DVD Collectors Online

The Social Network, a review by Critter

The Social NetworkLisbeth Salander

(From The Social Network on November 2nd, 2010)

Cradle 2 the Grave, a review by Silence_of_Lambs

Summary:
When his daughter is kidnapped and held in exchange for priceless diamonds, Fait (DMX), the leader of a crew of highly skilled urban thieves forges an unlikely alliance with a Taiwanese Intelligence officer (Jet Li) to rescue her. Their race against the clock to find the precious stones ultimately unravels a plot to distribute a deadly new weapon of war.

My Thoughts:
This film comes in the tradition of Exit Wounds (with better acting, since there's no Steven Seagal) and Romeo Must Die and just like them it's a festival of martial arts scenes.
The story comes along as a classical "No-Brainer" (and because of some severe plausibility leaks it's actually better to leave your brain in "StandBy), nevertheless this flick is highly enjoyable.
Not much to say against this movie: Decent story, decent acting, decent directing, ...
If you like the movies above and/or flicks like Bad Boys this film is highly recommended to you.

My Rating: (out of possible 5)

(From Michael's random reviews on October 29th, 2010)

Tom's Random Reviews, a review by Tom

Title: Full Metal Panic!: The Second Raid
Year: 2005
Rating: NR
Length: 325 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78
Audio: English: Dolby Digital Stereo , English: Dolby Digital 5.1 , Japanese: Dolby Digital Stereo , Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1 , Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles: Commentary, English

Plot:
It's tough to keep your grades up without having to take off at a moment's notice to save the world. But for Sousuke Sagara, undercover high school student and member of the mercenary group Mithril, life in Tokyo seemed the same as always. But underneath the promising exterior spin the wheels of a conspiracy that threaten to destroy the peace. A new threat has arisen: Amalgam.

An unknown element with advanced mech technology, this mysterious organization has been running things from behind the scenes. As dissension spreads throughout the ranks of Mithril, Sousuke faces his own internal struggle. Spread thin between schoolwork and war, the powers that be have decided to lighten his load... beginning with Kaname!

Life and death hang in the balance as the clash between good and evil scale new heights. When the smoke clears, Sousuke's path will be the one that he forges for himself.

Extras:
Bonus Episode 000; Bonus OVA; Textless Songs
Commentary
Featurettes
Scene Access
Trailers

The third installment in the Full Metal Panic series. And what an emotional roller coaster ride!
Whereas the first series mixes a serious story-arc with light fun episodes, this series is mostly drama. Essentially a 180 to the previous (second) series FUMOFFU which was fun-only.

Also the extras on this DVD set a quite fun. A 7-part featurette where the original author and the series director are going location scouting in Hong Kong. Although it gets rather boring with the video footage, the two provide fun commentary to it, which seldomly has anything to do with the video footage.
Then we have audio commentaries for all episodes with the Japanese voice cast. Again, there are mostly talking about everything except about the episodes . But I enjoyed them nonetheless.

The best extra feature of course is the bonus episode centering around the Tessa character. Originally it was released in Japan on DVD-only one year after The Second Raid series. This episode is comedy pure!

Rating:


Here is something rather fun: The audio of the Spider-Man 2 trailer put to video footage from Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mbFngmMz15o

(From Tom's Random Reviews on June 7th, 2008)