#10: Snow White and the Huntsman [DVD] [2012]

Snow White and the Huntsman [DVD] [2012]
Kristen Stewart (Actor), Charlize Theron (Actor), Rupert Sanders (Director) | Format: DVD
270 days in the top 100
(248)

Buy new: £5.00
61 used & new from £3.63

(Visit the Bestsellers in Action & Adventure list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Product Images

Review & Description

Definitely not your average retelling of the classic Snow White fairy tale, Snow White and the Huntsman is a dark, action-fantasy film that's based more on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale than the well-known Disney version of the story. It features intriguing concepts, impressive special effects, and some disappointingly lackluster acting.

The essence of the "Snow White" story is preserved in this recounting: the queen's beautiful daughter Snow White, who is heir to the throne, is displaced and persecuted by an evil stepmother after her mother dies. Here, the evil stepmother Ravenna possesses a disturbing power to maintain her own perpetual youth by stealing youthfulness from the hearts of the young and beautiful, but her magic mirror warns that Snow White's innocence and purity as she comes of age will destroy Ravenna's chance at immortality. When Snow White escapes from the castle prison, Ravenna hires a downtrodden Huntsman to bring her back so that Ravenna can steal her youth and achieve personal immortality. But Snow White runs into a dark and sinister forest where mushrooms disperse hallucinogenic spores, trees come to life, flocks of bats spring from inanimate objects, and dwarves lurk in the shadows. The roles of the seven dwarves and the Huntsman in this version of the story prove to be quite different from the original, but what remain steadfast are Snow White's inner strength and absolute goodness, and her stepmother's innate evilness.

This film is full of fascinating imagery that's brought to life through powerful special effects, great costuming, and captivating cinematography--the scenes in the dark forest and the fairy-filled wilderness beyond are reason enough to see it. Unfortunately, the story moves a bit slowly and the acting by Kristen Stewart (Snow White) and Chris Hemsworth (Huntsman) is rather stoical and passionless and lacks chemistry, though Charlize Theron does stand out as a particularly disturbing Ravenna. --Tami Horiuchi Read more

#7: Batman Returns Steelbook [Blu-ray] [1992][Region Free]

Batman Returns Steelbook [Blu-ray] [1992][Region Free]
Michael Keaton (Actor), Danny DeVito (Actor), Tim Burton (Director) | Rated: Suitable for 15 years and over | Format: Blu-ray
Release Date: 3 Jun 2013

Buy new: £13.99

(Visit the Hot Future Releases in Action & Adventure list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Product Images

#9: Snow White and the Huntsman [DVD] [2012]

Snow White and the Huntsman [DVD] [2012]
Kristen Stewart (Actor), Charlize Theron (Actor), Rupert Sanders (Director) | Format: DVD
270 days in the top 100
(248)

Buy new: £5.00
59 used & new from £3.71

(Visit the Bestsellers in Action & Adventure list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Product Images

Review & Description

Definitely not your average retelling of the classic Snow White fairy tale, Snow White and the Huntsman is a dark, action-fantasy film that's based more on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale than the well-known Disney version of the story. It features intriguing concepts, impressive special effects, and some disappointingly lackluster acting.

The essence of the "Snow White" story is preserved in this recounting: the queen's beautiful daughter Snow White, who is heir to the throne, is displaced and persecuted by an evil stepmother after her mother dies. Here, the evil stepmother Ravenna possesses a disturbing power to maintain her own perpetual youth by stealing youthfulness from the hearts of the young and beautiful, but her magic mirror warns that Snow White's innocence and purity as she comes of age will destroy Ravenna's chance at immortality. When Snow White escapes from the castle prison, Ravenna hires a downtrodden Huntsman to bring her back so that Ravenna can steal her youth and achieve personal immortality. But Snow White runs into a dark and sinister forest where mushrooms disperse hallucinogenic spores, trees come to life, flocks of bats spring from inanimate objects, and dwarves lurk in the shadows. The roles of the seven dwarves and the Huntsman in this version of the story prove to be quite different from the original, but what remain steadfast are Snow White's inner strength and absolute goodness, and her stepmother's innate evilness.

This film is full of fascinating imagery that's brought to life through powerful special effects, great costuming, and captivating cinematography--the scenes in the dark forest and the fairy-filled wilderness beyond are reason enough to see it. Unfortunately, the story moves a bit slowly and the acting by Kristen Stewart (Snow White) and Chris Hemsworth (Huntsman) is rather stoical and passionless and lacks chemistry, though Charlize Theron does stand out as a particularly disturbing Ravenna. --Tami Horiuchi Read more

#3: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters [DVD]

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters [DVD]
Jeremy Renner (Actor), Gemma Arterton (Actor), Tommy Wirkola (Director) | Rated: Suitable for 15 years and over | Format: DVD
(10)
Release Date: 24 Jun 2013

Buy new: £12.75

(Visit the Hot Future Releases in Action & Adventure list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Product Images

Review & Description

There are too many body parts flying around Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters to single out the tongue that has nearly been gnawed off in the cheek of its clever premise that fairy-tale heroes have grown up into savage supernatural mercenaries. Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton strut around like 18th-century Avengers in leather uniforms, cursing up a storm of modern vernacular and bearing an inventive array of historically and mechanically impossible weapons such as grenades, crossbows, tasers, machine guns, and other weapons of witch-killing mass destruction. It's all a big joke of course, and one that the movie wears boldly and without a shred of irony. To quibble with its gaps in narrative logic or be righteously indignant that the script is often a slapdash mess is to miss the point that it's all meant to be a pile of plain old silly fun. After their childhood trauma at the gingerbread house, the famous Teutonic siblings are now in the business of killing witches full time, hiring themselves out to villages plagued by ugly, evil women wearing loads of scary makeup (Famke Janssen being the evilest and scariest) who feed on the townsfolk's kids. They do their job well and the movie spares no opportunity to show the effect of their fantastical arsenal with profusions of firepower, explosions, viscera, and disgusting cartoon violence, decapitation being the most favoured method of killing by the movie and the title characters both. As the latest in the trend of revisionist fairy-tale telling, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters takes the low road whenever possible, but it does so with a blithe spirit, a foul mouth, and the above-mentioned gore galore to create a B-movie soul that pities any sort of critical over-analysing. It's also pretty funny. There are several inspired offhand moments, such as the missing-children notices slapped on the sides of farmers' milk cans or the way Hansel has to make time for insulin injections because of the gingerbread overdoses he endured at the hand of the proto witch he and Gretel encountered as children. The art direction, wardrobe, and anachronistically engineered props that propel the story all have a cool steampunk design theme and make the silliness pretty hard to resist. Renner, Arterton, and Janssen aren't really taking things too seriously, which is fine because neither are we. This is the American debut of Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola, who brings the same playful gross-out sensibility he did to his 2009 feature Dead Snow. That one was about long-dormant Nazi soldiers rising up as zombies. What fun! It was a lark and a goof, just like Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. --Ted Fry Read more

#8: The Dark Knight Rises Steelbook [Blu-ray] [2012][Region Free]

The Dark Knight Rises Steelbook [Blu-ray] [2012][Region Free]
Christian Bale (Actor), Liam Neeson (Actor), Christopher Nolan (Director) | Rated: Suitable for 12 years and over | Format: Blu-ray
4 days in the top 100
(677)
Release Date: 3 Jun 2013

Buy new: £13.99

(Visit the Bestsellers in Action & Adventure list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Product Images

#9: The Dark Knight Steelbook [Blu-ray] [2008][Region Free]

The Dark Knight Steelbook [Blu-ray] [2008][Region Free]
Christian Bale (Actor), Michael Caine (Actor), Christopher Nolan (Director) | Rated: Suitable for 12 years and over | Format: Blu-ray
3 days in the top 100
Release Date: 3 Jun 2013

Buy new: £13.99

(Visit the Bestsellers in Action & Adventure list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Product Images

#3: The Dark Knight Steelbook [Blu-ray] [2008][Region Free]

The Dark Knight Steelbook [Blu-ray] [2008][Region Free]
Christian Bale (Actor), Michael Caine (Actor), Christopher Nolan (Director) | Rated: Suitable for 12 years and over | Format: Blu-ray
Release Date: 3 Jun 2013

Buy new: £13.99

(Visit the Hot Future Releases in Action & Adventure list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Product Images