"Babylon A.D." came and went from theaters in no time flat.  In fact, until this Blu-ray announcement I almost never heard of the film.  I thought it might have been a direct to video movie.  It grossed a measly $22 million in theaters.  I can't imagine that that total even came close to paying for the massive amount of visual effects in the film.  In short…it bombed. Much like "Days of Thunder," "Babylon A.D." is a copycat film.  It takes parts from "Chronicles of Riddick," "xXx," and "Cyborg."  Vin Diesel stars as Toorop, a banished, ex-military person from the United States, sometime in the near (or far) future.  He now resides in the far east, around the frozen tundra of Siberia.  He lives day to day with arms dealers, but his macho-ism scares all of them.  Shortly into the film, he ...

  “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” is the second film in the Narnia series, the first being “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.”  The films are based on the fantasy novels by C.S. Lewis.  Many of us can remember reading the series of books as kids.  For those not familiar with the original novels, they were then what Harry Potter is now. This second film is one of those few sequels that are better than the original.  The entire cast returns for their next adventure in the land of Narnia.  After one year of being back in London, Prince Caspian blows Susan’s horn and brings the quartet of kings and queens back to Narnia.  At the end of the first film, the four of them were full grown ups in Narnia, but returned to London and reverted back to their ...

  [The above rating is an avergae for the entire collection.  See the second page for ratings of the individual films] So how many times is Columbia going to reissue the Ray Harryhausen movies they own?  There have been at least three different DVD releases of the entire batch of films, and two more of the three early black-and-white films.  Earlier in 2008, those were released in reasonably good colorization—and now have been RE-issued in b&w and colorized versions, in high definition Blu-Ray.  The package also includes what’s probably Harryhausen’s best overall movie, “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad,” a big Christmas moneymaker for Columbia in 1958, the year it debuted. This set is terrific, so far the very best presentation these films have had.  The prints are indeed crisper and more detailed; this is especially true of “7th Voyage,” the only one filmed ...

  Bless Guillermo del Toro. This director knows a terrific actor when he sees one, and he saw one in the otherwise underused Ron Perlman. The actor appeared in del Toro’s first feature, “Cronos” (1993) and again in “Blade II.” Having been the unlovely half of the TV series “Beauty and the Beast,” Perlman is accustomed to working in a lot of makeup. He knows how to deliver a sharp, even subtle, performance through layers of latex; he’s a very good actor even without makeup (and he didn’t have any in “Cronos”), but he tends to be underused by Hollywood. When del Toro became the director of “Hellboy,” based on Mike Mignola’s comic book, he had only one actor in mind for the lead role, a demon from Hell who has managed to wind up working for the forces of good. Hellboy ...

  This is as lightweight as the giant dandelion fluff Brendan Fraser sends drifting down under the ground somewhere. It’s largely for kids, who are likely to love it (though one kid after the screening was heard muttering that ninety-two minutes was too long). It’s loaded with thrills, and though it really has only three main characters, they’re likable enough, and the actors are entertaining. Icelander Anita Briem, a compact, agile blonde, is as cute as sunrise on a snowfield; she deserves to have a bright career. This is sort of based on the famous Jules Verne novel, but far enough away from it that a copy of Verne’s novel is an important item in the plot. Verne’s novel was serious; this is largely an action comedy, and a reasonably lively and amusing one at that. Brendan Fraser is professor Trevor Anderson, ...