Blu-ray Today: Days of Future Past, Ways of Making Young Dracula Better

X-Men: Days of Future Past – I admit, I was hoping for more of a mind-trip with this movie, like something more complex than “Hey, we hit the reset button back to the ’70s” that would explain discrepancies between First Class and the prior films.

However, I also think I was expecting the impossible. Downsized for appropriate expectations, this is still a fun X-flick, even if the shocking opening sequence does almost instantly retcon the “surprise” deaths. Individual scenes like the one where Mystique becomes Trask can get wonderfully weird (David Lynch, Peter Dinklage – you need each other. Please work together on Twin Peaks). Wew all thought Quicksilver would be a lowlight, but his showcase moment is awesomely playful and fun – why the characters then ignore him for the rest of the movie is a plot weakness they ought to have tried to better fix.

The disc set features a handful of extras, but if you wanbt the deleted Rogue rescue sequence, you’re going to have to wait till next year. Can you hold out for the inevitable 2.5 edition?

Mr. Peabody and Sherman – This Jay Ward-inspired animated feature is at least half-great, which makes it better than most of its Dreamworks brethren. Though the time travel plot involving a genius dog, his adopted son, and the bratty girl who gets them both in trouble follows obvious beats of both world-saving and parent-child bonding, the journey is filled with smart throwaway gags referencing science and history that should amuse parents and may make the kids want to learn more.

Penny Dreadful: Season 1 – Dracula, Frankenstein and Dorian Gray are among the Victorian monsters inhabiting a shared universe in this Showtime series that Universal must be sorely jealous of right about now. I hear it’s quite good.

Fargo: Season 1 – I hear this is good too, though I never would have expected the Coen brothers’ weird, regional murder mystery would need any further telling. But yah, jeez, they did it somehow.

Mortal Kombat Legacy II – Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa returns to the role that I say he was born to play: the gloriously hammy evil overlord Shang Tsung from the first Mortal Kombat movie (seriously, nobody can wrap their mouth around the phrase “You. Will. DIE!” better). Now that he’s old enough to more appropriately look the part, I hope he nailed it again…but I haven’t had the chance to see yet.

Zoolander – Ben Stiller’s absurdist supermodel spoof tends to be a matter of personal taste, and I find it a bit much, inducing more of a Blue Steel than a smile – but many friends adore it, so there you go. Includes all the same extras the 2002 DVD had.

Dracula: Season 1 – In which Jonathan Rhys Myers presumably shows Luke Evans how the whole Sexy Drac thing is done.

Those are my top picks for today. Did I miss anything?