DVD OF THE WEEK

VISIONEERS ****
Dir: Jared Drake Starring: Zack Galifianakis, Mia Maestro, D W Moffett

Visioneers is a smart and funny social satire set in a future bureaucracy where George (The Hangover's Zack Galifianakis) is a sad office drone working for the omnipresent Jeffers Corporation.
Happiness and work productivity are all-important and regarded by the corporation as one and the same thing. The only problem is that people keep spontaneously exploding and the cause seems to be dissatisfaction with life in general. This sets George to re-evaluating his own life, a dangerous activity as the disillusionment he feels puts him, so he is told, at greater risk of exploding. Meanwhile, the company goes to increasingly bizarre lengths to enforce happiness and co-workers begin blowing up around him.
But there is one possible bright spot in George's life, a woman on the end of the company phone who draws smiley faces on his work assignments. He determines to find her.
This is a weird and really rather wonderful film, full of smart satirical asides but with a genuine heart beating at its centre thanks to an underplayed and very likeable turn from Galifianakis. It's a little like Brazil meeting Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is nothing but a good thing.

Two thoughts kept popping into my head while watching How To Train Your Dragon (***). One was ‘Remember, it's for kids' and the other was ‘I bet this looked great in 3-D'. Neither of these are good, or the feelings I've had watching Toy Story or even Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Even if it's a kid's film, you shouldn't keep having to excuse it. That said, maybe I was just in a bad mood. Others (particularly younger others) will no doubt enjoy the jolly Scottish-accented Vikings and be heartened by the fact that the dragons they fight turn out to be cute pets after all (except the really mean big one). Just call me grumpy guts and ignore me. But I do wish I'd seen it in 3-D…

For some reason everyone I talk to is excited about Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (***). I suspect (for the women at least) that the main attraction is Jake Gyllenhaal's newly muscular frame because – as I keep reminding people – this is based on a video game; not a genre that has ever produced a good film. Is this the first? Not really, though it may be the best so far, as Jake fulfils his destiny, spars ‘wittily' with the beautiful love interest and is betrayed by the most obvious villain on the screen. Add in the story's central time travel conceit and you have a plot that doesn't even try to hide its holes. There are some nice visuals along the way, even aside from Jake's rippling chest.