MLB 10 The Show
Reviewed for: Playstation 3
Also available for: PSP
From: Sony
ESRB Rating: Everyone

Maybe the best news about “MLB 10 The Show” is that nobody broke anything.

In terms of fundamentally emulating the game of baseball, “MLB 09″ got practically everything right. The audiovisual presentation blurred the lines between video game and real-life broadcast. The button-based pitching and hitting control schemes didn’t shake things up and use the right stick for the sake of doing so, and they straddled the “easy to learn, hard to master” line almost perfectly by sticking to stuff that works just fine. Fielding felt entirely natural, baserunning controls made sense, the pace of every action felt right, and the game had just about every base covered in terms of features to complement what was an unprecedented emulation of professional baseball.

The simple act of getting all of that right all over again makes “MLB 10″ a pretty amazing game straight out of the gate, and players who logged a significant number of hours into last year’s game will spot any number of little presentational details — in camera angle selections, player animations, outside-the-lines interactions, day/night lighting effects, even something as innocuous as public address system announcements — that have been added or refined during Sony’s continued pursuit of broadcast-quality perfection.

A few gameplay tweaks, including more expansive pickoff controls and an optional mound warmup mode for incoming relief pitchers, also are present. But the fundamental game has not been mucked with just for newness’ sake, and Sony’s decision to reheat what already worked so perfectly well absolutely works to the “MLB 10’s” advantage.

For the most part, the show’s primary talking points lie in the features realm. The “Road to the Show” centerpiece, which lets players emulate the rags-to-riches career of a minor leaguer with Hall of Fame aspirations, returns with slightly better incidental controls and, for catchers, a significant (and overdue) emphasis on the value of calling a game.

The frighteningly deep franchise mode, meanwhile, now allows up to 30 players to play armchair general managers in the same league. Also included: a mock e-mail inbox to streamline franchise-wide communication and an interface for examining and managing player injuries. The practice mode also makes some needed enhancements, better emphasizing pitching and now including fielding training as well.

“MLB 10’s” resurrection of the Home Run Derby mode isn’t a particularly splashy development, but the matter in which it returns — alongside the Futures Game in an all-points replication of All-Star Week festivities — perfectly underscores Sony’s ability to understand the wants of baseball fans and go a step beyond the expected.

That goes as well for the new multimedia features: The ability to save end-game highlight reels won’t rock anybody’s world, but the new Movie Maker feature, which allows players to cut and edit together game highlights of their choosing, just might. “MLB 11″ needs to include some functionality for sharing these videos online to really make this feature sing, but as is, it’s just another toy in what easily has become the premier video game baseball playhouse.

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Battlefield: Bad Company 2
For: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC
From: DICE/EA
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, strong language, violence)

All the important bullet points that were present in 2008’s “Battlefield: Bad Company” — and, fundamentally, just about every “Battlefield” game in the series’ magnificent lifetime — are present in “Bad Company 2″ as well. Mechanically, there might not be a better military first-person shooter, and the multiplayer component that is the franchise’s hallmark has only improved with the refinements DICE has made.

This is good, maybe essentially so, because the single-player campaign that was such a major surprise in the first “Bad Company” has taken a slight turn into sophomore slump country this time around.

This isn’t the same as saying it’s bad, because for the most part, the campaign actually is pretty good. “BC2’s” gunplay is every bit as polished as that of “Modern Warfare 2,” and the more expansive environments and amazing attention to sound detail, to say nothing of the staggering tech that makes pretty much everything destructible, arguably make it the new best in class.

“BC2’s” warfare also is more tactical in nature: It’s easier to die here on normal difficulty than it is in “MW2,” and the battles place a premium on fighting defensively and catching enemies unaware over mindlessly rushing in with guns blazing.

But while “BC2’s” campaign takes full advantage of all these exemplary mechanics, its stumbles are too notable to ignore. Checkpoints are placed inconsistently, occasionally sending players through a long string of firefights that all need to be repeated if something goes wrong at the very end. Three A.I. squadmates are on hand to assist throughout the majority of the campaign, and they’re as fun to listen to as they were in “BC1,” but when they aren’t hanging too far back to even participate, they’re demonstrating some comically bad aim. Enemy soldiers, perhaps sensing this, overwhelmingly target the player no matter how the battle is arranged. (In case you’re wondering: Sorry, no co-op support.)

Too many moments like these — and a few unfortunate instances of contrived scenarios that require contrived solutions — add up to a campaign that, while still absolutely worth playing, outstays its welcome before the credits roll.

Fortunately, and to absolutely no surprise, “BC2’s” single-player action really is just an elaborate primer for the obscenely good multiplayer, which takes all that wonderful tactical gunplay and puts it to spectacular use on huge maps with fully operable vehicles (tanks, helicopters, even jet skis) and up to 23 other human players.

Per “Battlefield” tradition, “BC2’s” multiplayer modes emphasize teamwork and strategic 12-on-12 territorial play over the lone-wolf run-and-gun deathmatch action most multiplayer shooters favor, and the diversity in player classes speaks to that approach. “BC2’s” upgrade and perks system isn’t as elaborate as “MW2’s” upgrade bonanza, but with so many more strategic possibilities available right from the start, it doesn’t need to be.

Still, in what amounts to a nice compromise, “BC2″ introduces the squad deathmatch, which pits four four-player squads against each other in an old-fashioned free-for-all. The action’s a bit more uncorked here than in a typical “Battlefield” excursion, but not so much that it doesn’t betray the things that separate a “Battlefield” shootout from the rest of the pack.

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Jungle Swing
For: iPhone/iPod Touch
From: Category 5 Games
iTunes Store Rating: 4+
Price: $1

A number of factors have come together to make the iPhone a surprisingly viable gaming platform, and the unassuming “Jungle Swing” pretty well illustrates all of them. Conceptually, it couldn’t be simpler: The goal is to keep the monkey swinging, Spider-Man style, from tree to tree without falling into the water, and the further he travels, the better the score. Playing “Swing” is simple, too, but as is the case with the best low-concept games, mastering the timing and swing physics takes a lot more skill than the one-button control scheme initially implies. A handful of unlockable items and upgrades is on hand to reward players who sink a lot of time into the game — a simple feat, given how easy it is to knock out a game or two during the course of a spare moment — and OpenFeint support sweetens the deal with online leaderboards and unlockable achievements. Finally, there’s that price tag. “Swing,” like so many absurdly-priced iPhone games, costs as much as a bag of chips, and the price-per-pound value is incalculably small for players who really get into the game and all it has on offer.

Precious (R, 2009, Lions Gate)
The difference between an unintentionally funny after-school special and a Best Picture Oscar nominee isn’t necessarily easily described on paper, but it’s pretty easy to recognize when you brace yourself for the former and come away, 109 minutes later, having experienced something else entirely. “Precious” has more than enough ammo to set itself up for mockery: Between Claireece “Precious” Jones’ (Gabourey Sidibe) abusive mother (Mo’Nique), the father who sexually abused (and impregnated) her, her imminent dismissal from one school and the fact that she’s morbidly overweight, barely literate and carrying a second child she cannot afford to raise, there’s enough here for a Lifetime miniseries and possibly an entire spinoff network. But perhaps consequently, “Precious” does all it can not to fall into the same traps that ensnarl the accidental comedies that came before it. Sidibe’s and Mo’Nique’s performances are unapologetically strong but rarely ever sympathetic, and the film works without fear in completely tearing both to pieces in tough-loving fashion. The story takes the path that best suits it, regardless of whatever compassionate or feel-good properties that brings, and everything else, from the supporting cast (Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Sherri Shepherd, Lenny Kravitz) to the shot selection, adopts the same bent. It doesn’t sound like much on paper, but in the end, that collective desire to cut to the heart of everything and leave remorse on the floor makes all the difference in the world. “Precious’” ability to toe that line the whole way through is skillful to an enviable degree.
Extras: Conversation between Director Lee Daniels and Sapphire, who wrote the novel, “Push,” on which “Precious” is based. Also: director commentary, deleted scenes, four behind-the-scenes features, Sidibe audition footage.

Up in the Air (R, 2009, Paramount)
It’s never pleasant to tell someone his or her job has been eliminated … so some bosses just don’t. Instead, they hire guys like Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) to fly in, drop the hammer for them, and do a little post-firing counseling so as to ensure a non-violent exit from the premises. Ryan relishes the job, if only because constantly being in transit is his idea of living, and when a young, up-and-coming know-it-all (Anna Kendrick) suggests replacing face-to-face firings with video teleconferencing, the gates burst open. “Air’s” overriding premise is timely for extremely obvious reasons, and the film uses it well. But more than anything, that premise is here to serve as an allegoric means (at best) and a paper-thin excuse (at worst) for unleashing a maelstrom of smart, funny and unpleasantly honest observations about what success and living really mean when life unexpectedly and inconveniently gets complicated. Some of the routes “Air” takes are completely foreseeable, but enough of them aren’t, and either way, the resolution isn’t necessarily even the point. Ryan’s story carries the weight it’s meant to carry, but it’s when “Air” touches a nerve with its observations — and if you’ve given this stuff any thought whatsoever, it will touch a nerve — that it transforms from something good to something special. Vera Farmiga and Jason Bateman also star.
Extras: Filmmakers commentary, deleted scenes.

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (R, 2009, Sony Pictures)
Delusions of grandeur and excessive self-importance can convincingly sink a long-in-the-making sequel, and for a good five or so minutes, “The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day” looks like it might be in danger of basking a little too much in its own glow. Fortunately, the self-seriousness doesn’t last, and before long, it’s almost as if no time has passed at all. Like its predecessor, “Day’s” overlying story — in this case, a priest’s murder designed to frame the Saints (Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus and Billy Connolly) and force them out of exile — has nothing if not violent ambitions. But also like its predecessor, “Saints” carries out those ambitions with a wild mix of pageantry, self-depreciating comedy and a willingness to paint every character and scenario with all the outrageous strokes that will fit without sending the production into full-blown farce country. “Day” occasionally gets a bit too crazy or cute for its own good. But it hits far more than it misses, and the occasional missteps of a movie that’s willing to do anything in the name of entertainment are very easily forgiven. Just be sure to see the first film first: “Day” explains itself more than sufficiently for newcomers to understand, but a number of scenes — particularly later on — will mean considerably more to those who know the full back story. Clifton Collins Jr., Julie Benz and Peter Fonda also star.
Extras: Director/Saints commentary, deleted scenes, two behind-the-scenes features.

Planet 51 (PG, 2009, Sony Pictures)
There exists a bounty of scathingly ironic possibilities when it comes to telling a story about human beings invading another planet and swapping roles with the little green men who have invaded Earth in countless books, films, TV series and radio serials. Should you be planning on utilizing some of that cutting social commentary to your creative advantage one day, you’ll be happy to know the computer-animated “Planet 51,” in its quest to entertain kids first and their parents second, has left the bounty as ripe for picking as it found it. That, by the way, is perfectly fine, because “51,” which finds a solitary human astronaut touching down on an alien planet that looks strikingly like 1950s America, does what it wants to do perfectly well. The aliens are completely genial hosts, and while lazier storytellers would have turned the human invader into a full-blown meathead idiot, “51″ elects instead to construct him as a likable guy who is understandably confused by his new surroundings. The storyline is conventional and the observations about the planet are more cute than anything else, but the sheer likability of the whole thing — to say nothing of how nice it looks or how awesome dogs, among other things, are in the alien world — more than compensates. Dwayne Johnson, Gary Oldman and Jessica Biel, among others, lend their voices.
Extras: DVD game, three behind-the-scenes features, animation progression reels, extended scenes, music video montage.

Fix (R, 2008, E1 Entertainment)
Some people like to interpret a filmmaker’s intentions while watching a movie play out. Some couldn’t care less. But with “Fix” — which follows aspiring filmmaker Milo (Tao Ruspoli) and his reluctant girlfriend Bella (Olivia Wilde) as they migrate from a failed film project to a daylong quest to keep Milo’s parole-violating brother (Shawn Andrews as Leo) raise money for rehab and stay out of jail — it’s almost as if there isn’t a choice. “Fix’s” plot hinges on Milo’s decision to turn this change of plans into a makeshift documentary, and with the plot goes the overall approach, which subtly morphs from traditional fiction to mockumentary and takes on all that entails. Most of the time, that means “Fix” stays trained on its characters — sometimes, as with in documentaries, for long periods of time in which nothing terribly amazing is happening. Now and then, though, it means the film pays more attention to its surroundings than it otherwise would. And when those background characters are grousing about societal issues in fairly unsubtle ways but presumably according to a script, it’s impossible not to wonder if the characters are simply a means to getting these thoughts in front of an audience that otherwise wouldn’t pay attention. No matter: The approach is clever, and even if it leads to some dry moments that emulate textbook documentary downtime a little too well, “Fix’s” story ultimately is engaging as well. Megalyn Echikunwoke also stars.
Extras: Filmmakers commentary, cast commentary, interviews, three behind-the-scenes features.

Capitalism: A Love Story (R, 2009, Overture/Anchor Bay)
A box quote claims “Capitalism: A Love Story” is Michael Moore’s “magnum opus,” and hey, maybe it is. It certainly feels like a Moore production: The filmmaker narrates the action while taking viewers down a labyrinthine path though all manner of situations — pilots working for pennies, people losing their homes, seemingly harmless teenagers getting locked up for profit, large corporations cashing in on the horribly-named Dead Peasant life insurance plan — while bouncing similarly between smugness, sadness, sarcasm and anger. Mostly, the fenced-off stories achieve their desired effect, and the few examples of the little guy beating the big guy certainly make an inspiring impression. But the problem with Moore is the same as it’s been for years now: He’s a partisan lightning rod — embraced by those who likely already had a bone to pick with his targets, ignored by those whose changing stance might actually effect real change. By extension, even sight unseen, his movies take on the same life, and they’re damaged goods as result. “Capitalism” is entertaining, occasionally insightful and unafraid to unload on pretty much anything in its sights. But it’s too scattered and too hopelessly tainted by outside forces to be even remotely transformative.
Extras: 10 outtakes, repackaged as self-standing short features.

Service (NR, 2008, Regent Releasing/E1 Entertainment)
Here’s a question: Is it possible to strip a film’s pretensions so thoroughly that what’s left sort of becomes pretentious all over again? “Service” (translated from its original title of “Serbis”) tells the day-in-a-life story of an extended family that not only runs a deeply dilapidated but still-functioning adult film theater in the Philippines, but takes residence inside it as well. That family includes Nanay (Gina Pareño), who struggles to manage both family and theater at once. But it also includes her mother (Jacklyn Jose), who is in the process of divorcing her bigamist husband, and little Jonas (Bobby Jerome Go), who playfully and carelessly careens through the theater’s sketchy clientele traffic on his tricycle. The disparate ends of the age spectrum, to say nothing of the setting and additional drama surrounding the rest of the characters (Julio Diaz, Coco Martin, Kristofer King, Dan Alvaro, Mercedes Cabral, Roxanne Jordan), allows “Service” to employ some pretty unique means to tell what otherwise might be pretty conventional stories. To that end, it delivers, capturing the degradation of the crumbling theater and the world in which it exists in extremely vivid detail — so much so that the story arguably suffers by comparison. “Service” isn’t designed to begin neatly or wrap cleanly before the credits roll, but even with this in mind, it’s a little surprising how little (if any) resolution there is from beginning to end. In Tagalog with English subtitles. No extras.

Heavy Rain
For: Playstation 3
From: Quantic Dream/Sony
ESRB Rating: Mature

Early on, when it becomes clear just how good “Heavy Rain” is at doing the unique little things it does, it also becomes clear that this might be the first video game capable — to a stunningly unsettling degree and under the cover of complete banality — of making players feel like a lousy parent.

The guilt is somewhat temporary, if only because “Rain” periodically shifts the player between four characters — two detectives, a photojournalist and a fourth person whose role won’t be specified for spoiler-proofing purposes — with ties to a story centered around a serial killer and a race to find his latest abductee alive.

But “Rain” has a knack for using small details and interactions to engender some surprisingly strong connections to all four characters, and those connections prove invaluable toward transforming a reasonably conventional suspense thriller into something pretty special. That some of them are borne out of completely pedestrian moments — one character helping his son with his homework, another reaching for his inhaler during an asthma attack — speak to the game’s striking attention to detail.

The connection between player and characters appears to be “Rain’s” primary objective, and the game goes to unconventional gameplay lengths to fulfill its mission. The camera perspective harkens back to “Resident Evil’s” formative years, and “Rain’s” walking controls — hold R2 to walk and use only the left stick to control all movement — fall similarly in line. It’s initially jarring and, in certain tight spaces, clumsy.

But in the context of everything else, it also makes sense. “Rain” uses the rest of the controller for a myriad of small, context-sensitive movements — a measured pull on the right stick to sip coffee without spilling, a quick twirl to open an envelope, a tilt of the controller to yank the steering wheel during a skid down the highway, timed alternate presses of L1 and R1 to straighten out a character’s left and right feet while he climbs a slippery mud hill.

“Rain” handles the majority of these actions through time-sensitive onscreen prompts, which on paper sounds like a nightmare to gamers already fed up with developers’ overuse of the technique.

But where most games seem to spit out random prompts without any rhythm, “Rain” maps them so thoughtfully as to change the entire tenor of the mechanic. The input choices make actual sense, and “Rain” uses numerous techniques with regard to combinations, timing and speed of execution to match the situation on the screen. The attention to detail, once again, makes all the difference.

These scenarios have additional significance because, unlike almost every game ever, “Rain” only flashes a “Game Over” screen when the story ends. Failed challenges and foolish decisions with regard to the story’s many moral and dialogue choices can kill a playable character, and if a character dies, the story still continues.

“Rain’s” four characters face some 20 or so combined fates that can lead to dramatically different stories for different players, and it often isn’t the obvious decisions and scenarios that can take the storyline down a completely different road. Dare we say it again? Attention to small details sometimes makes all the difference, and that’s true of the player as well as the game.

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MLB 2K10
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: Wii, Playstation 2, Windows PC, Sony PSP and Nintendo DS
From: Visual Concepts/2K Sports
ESRB Rating: Everyone

It’s usually a pretty funny sight when a major league pitcher completely fouls up and accidentally launches a pitch six feet over the catcher’s head.

But Visual Concepts seems to think it’s downright hilarious, because it happens more times in one game of “MLB 2K10″ than it likely will throughout the entire 2010 season.

To be fair, “2K10’s” pitching controls, which use right-joystick gestures to control the speed and movement of each pitch, are considerably more user-friendly than “2K9’s” system. Conceivably, it’s also more fun to pitch this way than by hitting buttons and navigating meters.

But just like in “2K9,” the margin for error is absurdly fickle. Miss the gesture by a tick, and even a fastball sails out of the strike zone. Miss it by two ticks, and it flies wildly over the catcher’s head. The degree between a lights-out pitch and a wild pitch is unrealistically small, and players who lack surgeon hands are bound to pay unfairly because of it.

The continued problems with pitching underscore the story of “2K10″ as a whole. It’s better than its broken predecessor and has some nice overdue features — most notably the My Player mode, which apes Sony’s MLB game by allowing players to experience a professional career from a single player’s perspective. But too much sloppiness carries over to call this a return to the series’ better days, and because those new features don’t fix the regressions the series has endured over time, they feel the same effects.

The best news about “2K9″ is that the aggravating (and occasionally hilarious) bugs that often changed a game — disappearing outfielders, fielders catching balls with their face, baserunners running to who knows where — appear squashed.

But numerous weird instances remain — including, for instance, baserunners’ bizarre propensity to slide into first far too often. Occasionally, the runner gets up and inexplicably rounds first without getting tagged out even though the first baseman has the ball. Once in a while, he’ll slide into first before circling the bases after hitting a home run.

Strange occurrences like these don’t cripple “2K10’s” gameplay so much as damage the illusion, but when something so instantly and continually out of place in “2K9″ shows up yet again in “2K10,” it speaks either to the developers’ disinterest in refinement or its inability to understand its subject matter. That, in turn, kills hope that real problems — including A.I. pitchers picking off would-be stealers with psychic accuracy and the aforementioned wild pitch bonanza — will ever get a patch.

Per tradition, “2K10″ allows players to adjust difficulty sliders to somewhat mitigate these problems, but players who do so also lose access to all unlockable achievements, trophies and virtual baseball cards — as if “2K10″ is punishing players who just want to take extra steps to enjoy their $60 purchase rather than fight it.

As always, those who play with friends or online will benefit the most, if only because both teams have the same issues to overcome. Questionable gameplay aside, “2K10″ at least delivers in terms of features, with full-featured online leagues and the fun highlight reel editing and sharing tool back for another season.

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Borderlands: The Secret Armory of General Knoxx
For: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC
Requires: Borderlands
From: Gearbox Software/2K Games
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, mature humor, strong language)
Price: $10

A lot of people weren’t thrilled with the second “Borderlands” downloadable pack, which felt more like a self-contained (and oppressively difficult) extra mode than a seamless extension of the game world. For those folks and everyone else who loves that world, this latest pack is more like it. “The Secret Armory Of General Knoxx” introduces a huge new plot of frontier to explore, and with that comes new instances of everything — guns, vehicles, enemies (hello giant mechs), main/side missions, weird characters, dark humor — that make the main game great. The level cap receives an overdue boost, from 50 to 61, and with that comes new privileges with regard to abilities and rare weapon types. All the rewards naturally carry back into the rest of the game, and per “Borderlands” tradition, Gearbox encourages multiple playthroughs by dialing up the difficulty and payoff the second time around. Just be sure to have your wits about you before digging in: Gearbox recommends players enter “Knoxx” at around level 35, which means beating the main game’s storyline first is advisable. “Knoxxx” won’t stop anyone who wishes to dive in sooner than that, but it also won’t scale down its difficulty to accommodate low-level characters, so consider this your fair warning if you’re feeling bold.

We Live in Public (NR, 2009, IndiePix)
In case you weren’t there (or simply are trying your best to forget), the end of the 20th century brought with it a phenomenon where people with lots of money chased people with wild ideas down every rabbit hole imaginable in hopes of striking gold on the Internet. One of those wild visionaries was Josh Harris, who conceived Internet television when most of the public still struggled to download animated GIFs, and later parlayed those ideas into massive privacy-eroding experiments that both made the “The Truman Show” a reality and subsequently put it to shame. In documenting this with a combination of hindsight, candor and absolutely staggering footage of the experiment in action, “We Live in Public” enters documentary masterpiece country almost without breaking a sweat. Harris’ bizarre ride along the cutting edge of technology’s next great frontier presented him numerous opportunities to step on throats, burn bridges and engage in reckless experimentation with other people’s money, and his polarizing (understatement) personality (possible poor choice of word) ensured he approached every bridge with a match in hand. “Public” doesn’t try anything fancy with its storytelling, but it doesn’t need to. It comprehensively and resourcefully tells an amazing true story from all necessary angles, and it’s an absolute must-see as result.
Extras: Harris commentary, filmmaker commentary, Sundance 2009 footage, footage of Harris watching the film for the first time, two bonus segments, making-of feature.

Where the Wild Things Are (PG, 2009, Warner Bros.)
For such a humble little picture book about a mischievous boy and his imagination, “Where the Wild Things Are” sure caused a stir when it released in 1963 and promptly found itself banned from libraries everywhere. In that respect, the live-action adaptation does the source material absolutely proud. Warner Bros. marketed “WTWTA” as a kids movie based on a kids book, but the actual product is, like its inspiration, not nearly so easily classified. “WTWTA’s” opening scene, for instance, finds Max (Max Records) playing with his dog, but it’s filmed in a manner and at a volume that might send timid children running from the room. Subsequent scenes, which attempt to provide some fill-in plot past the book, occasionally engender the same reaction — or, during tranquil, dialogue-free scenes in which Max and the Wild Things let their actions and surroundings do the storytelling, the complete opposite effect. All put together, “WTWTA” steps too far outside the lines of traditional kids film norms to be something for everyone. But a little strength of conviction is never bad thing, and if the goal was to somehow bottle the aura from a 10-sentence book and expend it across 101 very pretty minutes of screen time without tearing the fabric, mission magnificently accomplished.
Extra: Four behind-the-scenes features.

Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak (NR, 2009, Oscilloscope)
Along with the film itself, perhaps the best thing about the release of “Where the Wild Things Are” was the book’s author, Maurice Sendak, telling parents to “go to hell” and kids to “wet their pants” when asked what he’d say to those who complained the film was too scary for children. “Tell Them Anything You Want” doesn’t contain this wonderfully blunt attack on the bubble-wrapping of our youth, but this portrait of Sendak — directed by the same man, Spike Jonez, who directed “WTWTA” — pretty well matches it in terms of candor and insight. Be it about his childhood, his career, his personal shortcomings or the onset of death, Sendak turns no question away, and Jonez isn’t afraid to step in front of the camera and treat the experience like a no-holds-barred conversation between close friends (which, to the film’s benefit, it is) instead of some objective piece of film journalism. The only downside? It ends too soon. “Want’s” picturesque DVD packaging implies the film runs 88 minutes long, but that tally includes the extras. Though a good portion of those extras benefit from the same volume of insight and candor, it’s still worth noting the main program is only 40 minutes long by itself.
Extras: Jonez and Sendak Q&A, Sendak birthday tribute readings and speeches, “Maurice at the World’s Fair” short starring Jonze and Catherine Keener.

Cold Souls (PG-13, 2009, Fox)
The title is considerably more literal than you might assume. Because in the world in which “Cold Souls” exists, souls not only are tangible, extractable pieces of the human body, but have become a tradable commodity for those weary and brave enough to exchange their soul, and all it entails, for another. One such person? Paul Giamatti, playing himself, and so deeply frustrated with his present actor’s block that he decides to put his soul temporarily in cold storage and try another on for size — or perhaps take a spin without any soul whatsoever and see what happens. The novel premise has no shortage of tantalizing possibilities and consequences, and “Soul” fearlessly and intelligently pounces on as many as it can, shifting from dry comedy to drama to black comedy to science fiction mind warp with great care but without any regard for classification or convention. The sum total of that energy won’t necessarily sit well with viewers who come in expecting one mood and getting another, but not taking full advantage of all these storytelling possibilities would have been a significantly bigger shame. Dina Korzun, David Strathairn, Katheryn Winnick, Emily Watson and and Lauren Ambrose also star.
Extras: Deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes feature.

Bollywood Hero (NR, 2009, Anchor Bay)
It’s fun to watch typecast, marginally successful actors play against type and have some fun with that marginal success by playing an alternate-universe version of themselves. Occasionally — say, with Jean-Claude Van Damme’s awesome dramatic turn in “JCVD” — it forever changes perceptions of what the actor can do. But the news isn’t quite that good for Chris Kattan, who stars in “Bollywood Hero” as a struggling former “Saturday Night Live” star (named Chris Kattan) whose sorry Hollywood luck finds him traveling to Mumbai in hopes of landing a game-changing role and resurrecting his career. Kattan plays Kattan pretty straight, and early in the first chapter of this three-part miniseries, “Hero” seems willing to take a dryly, ever-so-slightly-darkly funny look at the business of being famous. But that doesn’t last long, and before long, Kattan is saddled with material that leaves him looking more confused than wry as he bounces between a handful of unimaginative plot turns you’ve seen countless times before. “Hero” maintains a likable disposition throughout, and its inclination to break into song and dance every now and then is fun (if a little forced). But if Kattan was hoping for life to imitate art, he needs a gutsier vehicle than this. Neha Dhupia, Ali Fazal, Pooja Kumar and Ruma Sengupta also star.
Extras: Deleted scenes, outtakes.

Gentlemen Broncos (PG-13, 2009, Fox)
“Gentlemen Broncos” comes from the same creative mind behind “Nacho Libre” and “Napoleon Dynamite,” and boy, is it ever completely obvious that it does. The scenario is different, this time centering around a young, socially awkward would-be science fiction writer (Michael Angarano) who attends a fantasy writing convention, makes a few socially awkward friends (Halley Feiffer, Héctor Jiménez) meets his socially awkward author hero (Jemaine Clement), and promptly has his manuscript stolen by said hero. But as evidenced by the repeated use of the term “socially awkward” in the previous sentence, the constant that made “Dynamite” so bizarrely novel and “Libre” kind of annoying is back in force in “Broncos.” Every single character is weird in that same inhumanely-sheltered-from-society way, and numerous social interactions come down to one person talking or acting strangely and the other kind of blankly staring at them before returning the gesture. “Broncos” slowly gathers a pulse as the story goes somewhere, but all that early awkwardness sets the tone, and what once felt charmingly weird now comes off as overdone and too self-aware not to feel completely contrived. A few laughs sneak in, and the film occasionally ditches the contrivances for fleeting instances of sharp wit. Mostly, though, viewers can expect to return the same blank stares “Broncos’” characters almost continually flash back at them.
Extras: Deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes feature, outtakes.

Worth a Mention
— Alice in Wonderland fever: The Tim Burton/Johnny Depp re-imagination of “Alice in Wonderland” opens this Friday, and in what can only be an amazing coincidence, a handful of “Wonderland” DVDs are releasing separately this week. Among the releases: the 1933 Cary Grant/Gary Cooper/W.C. Fields film, the 1966 BBC film starring Peter Sellers and John Gielgud (and featuring a Ravi Shankar soundtrack), and the 2009 miniseries, “Alice,” that aired on Syfy. Of the three, only the BBC film comes with extras, and they’re good ones: director commentary, the 1903 “Wonderland” silent film, the 1965 biopic about the real-life inspiration for Alice, Shankar performance footage and a photo gallery.
— “Small Wonder: The Complete First Season” (NR, 1985, Shout Factory): The 1980s did its absolute best to undo all the progress the 1970s made by trotting out one gutlessly awful sitcom after another, and perhaps none were more delightfully terrible than this one. “Small Wonder’s” premise — a top-secret robot tries to fit into a family as a normal 10-year-old girl — is silly in its own right, but it’s the bonanza of bad execution — cheeseball storylines, hysterically cheap production values and some of the worst acting anyone ever paid for — that really makes this something special. Children of the ’80s looked to “Small Wonder” as their first understanding of the “so bad it’s completely entertaining” phenomenon, and a quarter century of aging has only enhanced that sensation here. Includes 24 episodes, plus commentary, original episode promos and a fan art gallery.

Aliens vs. Predator
For: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC
From: Rebellion/Sega
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, suggestive themes)

There are moments in each of “Aliens vs. Predator’s” three single-player campaigns where the game flashes some honest-to-goodness greatness that other first-person games can’t touch.

The brightest of these flashes happens straight away in the marine campaign, which outfits players as a standard soldier in a world crawling with aliens and, eventually, the Predator. “AvP” drops players into an environment where light is a precious commodity, and the game doesn’t waste time with dull shootouts against grunt enemies. The aliens are the enemy, and each one alone can easily take a player from healthy to dead. In packs and in darkness, they’re a nightmare.

But once the scene changes to less intimidating pastures and the aliens resort to less frightening tactics, “AvP” regresses to also-ran status. The fights start repeating themselves, the level designs feel more generic, and when Rebellion recycles an old twist from a previous “AvP” game and introduces the androids enemy class, this might as well be any shooter.

Unfortunately, “AvP’s” antiquated controls — which lack a lean or even crouch mechanic and rely too much on auto-aim assists to bail out some sloppy aiming precision — ensure it isn’t even just another shooter once the scares peel away and the dated mechanics are exposed. The action is more uninspired than truly bad, but when the game drops piles of enemies in one spot and expects players to avoid making mistakes while it makes so many, it feels pretty cheap.

Fleeting flashes of excellence also seep into the alien and Predator campaigns, which value stealth and melee combat over gunplay. Disabling the lights, climbing the walls and terrorizing humans is a fun thrill early in the alien campaign, and the Predator campaign offers enough trick (albeit with a slightly clumsy control scheme) to leap around the map and massacre humans, aliens and androids alike.

But these two campaigns eventually suffer the same problem: Most of what you see and do will be seen and done within each campaign’s opening scenario, and the same flat levels players see as the marine await yet again once the novelty of both campaigns wears off. None of the three campaigns requires more than three hours to finish, but all manage to wear out their welcomes because of how repetitive they are with regard to design, tactics and enemy intelligence.

Online multiplayer (18 players competitive, four players co-op) fares little better. The survival co-op mode, which pits player-controlled marines against endless alien waves, is just the single-player game’s bad controls and A.I. on overdrive.

Most of the competitive modes, meanwhile, are dampened by player-controlled aliens’ and Predators’ melee kill animations, which are so excessively drawn out that by the time Player A kills Player B, Player C is halfway finished killing a hopelessly vulnerable Player A. A few modes that play off the series fiction establish gameplay conditions that mitigate these domino effects, but it’s a testament to “AvP’s” overall haphazardness that such a hindrance plagues any, much less the majority, of these modes.

—–

World of Outlaws: Sprint Cars
For: Xbox 360
From: Big Ant Studios/THQ
ESRB Rating: Everyone (mild suggestive themes, mild violence)

The enormously successful advent of $10-$20 downloadable games left doubts that games like “World of Outlaws: Sprint Cars” — a retail product that shares shelf space with $60 games but costs $20 out of the gate — would ever have a place on the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3.

They do, it seems, but they probably shouldn’t, because while times have changed, the problems that plagued shoestring-budget games with retail ambitions have not.

It’s not like “Outlaws” lacks merit, either. This is the first racing game in the Xbox 360’s existence that bears the World of Outlaws branding, and with that come racers, vehicles and tracks that fans of the touring series will certainly recognize. For those who never even heard of WoO, there’s value as well, because the combination of sprint cars and tightly-contained dirt tracks is a rare sight in a racing game landscape that’s beyond saturated in most every other area.

But the true value of a racing game always, always hinges on how it moves on the track, and “Outlaws” simply lacks polish in too many areas to make all that uniqueness enough of a compensation.

Most of “Outlaws’” shortcomings are forgivable. The overall interface is cumbersome and, in the career mode, a little bit confusing to maneuver at first. The career mode feels a bit thin, particularly with regard to car tuning flexibility, but that’s understandable given the budget price. Same with the graphics on the track: “Outlaws” looks a few years old, the cars appear to glide on the dirt rather than dig into it, and despite the box’s promise to the contrary, the lines torn into the dirt don’t seem to have much effect on the action in subsequent laps. Not ideal, but no big deal.

But things completely fall apart in the one area — control — where “Outlaws” couldn’t afford to slip. Steering is entirely too touchy, and the cars lack any sensation of weight. Taking a corner with any kind of force practically guarantees a spinout, but the alternative — babysitting the left stick and practically tapping it so as not to oversteer — just isn’t fun.

Compounding the problem is the game’s A.I., which seems to have no such trouble. Make one mistake in a 30-lap race, and catching up is nearly inconceivable. There simply is no reward for driving dangerously, because doing so is pretty much impossible, and that’s a killer for a game that’s trying to sell arcade-style excitement.

Things fare slightly better in multiplayer (two players split-screen, eight online), if only because everyone is prone to the same steering issues and the playing field is more level. “Outlaws” doesn’t do anything fancy online, but it lets players tweak races according to basic parameters and throws in a hot potato-style bomb tag variant for those who want a little extra danger. But the likelihood of a strong online community surrounding a shaky, budget-priced game is practically a pipe dream, so make sure you have friends waiting to play before placing too much stock in this portion of the game.

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Walk it Out!
For: Wii
From: Konami
ESRB Rating: Everyone (comic mischief, mild lyrics)

Given the Wii’s initial potential to immerse players and simulate the experience of interacting more freely with virtual worlds and activities, a game built around the entirely banal practice of walking — yes, walking — would seem just a wee bit ridiculous. Even with the Wii’s unexpected transformation into a virtual fitness tool taken into account, who needs a $30 piece of software to motivate them to walk in place?

The good news is that even the goofily-named “Walk It Out!” seems to understand how absurd the whole thing sounds on the surface. The better news is that in subscribing to a formula that’s pretty much a descendent of Konami’s “Dance Dance Revolution” games, it circumvents the issue and emerges as a fun, original and surprisingly rewarding exercise tool.

As implied by the title, the premise in “WIO” is to, in fact, walk it out. Some introductory tutorials and the occasional trainer chatter aside, the game’s primary mode drops players (either solo or with a friend via local co-op) into an open world, and they’re free to walk around at their leisure while the game tracks their step counts.

The kicker is the way “WIO” engages players’ completist tendencies by scattering more than 3,500 icons across the world. Each icon has a price attached to it, and steps are the game’s currency. Accumulate steps and point the Wii remote to “purchase” icons, and the game turns those icons into scenery, new songs for the soundtrack and new pathways that open the environment up for additional exploration.

Players who get into “WIO’s” gamey, collectable nature will rack up steps without even thinking about the working going into doing so. If the point of an exercise video game is to make players forget they’re exercising, this one nails it.

But what of the actual act of walking in place? It works, and surprisingly well, because Konami translates the rote original act into a light rhythm game. “WIO” comes with 120 songs, and players who want to accumulate steps will need to step in time with each song’s beat to do so. The variance of beats gives “WIO” about as much variety as one could expect from a game centered around walking. For players who find “Dance Dance Revolution’s” aerobic demands appealing but can’t get past those games’ difficulty, this offers the same benefits without the imposing drawbacks.

To no surprise, “WIO” supports Konami’s dance pad controller for Wii. But the pad isn’t required, and the game counts steps with surprising competency when players simply put the nunchuck attachment in their pockets and walk on any flat surface. The Wii Balance Board yields similarly accurate results, and it emerges as the ideal setup by giving players something solid to stand on and control their steps.

As any respectable fitness game should, “WIO” tracks calories, steps, distance walked and (special to this game) how competently players stay on the beat. The results aren’t entirely scientific, of course, but any gauge is better than no gauge, and the game’s ability to graph progress over time is a nice touch.

——

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
For: Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade
From: The Odd Gentlemen/2K Play
ESRB’s Rating: Everyone (comic mischief)
Price: $10

For all the wonderful ways 2008’s “Braid” combined art, music, storytelling, “Super Mario Bros.”-style 2D action and some truly mind-melting puzzles built around time manipulation, the production struck many as unnecessarily stuffy. For those folks, “The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom” is a double victory, because in addition to sparkling on all the same facets, “Winterbottom” does it with a sly grin and under the silliest pretense possible (a pie thief manipulating time and space to, yep, steal pies). “Winterbottom’s” puzzles aren’t quite as elaborate as “Braid’s,” if only because the game elects to break them into single-screen challenges instead of larger sidescrolling levels. But the intellectual itch this one scratches is completely the same and, in the hardest challenges, every bit as rewarding. That victory alone makes “Winterbottom” a no-brainer to recommend. But the game significantly sweetens the deal with an outstanding audiovisual presentation that brilliantly recalls the whimsical style of an old silent film serial. The game’s nefarious but silly sense of humor falls perfectly in line: Winterbottom might be the most lovable video game ratfink since Wario, and the rhyming between-level dialogue is as funny as it us clever.

$9.99 (R, 2008, Regency Releasing/E1 Entertainment)
Though it sort of centers a theme around a somewhat central character — Dave, a directionless, unemployed 28-year-old who orders a $10 book about the meaning of life and decides to share his epiphanic moment with anyone who will listen — “$9.99″ never really settles on one thing that traditionally constitutes an A-to-B plot line. It meanders — a lot — and though its characters exist in Dave’s neighborhood, their worlds rarely and sometimes never intersect. These are big problems for a movie to have, and they’d probably sink “$9.99″ if all the little things it does weren’t so ridiculously, near-perfectly wonderful. 78 minutes of stop-motion animated characters waxing randomly about different facets of existence could very easily have descended into a soulless, pretentious nightmare, but “$9.99″ strikes and holds a shrewd balance between showing and telling. Poignance has its place, but so does irony and dark comedy, and the stories are full of minute surprises in spite of their familiar backdrops and setups. The quality of the design and animation, old technology or not, also is first-rate: It’s a superior fit for the film’s overall tone, and it captures certain moods and details in ways all that newfangled computer animation still can’t and probably never will. Samuel Johnson, Anthony LaPaglia and Geoffrey Rush, among others, lend their voices.
Extras: Two short films, “Crazy Glue” and “A Buck’s Worth.”

The Informant! (R, 2009, Warner Bros.)
“The Informant!” would almost be a pleasure to watch even if it had no central storyline whatsoever coursing through the sea of thoughts that continually invade the mind of Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), a could-be corporate superstar who awkwardly stumbles into an agreement with the government to uncover a massive price-fixing scam that could devastate his employer. This isn’t to suggest the storyline doesn’t impress: To the contrary, “The Informant’s” ability to turn the prototypical whistleblower storyline on its head by injecting it with a dry, lively comic energy that doesn’t undermine the seriousness of the issue is as fantastic as it is overdue. But Whitacre’s mess of contradictory personality traits — well-meaning and sort of savvy, but also helplessly dishonest and supremely bumbling in how he carries himself — are what ultimately make this something special. And the clever way “The Informant” develops this character — though a continuous barrage of narrated non-sequiturs about the metric system, attractions to low-priced ties and an admiration for ants’ ability to capitalize on lucky breaks — is as effective as it often is funny. What happens to the company is of no small consequence, given that this is based on a true story, but it can’t help but finish a distant second when the fate of such a phenomenally constructed character also hangs in the balance. Scott Bakula, Joel McHale and Melanie Lynskey also star.
Extra: Deleted scenes.

The Damned United (R, 2009, Sony Pictures Classics)
There are good biopics that faithfully recreate their subjects, the impacts they left and the environments where those impacts were left. Then there are great biopics, like “The Damned United,” which don’t merely recreate these faces and moments so much as they absolutely revel in them. To be fair, “United” has a little help: This is the story of outspoken soccer manager Brian Clough, and his unlikely ascension to manager of England’s most celebrated soccer club — and what happens after he takes over the club that previously had been his most bitter rival — is surpassed in energy by only Clouth himself, who was to soccer managers what Muhammad Ali was to boxers. “United” maintains a persistent momentum by bouncing back and forth in time to simultaneously dramatize Clouth’s not-terribly-humble beginnings and what happens upon his securing the Leeds United job, and true to the source material, the film’s lively energy plays second only to Michael Sheen’s spot-on embodiment of Clouth. Sheen pretty well nailed Tony Blair and David Frost previously, and he nets the hat trick here with perhaps his best show yet. A stellar supporting cast (Colm Meaney, Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent, Stephen Graham and Peter McDonald) more than pulls its weight as well.
Extras: Director/producer/Sheen commentary, deleted scenes, Cloughisms, four behind-the-scenes features.

Shall We Kiss? (NR, 2007, Music Box Films)
“Shall We Kiss?” begins with an extremely fortuitous chance encounter between Gabriel (Michaël Cohen) and Émilie (Julie Gayet), and were one to watch the first five minutes and not a moment more, one might assume this meeting (and where it leads) forms the narrative backbone for the 97 minutes that remain. But more than the story of Gabriel and Émile, “Kiss” is the story of Nicolas (Emmanuel Mouret) and Judith (Virginie Ledoyen), two friends who resort to rather awkward and unconventional means to diagnose the source of some troubling emotional issues one of them is experiencing. “Kiss” doesn’t try anything fancy with its basic premise, and seasoned movie watchers feasibly could tally up much of the film’s final score before it is even halfway finished. But the amusingly, painfully, authentically awkward way “Kiss” dresses down its characters and their plights is dense with pleasantly surprising little details and moments to such a degree that the slight predictability of the overall picture ceases to be a major issue. This isn’t a movie about what happens so much as what happens while it’s happening, and “Kiss’” ability to keep these pleasant surprises coming while staying grounded in convention is no small achievement. In French with English subtitles. Content of extras not available at press time.

Nurse Jackie: Season One (NR, 2009, Showtime/Lions Gate)
Stories about high-level professionals who achieve even higher levels of personal ineptitude have become excessively common in the last several years, and one wouldn’t be foolish to assume, at least early on, that New York nurse Jackie Peyton (Edie Falco) and the show that bears her name are headed down the same highway. Those assumptions are validated to a point, and once the first episode peels away a couple of revelations that won’t be spoiled here, “Nurse Jackie” leaves no doubt that its namesake has some mental housekeeping to do. But that first episode also gifts Jackie with a comparatively helpless but entirely sharply constructed cast of doctors (Eve Best, Peter Facinelli), administrators (Gloria Akalitus), pharmacists (Paul Schulze), nurses (Mohammed de la Cruz and occasional show-stealer Merritt Wever), relatives and patients. Falco plays the personal mess with skill, but she’s even more fun to watch as the show’s rock, and the way “Jackie” weaves between the two positions — and pushes out a medical comedy-drama that somehow feels different than the glut of other medical shows already out there — makes it easy to recommend.
Contents: 12 episodes, plus commentary, nurse stories and three behind-the-scenes features.

Eleven Minutes (R, 2008, E1 Entertainment)
Bystanders who had no way of knowing better assumed that when Jay McCarroll won the first season of “Project Runway,” he would remain in safe hands up to and possibly beyond his promised showing at New York Fashion Week. But beyond the guarantee of a slot, McCarroll was left completely to his own devices and budget. Fortunately, one of those devices was this documentary, which McCarroll commissioned as a way to earn some extra cash and also set the record straight about his post-”Runway” foray into the ridiculously unforgiving world of fashion design. “Eleven Minutes” absolutely succeeds at painting an unflatteringly honest picture of that pressure, and it’s something of a wonder to watch McCarroll hang onto his sanity while banking years of dreaming, planning and preparation into an 11-minute presentation that could sink the whole ship. But perhaps the best thing about “Minutes” is how democratic it is in distributing the flatter-free images: The industry looks harsh through this lens, but McCarroll, who occasionally comes off as ungrateful and entitled beyond his rights, often fares no better. Given his involvement at least in the early stages of “Minutes’” realization, the objective slant is commendable and something of a pleasant surprise.
Extras: Deleted scenes, interviews with McCarroll and the directors.

Superjail! Season One (NR, 2007, Adult Swim)
Yes, “Superjail!” is about a super jail, but a premise may never mean less to a show than it does to this one. Because more than being a show about a jail, each 11-minute episode of “Superjail” is an 11-minute animated fever dream that travels such wild roads as to make its perfectly crazy Adult Swim contemporaries look straight and sane by comparison. Setting and character titles aside, this could be a show about supermarket employees or a bowling league and most of the episodes could still find a way to their completely bizarre conclusions without too much trouble. That’s a talent, by the way, and it’s one “Superjail” masterfully succeeds at for those who like their cartoons to be dizzyingly unpredictable from moment to moment. The caveat, of course, is that this in no way is for everyone by any means whatsoever. “Superjail’s” endgame isn’t to tell a terrific story or even (it seems) make viewers laugh, but instead to cram as much animated insanity into an episode as possible without losing the right to classify as a show with settings and characters. It accomplishes that feat, but the terms on which it does so are completely unwavering, so don’t say you weren’t warned.
Contents: 10 episodes, plus the pilot episode, animatics and a music video.

Bioshock 2
For: Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows PC
From: 2K Marin/Digital Extremes/2K Games
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood, intense violence, sexual themes, strong language)

The game-playing public spent roughly two years wringing its collective hands over why anyone would dare make a sequel to a game so perfectly complete as “Bioshock.”

2K Marin, which assumed primary development duties this time around, needs roughly five minutes to render that worry mostly worthless.

This isn’t to say the worries lacked any merit. “Bioshock 2’s” storyline picks up 10 years later, but a decade isn’t nearly enough time to dramatically change the landscape in Rapture, the brilliantly-realized underwater not-quite-utopia that supplied the stage for “Bioshock’s” arguably groundbreaking storytelling. The sequel takes players into new areas of Rapture, but the overall visual presentation, combined with a reliance on the same mechanics that made “Bioshock” its own creation, can’t help but leave “Bioshock 2″ feeling superficially like an imitation product barreling down pre-blazed trails.

But while recreating the wow factor behind “Bioshock’s” architecture and lynchpin twists is pretty much impossible, 2K Marin nonetheless runs with the opportunity to extend the storyline past the first game’s fallout. “Bioshock 2’s” story is a bit more traditional in structure, but it very satisfactorily answers some lingering questions. The first game’s narrative hallmarks — namely, first-rate voice acting and an enviable attention to character development and design — are on full display once again, and the player’s role in shaping that story’s outcome has increased.

Where the sequel fully bests the original is in the actual gameplay, which fundamentally feels identical but benefits from some corrective and clever tweaks. The first game’s inexplicable inability to wield weapons with one hand and plasmids (biological modifications that allow for such tricks as telekinesis, hypnosis and fireball tossing) with the other has been corrected here. The simultaneous wielding helps offset a more frantic pace of action: Rapture’s enemies are faster, meaner and more diverse, and activities from the first game — including hacking machinery (now via a fun timing-based challenge) and researching enemies with a camera that now shoots video — now take place in real time.

Surprisingly, the placement of the player in the boots of a Big Daddy — one of Rapture’s neutral (but, if provoked, extremely dangerous) guardians — affects the story more than the gameplay. With that said, the drill might be the most fun melee weapon to appear in a first-person shooter in years. (Thankfully, as the story explains, players aren’t forced to lumber around as slowly as most Big Daddies do.)

While a great many people couldn’t care less that “Bioshock 2″ includes a multiplayer mode (10 players, online only), the pretense under which it appears — the Rapture civil war that preceded the events of the first game — is pretty ingenious.

The seven available modes aren’t terribly unique to veterans of multiplayer shooters, but the way they incorporate Rapture’s mythology and tell a personalized story in the process most definitely is. A “Modern Warfare”-style upgrading system allows players to level up over time and acquire new plasmids and weapons, and six of the seven modes allow one player at a time to assume control of a Big Daddy and wreak all kinds of truly fantastic havoc.

—–

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
For: Nintendo DS
From: Capcom
ESRB Rating: Teen (blood, mild language, mild suggestive themes, mild violence)

Capcom developed a nice stable of truly bizarre characters in its first four “Ace Attorney” games, but through three games starring defense attorney Phoenix Wright and a fourth game centered on Wright despite carrying another lawyer’s name in the title, it’s been reluctant to embrace that in any remotely risky way.

Though “Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth” doesn’t deviate wildly from its predecessors in terms of how it fundamentally looks and plays, it does finally take the series to some new frontiers — in large part by framing the story around Wright’s prosecutor nemesis and leaving Wright himself mostly out of the game, but arguably more so by taking the gameplay almost entirely out of the courtroom.

Instead, “Edgeworth” takes place at the crime scene, and a new third-person perspective and control scheme allows players to directly control Edgeworth and navigate the scene in a way that somewhat recalls traditional point-and-click adventures. The change makes sense given the increased emphasis on looking for finer details amid a fine mess, but it also just feels more freeing than what Wright was afforded during his investigations.

With that said, though, the changes don’t really rock the boat. Scanning the scene for inconsistencies and sifting through their connections in the new Logic screen isn’t entirely unlike what players had to do when presenting a case as Wright, and confronting suspects and witnesses — and pointing out inconsistencies in their statements — isn’t terribly different from catching them in a lie on the witness stand. Most of these portions take place in screens that are functionally similar to their corresponding screens in previous “Attorney” games.

The ensuing compromise ends up working rather well. Capcom has the science of making this stuff fun down pretty cold after four games, and even though some familiar aggravations pop up — including the occasional penalization of should-be solutions that aren’t solutions because the game simply isn’t flexible enough to recognize certain creative conclusions — no game really does this stuff better than these do.

Attempting to make sense of the “Attorney” canon is not for the weak, and “Edgeworth” — which takes place over a few harried days in the middle of the “Wright” timeline but flashes back to five self-contained cases spanning some seven years — doesn’t make things much easier.

But for those who are invested, “Edgeworth” offers a ton of welcome insight into the titular character’s past and methods. And while Wright himself isn’t a major player this time around, a number of memorable characters from previous “Attorney” games do show up in some fashion or another. (No spoilers.) The tenor of the game changes slightly due to the change in venue and perspective, but the overall tone — from bizarre character designs to hilariously weird dialogue to Miles screaming catchphrases in a manner befitting of a game show constestant — remains wonderfully intact.

—–

iBomber
For: iPhone/iPod Touch
From: Cobra Mobile
iTunes Store Rating: 9+ (infrequent/mild cartoon or fantasy violence)
Price: $3

The name may inspire visions of really bad Apple peripheral ideas, but everything else about the very pretty “iBomber” is an ode to World War II-era flying aces. “iBomber’s” 14 missions vary in terms of objectives, but they all typically revolve around dropping bombs from above on enemy submarines, anti-aircraft weapons and other points of strategic importance. The action presents itself from a first-person cockpit view, and the controls are explicitly iPhone-friendly: Tilting the device handles all flying maneuvers, while a bright red “Bombs Away” button does just what it says. “iBomber’s” tilt controls command a wider range of motion than most tilt-based iPhone games — you’ll probably have to play this one sitting up rather than lounging to succeed — but the upside is an optimum level of control over the aircraft. A striking audiovisual presentation makes nailing targets a surprisingly satisfying endeavor, and a smattering of power-ups enhances that satisfaction without breaking the presentation. Cobra has released a two-mission premium content pack for $1 and promises more where that came from, but a great scoring system and wealth of optional medals to earn in the base missions should give thrifty perfectionists plenty of gameplay for their initial $3 investment.

Black Dynamite (R, 2009, Sony Pictures)
Often, the best send-ups are the ones where the lines are too thin and blurry to confidently conclude whether it’s even a spoof at all. “Black Dynamite” doesn’t quite blur the line that thoroughly — nor, in its hilarious resurrection of blaxploitation cinema, does it try to. But a funny thing happens to “Dynamite” while it so thoroughly and gleefully riffs on its influences: The story, at face value, gets pretty legitimately good. The names, period-piece visuals and avalanche of nods and inside jokes are too overt (and too funny) to ever suggest “Dynamite’s” first priority isn’t to make people laugh. But the titular character (played by Michael Jai White) is too awesome a hero to dismiss simply as a means to an ironic end, and his cohorts and enemies (Arsenio Hall as Tasty Freeze, Tommy Davidson as Cream Corn, Mykelti Williamson as Chicago Wind) are similarly fantastic. Not so coincidentally, the joke never gets old, and “Dyamite” never wears out its welcome. Salli Richardson-Whitfield and Kevin Chapman also star.
Extras: Cast/crew commentary, deleted/alternate scenes, behind-the-scenes feature, Comic-Con footage.

Bronson (R, 2008, Magnolia/Magnet)
The heavily stylized tale of Michael “Charles Bronson” Peterson — a petty thief who turned a lousy robbery and minor prison sentence into a three-decade career as one of the world’s most violent prisoners — is based on the true story. Whether “Bronson” itself is a story, though, will vary based on the respective tastes and patience levels of those who see it. It certainly isn’t for lack of talent: Tom Hardy is no less than awesome in his darkly funny portrayal of “Bronson’s” surprisingly engaging titular character, and his supporting cast (Matt King, James Lance, Amanda Burton and a large array of bit players) keeps up. “Bronson” similarly isn’t lacking in execution: To the contrary, between Bronson’s fourth wall-breaking monologues and makeup-encased sermons and the various degrees of pacing and artistic license taken with the film’s more traditional scenes, it’s a marvel of bold, imaginative storytelling. But one viewer’s idea of fearless originality is another’s self-indulgent pretense, and those looking for simple, point-to-point plot development about one of the world’s nastiest criminals are likely to leave frustrated by a story that’s more concerned with tearing down its main character than exploring the moments that made him famous. That in no way is a criticism, because there are a thousand biopics like that for every one like this, but it bears mentioning all the same.
Extras: 17 minutes’ worth of monologues from the real Bronson, interviews, two behind-the-scenes features, 11 minutes of random behind-the-scenes footage.

Good Hair (PG-13, 2009, Lions Gate)
Hair very often is a misunderstood animal, and for most men — and Chris Rock, who mans the ship in this surprisingly insightful documentary, is no exception — that goes double for women’s hair. Now take that doubled misunderstanding and multiply it by seven, and you have the painful ordeal of many black women, who spend small fortunes and sometimes undergo maddenly painful treatments just to achieve an effect that the social order deems desirable (and more to the point, employable). Whoever wrote these unwritten rules is a fool, but there they are, and “Good Hair” explores them in a painfully honest, dryly funny and sometimes self-depreciating way that’s easy for anyone to understand and appreciate. Rock occasionally staggers in the role of documentary emcee, but he finds his footing as “Hair” gets down to business, and a number of spirited celebrity appearances — from Ice-T to Raven-Symoné to Nia Long to some extremely funny quips by Maya Angelou and Al Sharpton — combine to tear down a touchy subject and allow “Hair” to have a discussion that, in this medium, is ages overdue. A fantastic subplot following the Bronner Bros International Hair Show — and all the pageantry, personality and anxiety the world-famous show entails — provides some bonus drama to complement all the talk.
Extra: Producer/Rock commentary.

Women in Trouble (R, 2009, Screen Media Films)
The title does not lie, because whether it’s the newly-pregnant porn star (Carla Gugino) who’s stuck in an elevator, the flight attendant (Marley Shelton) who accidentally does something awful while purposely doing something terrible, the psychiatrist (Sarah Clarke) who discovers her husband is cheating with a patient’s mother (Caitlin Keats), or a call girl (Adrianne Palicki) whose getting hit by two cars is the least of her problems, there are a lot of women in trouble here. “Women in Trouble” does its best to connect these and other stories to each other, and it actually manages to do so better than most movies about multiple separate stories do. Like most movies of this sort, “Trouble” stumbles when trying to fit too much into too little time, and the harried pace often finds it wobbling between comedy and drama in ways that occasionally push the melodrama quotient past agreeable levels. But “Trouble’s” funniest moments are genuinely funny, and its most poignant moments are often carried by some brilliant writing that supercharges a character’s development in the space of a sentence or two. Moments like these outnumber “Trouble’s” stumbles by a nice margin, and even if the whole puzzle never comes together quite like it might’ve hoped, the entertaining and thoughtful picture it paints will certainly do. Connie Britton, Josh Brolin and Garcelle Beauvais, among others, also star.
Extra: Deleted scenes.

Law Abiding Citizen (R, 2009, Anchor Bay)
Meet Clyde (Gerard Butler), an inventor and loving family man whose wife and child were savagely murdered during a home invasion. Just don’t meet him if you’re Clarence Darby (Christian Stolte), who killed both, framed his partner for the killings and skated with three-year prison stint, because Clyde is looking for you. “Law Abiding Citizen” hits its first crescendo almost immediately with the invasion, and some very efficient storytelling ensures it isn’t very much longer before we’re 10 years into the future and bearing witness to what, precisely, Clyde has in mind for payback for the man who killed his family and the pieces of the justice system (Jamie Foxx, Colm Meaney, Leslie Bibb, Annie Corley) that ultimately let him off the hook. As exquisitely-crafted thrillers go, “Citizen” simply isn’t one: Clyde’s plan is too perfect and too ridiculous, and attempts to make a statement about justice are drowned out by how completely ludicrous things get. But as twisted good times that scratch the revenge itch go, this suffices: Even if Clyde goes entirely too far to make his point, it’s unsettlingly easy to take some dark enjoyment in watching him pull the trigger on 10 years’ worth of payback planning. Sometimes — and with all due respect to morality and messages — that’s all a movie needs.
Extras: Producers commentary, four behind-the-scenes features, trailer contest winner.

Maneater (NR, 2009, Sony Pictures)
You need to toe a pretty thin line to make a sympathetic hero out of Clarissa Alpert (Sarah Chalke), a never-employed thirtysomething who finally gets a clue that her days of leeching off her parents (Gregory Harrison and Maria Conchita Alonso) and rich and famous men has an expiration date. That’s doubly true when it becomes apparent Clarissa’s solution to this revelation is to prey on (and, with or without his help, plan a wedding with) a fresh-faced heir (Philip Winchester) who has barely touched down in Hollywood. Fortunately, few can simultaneously look like a Barbie doll and convincingly play the likable fool quite like Chalke can, and her gifts buy this miniseries the time it needs for us to give this whole vapid odyssey a chance. That patience isn’t always rewarded, because when “Maneater” isn’t being mostly predictable, it’s dissecting its subject matter with all the edginess of a handle end of a butter knife. But vapidity steadily gives way to humility, and while it never approaches the level of must-see in any dimension — you kind of know how this one’s ending roughly 170 minutes before it does — it’s a considerably more pleasant experience than it ever should have been. No extras.

Dante’s Inferno
Reviewed for: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Also available for: PSP
From: Visceral Games/EA
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, nudity, sexual content)

It isn’t very original to half-dismiss “Dante’s Inferno” as a “God of War” knockoff, but guess what? “Dante’s Inferno” isn’t very original, either, because guess what? In every way beyond the source material that inspired its storyline, “Inferno” is the “God of War” knockoff to end all “God of War” knockoffs.

It’s good to preface this by stating that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing or even a criticism, because for the most part, “Inferno” pays pretty good tribute to the game that so obviously provided its blueprint. Dante executes his arsenal of moves with the same fluidity as does Kratos, and “Inferno” tosses nine circles’ worth of demons, behemoths and the damned at him without any wear whatsoever on the action, which cruises along at the same rocksteady framerate for which “War” is so well known (and, to Visceral Games’ credit, few “War” imitators get remotely right).

Though some will never see the transformation of the 14,000-line, 14th century Divine Comedy into a high-octane video game as anything short of blasphemous (and though they certainly have an argument), “Inferno” doesn’t trample the poem’s memory as it so easily could.

Visceral whittles Dante’s odyssey down to consumable levels, piecing the nine circles of Hell into objectives and environments designed around their themes. But while the game takes liberties in order to be a game, it stays faithful to the outline. Those who accept “Inferno” for what it is — a gutsy reimagination of a seemingly completely incompatible art form that in no way is meant to replace the original form — the translation is quite an achievement in terms of the balance it strikes between reverence for the original work and an understanding of what it needs to work in this context.

And if you don’t care about any of that, “Inferno” still is a solid action game that, like “War,” borrows from legend to create some visually awesome locales for its fights, platforming challenges and environmental puzzles. Chunks of the game fall prone to fights against the same old enemies, and the last circle absolutely phones it in with a series of challenges entirely too contrived to sustain any sense of narrative immersion. But “Inferno” hits more than it misses, and some of the imagery Visceral brings to life — waterfalls of the damned splashing into lakes of fire, walls made of souls screaming for redemption, rivers of blood — is effectively unnerving.

As if to acknowledge the fact that “God of War III” is barely a month away on the PS3, EA has sweetened the pot on the PS3 side with a forthcoming bonus prequel level that will be free to download in March. The PS3 edition also includes a making-of documentary, soundtrack, digital artbook and digital reprint of the poem.

But “Inferno’s” real downloadable treat (for both consoles) might arrive in April in the form of an online co-op mode that also allows players to create and share their own custom-designed circles of Hell. No telling yet whether it’ll be good or how much it’ll cost, but the teaser video on the disc hints at a pretty robust level designer that, in the right hands, will give the game some inspired additional legs.

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Darksiders
For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
From: Vigil Games/THQ
ESRB Rating: Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, suggestive themes)

Games imitating games isn’t exactly press-stopping news, but it’s pretty well impossible to ignore the influences — “The Legend of Zelda” here, “God of War” there, a few other surprises in between — at play in “Darksiders.”

It also isn’t a bad thing, most particularly because in borrowing so many little things that make “Zelda” games what they are, “Darksiders” also manages to do one thing — kick players’ tails — they haven’t done in forever. “Zelda” fans who admire the series’ clever dungeon designs but long for the days when the games used to punish players might want to give this a hard look, because it’s pretty clear Vigil Games got tired of waiting and just took matters into its own hands.

“Darksiders’” story — in which War, the first Horseman of the Apocalypse, must redeem himself after accidentally igniting a war on Earth between Heaven and Hell — is darker and bloodier than your typical “Zelda” tale, but the little things that series (and often, only that series) does are nonetheless peppered all over this one.

A fairly robust overworld notwithstanding, the game’s primary action takes place in dungeons — some of which (wait for it) contain an item that (surprise) comes in handy in defeating that dungeon’s boss enemies. One of those items? It’s a boomerang, which War utilizes via a targeting system that’s an unmistakable descendent of “Zelda’s” near-proprietary Z-targeting system. Numerous puzzles utilizing the boomerang (and, among other “surprise” items, bombs that grow in plants) are cleverly designed in “Darksiders,” but “Zelda” pros almost instinctively will have some semblance of how to overcome them.

But while “Darksiders” isn’t short on influences, it also isn’t short on surprises. And while its dungeons are evocative of “Zelda” in numerous spots, they regularly surpass “Zelda’s” offerings in terms of scope. The satisfaction of toppling them comes compounded by the fact that, wholly unlike “Zelda,” the enemies lurking inside are formidable and occasionally brutal.

This is where the “God of War” influence rolls in. If you’ve thrown down as Kratos, a considerable chunk of “Darksiders’” combat — from the camera perspective to the controls to War’s finishing maneuvers to the orbs enemies spew upon perishing — should instantly resonate. “Darksiders” takes some welcome liberties by placing additional emphasis on evasion and counterattacks, and some will certainly appreciate that War’s finishing moves require only a single button press instead of a series of monotonous prompts. The weapons, move sets and terminology also are original, even if their influences are laid pretty bare.

Sincere forms of flattery aside, the sum total gels well… mostly. “Darksiders” occasionally stumbles when influences clash — relying on a targeting system designed for a much easier game can lead to fatal camera problems in tight areas packed with enemies, for instance — and there are occasional encounters that propel the difficulty to an arguably cheap degree.

For some, the biggest problem “Darksiders” will pose is its inability to change difficulty settings midstream. Players of so-so ability may want to swallow some pride and play on Easy, lest they continually succumb to one of these spikes and have no recourse but to start the game over.

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Chime
For: Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade
From: Zoë Mode/Valcon Games
ESRB Rating: Everyone
Price: $5

Even if you don’t like “Chime,” you can feel good about giving it your five dollars, because developer Zoë Mode is donating more than three of those dollars to the OneBigGame initiative, which distributes those donations to the Save the Children Fund and the Starlight Children’s Foundation. Fortunately, players who love puzzle giants “Tetris” and “Lumines” most likely also will love “Chime,” which takes portions of both games, mixes in some Tangrams, and emerges with something serenely unique. The object in “Chime” is to arrange shapes (some straight out of “Tetris,” others inspired by it) into quadrants with the eventual hope of filling every block on the playing grid before time runs out. As in “Lumines,” a virtual beat line slides horizontally across the screen, and portions of the song play in concert with how many squares you clear in any given measure. “Chime’s” excellent five-song soundtrack, along with the fact that players arrange shapes at their pace instead of catch them as they fall from the top of the screen, makes for a experience that’s considerably more tranquil than those from which it draws inspiration. But while “Chime” offers enough mode flexibility to engage just about anyone, those looking to tackle all five levels with 100 percent completion will be shocked to find out just how entertainingly tall an order that turns out to be.

A Serious Man (R, 2009, Universal/Focus)
Great movies express powerful emotions — heartbreak, joy, love, anger — in ways that resonate strongly with viewers. But it takes something truly special to convey the dull ache of fading dreams and encroaching irrelevance as masterfully as poor physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) does while his employers debate his value, his wife (Sari Lennick) kicks him out of his own house, his next-door neighbor (Peter Breitmayer) greets him with unsolicited death stares, and his friend of 15 years (Fred Melamed) so politely moves in on his wife. “A Serious Man” flies the dark and dry comedy flag with unbridled pride, but it also leapfrogs past those simple classifications by investing more care into a blank stare or idle twitch of the mouth than most dark comedies invest in their dialogue. Years of watching sympathetic heroes like Larry have trained us to wait patiently for the moment in which the hero angrily decides to reclaim his pride, but while the truth won’t be spoiled here, “Man” makes it clear early on that such conventions are in no way promised. Given how enjoyable each and every moment of “Man” is on its own level, anything less than complete, unnerving (but morbidly funny) uncertainty would do anyway.
Extras: Three behind-the-scenes features.

The House of the Devil (R, 2009, Dark Sky/MPI)
There’s a fine line between tribute, parody and something resembling a possible resurgence of an art form, and while it isn’t totally clear where “The House of the Devil’s” original intentions lied, it doesn’t really matter when the result so clearly belongs in column C. “Devil’s” spartan premise arrives straight out of the 1980s: A struggling college student (Jocelin Donahue as Samantha) takes a babysitting job deep in the country despite the fact that the man who interviewed her (Tom Noonan) was both a little rude and a lot creepy. Working in concert with the premise is “Devil’s” overall style, which — from Samantha’s feathered hair to the technology on hand (pay phones in, cell phones out) to the visual presentation — removes all doubt that this is a callback to olden times. But along the way and without changing its tone, “Devil” migrates from arguable sendup to real-deal minimalist horror. Minutes pass in which little happens, but everything about those minutes makes it entirely clear something awful could happen any second now. “Devil” giftedly veers from tease to jolt and right back to tease, and it thrives on creeping viewers out with what it doesn’t say instead of dumping buckets of gore all over the floor. It works beautifully, and it begs the question: Why did this style ever disappear in the first place?
Extras: Director/Donahue commentary, crew commentary, deleted scenes, interviews, behind-the-scenes feature.

More Than a Game (PG, 2008, Lions Gate)
“More Than a Game” tells the story of five basketball players (one of them LeBron James) whose bond — the roots of which began at the grade school level — molded them into one of the most dominant forces ever to blow through high school basketball. If that sounds like an ordinary story with a completely predestined ending, it’s only because cheesy, mostly fictional sports movies have trained us to think it is. But while we all know what has happened to James since his high school days, none of it was written in stone when a film crew followed him and his teammates around over a period of several years. And even if “Game” wasn’t special in any other regard, its document of a professional superstar’s developmental years is unprecedented in terms of detail and intimacy. But James isn’t the only fascinating subject on hand here: His teammates, coaches and mother have some pretty extraordinary stories of their own to tell, and “Game” is democratic in exploring their respective highs and (because this is a documentary and not scripted entertainment) lows. The sum total is considerably more exhilarating than anything a screenwriter can conjure, and while James’ story always will be the exception to the rule, “Game” does the dream proud nonetheless.
Extras: Three making-of features.

The Life and Times of Tim: The Complete First Season (NR, 2008, HBO)
Do you miss “Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist?” Or rather, did you sort of admire that cartoon’s conversational tone and ultra-crude animation but wish Dr. Katz could drop an F-bomb and let his too-hot-for-basic-cable flag fly every now and again? Here’s your show. “The Life and Times of Tim” does not come from the same brain trusts responsible for “Katz” or the similarly great “Home Movies,” but the stylistic similarities — bone-dry dialogue and delivery, grade school-level artwork and animation that a five-page flip book could outdo — are too unmistakable not to mention. “Tim” veers down its own road by virtue of being on HBO, which means episodes like “Angry Unpaid Hooker,” “Bashko’s Hairy Daughter,” and “Tim vs. the Baby” are possible. Fortunately, while “Tim” certainly benefits from the lack of boundaries, it values dry wit over shock for shock’s sake, so while some episodes collapse beneath their premises, most wind up on the pretty amusing side. And because each half-hour show comes divided into two episodes, the bad ones at least don’t stick around for too long.
Contents: 20 episodes over 10 shows, plus a collection of 10 animated shorts.

Couples Retreat (PG-13, 2009, Universal)
If the thud with which “Couples Retreat’s” theatrical run landed was deserved, it wasn’t due to it being an awful movie, because “Retreat” isn’t awful so much as it is just so-so. There’s even a point, when we’re getting to know everybody, where “Retreat” — which finds four couples (Vince Vaughn, Kristin Davis, Malin Akerman, Kristen Bell, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Faizon Love, Kali Hawk) unwittingly at a luxurious resort that’s a front for intensive, mandatory new-age couples therapy — is quite good and quite funny. But “Retreat” expends the bulk of its funny energy during its early going, and once we get to the resort, it’s already in the process of awkwardly coasting on the character quirks it set up in act one. The thinning laughs aren’t helped by the fact that “Retreat” basically runs through all the predictable scenarios one expects from a stock vacation-in-not-quite-paradise film. All that clinging to convention never makes for a terrible film, and there are moments where “Retreat” looks poised to break out as a cutting dialogue about commitment rather than an elongated sitcom with a soppy ending. But it never fully takes that gamble, and what remains feels like a so-so film that, given the talent within, should be miles better than so-so. Jean Reno and Peter Serafinowicz also star.
Extras: Director/Vaughn commentary, alternate ending and deleted/extended scenes (with commentary), three behind-the-scenes features, bloopers.

The Pleasure of Being Robbed (NR, 2008, IFC Films)
So here’s a question: How important is it to you that, during the course of a movie, stuff happens? If the question sounds like a joke to you, it’s probably best to deny yourself the likely displeasure of watching “The Pleasure of Being Robbed,” which follows the plain but disarming Eléonore (Eleonore Hendricks) as she grifts her way through an otherwise directionless New York City existence. That aforementioned ability to disarm — and the live-for-the-moment disposition that accompanies it — makes Eléonore a frustratingly difficult character to dislike, and there’s something weirdly serene about watching her stumble from instance to instance without fear of plot developments, twists, and grand finales getting in the way. On the downside? “Robbed” doesn’t have any plot developments, twists or finales that change things in any lasting, remotely meaningful way from the beginning of the film to its conclusion. “Robbed” is a unique, pretty film that, at 70 minutes long, also is easy to digest. But for a lot of movie watchers, it’s missing too many parts to even rate as a movie at all. If the premise on paper gives you fits, the genuine article likely will leave you with a brief complex.
Extras: Musical commentary track, short films “We’re Going to the Zoo” and “There’s Nothing You Can Do,” three super-short films (shorter than a minute each) made during the making of “Robbed.”

Planet Hulk: 2-Disc Special Edition (NR, 2010, Lions Gate)
Marvel is attempting to turn a corner in its redoubled efforts to produce high-quality animated action movies, and there are numerous points in “Planet Hulk” — the level of animation detail, the overriding presentation, an appetite for blood not allowed on Saturday morning cartoons, a nice quotient of DVD extras — where this effort is evident. But it’s hard to make a ton of lemonade with a lemon like “Hulk,” which shortchanges its main character and relies on a script so formulaic as to undermine all that pretty action taking place when it climaxes. It’s not really the movie’s fault: “Hulk” is based on the multi-issue comic book of the same name, and the comics had considerably more room to develop Hulk and his supporting cast and provide the kind of details that more than offset the generic skeletal plot. An 81-minute movie can’t feasibly do the same, and in this context, “Hulk” just feels like a “Gladiator” knockoff that revolves around a character without dimension. The good looks don’t go unnoticed, but stacked up against the flat setting, characters and dialogue, they’re still overmatched.
Extras: Two crew commentary tracks, two behind-the-scenes features, “Wolverine and the X-Men” episode, “Thor: Tales of Asgard” opening sequence, two motion comics, two music videos, digital copy.

Worth a Mention
— “Doctor Who: The Complete Specials” (NR, 2008-10, BBC): These are tumultuous times for “Doctor Who” fans, who must bid farewell to David Tennant — arguably as popular an actor to inhabit the Doctor’s shoes as any who preceded him — and say hello to Doctor No. 11 Matt Smith, who has some serious shoe-filling to do. Regardless of how that turns out, this set — which contains Tennant-fronted specials “The Next Doctor,” “Planet of the Dead,” “The Waters of Mars,” and the two-part “The End of Time” that sees Tennant passing the torch to Smith — certainly makes for a comprehensive celebration. Extras include deleted scenes (with introduction by Russell T. Davies, who also signs off as lead writer and executive producer), video diaries, commentary, behind-the-scenes features and Comic-Con footage.
— New Archive of American Television DVDs (NR, E1 Entertainment): E1 and the Archive of American Television’s excellent restoration of classic programs hits a new peak with separate releases of the 1954 production of “Twelve Angry Men” with Norman Fell and Robert Cummings, Orson Welles’ 1953 production of “King Lear,” a two-parter featuring the Rod Sterling dramas “The Arena” (1956) and “The Strike” (1954), and a four-disc set chronicling Leonard Bernstein’s Omnibus productions. Each package comes with a companion booklet, while “Lear” also includes backstage footage and a handful of bonus performances.