DVD Corner

“Batman Beyond: Season Three”: The Dark Knight, but without Bruce Wayne behind the mask. Instead, in this animated series, it’s teen Terry McGinnis moving within Gotham’s shadows in an effort to save the day. He has a lot to learn. The show gives him and his enemies – The Repellar, Ink, Zeta, the return of the Royal Flush Gang, others – a look that recalls elements of Japanese anime. The animation can be beautiful, with unusually strong storylines and fine voice work following suit. Grade: B+

“Big Fish: Blu-ray”: From Tim Burton, the tall tale of Edward Bloom (Albert Finney), a dying salesman whose charmed life – recounted from his deathbed – proves a colorful confection of bigger-than-life stories, some legitimately lived, others overtly embellished, most drifting somewhere in between. The film’s opening moments are a lark of human propulsion. They find Edward reminiscing about his own spectacular birth, which found him literally rocketing from his mother’s womb and hurtling down a hospital corridor on his back. Later, itching to get out of the small pond of his Alabama backwater and experience the greater world beyond, Edward (played in his youth by Ewan McGregor) is greeted by new friends and adventures – the likes of which make for grand – though episodic – storytelling. With Billy Crudup and Jessica Lange. Rated PG-13. Grade: B

“Blood Diamond: DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray”: A movie about the bloody violence, enslavement of adults and children, and mass murder involved in the business of mining diamonds. Set in 1999 during Sierra Leone’s civil war, the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Danny Archer, a South African diamond smuggler hustling jewels across the border to Liberia, which allows the army to purchase arms for their war. It’s this army that’s responsible for pillaging villages and slaughtering most of its inhabitants. Those who are allowed to live are the fittest men, who are forced at gunpoint to sift the rivers for diamonds, as well as young boys, who are brainwashed into becoming killing machines. When the army storms into one village and divides fisherman Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) from his family, the plot contrives to nudge him toward Archer, who wants the 100-carat diamond Vandy found (and hid) while working in the fields. They become a reluctant team. Smoldering in a romantic subplot is Jennifer Connelly’s Maddy Bowen, an idealistic journalist who believes that if people knew the brutality with which some diamonds are obtained, they wouldn’t buy them. So, yes, she’s annoyingly naive. Grade: C+

“Chicken Little: Blu-ray”: Chicken for dinner. A lazy, pilfering affair whose energy and depth are driven almost entirely by its soundtrack. That trend stretches throughout, with the movie going further south when it staples its songs to scenes inspired by other movies, particularly “War of the Worlds,” as well as “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “The Lion King,” “Finding Nemo” and “Alien.” Pardon me, but what do aliens have to do with the tale on which so much of us grew up? Did an acorn the size of Maine fall on someone’s head in Hollywood? Apparently. And, really, why depart so radically from a long-lasting favorite to make it something it never was and shouldn’t be? Surely sci-fi doesn’t have to enter this universe. But it does. When the movie arrived in 2005, there was every indication that it was the source of the bird flu. Rated G. Grade: C-

“Finding Neverland: Blu-ray”: Filled with so many heavy-handed moments of forced revelation, audiences are barely allowed to think for themselves. Production values are excellent and the cast is good. But the movie generates so little magic from what should have been an honest story about a famous playwright and the creative process, this odd, evasive film only occasionally sparks the screen. Beginning in London in 1903, the film follows the Victorian playwright James M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) as he comes to know the family that would come to be the muse for his great children’s classic, “Peter Pan.” There’s widow Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet), her haughty mother, Emma (Julie Christie), and Sylvia’s four boys, including the lonely Peter (Freddie Highmore). Throughout, the movie draws slavishly from the more famous elements of “Peter Pan” to offer easy, canned insights into those moments that allegedly inspired key scenes in the play. As such, we get a series of “ah-ha!” moments that are wholly manufactured. The moving ending comes close to achieving the depths of despair life has a way of offering. But mostly, this is tidy, well-acted filmmaking wrapped in a sumptuous bow. Some will warm to it, but those who know Barrie’s real story, which is darker, might find themselves clapping not for fairies, but for a better script. Rated PG-13. Grade: C

“Justice League Unlimited: Season Two”: Some league. Features Superman paired with Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, J’onn J’onnz, Supergirl and others, all of whom join forces to fight the likes of Lex Luthor and other assorted creeps. Fans get their money’s worth, with the animation capturing the look and feel of a comic book, seamlessly evoking the printed page. Grade: B+

“Rocky Balboa: DVD and Blu-ray”: The best Rocky film since the Academy Award-winning, 1976 original. It would be easy – and dismissive – to believe this happened by chance, but the truth is that writer, director and star Sylvester Stallone got it right. In this, the franchise’s sixth outing, the surprise is that Stallone embraces being 60, which allows him to mine new depths from a character who appeared washed up a few Roman numerals ago. Stallone’s script has the feel of improvisation, with his loose, appealing performance following suit. Here is an actor so comfortable in the iconic role he created that he’s able to lose himself in it, deconstructing the myth while finding the man. With Milo Ventimiglia, Geraldine Hughes, Burt Young and Antonio Tarver. Rated PG-13. Grade: B+