This Week on Blu-ray: September 28-October 4

For the week of September 29th, Marvel and Walt Disney Home Entertainment are bringing the comic-book sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron (technically, it streeted on 10/2, but who's counting?). When it dropped last May, writer-director Joss Whedon's action extravaganza didn't find the immediate adoration that its 2012 predecessor received; if it wasn't critics and fans lambasting the new entry as an example of franchise-building over story-telling (essentially, that Age of Ultron was less its own beast than a two-plus-hour setup for Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War), then it was Whedon himself hitting the junket trail with complaint after complaint about the artistic compromises he had to make to please the Marvel machine. Many attributed these concerns to the film's comparative (to The Avengers) box-office struggles, although only in today's global economy could a movie make over $1.4 billion worldwide and still be branded a failure. That's the first thing that doesn't make any sense about Age of Ultron's theatrical reception. The second is that pound for pound, the film delivers about as ideal a mainstream entertainment experience as you could imagine. What sets Age of Ultron apart is its relative complexity. While the plot, which finds the Avengers (Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, and Samuel L. Jackson, whose Nick Fury is more of an extended cameo this time around) battling the titular sentient A.I. (James Spader, attacking his motion-capture part like Tony Stark's more psychotic doppelganger) as he tries to wipe out all humanity, certainly has its share of agreeable narrative curlicues, the twistier thematic resonance makes all the difference. Stare at Ultron in the right light, and he's almost a good guy - he believes so fully in engendering world peace that he'll do whatever it takes to achieve it, even if "it" entails wiping out all the humans who fight and destroy one another. The Whedon Touch, as it were, involves implicating the nominal heroes. Anyone familiar with Buffy the Vampire Slayer knows a) how good Whedon is at setting team dynamics even if b) he's even better at tearing his good guys apart. Sure, the scenes of the Avengers at work scratch the blockbuster-escapism itch (the opening sequence, which starts off as a single camera-take that breathlessly follows the Avengers' assault on a Hydra stronghold, is a highpoint, as is the closing brawl against Ultron's mechanized hordes), but that's the boilerplate stuff.

Far more interesting are the Avengers' self-destructive tendencies, not least of which is that Tony Stark (Downey) and Bruce Banner (Ruffalo) are wholly responsible for Ultron's creation: they intended him as a top-secret defense mechanism, although his "malfunction" is arguably less problematic than his creators working in secret from the rest of the team. From that original sin, fighting Ultron seems less difficult than repairing the trust among Whedon's superheroes, especially once Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's "enhanced" siblings begin pulling at the Avengers' fraying bonds (if Olsen and especially Taylor-Johnson never quite gel with the other performers, the bravura setpiece where Olsen's Scarlet Witch poisons the Avengers' dreams wholly justifies the inclusion of both characters). And it's in that regard that Whedon, for all the problems he might have had with the studio, puts the strongest auteurist stamp yet on the Marvel Universe (if The Avengers was a comic-book movie with Joss Whedon dialogue, then this is a Joss Whedon comic-book movie, full stop). Whedon has always been fascinated by the ways that good people become monsters, and he deserves all the credit in the world for logically and inevitably making the otherwise heroic Tony Stark seem one or two shades away from a supervillain. Yes, Age of Ultron suffers from some of the omnipresent blockbuster bloat - as wonderful as Paul Bettany is as The Vision, the character deserves his own movie, not a whip-fast introduction in this one's last forty minutes - and I confess to growing tired with a handful of moments that do exist only to preview other Marvel movies (Thor's bewildering detour to Some Cave Somewhere for Some Reason is particularly egregious, and the source of many of Whedon's editorial woes). But it's hard to carp too much over a movie that offers such an abundance of riches. The dialogue remains pitched closer to screwball-comedy velocity than to simple exposition (you'd be hard-pressed to find a funnier four-quadrant epic, with the big party sequence at the beginning the clear standout - I could have watched a four-hour cut of this scene), and the character work is so nuanced and interesting. We've gone from Downey being the best thing in these movies to the fourth or fifth best thing: highest honors go to Evans' noble, pragmatic Captain America, the unlikely pairing of Black Widow and the Hulk (Johansson and Ruffalo deserve their own movie together), and Renner's Hawkeye, no longer brainwashed and boring and now getting most of the best one-liners. Along with Mad Max: Fury Road, it's the best traditional summer blockbuster of 2015, and it's just behind Captain America: The Winter Soldier as Marvel's finest hour.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is bringing Spy to Blu-ray. The film is the latest partnership from director Paul Feig and his Academy Award-nominated Bridesmaids star Melissa McCarthy, although the film's action-comedy sensibility is far more in line with their 2013 hit The Heat. Like that earlier picture, Spy delights in plugging McCarthy's spark-plug comic persona into familiar genre expectations, in this case a James Bondian thriller that finds McCarthy's CIA analyst conscripted into active duty after a deadly European operative (Rose Byrne) compromises the operational security of the agency's more skilled agents (including Morena Baccarin, Jude Law, and Jason Statham). Where Spy goes isn't terribly surprising - it probably wouldn't shock you if I said that McCarthy proves herself an adept covert agent, and as with The Heat, Feig heavily telegraphs the movie's major plot points well before they actually land. However, Spy works nonetheless and primarily because the movie is funny enough to overcome the formula. McCarthy, once again, proves herself as reliable a comedy lead as Will Ferrell or Bill Murray, and she receives aces support from Byrne (who, between this, Bridesmaids, and Neighbors, has revealed herself as an aces farceur inside the body of a Hollywood starlet), Miranda Hart, Allison Janney, Bobby Cannavale, Peter Serafinowicz, and especially Statham, who walks away with Spy playing a moronic, Ron Burgundy-esque version of his Transporter or Crank badasses. They keep the movie humming along, even when Feig's direction threatens to slow it down. His success with this and The Heat aside, he's just not that skilled a choreographer of mayhem, and just like in The Heat, his deficiencies are problematic since he clearly wants the action to register as both funny and exciting. However, he just doesn't have the chops (only one scene maintains that balance: a surprisingly brutal/goofy throwdown between McCarthy and an assassin in a kitchen); here's hoping he took a master-class lesson from Edgar Wright before jumping into Ghostbusters with McCarthy.

From Sony Pictures Home Entertainment comes Christine. Fans of this 1983 thriller - an adaptation of Stephen King's popular horror novel - already have reason to rejoice at Sony's new Blu-ray. For years, the only Blu-ray copy in North America was an out-of-print (and, thus, very pricey) Twilight Time version. This far more affordable pressing offers what looks like the same A/V and supplementary specs as Twilight Time's edition as well as, more importantly, the film itself, which remains one of John Carpenter's most underrated entries. At the time, audiences criticized Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Phillips for streamlining too much of King's source material; while Carpenter kept the story's central hook (a demonic 1958 Plymouth Fury wreaks havoc in a small American town), he jettisoned much of King's supernatural backstory (in the book, the titular vehicle is possessed by the spirit of Christine's first owner; in the film, Christine simply comes off the assembly line bad), putting the emphasis on young Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon), the teenage kid whose fortunes change dramatically when he buys Christine. The bullied, lonely Cunningham becomes the heart of the film: while his friendship with the much more popular Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell) initially helps him get by, it isn't until he finds Christine that Arnie gains self-confidence, better fashion sense, and the attentions of the prettiest girl in school (Alexandra Paul). Sure, he has to kill a bunch of people in the process and lose his soul to a demonically possessed speedster, but love makes us all do crazy things, and so Carpenter's take on the material has the blackly comic sting of a tragic romance. That's not to say this is a perfect adaptation. Once Arnie fully goes over to the dark side, the film loses much of the humanity generated from his relationship with Dennis, and the reduction of explicit supernatural elements renders the big finale a little anticlimactic. But on the whole, this is a sturdy, scary little chiller, bolstered by good character work and Carpenter's unerring widescreen eye for generating suspense.

In his Blu-ray review, Martin Liebman writes that "Sony's Blu-ray release of Christine compares favorably to Twilight Time's. Though it's absent a key supplement, pricing, and availability more than negate that unfortunate loss. Video and audio qualities on this disc are stellar, and the remaining supplements are entertainingly informative. There's no real reason for owners of the Twilight Time disc to upgrade, but for those who missed out the first time this is a must-buy. Highly recommended."

Warner Home Entertainment is bringing the Entourage movie to Blu-ray this week. For three years, Entourage ranked as one of HBO's most enjoyable comedies; even though it remained steadfastly lightweight, creator Doug Ellin gave the series a pleasantly jaundiced approach towards the cult of celebrity, and he got career-reviving performances from the likes of Kevin Dillon and Jeremy Piven, the latter of whom overshone even ostensible protagonist Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) as Chase's motormouthed agent Ari, constantly hustling everyone - even his own family - in pursuit of glory and success. It was appointment TV...until Season Four, when the satire vanished, Ari got one-note, and Vince got everything: it was as if Ellin wanted his protagonists to enjoy the spoils he'd spent three years criticizing. With the movie version, I'm afraid to report that Entourage has not returned to its former glory and, if anything, is even more shallow and obnoxious than the worst episodes of the series. When we open, Vince is headlining a controversial new adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that he wants to direct himself, and we know we're in trouble the second we see footage of this "passion project," which is glossy and brain-dead and not all dissimilar from what Hollywood normally offers, but since that's not even the worst part of Entourage, it's easy to ignore. No, the worst part follows E (Kevin Connolly), Vince's best-friend and right-hand man, who spends most of this very boring movie moping over his relationship - and impending fatherhood - with his on-again-off-again girlfriend Sloan (Emmanuelle Chriqui). No, it's everything including Billy Bob Thornton and Haley Joel Osment's crass financiers, who collectively are the least funny elements of this smutty, unfunny movie. Wait, I was mistaken - it's actually the involvement of model/actress Emily Ratajkowski, who was clearly hired on the basis of her "performance" in the "Blurred Lines" music video, considering how overtly every other character sexualizes her (she's not a real human being - Ellin treats her like barely sentient sex organs). Or it's the strained banter between Jerry Ferrara's annoying Turtle and MMA legend Ronda Rousey, or it's the tiresome roster of celebrity cameos (none of which are as good as Val Kilmer and James Cameron popping up on the show's early years), or it's this, or it's that. The Entourage movie is only for the faithful, but it's so wan and stakes-free that I can't imagine series devotees getting that big a kick from it. Here's hoping the paycheck from HBO and Warner's helped the cast make mortgage and tuition payment because otherwise, what a waste.

Kenneth Brown's Blu-ray review was slightly more forgiving, noting that "as an extension of the show, it offers quite a bit of fun for fans who followed the series' eight-season run. I laughed and had a pretty good time. I also walked away shrugging my shoulders, happy to have caught up with Vinnie and the gang, but already forgetting the bulk of what I'd watched...There isn't much spark to the film. It's often more fun to spot cameos by the dozen -- Mark Wahlberg, Jessica Alba, Liam Neeson, Common, Jon Favreau, Gary Busey, Bob Saget, Mark Cuban, Andrew Dice Clay, David Faustino, Judy Greer, Richard Schiff, Armie Hammer, and my favorite guest spot of the flick, Kelsey Grammer -- than follow the characters themselves. The film is more indulgent than the series too, which only further emphasizes style over substance. Of course, it's possible Ellin is more clever than it appears. It's possible Entourage: The Movie has a smarter splash of satire than it seems. Or, more likely, the Entourage crew is just excited to be running around LA with $27 million for a budget, when what would have really served the film is a sharper script."

Finally, the Criterion Collection is giving the Merchant-Ivory classic A Room with a View another Blu-ray edition. Until the proliferation of BBC original programming, the James Ivory-Ismail Merchant filmmaking template was pretty much a one-stop show for tasteful, cultured British filmmaking: take a respected British novel (usually adapted for the screen by Ivory and Merchant's favorite screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala), bring it to the screen with polish and class, and fill the cast with a murderer's row of British acting powerhouses. You could set your watch to the format, no matter how successful (Howards End) or labored (The Golden Bowl) the end result might be. At first glance, A Room with a View seems to be no different. Working from Jhabvala's adaptation of E.M. Forster's 1908 novel, the film follows young Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) as she struggles to choose between the rigid social strictures of early 1900s Britain (personified by her fiancé, Daniel Day-Lewis' self-absorbed Cecil Vyse) and a freer, more instinctive mode of self-expression (as seen through her developing feelings for Julian Sands' liberated intellectual). If you're familiar with the other Merchant-Ivory features - or if you've seen, like, any Downton Abbey episodes - Lucy's choice probably won't surprise you, even if you're predisposed to like stories such as this or the great BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice. But as the fellow says, "It's not the tale, it's the teller," and it's in this regard that A Room with a View soars as a romantic melodrama. As familiar as the conventions are, Ivory (who directs) and Merchant (who produces) never condescend to the material. They know that for Lucy, this choice will define the rest of her life, so they afford her situation the gravity it deserves - the minute that Lucy sees a man stabbed almost directly in front of her, the filmmakers establish how high the stakes are. Even when A Room with a View glides along - first and foremost, this is a top-shelf entertainment, with gorgeous cinematography from Tony Pierce-Roberts and very funny performances from the likes of Simon Callow, Maggie Smith, and especially Day-Lewis, who gets a pre-Lincoln attempt to flex his not-inconsiderable comic chops as the pompous Vyse - we never forget that this is a world where choices and actions matter. Furthermore, as in Pride and Prejudice or Merchant-Ivory's great The Remains of the Day, the protagonists conjure up such genuine emotion that the clichés feel original. Carter has none of the affectations she'd display in films like The King's Speech or the misbegotten Alice in Wonderland, while Sands takes a one-note part and turns it into something approaching a Transcendental ideal. A lovely, enduring work of art.