach to chaos. The action unfolds in long takes where we see the combatants' full figures - DP Jonathan Sela frames the action the same way you might a Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers dance picture - and Reeves' insistence on doing most of his own stunts sells the realism of the violence more than the fireworks of actioners with far bigger budgets. There are two virtuoso setpieces in the movie, one in Wick's house shortly after the initial attack and another in a crowded club, that are instant action classics, and their impact comes from the premium Stahelski and Leitch place on clean movement, staging, and speed. Even better is the casual derangement of these sequences. If the first ten minutes were sober minded, the last ninety play like some insane meld of Jean-Pierre Melville, Luis Buñuel, and Super Mario. It isn't just that Wick's a former gunsel; no, the hired-gun world has its own distinct mythology, from rare gold coins that killers use for goods and services to a midtown Manhattan hotel that serves as a veritable Rick's Cafe where killers can find respite from one another. There's a whole convoluted hierarchy to the assassin lifestyle that the film only hints at, and Stahelski and Leitch not only allow this madness - they embrace it, surrounding Reeves with a bang-up supporting cast that includes Willem Dafoe, Adrianne Palicki, John Leguizamo, Clarke Peters, Lance Reddick, David Patrick Kelly, Dean Winters, and Ian McShane, all of whom sketch full internal lives with little screen time and help the film sprawl past the confines of a simple revenge thriller. By the end, we've gotten something we weren't expecting: Keanu Reeves' best genre feature since the original The Matrix. Bring on Chapter 2.
Of the 4K version, Jeffrey Kauffman writes that "This new presentation offers noticeable upticks in detail, but the bulk of what changes here is probably due more to HDR than to increased resolution. As I stated in the original John Wick Blu-ray review, this digitally shot feature (reportedly finished at a 4K DI) has been aggressively color graded to a number of different hues throughout its running time, and there's a really fascinating new amount of interstitial tones that are quite apparent. The greenish cast of some of the opening scenes has a just slightly more teal look now, but detail levels are uniformly high in a way that the 1080p Blu-ray presentation can't quite muster. There are certainly still times when dark scenes feature a relative lack of shadow definition, but the uptick in visible detail throughout the many dimly lit or outright nighttime sequences in the film is quite remarkable. There are a couple of slightly odd anomalies - pay attention, for example, during the yellow graded scene where John goes a little gonzo with his Mustang, and there's a gritty, noisy look that's apparent, especially in the sky, something that wasn't as apparent in the 1080p Blu-ray version. Overall, though, this is a great looking upgrade that should delight the film's fans."
John Wick moves and looks so much like a live-action comic book that, at times, it's more persuasive than the real thing: it's certainly more engaging than DC and Warner Home Entertainment's latest animated film Justice League Dark. In theory, the film has a lot to offer. Director Jay Oliva is responsible for Warner's wonderful The Flashpoint Paradox and The Dark Knight Returns adaptations, and I love that he's taking the opportunity to delve into some lesser known DC characters; while Justice League Dark makes a little time for characters like Batman (voiced by Jason O'Mara), Superman (Jerry O'Connell), and Wonder Woman (Rosario Dawson, who'd be a great live-action Wonder Woman, come to think of it), its primary heroes are Zatanna (Camilla Luddington), Deadman (Nick Turturro), Etrigan the Demon (Ray Chase), and John Constantine (Matt Ryan, returning to the role after the short-lived NBC series) as they investigate the supernatural implications behind a group of normal citizens who suddenly start committing violent murders. And like Warner's The Killing Joke, Justice League Dark has an R-rating, allowing it to go a little harder than expected with regard to the magic-based brutality. However, The Killing Joke was mostly a whiff, and Justice League Dark is only slightly better. If the gold standard for this kind of popular-hero counter-programming is Guardians of the Galaxy - in that it only takes one movie to make you desperately invested in a bunch of B-listers - Justice League Dark barely justifies the focus on Constantine and his allies. For a film that takes so long to put its heroes together (and this is a common problem in DC Animated movies - given that most of them run less than eighty minutes, they should not spend nearly half their runtime with first-act setups), none of them have anything in the way of actual dimensions. Deadman is a Noo Yawk stereotype. Zatanna is a blander, sexier version of David Copperfield. Etrigan has kind of an Incredible Hulk/Shazam-thing going on. And Constantine only matters if you're a fan of the TV show (or the criminally underrated Keanu Reeves thriller). It doesn't help that the mystery they've been thrown into wouldn't foil Scooby-Doo and the gang, right down to the ostentatious Red Herring doing little to distract us from the Real Big Bad (the one saving grace: the nice voice work for one of those characters from a memorable Justified guest star), and all while the heroes skulk around spooky mansions. It's a good thing that DC is killing it on TV with shows like Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow because their feature-length fare isn't holding up.
Michael Reuben viewed the film far more favorably, writing that it "is so stuffed with characters and outrageous incidents (including a stomach-turning attack by a giant monster made of excrement) that it routinely teeters on the brink of chaos, but director Oliva and his writers always manage to pull it back from the brink and maintain the narrative flow. Constantine remains the resourceful and sardonic center of this spiritual storm, while Zatanna and others continually bait and insult him. Meanwhile, a skeptical Batman stands on the sidelines, dispassionately observing. (His repeated one-word expression of doubt and disbelief - 'Mmm!' - becomes a running joke). By the end of the story, the threat has been neutralized, and the Justice League has a new member."
From Universal Studios Home Entertainment comes Jeff Nichols' Loving. Nichols might be the most exciting American filmmaker of his generation; no other director his age captures the American character with as much nuance or ambiguity as he does, and his work on features like Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, and Mud merits comparison with the best of William Faulkner or Cormac McCarthy or Mark Freakin' Twain. And 2016 was a particularly important year for Nichols - he released two pictures less than ten months apart from one another, the sci-fi thriller Midnight Special and this thoughtful docudrama about Mildred and Richard Loving (Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton), an interracial couple from Virginia whose relationship helped to spur on major Civil Rights advancements during the 1960s. I'd liken the experience to Steven Spielberg dropping Jurassic Park and Schindler's List (or War of the Worlds and Munich, if you're of a certain age) only months apart, in you get such a clear sense of Nichols' filmmaking chops as well as the aesthetic/thematic links that bind his films. That Nichols can transition so effortlessly from more familiar genre tropes to fact-based drama is impressive: that you're always aware of his controlling hand is even more astounding. Nichols traffics in patient, immersive understatement. He throws you into a situation with little context, whether that's a father trying to protect his possibly alien son or a mixed-race couple conducting their love in secret, and trusts that the inherent drama is such you won't need unnecessary melodrama or useless exposition. And at its best, Loving feels like no other docudrama I've seen. All the hallmarks of the genre are gone. Despite the many legal ramifications of the Lovings' situation, we spend almost no time in a courtroom, nor are there much in the way of stirring speeches designed to mobilize viewers towards right action. In addition, here's a biopic about two people who desperately wanted to avoid the spotlight, and both Edgerton and an Academy Award-nominated Negga do a masterful job of making reticence and withdrawal seem heroic. Nichols is more interested in conveying what it must have felt like to be alive in the late 1950s/early 1960s, where even the heart was subject to prejudicial influences, and there are moments when Loving generates almost unbearable suspense from otherwise innocuous actions. Richard and Mildred's nighttime crossing into Virginia after their state eviction feels like something out of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, as do the many scenes when the two watch cars driving towards their isolated farmhouse and wonder if it's someone who'll punish them for being a couple. These moments are as bracing as anything I've seen in 2016. Ultimately, though, I can't rank the film as highly as the other films in Nichols' small-but-impressive body of work. Whereas Nichols' patience and restraint helped strip Midnight Special of treacly sentiment, here it renders the proceedings a little numbing, particularly in the second half, which presents one well done-but-familiar scene after another of the Lovings waiting for something to happen. I've never seen a film belabor its points so subtly, and at twenty minutes shorter, Loving might be a full-fledged masterpiece. Furthermore, despite being so committed to weeding out melodrama, Loving includes a few key, distracting performances that undercut the tact and grace of Negga and Edgerton's work. Comedians Nick Kroll (yep, you read that right) and Jon Bass never convince as the Lovings' ACLU lawyers (Kroll, in particular, seems one smirk away from breaking into a Kroll Show character), and Marton Csokas is flat-out terrible as a particularly hateful Virginia sheriff: he feels like a racist stereotype who wandered in from Mandingo. Still, if Midnight Special is the more engaging picture overall, Loving proves worthwhile, both as an example of Nichols' filmmaking chops and as an increasingly timely picture of race in America.
Finally, CBS and Paramount Home Entertainment are offering the nine-disc Penny Dreadful: The Complete Series set this week. Since its Showtime premiere in 2014, John Logan's dark horror melodrama has struggled to harness its long stretches of true greatness and inspiration. The good: despite being, essentially, a high-toned version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Logan throws in characters like Victor Frankenstein, Frankenstein's Monster, Bride of Frankenstein, Dorian Gray, The Wolfman, Dracula, and Dr. Jekyll as pawns in a dark, possibly Satanic conspiracy, and figuring out who's who is part of the fun), Penny Dreadful treats its protagonists with dignity and genuine wit. Logan is the acclaimed screenwriter of films like Gladiator and The Aviator, and if you're familiar with those two, you've got a sense of his muscular approach to dialogue and behavior. Outside of Joss Whedon's great Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I can't think of a horror program that's privileged the spoken word as much as this one. The dialogue is like candy, letting actors like Rory Kinnear, Helen McCrory, Reeve Carney, Wes Studi, Danny Sapani, Brian Cox, Harry Treadaway, Billie Piper, Josh Hartnett, and the great Timothy Dalton luxuriate in exchanges that excite and surprise. Best of all is Eva Green (as she often is) as Dalton's sidekick and spiritual advisor Vanessa Ives. Even when she's saddled with less-than-ideal material (Dark Shadows, 300: Rise of an Empire), Green always elevates her part through her keen sense of camp and performance, and Penny Dreadful acts as a showcase for her particular brand of magnetism. We can never quite place Vanessa's role in the group, and it's a tribute to Green's alluring, unpredictable work that this stock heroine ends up far darker and more complex than we initially suspected. However, the downside is that anyone expecting the straight horror chills of, say, The Strain will probably be disappointed and likely bored - even when monsters do attack, these action sequences are over in a flash and lack the grisly spectacle that makes The Strain and American Horror Story so compulsively watchable. Furthermore, seen in full, the series fails at pulling its wonderful characters into a cohesive narrative whole. Season One is all setup, with only a handful of moments (a séance that takes up the majority of Episode 2, the backstory-heavy Episode 5 and the high-water mark that is Episode 7 and its single-location Exorcist homage) standing out from what is otherwise an introduction to the much stronger second season. Season Two benefits from a great villain (McCrory) and a terrifying, haunted-house set finale (maybe the scariest the series ever gets), but just as Penny Dreadful finally unites together its characters in a satisfying fashion, the third season blows up that dynamic, sending Dalton and Hartnett for a journey in the American West while pitting Green, Perdita Weeks, and a phenomenal Patty LuPone against Dracula back in London. Season Three is the plottiest single stretch of the show, except few of those strands tie together. I suspect that you could cut most of Hartnett's Old West excursion and lose nothing of narrative significance (and I say that as a big fan of what Brian Cox and Wes Studi bring to this section), and while Logan insists that the third-season finale was always meant to be a series finale, there are so many hanging chads (the otherwise meaningless introduction of Dr. Jekyll; a lack of resolution for the Bride of Frankenstein) that I can't help but wonder if either Logan or Showtime simply tired of the show's languid, measured pace. Here's hoping someone picks up the show down the line and focuses its attentions, and if I may? Make Weeks' badass vampire hunter the star. Showtime could have another Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if given the chance.
Martin Liebman called the series "a pretty good show, smart and edgy, dark, original, well acted, and dramatically engaging. The series ended far too early but continued to dazzle right up until the end. CBS/Showtime/Paramount's Blu-ray complete collection release carries over the three individual seasons' technical and supplemental specs but bundles it all in a single Blu-ray case. For fans who already own the three seasons, there's no reason to buy; this is just a lateral movement. For newcomers, though, this is the right time and the right item to purchase."