It’s been several weeks since we’ve seen any high-def titles really worth talking about. The average moviegoer could even say the same for today’s releases, but despite there being only one major title hitting stores, there’s a small niche of cinephiles (myself included) that will likely pick up more than a few great films making their Blu-ray debut.

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (20th Century Fox)

Fox’s highly anticipated spin-off doesn’t exactly qualify as one of those films, but it’s a movie that a lot of fanboys are going to want in their collections anyway. That’s not to say that “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is necessarily bad, but it certainly isn’t as good as a lot of people were expecting. Part of the problem is that the movie is supposed to be about the origin of Wolverine, and yet that’s the least interesting part of the film. For all intents and purposes, this is just another X-Men movie, because it features a slew of mutant characters we’ve been dying to see onscreen for while. In fact, the number of mutant cameos in this film alone is almost as large as the entire cast of the X-Men franchise, which only begs to ask the question: why not just make another X-Men movie instead? That was clearly the idea behind “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” because although the filmmakers severely botched it up (characters are haphazardly killed off, while others stray from their comic book roots), your X-Men collection wouldn’t feel complete without it.

“Army of Darkness” (Universal)

By far one of my favorite movies of all time, Sam Raimi’s semi-sequel to “The Evil Dead” and “Evil Dead 2” trades in scares for laughs as Ash is transported back to the Middle Ages to lead its people against an army of dead. Though the movie was a certifiable box office dud when it was released in theaters, it’s earned a huge cult following over the years and features B-movie actor extraordinaire, Bruce Campbell, at his absolute best. Though the HD transfer isn’t quite as good as we’ve come to expect from Universal’s past releases, it’s still better than the shoddy video quality that fans of the movie are used to. Sadly, the new Screwhead Edition only comes with one new bonus feature (a visual effects featurette called “Creating the Deadites”), and it’s one that I could have easily gone without had they included all of the extras from the numerous DVD editions. As it stands, only the alternate ending and some production photos have survived the jump to Blu-ray, so you might want to wait until a more ultimate version is released before you pick this up. Those that consider themselves diehard fans, however, probably own more than a few versions of this already, and so buying this one will only come naturally.

“The Ultimate Force of Four” (Walt Disney)

Similar to Sony’s recent wuxia trilogy (which remains the only way to own a Region 1 version of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” on Blu-ray), “The Ultimate Force of Four” packs four otherwise unconnected martial arts films into one box set. The main difference, however, is that Disney has smartly opted to make all of the films available as individual releases as well. The weakest of the group is probably “Iron Monkey,” the Yuen Woo Ping-directed movie released in the U.S. under Quentin Tarantino’s watchful eye, but that’s more out of personal preference than anything else. The same could be said of my favorite, Zhang Yimou’s “Hero,” though I’m inclined to believe that most people would place this at the top of their lists too. As for the other films, they fall somewhere in between. The Jackie Chan vehicle, “The Legend of Drunken Master,” doesn’t feature a Chinese language audio track (though curiously, the U.S. dub is the only way to actually hear Chan’s real voice), but the film itself is solid thanks to some great action sequences and a scene-stealing performance by Anita Yu. Takeshi Kitano’s “Zatoichi” isn’t perfect either, but it does have some cool swordfights and actor/writer/director Kitano’s trademark eccentricities. All in all, it’s a great collection of films if you’re a fan of the genre, but most people will be better off simply picking and choosing. I’m just happy Disney gave us the choice.

Also Out This Week:

“Child’s Play” (MGM)
“Grace” (Anchor Bay)
“Crash: Season One” (Anchor Bay)
“The Hannibal Lecter Collection” (MGM)
“My Name Is Earl: Season Four” (20th Century Fox)