DVD corner

“The Catherine Cookson Anthology” – Boiling pot boiling over. Includes seven miniseries based on historical novels by Dame Catherine Cookson – “The Cinder Path,” “Colour Blind,” “A Dinner of Herbs,” “The Secret,” “The Girl,” “The Tide of Life” and “Tilly Trotter.” Given the period in which the films are set – late 19th to early 20th century – the costumes are as lavish as any fan of the period could hope. The same proves true for the stories, which often are so heated, you fear the movies themselves might faint from overexertion. Heaving bosoms and dashing gents abound, as do scoundrels and troublemaking tramps, with war and class struggles occasionally getting in the way of romance – but not for long. Features early work by Catherine Zeta-Jones. Grade: B+

“Chancer: Series 2” – Features early work by Clive Owen. This second season of “Chancer” finds Owen’s con man Stephen Crane newly released from prison and eager to reclaim his real name, Derek “Dex” Love, which is fitting since he finds new love in Louise Lombard. He also finds that he fathered a child before landing in the big house, which launches the series forward since Dex is determined to save that child while trying to bring down a secret gaming club. Watching the series 17 years after its initial run, you can see how far Owen has come as an actor. He’s raw around the edges in “Chancer” and his baby face might catch you by surprise, but everything you like about the actor now is right there onscreen – his humor, his edge, his absolute cool. Those qualities would be honed later, when Hollywood hired him for such films as “Croupier” and “Children of Men.” Includes all seven episodes. Grade: B

“ER: Complete Eighth Season” – The melodrama escalates to a fever pitch, but then it had to, didn’t it? This is the eighth season of “ER,” and the producers aren’t willing to allow fans to move away from the water cooler quietly. As such, we get 22 episodes of chaos and disorder, with romance and broken hearts hurtling through the doors of Chicago’s fictional County General Hospital almost as frequently as the injured, the dying and, in this season, the anticlimactic return of Dr. Susan Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) and the long-winded demise of Anthony Edwards’ Dr. Greene. At this point in the series, it all seems a little high-strung and desperate. Grade: C+

“The Game Plan” DVD, Blu-ray – Somebody should put Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in a remake of “The Miracle Worker,” because when it comes to a working actor whose personality can override even the dreariest cinematic drivel, he’s right near the top – and that’s no joke. Have you seen the man’s vitae lately? He isn’t exactly dipping from the same pot as the Clooneys and Pitts. Instead, The Rock’s pot is a bit more shallow, and yet each time he’s handed a piece of dreck, as he is here, he manages to wring something better from it than you might expect. “The Game Plan” finds the former wrestler again tackling a canned movie and turning it into something that defies the odds stacked against it. Here, he’s Joe “The King” Kingman, star quarterback for a fake Boston football team who is having the time of his life living large and worshiping Elvis when into his life comes an 8-year-old girl claiming to be his daughter from a previous marriage. Her name is Peyton (Madison Pettis), she’s as cute as Joe is big, and what she brings to the movie is just what you expect – a softening of Joe’s ego, a purpose to his life that he didn’t know he needed, and plenty of comedic bumbling on Joe’s part, not to mention a romantic interest in the form of Peyton’s ballet teacher (Roselyn Sanchez). Blah, blah, blah. The key to Johnson’s success is his personality (hugely likable), his talent (don’t bet against it), and his ability to adapt from the action genre to the comedy genre with apparent ease. Rated PG. Grade: B-

“The Royle Family: Second Season” – Not the royals you expect, but another kind of train wreck. From the BBC, these Royles are hard-core chain smokers and couch potatoes who observe life – bleak and funny as it is here – while watching television, which allows for plenty of pop-culture commentary. In this second season of the funny Brit-com, Denise (Caroline Aherne) and Dave (Craig Cash) are expecting a child, which creates its own brand of havoc within a family that thrives on it. Perhaps better than anyone else, the British know how to kneecap class – they dig in and skewer it. As such, the cheap slumming and barbed dialogue this show courts are something of a comedic oasis. Long lives the Royles. Grade: B+

“Royal Rumble: Complete Anthology III and IV” – What fresh hell is this? Essentially, it’s just what fans expect from the WWE, with each Royal Rumble from 1998 to 2007 collected in two grunting, enthusiastic, hand-wringing sets. The anthologies feature enough bared skin, aggression and sweat to rival the porn industry. Look for The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mick Foley, Batista and even Chris Benoit (before it all went wrong) to come to throws. As for a grade, what’s to grade? The body slams? A (gripping execution). The spitting, sputtering, backbiting and lifting of eyebrows? B- (next time, they should consider more sputtering). The pec implants? A+ (works of art). These sets exist in their own ether, which is where many will happily find them. Grade: B+

“Saw IV” DVD, Blu-ray – Time to cut the cord. The most convoluted and preposterous film yet in this burned-out series finds director Darren Lynn Bousman once again putting his audience’s necks on the chopping block and showing no mercy. The bloodletting begins at the start. Stretched out on a mortuary slab is Jigsaw himself (Tobin Bell), who undergoes an autopsy of the most graphic sort before this middling film collapses into a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards so dizzying, you might want to have your favorite members of Mensa International on hand to make sense of it, assuming they stay awake. This base, damp, soulless movie offers everything you expect, down to the lack of quality and the idea that horror is just gore, not well-measured suspense. The expected wasteland of deadly traps abounds, as do twists upon unlikely twists, with the film dipping freely into all that came before to explain why Jigsaw is the way he is. Donnie Wahlberg, Angus Macfadyen, Costas Mandylor and Lyriq Bent return from previous films in the franchise, so it’s good to know they’ve covered their mortgages. As for the film’s denouement, the audience at my theatrical screening was having none of it – boos ensued. In the end, after all the pig masks, hair pulling and endless slaughter, the film’s advertising campaign turned out to be its greatest threat: “If it’s Halloween, it must be ‘Saw.'” If that’s the case, nobody should fear another writers strike. Rated R. Grade: D

“War” DVD, Blu-ray – Cold war. Set in San Francisco, this martial arts movie features the promise of Jet Li and Jason Statham coming to fisticuffs, and yet director Philip G. Atwell still manages to blow it. This numbing film stars Li as hitman Rogue, who must fight Statham’s FBI agent Jack Crawford because Rogue offed his partner. Plenty of other threads pull at the plot – ancient treasures, angry Yakuza mob bosses – but none form a satisfying knot in your gut. The third act generates fleeting heat, but regardless of the twists and turns it offers, it still can’t save the slow crawl that came before it. Rated R. Grade: C-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle, as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.