New on DVD and Blu-ray Disc

“Beowulf: The Director’s Cut” Blu-ray
Robert Zemeckis' "Beowulf," now out on Blu-ray disc, has a great ending--powerful, fiery and exciting. You should know that because what comes before it can be long and tedious, regardless of the subtle ways in which Zemeckis has recut his film. The movie updates the 6th century Anglo-Saxon poem with plenty of hot bods, nudity and sex--just what we need. It follows the great warrior Beowulf (Ray Winstone) as he accepts the challenge of a king (Anthony Hopkins) to kill the giant Grendel (Crispin Glover). It’s a situation that escalates into Beowulf also battling Grendel’s slinky minx of a mother (Angelina Jolie, of course) and finally their fire-breathing offspring. The film’s performance-capture technology is a problem--it turns the human actors into something that wavers between human and humanoid. Beautiful interiors and landscapes are rendered here, but with the characters’ waxen eyes unnervingly without soul, the technology make for a distracting experience, to say the least. Rated PG-13. Grade: C-

“Beverly Hills, 90210: Fifth Season”
Shannen Doherty’s Brenda Walsh was sent out to pasture at the end of the fourth season, so it was up to the producers to find a new bad girl. They did so in Tiffani-Amber Thiessen’s Valerie Malone, who didn’t take humanity to the amusing lows achieved by the wrecking ball that was Brenda, but you have to give it to Thiessen--she had her moments. In this season, more turmoil boils in Beverly Hills, with one character going into rehab, others moving to Hong Kong, and Tori Spelling’s face and body continuing to morph in ways that have zip to do with leaving adolescence’s grasp. In between, there’s more gossip to fill a week’s worth of posts at PerezHilton.com, which is just how fans want it. On those terms, the fifth season succeeds. Grade: B

“I Know What You Did Last Summer” Blu-ray
They didn’t spend it making a good movie. This teen-oriented slasher follows what happens when four irritating teenagers climb into a car, strike a pedestrian dead, drop the body in the drink, and then come under fire by the serial killer who knows their secret and wants them to pay for it--with the help of an ice pick, no less. Kevin Williamson wrote the screenplay hot off the success of “Scream,” and he employs similar elements here, though not with similar results. The movie features characters that scream as if they just had their pigtails pulled, which can be fun since it’s tough to like any of them, but the story is so bogged down by it’s been there, seen that feel, it’s a disappointment. Rated R. Grade: C-.

“Never Back Down” DVD, Blu-ray
Pretty boys pose, preen and pummel each other until they knock themselves senseless. Good times! Sean Faris is Jake Tyler, a young man with anger management issues who joins his family in leaving Iowa for Florida, where he finds two outlets for his rage. The first is in Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet), a high school bully who wants a piece of him. So does saucy Baja (Amber Heard), who might be Ryan’s girlfriend, but who’d rather be swapping blows with Jake. The second outlet for Jake’s rage is at a gym called Combat Club, where the secretive Jean Roqua (Djimon Hounsou) teaches Tyler how to fight, but under the condition that he never do so at a public fighting event. So, what are the odds that Ryan does just that? And could it be that Roqua ejects him from the gym when he finds out? And what of Baja, who might not be the sweet piece of hard candy she initially seems to be? Is she really in it to win it with Jake? If you don’t know and still are intrigued, “Never Back Down” is for you. Rated PG-13. Grade: D

“Shine a Light” DVD, Blu-ray
From Martin Scorsese, an engrossing documentary based on the Rolling Stones’ 2006 appearances at New York’s Beacon Theatre, their antics on stage--and their more colorful antics off. All of it captivates while answering a key question--why do the Stones still perform? It isn’t for the money. It’s because they obviously love it, which Scorsese captures in revealing closeups as each band member loses himself in the release of their own music. While many of the Stones now look like Punch and Judy puppets, they’re the hippest Punch and Judy puppets you’ve ever seen. Jagger and Richards, in particular, seem tapped into some sort of otherworldly power source; they’re unstoppable. As for Scorsese, he’s just as nimble behind the camera, feasting on the energy that has been at the core of a Stones concert since their rise to fame more than four decades ago. Rated PG-13. Grade: A-

“The Sum of All Fears” Blu-ray
The premise remains timely--a world on the brink of nuclear annihilation--so it’s too bad that this 2002 film is such a dull piece of nuclear waste. Now out on Blu-ray disc, this dense, incoherent mess based on Tom Clancy's 900-plus page opus is about a group of neo-Nazi fascists who buy an American-made A-bomb on the black market and blow up Baltimore. Before the blast, which comes more than an hour into the movie, the film is beyond boring. After the blast, it’s as absurd as the casting of Ben Affleck in the role of Jack Ryan, the CIA analyst previously played to perfection by Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin. With his blank face as expressive as a dime-store mannequin, Affleck has none of the charisma the role demands. Worse, the movie has nothing on real life, which exposes the film’s flaws and renders it a cartoon. Rated PG-13. Grade: D

Also available on Blu-ray disc
The good news is that all isn’t bleak in Jack Ryan’s world, particularly since Paramount has released the other three films in the franchise. Leading the charge is Alec Baldwin in John McTiernan’s excellent first film in the series, 1990’s “The Hunt for Red October,” with Baldwin at the peak of his game. Here, he’s paired opposite Sean Connery, whose Capt. Raimus, a Soviet, leads a submarine straight toward the U.S., which he’s either going to blow up with nuclear weapons--or where he’s going to defect. Next up is 1992’s “Patriot Games,” with Harrison Ford providing a more grizzled version of Ryan, this time in a movie in which Ryan, his wife (Anne Archer) and their daughter (Thora Birch) are targeted by Irish terrorists after Ryan finds himself in London in the wrong place at the wrong time. The film is less involving than “October,” but the action is taut and Ford and Archer have undeniable chemistry, which they honed in 1994’s “Clear and Present Danger.” In that movie, Ryan, now the director of the C.I.A., must stare down some especially risible drug lords. It’s a polished, globe-trotting addition to the franchise, with director Philip Noyce barreling through the forest of Clancy’s heady prose.