Get Your DVDs!

Reviews of new Star Trek DVDs, Taken, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans and S. Darko

Star Trek DVDs
The battle between Star Trek and Star Wars for sci-fi supremacy has now raged for three decades. But there’s one area where Starfleet totally dominates the Jedi Order: DVD. George Lucas didn’t put Star Wars on DVD until 2004, yet episodes of Star Trek started popping up on disc as early as 1999.  A decade later, Trekkers can easily find extras-laden box sets of every single season of all five Star Trek shows, from The Original Series to Enterprise, as well as two-disc collector’s editions of the ten feature films made between 1979 and 2002.  The arrival of J.J. Abrams’ hugely successful Star Trek reboot has opened the door for a new wave of Trek DVDs, beginning with the Blu-ray version of Star Trek: The Original Series—Season One (CBS Home Entertainment, $118), which contains all 29 episodes from Kirk and Spock’s freshman year.  Featurettes and interactive elements abound, including one that lets viewers switch back and forth between original and remastered cuts of the episodes. If that sounds like too much Trek to you, pick up Star Trek: The Best of The Original Series (CBS Home Entertainment, $15), an extras-free disc that offers four classic episodes. And just so Picard fans don’t feel left out, there’s also Star Trek: The Best of The Next Generation (CBS Home Entertainment, $15), a four-episode primer on the beloved second-gen series.  Naturally, the Enterprise’s big-screen voyages are also warping back to DVD.  Star Trek: Motion Picture Trilogy (Paramount, $30/Blu-ray: $49) houses The Wrath of Kahn, The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home. But the crown jewel of this latest batch of releases is the Blu-ray only box set, Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection (Paramount, $105).  Collecting the first six Trek movies, plus 14 hours of bonus features, and a bonus disc with an exclusive 70-minute round table conversation featuring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes, this seven-disc behemoth belongs on the shelf of any serious Trekker.

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Taken
Fox
$30
2-Disc: $35
Blu-ray: $40

Plot: A former CIA operative (Liam Neeson) goes on a Parisian rampage after his teenage daughter (Maggie Grace) is kidnapped by sex smugglers.

Opinion: As a confirmed liberal, I should be horrified by Taken’s tacit endorsement of torture and vigilantism.  But Taken is an exploitation flick pure and simple, which means it’s deliberately preposterous and often morally reprehensible.  It’s also a damn good time at the movies, provided you don’t take any of it too seriously.  The key to the film’s success is Neeson’s ferocious performance.  One of our very best dramatic actors, Neeson has repeatedly proven himself an exceptional action hero in movies like Rob Roy and Darkman.  It’s not just his size and bulk that makes him a perfect fit for these kinds of roles—it’s also, strangely enough, his innate gentleness.  He doesn’t want to kick your ass, but he will if you try and stop him from achieving his goal.  I’m not going to pretend that Taken is high art, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy watching Neeson kick the crap out of half the population of Paris while trying to get his little girl back.

Bonus Features: An extended cut of the film—with more shootings, stabbings and general bad-assery—accompanied by commentary from the filmmakers; a behind-the-scenes featurette; short glimpses of how six of the film’s action sequences were put together and red-carpet footage from the show’s premiere.  The two-disc and Blu-ray editions also come with a bonus DVD that houses a digital copy of the movie.

Verdict: Buy It

—————————————————————————————-Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
Sony
$29
Blu-ray: $40

Plot: Set centuries before the events chronicled in the first two Underworld movies, Rise of the Lycans depicts the origins of the centuries-long feud between wolverines and vampires.

Opinion: It’s rare for a third entry in a franchise to significantly improve on the previous two installments and rarer still if that particular Part 3 happens to be a prequel rather than a sequel.  But that’s the unique case with Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, the latest chapter in the “werewolves vs. vampires” saga that started with 2003’s Underworld and continued in 2006’s Underworld: Evolution.  Both films were big hits with audiences, but I came out of the theater wanting to put everyone involved in movie jail. Believe it or not though, the third Underworld is a decent flick that embraces the franchise’s inherent B-movie cheesiness instead of trying to pretend like it’s some kind of bad-ass Matrix clone.  I wouldn’t say that Rise of the Lycans redeems the franchise, but at least it shows that a solid movie can be made from this material.

Bonus Features: An unusually revealing making-of featurette where the filmmakers discuss the challenges of producing a supernatural medieval action adventure on a tight budget, and three additional short docs covering other aspects of the film’s production.  There’s also a commentary track and a music video from goth rocker William Control.

Verdict: Rent It

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S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale
Fox
$23
Blu-ray: $30

Plot: Seven years after Donnie Darko was killed in a freak accident, his sister Samantha embarks on a road trip that leads her to a small town where weird shit happens again.

Opinion: Ever since it was announced that Fox had greenlit a sequel to Donnie Darko without the involvement of original writer/director Richard Kelly, the cult hit’s fanbase has fretted about what the resulting product would look like.  As it turns out, S. Darko is pretty much the exact same movie as its predecessor, just with a C-list cast and noticeably cheaper production values.  Otherwise though, the basic storyline and all of the iconography from the first movie is repeated verbatim here, which is both good and bad news for fans.  Good because writer Nathan Atkins and director Chris Fisher are clearly too worried about potential backlash to mess with Kelly’s vision and bad because S. Darko ends up feeling like a summer repeat instead of a movie with is own identity.  As someone who never liked Donnie Darko anyway, this bland sequel mainly felt like more of the same.

Bonus Features: A commentary track from the screenwriter and director; a handful of deleted scenes and two behind-the-scenes featurettes.

Verdict: Skip It

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Also on DVD:

In between her Oscar-nominated turn in Rachel Getting Married and her Razzie-worthy performance in Bride Wars, Anne Hathaway headlined the Twilight Zone-esque thriller Passengers (Sony, $25) as a psychiatrist assigned to consoling the survivors of a horrific plane crash.  Despite an ensemble that included such ace character actors Patrick Wilson, Dianne Wiest and David Morse and the involvement of director Rodrigo Garcia (son of famed novelist Gabriel Gracia Marquez), the movie received an ultra-limited release last fall, slipping in and out of theaters with barely any notice in late October.  Given the pedigree of the cast and director, it seemed surprising that the studio wasn’t more confident in the picture’s box-office chances.  Then I actually saw it.  Hoo boy.  Passengers works for about 15 minutes and then careens off the rails.  What’s worse is that the movie isn’t even loony enough in its badness to be entertaining.  It’s just boring and unconvincing.  The title Kill the Record Labels (MVD, $20) basically sums up the point of this 50-minute documentary.  Directed by T. Thomas, much of the movie consists of various mix-tape producing DJ’s ranting about the record industry’s many sins, supplemented by references to a variety of other conspiracy theories and brief conversations with ex-record execs, many of whom decline to appear on camera.  While it’s not part of official Star Trek canon, the 1999 sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest—newly re-released in a Deluxe Edition (Paramount, $15) with new bonus features—remains one of the best Trek movies ever made.  Parents interested in new DVD babysitters for their kids should make a beeline for three new Disney discs, which collect some of the studio’s classic short cartoons from yesteryear, including The Reluctant Dragon, The Tortise and the Hare and, my personal favorite, Wind in the Willows (Disney, $20 each).  Finally, a certain quartet of pizza-eating, kung-fu fighting reptiles are turning 25 this year and to celebrate, Lionsgate has a batch of new TMNT-themed DVDs planned, beginning with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Season 7 Pts. 1-4 (Lionsgate, $15 each).  Released in a series of four sets, each of which comes with a small Turtles action figure, these discs offer all 27 episodes from the seventh year of the original animated series that’s a favorite of any kid who grew up in the late ’80s/early ’90s.