DVD RELEASES
? Rated out of five stars
KATHERINE MONK
Postmedia News
TED
Rating 3
Mark Wahlberg and a potty-mouthed teddy bear make for a different brand of dynamic comedy duo, but never different enough. It's little more than a raunchy buddy comedy with a stuffy as a co-star. The directorial debut of Seth MacFarlane (the director-writer and recently announced Oscar host) could have recreated the whole genre with a little more imagination and a few more insights into the adolescent male mind because the premise works. Wahlberg is a boy-man incapable of stepping up to the plate of adulthood, but at least he's looking to try. His bear, Ted, is another story. Hooked on drugs and hookers, the bear is lost in a pathetic Peter Pan landscape that mirrors his human pal's. If the humour had come from the bear's ability to see through the contrivance of adulthood and smart observations, the movie could have been a modern classic.
As it is, it's a great showcase for Wahlberg's ability to extract empathy and a good argument for regular garage sales to purge the artifacts of youth. Special features include a gag reel, the making-of, alternative takes, Teddy Bear Scuffle, digital copy and more.
THE BOURNE LEGACY
Rating 2 1/2
The movie lurches out of the starting gate and gradually loses major chunks of chassis as the legacy of Matt Damon fades into the background of this once-robust spy franchise.
Though the character of Jason Bourne still exists, this movie directed by Tony Gilroy features Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) as the agent standing centre-frame.
Genetically altered by his own government, Renner's character is now dependent on medication to stay on top of his game, yet when the movie opens, all the Franken-agents have been deemed redundant.
Like most junkies, our hero is really only fixated on one thing: getting more drugs. This isn't a very sexy character trait, and it creates a dent in everything that follows because Renner proves incapable of fostering the same warm, gooey feelings as Damon.
Special features include deleted scenes, capturing chaos in the motorbike race, man versus wolf, feature commentary, Re-Bourne and more.
ICE AGE: CONTINENTAL DRIFT
Rating 3
The one thing you have to remember about the whole Ice Age franchise is we kind of know how it all ends.
Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), sabre-toothed tigers (Smilodon) and even giant apes (Gigantopithe-cus) are all extinct.
They lost the great evolutionary race, which means most of the central characters in this now-four-deep franchise are doomed, even if the folks at Fox are determined to keep them alive for another few dodges of Darwin's bullet.
Special features include party with a pirate, featurettes, whale of a tale, deleted scenes, shell game, Scrat Got Your Tongue?, trailers and more.
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