DVD Picks: Madonna gets the yoga right

The Next Best Thing

Red

Something Borrowed

This is Madonnas comeback to film after the 1996 Evita. In this 2000 film, she plays the lead female, Abbie, a 30-something yoga instructor with a biological clock on speed. Yoga is about the best thing Madonna does here, as her acting is stiff.

The odd things about Abbie ranges from an accent which varies between American and British to always being captured in soft lighting or a golden haze and an obsession with the Don MaClean song, American Pie.

The film opens with a statue of Lord Shiva, and towards the middle of the plot, Abbie sports a pottu. The Indian elements dont seem to gel with the tale which is about Abbie and her best friend, the gay Robert, who have a baby because of a one-night stand. They decide to raise the child and be a family.

A decade later, along comes handsome hunk, Ben (Benjamin Bratt). Theres tension in the happy family, leading to a custody battle. The legal elements are far more interesting than the stilted dialogue or the stereotypical characterisation of Robert, Ben, Abbie, and the cast of gay friends.

That said, Robert is played winsomely, even with a pout, by the dashing Rupert Everett of the Julia Roberts-starrer, My Best Friends Wedding (back in 1997). Brat is a darn cute Latino. Despite the eye candy, this film is a! bore. I couldnt wait for the predictable end, even with the PG13 rating.

-RedDirected by Robert SchwentkeStarring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Karl Urban, Mary-Louise Parker, Ernest Borgnine and Richard DreyfussRunning Time: 111 minutes

My colleague loves this film, which she found hilarious. RED an acronym for retired and extremely dangerous is based on the comic books of Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. Its an action-romance-comedy about a bored pension clerk, Sarah (played by Mary-Louise Parker), who happily gets entangled in the shenanigans of a former CIA agent, Frank Moses (Bruce Willis).

The dialogue is zany and witty while the action and theres quite a bit of whacking, blowing up things, big guns should please the men.

The plot centres on Moses getting back again with his former CIA pals, and they all have a blast of a good time. Willis is his usual Die Hard self, getting the bad guy and the girl in the end while John Malkovich is terrific as Marvin

Boggs, who had been on LSD for 11 years. His wild paranoia is fun to watch while his eccentricities are funny, if slightly sadistic.

Helen Mirren as gun woman Victoria is hot! Her switch from grannie to assassin is educational, to say the least.Red, rated PG13, is a clever film, but the tale is stale after the 2010 Sylvester Stallone-starrer, The Expendables.

-Something BorrowedDirected by Luke GreenfieldStarring Ginnifer Goodwin, Kate Hudson, Colin Egglesfield and John KrasinskiRunning Time: 113 minutes

A vapid take on love in the new millennium. About the best thing in it is Colin Egglesfield, a young version of the reformed 1980s sex addict, Rob Lowe.

The 2011 film is about lawyers Dex (Egglesfield) and Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her zany friend, Darcy (Kate Hudson), who is Dexs fiancee. Love conquers all in the end, and friends stay friends.

Its celluloid sweet, with sexually explicit scenes. Based on the bestseller of the same title, written by Emily Giffin! , this f ilm is rated PG13. Its all right if you have nothing else to see on the telly.