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Review / Supercarrier 2 (AKA Super Carrier 2) (Video Tape/PAL) 1988
Actors & Directors
  • Ken Olandt
  • John David Bland
  • Dale Dye
  • William A Graham
  • Robert Hooks
  • Cec Verrell
Run time: 95 min.

Review Supercarrier 2 (AKA Super Carrier 2) (Video Tape/PAL) 1988:

The elite top guns of the US Navy are back, with more supersonic skills and thrills, as they demand the maximum from their multi million dollar flying hot-rods. While out on war game manoeuvres, pilots Sierra and Anzac encounter the unbelievable, a Russian MIG fighter. Face to face with the flying machine they dream to do combat with, temperatures run high. The situation is complicated by a Soviet submarine in close range to the Supercarrier Georgetown. The story goes on. faster, deadlier and way over the edge. Supercarrier 2 takes you where no previous aviation action adventure has been before.

Review MGM Entertainment / The Living Daylights [VHS] [1987]
Actors & Directors
  • Timothy Dalton
  • John Rhys-Davies
  • Jeroen Krabbé
  • Maryam d'Abo
  • Joe Don Baker
  • John Glen
Release date: 1996-05-28
Run time: 126 min.
Creator: Richard Maibaum
RRP: £9.99
Price: £5.26

Review The Living Daylights [VHS] [1987] / MGM Entertainment:

The Living Daylights, new boy Timothy Dalton's first Bond outing, gets off to a rocking start with a pre-credits sequence on Gibraltar, and culminates in a witty final showdown with Joe Don Baker's arms dealer, set on a model battlefield full of toy soldiers. While the Aston Martin model whizzing through the car chase has been updated for the late 1980s-including lethal lasers and other deadly gizmos-the plot is pretty standard issue, maybe a little more cluttered and unfocused than usual, involving arms, drugs and diamond smuggling. Nevertheless, the action-formula firmly in place, this one rehearses the moves with ease and throws in some fine acting. Maryam d'Abo, playing a cellist-cum-spy, is the classy main squeeze for 007 (uncharacteristically chaste for once). Dalton, with his wolfish, intelligent features, was a perfectly serviceable secret agent, but never caught on with the viewers, perhaps because everyone was hoping for a presence as charismatic as Sean Connery's in the franchise's glory days. -Leslie Felperin On the DVD: Casting the new Bond takes up much of the "making-of" documentary: first Sam Neill was in the running, but vetoed by Cubby Broccoli, who wanted Timothy Dalton and had considered him as far back as On Her Majesty's Secret Service (but Dalton felt he was just too young at the time). When Dalton proved unavailable, Pierce Brosnan was hired. Then, at the last minute, Brosnan's Remington Steele contract was renewed and he had to drop out. Dalton came back in, on the proviso that he could give Bond a harder, more realistic edge after the action-lite of the Roger Moore years. The second documentary attempts to profile the enigmatic Ian Fleming, who was apparently as mysterious and chameleon-like as his alter ego. [+]
The commentary is a miscellaneous selection of edited interviews from various members of the cast and crew. There's also Ah-Ha's "Living Daylights" video, and a "making-of" featurette about it. A brief deleted scene (comic relief-wisely dropped) and trailers complete another strong package. -Mark Walker.

Review 4 Front Video / Waterloo [VHS] [1970]
Actors & Directors
  • Rod Steiger
  • Orson Welles
  • Jack Hawkins
  • Virginia McKenna
  • Christopher Plummer
  • Sergei Bondarchuk
Release date: 2002-07-01
Run time: 127 min.
Creator: Vittorio Bonicelli
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.25

Review Waterloo [VHS] [1970] / 4 Front Video:

"A film that will never be equalled for its spectacle and dramatic power" says the stirring trailer on this otherwise sparsely featured DVD. Taking the story of the Napoleonic Wars to Bonaparte's final defeat, Waterloo is an unofficial continuation to director Sergei Bondarchuk's own 70mm super-epic War and Peace (1968). The climactic battle of Waterloo is shown in the second half of the film and re-enacted with such stunning realism by a cast of around 20,000 extras that it looks like documentary footage from history itself (some 20 years later, Gettysburg, 1993, did the same for the American Civil War). Those who hailed the groundbreaking impact of Saving Private Ryan should see Bondarchuk's films, as for sheer scale and intensity-if not bloodiness-they make Spielberg's hit look like an amateur video. Without ever attempting a French accent, Rod Steiger makes a commanding Napoleon, Christopher Plummer a worthy adversary as Wellington, while the supporting cast led by Orson Welles, Jack Hawkins and Virginia McKenna is excellent. The DVD transfer is richly detailed and clear, though the print itself could have done with just a little restoration. Though dated, Abel Glance's Napoleon (1928) remains definitive for many, perhaps explaining why Stanley Kubrick eventually abandoned his planned Napoleon film, instead making the 18th Century period epic Barry Lyndon (1974). -Gary S. Dalkin.

Review 4 Front Video / The River Wild [VHS] [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • Meryl Streep
  • David Strathairn
  • Stephanie Sawyer
  • Curtis Hanson
  • Joseph Mazzello
  • Kevin Bacon
Release date: 2001-04-02
Run time: 106 min.
Creator: Raymond Hartwick
Price: £5.99

Review The River Wild [VHS] [1995] / 4 Front Video:

Meryl Streep tried her hand at action films with this Curtis Hanson film and proved herself quite credible, bringing emotion as well as the willingness to kick butt. She plays a suburban mum and former white-water rafting guide who is taking her family on a raft trip for summer vacation. But overworked Dad (David Strathairn) can't make the trip so she and her son leave without him-and walk right into trouble. Killers on the run (Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly) abduct them and force Streep to take them down the most dangerous stretch of river to elude the cops. Hanson understands how to pace and construct this kind of action fodder but it's strictly formula stuff, enlivened only by the depth of Streep's portrayal and the viciousness of Bacon's character. -Marshall Fine Meryl Streep tried her hand at action films with this Curtis Hanson film and proved herself quite credible, bringing emotion as well as the willingness to kick butt. She plays a suburban mum and former white-water rafting guide who is taking her family on a raft trip for summer vacation. But overworked Dad (David Strathairn) can't make the trip, so she and her son leave without him-and walk right into trouble. Killers on the run (Kevin Bacon, John C. [+]
Reilly) abduct them and force Streep to take them down the most dangerous stretch of river to elude the cops. Hanson understands how to pace and construct this kind of action fodder, but it's strictly formula stuff, enlivened only by the depth of Streep's portrayal and the viciousness of Bacon's character. -Marshall Fine.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Police Squad - Volume 1 [VHS] [1983]
Actors & Directors
  • Alan North
  • Leslie Nielsen
  • Rex Hamilton
  • William Duell
  • Ed Williams
Release date: 1997-09-22
Run time: 72 min.
Creator: Jim Abrahams
RRP: £5.99
Price: £4.10

Review Police Squad - Volume 1 [VHS] [1983] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Blind Fury / The Punisher [VHS] [1989]
Actors & Directors
  • Phillip Noyce
  • Rutger Hauer
  • Mark Goldblatt
  • Lisa Blount
  • Randall Cobb
  • Noble Willingham
  • Terry O'Quinn
Release date: 1995-07-10
Run time: 169 min.
Creator: Terry O'Quinn
RRP: £12.99
Price: £14.99

Review Blind Fury / The Punisher [VHS] [1989] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / Excalibur [VHS] [1981]
Actors & Directors
  • Paul Geoffrey
  • Nicholas Clay
  • Nigel Terry
  • Cherie Lunghi
  • John Boorman
  • Helen Mirren
Release date: 1996-06-17
Run time: 134 min.
Creator: Thomas Malory
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.94

Review Excalibur [VHS] [1981] / Warner Home Video:

A lush retelling of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Excalibur is a dark and engrossing tale. Director John Boorman (Deliverance) masterfully handles the tale of the mythical sword Excalibur, and its passing from the wizard Merlin to the future king of England. Arthur pulls the famed sword from a stone and is destined to be crowned king. As the king embarks on a passionate love affair with Guenevere, an illegitimate son, and Merlin's designs on power, threaten Arthur's reign. The film is visually stunning and unflinching in its scenes of combat and black magic. Featuring an impressive supporting cast, including early work from the likes of Liam Neeson and Gabriel Byrne, Excalibur is an adaptation of the legend both faithful and bold. -Robert Lane.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Tweenies - Animal Friends [VHS] [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Tweenies
  • Will Brenton
Release date: 2000-03-27
Run time: 58 min.
Creator: Will Brenton
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.64

Review Tweenies - Animal Friends [VHS] [1999] / 2 Entertain Video:


Actors & Directors
  • Peter Richardson
  • Jim Dale
  • Bernard Cribbins
  • Maureen Lipman
  • Gerald Thomas
  • Alexei Sayle
Release date: 2000-06-26
Run time: 87 min.
Creator: John Antrobus
RRP: £5.99
Price: £6.96

Review Carry On Columbus [VHS] [1992] / Warner Home Video:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Police Squad - Volume 2 [VHS] [1983]
Actors & Directors
  • William Duell
  • Ed Williams
  • Alan North
  • Leslie Nielsen
  • Rex Hamilton
Release date: 1997-09-22
Run time: 71 min.
Creator: Jim Abrahams
RRP: £5.99
Price: £4.99

Review Police Squad - Volume 2 [VHS] [1983] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review Palisades Tartan / Dead Man's Curve (1998) [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Dana Delany
  • Michael Vartan
  • Randall Batinkoff
  • Keri Russell
  • Matthew Lillard
  • Dan Rosen
Release date: 2000-02-07
Run time: 87 min.
Creator: Michael Vartan
Price: £12.99

Review Dead Man's Curve (1998) [VHS] / Palisades Tartan:


Actors & Directors
  • Peter Copley
  • Robert Jones
  • Dinsdale Landen
  • Patrick Macnee
  • Linda Thorson
  • John Carlisle
  • John Hough
Release date: 1994-04-25
Run time: 100 min.
Creator: Linda Thorson
Price: £10.99

Review The Avengers - Vol. 12 - The Super Secret Cypher Snatch / All Done With Mirrors [VHS] [1969] / Lumiere Pictures:


Actors & Directors
  • Steve Forrest
  • Leslie Norman
  • Jill St. John
Release date: 1992-07-13
Run time: 100 min.
Creator: Jill St. John
Price: £10.99

Review The Baron - Vol. 1 - Diplomatic Immunity [VHS] [1966] / Itc Home Video (UK):


Review Cinema Club / Gorgeous / Who Am I? [VHS] [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Benny Chan
  • Jackie Chan
  • Michelle Ferre
  • Jackie Chan
  • Hsien-Chi Jen
  • Vincent Kok
  • Tony Leung Chiu Wai
  • Qi Shu
Release date: 2002-04-01
Run time: 199 min.
Creator: Qi Shu
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.25

Review Gorgeous / Who Am I? [VHS] [1999] / Cinema Club:


Actors & Directors
  • Jayne Atkinson
  • Rupert Wainwright
  • James Rebhorn
  • Brian Bonsall
  • Michael Faustino
  • Karen Duffy
Release date: 1995-10-24
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: Colby Carr
RRP: £10.99
Price: £2.60

Review Blank Cheque (Disney) [VHS] [1994] / Walt Disney Home Video:


Review Metrodome Distribution / Police Assassins 2 [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Lieh Lo
  • Billy Chow
  • Kong Lau
  • Chuen-Yee Cha
  • Michelle Khan
  • Cynthia Rothrock
Release date: 1997-10-27
Run time: 83 min.
Creator: Michelle Khan
Price: £10.99

Review Police Assassins 2 [VHS] / Metrodome Distribution:


Review Mia Video Entertainment Ltd / Heroes Shed No Tears [VHS]
Actors & Directors
  • Eddy Ko
  • John Woo
  • Ching-Ying Lam
  • Yuet Sang Chin
  • Ho Kon Kim
  • Doo Hee Jang
Release date: 1997-04-14
Run time: 94 min.
Creator: Raymond Chow
Price: £13.99

Review Heroes Shed No Tears [VHS] / Mia Video Entertainment Ltd:


Actors & Directors
  • Edward Mulhare
  • Richard Basehart
  • David Hasselhoff
  • Vince Edwards
  • Richard Anderson
  • Daniel Haller
Run time: 91 min.
Creator: Richard Basehart
Price: £10.99

Review Knight Rider - The Original TV Movie [VHS] [1982] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Braveheart [VHS] [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • Mel Gibson
  • Sean Lawlor
  • Sophie Marceau
  • James Robinson
  • Mel Gibson
  • Sandy Nelson
Release date: 2001-01-29
Run time: 180 min.
Creator: Randall Wallace
RRP: £5.99
Price: £0.99

Review Braveheart [VHS] [1995] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

A stupendous historical saga, Braveheart won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for star Mel Gibson. He plays William Wallace, a 13th-century Scottish commoner who unites the various clans against a cruel English King, Edward the Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan). The scenes of hand-to-hand combat are brutally violent, but they never glorify the bloodshed. There is such enormous scope to this story that it works on a smaller, more personal scale as well, essaying love and loss, patriotism and passion. Extremely moving, it reveals Gibson as a multitalented performer and remarkable director with an eye for detail and an understanding of human emotion. (His first directorial effort was 1993's Man Without a Face. ) The film is nearly three hours long and includes several plot tangents, yet is never dull. This movie resonates long after you have seen it, both for its visual beauty and for its powerful story. -Rochelle O'Gorman Mel Gibson's birth-of-a-nation epic Braveheart does for England what Spartacus did for Rome: every Englishman in this film is weak or nasty or a fool, or all three. Gibson plays William Wallace, the highland warrior whose fierce fighting spirit prompted Robert the Bruce's memorable victory over the English at Bannockburn. [+]
The film opens with boy Wallace losing his father and brother to the murdering English. Gibson's over-age Wallace then indulges in an unintentionally risible spot of teenage romance with the chaste Murron (Catherine McCormack), who is promptly despatched by yet another wicked Englishman. Gibson swings into action in some truly impressive (and horribly gory) fight scenes, culminating in the battles of Stirling and Falkirk. When not separating English body parts, Gibson finds time for a clandestine romance with Isabelle, the Princess of Wales (Sophie Marceau), whom he manages to impregnate, thereby ensuring that the current British monarchy are all descended from him and not from William the Conqueror as they might heretofore have supposed. He trounces the weak and venial English at every turn, causing England's nasty Edward I (Patrick McGoohan) to cough and splutter a lot. Only treachery by the Scotch nobility (lowlanders to a man) stops Wallace's triumphant crusade. His final apotheosis, complete with pre-Passion of the Christ crucifixion imagery, posits Wallace as the redeemer of his country's lost independence. The set-piece battles are a feast for the senses: a combination of the scale of Spartacus with the mud of Branagh's Henry V. But the continual use of slow motion in tandem with the gorgeous scenic backdrops and James Horner's cloying "folksy" music score of indeterminate national origin, enhances the feeling that this is a slick promo for the Scottish tourist board (ironic, perhaps, that much of it was shot in Ireland). Gibson and his Caledonian costars give the impression that a good time was had by all. -Mark Walker.

Review 4 Front Video / The Jackal [VHS] [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Bruce Willis
  • Mathilda May
  • Richard Gere
  • Michael Caton-Jones
  • Sidney Poitier
  • Diane Venora
Release date: 2000-09-25
Run time: 119 min.
Creator: Kenneth Ross
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.98

Review The Jackal [VHS] [1998] / 4 Front Video:

The Jackal is filmmaking by numbers: take two huge stars, Richard Gere and Bruce Willis, and pit them opposite each other in a plot that's already been audience tested. That director Michael Caton Jones' film is based not on Frederick Forsyth's novel but on the script for the 1973 original starring James Fox is the first clue that something here is amiss. Fred Zinneman's The Day of the Jackal was a genuinely taut and claustrophobic thriller; the remake is like a Rocky & Bullwinkle take on international terrorism disguised as an action movie. Dashing IRA terrorist, Declan Mulqueen (Richard Gere), is sprung from jail to help the FBI Deputy Director Carton Preston (Sidney Poitier) track down The Jackal, an amoral international terrorist who is a master of disguise. The FBI believes he is about to assassinate a US political bigwig and is engaged in a race against time to discover exactly who the target is and where they will be felled. Throughout the film Gere sports an Irish accent as ill-fitting and phoney as the bushy lip-wig that Willis adopts at one point as a disguise. The usually warm-hearted Willis plays the steel-jawed terrorist with a cool reserve, but he doesn't have much character development to work with (apart from a misguided attempt to introduce a gay subtext). At over two hours of running time with plenty of exposition and precious few action sequences, this film is a test of will for the audience as well as the protagonists. On the DVD: The DVD includes a lengthy "making of" featurette, several deleted scenes and an alternate ending with some small dialogue changes. There is also an exceedingly dry director's commentary by Michael Caton Jones which muses on such mind-numbingly dull details as the colour of the subway platform in the film's climactic sequence. [+]
The film is presented in a clear print in 2. 35:1 anamorphic format with 5. 1 Dolby Digital sound. -Chris Campion.

Models & Brands:
Supercarrier 2 (AKA Super Carrier 2) (Video Tape/PAL) 1988, The Living Daylights [VHS] [1987], Waterloo [VHS] [1970], The River Wild [VHS] [1995], Police Squad - Volume 1 [VHS] [1983], Blind Fury / The Punisher [VHS] [1989], Excalibur [VHS] [1981], Tweenies - Animal Friends [VHS] [1999], Carry On Columbus [VHS] [1992], Police Squad - Volume 2 [VHS] [1983], Dead Man's Curve (1998) [VHS], The Avengers - Vol. 12 - The Super Secret Cypher Snatch / All Done With Mirrors [VHS] [1969], The Baron - Vol. 1 - Diplomatic Immunity [VHS] [1966], Gorgeous / Who Am I? [VHS] [1999], Blank Cheque (Disney) [VHS] [1994], Police Assassins 2 [VHS], Heroes Shed No Tears [VHS], Knight Rider - The Original TV Movie [VHS] [1982], Braveheart [VHS] [1995], The Jackal [VHS] [1998]

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