Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

VIDEO PREVIEW: Saving the Day

'Powerful' films make DVD debuts

Alan Cumming plays the fast-moving Nightcrawler in "X2: X-Men United," hitting video stores this week. Morgan Freeman, left, and Jim Carrey star in "Bruce Almighty," which makes its video debut today.

They've got the power -- make that powers -- as two May hits duke it out for Thanksgiving-week video supremacy.

"X" marks the spot for action aficionados. Or, more precisely, "X2: X-Men United" (Fox, $22.98 VHS, $29.98 DVD). This sequel to 2000's "X-Men" finds telepathic professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and his trusty mutant team -- Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Storm (Halle Berry), Cyclops (James Marsden) and Rogue (Anna Paquin) -- reluctantly joining forces with power-mad Magneto (Ian McKellen) and slithery Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) to counter an anti-mutant movement. Also in on the Marvel-ous fun: Alan Cumming (as gargoylelike teleporter Nightcrawler) and Brian Cox (as a villainous ex-military mastermind who may hold the key to Wolverine's enigmatic past).

Comedy fans, meanwhile, will flock to "Bruce Almighty" (Universal, $22.98 VHS, $26.98 DVD), with Jim Carrey as a hapless TV reporter who loses his job and rails against God, prompting the Man Upstairs (Morgan Freeman) to hand him a new assignment: assuming heavenly powers. "Friends' " Jennifer Aniston completes the starring trio.

Two foreign-language entries round out today's recent-release lineup.

In "Man on the Train" (Paramount), French director Patrice Leconte ("Girl on the Bridge") salutes stranger-in-town Hollywood Westerns with a tale of an aging tough guy (French rock star Johnny Hallyday) who comes to a sleepy town to rob a bank and forges an unlikely bond with a retired teacher (Jean Rochefort). By contrast, Thailand's "The Legend of Suriyothai" (Columbia/TriStar) features a genuine cast of thousands (including archers riding elephants into battle) as it explores the dilemma of the title princess, torn between love (for a gallant warrior) and duty (an arranged marriage to a powerful prince) in 16th-century Thailand.

Elsewhere on the foreign-language front, the award-winning dark comedy "Day of the Wacko" (Vanguard), from Poland, focuses on a day in the life of a disillusioned teacher.

Today's video marquee also touts a trio of vintage musicals.

Director Rouben Mamoulian's delectable 1932 "Love Me Tonight" (Kino, $24.95 VHS, $29.95 DVD) makes its at-long-last video debut, boasting Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald and a classic Rodgers and Hart score (including "Lover" and "Isn't It Romantic?") in a scintillating tale of a tailor, mistaken for royalty, who falls for a true princess. Another early Mamoulian musical, 1929's "Applause" (also from Kino), stars torch singer supreme Helen Morgan as a fading burlesque queen in a movie that broke new ground during the movies' stone age of sound.

Time-tripping forward a few decades, 1968's "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (MGM, $29.98) debuts on DVD in a two-disc set devoted to the adventures of the flying title car. Dick Van Dyke and Sally Ann Howes star; "Mary Poppins" Oscar-winners Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman contribute the musical score.

Continuing in a nostalgic mood, MPI unleashes a second wave of remastered Sherlock Holmes adventures starring Basil Rathbone as the singular sleuth, including the atmospheric chiller "The Scarlet Claw" (1944) and "The House of Fear" (1945), which is based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original Holmes story "The Five Orange Pips." (Both are from MPI, priced at $16.98 on VHS and $19.98 on DVD.)

Paramount, meanwhile, delivers a four-title Neil Simon salute ($19.98 each on DVD), highlighted by "The Out-of-Towners" (1970), with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis as hapless New York visitors, and "Plaza Suite" (1971), featuring three separate stories (starring Walter Matthau, Maureen Stapleton and Lee Grant, among others) set in the same New York hotel.

Tuning in to TV-to-video transfers, two-time Oscar-winner Maggie Smith captured an Emmy for "My House in Umbria" (HBO), playing an eccentric author recuperating at an Italian villa alongside three fellow victims of a train bombing. Oscar-winner Chris Cooper, Giancarlo Giannini and Timothy Spall round out the starring cast.

And former tween queens Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen bid farewell to small-screen stardom with "The Challenge" (Warner, $14.94 VHS, $19.98 DVD), playing estranged sisters who head south of the border to compete in a reality TV show. Next up for the 17-year-old media moguls: "New York Minute," a big-screen venture due in theaters next May.

In a blast from the TV past, meanwhile, Las Vegas' own Tony Curtis teams with a post-"Saint," pre-007 Roger Moore for "The Persuaders!" (A&E), a DVD compilation of episodes from the tongue-in-cheek '71-'72 British TV series about two wealthy playboys-- brash American Danny Wilde and aristocratic Brit Lord Brett Sinclair -- who team up for danger and intrigue.

Venturing into the realm of the unseen and unknown, Jean-Claude Van Damme wreaks plenty of damage "In Hell" (Columbia/TriStar), battling to survive a prison where criminals duel to the death.

Elsewhere in the "Welcome to Las Vegas" portion of our show, "Falling Like This" (Vanguard) traces the intense summer romance between a middle-class California girl (Megan Wilson) and a compelling juvenile delinquent (Brian Vaughan). Busy Patricia Clarkson ("The Station Agent," "Pieces of April") co-stars. Bronson Pinchot, Loretta Swit, Gabrielle Anwar and Traci Bingham headline the clueless-bachelors-seek-beach-babes comedy "Board Heads" (MGM). And class, race and sex collide in contemporary Los Angeles in the comedy "The Dogwalker" (Vanguard), featuring Will Stewart ("Training Day") in the title role.