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.
As the creators of “Smallville” prepared for Season 8, they were faced with a difficult question — how does the show move forward without Lex Luthor? Michael Rosenbaum left the series at the end of Season 7, and the Clark-Lex dynamic has always been the show’s backbone, so replacing Clark’s nemesis was a difficult task indeed. The creators compensated by adding Tess Mercer (Cassidy Freeman) as the new head of LuthorCorp, and she’s almost as devious and ruthless as her predecessor. The season also amps up the romance between Clark Kent (Tom Welling) and Lois Lane (Erica Durance) while flirting with the prospect that Clark will someday soon fulfill his destiny and become Superman. Lastly, Clark learns that there’s another Kryptonian on Earth — and it’s Doomsday. These storylines, combined with appearances by Lana Lang, Plastique, Winslow Schott, Zatanna and the Legion of Super Heroes make for a fast-paced 22 episodes with little filler. Fans of Lex Luthor will certainly miss his presence, but there’s enough in Season 8 to keep things moving, especially with the prospects that Rosenbaum is rumored to be returning as a guest star in Season 9. Special features include commentary tracks for two episodes and several unaired scenes. There are also two featurettes — one focuses on director Allison Mack while the other investigates the making of Doomsday.
