New on DVD this week:
Captain America: The First Avenger
It seems at times there are more superheroes onscreen than there are people to save: 2011 has been littered with X-Men, Thors and Green Lanterns and Hornets. What a pleasure, then, to watch Captain America burst onto the screen with earnest do-good intentions and a killer bod, to boot.
Chris Evans (of the Fantastic Four films) plays Steve Rogers, who goes from scrawny weakling to brawny hero thanks to a Second World War army science experiment. Steve becomes the U.S. Army's first super soldier, but begins his career flogging war bonds on the home front. Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci), Col. Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) and, watch as Steve goes rogue with the help of Iron Man's daddy, Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper). He's off to kill Nazis, in particular a juice-head called Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) who has injected so much super-serum that he's turned red.
We love that the Germans are back as the bad guys: Tucci and Weaving have great fun with the cheesy accents. And though a movie with both "captain" and "America" in the title begs for excess, director Joe Johnston is judicious with the special effects in favour of keeping the retro tone and style of the film. That includes a prim love story with British agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) that takes a back seat to the Y-chromosome fun.
Extras on the standard DVD include a feature on the costuming process, commentary, deleted scenes, trailers, and a promo spot for next year's big Avengers movie.
Bad Teacher
After being dumped by her wealthy boyfriend, world's worst teacher Elizabeth (Cameron Diaz) makes it her mission to land another wealthy dupe. Enter Scott (Justin Timberlake), a substitute teacher. Taking him for a big-boob man, Elizabeth decides that the only solution to her plight is to skim money off her students, get a boob job and win Scott's heart. Standing in her way is super keen teacher Amy Squirrel (a fabulous Lucy Punch) and gym teacher Russell (Jason Segel), the only one who calls Elizabeth on her crap.
Stoned and drunk most of the time, Elizabeth has her class watch endless re-runs of Stand and Deliver and Dangerous Minds. Now, Bad Teacher could've been an interesting alternative to the "tough teacher makes a difference" propaganda we've been fed over the years, but director Jake Kasdan forsakes the opportunity in favour of a skimpy plot filled with potty humour (obligatory men's bathroom scene), T&A jokes (a too-long look at breasts Elizabeth test-drives) and shots of Diaz in button-popping outfits (the car wash scene). The film's R rating means that screenwriters have gone to town with Diaz's dialogue, filling pages with expletives instead of actual jokes. The whole novelty of a teacher dropping F-bombs on her students wears thin quickly.
Too long for what it is, the film is a shameful waste of Segel's comic talents, and there isn't an interesting character in the lot. Punch is the best of the bunch, an easy pick, since she plays a recovering nutcase. The standard DVD offers an unrated version of the film, outtakes with such inspired names as "Boner," Way Behind the Scenes with Jason and Justin (a pretty unfunny scripted chat between the two actors) and Raising More Than Funds is about Diaz's famous car wash scene.
ù Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom may be gone, but we scarcely miss them in this fourth Pirates film. (A franchise based on an amusement park ride, imagine!) Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane make fiendishly fun replacements, giving a much-needed kick-start to the franchise (along with new director Rob Marshall). Plus, it's Johnny Depp we're all here to see, anyway.
Cruz provides the requisite girl power, as an ex-lover wronged by Jack. McShane is a delight as the dreaded pirate Blackbeard, literally smoking with evil and full of voodoo mischief. He tricks Jack into helping him track down the Fountain of Youth, though it's a race against the Brits, Jack's old nemesis Barbosa (Geoffrey Rush), and the Spaniards to see who gets there first. Pay little attention to all that nonsense at the fountain (two chalices, a mermaid's tear and some other hocus-pocus involving Ponce de Leon). If you can ignore that and just sit back and enjoy the swordfights, it's all pirate-y good fun, with lots of swashbuckling, swabbing and skullduggery. Less consistent are the big effects sequences: most are great (a flaming coal cart through London), a few are murky.
There's director commentary, five Lego animated shorts, and Bloopers of the Caribbean (featuring giggles between Depp and Cruz), plus Disney second screen technology for your computer or iPad.
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