Blu-ray Today: WWE’s Marine Life, Iranian Vampires and Electric Boogaloo

The Marine 4: Moving Target – It’s easy to forget now, but the first The Marine was a thoroughly tongue-in-cheek attempt to make John Cena into a wise-cracking movie star in the Dwayne Johnson mode. When it didn’t do as well as was hoped, WWE revived it on DVD in the (futile) hopes that switching out Cena for Ted DiBiase would get the legacy kid over with fans. By the third was being made, it had become such a dutifully respectful franchise that Randy Orton was cast and then booted when real-life Marines complained that Orton had deserted and been court-martialed while actually serving. The Miz was given the role instead, despite it being the polar opposite of his more humorous persona. It was okay DTV stuff, but nothing special.

The fourth film seems to exist for two reasons: one, to prop up the Miz’s gimmick that he is in fact a movie star, and two, to make a star of female wrestler Summer Rae, whose strangely angular face reminds me of some obscure supporting character in the Moomintroll books. I don’t see it working, but I’d be all for Damian Mizdow starring in part 5.

Tak3n – The Taken movies all have a great hook, but has any of them really, genuinely been a particularly good movie, in the end? From one great trailer, a trilogy hath sprung. I like Liam Neeson in ass-kicking mode, but haven’t been bothered to follow this series after the first one. The Blu-ray is “unrated,” which probably just means they say “fuck” a few more times.

Escape From New York – I love Snake Plissken as a character more than I love the actual movies he’s been in, but fans won’t want to miss this new loaded disc featuring multiple commentaries (a new one features Adrienne Barbeau) and new featurettes, as well as the deleted opening scene.

Three Stooges Collection Volume 1: Triple Feature – To quote Napoleon from Time Bandits, “Little people. Hitting each other. That’s what I like!”

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night – A feminist Iranian vampire western, this black-and-white movie has a lot of fans in critical circles, but I never quite got into it and left my one viewing unfinished, in part I think because it felt very episodic. It was a busy time of year and I had lots to do, so I never gave it a second chance – I plan on it someday. You should give it a first one based on its unique subgenre alone.

Everly – I hear this action movie starring Salma Hayek as a woman confined to one apartment as she fights off attackers is pretty kick-ass, but it left theaters really quickly. Time to catch up. It’s directed by Knights of Badassdom‘s Joe Lynch.

Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo – The film franchise that helped introduce white America to the strange new phenomenon of hip-hop is now more of a campy cultural artifact, but that’s okay – there’s still no stopping Shabba-Doo and Boogaloo Shrimp. New extras and a commentary featuring the aforementioned Mr. Doo are probably worth a listen, and while I don’t often support needless sequels, I think and hope that this can all lead to Breakin’ 3: Electric Jamboree.

Motivational Growth – Jeffrey Combs as the voice of a fungus. If that doesn’t grab your interest, you’re not weird enough.

Bio-Dome – Before Kevin James and Adam Sandler, there was Pauly Shore, here costarring with Stephen Baldwin (prior to his zealous Christian phase), as a moron who gets trapped inside a sealed biological experiment. So legendarily bad, and so very ’90s, it might have found the right time to be reassessed in our age of irony.

Anything else on your list?