Blu-ray

The Twilight Zone: Season 1 does a spectacular job of demonstrating why this 50-year old TV series had such a lasting impression on all who watched it. Hosted by creator Rod Serling, this half-hour sci-fi anthology series lived up to its promise of transporting its adult viewers to ‘a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man… This is the dimension of imagination’, one where anything could happen and usually did. What stands out today (about from how well made the show was) is how marvellously subversive it all was, mixing its thrills and chills with liberal doses of social criticism that somehow bypassed the TV censors of the time.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader finds the fantasy franchise setting up a new home at 20th Century Fox after Disney dumped it following the disappointing box office performance of Prince Caspian. Sadly, this third film in the saga doesn’t offer a bright new beginning for the series. What should be a rip-snorting adventure concerning Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund (Shandar Keynes) and annoying cousin Eustace (Will Poulter) helping Caspian (Ben Barnes) rescue the seven Lords of Narnia, proves to be a fairly dull and episodic slice of fantasy hokum dripping with heavy-handed Christian overtones. Yawn.

Monsters is in many ways a remarkable film. Shot entirely on location for less than £500,000 with a tiny crew, two unknown actors and visual effects knocked up by writer/director/cinematographer/etc. Gareth Edwards on his home computer, Monsters is a testament to just what it’s possible for a filmmaker to do with such limited resources these days. However, Monsters is also notable for the way it was knowingly mis-sold to audiences, with promises of epic sci-fi spectacle rather than the road-movie-cum-immigration-allegory it actually delivered. On its own terms Monsters is a success, but it’s one that audiences expecting more traditional sci-fi thrills may find difficult to engage with.

Unstoppable finds director Tony Scott teaming up with his regular leading man Denzel Washington for yet another bout of chaos involving public transportation. Thankfully, while no cinematic classic, it’s a vast improvement on their meandering remake of The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3 – delivering a straight-forward rush of undemanding action movie fun that partners Washington with Chris Pine in a tale of a runaway freight train packed with deadly chemicals, inspired by a true event that occurred back in 2001. As always, while the actors do their best with fairly limited parts, it’s Scott’s wild direction that amps up the action to breaking point and delivers the film’s real excitement.

The Social Network might seem to be a film about the creation of Facebook, but once past the surface it’s so much more than that. Director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin have used Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires as the springboard for a rich and rewarding intellectual property battle-cum-morality play, albeit one that is almost indecently smart and quite probably plays a little fast and loose with the facts. While Fincher’s direction is as assured and fastidious as ever, it’s Sorkin’s script that is the real star this time around. Loaded with genuine wit and wisdom, it transforms what could be a dry and technical history lesson into one of the most engrossing and invigorating Hollywood films in ages.

Bambi is possibly Walt Disney’s crowning achievement in feature animation. Based on the popular book by Austrian author Felix Salten, this story of a young fawn and his woodland friends might boast a fairly sleight 70min running time, but into that it packs some of the most beautiful hand-drawn animation ever committed to celluloid, a simple yet effective narrative that set the template for countless animated films to follow and some heart-wrenching scenes that can still turn adults into a blubbering mess. Truly magical.