DVD Round-Up: December 2, 2008

This week, Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy play deadly assassins in Wanted; David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson re-open the X-Files in I Want to Believe; and the next chapter in The Chronicles of Narnia arrives on DVD.

Wanted
Universal
Single Disc: $29.98
Two Disc: $34.98
Blu-ray: $39.98

Plot: When the father he never knew is murdered in cold blood, a wimpy office drone named Wesley (James McAvoy) is drafted into an elite league of assassins and trained to hunt down his father’s killer. Along the way, he flirts with gorgeous colleague Fox (Angelina Jolie) and makes an enemy of the league’s leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman).

Opinion: As you can probably tell, Wanted’s plot is derivative nonsense, swiping elements from a long list of other movies (Star Wars and The Matrix just to name a few) and working them into a screenplay that must have read like gibberish on the page. Fortunately for everyone involved, the task of bringing this script to the screen was handed to Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, whose previous credits include the visually dazzling (if borderline incoherent) fantasy/horror hybrids Nightwatch and Daywatch. Never one to hold the camera still when he could send it hurtling after bullets and falling train cars, Bekmambetov brings a kinetic energy to the picture that helps you forget—or at least ignore—its severely underdeveloped story. Naturally, these kind of visual pyrotechnics wear out their welcome and eventually I found myself wishing that I could pat Timur on the shoulder and tell him to just chill out already.

Extras: A number of very technical featurettes, which focus primarily on the film’s special effects and action sequences. The best of the bonus features covers the differences between the comic book and the movie, with commentary from Wanted creator Mark Millar.

Verdict: Rent It

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The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Fox
Single Disc: $29.99
Three Disc: $34.98

Plot: When an FBI agent goes missing and her severed arm turns up in the snowy wilderness, the Bureau calls in the one man who knows his way around freaky shit: Fox Mulder (David Duchovny). Joining him in this latest X-File is his longtime partner—and now lover—Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), who is dealing with her own crisis of faith as she attempts to save the life of a little boy at the hospital where she’s currently employed.

Opinion: It took X-Files creator Chris Carter ten years to mount another big screen version of his cult TV series and this is the best he could come up with?  Seriously, I Want to Believe feels like the final nail in the coffin for a franchise that stopped mattering somewhere around the turn of the 21st century.  According to Carter, he and his co-writer Frank Spotnitz dreamed up the storyline for this film some years ago while the show was still on the air and, indeed, the script does feel like late-period X-Files: ponderous and slow, without any of the imagination or wit that made the first few seasons such fun to watch.  The biggest problem with the film’s central mystery is that it doesn’t remotely seem like an X-File; would the FBI really drag Mulder out of hiding to solve what’s essentially a kidnapping case?  Don’t bother looking for clues to that vast alien conspiracy that was a staple of the series; there are no close encounters of the third kind here.  In fact, all supernatural elements have been drained away and what we’re left with is a glum procedural about a mystery that’s not particularly…well, mysterious.  The only question about the show’s convoluted mythology that I Want to Believe ends up addressing is: “Are Mulder and Scully doing the nasty?”  And the answer is…yes, frequently.  That’s right, Fox and Dana are an honest-to-God couple now, a development that will probably thrill some fans, while pissing others off to no end.  At least this movie’s enormous box-office belly flop means that we’ll be spared from seeing Mulder and Scully ever becoming–ugh–parents.

Extras: Disc One offers a commentary track from Carter and Spotnitz that works great as a cure for insomnia, not so much as an entertaining extra. There are also three inconsequential deleted scenes, a listless 10-minute gag reel, an Xzibit music video and two featurettes. The mother lode is housed on disc two—a 90-minute making-of documentary that the show’s fans will watch religiously.

Verdict: Rent It (X-Files fans only); Skip It (everyone else)

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The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Disney
Single Disc: $29.99
Three Disc: $39.99
Blu-ray Two Disc: $35.99
Blu-ray Three Disc: $40.99

Plot: One year after their first trip to the magical land of Narnia, the Pevensie children find themselves back in that otherworldly realm, fighting alongside the heir to the throne, Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), to rescue Narnia from the clutches of his treacherous uncle.

Opinion: The problems with Prince Caspian begin with the actor who was tapped to take up the title character’s sword and leather jerkin. Onscreen, Barnes is a cold fish—all matinee idol looks, but no gravitas or authority. he shift in focus to Caspian means that the Pevensie kids have less to do. The loss of Tilda Swinton’s White Witch is also deeply felt; it’s telling that the best scene in the movie features that character briefly returning to bedevil our heroes once more. Perhaps the biggest difference between the first film and this one is the tone; where The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe was a traditional family-friendly adventure, Caspian more closely resembles a war movie and even though it received a PG-rating, it may be too intense for really young viewers. I’ve got to admit that I even got a little uncomfortable watching these teenagers repeatedly charge into battle to kill hundreds of adult soldiers. It’s bloodless killing of course, but that doesn’t necessarily make it any more appropriate for the under-5 set. On the plus side, the production values and the special effects are top notch, the action sequences are solid (but not exceptional), and the theme of growing up and leaving “home” is sure to resonate with older kids. In that respect, it’s an entirely serviceable sequel. But if you go in expecting the same magic found in Wardrobe, you’re bound to be disappointed.

Extras: All the usual making-of featurettes, a blooper reel and deleted scenes, plus a digital copy for your desktop.

Verdict: Rent It

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Also on DVD

Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly attempted to recapture some of that Talladega Nights magic in Step Brothers (Sony, $28.96), which fell just short of crossing the magic $100 million mark when it hit theaters in July. That’s disappointing by Ferrell standards, but at least Step Brothers performed better than the family-friendly laffers Space Chimps (Fox, $29.99) and Meet Dave (Fox, $29.99), which were completely ignored during their theatrical run. The former is a decent animated flick about—you guessed it!—chimps in space while the latter is the latest belly flop for the once unstoppable King of Comedy, Eddie Murphy.

If you’re still looking for a stocking stuffer for the film buff in your life, it would be tough to go wrong with Casablanca: Ultimate Collector’s Edition (Warner Bros., $64.98), another extras-laden box set from the good folks at Warner Brothers, who are flooding the market with great gift ideas this holiday season. Packaged in this Moroccan-style box is a two-disc edition of the 1943 Humphrey Bogart classic, a branded passport holder, a luggage tag, a photo book, replicas of various props from the film and a collection of archival documents about the film’s production. If black-and-white romances aren’t your speed, Warner is also coming out with the Austin Powers Collection: Shagadelic Edition Loaded with Extra Mojo (Warner Bros., $74.98), which marks the swinging spy’s first excursion into Blu-ray. Relive those pre-Love Guru days when Mike Meyers was actually funny.

Finally, in TV news, Metalocalypse: Season Two (Cartoon Network, $29.98) offers all 19 episodes from the cult animated show’s sophomore year in a two-disc set with plenty of geek-friendly bonus features. Meanwhile, Universal continues to preserve the long history of late-night staple Saturday Night Live for future generations with Saturday Night Live: The Complete Fourth Season (Universal, $69.98), which transports viewers back in time to 1978, when Jimmy Carter was in the White House, Star Wars mania was in full swing and The Blues Brothers made their not-ready-for-primetime debut.