DVD review: Gonzo, Inkheart, and The Day the Earth Stood Still
21 April 2009
GONZO
****
Johnny Depp narrates this rambunctious doc on the torrid life of his muse/mentor, Rolling Stone journo Hunter S. Thompson. Director Alex Gibney takes the hagiographic route, eulogising Thompson as a brilliant, peerless trailblazer (he invented Gonzo journalism, a self-referential style of writing). But the hero worship is smartly offset by observations from long-suffering ex-partners.
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INKHEART
***
Brendan Fraser is slightly miscast as a devoted dad with the power to make characters in children’s books come to life by reading the book aloud. The results are initially magical, then treacherous (real people slip through the fiction portal and become pretend). A passable, post-Potter kiddy-fantasy flick inexplicably released to coincide with the end of the Easter holidays.
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
**
Mostly redundant and risible, Scott Derrickson’s rework of the 1951 sci-fi classic brings nothing new other than a tiresome, environmentally-aware finger-wag. Keanu Reeves is the alien who lands on Earth to deliver a warning about how humans are destroying the planet. Umm, tell us something we don’t know. Presumably, Reeves was cast as an insider joke on his notoriously wooden, dead-eyed, alien-like delivery. He doesn’t disappoint, but the film around him is puffy and portentous and relentlessly dull. Revisit the original instead.
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