| | | The Music is Everywhere. All You Have to Do is Listen.
Features: DVD, Pan and Scan (TV Format), Widescreen, English, Spanish, French, Subtitled
There's music in the wind and sky. Can you hear it? And there's hope. Can you feel it? The boy called August Rush can. The music mysteriously draws him, penniless and alone, to New York City in a quest to find - somehow, someway - the parents separated from him years earlier. And along the way he may also find the musical genius hidden within him.Experience the magic of this rhapsodic epic of the heart starring Freddie Highmore (as August), Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Terrence Howard, and Robin Williams. "I believe in music the way some people believe in fairy tales," August says. Open your heart and listen. You'll believe, too.
"...a (very sweet) fairy tale and Highmore is captivating." Angie Errigo, Empire
"...[an] unabashedly sentimental tale of evocative music and visual poetry." Claudia Puig, USA Today
"A modern day musical fairytale." Greg Russell, WMYD-TV
"For those who loved his singing in "Velvet Goldmine," Rhys-Meyers once again proves that he has pipes." Karl Rozemeyer, Premiere
"Heart warming beyond your wildest dreams!" Mark S. Allen, CBS-TV
Editor's Note
AUGUST RUSH is part romance, part gentle fantasy, but this sweet drama is all heart. When young cellist Lyla (Keri Russell) and rock musician Louis (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) meet at a party in the mid 1990s, it's love at first sight, and they spend the night in each other's arms. But Lyla's father forces them apart, even though she later learns she's pregnant. Later, an accident lands Lyla in the hospital, and though her father tells her that her baby died, the child survives and is given up for adoption. AUGUST RUSH jumps to the present and begins to follow Evan (Freddie Highmore), an 11 year old who has grown up in a boys' home. As Evan embarks on a crusade to find his parents, he imagines he can communicate with them through his gift for music. His journey to New York City brings him into contact with Wizard (Robin Williams), a man eager to capitalize on the child prodigy's talent. Wizard gives Evan the name August Rush as he begins performing all over the city, but the boy's ultimate goal is to find the parents he has never met. From FINDING NEVERLAND to CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, Highmore has displayed an almost prodigious talent himself. He's a gifted young actor, and this emotional story is the perfect venue for his acting. AUGUST RUSH isn't a film for the cynics, but even the hard-hearted in the audience will have difficulty not being touched by this sentimental film. As in Evan's life, music plays a central role in AUGUST RUSH, and it's tough not to let your heart soar along with the melodies. Though it could draw comparisons to OLIVER! and ANNIE, this is a unique and heartwarming film.
| Features | Additional Scenes | | Audio: English, French, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Dubbed: French, Spanish | | Includes Both Widescreen & Full Screen Versions Of The Film! | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Warner |
| Release Date: 9/30/2008 |
| Running Time: 113 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2007 | | Catalog ID: 1000018552 | | UPC: 00012569763685 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen/Standard 2.40:1/1.33:1 [4:3] |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Nominee (2008) | | | Oscar, Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack, Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song |
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| | Professional Reviews | Ultimate DVD
3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he execution is unblushingly that of a fairy tale....Mark Mancina's original score is a treat too..." 12/01/2007 p.94USA Today
3 stars out of 4 -- "[I]t works if you surrender to its lilting and unabashedly sentimental tale of evocative music and visual poetry." 11/21/2007 ReelViews 5 of 10
August Rush isn't just a bad movie - it's an aggressively bad movie. There are times when it tips the scales of absurdity and becomes almost comical. The film intends to be a modern day fable about fate and music and Dickensian characters but the sloppiness of the script and haphazard nature of the direction turns everything rancid. It's not difficult to understand what director Kirsten (daughter of Jim) Sheridan is attempting and equally easy to see that she doesn't achieve her goal. August Rush is constructed on a foundation of interconnected failures, the biggest of which comes at the very end. Instead of giving us the moment that a mawkish melodrama like this demands, we are presented with a diluted and minimally satisfying shadow of the moment. It's one of many things that August Rush does wrong...Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers fare better than Highmore, but this isn't going to be a highlight on the filmography of either. As Wizard, Robin Williams hits all the wrong notes. There's potential here for a genuinely creepy, frightening character but, in order to get a PG rating, the gloves are on, making Williams more cartoonish than menacing. Terrence Howard is criminally underused. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
Here is a movie drenched in sentimentality, but it's supposed to be. I dislike sentimentality where it doesn't belong, but there's something brave about the way "August Rush" declares itself and goes all the way with coincidence, melodrama and skillful tear-jerking. I think more sensitive younger viewers, in particular, might really like it...The story is a very free modern adaptation of elements from Oliver Twist...The movie, directed by Kirsten Sheridan and written by Nick Castle, James V. Hart and Paul Castro, pulls out all the stops, invents new ones and pulls them out too. But it has a light-footed, cheerful way about its contrivances, and Freddie Highmore ("Finding Neverland") is so open and winning that he makes August seem completely sincere. One touch of craftiness would sink the whole enterprise...Another quality about the movie is that it seems to sincerely love music as much as August does. If you're going to lay it on this thick, you can't compromise, and Sheridan doesn't. I don't have some imaginary barrier in my mind beyond which a movie dare not go. I'd rather "August Rush" went the whole way than just be lukewarm about it. Yes, some older viewers will groan, but I think up to a certain age, kids will buy it, and in imagining their response, I enjoyed my own. - Roger Ebert
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