‘Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation’ Is Among the Latest DVD ‘Picks’

Home Video Picks & Passes 09.26.21

‘Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation’ debuted in 2015. (photo: Paramount Pictures)

Deacon Steven D. Greydanus Arts & Entertainment October 2, 2021

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) — PICK

Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (2015) — PICK

ParaNorman (2012) — PASS

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) — PICK

On the heels of Laika Studios’ best-and-worst Blu-ray releases of Coraline and The Boxtrolls comes another uneven pair of Laika stop-motion animated films, one almost great and one almost good.

The almost-great one is Kubo and the Two Strings, a swashbuckling folk tale set in ancient Japan. A celebration of music, storytelling, origami, filial piety and parental sacrifice, it works like gangbusters until the disappointing denouement. The almost-good one is ParaNorman, a horror-movie spoof about a boy who sees dead people. The moral themes are muddled, but it’s just interesting enough that I can’t quite pan it. Your call.

One of the most popular movies of all time, The Shawshank Redemption, has a new Ultra-HD/Blu-ray release, and there’s a new Blu-ray release of the best movie from Tom Cruise’s most successful franchise, Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation.

CAVEAT SPECTATOR: Kubo and the Two Strings: Fantasy violence and scary images; thematic elements involving family and religious ideas. Older kids and up. Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation: Action violence and menace; an occasionally scantily clad female character and brief partial nudity. Teens and up. ParaNorman: Pervasive creepy/scary images, including animated gore; rude humor; a few mature references, including a fleeting reference to a same-sex romantic relationship. Teens and up. The Shawshank Redemption: Graphic violence and two suicides; crude sexual references; brief nudity; much harsh language and some cursing. Mature viewing.

Deacon Steven D. Greydanus Deacon Steven D. Greydanus is film critic for the National Catholic Register, creator of Decent Films, a permanent deacon in the Archdiocese of Newark, and a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. For 10 years he co-hosted the Gabriel Award–winning cable TV show “Reel Faith” for New Evangelization Television. Steven has degrees in media arts and religious studies, and has contributed several entries to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, including “The Church and Film” and a number of filmmaker biographies. He has also written about film for the Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy. He has a BFA in Media Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York, an MA in Religious Studies from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, PA, and an MA in Theology from Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ. Steven’s writing for the Register has been recognized many times by the Catholic Press Association Awards, with first-place wins in 2017 and 2016 and second-place wins in 2019 and 2015. Steven and his wife Suzanne have seven children.