Mel and the Karate Kid are back and looking good in Blu-ray, as are a group of very businesslike vampires and a catastrophic tsunami:
1.) “Edge of Darkness” (Warner, $28.98 or $35.99 combo Blu/DVD), bring’s Mel Gibson back with trademark violence and anger in this superior “Taken”-like story about a cop father who conducts his own investigation into the murder of his daughter on his doorstep, which leads to uncovering illicit government agencies and conspiracies.
.
— Strong performances by Gibson and supporting cast.
— Well directed intrigue, pacing and shock value by “Casino Royale” filmmaker Martin Campbell.
— “Mel’s” back featurette glosses over why he was gone but offers praise from cast and crew about his work ethic
— Numerous fun profiles and making-of bonus features
— Thank goodness for good English subtitle feature as much of Gibson’s mumbling under his breath and the thick accents of other actors is unintelligble.
2.) Karate Kid & Karate Kid II (Sony, $39.95 two-disc set) will please the legions of fans of this 1980s “Rocky” for younger kids, with the following new attributes:
.
— new “Blu-Pop” pop-up picture-in-picture video reflections and anecdotes during first movie by nearly unrecognizable star Ralph Macchio and bully William Zabka, with fun tidibits such as Macchio noting that it was he and co-star Elisabeth Shue who came up with the cute flirty banter: “It’s Ali with an “i,” and, “It’s Daniel with an “l,” and about how the final iconic crane kick proved to be impossible to pull off, even with mechanical rigging, so they had to cheat with editing.
— new optional pop-up trivia on both movies offers fun facts such as origin of word karate being two words, “kara” (empty) and “te” (hand).
— solid bonus features on first movie carried over from 2004 20th anniversary DVD
-
3.) Daybreakers (Lionsgate, $39.99) is more sophisticated than the typical vampire movie, mixing in a sort of sci-fi, futuristic suspenseful mystery-thriller in which vampires have taken over the world but are worried when the human race is dying out and taking the lifeblood of vampires with them. That should appeal to broader audience, plus:
.
— Visually impressive and a strong cast led by Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Sam Neill.
— fun, sometimes sparring audio commentary by filmmaker brothers Michael and Peter Spierig
— fascinating picture-in-picture scene-by-scene comparison to storyboards and animatics
4.) Tidal Wave (Magnolia, $29.98) is one of the most expensive and highest-grossing Korean movies ever made about an undersea earthquake that triggers a tidal wave which is timely and rivals the likes of disaster movies by Roland Emerich (“2012”) or Irwin Allen’s movies of the 1970s, but the big wave doesn’ t come till 70-minutes in to the two-hour movie and lasts about 10-minutes.
.
— Effects intermittently impressive but panicked crowd scenes, especially on beach, are even more impressive if they are all real and not CGI.
— Helpful multiple language options — dubbed in English, subtitled in English, narrative text, etc.
— The filmmaker’s (culture’s) apparent glee for inflicting minor pain on each other by women, men, and children slapping each other in head, bitting another’s lip till it bleeds, doing face-butts that draw blood, and knocking each other down, spills over to a “gag” reel featuring adult repeatedly slapping a child so hard on head that he falls and cries, and film crew laughing at young boy thrashing in shallow water and screaming to be allowed to stop.
— tons of bonus features.
— By Scott Hettrick