New to Home Theaters: Cage gets futuristic in a Sci-Fi adventure
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Nicolas Cage is back for another action film, but this time he’s moved into the future to the year 2030 for the science fiction/fantasy story of “The Humanity Bureau,” which made its way to home theaters this week.
In the near future, war, climate and political agendas have robbed America of its lush resources. New vegetation is sparse, the water resources are polluted and hard work is a necessity if they want to earn their keep.
Noah Kross (Nicolas Cage, “The Rock” and “National Treasure”) is an agent of the humanity bureau, a government agency that determines a person’s productivity. His reports essentially determine whether a person stays in America or gets deported to “New Eden,” which in reality is a 21st century concentration camp where the excess population is liquidated.
But Kross gets in unfamiliar territory when he comes in contact with Rachel Weller (Sarah Lind, “Edgemont” and “Severed”) and her teenage son Lucas (Jakob Davies, “Smallville” and “Once Upon a Time”) and delays sending in his report so the boy can perform at a musical recital. This minor act of insubordination has the trio involved in a chase by Kross’s superiors.
While Rotten Tomatoes shows just 31 percent of the 70 individuals who rated the movie liked it, it has a 4.7 out of 5-star rating on redbox.com.
Brian Orndorf with blu-ray.com said “the addition of Cage is one way to wake up the effort, but his attention to character can only take the picture so far before it runs out of ideas and money to bring them to life.”
But top critic Dennis Harvey, with “Variety,” gave it a fresh review on rottentomatoes.com.
“Director Rob W. King and screenwriter Dave Schultz’s engaging effort has enough standard genre elements to satisfy more open-minded sci-fi fans, and its political allegory angle is ultimately quite potent without becoming too heavy,” he said.
This film is rated R for violence.
Other films released to home theater this week include:
n “Stratton” starring Dominic Cooper, Austin Stowell, Gemma Chan and Thomas Kretschmann, and directed by Simon West, is a high-octane action thriller where a British operative named John Stratton is tasked with infiltrating an Iranian facility that contains biochemical weapons. Later, Stratton pursues a former Soviet spy who is planning a terrorist attack in London.
This film is rated R.
n “Fifty Shades Freed” starring Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Rita Ora and Luke Grimes, and directed by James Foley, is the final entry in this erotic-drama series. Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey are eager to begin their lives as husband and wife. However, they soon find themselves facing both new temptations and threats from the past.
This film is rated R.
n “Bad Grandmas” starring Florence Henderson, Randall Batinkoff, Pam Grier and Susie Wall, and directed by Srikant Chellappa, tells the story of a tough-talking old lady and her three friends who accidentally kill a con man who crosses them. They try to keep a nosy detective off their trail, but things get out of hand when the con man’s partner turns up in this outrageous crime comedy.
This film is not rated.
n “Batman Ninja” starring Koichi Yamadera, Wataru Takagi and Rie Kugimiya, and directed by Junpei Mizusaki, is the newest animated Batman tale where Batman Ninja takes a journey across the ages as Gorilla Grodd’s time displacement machine transports many of Batman’s worst enemies to Feudal Japan, along with the Dark Knight and a few of his allies.
This film is rated PG-13.