DVD OF THE WEEK

GET HIM TO THE GREEK ****
Dir: Nicolas Stoller. Starring: Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Rose Byrne

Get Him to the Greek has a strange history. It's a sequel, but only sort of. Russell Brand played rock star Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and was the stand-out turn in that film. So they decided to make another film about his character. Jonah Hill was also in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and his inter-reaction with Brand was a high point. So they grabbed him too. But his previous character was a dead end, so here he's playing someone totally different.
It reeks of milking a cash cow, but fortunately there is plenty of play in the simple idea of Hill's hapless record label flunky having to get the drunken, drugged and permanently partying Brand to a gig at LA's Greek Theatre.
The laughs are frequent and varied. Splendid support helps, from Rose Byrne's great Posh Spice-like rock star wife to an inspired turn from none other than Sean 'Diddy” Combs as an eccentrically psychotic record exec. The songs, to their credit, generally straddle that fine line between parody and sounding like real hits, and a couple are genuinely hilarious.
If there is a weakness – assuming the odd bits of gross-out humour don't bother you – it is that Brand's rock star was possibly better in a smaller dose. Carrying the film means fleshing out a character that was arguably more beguiling when more enigmatic.

Predators (***) is meant to relaunch a franchise sullied by the rotten Alien Vs Predator cash-ins. Robert Rodriguez wrote it after the very first (surprisingly good) Predator movie, but it was shelved for years and his wish for it to be the sort of step that Aliens was after Alien is sadly under-realised. It's not that it's bad: A group of specially-chosen hard hombres, led by a buff Adrien Brody, find themselves transported to an unknown planet and then hunted in the jungle by the titular predators. Things proceed in satisfying fashion but there are too few new spins to make it more than a competent sequel.

Few films have received a critical mauling on the scale of Sex and the City 2 (**). My favourite review was: 'Takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car.” Actually it's not that bad. In fact, the first half is pretty good, better and breezier than the first laboured film. But once the girls arrive in Abu Dhabi things start to fall apart and after their ill-advised crack at karaokeing 'I Am Woman” (in a cringeworthy scene of supposed female empowerment) it descends into embarrassingly crass, over-sentimental guff.

Despite virtually inventing the genre, zombie-meister George Romero's recent films have become somewhat ho-hum. Much like Star Wars, his original 'Dead” trilogy stand peerless while the three belated sequels are, to be generous, patchy. Survival of the Dead (***), the sixth, is a step up, following a very minor soldier character from the previous Diary of the Dead and landing his men on an isolated island where a clan war rages between two families, one trying to civilise the undead, one intent on killing them. The philosophical dimension adds much, the gore is duly imaginative, and only the ending falters.

In 17 Century Germany a wandering peasant boy has mystical dreams and follows his apparent destiny by joining young lads apprenticing at a flour mill. He is Krabat (***). However, his training is aiming for more a Darth Vader than Luke Skywalker as it turns out his harsh new master's main gig is black magic. In no time he's transforming in to a raven and flying around with the gang. It's really a 'coming of age in a orphanage” tale but the unusual trappings add interest, though sedate pacing may possibly strain the patience of today's ADHD generation.