Film adaptations of popular children's novels are often risky business for Hollywood studios – for every
Harry Potter, there is an
Eragon. Even the insanely popular
The Chronicles of Narnia was subject to a studio switch and budget slash in order to keep hope alive. Today,
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is released on Blu-ray, a title that (after received mixed reviews and mediocre box office take) seems to be teetering between receiving a sequel and being abandoned by the studio. For fans, this Blu-ray release may be the only way to get the next book in the series adapted for the silver screen.
Sometimes the more obsurd a premise, the better it can be. This is because you can skip right over the struggle to suspend disbelief, and get right to enjoying the silliness. Such is the case with
Hot Tub Time Machine, where four friends travel back in time via – of all things – a hot tub to the easiest decade to mock, the 80's! If you start looking for artistic merit, you are going to struggle watching this film, but those looking for a laugh shouldn't have any difficulty at all.
Having just passed Blu-ray's fourth birthday, the number of reissued titles is sure to increase going forward. Today, Fox is reissuing the Arnold Schwarzenegger film
Predator as the "Ultimate Predator Edition" to sync with the upcoming theatrical release of
Predators. This release was set to addresses the deficiencies of the original MPEG-2 video presentation, but seems to have fallen short of that task.
In his
Blu-ray review of Predator, staff reviewer Casey Broadwater comments, "Unfortunately, this Ultimate Hunter Edition re-release of the film on Blu-ray is coated with an egregious amount of DNR, making it look more like a digital production than the dark, gritty, shot-on-film-in-the-effing-jungle movie it's supposed to be. Inevitably—and unbelievably—some will like this new look, but purists will want to nab a copy of the 2008 edition before it goes out of print."