New DVDs mostly disappointing

Published: Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009 6:39 p.m. MST
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Here are some of the latest movies to arrive on DVD, led by a caper film starring three Oscar winners.

"The Maiden Heist" (Sony, 2009, PG-13, $34.95). The Oscar winners are Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken and Marcia Gay Harden, and Oscar nominee William H. Macy is onboard as well in this peculiar straight-to-video caper comedy.

Freeman, Walken and Macy are longtime museum guards, each with a fetish for a particular piece of art. Walken is a quiet worker with a shrill younger wife (Harden); Freeman is a gay, cat-loving amateur painter; Macy is a former Marine who can't resist disrobing to pose nude alongside a beefy statue. When the museum plans to ship the art off to Denmark, they plot to steal the pieces and replace them with forgeries.

Hampered by implausibilities, a less-than-satisfying resolution and obnoxious supporting players. But Walken, Freeman and Macy manage some comic chemistry and the film does have its moments.

Extras: widescreen, deleted scenes, audio commentary, featurette, bloopers, trailers

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"Night of the Creeps: Director's Cut" (TriStar, 1986, color and b/w, $19.94). This alleged cult favorite is a goofy horror comedy about a space bug that drops to Earth in the 1950s but remains dormant in one human until it is unleashed on a college campus in the 1980s, causing teens — as well as a cat and a dog — to turn into zombies. Pretty weak attempt at forced campiness, though veteran character actor Tom Atkins seems to be having fun as the chief investigating cop.

Extras: widescreen, deleted scenes/alternate ending, audio commentaries, featurettes, text-trivia track, trailer

"The Taking of Pelham 123" (Columbia, 2009; R for violence, language; $28.96). This second remake of the 1974 classic has some exciting moments but on the whole pales in comparison to the original, as John Travolta takes a New York subway train and its passengers hostage, and transit employee Denzel Washington tries to figure out how to defuse the situation.

Extras: widescreen, audio commentary, featurettes, trailers

"Whatever Works" (Sony Classics/Blu-ray, 2009, PG-13, $39.95). A number of critics claimed this as Woody Allen's worst movie, but it's not that bad. Still, a little of Larry David's whiney character goes a long way, and he's the entire movie — a crotchety misanthrope who takes in a young runaway (Evan Rachel Wood). Wood and Patricia Clarkson as her mother are the film's best elements.

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Stephen Vaughan

John Travolta stars in the latest remake of subway thriller "The Taking of Pelham 123."

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