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'I thought the film was good, but nothing special, but the final reel sprouts wings and flies.'

Steve Couch reviews Stranger Than Fiction, Pan's Labyrinth, The Prestige Casino Royale and recommends other films and programmes now available to buy on DVD.

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Use the jump links below to read the other reviews in this column

• Stranger Than Fiction
• Pan's Labyrinth
• The Prestige
• Casino Royale
• Other recommendations

Stranger Than Fiction, (Sony, certificate 12)

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Everything about this film is great. Zac Helm’s script is based on a wonderful premise – a man who hears a voice narrating his life – which is even more wonderfully realised.

Director Marc Foster’s Finding Neverland was my favourite DVD of 2005, and while Stranger Than Fiction is a very different style of film, it is every bit as good.

The action surges to a glorious conclusion which I certainly won’t spoil by telling you anything else about.

Two-thirds of the way through my first viewing of the film, I thought the film was good, but nothing special, but the final reel sprouts wings and flies.

The performances are across the board excellent. Stranger Than Fiction has been described as Will Ferrell’s Truman Show, and he eschews his customary manic exuberance in favour of a restrained, subtle, human performance as Harold Crick.

It shouldn’t be a shock for Emma Thompson to turn in a performance this good, but I was still taken aback by her despondent author writing Harold’s story.

Sweet

Maggie Gyllenhaal provides her customary mixture of vulnerability and steel, and the sub-plot of her relationship with Harold is genuinely sweet without ever becoming sickly.

How good does a film have to be for me to dismiss a Dustin Hoffman performance by leaving it to this stage of the review? Hoffman is, as ever, excellent. His willingness to submerge himself into a small supporting role (as he did in Finding Neverland) is testimony to both his talent and the quality of this wonderful film.

Even the incidental music is a delight – particularly the inclusion of one song which will warm the heart of any long-in-the-tooth fan of Stiff Records.

The extras are better than average too, with a clutch of decent length, reasonably interesting featurettes which won’t change anybody’s life, but which should hold your attention and add to your appreciation of this very fine piece of film-making. No commentary track though, which is a particular shame in this case.

Will Ferrell’s Truman Show? More like Woody Allen meets Pirandello’s Six Characters In Search Of An Author meets Sleepless In Seattle, with a touch of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind thrown in for good measure. Watch this film.

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Pan’s Labyrinth (Optimum, certificate 15)

Subtitles for foreign language films. Some people just don’t like them, and will avoid any films that have them. If that’s you, I present three (count ‘em!) options for you.

Option 1: Put your principles/prejudices (delete as appropriate) to one side for Pan’s Labyrinth;

Option 2: learn Spanish;

Option 3: miss out on one of the most compelling and captivating movies of recent years.

Set against the backdrop of the Spanish civil war, Pan’s Labyrinth tells the story of Ofelia, a young girl who discovers a magical underworld which offers her the chance of escape from her cruel, fascist army officer step-father.

She undertakes a series of quests, but finds the new magical world and her old existence becoming increasingly intertwined.

This is a vivid, visual production, with a dreamlike collection of creatures who belong equally in the world of nightmares and the world of fairy tales.

Sketched

The relationship between the fantasy world and its real counterpart is fascinatingly sketched, and the juxtaposition of two very different sets of monsters is telling and profound.

A thorough set of extras, with a second disc that goes deeper than most equivalent packages, even on other two disc releases.

Director Guillermo del Toro features prominently, and his comments provide much insight for anyone wanting to dig deeper at the sub-text and meaning of this wonderfully layered movie. One of the best second discs of the year.

Intelligent, compassionate and spell-binding. In any language.

Click here to read a Damaris article about Pan’s Labyrinth

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The Prestige (Warner Bros, certificate 12)

Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale star as two stage magicians, whose friendship and rivalry ebbs and flows throughout the film, as first one then the other gains the upper hand.

Appropriately enough for a film about stage trickery, director Christopher Nolan offers narrative twists and turns aplenty.

This is one of those films where as soon as you finish watching, you will want to immediately watch it all over again, to see the careful web of deception that you missed the significance of first time around.

Wonderful on-screen storytelling, this is a dark fairy tale with the capacity to disturb long after the final credits role.

The extras are slight, insignificant and much less than they could have been. Save yourself the time of watching them and just get on with that second viewing of the film. Unlike the extras, it won’t disappoint.

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Casino Royale (MGM, certificate 12)

My grandfather was one of the art directors on the 1967 version of Casino Royale.

That fact has as little to do with this review as the sixties spoof Bond has to the latest addition to the unstoppable Bond franchise.

This Casino Royale is much more faithful to Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel, and – for the first time in the official canon of Bond films – gives us a glimpse of Bond at the start of his
double-0 career.

It’s usually true that the first outing of any given Bond actor in the role proves to be the best of their films (Connery is the notably exception, but I’ll argue the point for all of his successors).

That being the case, I had high hopes for Casino Royale. And it is a good movie, but I was a bit disappointed. An excellent extended chase scene begins the film in true Bond style, but for me there wasn’t enough action to follow it up.

We get lots of tension around the card table, and lots of character-forming stuff as newbie agent Bond learns how to toughen up emotionally and not let anybody get close enough to get under his skin, but it just didn’t feel Bondish enough for me.

Theory

The problem isn’t Daniel Craig’s – I think he’s very good as Bond, and I suspect that he will go on to ruin my ‘first film is the greatest’ theory.

It could be that the problem is mine – at least one Bond aficionado of my acquaintance disagrees with me and regards this as being worthy of mention alongside any of its illustrious predecessors in the Bond series.

All in all this is a good – but not great – Bond movie (with a lazy pittance of extras, by the way), but with the hope of greater things to come.

It’s worth watching though, and is infinitely better than the risible Die Another Day. That said, the art direction isn’t as good as the 1967 version. Obviously.

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Also out

The Queen (20th Century Fox, certificate 12)

A good watch for die-hard royalists and raving republicans alike – just pick your favourites and cheer as appropriate. Helen Mirren is, as you’ve heard from just about every other critic, flawless.

Click here to read the Damaris study guide for The Queen

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Night At The Museum (20th Century Fox, certificate PG)

Perfectly enjoyable family comedy movie. Ben Stiller holds the mayhem together while Robin Williams twinkles benignly. Look out for Dick Van Dyke and Mickey Rooney defying the aging process, and Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan forming an unlikely (but gloriously enjoyable) double act.

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Borat (20th Century Fox, certificate 15)

Some laugh out loud moments of excruciating embarrassment, but somehow less than the sum of its parts. Some viewers will find it offensive on all sorts of levels – but you probably already know whether you like this kind of thing or not.

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The History Boys (20th Century Fox, certificate 15)

Alan Bennett adapted his own stage play, and the film reunites the original stage cast. Sadly it was, for me, a little too stagy (as opposed to filmy). I can’t fault the performances though.

Click here to read a Culturewatch article about The History Boys

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The Holiday (Universal, certificate 12)

Two couples on either side of the Atlantic meet and fall in love. The Kate Winslett/Jack Black pairing is much more sympathetic than the Cameron Diaz/Jude Law one, and I couldn’t escape the feeling that someone was trying (and failing) to be the next Richard Curtis. Perfectly acceptable, but nothing special.

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Life On Mars Series 2 (Contender, certificate 12)

A second instalment of the best British TV show in recent years (says me). Sam is still stuck in 1973, but as this is the second and final series, a resolution is promised – and it’s very good indeed.

Click here to read the Damaris Study Guide on Life On Mars,
series 1

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Extras Series 2 (Universal, certificate 15)

Carries on where Series 1 left off, with Andy (Ricky Gervais) about to star in a self-written sitcom. As a result, there’s a stronger narrative thread connecting the episodes than last time.

But I preferred Extras when it was about an anonymous nobody, rather than this series about a derided somebody. Either way, the best bits are still seeing celebs puncturing their own public images.

Sir Ian McKellen’s impromptu acting masterclass and David Bowie’s musical homage to Andy are worth the purchase price on their own.

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Flushed Away (Dreamworks/Aardman, certificate U)

Bog standard (oh dear) animation about a high-class pet rat who ends up in the sewers. Some good sight gags and one-liners paper (sorry) over the cracks of a perfectly serviceable but unremarkable family movie. Worth watching if this sort of thing is what floaters (I’m truly sorry) your boat (That’s enough toilet humour – Ed)

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• Other DVD recommendations
• surefish.co.uk culture index

Steve Couch is a writer for Damaris Trust.