The Problem with Buying Film Digitally

Furious 7 has more value on Blu-ray than Digital.

This week, Fast and Furious 7 hit video on demand services a full two weeks before the release of the Blu-ray. As a fan of the film, I decided to look into it willing to buy it. But I ran into the same problems I have always had with digital film purchases: pricing. Or more specifically, value for money. In preparation for its home video release, Universal have prepared an extended version of the film to include on the Blu-ray, alongside the theatrical version. However, those who wish to purchase the film digitally will find that they're met with both versions being released separately instead, with both priced at a whopping £13.99 if you wanted them in HD. That's an extremely high price point, especially considering you only get one version of the film. Now consider the impending Blu-ray release. You have to wait two weeks longer as part of a strategy more studios are implementing to push digital onto consumers, but when it is eventually released the price of the Blu-ray on Amazon currently stands at £14.99. It only costs £1 more for the physical copy of the disc, with all the extra costs that come along with producing that such as the packaging and the postage to retailers. When you realize that the Blu-ray also comes with both versions of the film, special features, and a digital copy of the film anyway, you have to wonder why anybody expects you to buy digital.

Steam is one of the few digital retailers offering value for money

I'm in no way against the concept of digital film purchases. It's an instant and easy way to view what films you want, wherever you want. But right now, there are too many problems facing the format to make it a viable option for most people. This is a problem I also have with another form of digital entertainment: gaming. Steam is renowned among PC gamers for its incredible pricing and massive sales. It has completely changed the way that PC gamers buy and play games in recent years. But this is something that console gamers are not benefiting from, with games on the digital PlayStation and Xbox stores costing the same if not more than the retail physical copy of the game. It baffles me that something that unarguably costs less to produce considering the lack of postage and packaging should cost the same or more to the consumer. Digital entertainment should be passing the savings on to the audience, not having them pocketed by major corporations. Looking at my opening example of Furious 7, this is a problem shared by the film industry. There's only a £1 price difference between digital and Blu-ray, and that measly £1 upgrade would cover the packaging, an additional version of the film, bonus features and a free digital copy anyway. If you're selling a cheaper-to-produce version of the film, stripped completely of all the added content one can get via Blu-ray, there should be a massive saving for it to pay off.

You'll have to wait an extra month for Ultron on Blu-ray in US.

Right now, the only reason studios and digital retailers are offering you for buying digital over Blu-ray is indeed this exclusivity window that so many studios are implementing. This is basically their way of trying to force digital onto the consumer rather than actually making it a worthy option. Besides the aforementioned UK release strategy of Fast and Furious 7, let's look at the US release strategy for Avengers: Age of Ultron. According to an official Marvel press release, fans can purchase Age of Ultron digitally on September 8th, but have to wait three and a half weeks until October 2nd if they wish to instead purchase the Blu-ray. Now credit where credit is due, this release at least offers digital consumers the same bonus features one could buy on a Blu-ray (America seems to have digital down a little better than UK right now), but the point still stands that this release strategy is clearly designed to funnel excited consumers who don't want to wait down the digital path, with it being the only way to watch the film for close to a month. It's a sort of backwards, anti-consumer strategy. If studios and retailers want digital to replace discs, they should ensure that their digital releases are more appealing and better value for money than discs.

There isn't enough freedom to watch these films as you choose with digital.

Another major issue I have with digital film purchases right now is the way in which you are forced to view them. Briefly consider the way digital music is sold and consumed. You can buy the track you want, stream it and listen to it (after all, a digital music file is very small and easily streamed regardless of connection speed), and in the case of the vast majority if not all digital music retailers, you can also download the song to listen to at your leisure across the multiple devices you know doubt own without the need for a constant internet connection. But digital films operate in a much different way. In what is no doubt a ham-fisted attempt to combat piracy, most if not all digital film retailers require that you watch the film by streaming it via their website, and offer no additional way to watch the film across other devices or without an internet connection. This is possibly the biggest problem I personally have with digital film right now. We're living in a time where internet speeds are only getting faster and faster, but it's not yet the norm for the entire general public to have fast and reliable internet. Even on a fibre optic plan, I often struggle with sluggish speeds and network drops from time to time. The big problem with digital film is that right now, if your internet goes down or becomes slow and can't handle buffering a massive digital film file, then you're denied access to your entire collection. Looking at popular digital retailer Google Play, you cannot download your film to watch offline unless you do so specifically from an Android smartphone or tablet, or through a Chromebook. So unless you own a specific compatible device, you'll have to deal without offline viewing. This goes right in the face of the ideal that digital music currently promotes, where you buy the file and then it is your to do what you want with. Until either fast and reliable internet becomes the norm, or digital retailers and studios change their stance on this and allow you to download the file that you paid for and watch it in whatever way you want, digital is not going to be a viable complete replacement for Blu-ray. Considering how close the prices are, I feel much better buying the Blu-ray so I always have the film to watch and then using the free digital copy that comes with it if I wish to watch it in another way.

Hopefully the format is perfected before digital takes over.

In conclusion, there are just too many detrimental factors to purchasing film digital to make it a worthy successor to buying Blu-ray right now. There are, obviously, exceptions where corporations have managed to make film streaming work for them, such as a subscription plan like Netflix where a set monthly fee allows you access to their hundreds, maybe even thousands, of titles. But the reason this works so well is smart pricing. Subscribing to Netflix to one month and being able to watch as many of their titles as often as you want for that title would currently cost you less than it would to buy one new digital film. Buying digital is just too costly for its own good, considering they are saving on manufacturing. When you consider that on top of that it also limits the content you get (there aren't a lot of titles in UK where buying digitally will get you the same bonus features as the Blu-ray), that you're limited in the ways you can watch (only online streaming) and that purchasing physically is pretty much guaranteed to get you a free digital copy anyway at near enough the same price, there's not really a good enough reason to buy digitally right now. Until retailers and studios stop funneling their products through exclusivity windows and start actually polishing their product and making it an appealing buy, I'll continue supporting the physical formats.

'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' review

"You have a new codename: U.N.C.L.E."

'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' is the latest action comedy from visionary director Guy Ritchie. The film is a re-imagining of the 1960s TV show of the same name, and follows an American and Russian spy forced to work together, despite their rivalry, to stop a common threat.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'s 60's aesthetic provides excellent charm to the film.

At its heart, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is a fundamentally stylish and fun film that we've come to expect from Guy Ritchie from his success on smaller films such as Snatch to his unique take on a blockbuster franchise like Sherlock Holmes. In an era where spy films lean toward the gritty realism of Bourne and Craig's Bond, it feels like a refreshing treat to revisit the tone of a fun 60's spy film. It's something Kingsman touched upon, but U.N.C.L.E. takes it a step further, and benefits from the film's rich 1960's era atmosphere. Anchoring the spy escapades are Henry Cavill's Napoleon Solo, an American spy, and his new partner, Armie Hammer's Illya Kuryakin, a Russian spy. Cavill and Hammer both nail their accents for the two characters, and turn in extremely likable performances only helped by their great on-screen chemistry. They blend into their roles better than I expected, and are only helped by a good supporting cast, particularly Alicia Vikander as an ally and Elizabeth Debecki as an antagonist. Both seem like relative newcomers (Vikander had a role in this year's Ex Machina, and Debecki had a role in 2013's The Great Gatsby, but nothing else major), but both seem like actresses to keep an eye out for. 

Cavill and Hammer have great chemistry as the reluctant partners.

Perhaps it is only fitting that a visual and stylish director like Ritchie would be attached to such an aesthetically rich film, because he manages to exploit the 1960's style for all it is worth, and combines it so smoothly with his own directorial style for a stunning result. Indeed, sometimes the scene stealers for U.N.C.L.E. aren't among the cast, but rather the stunning editing from James Herbert and the magnificent score by Daniel Pemberton, which has become my second favourite score of the year behind only Mad Max: Fury Road. They were probably the two elements of the film that really helped provide the charm the most, and perhaps if they weren't as on form as they were, the film wouldn't have been quite as fun as it ended up being. As evidenced in the Sherlock Holmes series, Ritchie has an eye for directing action, and that doesn't change for U.N.C.L.E. From car chases to hand-to-hand combat, the film manages to nail pretty much all its key action beats. While the film succeeds in creating charm and fun with its characters and style, it does suffer from some narrative problems. Namely there isn't a lot here you haven't seen before, and at one or two points in the film, there were minor pacing issues. 

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is a love letter to 1960 spy adventures. 

Even then, it feels strange to criticize U.N.C.L.E. on a lack of originality when it is so obviously designed as a fun throwback to the spy thrillers of old, including but not limited to the original TV series. The film does exactly what it set out to do by providing the audience with a fun, nostalgic time watching a stylish 60's spy adventure. It may not have the insane action scenes of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, it may not be as consistently laugh-out-loud as Kingsman: The Secret Service, and it may not have the intricate story that Spectre promises, but if you're a fan of the spy genre, or just fun action comedies in general, you owe it to yourself to pay The Man from U.N.C.L.E. It is certainly a surprisingly enjoyable blockbuster in what is quickly becoming a year filled to the brim with spy films, and perhaps the most fun you'll find at the cinema in a typically barren August. 

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  -  8 / 10

'Fantastic Four' review

"We are stronger together than we are apart."

Fantastic Four, or Fantfourstic as Fox as fond of advertising the movie as, is the fourth attempt at a film based on the comic series of the same name, following the unreleased 1994 film, the 2005 reboot and its 2007 sequel. All three have been deemed incredible failures by fans almost universally. But now we're truly in the golden era of superhero movies. Marvel have just made a fantastic Ant-Man movie, of all properties, just a month ago. So perhaps now with the lessons learnt from previous installments and all the successful superhero films to draw from, Fox can finally re-engineer their property into a success? You'd think so...

Warning: This review contains a fair amount of spoilers, but nothing much beyond what the trailers spoiled themselves. 

Richards is the world's smartest man who makes the world's dumbest choices.

Fantastic Four follows a young Reed Richards as he works with best pal Ben Grimm to create a teleportation device. Despite his fifth grade teacher inexplicably telling him that a career in science isn't a real career, for some reason, Reed begins to slowly perfect his device over the next seven years. He takes the device to a school science fair (as in the ones where baking soda volcanoes and potato clocks reign supreme... he actually takes his teleportation device to a school fair) and tries to impress everyone, only for his same fifth grade teacher who for some reason is still grading him seven years later to once again dismiss science as magic when the device clearly works. But luckily, one of the world's greatest scientists has decided to visit this school fair just in case amongst the baking soda volcanoes and potato clocks there is a young man working on teleportation technology, and by some incredible coincidence that only the Gods themselves could have manufactured, he goes to the only one in the world where there is a teleportation device. This is approximately the first ten minutes of the film, and the narrative doesn't stop relying lazily on major plot holes, coincidences and lapses of logic for the rest of the film. I'm being serious. 

I hope you liked this shot, since it's from the film's only action scene.

Reed Richards is then taken to continue working on the device with the scientist, who just so happens to be the father of Sue and Johnny Storm. The three of them work together with Victor Von Doom to perfect the device so they can teleport to a new dimension. Ben isn't present during this portion of this movie. For whatever reason. When they create the device, Reed, Johnny and Victor decide to explore the new dimension, inviting Ben just because, and have a horrifying accident that seemingly leaves Victor in the other dimension dead and transforms the other three. And Susan. She didn't go on the trip she was just kinda there when they get back. The film then gets a little interesting as there's a really cool focus on body horror. There's a horrific shot of what looks like Johnny burning to death, and Ben appears to be crushed by boulders. It was a really unique look at how powers could affect an individual, and it was what director Josh Trank seemed most interested in covering when he mentioned it in every interview. But then three minutes later, the body horror stops, the film flashes forward a year, and that's the end of that. Three minutes. I'm pretty sure this was Trank's entire vision for the film, and it's in a single blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene. Without spoiling the second half, nothing interesting happens with the Fantastic Four for a while, Victor suddenly emerges from the alternate dimension with disfigured skin and a cape and they battle. The end. It literally happens as fast as that. I didn't even realize we were in the third act for quite some time, because it happens so abruptly. 

Doom looks bad here, but somehow he looks even worse in the actual film.

This film really feels like several genres just smashed together and forced into this horrifying Frankenstein monster of a film. It doesn't flow at all. As mentioned before, things will just happen for no apparent reason. Victor Von Doom seems to be really pally with the other three while they're working on the device, but then he'll suddenly turn and say something like "Maybe Earth deserves to die because nobody is worth saving here". To which Sue replies, and I'm fucking quoting the movie here, "Check out Doctor Doom here" in a sarcastic jokey way. I'm a huge fan of the comics, so it felt even worse when this film was just spitting in my eye and pissing on this franchise. The introduction of Victor Von Doom, possibly the greatest villain in all of Marvel Comics, was him sitting greasy in darkness playing games on triple monitors. He looked more like the World of Warcraft guy from South Park than the leader of Latveria. And then after he his accident and ends up in this void dimension, he somehow returns wearing a cape (God only knows where he found that) and looking like someone took a shit on him then rolled him around in green neons. I thought he looks bad in the shot from the trailer seen to the left, but he looks even worse in the actual movie! His eyes glow green and look really close to each other, and he's not wearing a mask, yet his mouth doesn't move and he can talk perfectly well. And he suddenly just begins to turn evil, claiming this empty dimension as his true home (I really need to stress there is nothing fucking there other than rocks) and that Earth needs to be destroyed so he can live by himself on Rockville. He makes 2005 Doom look like Heath Ledger's Joker

The talented cast still can't salvage these poorly written characters.

There really is nothing redeeming about this film. I know all the main actors have been fantastic in other properties, but this choppy script gives them no time to flesh out characters at all. In fact, the Four barely get to interact after the accident that gives them powers. Even the effects looked horrible in a lot of shots. Reed's stretchy arms look like something from an early 2000's video game. The Thing actually looked cool in about 50% of the shots he appeared in, but in 2015 that's not nearly good enough for a huge blockbuster like this. Human Torch actually looked worse than 2005's attempt a lot of the time. Doom looked utterly laughable in the few scenes he actually appeared in. This is both due to poor effects and awful design. I was aware of the extensive reshoots before going in, but if you weren't before you will be after seeing it. Sue Storm's hair literally changes colour every other scene where you can tell they've shoved in some new redone scene. The same could be applied to the tone, as it will swing from a gritty re-imagining to an attempt at light hearted humour. 

What Doctor Doom actually looks like in the film. Really.

If I had to take a guess at what went wrong with this film, I'd say Josh Trank came on with his original vision and the studio liked it. But as the fans reacted negatively to certain leaked news from the set, such as Doom's name being Victor Domashev (there's literally a scene where they clarify his name is now Von Doom), the studio panicked and begin re shooting and re working the film and twisting it into this complete worthless garbage they released in cinemas today. The end result is a film with no flow, no coherent narrative, no vision and a complete insult to its entire target demographic. The one interesting thing that Fantastic Four provides is that we now get to sit back and enjoy watching Fox scramble to figure out what to do with this completely fucking doomed reboot now, because there's no chance this is going to make a profit for them. I literally haven't heard a good thing about this film from anyone for good reason, and even going in with those extremely low expectations, it still managed to disappoint me. Do not see this film. Not in the cinema. Not on DVD. Not on rental. Not even on Netflix. It will consume 100 minutes of your time that you will never get back and only leave you bitterly angry, confused, sad and empty. Marvel have managed to convince the general audience in recent years that Rocket Raccoon and Ant-Man are cool superheroes you should be excited for. Fox have managed to convince me, a huge Fantastic Four fan, that this is a completely fucking worthless franchise that should be left in the hazy memory of cinema only to ever come up in conversations about the worst superhero movies to take its rightful place amongst the likes of Batman and Robin, Catwoman and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Somebody asked me if this film is terrible, and I can honestly say it is not. It completely trancends terrible. It earns a special place amongst the ranks of failed dogshit that goes beyond just a terrible movie. Fantastic Four pisses on everything I love about the comic books, it spits in my eye as a fan of film (it doesn't even follow a coherent three act structure) and it completely emotionally bankrupted my love of the Fantastic Four. 

Fantastic Four  -  1 / 10

'Trainwreck' review

'Monogamy isn't realistic.' 

Trainwreck is the latest comedy directed by Judd Apatow, but the first not written by himself. Amy Schumer is on screenwriting duties this time, as well as starring in the main role in this romantic comedy. Schumer's character, also titled Amy, has lived her life based on teachings from her father that "monogamy isn't realistic", and enjoys sleeping around and living a sexual life rather than settling down with her family (as her sister has done). But her ideals are challenged when she meets the next person she must interview for a magazine: Bill Hader's Aaron.

Schumer and Hader's chemistry is, luckily, a highlight of the film.

The story is an interesting enough take on the romantic comedy genre and provides enough moments for its characters to shine, but unfortunately it does tend to fall into the regular clichés of the genre, forcing the film to become more predictable and tedious in some areas than it really deserves. Certain elements, such as Amy being promiscuous, are just subverting typical male roles. It is fresh to see this new angle on it, but not exactly unique. The film definitely thrives when it focuses on character over story. Schumer thankfully didn't construct the script in a way to give herself all the limelight and force the character into the audience's face, which allows you to appreciate her more as a three dimensional character rather than a stereotype. She really does have some touching moments, especially with her family, that were a nice change of pace. She also has great chemistry with Bill Hader, who does a surprisingly strong turn at playing a more straight role rather than being a wacky and wild comedic role, and shows potential at something more than just comedic acting. 

LeBron James is just one of the surprisingly effective supporting characters.

The full cast is effective beyond the main stars. Brie Larson is spectacular as Amy's sister and polar opposite, and really helps sell some of the more dramatic moments. Tilda Swinton is near unrecognizable as she blends into the role of Amy's boss. John Cena and LeBron James were two stars of the film I did not expect to enjoy as much as I did, but they both were highlights of the film and showed a real strong sense of comedic timing. There were also a decent amount of cameos which I won't spoil here who were enjoyable to see crop up. But these moments weren't featured as often as I expected them to be. The film definitely leans slightly more toward drama than it does comedy, but thankfully not as much as the dull Funny People, also helmed by Apatow. The drama all works, as long as you go in not expecting a laugh out loud comedy. It could have done with a bit more focus on the lighthearted during select scenes, however. 

Brie Larson helped sell some dramatic moments involving her family.

The film has other problems beyond a little bit too much of a focus on drama. Clocking in at just over two hours, the film could definitely benefit from being trimmed down a bit more, with it feeling about fifteen minutes too long. On the contrary of that though, the resolution was really extremely rushed, and felt like the film was aware of its own bloated run time so they decided to just rush an ending to get it done. The reliance on the tropes of the romantic comedy genre was also a really noticeable problem, with the story borrowing typical third act conflict ideas from about every single romantic comedy you can name. These negatives don't completely tarnish the experience though. With a winning leading pair, a strong supporting cast, and some convincing drama and depth for its characters, Trainwreck is a decent romantic comedy and a worthy watch, despite it stumbling with tonal and pacing issues. 

Trainwreck  -  6 / 10

Trainwreck smashes into UK cinemas on 14th August.