Product Details

• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD9)
• Rating PG-13
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: November 28, 2006
• Run Time: 154 minutes
• DVD Features:
  • Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
  • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
  • "Requiem for Krypton: Making Superman Returns": a comprehensive 3-hour documentary including:
  • -Secret Origins and First Issues: Crystallizing Superman
  • -The Crystal Method: Designing Superman
  • -An Affinity for Beachfront Property: Shooting Superman (Superman on the Farm, Superman in the City, Superman in Peril)
  • -The Joy of Lex: Menacing Superman
  • -He's Always Around: Wrapping Superman
  • Resurrecting Jor-El
  • Deleted scenes: The Date, Family Photos, Crash Landing/X-Ray Vision, Old Newspapers, Are You Two Dating?, Martinis and Wigs, I'm Always Right, Jimmy the Lush, Language Barrier, Crystal Feet, New Krypton
  • Easter egg: "Wrong!"
  • Theatrical and video game trailers
  • TM & (c) DC Comics

Editorial Reviews

Okay, I admit it. Days before I went to see X-Men I scoured the web for advance reviews of the film. Most of them started off with some sort of admission. "I've never read one of the comic books, but it's the best selling comic ever," "I only caught the cartoon once or twice, but X-Men has hardcore fans much like Star Trek." And so on. Some of the reviews even included sidebars with a history of the title, each history mentioning the ironic fact that the book was canceled for a while due to poor sales, but now is a sales powerhouse.

All the reviews I've read by people who have read the comics were suspect-they were on sites like countingdown.com and upcomingmovies.com. Both are magical lands where most of the news is usually good. So what's a well-read, casual fan to do?

The reason I read all those reviews is, well, nervousness. For one thing, this is director Bryan Singer's first foray to really-big-budget, and The Usual Suspects was too good a film to see him ruin his career with some kind of "Batman and Robin" or "Lost in Space." What's more, I am an X-Men fan, though I haven't read the books in a while. So I know how good the series can be, and how terribly it can be mutilated. It would be very, very easy to do a crappy X-Men movie, and that would spell doom for a really promising series as well as any other Marvel project like the upcoming Spider-Man movie.

But tonight, I sleep easy. For I have seen the film, my brothers, and it was not bad. Actually, quite good.

The story combines elements of the last 30 years of books to get the audience up to speed and, well, rewrite history in a way more conducive to moviemaking. Erik Magnus Lehnsherr (Ian McKellen) watches his parents torn away to be gassed in a Nazi concentration camp. As he reaches for them, the metal fence begins to bend, as if by sheer will. The guards knock him out, and his parents are gone.

A young girl (Anna Paquin) talks with her boyfriend, leading to a kiss. With a shock, he becomes weak, then comatose. The girl is scared-what did she do? How did this happen? On TV a certain Senator Kelly (Bruce Davison) dominates a hearing about genetic mutation in humans-like sending children to school with handguns, he says-the girl, calling herself Rogue, runs away. She ends up in Canada where she watches a bar fighter, "The Wolverine" (Hugh Jackman), take hits and get up like nothing happened. The two are forced to leave the bar, and just as they begin to talk, are ambushed by a creature more beast than man (Tyler Mane).

They're rescued by a couple of mutants in black leather and taken to upstate New York. The mutants, of course, are the X-Men, and the place, of course, is Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), the world's most powerful telepath, has built the school to help mutants learn to control their mutations and the strange powers than often come with them. The X-Men are basically grad students, preparing to fight the kind of threats that Erik Lehnsherr now represents. Calling himself Magneto, Lehnsherr-once Xavier's friend-now believes mutants are in store for the same treatment the Jews received at the hands of the Nazi's. Though Xavier believes it can be worked out, Magneto is not going to wait and see. He is plotting something big, and it includes Wolverine and Rogue.

Wolvie is neither pleased to be there nor impressed by the funky costumes. He stays only when Xavier promises to help him find out about his past-Wolvie has lost his memory of anything past 15 years ago. Mysterious pasts aside, what is Magneto up to?

I must mention that the first act of the film, where Magneto, Rogue, and Wolverine are introduced, is by far the best part of the film. I can't recall another summer action movie that was so enthralling-the characters were defined by each moment. Also, this is the only part of the film where the pace is dead on. Singer supposedly cut as mush as a half-hour from the film to make it more audience-friendly. It's noticeable, though not too terribly, in the rest of the film. The action and dialogue seem to end just as it's about to get really deep. I can't wait for the DVD director's cut.

Stewart and McKellen really are impressive as the opposite sides of the same coin. Both are really incredible actors, though Stewart probably feels a bit pigeonholed by his portrayal of Captain Picard on Star Trek. He seemed the only choice for the roll, though-about 8 years ago some friends and I came up with a list of who we'd like to see in an X-Men movie, and he was the only one we all agreed on. More than a few fans were worried about McKellen, but he understood Magneto better than Stan Lee did when he created him back in the 60's.

Jackman's Wolverine is a good take on the character. He's sarcastic, gruff, and able to fall into a berserker rage right out of the comic book. Blended in, though, is a desire to care for Rogue and protect those who can't defend themselves. Jackman looks the part, too, even if he's a bit young (we had picked Clint Eastwood for the role).

Part of the difficulty with making a movie like this is giving everyone in the cast enough time to develop. Cyclops (James Marsden), the team's leader, perhaps suffered most from this. While we saw a bit of his relationship with Xavier, he did little else than rub Wolvie the wrong way and lose his glasses. Halle Berry, as Storm, may have had even less screen time than Marsden, but she didn't seem very into the character anyway. She also has the only really corny line in the whole film.

Anna Paquin and Famke Janssen shined as Rogue and Dr. Jean Grey, respectively. Paquin blended a touch of teenage angst with some real self-fear, and hopefully we'll see more of her in the sequels. Janssen nailed Jean Grey-she seemed comfortable handing DNA models and medical equipment while struggling to control her still-developing powers. She's never been the kind of character you could nail down with one sentence, and Janssen has responded to that by making her the most down-to earth character in the bunch.

Magneto's Brotherhood (read henchmen), at least on paper, seem no match for the X-Men. Optic blasts, unbreakable bones and claws, lightning and telekinesis versus a shape shifter, a manimal and a guy called "the Toad?" But both Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) and Toad (Ray Park) attack with such savage martial arts and Magneto plans so well ahead that the X-Men find themselves outmatched at each turn. Mystique, in particular, is going to sell a lot of movie tickets. Decked out in blue scales and body paint, she's managed to beat out Berry, Janssen and Paquin as guy fantasy material. She has almost no real lines, but Romijn-Stamos exudes a calculating confidence throughout the whole film. Park makes the Toad much more of a threat than I could have possibly imagined, though his tongue attacks were a tiny bit cheesy. Why not just give the guy super-strong legs and let him kick the crap out of everybody?

The film's overarching impression is that of a prequel. So much time is spent on introduction that is seems assured we will have at least two more films coming up. You don't build up characters like that just to have them play around a bit, destroy a few cop cars, and disappear. The action, too, seems just a little bit sedate; they do justice to the comics and the fighting is pretty spectacular, but every attack seems to be winking and saying, just wait till you see what we do next. I left the theater wanting to see more. I think Singer could have left in his half-hour without losing the audience. It was probably mostly dialogue, which would have added to both the characterization and the tension. There's nothing like a good ideological debate while lives hang in the balance.

I can only hope the general public is suitably taken by X-Men. It's not like any other summer action movie-it's darker and more philosophical than most, and much more character driven without relying on stereotypes. It really is a good movie, and barring some kind of Joel Schumacher-esque disaster, the best is yet to come.

Plot Summary

• Tagline: Don't just relive the spectacular action...take it to the extreme with this all-new 2-Disc Collector's Edition release of X-Men, packed with hours of never-before-seen bonus features! Go beyond the movie with the Enhanced Viewing Mode, incorporating more than 60 extra minutes of deleted scenes and behind-the-scene footage as yoi watch the film. Listen to in-depth audio commentary from director Bryan Singer. Learn all the most revealing secrets, from casting and costumes to Scenery and Special Effects, through brand-new featurettes. And get an exclusive sneak peak at the making of X2. This is X-Men like you've never experienced it before!

Product Details

• Actors: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, James Marsden
• Directors: Bryan Singer
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Live, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (DTS 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic)
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD9)
• Rating PG-13
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: November 25, 2003
• Run Time: 104 minutes

Editorial Reviews

"X2: X-Men United" is the kind of movie you enjoy for its moments, even though they never add up. Made for (and possibly by) those with short attention spans, it lives in the present, providing one amazing spectacle after another, and not even trying to develop a story arc. Having trained on the original "X-Men" (2000), i tried to experience the film entirely in the present, and the fact is, i had a good time. Dumb, but good.

Like the comic books that inspired it, "X2" begins with the premise that mutant heroes with specialized superpowers exist among us. Name the heroes, assign the powers, and you're ready for perfunctory dialogue leading up to a big two-page spread in which sleek and muscular beings hurtle through dramatic showdowns.

Like all the characters in the Marvel Comics stable, the X-Men have psychological or political problems; in the first movie they were faced with genocide, and in this one their right to privacy is violated with the Mutant Registration Act. Of course there will be audience members who believe mutants should have no rights, and so "X2" provides a valuable civics lesson. (How you register a mutant who can teleport or shape-shift is not explained.) Perhaps not coincidentally, the movie has a president who looks remarkably like George W. Bush. The film opens with one of its best scenes, as a creature with a forked tail attacks the White House and whooshes down corridors and careens off walls while the Secret Service fires blindly. The creature's purpose is apparently to give mutants a bad name, inspiring still more laws undermining their rights.

Despite all of the havoc and carnage of the first film, just about everybody is back for the sequel. Amazing, that they weren't all killed. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) still runs his private school for young mutants, Magneto (Ian McKellen) still plots against him, and there is a new villain named Gen. William Stryker (Brian Cox) who is assigned by the government to deal with the mutant threat and uses the turncoat mutant Yuriko (Kelly Hu) on his team.

The principal mutants are, in credits order, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), who has blades that extend from his knuckles; Storm (Halle Berry), who can control the weather; Dr. Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), whose power of telekinesis is growing stronger; Cyclops (James Marsden), whose eyes shoot laser beams; Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), a shape-shifter whose shapes are mostly delightful; Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming), the teleporter who attacked the White House; Iceman (Shawn Ashmore), who can cool your drink and lots of other things; Pyro (Aaron Stanford), who can hurl flames but needs a pilot light, and Rogue (Anna Paquin), who can take on aspects of the personalities around her.

These superpowers are so oddly assorted that an X-Men adventure is like a game of chess where every piece has a different move. Some of the powers are awesome; Storm stops an aerial pursuit by generating tornadoes with her mental powers, and Dr. Jean Grey is able to restart an airplane in mid-air.

Odd, then, that Wolverine is one of the dominant characters even though his X-Acto knuckles seem pretty insignificant compared to the powers of Pyro or Cyclops. In a convention borrowed from martial arts movies, "X2" pairs characters with matching powers, so that when Wolverine has his titanic battle, it's with an enemy also equipped with blades. What would happen if Pyro and Iceman went head to head? I visualize the two of them in a pool of hot water.

One might reasonably ask what threat could possibly be meaningful to mutants with such remarkable powers, but Magneto, who has serious personal issues with mutants, has devised an invention which I will not describe, except to say that it provides some of the movie's best visuals. I also admired the scene where Dr. Jean Grey saves the X-Men's airplane, and the way Janssen brings drama to the exercise of Grey's power instead of just switching it on and off.

Since the earliest days of "Spider-Man," Marvel heroes have had personal problems to deal with, and there's a classic Stan Lee moment here in the scene where Iceman breaks the news to his parents that he is a mutant. The movie treats the dialogue as a coming out scene, half-seriously, as if providing inspiration for real-life parents and their children with secrets.

Other possibilities are left for future installments. There's a romance in the movie between Rogue and Iceman, but it doesn't exploit the possibilities of love between mutants with incompatible powers. How inconvenient if during sex your partner was accidentally teleported, frozen, slashed, etc. Does Cyclops wear his dark glasses to bed? "X2: X-Men United" lacks a beginning, a middle and an end, and exists more as a self-renewing loop. In that it is faithful to comic books themselves, which month after month and year after year seem frozen in the same fictional universe. Yes, there are comics in which the characters age and their worlds change, but the X-Men seem likely to continue forever, demonstrating their superpowers in one showcase scene after another. Perhaps in the next generation a mutant will appear named Scribbler, who can write a better screenplay for them.

Plot Summary

• Tagline: The time has come for those who are different to stand united
• Plot Outline The X-Men band together to find a mutant assassin who has made an attempt on the President's life, while the Mutant Academy is attacked by military forces.
• Plot Synopsis: Several months had passed since The X-Men defeated Magneto and imprisoned him in a plastic chamber. One day, a mutant going by the name of "Nightcrawler" infiltrates The White House and attempts to assassinate The President. Meanwhile, Logan is trying to discover his past, and wonder why he became a mutant. However, the friction between the humans and mutants is grinding much harder. As a scientist named William Stryker is assigned to discover about Professor X's secret school and his chamber called "Cerebro". Meanwhile, Magneto's partner, Mystique, is planning to break her leader out of prison. Then, Professor X's school is attacked by Stryker's forces. Logan, Rougue, Iceman and others escaped. The rest of The X-Men meet in Boston along with Magneto, who escaped from prison. They must work together to stop Stryker and rescue Professor X.

Product Details

• Actors: Shawn Ashmore, Halle Berry, Brian Cox, Alan Cumming, Bruce Davison
• Directors: Bryan Singer
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (DTS 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic)
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD9)
• Rating PG-13
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: November 25, 2003
• Run Time: 132 minutes

Editorial Reviews

“Batman” isn’t a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy. It creates characters we come to care about. That’s because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production. This film, and to a lesser degree “Iron Man,” redefine the possibilities of the “comic-book movie.”

“The Dark Knight” is not a simplistic tale of good and evil. Batman is good, yes, The Joker is evil, yes. But Batman poses a more complex puzzle than usual: The citizens of Gotham City are in an uproar, calling him a vigilante and blaming him for the deaths of policemen and others. And the Joker is more than a villain. He’s a Mephistopheles whose actions are fiendishly designed to pose moral dilemmas for his enemies.

The key performance in the movie is by the late Heath Ledger, as the Joker. Will he become the first posthumous Oscar winner since Peter Finch? His Joker draws power from the actual inspiration of the character in the silent classic “The Man Who Laughs” (1928). His clown's makeup more sloppy than before, his cackle betraying deep wounds, he seeks revenge, he claims, for the horrible punishment his father exacted on him when he was a child. In one diabolical scheme near the end of the film, he invites two ferry-loads of passengers to blow up the other before they are blown up themselves. Throughout the film, he devises ingenious situations that force Batman (Christian Bale), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to make impossible ethical decisions. By the end, the whole moral foundation of the Batman legend is threatened.

Because these actors and others are so powerful, and because the movie does not allow its spectacular special effects to upstage the humans, we’re surprised how deeply the drama affects us. Eckhart does an especially good job as Harvey Dent, whose character is transformed by a horrible fate into a bitter monster. It is customary in a comic book movie to maintain a certain knowing distance from the action, to view everything through a sophisticated screen. “The Dark Knight” slips around those defenses and engages us.

Yes, the special effects are extraordinary. They focus on the expected explosions and catastrophes, and have some superb, elaborate chase scenes. The movie was shot on location in Chicago, but it avoids such familiar landmarks as Marina City, the Wrigley Building or the skyline. Chicagoans will recognize many places, notably La Salle Street and Lower Wacker Drive, but director Nolan is not making a travelogue. He presents the city as a wilderness of skyscrapers, and a key sequence is set in the still-uncompleted Trump Tower. Through these heights, the Batman moves at the end of strong wires, or sometimes actually flies, using his cape as a parasail.

The plot involves nothing more or less than the Joker’s attempts to humiliate the forces for good and expose Batman’ secret identity, showing him to be a poser and a fraud. He includes Gordon and Dent on his target list, and contrives cruel tricks to play with the fact that Bruce Wayne once loved, and Harvey Dent now loves, Assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The tricks are more cruel than he realizes, because the Joker doesn’t know Batman’s identity. Heath Ledger has a good deal of dialogue in the movie, and a lot of it isn’t the usual jabs and jests we’re familiar with: It’s psychologically more complex, outlining the dilemmas he has constructed, and explaining his reasons for them. The screenplay by Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan (who first worked together on “Memento”) has more depth and poetry than we might have expected.

Two of the supporting characters are crucial to the action, and are played effortlessly by the great actors Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Freeman, as the scientific genius Lucius Fox, is in charge of Bruce Wayne’s underground headquarters, and makes an ethical objection to a method of eavesdropping on all of the citizens of Gotham City. His stand has current political implictions. Caine is the faithful butler Alfred, who understands Wayne better than anybody, and makes a decision about a crucial letter.

Nolan also directed the previous, and excellent, “Batman Begins” (2005), which went into greater detail than ever before about Bruce Wayne’s origins and the reasons for his compulsions. Now it is the Joker’s turn, although his past is handled entirely with dialogue, not flashbacks. There are no references to Batman’s childhood, but we certainly remember it, and we realize that this conflict is between two adults who were twisted by childhood cruelty — one compensating by trying to do good, the other by trying to do evil. Perhaps they instinctively understand that themselves.

Something fundamental seems to be happening in the upper realms of the comic-book movie. “Spider-Man II” (2004) may have defined the high point of the traditional film based on comic-book heroes. A movie like the new “Hellboy II” allows its director free rein for his fantastical visions. But now “Iron Man” and even more so “The Dark Knight” move the genre into deeper waters. They realize, as some comic-book readers instinctively do, that these stories touch on deep fears, traumas, fantasies and hopes. And the Batman legend, with its origins in film noir, is the most fruitful one for exploration.

In his two Batman movies, Nolan has freed the character to be a canvas for a broader scope of human emotion. For Bruce Wayne is a deeply troubled man, let there be no doubt, and if ever in exile from his heroic role, it would not surprise me what he finds himself capable of doing.

Plot Summary

• Plot Synopsis: The follow-up to Batman Begins, The Dark Night reunites director Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale, who reprises the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in his continuing war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective. But soon the three find themselves prey to a rising criminal master The Joker who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. Heath Ledger stars as arch villain The Joker and Aaron Eckhart plays Dent. Maggie Gyllenhaal joins the cast as Rachel Dawes. Returning from Batman Begins are Gary Oldman as Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox.

Product Details

• Actors: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine
• Directors: Cristopher Nolan
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 (Anamorphic)
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD9)
• Rating PG-13
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• DVD Release Date: December 9, 2008
• Run Time: 152 minutes

Editorial Reviews

High-tech slapstick, wicked banter and a somber "war on terror" subtext set the stage for Robert Downey Jr.'s super-watchable superhero debut in Iron Man.

Downey wears the 90-pound suit of booster-rocket armor well, as he dramatizes the awkward transition of inventor Tony Stark from self-obsessed playboy to scientist on a mission. More importantly, the 43-year-old actor makes the man inside the heavy-metal jacket compelling in his own right.

Unlike blockbuster characters X-Men, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, Iron Man never dominated Marvel Comics' pantheon of heroes. In locking down the first weekend in May for the film's launch, Paramount Pictures is betting big that Downey's charm and a steady stream of online teasers will galvanize a broad audience and match the box-office numbers of last summer's Middle East-themed Transformers. The plan could spawn a lucrative new superhero franchise: Some box-office experts predict Iron Man will be one of the top five hits of the season.

About those adrenaline-charged Iron Man trailers, which made the rounds online in the run-up to the film's Friday release: Have all the movie's cool bits been shown already?

Nope. You'll have to pay to get an eyeful of Iron Man's foe, the massive Iron Monger. Also missing from trailer action is a wishful-thinking revenge fantasy that plays out on the big screen: Iron Man shoots down yammering, hostage-holding terrorists with repulsor beams to save the lives of innocent women and children.

Iron Man's big set pieces lack Michael Bay's epic Transformers scope but feel more real than Spider-Man's movie escapades. And Iron Man has plenty going on between the special effects. First and foremost, Iron Man displays a sense of humor. Compared to the brooding Batman of recent vintage, Superman's plain-vanilla virtue and Peter Parker's borderline-cornball sincerity, Downey's wise-cracking superhero keeps the onscreen action snappy.

Director Jon Favreau (Elf, Swingers) plays to Downey's hyperkinetic, improvisational strengths from the outset, kicking off this origins story with a pre-trauma portrait of brilliant inventor Stark, a Scotch-swigging, fast-talking womanizer who's made a fortune selling weapons. Hours after sleeping with a reporter (Leslie Bibb) in his Malibu smart house, Stark checks in with steadfast executive assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and jets to Afghanistan in a private plane with Air Force liaison James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Terrence Howard). There, Stark demonstrates his latest exercise in mass destruction, the Jericho Missile, for U.S. military brass.

A roadside bomb changes everything. Glib no more, Stark wakes up in a cave with an electro-magneto disc carved into his chest that prevents shrapnel from piercing his heart. Eventually, he escapes warlord Raza (Faran Tahir) after forging the first crude Iron Man suit. The politics here are vague, and though Tahir glowers menacingly, the southwest Asian captors are a weak link in the movie. Stripped of the memorable one-liners, seductive charm or lopsided logic that a juicy villain brings to the table, Iron Man's enemies are a predictable, two-dimensional lot.

Back in California, the conscience-stricken Stark announces that his company is quitting the munitions business, which is bad news for stockholders and Tony's longtime partner, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges).

Toiling with robots in his 3-D modeling workshop to build a bigger, better Iron Man suit, gearhead Stark submerges himself in don't-bother-me-I'm-saving-the-world mode, which is good for some broad laughs when his out-of-control beta suit flings him against the wall.

After Iron Man rockets himself overseas in an upgraded, repulsor-powered suit to get payback from his former tormentors, corporate skulduggery leads to an earth-shuddering smackdown in the night skies over Los Angeles between Iron Man and his new nemesis, the bloated Iron Monger.

The fight and flight scenes blend live-action stunt work with CGI effects from Industrial Light and Magic with reasonably convincing results, but it's the actors who bring out the soul in Iron Man. Oscar-winner Paltrow endears as Pepper, the shy-yet-feisty sidekick who's not so secretly in love with her boss. Playing the wily Obadiah -- in shaved head and beard -- Bridges radiates smarmy gravitas and challenges Stark's newfound idealism at every turn.

But Downey's the driving force here. Sincere yet never sappy, he retains a rascal's charm to the end, and Iron Man finds a heart without losing his brainy edge.

Plot Summary

• Plot Synopsis: Lift off with high speed, high-flying action in this Ultimate 2-disc Edition that takes you inside the suit of Marvel's invincible superhero for the ultimate Iron Man experience!
  After surviving an unexpected attack in enemy territory, jet-setting industrialist Tony Shark builds a high-tech suit of armor and vows to protect the world as Iron Man. Straight from the pages of the legendary cpmic book, Iron Man is a hero who is built - not born - to be unlike any other!

Product Details

• Actors: Jeff Bridges, Jr. Robert Downey, Clark Gregg, Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow
• Directors: Jon Favreau
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD9)
• Rating PG-13
• Studio: Paramount
• DVD Release Date: September 30, 2008
• Run Time: 125 minutes

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker
Another movie based on a Marvel comic and arguably the worst-although you could make a case for "Daredevil." A buffed-up Tom Jane stars as an F.B.I. agent who's out to avenge his murdered family. The ruthless businessman behind the killings is played by John Travolta, who sneers his way through another bad role that neglects his sexy good humor. The film's countless shootings amount to a series of thrill kills, and the director, Jonathan Hensleigh, handles the violence with a finesse worthy of "Death Wish." Depressing. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Product Description

The Punisher walks through the world we all know, a world darkened by war, crime, cruelty and injustice. He has no superpowers to battle the evil he sees - only his fierce intelligence, his years of combat experience and, above all, his iron determination to avenge those wronged by society's villains.

Plot Summary

• Tagline: This Is Not Revenge. It's Punishment!
• Plot Outline After his wife and family are killed, G-Man Frank Castle takes it upon himself to distribute punishment to those responsible for the vendetta.
• Plot Synopsis: Special agent Frank Castle had it all: A loving family, a great life, and an adventurous job. But when his life is taken away from him by a ruthless criminal and his associates, Frank has become reborn. Now serving as judge, jury, and executioner, he's a new kind of vigilante out to wage a one man war against those who have done him wrong.

Product Details

• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating R
• Studio: Lions Gate
• DVD Release Date: November 21, 2006
• Run Time: 140 minutes
• DVD Features:
  • Over 17 minutes of additional material
  • Animated Kuwait deleted scene
  • The Punisher comic book gallery
  • Making-of featurette

Disc 3 adalah Digital Copy Disc dan jika anda hanya ingin 2 disc saja silahkan anda pilih opsi Tanpa Digital Copy Disc dalam kotak Pilihan Yang Tersedia dibawah dan nilai produk akan secara automatis dikurangkan.

Editorial Reviews

The new Incredible Hulk movie couldn’t be more different to its 2003 predecessor . . .

Few movies had as drastic a change in box office fortunes as Ang Lee’s 2003 Hulk movie. In its first weekend in the USA, Hulk earned a promising $62 million. The weekend after that it fell sharply to $18 million, and then to $8 million the weekend following that! Bad word-of-mouth sunk the film: it simply wasn’t what audiences expected. Walking out of cinemas screening it, the sheer disappointment amongst ten-year-old boys was palpable. Nothing had prepared them for the rather oddball art house flick meets superhero comic book that was 2003’s Hulk. All they wanted was to see Hulk smash puny humans . . .

But if you don’t succeed at first, then try again. And it is with this philosophy in mind that Marvel decided to give their potentially lucrative Hulk comic book franchise another shot. The new movie is simply titled The Incredible Hulk, hinting that this time around the movie has more in common with the popular late-1970s TV series than with the comic books – or heavens forbid! - the first movie. And that, dang it, this time round the Hulk will be truly incredible!

Incredible Hulk thus boasts an entirely brand-new cast and creative team.

An excellent Edward Norton replaces Eric Bana as Hulk / Bruce Banner and Liv Tyler replaces Jennifer Connelly (not a good move actually – Tyler is rather bland) as Banner’s ex-girlfriend, Betty Ross. A stoic William Hurt replaces the gruff-voiced Sam Elliott as Betty’s father, General Ross. Transporter 2 director Louis Leterrier takes over at the director’s chair from Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee, bringing his action movie sensibilities with him in the process. The screenplay is by X-Men: The Last Stand and Fantastic Four scribe Zak Penn along with actor Edward Norton (writing under a nom de plume). Penn is a busy guy by the way: he has already been signed to script 2011’s upcoming Avengers and Captain America movies for Marvel . . .

"Much more action-packed and entertaining than the previous Hulk movie. . ."

Judging from the credentials involved you may think that The Incredible Hulk has dumbed down – and you’d be right. But it in actual fact suits the material at hand much better. After all, this is a movie about a big green giant dude in purple pants who smashes stuff when he gets angry – which is about all the time! The Hulk has never exactly been Marvel’s deepest superhero and is pretty, well, one-dimensional when one thinks about it. But here the Hulk is portrayed as a more “human” character instead of the single-brain-celled creature he is usually portrayed as in the comics.

Straight-forward where the first movie was convoluted, action-packed where Hulk dithered, The Incredible Hulk dispenses with whatever back-story and exposition there is over the film’s opening credit sequence. No tortured unresolved oedipal conflicts here!

The Incredible Hulk assumes that audiences already know the character and his back-story: following an accident involving gamma rays, scientist Bruce Banner becomes the raging super-powered, green-skinned monster The Hulk whenever he gets angry. Of course the U.S. military in the guise of the corrupt General Ross (William Hurt) - who also happens to be the father of Banner’s girlfriend, Betty - is interested in getting their hands on the Hulk and using his blood to manufacture a new breed of super-powered soldiers. Banner becomes a fugitive, hoping to find a cure for his condition before Ross and the U.S. military industrial complex can get their hands on him. In that sense it is more of a sequel than a remake than some of the “let’s give it another shot” talk may have let on.

The story kicks off in Brazil where Banner works as a manual laborer at a bottling plant, trying to find a cure and learn Portuguese in his spare time. (One of the film’s funnier lines involves his broken Portuguese.) Soon however crack U.S. commandos led by Tim Roth with a permanent five o’clock shadow (do they allow this sort of thing in the U.S. military?) are on Banner’s case. He escapes – narrowly – in an exciting foot chase on top of rooftops in a densely populated Brazilian slum, an interesting and exotic choice that makes a change from your standard Hollywood action movie locales.

Things must come to a head however. Banner must find a cure and he soon finds himself back in the States where the Hulk faces off against the U.S. military in a thrilling show-off on a university campus that may lack the scope of a similar fight in the first movie, but which is emotionally more involving.

This time Roth’s character has however been injected by super-soldier juice and is well on his way to becoming The Abomination, an over-sized monster against which the Hulk faces off in a no-holds barred epic battle at the movie’s climax. This final battle in New York streets replete with flying cars, lots of stuff exploding and fleeing bystanders actually outclasses the final show-off in the recent Iron Man by the way.

Except for one or two quiet moments shared by Banner and his girlfriend while on the lam, Incredible Hulk doesn’t waste a single frame on dull talky exposition. It is all plot-driven and action-filled. In fact, unlike the much-hyped Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Incredible Hulk never runs out of steam. Put simply: this is the movie which audiences wanted to see back in 2003. No dull existential angst and weird split screen film techniques. No mutant poodles either. Instead we get some nice comic asides, including another cameo by Stan Lee and a riff on those mega-stretchy purple pants Banner always seems to wear.

With The Incredible Hulk Marvel has done it again. Like the recent Iron Man, Incredible Hulk is a definite Saturday matinee crowd-pleaser. Kids – and their parents – will love it. Unfortunately the only thing standing in the way of Incredible Hulk becoming the summer hit it deserves to be will be audiences’ negative memories of the 2003 original. Well, forget about all that: The Incredible Hulk may ultimately be as brainless as its main character, but it really is “incredible” this time around. And Hulk smashes stuff too . . .

Plot Summary

• Plot Synopsis: Academy Award nominee Edward Norton stars as scientist Bruce Banner, a man who has been living in shadows, scouring the planet for an antidote to the unbridled force of rage within him: the Hulk. But when the military masterminds who dreams of exploiting his powers force him back into civilization, he finds himself coming face to face with his most formidable foe: the Abomination - a nightmarish beast of pure aggression whose powers match the Hulk's own!

Product Details

• Actors: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt, Christina Cabot
• Directors: Louis Leterrier
• Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 3 (2 x DVD9 + 1 x DVD5)
• Rating PG-13
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: October 21, 2008
• Run Time: 113 minutes

Editorial Reviews

The R-rated director's cut of SPAWN is basically the PG-13 version with more violence and naughty words. Casual viewers won't find much of interest here, but die-hard SPAWN fans who want the 100-proof version will also find a lot to like in the special features that accompany the film.

The premise of SPAWN will be familiar to many, but I'll summarize it briefly. Covert operative Alex Simmons (Michael Jai White: TOXIC AVENGER II, TOXIC AVENGER III) is an assassin for a shadowy government organization, a man who does bad things for what he believes are good reasons. When he decides he wants out, his corrupt boss Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen: THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE, THE DEAD ZONE, THE BELIEVERS, HEAR NO EVIL) and the amoral Agent Priest (Mindy Clarke: THE KILLER TONGUE, ANIMATRIX) murder him. Simmons goes to hell, where the Satanesque demon Malebolgia offers him a bargain: if Simmons will agree to lead the armies of hell against Heaven, Malebolgia will return him to Earth so he can see his beloved fiance, Wanda (Theresa Randle: NEAR DARK), again.

Simmons accepts the bargain and quickly finds out why the odds favor the house in the Hades Hotel & Casino: the devil doesn't play fair. Yes, Alex is back on earth, but his face is horribly scarred from his death by fire. And it's five years later - Wanda is married to his best friend, Terry Fitzgerald, and they have a daughter, Cyan, who may or may not be Simmons'. Alex gets to see his wife from a distance, but that's all he can do.

Both Heaven and Hell are interested in what Simmons does next. The hideous, demonic Clown (John Leguizamo: WHISPERS IN THE DARK, LAND OF THE DEAD) pushes him to kill Wynn, who has a device attached to his heart ensuring that, if it stops beating, it will unleash a biological doomsday weapon on the population of earth and start the battle of Armageddon. The 500-year-old Cagliostro tries to appeal to the good buried somewhere inside Alex. Meanwhile, Simmons is dealing with his transformation into the supremely powerful being known as Spawn.

Actually, he's too powerful, and that's my biggest problem with Spawn as a character. As seen in this movie, he can do just about anything: fly, heal, create armor, use eye-beams to remove things from peoples' bodies: there's no rhyme or reason to it; whatever he needs to do, he is able to do in some way that's visually cool but not necessarily logical.

But seeking logic in this film is a fool's errand. If you're looking for a coherent story, you're wasting your time. Director Mark Dippe comes out of the world of special effects, and that's where his interests lie. And given the modest $40 million budget (modest compared to the JURASSIC PARKS of the world) the effects are fantastic, especially the ones involving Spawn's cape, which swirls and writhes like the living thing it's supposed to be. The final battle takes place in Hell itself, a surreal, fiery place that isn't 100% successfully realized, but comes damn close, especially considering that the original budget didn't allow for the sequence.

As for the performances, the actors do the best they can with what they have, which is a muddled plot and cheesy, expository dialogue. Martin Sheen as the villain, Wynn, is running on automatic, but still adds a note of class to the proceedings, and it's kind of fun to watch him play what is essentially the parallel-world-evil-twin version of President Bartlett on The West Wing. Michael Jai White gives a fine performance considering he's in a prosthetic suit for most of the film, infusing Spawn with a tortured dignity that makes the character work on a basic emotional level. John Leguizamo tries his best to make The Clown work, but he just can't. He's not scary looking, he's saddled with way too much expository dialogue, and seeing Leguizamo squeezed into the short, fat Clown suit made me wince each time I saw the poor guy. Some things don't translate from comics to film, and the Clown is one of them. In contrast, however, the transformation of the silly looking Clown into the hideous creature known as the Violator is eye-popping, and the CGI Violator is succeeds totally.

The 220 new picture changes and remixed sound in this R-rated version mostly bring back things that were cut out of the theatrical version to ensure a PG-13 rating, so that Spawn's many young fans could see the film. Often the new additions involve restoring scenes of violence that had to be cut, like the shot of Alex Simmons going up in flames before he dies. Or they have to do with the Clown's off-color humor, like when he tells Spawn there was evil inside him when he was still "soup in your Mama's crotch".

This is not exactly APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX, folks.

There's a lot more interesting stuff to be found in the Special Features (to access some of them, you have to turn the disc over, like an old vinyl LP, which gave me a weird feeling of not-quite-deja vu). There are three early concept sketches of SPAWN by Todd McFarlane, including his earliest. They're fun, but I wish they'd been bigger: perhaps they could have given viewers the option of seeing both a regular-sized version and a larger one where you can scroll up and down to see the details. I should point out that I collect original comic art, so I know how large the pages normally are; the size might not bother most people. I also would have liked to see more than three drawings.

There's no shortage of movie concept sketches, though; there are over 200 of them. Although not by McFarlane, they're cool to see (but "Malebolgia" is misidentified as "Melabolgia" which sounds like a skin disease). Once again, I wish they were bigger, but maybe I just need a bigger TV.

Most interesting to fans who want info on the character's genesis is an interview with Todd McFarlane about his career and creation of Spawn. I'd never heard McFarlane speak before; he has a camera-friendly look and a great Jersey accent that made me want to cast him in any Mafia-themed movie I ever make.

The audio commentary track features a virtual army: director Dippe, producer Clint Goldman, visual effects supervisor "Spaz"Williams, and McFarlane. Typically, the screenwriter is nowhere to be found. That's less of a crime in this case because he was essentially adapting McFarlane's story, but it still pisses off this card-carrying member of the Writer's Guild of America West. McFarlane was recorded separately from the others, and perhaps due to the interview with him that appears elsewhere, is not heard from as much in the commentary, but does provide timely comments about his thinking when developing the character. As for the other three speakers, well, I wasn't thrilled. There's a few reasons for this. One, these guys have all known each other a long time, and they like to bullshit with each other and tell stories about their hijinks when they worked at Industrial Light and Magic. They sound like a bunch of frat guys talking over a few beers, which is fine, but not when it prevents you from getting information about making the film.

I like for these audio tracks to give me insight into what led the filmmakers to make the choices they made and/or how they accomplished things. For instance, the revelation that the sexy, villainous Agent Priest, who is killed early in the film, was to return from hell as a female Spawn until budget restrictions made it impossible explains what seems like the most wasteful death of a cool bad guy since Boba Fett. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of that kind of behind the scenes info, except in the area of special effects (of course, that reflects the focus of the movie). There are some very detailed descriptions of certain effects, which would interest SFX junkies, but I'm not one. Dippe spends a lot of time explaining what's in this version that was cut from the first and why it was cut, but I could have figured most of that out for myself, and his complaining about the ratings board (though warranted) gets tiresome. If you're into FX, give the commentary a listen, but if not, save it for when you're hung over and have nothing else to do.

If you're a fan of the SPAWN comic, you'll probably like what is a pretty faithful adaptation. But guess what: even if you're not a fan of Spawn or McFarlane, but are interested in translating comics to film, you should rent this and check out what McFarlane has to say about the whole process. Hearing him talk, you get a real sense of the guy. He's not a Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore, crafting multilayered stories with literary allusions. What he is is a guy who loves what he does and is fiercely determined to protect his creations. Hearing the story of how there was interest in SPAWN from several big studios, including Sony, but McFarlane held out until he found one that would give him the creative control he wanted, should serve as a lesson to other creators: if you want it done your way, get it in writing, and be prepared to take your ball and go home if they won't give it to you. Hearing the childlike excitement in his voice as he comments on the final battle sequence between Spawn and the Violator makes it clear that this is not just a business for McFarlane: he truly loves this stuff. And that, my friends, is the most crucial lesson any creator can learn: love what you do, because if you don't, no one else will.

Bottom line, if you want a treatise on brilliant filmmaking, buy the Citizen Kane special edition. SPAWN is an SFX spectacular, and if that's what you want, you'll be very happy. If you want more, look elsewhere.

Plot Summary

• Tagline: Born in darkness. Sworn to justice.
• Plot Outline: A mercenary is killed, but comes back from Hell as a reluctant soldier of the Devil.
• Plot Synopsis: An assassin named Al Simmons is double-crossed and murdered by his evil boss Jason Wynn. Al makes a deal with the devil and returns to earth as Spawn to see his wife. He is ordered by the devil's minion, The Clown, to kill Wynn. Wynn has made a deal with the clown too and is suppose to destroy the world with a deadly virus that will help start Armageddon and allow Hell to attack Heaven. Spawn must choose between Good & Evil.

Product Details

• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Live, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Region: ALL
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD5)
• Rating: R
• Studio: New Line Home Video
• DVD Release Date: January 6, 1998
• Run Time: 94 minutes
• DVD Features:
  • Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
  • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
  • Commentary by: Dolby Digital 2.0
  • Making-of featurette
  • Interview with Todd McFarlane
  • Scene-to-storyboard comparisons
  • Original 'Todd McFarlane' sketches
  • Music video "Filter & the Crystal Method"

Editorial Reviews

"I bought a car. Turned out to be an alien robot. Who knew?" deadpans Sam Witwicky, hero and human heart of Michael Bay's rollicking robot-smackdown fest, Transformers. Witwicky (the sweetly nerdy Shia LaBeouf, channeling a young John Cusack) is the perfect counterpoint to the nearly nonstop exhilarating action. The plot is simple: an alien civil war (the Autobots vs. the evil Decepticons) has spilled onto Earth, and young Sam is caught in the fray by his newly purchased souped-up Camaro. Which has a mind--and identity, as a noble-warrior robot named Bumblebee--of its own. The effects, especially the mind-blowing transformations of the robots into their earthly forms and back again, are stellar.

Fans of the earlier film and TV series will be thrilled at this cutting-edge incarnation, but this version should please all fans of high-adrenaline action. Director Bay gleefully salts the movie with homages to pop-culture touchstones like Raiders of the Lost Ark, King Kong, and the early technothriller WarGames. The actors, though clearly all supporting those kickass robots, are uniformly on-target, including the dashing Josh Duhamel as a U.S. Army sergeant fighting an enemy he never anticipated; Jon Voight, as a tough yet sympathetic Secretary of Defense in over his head; and John Turturro, whose special agent manages to be confidently unctuous, even stripped to his undies. But the film belongs to Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, and the dastardly Megatron--and the wicked stunts they collide in all over the globe. Long live Transformers! --A.T. Hurley

On the DVD
The special edition of Transformers is packed with extras (and more than a few product placements for Hasbro). The entire second disc is devoted to featurettes on aspects of making the technical tour-de-force--and the land mines involved in tinkering with a beloved '80s franchise. Executive producer Steven Spielberg is very much a part of the proceedings, from his introductory comments ("I think everybody likes the idea of taking something you're familiar with and turning it into something you're not so familiar with--like an 18-wheeler become Optimus Prime") to mentions of his films that influenced this one, like E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Director Michael Bay is brash and entertaining as he talks about his initial reluctance to take on the project, his indoctrination at "Transformers U" at Hasbro, and his enthusiasm for guerrilla-style action filmmaking. Star Shia LaBoeuf says, "He is the sickest action director" out there, and there's plenty of evidence here to support that. Other great highlights include features on how key scenes were shot, including the heart-pounding desert battle and the shootout in the streets of downtown L.A.--adrenaline-pumping stuff, even without the Transformers CGI'd in. --A.T. Hurley

Product Details

• Format: NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English, Spanish
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD9)
• Rating: PG-13
• Studio: Dreamworks Video
• DVD Release Date: October 16, 2007
• Run Time: 143 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Not since "Infra-Man" has a movie opened with a development more ominous than the crisis facing Earth at the beginning of "Flash Gordon." But Earth scientists are playing it cool: A NASA spokesman denies that there's anything unusual about an unexpected total eclipse of the sun. Unusual? That the moon is out of its orbit? Ha! It takes a mad scientist like Dr. Hans Zarkov to realize that the Earth is under attack, and speed to the rescue in his private space ship-with Flash Gordon and Dale Arden aboard as unwilling passengers.

If memory serves, this is more or less the same beginning as in the original movie serialization of "Flash Gordon," back in 1936. Even if it's not, this new Dino De Laurentiis production is true to the tacky pop origins of the Flash Gordon comic strip and the serials starring Buster Crabbe. At a time when "Star Wars" and its spin-offs have inspired special effects men to bust a gut making their interplanetary adventures look real, "Flash Gordon" is cheerfully willing to look as phony as it is.

I DON'T mean that as a criticism. You can make a city float in the clouds and look marginally realistic (as in "The Empire Strikes Back"), but there's something sort of fun about the "Flash Gordon" city that floats in the clouds and looks like a large miniature model floating in fake clouds. And as the spaceships lumber past on the screen, I really wouldn't have minded if they'd left a tube of model airplane glue lying in the lower left-hand corner.

"Flash Gordon" is played for laughs, and wisely so. It is no more sophisticated than the comic strip it's based on, and that takes the curse off of material that was old before it was born. This is space opera, a genre invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Hugo Gernsback and other men of unlimited imagination harnessed to definitely limited skills. It's fun to see it done with energy and love and without the pseudo-meaningful apparatus of the Force and Trekkie Power.

The plot is simple: The Emperor Ming (Max von Sydow), bored with life in the universe, decides to pick on Earth. After warming up with a few hurricanes and earthquakes, he sends the moon spinning down toward the planet. Meanwhile, Zarkov, Flash (Sam J. Jones, last seen as Bo Derek's husband in "10") and Dale (Melody Anderson) crash-land in Ming's imperial space city. There are intrigues afoot, but meanwhile Dale catches Ming's eye, he determines to marry her, and Flash finds himself fighting for his life with a gladiator.

MIKE HODGES, the British director hired by De Laurentiis to orchestrate this comic space opera, is true to the visual tradition Of the, original serials: Everyone is dressed in capes and ridiculous boots and headdresses, and stand, around on the command decks of ornate space ships. There's an imperial court to applaud and boo at the appropriate times.

And there's a cliff-hanging showdown when the Hawk Men, looking amazingly like the winged angels in De Laurentiis' production as "Barbarella" (1968), engage the crew of a space ship in hand-to-hand battle (you know there's something lacking with the Ming technology when the commander of the rocket ship shouts "Stand by to the repel invaders!"). Is all of this ridiculous? Of course. Is it fun? Yeah, sort of, it is.

Plot Summary

• Plot Outline: Prepare to safe the universe with the King of the impossible! Alex Raymonds's famouse comic strip blasts to life in the timeless sci-fi cult adventure Flash Gordon! When energy waves pull the moon out of orbit, New York Jets quarterback Flash Gordon unwittingly finds himself heading for the planet Mongo, where - with assistance from beautiful Dale Arden - he'll take on Ming the Merciless and rescue humankind. This must-own Saviour of the Universe Edition features a digitally remastered picture, 5.1 surround sound, and the unforgettable musical score Queen. Bursting with spectacular thrills and colorful dialogue, this Special Edition DVD features never-before-seen bonus materials. Flash Gordon: He's a miracle!

Product Details

• Actors: Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max von Sydow, Topol, Ornella Muti, Timothy Dalton, Brian Blessed
• Directors: Mike Hodges
• Format: Anamorphic, AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Original recording remastered, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: ALL
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic)
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating PG
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: August 7, 2007
• Run Time: 112 minutes

Plot Summary

• Tagline: He's not from around here.
• Plot Outline Jake is killed by neighbourhood thugs, and returns as a mystical figure (The Wraith) to gain revenge.
• Plot Synopsis: Packard Walsh and his motorized gang lord and terrorize an Arizona desert town, where they force boys to drag-race so they can 'win' their vehicles. After they beat the decent teenager Jamie Hankins to death, dragging him from his girlfriend while they made love, a mysterious power creates Jake Kesey, an extremely cool motor-biker, who has a car which makes invincible. Jake befriends Jamie's girlfriend Keri Johnson, takes Jamie's sweet brother Bill under his wing and manages what sheriff Loomis couldn't: eliminate Packard's criminal gang the hard way...

For further information, details, and Preview of this movie please Click Here.

Product Details

• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD5)
• Rating: PG-13
• Studio: Platinum Disc
• DVD Release Date: November 26, 2002
• Run Time: 92 minutes

Superman :

Superman 3 :

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace :

Product Details Format: Anamorphic, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen, NTSC Region: ALL Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Number of discs: 5 (4 x DVD9 + 1 x DVD5) Rating PG Studio: Warner Home Video DVD Release Date: May 1, 2001 Run Time: 493 minutes DVD Features: Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo) This Box Set Includes the Following: (see individual listings for complete details) Superman: The Movie (Special Edition) (Anamorphic 2.35:1, 151 min.), Superman II (Anamorphic 2.35:1, 127 min.), Superman III (Anamorphic 2.35:1, 125 minutes), & Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (Anamorphic 2.35:1, 90 min.)

Editorial Reviews

One of the things all teenagers believe is that their parents were never teenagers. Their parents were, perhaps, children once. They are undeniably adults now. but how could they have ever been teenagers, and yet not understand their own children? This vi [missing text] teenagers by being one. But "Back to the Future" is even more hopeful: It argues that you can travel back in time to the years when your parents were teenagers, and straighten them out right at the moment when they needed help the most.

The movie begins in the present, with a teenager named Marty (Michael J. Fox, from TV's "Family Ties"). His parents (let's face it) are hopeless nerds. Dad tells corny jokes and Mom guzzles vodka in the kitchen and the evening meal is like feeding time at the fun house. All that keeps Marty sane is his friendship with the nutty Dr. Brown (Christopher Lloyd), an inventor with glowing eyes and hair like a fright wig. Brown believes he has discovered the secret of time travel, and one night in the deserted parking lot of the local shopping mall, he demonstrates his invention. In the long history of time travel movies, there has never been a time machine quite like Brown's, which resembles nothing so much as a customized De Lorean.

The gadget works, and then, after a series of surprises, Marty finds himself transported back 30 years in time, to the days when the shopping mall was a farmer's field (there's a nice gag when the farmer thinks the De Lorean, with its gull-wing doors, is a flying saucer). Marty wanders into town, still wearing his 1985 clothing, and the townsfolk look at his goose down jacket and ask him why he's wearing a life preserver.

One of the running gags in "Back to the Future" is the way the town has changed in 30 years (for example, the porno house of 1985 was playing a Ronald Reagan movie in 1955). But a lot of the differences run more deeply than that, as Marty discovers when he sits down at a lunch counter next to his Dad - who is, of course, a teenager himself. Because the movie has so much fun with the paradoxes and predicaments of a kid meeting his own parents, I won't discuss the plot in any detail. I won't even get into the horrifying moment when Marty discovers his mother "has the hots" for him. The movie's surprises are one of its great pleasures.

"Back to the Future" was directed by Robert ("Romancing the Stone") Zemeckis, who shows not only a fine comic touch but also some of the lighthearted humanism of a Frank Capra. The movie, in fact, resembles Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" more than other, conventional time-travel movies. It's about a character who begins with one view of his life and reality, and is allowed, through magical intervention, to discover another. Steven Spielberg was the executive producer, and this is the second of the summer's three Spielberg productions (it follows "Goonies" and precedes "Explorers"), and maybe it's time to wonder if Spielberg is emulating the great studio chiefs of the past, who specialized in matching the right director with the right project. This time, the match works with charm, brains and a lot of laughter.

Plot Summary

• Plot Synopsis: The year is 1985 and Marty McFly (Fox) is your everyday teenager, except for one problem. He is stuck in 1955. After his good friend Doc Emmett Brown (Lloyd) is gunned down, Marty ends up sending the DeLorean back twenty years into the past. Now, he must find the Doc and convince him that he is from the future, in order for the Doc to send him back to the future, but this is the least of Marty's problem. After accidentally getting in the way of the important meeting between his future mother (Thompson) and father (Glover), Marty must get them back together before he changes time forever, and destroys his own existence.

Product Details

• Actors: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F. Wilson
• Directors: Robert Zemeckis
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: ALL
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating PG
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: January 25, 2005
• Run Time: 117 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis topped his breakaway hit Romancing the Stone with Back to the Future, a joyous comedy with a dazzling hook: what would it be like to meet your parents in their youth? Billed as a special-effects comedy, the imaginative film (the top box-office smash of 1985) has staying power because of the heart behind Zemeckis and Bob Gale's script. High schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox, during the height of his TV success) is catapulted back to the '50s where he sees his parents in their teens, and accidentally changes the history of how Mom and Dad met. Filled with the humorous ideology of the '50s, filtered through the knowledge of the '80s (actor Ronald Reagan is president, ha!), the film comes off as a Twilight Zone episode written by Preston Sturges. Filled with memorable effects and two wonderfully off-key, perfectly cast performances: Christopher Lloyd as the crazy scientist who builds the time machine (a DeLorean luxury car) and Crispin Glover as Marty's geeky dad. --Doug Thomas

Critics and audiences didn't seem too happy with Back to the Future, Part II, the inventive, perhaps too clever sequel. Director Zemeckis and cast bent over backwards to add layers of time-travel complication, and while it surely exercises the brain it isn't necessarily funny in the same way that its predecessor was. It's well worth a visit, though, just to appreciate the imagination that went into it, particularly in a finale that has Marty watching his own actions from the first film.

Shot back-to-back with the second chapter in the trilogy, Back to the Future, Part III is less hectic than that film and has the same sweet spirit of the first, albeit in a whole new setting. This time, Marty ends up in the Old West of 1885, trying to prevent the death of mad scientist Christopher Lloyd at the hands of gunman Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson, who had a recurring role as the bully Biff). Director Zemeckis successfully blends exciting special effects with the traditions of a Western and comes up with something original and fun.

DVD features

The DVD set of the Back to the Future trilogy is as classy and professional as the series. Both new and original materials are included in the plethora of extras, starting with two sets of making-of documentaries. Each disc has material on that particular film, and some features look at the trilogy as a whole. Producer-writer Bob Gale is the star of the extra features, candidly presenting the original ideas and many deleted scenes (a few with doses of crude humor). Much of the inside stuff is repeated in the various pieces, but that's to be expected with such exhaustive materials. Michael J. Fox chimes in with a video commentary presented in a picture-in-picture format (which would have worked better as a straight interview) and the producers tackle the main commentary track, but the highlight audio commentary is a free-flowing Q&A with Gale and director Robert Zemeckis in front of a USC film-school audience. Long or short, the materials are uniformly enjoyable and deft, including segments on advertising, special effects tests, on-screen anecdotes, outtakes, production designs, and more.

Boxset Contents

Back to the Future (Collector's Edition) (1985)

• Stars: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F. Wilson
• Directors: Robert Zemeckis
• Theatrical Release Date: July 3, 1985
• Rating: Rated PG
• Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi
• Synopsis: The year is 1985 and Marty McFly (Fox) is your everyday teenager, except for one problem. He is stuck in 1955. After his good friend Doc Emmett Brown (Lloyd) is gunned down, Marty ends up sending the DeLorean back twenty years into the past. Now, he must find the Doc and convince him that he is from the future, in order for the Doc to send him back to the future, but this is the least of Marty's problem. After accidentally getting in the way of the important meeting between his future mother (Thompson) and father (Glover), Marty must get them back together before he changes time forever, and destroys his own existence.

Back to the Future Part II (Collector's Edition) (1989)

• Stars Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson, Elisabeth Shue
• Directors: Robert Zemeckis
• Theatrical Release Date: November 22, 1989
• Rating: Rated PG
• Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi
• Synopsis: The second part of the trilogy begins as Doc, Marty and Jennifer take the time-traveling DeLorean into the year 2015 to straighten out the future of the McFly family. But Biff Tannen steals the time machine and gives his younger self a book containing 50 years of sports statistics, which the young Biff uses to amass an enormous gambling fortune and transform idyllic Hill Valley into a living hell. To restore the present, Doc and Marty must return to the events of their previous adventure in 1955 and retrieve the book.

Back to the Future Part III (Collector's Edition) (1990)

• Stars: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Mary Steenburgen, Thomas F. Wilson, Lea Thompson
• Directors: Robert Zemeckis
• Theatrical Release Date: May 25, 1990
• Rating: Rated PG
• Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi
• Synopsis: The conclusion of the trilogy sends Marty McFly on a rescue mission to the year 1885, where he must save Doc Brown from death at the hands of yet another member of the Tannen clan. However, there are a number of complications preventing a quick return to the future: a lack of gasoline for the time-traveling DeLorean, a band of gunslinging outlaws and a schoolmarm with affections for the smitten Doc.

Product Details

• Actors: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F. Wilson, Elisabeth Shue, Mary Steenburgen
• Directors: Robert Zemeckis
• Format: Anamorphic, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: ALL
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 3 (3 x DVD9)
• Rating PG
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: January 25, 2005
• Run Time: 342 minutes

Editorial Reviews

"Back to the Future Part II" is an exercise in goofiness, an excursion into various versions of the past and future that is so baffling that even the characters are constantly trying to explain it to each other. I should have brought a big yellow legal pad to the screening, so I could take detailed notes just to keep the time-lines straight. And yet the movie is fun, mostly because it's so screwy.

Any story involving travel through time involves the possibility of paradoxes, which have provided science-fiction writers with plots for years. What happens to you, for example, if you kill your grandfather? What do you say if you meet yourself? In one famous s-f story, a time traveler to the distant past steps on a single bug and wipes out all the life forms of the future.

"Back to the Future Part II" is the story of how the heroes of the first movie, Marty McFly and Doc Brown, try to manipulate time without creating paradoxes, and how they accidentally create an entirely different future - one in which Marty's beloved mother is actually married to his reprehensible enemy, Biff Tannen. McFly and Brown are played again this time by Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, the stars of the 1985 box-office hit, and they not only made "Part II" but went ahead and filmed "Part III" at the same time. Indeed, this movie closes with a coming-attractions trailer for the third part, which will open next summer. (Trivia buffs may note that Russ Meyer is the only other filmmaker to end a movie with a trailer.) The script conferences on the set of this movie must have been utterly confusing, as director Bob Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale tried to find their way through the labyrinth they had created. The movie opens in 1985. McFly has just returned from his previous adventure when Doc Brown appears once again in that souped-up De Lorean. He's breathless with urgency and wants McFly to join him on a trip to the year 2015, where absolutely everything has gone wrong and McFly is needed to save his own son from going to jail.

The city of Hill Valley in the year 2015 looks like the cover of an old pulp magazine. The town square we remember from the previous film has been transformed with ramps heading for the skies and jet-powered vehicles cruising through the skies. The kids even have skateboards that operate on the same principle as hovercraft, which leads to one of the movie's best special-effects numbers when McFly tries to evade a gang of rowdies.

He more or less accomplishes his mission in 2015, but makes the mistake of buying a sports almanac that has all of the scores from the years 1950 to 2000 in it. The almanac and the De Lorean are stolen by Biff, who travels back in time to give them to himself, so that he can place lots of winning bets and become a billionaire.

In the process, Hill Valley in the future turns into a hell hole lorded over by the evil billionaire who is produced by this scheme, and so McFly and Doc travel back to 1955 to try to steal the almanac away from Biff, and if you are following all of this, you are a very clever reader. I won't even begin to try to explain the ways in which the various parents and children of the main characters get involved in the story, or what happens when McFly very nearly attends a high school dance on a double date with himself, or how Fox plays three roles, including his own daughter.

What's entertaining about "Back to the Future Part II" is the way Christopher Lloyd, as Doc, breathlessly tries to figure out what's happening as he flies through time trying to patch everything together again. The flaw in Doc's reasoning, of course, is his assumption that he knows which is the correct time-line that should be restored. How does he know that the "real world" of the first movie was not itself an alternate time-line? It's a job for God.

"Part II," for all of its craziness, lacks the genuine power of the original. The story of the '85 film has real heart to it: If McFly didn't travel from 1985 to 1955 and arrange for his parents to have their first date, he might not even exist. The time travel in that film involved his own emotional confrontation with his parents as teenagers. "Part II," on the other hand, is mostly just zaniness and screwball jokes. But on that level, it's fun.

Plot Summary

• Plot Synopsis: The second part of the trilogy begins as Doc, Marty and Jennifer take the time-traveling DeLorean into the year 2015 to straighten out the future of the McFly family. But Biff Tannen steals the time machine and gives his younger self a book containing 50 years of sports statistics, which the young Biff uses to amass an enormous gambling fortune and transform idyllic Hill Valley into a living hell. To restore the present, Doc and Marty must return to the events of their previous adventure in 1955 and retrieve the book.

Product Details

• Actors: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson, Elisabeth Shue
• Directors: Robert Zemeckis
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: ALL
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating PG
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: January 25, 2005
• Run Time: 108 minutes

Editorial Reviews

One of the delights of the first two "Back to the Future" movies was the way the story moved dizzyingly through time. Paradoxes piled on top of paradoxes, until we had to abandon any attempt to follow the plot on a rational level, and go with the temporal flow.

That looking-glass quality is missing, alas, from "Back to the Future Part III," which makes a few bows in the direction of time-travel complexities, and then settles down to be a routine Western comedy.

The movie was shot back-to-back with "Back to the Future II," which, you will recall, took Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) forward to a thoroughly depressing future that he had created by meddling around in the immediate future. He had to travel back in time in order to undo his damage, so that the eventual future would be a nicer place to live.

Now comes "Back to the Future Part III," in which Marty receives a letter from the past - a letter written by his old friend, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), from a century ago, explaining that he has traveled back to the Old West and generally is happy there, and asking Marty to simply leave him alone. This letter, of course, has taken 100 years to arrive.

Doc Brown does, however, reveal where he hid the DeLorean time-travel machine, in an abandoned mine near town. McFly does some historical research and discovers to his horror that Doc Brown was killed only a week after writing the letter, so he determines to venture back in time, whatever the risk, to rescue his friend. He goes looking for the machine in the old mine and finds it still there, and it even starts after a century, which is more than you can say for most cars after a month in the garage. McFly travels back into time, and, unfortunately, once he gets there he mostly stays there.

The Old West of "Back to the Future Part III" might have been interesting if it had been an approximation of the real Old West - the one we saw in "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," say. But this movie's West is unfortunately a sitcom version that looks exactly as if it were built on a back lot somewhere. The movie is so filled with old Western cliches that the regulars in the bar even include Pat Buttram. Now don't get me wrong: I was delighted to see Buttram again (he was Gene Autry's sidekick in the old days) and even happier to hear that his voice still is in need of oiling. But the town in "Future III" is made up of lots of pieces from old movies, including even a shootout on Main Street and the usual troubles with the local sheriff.

One element of the Old West story is sweet and entertaining: The romance between the eccentric Doc Brown and a local woman named Clara (Mary Steenburgen). They fall in love at first sight, and then Doc gets to thinking about his duty to the future and mankind, and he grows depressed about the mischief he has wrought in the world by inventing time travel, and he decides it is his duty to return to the time he came from, and leave poor Clara behind.

This is easier said than done, since no gasoline exists in the past and McFly has ruptured the fuel line of the DeLorean, a development that leads Doc Brown to an ingenious scheme to get the car up to time travel velocity (88 m.p.h) by having it pushed by a train.

All of this is sort of fun (the movie did not stint on its budget), but it's somehow too linear. It's as if Robert Zemeckis, who directed, and Bob Gale, who wrote, ran out of time travel plot ideas, and settled into a standard Western universe.

The one thing that remains constant in all of the "Back to the Future" movies, and which I especially like, is a sort of bittersweet, elegiac quality involving romance and time. In the first movie, McFly went back in time to be certain his parents had their first date. The second involved his own romance. The third involves Doc Brown and Clara. In all of these stories, there is the realization that love depends entirely on time. Lovers like to think their love is eternal.

But do they ever realize it depends entirely on temporal coincidence, since, if they were not alive at the same time, romance hardly would be feasible?

Plot Summary

• Plot Synopsis: The conclusion of the trilogy sends Marty McFly on a rescue mission to the year 1885, where he must save Doc Brown from death at the hands of yet another member of the Tannen clan. However, there are a number of complications preventing a quick return to the future: a lack of gasoline for the time-traveling DeLorean, a band of gunslinging outlaws and a schoolmarm with affections for the smitten Doc.

Product Details

• Actors: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Mary Steenburgen, Thomas F. Wilson, Lea Thompson
• Directors: Robert Zemeckis
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: ALL
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1 (1 x DVD9)
• Rating PG
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: January 25, 2005
• Run Time: 118 minutes

Editorial Reviews

For devoted fans and nonfans alike, Spider-Man offers nothing less--and nothing more--than what you'd expect from a superhero blockbuster. Having proven his comic-book savvy with the original Darkman, director Sam Raimi brings ample energy and enthusiasm to Spidey's origin story, nicely establishing high-school nebbish Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) as a brainy outcast who reacts with appropriate euphoria--and well-tempered maturity--when a "super-spider" bite transforms him into the amazingly agile, web-shooting Spider-Man. That's all well and good, and so is Kirsten Dunst as Parker's girl-next-door sweetheart. Where Spider-Man falls short is in its hyperactive CGI action sequences, which play like a video game instead of the gravity-defying exploits of a flesh-and-blood superhero. Willem Dafoe is perfectly cast as Spidey's schizoid nemesis, the Green Goblin, and the movie's a lot of fun overall. It's no match for Superman and Batman in bringing a beloved character to the screen, but it places a respectable third. --Jeff Shannon

Product Description

Directed by Sam Raimi, Spider-Man centers on student Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) who, after being bitten by a genetically-altered spider, gains superhuman strength and the spider-like ability to cling to any surface. He vows to use his abilities to fight crime, coming to understand the words of his beloved Uncle Ben: "With great power comes great responsibility.

• Tagline: With great power comes great responsibility.
• Plot Outline When bitten by a genetically modified spider, a nerdy, shy, and awkward high school student gains spider-like abilities that he eventually must use to fight evil as a superhero after tragedy befalls his family.
• Plot Synopsis: A rather odd thing has just occurred in the life of nerdy high school student Peter Parker: after being bitten by a genetically modified spider, his body chemistry is altered mutagenically. He can now scale walls and ceilings, he has superhuman strength and super-fast reflexes, and he develops a precognitive sense that warns him of approaching danger. Adopting the name Spider-Man, Peter first uses his newfound powers to make money, but after his uncle is murdered at the hands of a criminal Peter failed to stop, he swears to use his powers to fight the evil that killed his uncle. At the same time, scientist and businessman Norman Osborn, after exposure to an experimental nerve gas, develops an alternate personality himself: the super-strong, psychotic Green Goblin! Peter Parker must now juggle three things in his life: his new job at a local newspaper under a perpetually on-edge employer, his battle against the evil Green Goblin, and his fight to win the affections of beautiful classmate Mary Jane Watson, against none other than his best friend Harry Osborn, son of Norman Osborn! Is this challenge too much for even the Amazing Spider-Man to handle?

Product Details

• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD9)
• Rating PG-13
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• DVD Release Date: November 1, 2002
• Run Time: 121 minutes
• DVD Features:
  • Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
  • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
  • Commentary by: director Sam Raimi, Kirsten Dunst, producer Laura Ziskin, and co-producer Grant CurtisUnknown Format,special effects designer John Dykstra and visual effects crewUnknown Format
  • Disc 1:
  • "Weaving the Web": subtitled pop-on production notes and historical facts
  • Branching web-isodes
  • Music videos: Hero (Chad Kroeger featuring Josey Scott), What We're All About (Sum 41)
  • TV spots
  • Filmographies and character files
  • DVD-ROM features: comic/feature comparison, record your own commentary, countdown to "Spider-Man 2"
  • Disc 2:
  • HBO Making of Spider-Man
  • Spider-Mania, an E! Entertainment Special
  • Director profile: Sam Raimi
  • Composer profile: Danny Elfman
  • Screen tests for Tobey Maguire, J.K. Simmons, and CGI Spider-Man
  • Costume and makeup tests
  • Gag/outtake reel
  • Conceptual art and production design gallery
  • "Spider-Man: The Mythology of the 21st Century" historical documentary
  • The Spider-Man Comic Book Archives
  • Rogues Gallery
  • The Loves of Peter Parker
  • Comic book artist gallery
  • Activision game hints and tips
  • DVD-ROM: Activision PC game with 2 playable levels, 3 exclusive dot.comics, Spider-Man visualizer

Editorial Reviews

More than a few critics hailed Spider-Man 2 as "the best superhero movie ever," and there's no compelling reason to argue--thanks to a bigger budget, better special effects, and a dynamic, character-driven plot, it's a notch above Spider-Man in terms of emotional depth and rich comic-book sensibility. Ordinary People Oscar-winner Alvin Sargent received screenplay credit, and celebrated author and comic-book expert Michael Chabon worked on the story, but it's director Sam Raimi's affinity for the material that brings Spidey 2 to vivid life. When a fusion experiment goes terribly wrong, a brilliant physicist (Alfred Molina) is turned into Spidey's newest nemesis, the deranged, mechanically tentacled "Doctor Octopus," obsessed with completing his experiment and killing Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) in the process. Even more compelling is Peter Parker's urgent dilemma: continue his burdensome, lonely life of crime-fighting as Spider-Man, or pursue love and happiness with Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst)? Molina's outstanding as a tragic villain controlled by his own invention, and the action sequences are nothing less than breathtaking, but the real success of Spider-Man 2 is its sense of priorities. With all of Hollywood's biggest and best toys at his disposal, Raimi and his writers stay true to the Marvel mythology, honoring Spider-Man creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, and setting the bar impressively high for the challenge of Spider-Man 3. --Jeff Shannon

DVD Features:

The first commentary track is by director Sam Raimi and a self-deprecating Tobey Maguire speaking in tandem, and producer (and Marvel CEO) Avi Arad and coproducer Grant Curtis speaking in tandem. They discuss a number of topics, including Raimi's memory of his excitement over Richard Donner's Superman and how the character of Black Cat had to be dropped from the film. The second commentary is by six members of the Oscar-nominated effects team, and one of their primary focuses is how Doc Ock's arms were achieved by a combination of puppetry and CGI.

The centerpiece of the second disc is a massive two-hour documentary that can be viewed all at once or in 12 separate pieces. It covers the development of the story, the visual effects, costumes, stunts, and sound and music. Three shorter featurettes cover Peter Parker's struggle between his personal and hero lives, Doc Ock, and the women in Spider-Man's life, and what's interesting is how they discuss those topics not just in relation to the movies but to the comic books as well. (For example, Betty Brant and Gwen Stacy had a much greater impact in the comics.) There's a scene in which you can toggle among three different camera angles, and a gallery of 17 paintings Alex Ross created for the opening sequence. The sound and picture are spectacular, though only the Superbit edition has DTS. --David Horiuchi

• Tagline: Sacrifice
• Plot Outline Peter Parker is beset with numerous personal problems while Spider-Man confronts the brilliant Dr. Otto Octavius, who has been transformed into "Doctor Octopus" (aka, "Doc Ock"), a multi-tentacled menace.
• Plot Synopsis: Peter Parker's having a rough time. His double life as the superhero Spider-Man is having a devastating impact on his civilian life. Things are so bad he declares that he's quitting, and never putting on the suit again. However, his sense of duty forces him to become a hero again when the brilliant scientist Dr. Otto Octavius is deformed in an accident and becomes Dr. Octopus. With four metal tentacles sticking out of his back, he'll prove to be a more than worthy opponent for Spider-Man.

Product Details

• Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English, French
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD9)
• Rating PG-13
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• DVD Release Date: November 30, 2004
• Run Time: 127 minutes
• DVD Features:
  • Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
  • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
  • Commentary by: director Sam Raimi, actor Tobey Maguire, producer Avi Arad, and coproducer Grant Curtis, technical supervisors
  • "Spidey Sense 2" pop-up trivia track
  • Blooper reel
  • Four Web-isodes: original online featurettes
  • Train music video: "Ordinary"
  • Disc 2:
  • "Making the Amazing": 12-part documentary
  • "Hero in Crisis": a deeper look into Peter Parker and his personal battles
  • "Ock-umentary: Eight Arms to Hold You"
  • "Interwoven: The Women of Spider-Man"
  • "Enter the Web": groundbreaking multi-angle look behind the scenes
  • Art gallery
  • Behind-the-scenes look at the Activision game

Editorial Reviews

How does Spider-Man 3 follow on the heels of its predecessor, which was widely considered the best superhero movie ever? For starters, you pick up the loose threads from that movie, then add some key elements of the Spidey comic-book mythos (including fan-favorite villain Venom), the black costume, and the characters of Gwen Stacy and her police-captain father. In the beginning, things have never looked better for Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire): He's doing well in school; his alter ego, Spider-Man, is loved and respected around New York City. And his girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), has just taken a starring role in a Broadway musical. But nothing good can last for Spidey. Mary Jane's career quickly goes downhill; she's bothered by Peter's attractive new classmate, Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard); and the new Daily Bugle photographer, Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), is trying to steal his thunder. Enter a new villain, the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), who can transform his body into various forms and shapes of sand and who may be connected to Peter's past in an unexpected way. There's also the son of an old villain, Harry Osborne (James Franco), who unmasked Spidey in the previous movie and still has revenge on his mind. And a new black costume seems to boost Spidey's powers, but transforms mild-mannered Peter into a mean and obnoxious boor (Maguire has some fun here).

If that sounds like a lot to pack into one 140-minute movie, it is. While director Sam Raimi keeps things flowing, assisted on the screenplay by his brother Ivan and Alvin Sargent, there's a little too much going on, and it's inevitable that one of the villains (there are three or four, depending on how you count) gets significantly short-changed. Still, the cast is excellent, the effects are fantastic, and the action is fast and furious. Even if Spider-Man 3 isn't the match of Spider-Man 2, it's a worthy addition to the megamillion-dollar franchise. --David Horiuchi

Product Description
Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) finally has the girl of his dreams, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), and New York City is in the throes of Spider-mania! But when a strange alien symbiote turns Spider-Man¿s suit black, his darkest demons come to light changing Spider-Man inside as well as out. Spider-Man is in for the fight of his life against a lethal mix of villains - the deadly Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), Venom (Topher Grace), and the New Goblin (James Franco) - as well as the enemy within himself.

Product Details

• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English, Spanish
• Region: All
• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
• Number of discs: 2 (2 x DVD9)
• Rating: PG-13
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• DVD Release Date: October 30, 2007
• Run Time: 140 minutes

• Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: ALL
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
  
• Number of discs: 6 ( 6 x DVD9 )
  
• Rating UNRATED
• Studio: Universal Studios
• DVD Release Date: October 21, 2003
• Run Time: 865 minutes
  
• DVD Features:
  • Available Subtitles: Spanish, French, Bahasa, Chinese, Thai.
    
  • Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1)
  • 18 favorite original television series episodes as rated by the fans