The latest DVDs reviewed
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST
Directed by Gore Verbinski. Starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Stellan Skarsgård, Naomie Harris 12 cert **
Depp's drunken pirate seeks to extricate himself from a Faustian pact with a squid-thing in a dull sequel. What kind of a world is it that allows this tired, creaky, insanely overextended romp to become the third most successful film of all time? Released a month before Christmas, the DVD, which is presented in the usual groaning two-disc set, will, presumably, sell more copies than the Bible. Do your bit for sanity by leaving at least one copy on the shelf.
I AM CUBA/SOY CUBA
Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov 12 cert *****
The new print of this achingly poetic propaganda piece - a tribute to the Cuban revolution in four dramatic acts - makes a welcome appearance on DVD. Some may balk at the bald rhetoric, but no sensitive person could fail to be entranced by the gorgeous, drifting shots that take us among sat-upon peasants, nightclub denizens and angry students. Essential stuff.
REEKER
Directed by David Payne. Starring Devon Gummersall, Michael Ironside 16 cert **
Teenagers are pursued around a deserted motel by a smelly beast with drills for hands. Encountering this horror film by the director of such straight-to-video delights as Alien Terminator in the cinema was rather like coming across a Jade Goody fitness video on the big screen. Now it is back where it belongs. It's trash, of course. But it satisfies the meagre demands of its genre quite nicely.
JUST MY LUCK
Directed by Donald Petrie. Starring Lindsay Lohan, Chris Pine PG cert **
Lohan's first adult(ish) picture finds her playing a supernaturally lucky PR assistant who swaps Karma with a hapless loser. The setting may be the grown-up world, but in tone and structure, Just My Luck remains hopelessly stranded in the high-school cafeteria. Too dull for kids, too silly for their parents.
TO DIE IN SAN HILARIO/MORIR EN SAN HILARIO
Directed by Laura Mana. Starring Lluis Homar 15 cert ***
There are flavours of Preston Sturges in this charming if unambitious Spanish comedy. The film concerns a gangster who, after flinging himself from a train near a small town, is mistaken by the citizens for a great painter who has earlier announced his imminent death. If you can bear films in which everyone learns something, it will do well enough.
