It’s not a great week for home entertainment releases, but there are some offerings of wildly varying quality including an unjustly maligned movie with a major appeal to dog owners, the third movie in the Ring horror film franchise, a low-price edition of the science fiction series The 4400, and a wonderful, wordless animated film The Red Turtle, which was co-produced by Studio Ghibli.

Theatrical Movies

This week’s highest-grossing movie to appear on disc is A Dog’s Purpose (Universal, “PG,” 200 min., $29.98, BD $34.98) Lasse Hallstrom’s film of W. Bruce Cameron’s novel.  A misleading video alleging animal abuse on the set (which was later debunked by several independent animal rights groups) really hurt the box office chances of this film that has real appeal for dog owners and should have earned much more than $62.9 million at the domestic box office.  The critics generally hated this fantasy about dog reincarnation because of the film’s unabashed sentimentality, but no dog owner will doubt the film’s portrait of deep and powerful canine consciousness—and with any luck A Dog’s Purpose should do very well in the post-theatrical marketplace.

Horror movie fans will have to make do with Rings (Universal, “PG-13,” 102 min., $29.98, BD $39.99), the third film in the Ring series (based on the Japanese horror film Ringu), which could manage only a 6% favorable rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Rather than take the Ring series to new heights, Rings resorts to lazy jump scares and other overused horror movie tropes.

A bit better is Gold (Lionsgate, “R,” 121 min., $29.99, BD $39.99), a crime adventure film loosely based on the real life Bre-X mining scandal that features an excellent deglamorized performance by Matthew McConaughey that almost redeems an otherwise uneven film.

The film due on Tuesday with the highest marks from the critics (99% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) is the documentary I Am Not Your Negro (Magnolia, “PG-13,” 94 min., $26.98, BD $29.98), Raoul Peck’s documentary based on an unfinished manuscript by James Baldwin that examines the history of American racism.  Samuel L. Jackson narrates this superior documentary that received an Oscar nomination for “Best Documentary Film.”

Most of the spate of Christian-themed films that have appeared in the past decade have been serious in nature, so it is refreshing to see The Resurrection of Gavin Stone (Universal, “PG,” 184 min., $26.98, BD $29.98), a sweet little comedy about a washed-up, partied-out Hollywood child star who is reduced to pretending to be “born again” in order to snag the role of Jesus in a mega-church’s elaborate portrayal of the nativity.

TV on DVD

There are very few TV offerings this week, but science fiction fans may be interested in a new low-priced edition of The 4400: The Complete Series (Paramount, 1765 min., $45.98), which collects all 42 episodes of the 2004-2007 series about a group of people who suddenly reappear in a flash of light.  It turns out that the people disappeared in 1936 and have returned without seeming to appear a day older than they were when they left.

Also of interest is the post-apocalyptic series The Last Ship: The Complete Third Season (Warner Bros., 572 min., $29.98, BD $39.98), which contains all 13 episodes of the TNT series about a Navy guided missile destroyer adrift in a world in which 80% of the population has been killed by a virus.  This set includes the first episode of Season 3 that was postponed because it included a nightclub shooting and was set to air just after the Orlando massacre.

Animated releases include low-cost re-releases of Rugrats: Season 1 (Nickelodeon, 316 min., $14.98) and Rugrats: Season 2 (Nickelodeon, 657 min., $19.98), plus the single-disc Scooby-Doo & The Creepy Carnival (Warner Bros., 40 min., $9.97).

The lone vintage release is Vega$: The Complete Series (Paramount, 2,814 min., $59.98), which collects all 67 episodes of the 1978-debuting private eye series created by Michael Mann that starred Robert Urich as detective Dan Tana in a new lower-priced edition.

Anime

This week’s anime releases include The Red Turtle (Sony, “PG,” 81 min., $26.99, BD $30.99), a wordless animated fantasy film directed by Michael Dudok de Wit and co-produced by Wild Bunch and Studio Ghibli.  The Red Turtle was nominated for an Oscar, and earned a spectacular 94% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.  Visually stunning, deliberately-paced, and entirely without dialogue, this fantasy saga of a desert island castaway is very much the animated art film—and a damn good one.

For One Piece fans there are two movies including One Piece Film: Gold (Funimation, 120 min., $29.98, BD $34.98), the 13th film from the prolific franchise based on Eichiro Oda’s rollicking pirate manga, and a movie length TV special, One Piece: Heart of Gold (Funimation, 104 min., $29.98, BD/DVD Combo $34.98), feature length TV special .

Also new to North America this week is the Grimgar: Ashes and Illustions Complete Collection (Funimation, 325 min., BD/DVD Combo $64.98), which collects the 12-episode 2016 TV anime plus an OVA, all based on the fantasy light novel series written by Ao Jumonji.

Those who enjoyed the original Nurse Witch Komugi comedy/romance OVAs that were released here by ADV might be interested in the Nurse Witch Komugi R: Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, 300 min., Subtitles Only, $39.98, BD $49.98), which collects the 12-episode 2016 series from Tatsunoko Productions that reboots the original NWK OVAs.

A new edition of a mecha classic is also due on Tuesday.  The Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (Right Stuff, 355 min., $49.98, BD $64.99) presents the 12-episode OVA series from the late 1990s in a new edition and in glorious high definition (in the BD release).