STACK #150 Apr 2017

DVD&BD REVIEWS

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Rude awakening. PASSENGERS

Creed is good. ASSASSIN'S CREED

Release Date: 12/04/17

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Release Date: 12/04/17

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The much-missed Douglas Adams duly noted, “Space is big.” As such, it takes a mind-bogglingly long time to get anywhere. The starship Avalon is on a 120-year journey to the colony of Homestead II, so its manifest of 5,000-plus passengers has been put into stasis, to be woken four months out from arrival. But an asteroid storm has other ideas, damaging the ship and causing one stasis pod to prematurely evacuate. Its contents, Jim Preston (Chris Pratt), soon realises that he’s alone, and he makes do. But when he sees

This lavish, big budget adaptation of Ubisoft's best- selling video game franchise was assassinated by critics during its cinema run. However, viewers should take a leap of faith and trust us – Australian director Justin Kurzel ( Snowtown, Macbeth ) has done for video game movies what Christopher Nolan did for Batman comics, delivering a dark and dazzling fantasy-adventure grounded in the real world. Michael Fassbender plays a death row inmate who mind-melds with his 15th century Assassin ancestor using a device called the

fellow passenger Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), his loneliness wins through and he takes her life into his hands by waking her. He doesn’t tell her this, naturally, and they bond. But she’s probably going to find out... Titanic sees stars in this romantic drama that masquerades as a slick sci-fi adventure. AF

Animus – his mission being to retrieve a powerful artifact before the Knights Templar can use it to eliminate free will. Like a Dan Brown thriller packed with parkour, Assassin's Creed is a rare breed – a smart and sophisticated video game adaptation that's destined to find an appreciative audience on DVD and Blu-ray. SH (See page 28)

As time goes by... ALLIED

Portrait of a First Lady. JACKIE

Release Date: 26/04/17

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Release Date: 19/04/17

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A nostalgic blend of romance and Second World War heroics, this old school melodrama is just the thing for fans of classics like Casablanca . It's 1942 and Wing Commander Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) has arrived in French Morocco to meet Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard), a high ranking member of the French Resistance who will impersonate his wife and assist in the assassination of the German ambassador. This sham marriage quickly becomes the real deal, but things get complicated when leaked intelligence

Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín's portrait of iconic First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy is less a biopic than an intensely intimate character study. There's a lot of life to cover, but like The Queen , which took place in the aftermath of Princess Diana's death, Jackie narrows its focus to the week immediately following the assassination of JFK, and its devastating impact on his widow (Natalie Portman). With her striking physical resemblance and distinctive diction, Portman owns the role, personifying a woman both fragile and

suggests that his wife might actually be a Nazi spy. The period detail – especially the early scenes set in Casablanca – is impressively recreated by director Robert Zemeckis, while Pitt and Cotillard make for attractive stand-ins for Bogart and Bergman. AC

strong, and fiercely resolute in her desire to preserve the Kennedy legacy. Jackie keeps us in the immediate sphere of its subject and the result is a melancholic experience that runs contrary to expectations for a film of this type. Highly recommended. SH

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APRIL 2017

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