This week’s new DVD releases feature a great ape, a love story during war and a look behind the mask of an odd film story.
• “Kong: Skull Island” 2 1/2 stars : A group of soldiers and a spunky reporter (Brie Larson) head to a mysterious island where they find a giant ape. The story sounds familiar because writers Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein and Derek Connolly’s put together an uninspired script that includes all of the same beats from past King Kong movies.
This one’s a little different in that it takes place at the end of the Vietnam War. That would have been interesting if that time period selection had to do with big political issues of the era. That’s not the case. The time period was selected based on how the technology to map the world from space was just being developed. A kind of technological ignorance is necessary to offer an explanation of how a giant island at the center of a never-ending storm that’s 100 miles across could go undetected for so long.
Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts keeps the movie going at a steady clip and takes the necessary pauses to stage some big fight scenes. But even the fights are uninspired.
There’s nothing painfully wrong with “Kong: Skull Island.” There’s nothing excitingly right either.
• “The Promise” 3 stars: “The Promise” earns major points simply for being the first major Hollywood production to show the horrors of the Armenian Genocide. Director Terry George manages to give the horrific event attention while opening up the movie to a broader audience through a sweet love story.
Mikael Pogosian (Oscar Isaac) lives in a small Armenian village on the eastern edge of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. During his travels to Constantinople to study medicine, he soon becomes friends with an American reporter, Chris Myers (Christian Bale), and his girlfriend, Ana (Charlotte Le Bon). Mikael falls in love with Ana.
The script by George and Robin Swicord mixes the larger picture of what is being done to the Armenians with the love story. Both are integrated so smoothly that they support each other. Overall, “The Promise” is a heartrending memorial to a people who persevered even in the face of some of the most inhumane actions in history.
Also on DVD
• “Free Fire”: An arms deal goes spectacularly wrong. Brie Larson stars.
• “Tommy’s Honour”: Father and son revolutionize the modern game of golf. Peter Mullan stars.
• “The 100: Season 4”: This season of the CW Network series looks at the last small pieces of the human race dealing with a radiation Death Wave.
• “T.J. Hooker: The Complete Series”: Set includes the five seasons of the cop series starring William Shatner.
• “Pray for Rain”: Reporter returns to her hometown to find that it has been ravaged by drought and that her father’s death was not an accident.
• “Roaring Abyss”: Documentary on how music is the universal language of Ethiopia.
• “Adventure Time: Complete Season Seven”: Includes 25 episodes of the animated series that has won both Emmy and Peabody awards.
• “Another Evil”: Expert is hired to get rid of a ghost in a vacation home.
• “Resident Evil: Vendetta”: Plans to release a plague in New York must be stopped.
• “Fight for Space”: A look at how the race for the moon inspired generations to study science.
On digital HD
• “The Circle”: A young woman (Emma Watson) soon learns her new job at the world’s largest tech company may not be as ideal as she thought.
