DVDs in Review

Boom!

Title: 'Boom!' (1968)

Release date: November 30 2009

Certificate: 12

Format: DVD

DVD RRP: £15.99

Rating: 2/5

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton - the ultimate on screen and off screen couple - are united yet again to take on a Tennessee Williams script under the direction of the ever underrated Joseph Losey ('The Servant', 'The Go-Between'). It sounds like a perfect match, but unfortunately it ranks among the worst of any of their careers.

This is part of the problem, especially when it comes to the legendary coupling of Taylor and Burton. We know they've done better work and will never top 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' - they've got a lot to live up to, but Williams' script is completely lifeless.

Taylor essentially plays herself - a rich, beautiful woman who has survived a string of lucrative marriages. Entering her life on a servant-manned private island is a penniless poet (Burton) who is, at a push, a representation of death to warn her that her time is up.

Throw in the ever-hammy Noel Coward as another mysterious phophet of sorts and 'Boom!' is the kind of drama that talks a lot but doesn't actually say anything. The expensive, glossy look of the film, exceedingly camp performances and stilted direction does little to provide an illusion of depth, which is a shame because Williams has written some of theatre's greatest dramatic masterpieces that create entire worlds through brilliant dialogue.

The main trouble with 'Boom!' is that it has no world. Isolated on this lavish paradise with fleeting visitors, it just feels like an expensive film set instead of a place which characters inhabit. It seems like a vehicle for great actors to phone in performances while topping up their tans.