Will Ferrell’s Anchorman 2 leads this week’s home entertainment releases that also include Keanu Reeve’s ill-fated 47 Ronin, the latest season of the comedy/mystery series Psych, and the best U.K. police procedural series that you have never heard of.
 
Theatrical Movies
 
This week’s top offering is Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (Paramount, “R,” 118 min., $29.98, BD $39.99), the sequel to the original 2004 Anchorman, Will Ferrell’s absurdist take on local news.  Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Steve Carrell, and the ageless Paul Rudd reprise their roles from the original Anchorman film in a sequel that is sure to delight fans of the original movie.  The critics gave Anchorman 2 a 74% positive rating and the film earned a solid $138 million at the domestic box office, so audiences responded as well.  Still this is a film for those who enjoyed the original Anchorman rather than the mainstream viewer.  Ferrell’s shotgun approach to humor unleashes hundreds of jokes, but only some of them work—and Anchorman 2 is simply too long for most viewers in its theatrical release of 118 minutes, to say nothing of the 122-minute Unrated version and the “R” rated “Super-Sized” 143-minute version—it’s awfully hard to “stay classy” in a modern comedy film for nearly two-and-one-half hours.  But those who enjoyed the raunchy and often absurd humor of the 2004 Anchorman will want to make sure that they can get the extended versions, which do include some funny bits along with lots of chaff.  The Blu-ray Combo pack also comes with loads of great extras including 5 behind-the-scenes featurettes and over 90 minutes of deleted and alternate scenes. 
 
Also due this week is 47 Ronin, one of the major box office disasters of the past year.  Keanu Reeves stars in this expensively produced ($175 million) film that is loosely based on the classic Japanese tale of loyal retainers.  Unfortunately director/writer Carl Rinsch felt the need to add a fantasy layer by setting the film in a world of witches and giants.  While this “battling samurai meet Lord of the Rings monsters” pitch may have worked well with the honchos at Universal, it certainly didn’t work on the screen, or with critics who gave the film just a pitiful 12% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.   47 Ronin was originally supposed to open in late 2012, but Universal first moved it to spring of 2013, and then finally to December.  Not every movie that has its release date changed is a “turkey,” but with every delay in exhibition the chances that the movie is a stinker rises exponentially.
 
From the direct-to-video world comes The Pirate Fairy (Disney, “G,” 90 min., $29.99, BD $36.99), the fifth film in Disney Toon Studios’ Tinker Bell series.  Tom Hiddleston, who is consistently brilliant as Loki in the Marvel Studios films, provides the voice for a young Captain Hook, while Mae Whitman reprises her role as Tinker Bell, and Mad Men’s Christina Hendricks gives voice to a new dust-keeper fairy named Zarina.  While this production is definitely down a level from A-list Disney animation projects like Frozen, The Pirate Fairy will please younger viewers, especially girls, thanks in part at least to the costumes created for the female characters by fashion designer Christian Siriano.
 
TV on DVD
 
There are a few releases of serious interest to geek viewers including the irreverent cable comedy/mystery series Psych: The Complete Eighth Season (Universal, 484 min., $59.98), plus the Blu-ray debut of the final season of the much-maligned Star Trek prequel series, Star Trek: Enterprise—Season 4 (Parmount, 1009 min., $129.99), and for those who can remember it, the Hollywood satire Action: The Complete Series (Mill Creek, 292 min., $9.98), which contains all 13 of the episodes from the first and only season of the raunchy behind-the-scenes Tinseltown takedown that aired briefly on Fox in 1999.
 
Also due on Tuesday is The Client List: Season 2 (Sony, 637 min., $45.99), which collects all 15 episodes from the final season of the Lifetime cable series starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, as a down-on-her-luck grass widow who soon finds that her “masseur” job at the day spa involves providing “extras.”
 
For viewers of a certain age there should be some nostalgic interest in the very affordably-priced mega-set, Power Rangers: Seasons 13-17 (Shout Factory, 3,300 min., $129.99), a massive 22-disc set that contains five full seasons of “super-sentai” action featuring teen heroes who can “morph” into costumed Rangers with special powers, including the ability to pilot the fearsome assault machines known as Zords.  While production of the U.S. series involved considerable “localization,” a large portion of the action scenes appear much as they did in the Japanese versions produced by Toho.
 
The only animated series due this week is the Mattel-based Hot Wheels: Battle Force Five, Season 2, Vol 1 (New Video, 112 min., $14.95) and Hot Wheels: Battle Force Five, Season 2 Vol. 2 (New Video, 112 min., $14.95), each of which contains five episodes from the 2009-2011 CGI series.
 
Vintage TV releases include the William Shatner-starring cop series T.J. Hooker: Seasons 1 & 2 (Mill Creek, $14.98) from the 1980s, the 1990s sitcom NewsRadio: Seasons 1 & 2 (Mill Creek, $14.98), the 1960s magical girl sitcom I Dream of Jeannie: Seasons 1 & 2 (Mill Creek, 1548 min., $14.98), and the sampler collection The Dick Van Dyke Show: Classic Mary Tyler Moore Episodes (Image Entertainment, 500 min., $24.98).
 
This week’s top UK release is Inspector George Gently: Series 6 (Acorn Media, 389 min., $49.99, BD $59.99).  Martin Shaw plays DCI George Gently, who with his partner John Bacchus (Lee Ingleby), faces down crime in the north of England during the 1960s.  In Series 6 Gently and Bacchus are recovering from injuries sustained in the line of duty, when Bacchus submits his letter of resignation.  The actions of a new female constable upset Bacchus, and Gently begins to feel more and more out of step with the changes that are transforming the U.K. in the 1960s.  Mystery fans who haven’t had a chance to see this well-produced period police procedural should definitely give it a chance. 
 
Anime
 
This week’s top releases include Dragon Ball Z Uncut: Season 3 (Funimation, “17+,” 830 min., $44.98), which includes hi-def re-mastered versions of episodes 75-107 of the classic martial arts/action/comedy series based on Akira Toriyama’s manga.  DBZ has been re-released in several different hi-def versions, some of which have cut out the non-Toriyama material that was originally included when the anime producers got ahead of the manga story.  This hi-def upgrade presents the series “uncut” as it was originally broadcast—with one major exception—this version has been “blown up” to a “16x9” widescreen ratio, which means that some of the top and bottom of each original frame is missing.
 
Another re-mastered reissue is The Third: The Girl With the Blue Eye (Nozomi, “15+,” 600 min., $39.99), a new lower-cost edition of the 24-episode 2006 Xebec series based on the post-apocalyptic black comedy/action series about a girl and her tank written by Ryo Hoshino.
 
Another series that is getting a deluxe reissue from Right Stuf is Princess Nine: The Complete Series (Nozomi, “13+,” 650 min., $39.99), which collects all 26 episodes of the delightful anime that originally aired in Japan in 1998 and was previously issued here by ADV.

Tom Flinn

The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.